men who were Samsons in the field, and Solomons in the council, but who
had had their heads shorn by the harlot England’ or, as expressed in
their re-translation, the men who were Solomons in council, and Samsons
in combat, but whose hair had been cut off by the whore England.’ Now
this expression also was perfectly understood by General Washington. He
knew that I meant it for the Cincinnati generally, and that, from what
had passed between us at the commencement of that institution, I could
not mean to include him. When the first meeting was called for its
establishment, I was a member of the Congress then sitting at Annapolis.
General Washington wrote to me, asking my opinion on that proposition,
and the course, if any, which I thought Congress would observe
respecting it. I wrote him frankly my own disapprobation of it; that I
found the members of Congress generally in the same sentiment; that
I thought they would take no express notice of it, but that in all
appointments of trust, honor, or profit, they would silently pass by all
candidates of that order, and give an uniform preference to others. On
his way to the first meeting in Philadelphia, which I think was in the
spring of 1784, he called on me at Annapolis. It was a little after
candle-light, and he sat with me till after midnight, conversing, almost
exclusively, on that subject. While he was feelingly indulgent to the
motives which might induce the officers to promote it, he concurred with
me entirely in condemning it; and when I expressed an idea that, if the
hereditary quality were suppressed, the institution might perhaps
be indulged during the lives of the officers now living, and who had
actually served; ‘No,’ he said, ‘not a fibre of it ought, to be left, to
be an eye-sore to the public, a ground of dissatisfaction, and a line
of separation between them and their country’: and he left me with a
determination to use all his influence for its entire suppression. On
his return from the meeting, he called on me again, and related to me
the course the thing had taken. He. said, that, from the beginning,
he had used every endeavor to prevail on the officers to renounce the
project altogether, urging the many considerations which would render
it odious to their fellow-citizens, and disreputable and injurious to
themselves; that he had at length prevailed on most of the old officers
to reject it, although with great and warm opposition from others, and
especially the younger ones, among whom he named Colonel W. S. Smith
as particularly intemperate. But that in this state of things, when he
thought the question safe, and the meeting drawing to a close, Major
L’Enfant arrived from France with a bundle of eagles, for which he had
been sent there, with letters from the French officers who had served
in. America, praying for admission into the order, and a solemn act of
their King permitting them to wear its ensign. This, he said, changed
the face of matters at once, produced an entire revolution of sentiment,
and turned the torrent so strongly in an opposite direction, that
it could be no longer withstood: all he could then obtain, was a
suppression of the hereditary quality. He added, that it was the French
applications, and respect for the approbation of the King, which saved
the establishment in its modified and temporary form. Disapproving thus
of the institution as much as I did, and conscious that I knew him to do
so, he could never suppose that I meant to include him among the Samsons
in the field, whose object was to draw over us the form, as they
made the letter say, of the British government, and especially its
aristocractic member, an hereditary House of Lords. Add to this, that
the letter saying, ‘that two out of the three branches of legislature
were against us,’ was an obvious exception of him; it being well known
that the majorities in the two branches of Senate and Representatives
were the very instruments which carried, in opposition to the old and
real republicans, the measures which were the subjects of condemnation
in this letter. General Washington, then, understanding perfectly what
and whom I meant to designate, in both phrases, and that they could not
have any application or view to himself, could find in neither any cause
of offence to himself; and therefore neither needed, nor ever asked any
explanation of them from me. Had it even been otherwise, they must know
very little of General Washington, who should believe to be within the
laws of his character what Doctor Stuart is said to have imputed to
him. Be this, however, as it may, the story is infamously false in
every article of it. My last parting with General Washington was at the
inauguration of Mr. Adams, in March, 1797, and was warmly affectionate;
and I never had any reason to believe any change on his part, as there
certainly was none on mine. But one session of Congress intervened
between that and his death, the year following, in my passage to and
from which, as it happened to be not convenient to call on him, I never
had another opportunity; and as to the cessation of correspondence
observed during that short interval, no particular circumstance occurred
for epistolary communication, and both of us were too much oppressed
with letter-writing, to trouble either the other, with a letter about
nothing.
The truth is, that the federalists, pretending to be the exclusive
friends of General Washington, have ever done what they could to sink
his character, by hanging theirs on it, and by representing as the enemy
of republicans him, who, of all men, is best entitled to the appellation
of the father of that republic which they were endeavoring to subvert,
and the republicans to maintain. They cannot deny, because the elections
proclaimed the truth, that the great body of the nation approved the
republican measures. General Washington was himself sincerely a friend
to the republican principles of our constitution. His faith, perhaps,
in its duration, might not have been as confident as mine; but he
repeatedly declared to me, that he was determined it should have a fair
chance for success, and that he would lose the last drop of his blood in
its support, against any attempt which, might be made to change it from
its republican form. He made these declarations the oftener, because he
knew my suspicions that Hamilton had other views, and he wished to quiet
my jealousies on this subject. For Hamilton frankly avowed, that he
considered the British constitution, with all the corruptions of its
administration, as the most perfect model of government which had ever
been devised by the wit of man; professing, however, at the same time,
that the spirit of this country was so fundamentally republican, that
it would be visionary to think of introducing monarchy here, and that,
therefore, it was the duty of its administrators to conduct it on the
principles their constituents had elected.
General Washington, after the retirement of his first cabinet, and the
composition of his second, entirely federal, and at the head of which
was Mr. Pickering himself, had no opportunity of hearing both sides of
any question. His measures, consequently, took more the hue of the party
in whose hands he was. These measures were certainly not approved by the
republicans; yet were they not imputed, to him, but to the counsellors
around him; and his prudence so far restrained their impassioned course
and bias, that no act of strong mark, during the remainder of his
administration, excited much dissatisfaction. He lived too short a time
after, and too much withdrawn from information, to correct the views
into which he had been deluded; and the continued assiduities of the
party drew him into the vortex of their intemperate career; separated
him still farther from his real friends, and excited him to actions and
expressions of dissatisfaction, which grieved them, but could not
loosen their affections from him. They would not suffer the temporary
aberration to weigh against the immeasurable merits of his life; and
although they tumbled his seducers from their places, they preserved his
memory embalmed in their hearts, with undiminished love and devotion;
and there it for ever will remain embalmed, in entire oblivion of every
temporary thing which might cloud the glories of his splendid life. It
is vain, then, for Mr. Pickering and his friends to endeavor to falsify
his character, by representing him as an enemy to republicans and
republican principles, and as exclusively the friend of those who were
so; and had he lived longer, he would have returned to his ancient and
unbiassed opinions, would have replaced his confidence in those whom the
people approved and supported, and would have seen that they were only
restoring and acting on the principles of his own first administration.
I find, my dear Sir, that I have written you a very long letter
or rather a history. The civility of having sent me a copy of Mr.
Pickering’s diatribe, would scarcely justify its address to you. I do
not publish these things, because my rule of life has been never to
harass the public with fendings and provings of personal slanders;
and least of all would I descend into the arena of slander with such
a champion as Mr. Pickering. I have ever trusted to the justice and
consideration of my fellow-citizens, and have no reason to repent it,
or to change my course. At this time of life, too, tranquillity is the
_summum bonum_. But although I decline all newspaper controversy, yet
when falsehoods have been advanced, within the knowledge of no one so
much as myself, I have sometimes deposited a contradiction in the hands
of a friend, which, if worth preservation, may, when I am no more, nor
those whom I might offend, throw light on history, and recall that into
the path of truth. And if of no other value, the present communication
may amuse you with anecdotes not known to every one.
I had meant to have added some views on the amalgamation of parties, to
which your favor of the 8th has some allusion; an amalgamation of name,
but not of principle. Tories are tories still, by whatever name they may
be called. But my letter is already too unmercifully long, and I close
it here with assurances of my great esteem and respectful consideration.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXIII.--TO EDWARD EVERETT, October 15, 1824
TO EDWARD EVERETT.
Monticello, October 15, 1824.
Dear Sir,
I have yet to thank you for your O. B. K. oration, delivered in presence
of General la Fayette. It is all excellent, much of it sublimely so,
well worthy of its author and his subject, of whom we may truly say, as
was said of Germanicus, ‘_Fruitur famâ sui_.’
Your letter of September the 10th gave me the first information that
mine to Major Cartwright had got into the newspapers; and the first
notice, indeed, that he had received it. I was a stranger to his person,
but not to his respectable and patriotic character. I received from him
a long and interesting letter, and answered it with frankness, going
without reserve into several subjects, to which his letter had led,
but on which I did not suppose I was writing for the newspapers. The
publication of a letter in such a case, without the consent of the
writer, is not a fair practice.
The part which you quote, may draw on me the host of judges and divines.
They may cavil, but cannot refute it. Those who read Prisot’s opinion
with a candid view to understand, and not to chicane it, cannot mistake
its meaning. The reports in the Year-books were taken very short. The
opinions of the judges were written down sententiously, as notes or
memoranda, and not with all the developement which they probably used in
delivering them. Prisot’s opinion, to be fully expressed, should be thus
paraphrased. ‘To such laws as those of holy church have recorded, and
preserved in their ancient books and writings, it is proper for us to
give credence; for so is, or so says, the common law, or law of the
land, on which all manner of other laws rest for their authority, or are
founded; that is to say, the common law, or the law of the land common
to us all, and established by the authority of us all, is that from
which is derived the authority of all other special and subordinate
branches of law, such as the canon law, law merchant, law maritime,
law of Gavelkind, Borough English, corporation laws, local customs and
usages, to all of which the common law requires its judges to permit
authority in the special or local cases belonging to them. The evidence
of these laws is preserved in their ancient treatises, books, and
writings, in like manner as our own common law itself is known, the
text-of its original enactments having been long lost, and its substance
only preserved in ancient and traditionary writings. And if it appears,
from their ancient books, writings, and records, that the bishop, in
this case, according to the rules prescribed by these authorities, has
done what an ordinary would have done, in such case, then we should
adjudge it good, otherwise not.’ To decide this question, they would
have to turn to the ancient writings and records of the canon law,
in which they would find evidence of the laws of advowsons, _quare
impedit_, the duties of bishops and ordinaries, for which terms Prisot
could never have meant to refer them to the Old or New Testament, _les
saincts scriptures_, where surely they would not be found. A license
which should permit ‘ancien scripture’ to be translated ‘holy
scripture,’ annihilates at once all the evidence of language. With such
a license, we might reverse the sixth commandment into ‘Thou shalt not
omit murder.’ It would be the more extraordinary in this case, where
the mistranslation was to effect the adoption of the whole code of the
Jewish and Christian laws into the text of our statutes, to convert
religious offences into temporal crimes, to make the breach of every
religious precept a subject of indictment, submit the question of
idolatry, for example, to the trial of a jury, and to a court, its
punishment, to the third and fourth generation of the offender. Do we
allow to our judges this lumping legislation?
The term ‘common law,’ although it has more than one meaning, is
perfectly definite, _secundum subjectam materiem_. Its most probable
origin was on the conquest of the Heptarchy by Alfred, and the
amalgamation of their several codes of law into one, which became
common to them all. The authentic text of these enactments has not been
preserved; but their substance has been committed to many ancient
books and writings, so faithfully as to have been deemed genuine from
generation to generation, and obeyed as such by all. We have some
fragments of them collected by Lambard, Wilkins, and others, but
abounding with proofs of their spurious authenticity. Magna Charta
is the earliest statute, the text of which has come down to us in an
authentic form, and thence downward we have them entire. We do not know
exactly when the common law and statute law, the _lex scripta et non
scripta_, began to be contra-distinguished, so as to give a second
acceptation to the former term; whether before or after Prisot’s day, at
which time we know that nearly two centuries and a half of statutes were
in preservation. In later times, on the introduction of the chancery
branch of law, the term common law began to be used in a third sense, as
the correlative of chancery law. This, however, having been long after
Prisot’s time, could not have been the sense in which he used the term.
He must have meant the ancient _lex, non scripta_, because, had he used
it as inclusive of the _lex scripta_, he would have put his finger on
the statute which had enjoined on the judges a deference to the laws of
holy church. But no such statute existing, he must have referred to the
common law in the sense of a _lex non scripta_. Whenever, then, the term
common law is used in either of these senses, and it is never employed
in any other, it is readily known in which of them by the context and
subject matter under consideration; which, in the present case, leave no
room for doubt. I do not remember the occasion which led me to take up
this subject, while a practitioner of the law. But I know I went into
it with all the research which a very copious law library enabled me to
indulge; and I fear not for the accuracy of any of my quotations.
The doctrine might be disproved by many other and different topics of
reasoning; but having satisfied myself of the origin of the forgery, and
found how, like a rolling snow-ball, it had gathered volume, I leave
its further pursuit to those who need further proof, and perhaps I have
already gone further than the feeble doubt you expressed might require,
I salute you with great esteem and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXIV.--TO JOSEPH C. CABELL, January 11, 1825
TO JOSEPH C. CABELL.
Monticello, January 11, 1825.
Dear Sir,
We are dreadfully nonplussed here by the non-arrival of our three
Professors. We apprehend that the idea of our opening on the 1st of
February prevails so much abroad (although we have always mentioned
it doubtfully), as that the students will assemble on that day without
awaiting the further notice which was promised. To send them away
will be discouraging, and to open an University without Mathematics or
Natural Philosophy would bring on us ridicule and disgrace. We
therefore publish an advertisement, stating that on the arrival of these
Professors, notice will be given of the day of opening the institution.
Governor Barbour writes me hopefully of getting our fifty thousand
dollars from Congress. The proposition has been originated in the House
of Representatives, referred to the committee of claims, the chairman
of which has prepared a very favorable report, and a bill conformable,
assuming the repayment of all interest which the State has actually
paid. The legislature will certainly owe to us the recovery of this
money; for had they not given it in some measure the reverenced
character of a donation for the promotion of learning, it would never
have been paid. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the displeasure
incurred by wringing it from them at the last session, will now give
way to a contrary feeling, and even place us on a ground of some merit.
Should this sentiment take place, and the arrival of our Professors, and
filling our dormitories with students on the 1st of February, encourage
them to look more favorably towards us, perhaps it might dispose them to
enlarge somewhat their order on the same fund. You observe the Proctor
has stated in a letter accompanying our Report, that it will take about
twenty-five thousand dollars more than we have to finish the Rotunda.
Besides this, an Anatomical theatre (costing about as much as one of our
hotels, say about five thousand dollars,) is indispensable to the school
of Anatomy. There cannot be a single dissection until a proper theatre
is prepared, giving an advantageous view of the operation to those
within, and effectually excluding observation from without. Either the
additional sums, therefore, of twenty-five thousand and five thousand
dollars will be wanting, or we must be permitted to appropriate a part
of the fifty thousand to a theatre, leaving the Rotunda unfinished for
the present. Yet I should think neither of these objects an equivalent
for renewing the displeasure of the legislature. Unless we can carry
their hearty patronage with us, the institution can never flourish.
I would not, therefore, hint at this additional aid, unless it were
agreeable to our friends generally, and tolerably sure of being carried
without irritation.
In your letter of December the 31st, you say my ‘hand-writing and my
letters have great effect there,’ i.e. at Richmond. I am sensible, my
dear Sir, of the kindness with which this encouragement is held up to
me. But my views of their effect are very different. When I retired from
the administration of public affairs, I thought I saw some evidence that
I retired with a good degree of public favor, and that my conduct in
office had been considered, by the one party at least, with approbation,
and with acquiescence by the other. But the attempt, in which I have
embarked so earnestly, to procure an improvement in the moral condition
of my native State, although, perhaps, in other States it may have
strengthened good dispositions, it has assuredly weakened them within
our own. The attempt ran foul of so many local interests, of so many
personal views, and so much ignorance, and I have been considered as
so particularly its promoter, that I see evidently a great change of
sentiment towards myself. I cannot doubt its having dissatisfied
with myself a respectable minority, if not a majority of the House of
Delegates. I feel it deeply, and very discouragingly. Yet I shall not
give way. I have ever found in my progress through life, that, acting
for the public, if we do always what is right, the approbation denied in
the beginning will surely follow us in the end. It is from posterity we
are to expect remuneration for the sacrifices we are making for their
service, of time, quiet, and good will. And I fear not the appeal. The
multitude of fine young men whom we shall redeem from ignorance, who
will feel that they owe to us the elevation of mind, of character, and
station they will be able to attain from the result of our efforts, will
insure their remembering us with gratitude. We will not, then, be ‘weary
in well-doing.’ _Usque ad aras amicus tuus_,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXV.--TO THOMAS JEFFERSON SMITH, February 21, 1825
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO THOMAS JEFFERSON SMITH.
This letter will, to you, be as one from the dead. The writer will be
in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your affectionate and
excellent father has requested that I would address to you something
which might possibly have a favorable influence on the course of life
you have to run, and I too, as a namesake, feel an interest in that
course. Few words will be necessary, with good dispositions on your
part. Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor
as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true.
Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life, into which you
have entered, be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And
if to the dead it is permitted to care for the things of this world,
every action of your life will be under my regard. Farewell.
Monticello, February 21, 1825.
_The Portrait of a Good Man, by the most sublime of Poets, for your
imitation_.
Lord, who’s the happy man that may to thy blest courts repair;
Not stranger-like to visit them, but to inhabit there?
‘Tis he, whose every thought and deed by rules of virtue moves;
Whose generous tongue disdains to speak the thing his heart
disproves.
Who never did a slander forge, his neighbor’s fame to wound;
Nor hearken to a false report, by malice whispered round.
Who vice, in all its pomp and power, can treat with just neglect;
And piety, though clothed in rags, religiously respect.
Who to his plighted vows and trust has ever firmly stood;
And though he promise to his loss, he makes his promise good.
Whose soul in usury disdains his treasure to employ;
Whom no rewards can ever bribe the guiltless to destroy.
The man, who, by this steady course, has happiness insured,
When earth’s foundations shake, shall stand, by Providence secured.
A Decalogue of Canons for observation in practical life.
1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear
to you.
5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.
6. We never repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
9. Take things always by their smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.
LETTER CLXXXVI.--TO JAMES MADISON, December 24, 1825
TO JAMES MADISON.
Monticello, December 24, 1825.
Dear Sir,
I have for sometime considered the question of internal improvement as
desperate. The torrent of general opinion sets so strongly in favor
of it as to be irresistible. And I suppose that even the opposition in
Congress will hereafter be feeble and formal, unless something can be
done which may give a gleam of encouragement to our friends, or alarm
their opponents in their fancied security. I learn from Richmond, that
those who think with us there are in a state of perfect dismay, not
knowing what to do, or what to propose. Mr. Gordon, our representative,
particularly, has written to me in very desponding terms, not disposed
to yield, indeed, but pressing for opinions and advice on the subject.
I have no doubt you are pressed in the same way, and I hope you have
devised and recommended something to them. If you have, stop here and
read no more, but consider all that follows as _non avenue_. I shall
be better satisfied to adopt implicitly any thing which you may have
advised, than any thing occurring to myself. For I have long ceased
to think on subjects of this kind, and pay little attention to public
proceedings. But if you have done nothing in it, then I risk for your
consideration what has occurred to me, and is expressed in the enclosed
paper. Bailey’s propositions, which came to hand since I wrote the
paper, and which I suppose to have come from the President himself, show
a little hesitation in the purposes of his party; and in that state of
mind, a bolt shot critically may decide the contest, by its effect on
the less bold. The olive-branch held out to them at this moment may be
accepted, and the constitution thus saved at a moderate sacrifice. I say
nothing of the paper, which will explain itself. The following heads of
consideration, or some of them, may weigh in its favor.
It may intimidate the wavering. It may break the western coalition,
by offering the same thing in a different form. It will be viewed with
favor in contrast with the Georgia opposition and fear of strengthening
that. It will be an example of a temperate mode of opposition in future
and similar cases. It will delay the measure a year at least. It will
give us the chance of better times and of intervening accidents; and in
no way place us in a worse than our present situation. I do not dwell on
these topics; your mind will develope them.
The first question is, whether you approve of doing any thing of the
kind. If not, send it back to me, and it shall be suppressed; for I
would not hazard so important a measure against your opinion, nor even
without its support. If you think it may be a canvass on which to put
something good, make what alterations you please, and I will forward it
to Gordon, under the most sacred injunctions that it shall be so used as
that not a shadow of suspicion shall fall on you or myself, that it
has come from either of us. But what you do, do as promptly as your
convenience will admit, lest it should be anticipated by something
worse. Ever and affectionately yours,
Th: Jefferson.
_The solemn Declaration and Protest of the Commonwealth of Virginia, on
the Principles of the Constitution of the United, States of America, and
on the Violations of them_.
We, the General Assembly of Virginia, on behalf and in the name of the
people thereof, do declare as follows.
The States in North America which confederated to establish their
independence on the government of Great Britain, of which Virginia was
one, became, on that acquisition, free and independent States, and, as
such, authorized to constitute governments, each for itself, in such
form as it thought best.
They entered into a compact (which is called the Constitution of the
United States of America), by which they agreed to unite in a single
government as to their relations with each other, and with foreign
nations, and as to certain other articles particularly specified.
They retained at the same time, each to itself, the other rights of
independent government, comprehending mainly their domestic interests.
For the administration of their federal branch, they agreed to appoint,
in conjunction, a distinct set of functionaries, legislative, executive,
and judiciary, in the manner settled in that compact: while to each,
severally and of course, remained its original right of appointing, each
for itself, a separate set of functionaries, legislative, executive,
and judiciary, also, for administering the domestic branch of their
respective governments.
These two sets of officers, each independent of the other, constitute
thus a whole of government, for each State separately; the powers
ascribed to the one, as specifically made federal, exercised over
the whole, the residuary powers, retained to the other, exercisable
exclusively over its particular State, foreign herein, each to the
others, as they were before the original compact.