by myself. It could be carried at first only by a suspension of salaries
for one year, by battling it again at the next session for another year,
and so from year to year, until the public mind was ripened for the bill
for establishing religious freedom, which I had prepared for the revised
code also. This was at length established permanently, and by the
efforts chiefly of Mr. Madison, being myself in Europe at the time that
work was brought forward.
To these particular services, I think I might add the establishment of
our University, as principally my work, acknowledging at the same time,
as I do, the great assistance received from my able colleagues of the
Visitation. But my residence in the vicinity threw, of course, on me
the chief burthen of the enterprise, as well of the buildings, as of
the general organization and care of the whole. The effect of this
institution on the future fame, fortune, and prosperity of our country,
can as yet be seen but at a distance. But an hundred well educated
youths, which it will turn out annually, and ere long, will fill all
its offices with men of superior qualifications, and raise it from its
humble state to an eminence among its associates which it has never yet
known; no, not in its brightest days. That institution is now qualified
to raise its youth to an order of science unequalled in any other State;
and this superiority will be the greater from the free range of mind
encouraged there, and the restraint imposed at other seminaries by the
shackles of a domineering hierarchy, and a bigoted adhesion to ancient
habits. Those now on the theatre of affairs will enjoy the ineffable
happiness of seeing themselves succeeded by sons of a grade of science
beyond their own ken. Our sister States will also be repairing to the
same fountains of instruction, will bring hither their genius to be
kindled at our fire, and will carry back the fraternal affections
which, nourished by the same alma mater, will knit us to them by the
indissoluble bonds of early personal friendships. The good Old Dominion,
the blessed mother of us all, will then raise her head with pride among
the nations, will present to them that splendor of genius which she
has ever possessed, but has too long suffered to rest uncultivated
and unknown, and will become a centre of ralliance to the States whose
youths she has instructed, and, as it were, adopted.
I claim some share in the merits of this great work of regeneration. My
whole labors, now for many years, have been devoted to it, and I stand
pledged to follow it up through the remnant of life remaining to me. And
what remuneration do I ask? Money from the treasury? Not a cent. I ask
nothing from the earnings or labors of my fellow-citizens. I wish no
man’s comforts to be abridged for the enlargement of mine. For the
services rendered on all occasions, I have been always paid to my full
satisfaction. I never wished a dollar more than what the law had fixed
on. My request is, only to be permitted to sell my own property freely
to pay my own debts. To sell it, I say, and not to sacrifice it, not
to have it gobbled up by speculators to make fortunes for themselves,
leaving unpaid those who have trusted to my good faith, and myself
without resource in the last and most helpless stage of life. If
permitted to sell it in a way which will bring me a fair price, all will
be honestly and honorably paid, and a competence left for myself, and
for those who look to me for subsistence. To sell it in a way which will
offend no moral principle, and expose none to risk but the willing, and
those wishing to be permitted to take the chance of gain. To give me, in
short, that permission which you often allow to others for purposes not
more moral.
Will it be objected, that although not evil in itself, it may, as a
precedent, lead to evil? But let those who shall quote the precedent
bring their case within the same measure. Have they, as in this case,
devoted three-score years and one of their lives, uninterruptedly, to
the service of their country? Have the times of those services been as
trying as those which have embraced our Revolution, our transition from
a colonial to a free structure of government? Have the stations of their
trial been of equal importance? Has the share they have borne in holding
their new government to its genuine principles, been equally marked?
And has the cause of the distress, against which they seek a remedy,
proceeded, not merely from themselves, but from errors of the public
authorities, disordering the circulating medium, over which they had
no control, and which have, in fact, doubled and trebled debts, by
reducing, in that proportion, the value of the property which was to pay
them? If all these circumstances, which characterize the present case,
have taken place in theirs also, then follow the precedent. Be assured,
the cases will be so rare as to produce no embarrassment, as never to
settle into an injurious habit. The single feature of a sixty years’
service, as no other instance of it has yet occurred in our country, so
it probably never may again. And should it occur, even once and again,
it will not impoverish your treasury, as it takes nothing from that, and
asks but a simple permission, by an act of natural right, to do one of
moral justice.
In the ‘Thoughts on Lotteries,’ the following paper is referred to. It
is here copied to spare the trouble of seeking for the-book.
_Farewell Address To Th: Jefferson, President Of The United States_.
[Agreed to by both Houses, February 7, 1809.]
Sir, The General Assembly of your native State cannot close their
session, without acknowledging your services in the office which you are
just about to lay down, and bidding you a respectful and affectionate
farewell.
We have to thank you for the model of an administration conducted on
the purest principles of republicanism; for pomp and state laid aside;
patronage discarded; internal taxes abolished; a host of superfluous
officers disbanded; the monarchic maxim that ‘a national debt is a
national blessing,’ renounced, and more than thirty-three millions of
our debt discharged; the native right to nearly one hundred millions
of acres of our national domain extinguished; and, without the guilt or
calamities of conquest, a vast and, fertile region added to our country,
far more extensive than her original possessions, bringing along with
it the Mississippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the west to the
Pacific Ocean, and in the intrinsic value of the land itself, a source
of permanent and almost inexhaustible revenue. These are points in your
administration which the historian will not fail to seize, to expand,
and teach posterity to dwell upon with delight. Nor will he forget our
peace with the civilized world, preserved through a season of uncommon
difficulty and trial; the good-will cultivated with the unfortunate
aborigines of our country, and the civilization humanely extended among
them; the lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Barbary, that
we have the means of chastising their piratical encroachments, and
awing them into justice; and that theme, on which, above all others, the
historic genius will hang with rapture, the liberty of speech and of the
press, preserved inviolate, without which genius and science are given
to man in vain.
In the principles on which you have administered the government, we see
only the continuation and maturity of the same virtues and abilities,
which drew upon you in your youth the resentment of Dunmore. From the
first brilliant and happy moment of your resistance to foreign tyranny,
until the present day, we mark with pleasure and with gratitude the same
uniform, consistent character, the same warm and devoted attachment
to liberty and the republic, the same Roman love of your country, her
rights, her peace, her honor, her prosperity.
How blessed will be the retirement into which you are about to go! How
deservedly blessed will it be! For you carry with you the richest of all
rewards, the recollection of a life well spent in the service of your
country, and proofs the most decisive, of the love, the gratitude, the
veneration of your countrymen.
That your retirement may be as happy as your life has been virtuous and
useful; that our youth may see, in the blissful close of your days, an
additional inducement to form themselves on your model, is the devout
and earnest prayer of your fellow-citizens who compose the General
Assembly of Virginia.
LETTER CXCII.--TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, March 30, 1826
TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Monticello, March 30, 1826.
Dear Sir,
I am thankful for the very interesting message and documents of
which you have been so kind as to send me a copy, and will state my
recollections as to the particular passage of the message to which you
ask my attention. On the conclusion of peace, Congress, sensible of
their right to assume independence, would not condescend to ask its
acknowledgment from other nations, yet were willing, by some of the
ordinary international transactions, to receive what would imply that
acknowledgment. They appointed commissioners, therefore, to propose
treaties of commerce to the principal nations of Europe. I was then
a member of Congress, was of the committee appointed to prepare
instructions for the commissioners, was, as you suppose, the draughtsman
of those actually agreed to, and was joined with your father and Doctor
Franklin to carry them into execution. But the stipulations making
part of these instructions, which respected privateering, blockades,
contraband, and freedom of the fisheries, were not original conceptions
of mine. They had before been suggested by Doctor Franklin, in some
of his papers in possession of the public, and had I think, been
recommended in some letter of his to Congress I happen only to have
been the inserter of them in the first public act which gave the formal
sanction of a public authority. We accordingly proposed our treaties,
containing these stipulations, to the principal governments of Europe.
But we were then just emerged from a subordinate condition; the
nations had as yet known nothing of us and had not yet reflected on the
relations which it might be their interest to establish with us. Most of
them, therefore, listened to our propositions with coyness and reserve;
old Frederic alone closing with us without hesitation. The negotiator of
Portugal, indeed, signed a treaty with us, which his government did
not ratify, and Tuscany was near a final agreement. Becoming sensible,
however, ourselves, that we should do nothing with the greater powers,
we thought it better not to hamper our country with engagements to those
of less significance, and suffered our powers to expire without closing
any other negotiation. Austria soon after became desirous of a treaty
with us, and her ambassador pressed it often on me; but our commerce
with her being no object, I evaded her repeated invitations. Had these
governments been then apprized of the station we should so soon occupy
among nations, all, I believe, would have met us promptly and with
frankness. These principles would then have been established with all,
and from being the conventional law with us alone, would have slid into
their engagements with one another, and become general. These are
the facts within my recollection. They have not yet got into written
history; but their adoption by our southern brethren will bring them
into observance, and make them, what they should be, a part of the law
of the world and of the reformation of principles for which they will be
indebted to us. I pray you to accept the homage of my friendly and high
consideration.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXCIII.--TO MR. WEIGHTMAN, June 24, 1826
TO MR. WEIGHTMAN.
Monticello, June 24, 1826.
Respected Sir,
The kind invitation I receive from you, on the part of the citizens of
the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration
on the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as one of the
surviving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and the
fate of the world, is most flattering to myself, and heightened by the
honorable accompaniment proposed for the comfort of such a journey. It
adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a
personal participation in the rejoicings of that day. But acquiescence
is a duty, under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted
to control. I should indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and
exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the
remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in
the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between
submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory
fact, that our fellow-citizens, after half a century of experience and
prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. May it be to the
world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later,
but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains
under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them
to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of
self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free
right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All
eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread
of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable
truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on
their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them
legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others.
For ourselves, let the annual return of this day for ever refresh our
recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.
I will ask permission here to express the pleasure with which I
should have met my ancient neighbors of the city of Washington and
its vicinities, with whom I passed so many years of a pleasing social
intercourse; an intercourse which so much relieved the anxieties of the
public cares, and left impressions so deeply engraved in my affections,
as never to be forgotten. With my regret that ill health forbids me the
gratification of an acceptance, be pleased to receive for yourself,
and those for whom you write, the assurance of my highest respect and
friendly attachments.
Th: Jefferson.
*****
*****
ANA.--EXPLANATION OF THE THREE VOLUMES BOUND IN MARBLED PAPER
_Explanation of the Three Volumes bound in Marbled Paper_.*
In these three volumes will be found copies of the official opinions
given in writing by me to General Washington, while I was Secretary of
State, with sometimes the documents belonging to the case. Some of
these are the rough draughts, some press copies, some fair ones. In the
earlier part of my acting in that office, I took no other note of the
passing transactions; but after a while, I saw the importance of doing
it in aid of my memory. Very often, therefore, I made memorandums on
loose scraps of paper, taken out of my pocket in the moment, and laid
by to be copied fair at leisure, which, however, they hardly ever were.
These scraps, therefore, ragged, rubbed, and scribbled as they were, I
had bound with the others by a binder, who came into my cabinet, did it
under my own eye, and without the opportunity of reading a single paper.
At this day, after the lapse of twenty-five years, or more, from their
dates, I have given to the whole a calm revisal, when the passions of
the time are passed away, and the reasons of the transactions act alone
on the judgment. Some of the informations I had recorded, are now cut
out from the rest, because I have seen that they were incorrect, or
doubtful, or merely personal or private, with which we have nothing to
do. I should perhaps have thought the rest not worth preserving, but for
their testimony against the only history of that period, which pretends
to have been compiled from authentic and unpublished documents.
*****
[* These are the volumes containing the Ana to the time that the Author
retired from the office of Secretary of State. The official opinions
and documents referred to, being very voluminous, are for the most part
omitted, to make room for the conversations which the same volumes
comprise.]
But a short review of facts ***** will show, that the contests of that
day were contests of principle between the advocates of republican,
and those of kingly government, and that, had not the former made the
efforts they did, our government would have been even at this early day,
a very different thing from what the successful issue of those efforts
have made it.
The alliance between the States under the old Articles of Confederation,
for the purpose of joint defence against the aggressions of Great
Britain, was found insufficient, as treaties of alliance generally are,
to enforce compliance with their mutual stipulations; and these, once
fulfilled, that bond was to expire of itself, and each State to become
sovereign and independent in all things. Yet, it could not but occur to
every one, that these separate independencies, like the petty States of
Greece, would be eternally at war with each other, and would become
at length the mere partisans and satellites of the leading powers of
Europe. All, then, must have looked forward to some further bond of
union, which would insure internal peace, and a political system of our
own, independent of that of Europe. Whether all should be consolidated
into a single government, or each remain independent as to internal
matters, and the whole form a single nation as to what was foreign only,
and whether that national government should be a monarchy or republic,
would of course divide opinions, according to the constitutions, the
habits, and the circumstances of each individual. Some officers of the
army, as it has always been said and believed, (and Steuben and Knox
have ever been named as the leading agents,) trained to monarchy by
military habits, are understood to have proposed to General Washington,
to decide this great question by the army before its disbandment, and
to assume himself the crown, on the assurance of their support.
The indignity with which he is said to have scouted this parricide
proposition, was equally worthy of his virtue and wisdom. The next
effort was, (on suggestion of the same individuals, in the moment of
their separation,) the establishment of an hereditary order, under
the name of the Cincinnati, ready prepared by that distinction to be
engrafted into the future frame of government, and placing General
Washington still at their head. The General wrote to me on this subject,
while I was in Congress at Annapolis, and an extract from my letter is
inserted in 5th Marshall’s History, page 28. He afterwards called on me
at that place, on his way to a meeting of the society, and after a whole
evening of consultation, he left that place fully determined to use
all his endeavors for its total suppression. But he found it so firmly
riveted in the affections of the members, that, strengthened as they
happened to be by an adventitious occurrence of the moment, he could
effect no more than the abolition of its hereditary principle. He called
again on his return, and explained to me fully the opposition which had
been made, the effect of the occurrence from France, and the difficulty
with which its duration had been limited to the lives of the present
members. Further details will be found among my papers, in his and
my letters, and some in the _Encyclopédic Méthodique et Dictionnaire
d’Economic Politique_, communicated by myself to M. Meusnier, its
author, who had made the establishment of this society the ground, in
that work, of a libel on our country.
The want of some authority which should procure justice to the public
creditors, and an observance of treaties with foreign nations, produced,
some time after, the call of a convention of the States at Annapolis.
Although, at this meeting, a difference of opinion was evident on the
question of a republican or kingly government, yet, so general through
the States was the sentiment in favor of the former, that the friends
of the latter confined themselves to a course of obstruction only, and
delay, to every thing proposed; they hoped, that nothing being done,
and all things going from bad to worse, a kingly government might be
usurped, and submitted to by the people, as better than anarchy and
wars, internal and external, the certain consequences of the present
want of a general government. The effect of their manoeuvres, with
the defective attendance of Deputies from the States, resulted in
the measure of calling a more general convention, to be held at
Philadelphia. At this the same party exhibited the same practices, and
with the same views of preventing a government of concord, which they
foresaw would be republican, and of forcing: through anarchy their way
to monarchy. But the mass of that convention was too honest, too wise,
and too steady, to be baffled and misled by their manoeuvres. One of
these was a form of government proposed by Colonel Hamilton, which would
have been in fact a compromise between the two parties of royalism and
republicanism. According to this, the executive and one branch of the
legislature were to be during good behavior, i.e. for life, and the
governors of the States were to be named by these two permanent organs.
This, however, was rejected; on which Hamilton left the convention, as
desperate, and never returned again until near its final conclusion.
These opinions and efforts, secret or avowed, of the advocates for
monarchy, had begotten great jealousy through the States generally;
and this jealousy it was, which excited the strong opposition to the
conventional constitution; a jealousy which yielded at last only to
a general determination to establish certain amendments, as barriers
against a government either monarchical or consolidated. In what passed
through the whole period of these conventions, I have gone on the
information of those who were members of them, being absent myself on my
mission to France.