As I trust that _Politics_ will not make you forget what is due to
_science_, I shall send you a copy of some articles that are just
printed for the _Transactions of the Philosophical Society_ in
this place. No. (5) p. 36 is the most deserving of your notice. I
should have sent you my _Defence of Phlogiston_, but that I
presume you have seen it.
June, 1802.
To Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States of America.
Sir,
My high respect for your character, as a politician, and a man,
makes me desirous of connecting my name, in some measure with
yours while it is in my power, by means of some publication, to do
it.
The first part of this work, which brought the history to the fall
of the western empire, was dedicated to a zealous friend of civil
and religious liberty, but in a private station. What he, or any
other friend of liberty in Europe, could only do by their good
wishes, by writing, or by patriot suffering, you, Sir, are
actually accomplishing, and upon a theatre of great and growing
extent.
It is the boast of this country to have a constitution the most
favourable to political liberty, and private happiness, of any in
the world, and all say that it was yourself, more than any other
individual, that planned and established it; and to this opinion
your conduct in various public offices, and now in the highest,
gives the clearest attestation.
Many have appeared the friends of the rights of man while they were
subject to the power of others, and especially when they were
sufferers by it; but I do not recollect one besides yourself who
retained the same principles, and acted by them, in a station of
real power. You, Sir, have done more than this; having proposed to
relinquish some part of the power which the constitution gave you;
and instead of adding to the burden of the people, it has been
your endeavour to lighten those burdens tho the necessary
consequence must be the diminution of your influence. May this
great example, which I doubt not will demonstrate the
practicability of truly republican principles, by the actual
existence of a form of government calculated to answer all the
useful purposes of government (giving equal protection to all, and
leaving every man in the possession of every power that he can
exercise to his own advantage, without infringing on the equal
liberty of others) be followed in other countries, and at length
become universal.
Another reason why I wish to prefix your name to this work, and
more appropriate to the subject of it, is that you have ever been
a strenuous and uniform advocate of religious no less than civil
liberty, both in your own state of Virginia, and in the United
States in general, seeing in the clearest light the various and
great mischiefs that have arisen from any particular form of
religion being favoured by the State more than any other; so that
the profession or practice of religion is here as free as that of
philosophy, or medicine. And now the experience of more than
twenty years leaves little room to doubt but that it is a state,
of things the most favourable to mutual candour, which is of great
importance to domestic peace and good neighbourhood and to the
cause of all truth, religious truth least of all excepted. When
every question is thus left to free discussion, there cannot be a
doubt but that truth will finally prevail, and establish itself by
its own evidence; and he must know little of mankind, or of human
nature, who can imagine that truth of any kind will be ultimately
unfavourable to general happiness. That man must entertain a
secret suspicion of his own principles who wishes for any
exclusive advantage in his defence or profession of them.
Having fled from a state of persecution in England, and having been
exposed to some degree of danger in the late administration here, I
naturally feel the greater satisfaction in the prospect of passing
the remainder of an active life (when I naturally wish for repose)
under your protection. Tho arrived at the usual term of human life
it is now only that I can say I see nothing to fear from the hand
of power, the government under which I live being for the first
time truly favourable to me. And tho it will be evident to all who
know me that I have never been swayed by the mean principle of
fear, it is certainly a happiness to be out of the possibility of
its influence, and to end ones days in peace, enjoying some degree
of rest before the state of more perfect rest in the grave, and
with the hope of rising to a state of greater activity, security
and happiness beyond it. This is all that any man can wish for, or
have; and this, Sir, under your administration, I enjoy.
With the most perfect attachment, and every good wish I subscribe
myself not your subject, or humble servant, but your sincere
admirer.