PART I.--_Reports and Opinions while Secretary of State._--Under this head

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have

been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

The [bracketed] footnotes are as in the original.

Inconsistent or incorrect accents and spelling in passages in French,

Latin and Italian have been left unchanged.

ς (final form sigma) in the middle of a word has been normalized to σ.

Greek diacritics were normalized to be all present or all missing,

according to their preponderance in the quotation.

The paragraph starting "Page 2, column 2" has an unmatched quote.

The following possible inconsistencies/printer errors/archaic

spellings/different names for different entities were identified

but left as printed:

Vanderkemp and Vander Kemp

Potomac and Patomac

Postlethwayte and Postlethwaite

Mecklenburg and Mecklenberg

ascendancy and ascendency.

On page 33, Molliores Spsyke should possibly be Moliére's Psyché.

On page 52, multnomat should possibly be Multnomat.

On page 181, Universary should possibly be University.

On page 192, sculk should possibly be skulk.

On page 537, the price of the Algerine captives is stated as "$34,79,228,",

which is probably a printer's error.

On page 546, termometer should possibly be thermometer.

THE

WRITINGS

OF

THOMAS JEFFERSON:

BEING HIS

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, CORRESPONDENCE, REPORTS, MESSAGES,

ADDRESSES, AND OTHER WRITINGS, OFFICIAL

AND PRIVATE.

PUBLISHED BY THE ORDER OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS ON THE

LIBRARY, FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS,

DEPOSITED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES, TABLES OF CONTENTS, AND A COPIOUS INDEX

TO EACH VOLUME, AS WELL AS A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE,

BY THE EDITOR

H. A. WASHINGTON.

VOL. VII.

NEW YORK:

H. W. DERBY, 625 BROADWAY.

1861.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by

TAYLOR & MAURY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of

Columbia.

CONTENTS TO VOL. VII.

BOOK II.

PART III.--CONTINUED.--LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER HIS RETURN TO THE UNITED

STATES DOWN TO THE TIME OF HIS DEATH.--(1790-1826,)--3.

Adams, John, letters written to, 25, 37, 43, 54, 61, 81, 199, 217,

243, 254, 264, 274, 280, 307, 313, 337, 435.

Adams, Mrs. A., letter written to, 52.

Adams, J. Q., letter written to, 436.

Barry, Wm. T., letter written to, 255.

Blatchly, C. C., letter written to, 263.

Breckenridge, General, letters written to, 204, 237.

Cabell, Joseph C., letters written to, 201, 329, 350, 392.

Campbell, John, letter written to, 268.

Cartwright, Major John, letter written to, 355.

Cooper, Dr., letter written to, 266.

Corey, M., letter written to, 318.

Crawford, Wm. H., letter written to, 5.

Dearborne, General, letter written to, 214.

Delaplaine, Mr., letter written to, 20.

Denison, Hon. J. Evelyn, letter written to, 415.

Earle, Thomas, letter written to, 310.

Emmet, Dr., letters written to, 438, 441.

Engelbrecht, Isaac, letter written to, 337.

Eppes, Francis, letter written to, 197.

Everett, Edward, letters written to, 232, 270, 340, 380, 437.

Flower, George, letter written to, 83.

Gallatin, Albert, letter written to, 77.

Garnett, Robert J., letter written to, 336.

Giles, Wm. B., letters written to, 424, 426.

Gilmer, Francis W., letter written to, 3.

Gooch, Claiborne W., letter written to, 430.

Hammond, Mr. C., letter written to, 215.

Harding, David H., letter written to, 346.

Hopkins, George F., letter written to, 259.

Humboldt, Baron, letter written to, 74.

Humphreys, Dr. Thomas, letter written to, 57.

Johnson, Judge, letters written to, 276, 290.

Kerchival, Samuel, letters written to, 9, 35.

La Fayette, Marquis de, letters written to, 65, 324, 378.

Lee, H., letters written to, 376, 407.

Lee, Wm., letter written to, 56.

Livingston, Edward, letters written to, 342, 402.

Logan, Dr., letter written to, 19.

Ludlow, Wm., letter written to, 377.

Macon, Nathaniel, letter written to, 222.

Madison, James, letters written to, 304, 373, 422, 432.

Manners, Dr. John, letter written to, 72.

Mansfield, Jared, letter written to, 203.

Marbois, M. de, letter written to, 76.

Mease, Dr. James, letter written to, 410.

Megan, Mr., letter written to, 286.

Mellish, Mr., letter written to, 51.

Morse, Jedediah, letter written to, 233.

Nicholas, Mr., letter written to, 229.

Pickering, Timothy, letter written to, 210.

Pleasants, John Hampden, letter written to, 344.

Plumer, Governor, letter written to, 18.

President, The, letters written to, 287, 299, 315.

Ritchie & Gooch, letters written to, 239, 246.

Roane, Judge, letters written to, 211, 212.

Rodgers, Patrick K., letter written to, 327.

Roscoe, Mr., letter written to, 195.

Rush Richard, letters written to, 347, 379.

Secretary of State, letter written to, 41.

Short, Wm., letters written to, 309, 389.

Sinclair, St. John, letter written to, 22.

Skidman, Thomas, letter written to, 258.

Smith, Mr. M. Harrison, letter written to, 27.

Smith, James, letter written to, 269.

Smith, General Samuel, letters written to, 284.

Smith, T. J., letter written to, 401.

Smyth, General Alexander, letter written to, 394.

Sparks, Jared, letter written to, 332.

Stuart, Josephus B., letter written to, 64.

Summers, George W., &c., letter written to, 230.

Taylor, John, letter written to, 17.

Taylor, Hugh P., letter written to, 2.

Terrel, Dabney, letter written to, 206.

Terril, Chiles, letter written to, 260.

Thweat, Archibald, letters written to, 198.

Tiffany, Isaac H., letter written to, 31.

Ticknor, George, letter written to, 300.

Van Buren, Martin, letter written to, 362.

Vaughan, John, letter written to, 409.

Waterhouse, Dr. Benjamin, letters written to, 252, 257.

Weightman, Mr., letter written to, 450.

Whittemore, Mr. Robert, letter written to, 245.

Wiss, Lewis M., letter written to, 419.

Woodward, Mr., letter written to, 338.

Woodward, Judge Augustus B., letter written to, 405.

Wright, Miss, letter written to, 408.

Address lost, letters written to, 220, 223, 383, 397, 411, 425,

431, 444.

Letters to Thomas Jefferson from John Adams, 29, 38, 47, 58, 68,

70, 85, 219, 261, 279, 302, 396.

BOOK III.--PART I.

REPORTS AND OPINIONS WHILE SECRETARY OF STATE.

1. Report on the method of obtaining fresh water from salt, 455.

2. Opinion on the proposition for establishing a woollen manufactory

in Virginia, 460.

3. Report on copper coinage, 462.

4. Opinion on the question whether the Senate has the right to

negative the _grade_ of persons appointed by the Executive to fill

foreign missions, 465.

5. Opinion on the validity of a grant made by the State of Georgia

to certain companies of individuals, of a tract of country, whereof

the Indian right had never been extinguished, with power to such

individuals to extinguish the Indian right, 467.

6. Opinion in favor of the Resolution of May 21, 1790, directing

that, in all cases where payment had not been already made, the

debts due to the soldiers of Virginia and North Carolina, should

be paid to the original claimants, and not to their assignees, 469.

7. Report on plan for establishing uniformity in the coins, weights

and measures, of the United States, 472.

8. Opinion on the question whether the President should veto the

bill, declaring that the seat of government shall be transferred

to the Potomac in the year 1790, 498.

9. Opinion respecting expenses and salaries of foreign ministers,

501.

10. Opinion in regard to the continuances of the monopoly of the

commerce of the Creek nation enjoyed by Colonel McGillivray, 504.

11. Opinion respecting our foreign debt, 506.

12. Opinion on the question whether Lord Dorchester should be

permitted to march troops through the territories of United States

from Detroit to the Mississippi, 508.

13. Opinion on the question whether the real object of the expedition

of Governor St. Clair, should be notified to Lord Dorchester, 510.

14. Opinion on the proceedings to be had under the Residence Act,

511.

15. Report of the Secretary of State to the President of the United

States on the Report of the Secretary of the Government of the

North-West of the Ohio, 513.

16. Opinion on certain proceedings of the Executive in the

North-Western Territory, 515.

17. Report on certain letters between the President and Governeur

Morris, relative to our difficulties with England, 517.

18. Report on the Mediterranean trade, 519.

19. Report on the Algerine prisoners, 532.

20. Report on the cod and whale fisheries, 538.

21. Opinion against the constitutionality of a National Bank, 555.

22. Opinion relative to the ten mile square for the federal

government, 561.

23. Report on the policy of securing peculiar marks to manufacturers

by law, 563.

24. Opinion relative to the demolition of Mr. Carroll's house by

Major L'Enfant, in laying out the Federal City 564.

25. Opinion relative to certain lands on Lake Erie, sold by the U.

States to Pennsylvania, 567.

26. Report on the negotiations with Spain to secure the navigation

of the Mississippi, and a port on the same, 568.

27. Report on the case of Charles Russell and others, claiming

certain lands, 592.

28. Report relative to negotiations at Madrid, 593.

29. Opinion on bill apportioning representation, 594.

30. Opinion relative to the re-capture of slaves, escaped to Florida,

601.

31. Report on the assays at the mint, 604.

32. Report on the petition of John Rodgers relative to certain

lands on the north-east side of the Tennessee, 605.

33. Report relative to the boundaries of the lands between the Ohio

and the lakes acquired by treaties from the Indians, 608.

34. Report on proceedings of Secretary of State to transfer to

Europe the annual fund of $40,000, appropriated to that department,

610.

35. Opinion on the question whether the United States have the right

to renounce their treaties with France, or hold them suspended,

until the government of that country shall become established, 611.

36. Opinion relative to granting passports to American vessels, 624.

37. Opinion relative to the case of a British vessel captured by

a French vessel, purchased by French citizens, and fitted out as

a privateer in one of our ports, 626.

38. Opinion on the proposition of the Secretary of the Treasury to

open a new loan, 629.

39. Opinion relative to the policy of a new loan, 633.

40. Report on the restrictions and privileges of the commerce of

the United states in foreign countries, 636.

41. Report on the mint, 651.

PART III.--CONTINUED.

LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER HIS RETURN TO THE U. S. DOWN TO THE TIME OF HIS

DEATH.

1790-1826.

TO FRANCIS W. GILMER.

MONTICELLO, June 7, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I received a few days ago from Mr. Dupont the enclosed

manuscript, with permission to read it, and a request, when read, to

forward it to you, in expectation that you would translate it. It is well

worthy of publication for the instruction of our citizens, being profound,

sound, and short. Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the

rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and

enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from

us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights

of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him;

every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities

of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him; and, no

man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another,

it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third.

When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled

their functions, and the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into

society we give up any natural right. The trial of every law by one

of these texts, would lessen much the labors of our legislators, and

lighten equally our municipal codes. There is a work of the first order

of merit now in the press at Washington, by Destutt Tracy, on the subject

of political economy, which he brings into the compass of three hundred

pages, octavo. In a preliminary discourse on the origin of the right of

property, he coincides much with the principles of the present manuscript;

but is more developed, more demonstrative. He promises a future work on

morals, in which I lament to see that he will adopt the principles of

Hobbes, or humiliation to human nature; that the sense of justice and

injustice is not derived from our natural organization, but founded on

convention only. I lament this the more, as he is unquestionably the

ablest writer living, on abstract subjects. Assuming the fact, that

the earth has been created in time, and consequently the dogma of final

causes, we yield, of course, to this short syllogism. Man was created

for social intercourse; but social intercourse cannot be maintained

without a sense of justice; then man must have been created with a

sense of justice. There is an error into which most of the speculators

on government have fallen, and which the well-known state of society of

our Indians ought, before now, to have corrected. In their hypothesis

of the origin of government, they suppose it to have commenced in the

patriarchal or monarchical form. Our Indians are evidently in that state

of nature which has passed the association of a single family; and not

yet submitted to the authority of positive laws, or of any acknowledged

magistrate. Every man, with them, is perfectly free to follow his own

inclinations. But if, in doing this, he violates the rights of another,

if the case be slight, he is punished by the disesteem of his society,

or, as we say, by public opinion; if serious, he is tomahawked as a

dangerous enemy. Their leaders conduct them by the influence of their

character only; and they follow, or not, as they please, him of whose

character for wisdom or war they have the highest opinion. Hence the

origin of the parties among them adhering to different leaders, and

governed by their advice, not by their command. The Cherokees, the only

tribe I know to be contemplating the establishment of regular laws,

magistrates, and government, propose a government of representatives,

elected from every town. But of all things, they least think of subjecting

themselves to the will of one man. This, the only instance of actual

fact within our knowledge, will be then a beginning by republican, and

not by patriarchal or monarchical government, as speculative writers

have generally conjectured.

We have to join in mutual congratulations on the appointment of our

friend Correa, to be minister or envoy of Portugal, here. This, I hope,

will give him to us for life. Nor will it at all interfere with his

botanical rambles or journeys. The government of Portugal is so peaceable

and inoffensive, that it has never any altercations with its friends.

If their minister abroad writes them once a quarter that all is well,

they desire no more. I learn, (though not from Correa himself,) that

he thinks of paying us a visit as soon as he is through his course of

lectures. Not to lose this happiness again by my absence, I have informed

him I shall set out for Poplar Forest the 20th instant, and be back the

first week of July. I wish you and he could concert your movements so

us to meet here, and that you would make this your head quarters. It

is a good central point from which to visit your connections; and you

know our practice of placing our guests at their ease, by showing them

we are so ourselves and that we follow our necessary vocations, instead

of fatiguing them by hanging unremittingly on their shoulders. I salute

you with affectionate esteem and respect.

TO WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD.

MONTICELLO, June 20, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I am about to sin against all discretion, and knowingly, by

adding to the drudgery of your letter-reading, this acknowledgment of

the receipt of your favor of May the 31st, with the papers it covered.

I cannot, however, deny myself the gratification of expressing the

satisfaction I have received, not only from the general statement of

affairs at Paris, in yours of December the 12th, 1814. (as a matter

of history which I had not before received.) but most especially and

superlatively, from the perusal of your letter of the 8th of the same

month to Mr. Fisk, on the subject of draw-backs. This most heterogeneous

principle was transplanted into ours from the British system, by a man

whose mind was really powerful, but chained by native partialities to

everything English; who had formed exaggerated ideas of the superior

perfection of the English constitution, the superior wisdom of their

government, and sincerely believed it for the good of this country to

make them their model in everything; without considering that what might

be wise and good for a nation essentially commercial, and entangled in

complicated intercourse with numerous and powerful neighbors, might not

be so for one essentially agricultural, and insulated by nature from

the abusive governments of the old world.

The exercise, by our own citizens, of so much commerce as may suffice

to exchange our superfluities for our wants, may be advantageous for the

whole. But it does not follow, that with a territory so boundless, it is

the interest of the whole to become a mere city of London, to carry on

the business of one half the world at the expense of eternal war with

the other half. The agricultural capacities of our country constitute

its distinguishing feature; and the adapting our policy and pursuits to

that, is more likely to make us a numerous and happy people, than the

mimicry of an Amsterdam, a Hamburgh, or a city of London. Every society

has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and

to say to all individuals, that, if they contemplate pursuits beyond

the limits of these principles, and involving dangers which the society

chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that

we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on

such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons

infected with disease. Such is the situation of our country. We have most

abundant resources of happiness within ourselves, which we may enjoy

in peace and safety, without permitting a few citizens, infected with

the mania of rambling and gambling, to bring danger on the great mass

engaged in innocent and safe pursuits at home. In your letter to Fisk,

you have fairly stated the alternatives between which we are to choose: 1,

licentious commerce and gambling speculations for a few, with eternal war

for the many; or, 2, restricted commerce, peace, and steady occupations

for all. If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation

with the first alternative, to a continuance in union without it, I have

no hesitation in saying, "let us separate." I would rather the States

should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce and war, and confederate

with those alone which are for peace and agriculture. I know that every

nation in Europe would join in sincere amity with the latter, and hold

the former at arm's length, by jealousies, prohibitions, restrictions,

vexations and war. No earthly consideration could induce my consent to

contract such a debt as England has by her wars for commerce, to reduce

our citizens by taxes to such wretchedness, as that laboring sixteen of

the twenty-four hours, they are still unable to afford themselves bread,

or barely to earn as much oatmeal or potatoes as will keep soul and body

together. And all this to feed the avidity of a few millionary merchants,

and to keep up one thousand ships of war for the protection of their

commercial speculations. I returned from Europe after our government

had got under way, and had adopted from the British code the law of

draw-backs. I early saw its effects in the jealousies and vexations of

Britain; and that, retaining it, we must become like her an essentially

warring nation, and meet, in the end, the catastrophe impending over

her. No one can doubt that this alone produced the orders of council,

the depredations which preceded, and the war which followed them. Had

we carried but our own produce, and brought back but our own wants, no

nation would have troubled us. Our commercial dashers, then, have already

cost us so many thousand lives, so many millions of dollars, more than

their persons and all their commerce were worth. When war was declared,

and especially after Massachusetts, who had produced it, took side with

the enemy waging it, I pressed on some confidential friends in Congress

to avail us of the happy opportunity of repealing the draw-back; and I

do rejoice to find that you are in that sentiment. You are young, and

may be in the way of bringing it into effect. Perhaps time, even yet,

and change of tone, (for there are symptoms of that in Massachusetts,)

may not have obliterated altogether the sense of our late feelings and

sufferings; may not have induced oblivion of the friends we have lost,

the depredations and conflagrations we have suffered, and the debts we

have incurred, and have to labor for through the lives of the present

generation. The earlier the repeal is proposed, the more it will be

befriended by all these recollections and considerations. This is one

of three great measures necessary to insure us permanent prosperity.

This preserves our peace. A second should enable us to meet any war, by

adopting the report of the war department, for placing the force of the

nation at effectual command; and a third should insure resources of money

by the suppression of all paper circulation during peace, and licensing

that of the nation alone during war. The metallic medium of which we

should be possessed at the commencement of a war, would be a sufficient

fund for all the loans we should need through its continuance; and if the

national bills issued, be bottomed (as is indispensable) on pledges of

specific taxes for their redemption within certain and moderate epochs,

and be of proper denominations for circulation, no interest on them

would be necessary or just, because they would answer to every one the

purposes of the metallic money withdrawn and replaced by them.

But possibly these may be the dreams of an old man, or that the occasions

of realizing them may have passed away without return. A government

regulating itself by what is wise and just for the many, uninfluenced

by the local and selfish views of the few who direct their affairs, has

not been seen perhaps, on earth. Or if it existed, for a moment, at the

birth of ours, it would not be easy to fix the term of its continuance.

Still, I believe it does exist here in a greater degree than anywhere

else; and for its growth and continuance, as well as for your personal

health and happiness, I offer sincere prayers, with the homage of my

respect and esteem.

TO SAMUEL KERCHIVAL.

MONTICELLO, July 12, 1816.

SIR,--I duly received your favor of June the 13th, with the copy of

the letters on the calling a convention, on which you are pleased to

ask my opinion. I have not been in the habit of mysterious reserve on

any subject, nor of buttoning up my opinions within my own doublet. On

the contrary, while in public service especially, I thought the public

entitled to frankness, and intimately to know whom they employed. But

I am now retired: I resign myself, as a passenger, with confidence to

those at present at the helm, and ask but for rest, peace and good will.

The question you propose, on equal representation, has become a party

one, in which I wish to take no public share. Yet, if it be asked for

your own satisfaction only, and not to be quoted before the public, I

have no motive to withhold it, and the less from you, as it coincides

with your own. At the birth of our republic, I committed that opinion

to the world, in the draught of a constitution annexed to the "Notes

on Virginia," in which a provision was inserted for a representation

permanently equal. The infancy of the subject at that moment, and our

inexperience of self-government, occasioned gross departures in that

draught from genuine republican canons. In truth, the abuses of monarchy

had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that we

imagined everything republican which was not monarchy. We had not yet

penetrated to the mother principle, that "governments are republican

only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute

it." Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principles in

them. But experience and reflection have but more and more confirmed me

in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed.

On that point, then, I am entirely in sentiment with your letters; and

only lament that a copy-right of your pamphlet prevents their appearance

in the newspapers, where alone they would be generally read, and produce

general effect. The present vacancy too, of other matter, would give

them place in every paper, and bring the question home to every man's

conscience.

But inequality of representation in both Houses of our legislature, is

not the only republican heresy in this first essay of our revolutionary

patriots at forming a constitution. For let it be agreed that a government

is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal

voice in the direction of its concerns, (not indeed in person, which

would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city, or small township,

but) by representatives chosen by himself, and responsible to him at

short periods, and let us bring to the test of this canon every branch

of our constitution.

In the legislature, the House of Representatives is chosen by less than

half the people, and not at all in proportion to those who do choose.

The Senate are still more disproportionate, and for long terms of

irresponsibility. In the Executive, the Governor is entirely independent

of the choice of the people, and of their control; his Council equally

so, and at best but a fifth wheel to a wagon. In the Judiciary, the

judges of the highest courts are dependent on none but themselves.

In England, where judges were named and removable at the will of an

hereditary executive, from which branch most misrule was feared, and has

flowed, it was a great point gained, by fixing them for life, to make

them independent of that executive. But in a government founded on the

public will, this principle operates in an opposite direction, and against

that will. There, too, they were still removable on a concurrence of the

executive and legislative branches. But we have made them independent of

the nation itself. They are irremovable, but by their own body, for any

depravities of conduct, and even by their own body for the imbecilities

of dotage. The justices of the inferior courts are self-chosen, are for

life, and perpetuate their own body in succession forever, so that a

faction once possessing themselves of the bench of a county, can never

be broken up, but hold their county in chains, forever indissoluble. Yet

these justices are the real executive as well as judiciary, in all our

minor and most ordinary concerns. They tax us at will; fill the office of

sheriff, the most important of all the executive officers of the county;

name nearly all our military leaders, which leaders, once named, are

removable but by themselves. The juries, our judges of all fact, and of

law when they choose it, are not selected by the people, nor amenable to

them. They are chosen by an officer named by the court and executive.

Chosen, did I say? Picked up by the sheriff from the loungings of the

court yard, after everything respectable has retired from it. Where then

is our republicanism to be found? Not in our constitution certainly,

but merely in the spirit of our people. That would oblige even a despot

to govern us republicanly. Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the

form of our constitution, all things have gone well. But this fact, so

triumphantly misquoted by the enemies of reformation, is not the fruit

of our constitution, but has prevailed in spite of it. Our functionaries

have done well, because generally honest men. If any were not so, they

feared to show it.

But it will be said, it is easier to find faults than to amend them. I

do not think their amendment so difficult as is pretended. Only lay down

true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into

their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth

against the ascendency of the people. If experience be called for, appeal

to that of our fifteen or twenty governments for forty years, and show

me where the people have done half the mischief in these forty years,

that a single despot would have done in a single year; or show half the

riots and rebellions, the crimes and the punishments, which have taken

place in any single nation, under kingly government, during the same

period. The true foundation of republican government is the equal right

of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management.

Try by this, as a tally, every provision of our constitution, and see

if it hangs directly on the will of the people. Reduce your legislature

to a convenient number for full, but orderly discussion. Let every man

who fights or pays, exercise his just and equal right in their election.

Submit them to approbation or rejection at short intervals. Let the

executive be chosen in the same way, and for the same term, by those

whose agent he is to be; and leave no screen of a council behind which

to skulk from responsibility. It has been thought that the people are

not competent electors of judges _learned in the law_. But I do not know

that this is true, and, if doubtful, we should follow principle. In this,

as in many other elections, they would be guided by reputation, which

would not err oftener, perhaps, than the present mode of appointment. In

one State of the Union, at least, it has long been tried, and with the

most satisfactory success. The judges of Connecticut have been chosen

by the people every six months, for nearly two centuries, and I believe

there has hardly ever been an instance of change; so powerful is the

curb of incessant responsibility. If prejudice, however, derived from a

monarchical institution, is still to prevail against the vital elective

principle of our own, and if the existing example among ourselves of

periodical election of judges by the people be still mistrusted, let us at

least not adopt the evil, and reject the good, of the English precedent;

let us retain amovability on the concurrence of the executive and

legislative branches, and nomination by the executive alone. Nomination

to office is an executive function. To give it to the legislature, as

we do, is a violation of the principle of the separation of powers.

It swerves the members from correctness, by temptations to intrigue

for office themselves, and to a corrupt barter of votes; and destroys

responsibility by dividing it among a multitude. By leaving nomination

in its proper place, among executive functions, the principle of the

distribution of power is preserved, and responsibility weighs with its

heaviest force on a single head.

The organization of our county administrations may be thought more

difficult. But follow principle, and the knot unties itself. Divide the

counties into wards of such size as that every citizen can attend, when

called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them the government of their

wards in all things relating to themselves exclusively. A justice, chosen

by themselves, in each, a constable, a military company, a patrol, a

school, the care of their own poor, their own portion of the public

roads, the choice of one or more jurors to serve in some court, and the

delivery, within their own wards, of their own votes for all elective

officers of higher sphere, will relieve the county administration of

nearly all its business, will have it better done, and by making every

citizen an acting member of the government, and in the offices nearest

and most interesting to him, will attach him by his strongest feelings

to the independence of his country, and its republican constitution. The

justices thus chosen by every ward, would constitute the county court,

would do its judiciary business, direct roads and bridges, levy county

and poor rates, and administer all the matters of common interest to

the whole country. These wards, called townships in New England, are

the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves

the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect

exercise of self-government, and for its preservation. We should thus

marshal our government into, 1, the general federal republic, for all

concerns foreign and federal; 2, that of the State, for what relates to

our own citizens exclusively; 3, the county republics, for the duties

and concerns of the county; and 4, the ward republics, for the small,

and yet numerous and interesting concerns of the neighborhood; and in

government, as well as in every other business of life, it is by division

and subdivision of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can

be managed to perfection. And the whole is cemented by giving to every

citizen, personally, a part in the administration of the public affairs.

The sum of these amendments is, 1. General suffrage. 2. Equal

representation in the legislature. 3. An executive chosen by the people.

4. Judges elective or amovable. 5. Justices, jurors, and sheriffs

elective. 6. Ward divisions. And 7. Periodical amendments of the

constitution.

I have thrown out these as loose heads of amendment, for consideration

and correction; and their object is to secure self-government by the

republicanism of our constitution, as well as by the spirit of the

people; and to nourish and perpetuate that spirit. I am not among those

who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for

continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let

our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between

_economy and liberty_, or _profusion and servitude_. If we run into

such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in

our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for

our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people,

like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give

the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and

daily expenses: and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread,

we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to

think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to

obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks

of our fellow-sufferers. Our land-holders, too, like theirs, retaining

indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held

really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in foreign

countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory

of the nation. This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private

fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.

And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from

principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second

for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be

mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning

and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the _bellum omnium in omnia_, which

some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken

it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore

horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and

in its train wretchedness and oppression.

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem

them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe

to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose

what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged

to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very

like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty

years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and

this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am

certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and

constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with;

because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find

practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that

laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human

mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries

are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the

change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace

with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat

which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the

regimen of their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which

has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely

yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring progressive

accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses,

entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged their subjects to

seek through blood and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had

they been referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of

the nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms. Let

us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is

not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its

own affairs. Let us, as our sister States have done, avail ourselves of

our reason and experience, to correct the crude essays of our first and

unexperienced, although wise, virtuous, and well-meaning councils. And

lastly, let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated

periods. What these periods should be, nature herself indicates. By the

European tables of mortality, of the adults living at any one moment of

time, a majority will be dead in about nineteen years. At the end of that

period then, a new majority is come into place; or, in other words, a new

generation. Each generation is as independent of the one preceding, as

that was of all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right

to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive

of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances

in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and

it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of

doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the

constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from

generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can so

long endure. It is now forty years since the constitution of Virginia was

formed. The same tables inform us, that, within that period, two-thirds

of the adults then living are now dead. Have then the remaining third,

even if they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their

will, and to laws heretofore made by them, the other two-thirds, who,

with themselves, compose the present mass of adults? If they have not,

who has? The dead? But the dead have no rights. They are nothing; and

nothing cannot own something. Where there is no substance, there can

be no accident. This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong

to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They

alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone,

and to declare the law of that direction; and this declaration can only

be made by their majority. That majority, then, has a right to depute

representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution what they

think will be the best for themselves. But how collect their voice? This

is the real difficulty. If invited by private authority, or county or

district meetings, these divisions are so large that few will attend;

and their voice will be imperfectly, or falsely pronounced. Here, then,

would be one of the advantages of the ward divisions I have proposed.

The mayor of every ward, on a question like the present, would call his

ward together, take the simple yea or nay of its members, convey these

to the county court, who would hand on those of all its wards to the

proper general authority; and the voice of the whole people would be

thus fairly, fully, and peaceably expressed, discussed, and decided by

the common reason of the society. If this avenue be shut to the call of

sufferance, it will make itself heard through that of force, and we shall

go on, as other nations are doing, in the endless circle of oppression,

rebellion, reformation; and oppression, rebellion, reformation, again;

and so on forever.

These, Sir, are my opinions of the governments we see among men, and of

the principles by which alone we may prevent our own from falling into

the same dreadful track. I have given them at greater length than your

letter called for. But I cannot say things by halves; and I confide them

to your honor, so to use them as to preserve me from the gridiron of the

public papers. If you shall approve and enforce them, as you have done

that of equal representation, they may do some good. If not, keep them

to yourself as the effusions of withered age and useless time. I shall,

with not the less truth, assure you of my great respect and consideration.

TO JOHN TAYLOR.

MONTICELLO, July 16, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Yours of the 10th is received, and I have to acknowledge a

copious supply of the turnip seed requested. Besides taking care myself, I

shall endeavor again to commit it to the depository of the neighborhood,

generally found to be the best precaution against losing a good thing. I

will add a word on the political part of our letters. I believe we do not

differ on either of the points you suppose. On education certainly not;

of which the proofs are my bill for the diffusion of knowledge, proposed

near forty years ago, and my uniform endeavors, to this day, to get our

counties divided into wards, one of the principal objects of which is,

the establishment of a primary school in each. But education not being a

branch of municipal government, but, like the other arts and sciences,

an accident only, I did not place it, with election, as a fundamental

member in the structure of government. Nor, I believe, do we differ as

to the county courts. I acknowledge the value of this institution; that

it is in truth our principal executive and judiciary, and that it does

much for little _pecuniary_ reward. It is their self-appointment I wish

to correct; to find some means of breaking up a cabal, when such a one

gets possession of the bench. When this takes place, it becomes the most

afflicting of tyrannies, because its powers are so various, and exercised

on everything most immediately around us. And how many instances have

you and I known of these monopolies of county administration? I knew a

county in which a particular family (a numerous one) got possession of the

bench, and for a whole generation never admitted a man on it who was not

of its clan or connexion. I know a county now of one thousand and five

hundred militia, of which sixty are federalists. Its court is of thirty

members, of whom twenty are federalists, (every third man of the sect.)

There are large and populous districts in it without a justice, because

without a federalist for appointment; the militia are as disproportionably

under federal officers. And there is no authority on earth which can

break up this junto, short of a general convention. The remaining one

thousand four hundred and forty, free, fighting, and paying citizens,

are governed by men neither of their choice or confidence, and without

a hope of relief. They are certainly excluded from the blessings of a

free government for life, and indefinitely, for aught the constitution

has provided. This solecism may be called anything but republican, and

ought undoubtedly to be corrected. I salute you with constant friendship

and respect.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR PLUMER.

MONTICELLO, July 21, 1816.

I thank you, Sir, for the copy you have been so good as to send me, of

your late speech to the Legislature of your State, which I have read

a second time with great pleasure, as I had before done in the public

papers. It is replete with sound principles, and truly republican. Some

articles, too, are worthy of peculiar notice. The idea that institutions

established for the use of the nation cannot be touched nor modified,

even to make them answer their end, because of rights gratuitously

supposed in those employed to manage them in trust for the public, may

perhaps be a salutary provision against the abuses of a monarch, but

is most absurd against the nation itself. Yet our lawyers and priests

generally inculcate this doctrine, and suppose that preceding generations

held the earth more freely than we do; had a right to impose laws on

us, unalterable by ourselves, and that we, in like manner, can make

laws and impose burthens on future generations, which they will have no

right to alter; in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead and not the

living. I remark also the phenomenon of a chief magistrate recommending

the reduction of his own compensation. This is a solecism of which the

wisdom of our late Congress cannot be accused. I, however, place economy

among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public

debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. We see in England

the consequences of the want of it, their laborers reduced to live on a

penny in the shilling of their earnings, to give up bread, and resort to

oatmeal and potatoes for food; and their landholders exiling themselves

to live in penury and obscurity abroad, because at home the government

must have all the clear profits of their land. In fact, they see the

fee simple of the island transferred to the public creditors, all its

profits going to them for the interest of their debts. Our laborers and

landholders must come to this also, unless they severely adhere to the

economy you recommend. I salute you with entire esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR LOGAN.

MONTICELLO, July 23, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I have received and read with great pleasure the account you

have been so kind as to send me of the interview between the Emperor

Alexander and Mr. Clarkson, which I now return, as it is in manuscript.

It shows great condescension of character on the part of the Emperor,

and power of mind also, to be able to abdicate the artificial distance

between himself and other good, able men, and to converse as on equal

ground. This conversation too, taken with his late Christian league,

seems to bespeak in him something like a sectarian piety; his character

is undoubtedly good, and the world, I think, may expect good effects

from it. I have no doubt that his firmness in favor of France, after the

deposition of Bonaparte, has saved that country from evils still more

severe than she is suffering, and perhaps even from partition. I sincerely

wish that the history of the secret proceedings at Vienna may become

known, and may reconcile to our good opinion of him his participation

in the demolition of ancient and independent States, transferring them

and their inhabitants as farms and stocks of cattle at a market to other

owners, and even taking a part of the spoil to himself. It is possible

to suppose a case excusing this, and my partiality for his character

encourages me to expect it, and to impute to others, known to have no

moral scruples, the crimes of that conclave, who, under pretence of

punishing the atrocities of Bonaparte, reached them themselves, and

proved that with equal power they were equally flagitious. But let us

turn with abhorrence from these sceptered Scelerats, and disregarding our

own petty differences of opinion about men and measures, let us cling

in mass to our country and to one another, and bid defiance, as we can

if united, to the plundering combinations of the old world. Present me

affectionately and respectfully to Mrs. Logan, and accept the assurance

of my friendship and best wishes.

TO MR. DELAPLAINE.

MONTICELLO, July 26, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--In compliance with the request of your letter of the 6th inst.,

with respect to Peyton Randolph, I have to observe that the difference

of age between him and myself admitted my knowing little of his early

life, except what I accidentally caught from occasional conversations.

I was a student at college when he was already Attorney General at the

bar, and a man of established years; and I had no intimacy with him until

I went to the bar myself, when, I suppose, he must have been upwards

of forty; from that time, and especially after I became a member of the

legislature, until his death, our intimacy was cordial, and I was with him

when he died. Under these circumstances, I have committed to writing as

many incidents of his life as memory enabled me to do, and to give faith

to the many and excellent qualities he possessed, I have mentioned those

minor ones which he did not possess; considering true history, in which

all will be believed, as preferable to unqualified panegyric, in which

nothing is believed. I avoided, too, the mention of trivial incidents,

which, by not distinguishing, disparage a character; but I have not been

able to state early dates. Before forwarding this paper to you, I received

a letter from Peyton Randolph, his great nephew, repeating the request

you had made. I therefore put the paper under a blank cover, addressed

to you, unsealed, and sent it to Peyton Randolph, that he might see

what dates as well as what incidents might be collected, supplementary

to mine, and correct any which I had inexactly stated; circumstances

may have been misremembered, but nothing, I think, of substance. This

account of Peyton Randolph, therefore, you may expect to be forwarded

by his nephew.

You requested me when here, to communicate to you the particulars of

two transactions in which I was myself an agent, to wit: the _coup de

main_ of Arnold on Richmond, and Tarleton's on Charlottesville. I now

enclose them, detailed with an exactness on which you may rely with an

entire confidence. But, having an insuperable aversion to be drawn into

controversy in the public papers, I must request not to be quoted either

as to these or the account of Peyton Randolph. Accept the assurances of

my esteem and respect.

TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.

MONTICELLO, July 31, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of November 1st came but lately to my hand. It

covered a prospectus of your code of health and longevity, a great and

useful work, which I shall be happy to see brought to a conclusion. Like

our good old Franklin, your labors and science go all to the utilities

of human life.

I reciprocate congratulations with you sincerely on the restoration

of peace between our two nations. And why should there have been war?

for the party to which the blame is to be imputed, we appeal to the

"Exposition of the causes and character of the war," a pamphlet which,

we are told, has gone through some editions with you. If that does not

justify us, then the blame is ours. But let all this be forgotten; and

let both parties now count soberly the value of mutual friendship. I am

satisfied both will find that no advantage either can derive from any

act of injustice whatever, will be of equal value with those flowing

from friendly intercourse. Both ought to wish for peace and cordial

friendship; we, because you can do us more harm than any other nation;

and you, because we can do you more good than any other. Our growth is

now so well established by regular enumerations through a course of forty

years, and the same grounds of continuance so likely to endure for a

much longer period, that, speaking in round numbers, we may safely call

ourselves twenty millions in twenty years, and forty millions in forty

years. Many of the statesmen now living saw the commencement of the first

term, and many now living will see the end of the second. It is not then

a mere concern of posterity; a third of those now in life will see that

day. Of what importance then to you must such a nation be, whether as

friends or foes. But is their friendship, dear Sir, to be obtained by

the irritating policy of fomenting among us party discord, and a teasing

opposition; by bribing traitors, whose sale of themselves proves they

would sell their purchasers also, if their treacheries were worth a

price? How much cheaper would it be, how much easier, more honorable,

more magnanimous and secure, to gain the government itself, by a moral,

a friendly, and respectful course of conduct, which is all they would

ask for a cordial and faithful return. I know the difficulties arising

from the irritation, the exasperation produced on both sides by the late

war. It is great with you, as I judge from your newspapers; and greater

with us, as I see myself. The reason lies in the different degrees in

which the war has acted on us. To your people it has been a matter of

distant history only, a mere war in the carnatic; with us it has reached

the bosom of every man, woman and child. The maritime parts have felt it

in the conflagration of their houses, and towns, and desolation of their

farms; the borderers in the massacres and scalpings of their husbands,

wives and children; and the middle parts in their personal labors and

losses in defence of both frontiers, and the revolting scenes they have

there witnessed. It is not wonderful then, if their irritations are

extreme. Yet time and prudence on the part of the two governments may

get over these. Manifestations of cordiality between them, friendly

and kind offices made visible to the people on both sides, will mollify

their feelings, and second the wishes of their functionaries to cultivate

peace, and promote mutual interest. That these dispositions have been

strong on our part, in every administration from the first to the present

one, that we would at any time have gone our full half-way to meet them,

if a single step in advance had been taken by the other party, I can

affirm of my own intimate knowledge of the fact. During the first year

of my own administration, I thought I discovered in the conduct of Mr.

Addington some marks of comity towards us, and a willingness to extend

to us the decencies and duties observed towards other nations. My desire

to catch at this, and to improve it for the benefit of my own country,

induced me, in addition to the official declarations from the Secretary

of State, to write with my own hand to Mr. King, then our Minister

Plenipotentiary at London, in the following words: "I avail myself of

this occasion to assure you of my perfect satisfaction with the manner

in which you have conducted the several matters committed to you by us;

and to express my hope that through your agency, we may be able to remove

everything inauspicious to a cordial friendship between this country,

and the one in which you are stationed; a friendship dictated by too

many considerations not to be felt by the wise and the dispassionate

of both nations. It is, therefore, with the sincerest pleasure I have

observed on the part of the British government various manifestations of

a just and friendly disposition towards us; we wish to cultivate peace

and friendship with all nations, believing that course most conducive to

the welfare of our own; it is natural that these friendships should bear

some proportion to the common interests of the parties. The interesting

relations between Great Britain and the United States are certainly

of the first order, and as such are estimated, and will be faithfully

cultivated by us. These sentiments have been communicated to you from

time to time, in the official correspondence of the Secretary of State;

but I have thought it might not be unacceptable to be assured that they

perfectly concur with my own personal convictions, both in relation to

yourself, and the country in which you are."

My expectation was that Mr. King would show this letter to Mr. Addington,

and that it would be received by him as an overture towards a cordial

understanding between the two countries. He left the ministry, however,

and I never heard more of it, and certainly never perceived any good

effect from it. I know that in the present temper, the boastful, the

insolent, and the mendacious newspapers on both sides, will present

serious impediments. Ours will be insulting your public authorities,

and boasting of victories; and yours will not be sparing of provocations

and abuses of us. But if those at our helms could not place themselves

above these pitiful notices, and throwing aside all personal feelings,

look only to the interests of their nations, they would be unequal

to the trusts confided to them. I am equally confident, on our part,

in the administration now in place, as in that which will succeed it;

and that if friendship is not hereafter sincerely cultivated, it will

not be their fault. I will not, however, disguise that the settlement

of the practice of impressing _our citizens_ is a _sine quâ non_, a

preliminary, without which treaties of peace are but truces. But it is

impossible that reasonable dispositions on both parts should not remove

this stumbling block, which unremoved, will be an eternal obstacle to

peace, and lead finally to the deletion of the one or the other nation.

The regulations necessary to keep your own seamen to yourselves are those

which our interests would lead us to adopt, and that interest would be a

guarantee of their observance; and the transfer of these questions from

the cognizance of their naval commanders to the governments themselves,

would be but an act of mutual as well as of self-respect.

I did not mean, when I began my letter, to have indulged my pen so far on

subjects with which I have long ceased to have connection; but it may do

good, and I will let it go, for although what I write is from no personal

privity with the views or wishes of our government, yet believing them to

be what they ought to be, and confident in their wisdom and integrity, I

am sure I hazard no deception in what I have said of them, and I shall

be happy indeed if some good shall result to both our countries, from

this renewal of our correspondence and ancient friendship. I recall

with great pleasure the days of our former intercourse, personal and

epistolary, and can assure you with truth that in no instant of time

has there been any abatement of my great esteem and respect for you.

TO MR. ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, August 1, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your two philosophical letters of May 4th and 6th have been

too long in my carton of "letters to be answered." To the question,

indeed, on the utility of grief, no answer remains to be given. You have

exhausted the subject. I see that, with the other evils of life, it is

destined to temper the cup we are to drink.

Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood,

The source of evil one, and one of good;

From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,

Blessings to these, to those distributes ills;

To most he mingles both.

Putting to myself your question, would I agree to live my seventy-three

years over again forever? I hesitate to say. With Chew's limitations

from twenty-five to sixty, I would say yes; and I might go further back,

but not come lower down. For, at the latter period, with most of us, the

powers of life are sensibly on the wane, sight becomes dim, hearing dull,

memory constantly enlarging its frightful blank and parting with all we

have ever seen or known, spirits evaporate, bodily debility creeps on

palsying every limb, and so faculty after faculty quits us, and where

then is life? If, in its full rigor, of good as well as evil, your friend

Vassall could doubt its value, it must be purely a negative quantity

when its evils alone remain. Yet I do not go into his opinion entirely.

I do not agree that an age of pleasure is no compensation for a moment

of pain. I think, with you, that life is a fair matter of account, and

the balance often, nay generally, in its favor. It is not indeed easy,

by calculation of intensity and time, to apply a common measure, or to

fix the par between pleasure and pain; yet it exists, and is measurable.

On the question, for example, whether to be cut for the stone? The

young, with a longer prospect of years, think these overbalance the

pain of the operation. Dr. Franklin, at the age of eighty, thought his

residuum of life not worth that price. I should have thought with him,

even taking the stone out of the scale. There is a ripeness of time for

death, regarding others as well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we

should drop off, and make room for another growth. When we have lived

our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another. I enjoy

good health; I am happy in what is around me, yet I assure you I am ripe

for leaving all, this year, this day, this hour. If it could be doubted

whether we would go back to twenty-five, how can it be whether we would

go forward from seventy-three? Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but

of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

Perhaps, however, I might accept of time to read Grimm before I go.

Fifteen volumes of anecdotes and incidents, within the compass of my own

time and cognizance, written by a man of genius, of taste, of point, an

acquaintance, the measure and traverses of whose mind I know, could not

fail to turn the scale in favor of life during their perusal. I must

write to Ticknor to add it to my catalogue, and hold on till it comes.

There is a Mr. Vanderkemp of New York, a correspondent, I believe, of

yours, with whom I have exchanged some letters without knowing who he

is. Will you tell me? I know nothing of the history of the Jesuits you

mention in four volumes. Is it a good one? I dislike, with you, their

restoration, because it marks a retrograde step from light towards

darkness. We shall have our follies without doubt. Some one or more of

them will always be afloat. But ours will be the follies of enthusiasm,

not of bigotry, not of Jesuitism. Bigotry is the disease of ignorance,

of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free

discussion are the antidotes of both. We are destined to be a barrier

against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to

lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish

trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a colossus shall we be

when the southern continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it

secure as a ralliance for the reason and freedom of the globe! I like

the dreams of the future better than the history of the past,--so good

night! I will dream on, always fancying that Mrs. Adams and yourself are

by my side marking the progress and the obliquities of ages and countries.

TO MRS. M. HARRISON SMITH.

MONTICELLO, August 6, 1816.

I have received, dear Madam, your very friendly letter of July 21st, and

assure you that I feel with deep sensibility its kind expressions towards

myself, and the more as from a person than whom no others could be more

in sympathy with my own affections. I often call to mind the occasions

of knowing your worth, which the societies of Washington furnished; and

none more than those derived from your much valued visit to Monticello. I

recognize the same motives of goodness in the solicitude you express on

the rumor supposed to proceed from a letter of mine to Charles Thomson,

on the subject of the Christian religion. It is true that, in writing to

the translator of the Bible and Testament, that subject was mentioned;

but equally so that no adherence to any particular mode of Christianity

was there expressed, nor any change of opinions suggested. A change from

what? the priests indeed have heretofore thought proper to ascribe to

me religious, or rather anti-religious sentiments, of their own fabric,

but such as soothed their resentments against the act of Virginia for

establishing religious freedom. They wished him to be thought atheist,

deist, or devil, who could advocate freedom from their religious

dictations. But I have ever thought religion a concern purely between

our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to him, and

not to the priests. I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that

of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change

another's creed. I have ever judged of the religion of others by their

lives, and by this test, my dear Madam, I have been satisfied yours must

be an excellent one, to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue

and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that

our religion must be read. By the same test the world must judge me.

But this does not satisfy the priesthood. They must have a positive,

a declared assent to all their interested absurdities. My opinion is

that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been

a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of

all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power,

revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only

what is really there. These, therefore, they brand with such nick-names

as their enmity choses gratuitously to impute. I have left the world,

in silence, to judge of causes from their effects; and I am consoled

in this course, my dear friend, when I perceive the candor with which

I am judged by your justice and discernment; and that, notwithstanding

the slanders of the saints, my fellow citizens have thought me worthy

of trusts. The imputations of irreligion having spent their force; they

think an imputation of change might now be turned to account as a bolster

for their duperies. I shall leave them, as heretofore, to grope on in

the dark.

Our family at Monticello is all in good health; Ellen speaking of you

with affection, and Mrs. Randolph always regretting the accident which

so far deprived her of the happiness of your former visit. She still

cherishes the hope of some future renewal of that kindness; in which we

all join her, as in the assurances of affectionate attachment and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, August 9, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--The biography of Mr. Vander Kemp would require a volume which

I could not write if a million were offered me as a reward for the work.

After a learned and scientific education he entered the army in Holland,

and served as captain, with reputation; but loving books more than arms

he resigned his commission and became a preacher. My acquaintance with

him commenced at Leyden in 1790. He was then minister of the Menonist

congregation, the richest in Europe; in that city, where he was celebrated

as the most elegant writer in the Dutch language, he was the intimate

friend of Luzac and De Gysecaar. In 1788, when the King of Prussia

threatened Holland with invasion, his party insisted on his taking a

command in the army of defence, and he was appointed to the command of

the most exposed and most important post in the seven provinces. He was

soon surrounded by the Prussian forces; but he defended his fortress with

a prudence, fortitude, patience, and perseverance, which were admired by

all Europe; till, abandoned by his nation, destitute of provisions and

ammunition, still refusing to surrender, he was offered the most honorable

capitulation. He accepted it; was offered very advantageous proposals;

but despairing of the liberties of his country, he retired to Antwerp,

determined to emigrate to New York; wrote to me in London, requesting

letters of introduction. I sent him letters to Governor Clinton, and

several others of our little great men. His history in this country

is equally curious and affecting. He left property in Holland, which

the revolutions there have annihilated; and I fear is now pinched with

poverty. His head is deeply learned and his heart is pure. I scarcely

know a more amiable character.

* * * * *

He has written to me occasionally, and I have answered his letters in

great haste. You may well suppose that such a man has not always been

able to understand our American politics. Nor have I. Had he been as

great a master of our language as he was of his own, he would have been

at this day one of the most conspicuous characters in the United States.

So much for Vander Kemp; now for your letter of August 1st. Your poet, the

Ionian I suppose, ought to have told us whether Jove, in the distribution

of good and evil from his two urns, observes any rule of equity or not;

whether he thunders out flames of eternal fire on the many, and power,

and glory, and felicity on the few, without any consideration of justice?

Let us state a few questions _sub rosâ_.

1. Would you accept a life, if offered you, of equal pleasure and pain?

For example. One million of moments of pleasure, and one million of

moments of pain! (1,000,000 moments of pleasure = 1,000,000 moments of

pain.) Suppose the pleasure as exquisite as any in life, and the pain

as exquisite as any; for example, stone-gravel, gout, headache, earache,

toothache, cholic, &c. I would not. I would rather be blotted out.

2. Would you accept a life of one year of incessant gout, headache,

&c., for seventy-two years of such life as you have enjoyed? I would

not. (One year of cholic = seventy-two of _Boule de Savon_; pretty,

but unsubstantial.) I had rather be extinguished. You may vary these

Algebraical equations at pleasure and without end. All this ratiocination,

calculation, call it what you will, is founded on the supposition of no

future state. Promise me eternal life free from pain, although in all

other respects no better than our present terrestrial existence, I know

not how many thousand years of Smithfield fevers I would not endure to

obtain it. In fine, without the supposition of a future state, mankind

and this globe appear to me the most sublime and beautiful bubble, and

bauble, that imagination can conceive.

Let us then wish for immortality at all hazards, and trust the Ruler

with his skies. I do; and earnestly wish for his commands, which to the

utmost of my power shall be implicitly and piously obeyed.

It is worth while to live to read Grimm, whom I have read; and La Harpe

and Mademoiselle D'Espinasse the fair friend of D'Alembert, both of whom

Grimm characterizes very distinguished, and are, I am told, in print.

I have not seen them, but hope soon to have them.

My history of the Jesuits is not elegantly written, but is supported

by unquestionable authorities, is very particular and very horrible.

Their restoration is indeed a "step towards darkness," cruelty, perfidy,

despotism, death and ----! I wish we were out of "danger of bigotry and

Jesuitism"! May we be "a barrier against the returns of ignorance and

barbarism"! "What a colossus shall we be"! But will it not be of brass,

iron and clay? Your taste is judicious in liking better the dreams of

the future, than the history of the past. Upon this principle I prophecy

that you and I shall soon meet, and be better friends than ever. So

wishes,

J. A.

TO MR. ISAAC H. TIFFANY.

MONTICELLO, August 26, 1816.

SIR,--In answer to your inquiry as to the merits of Gillies' translation

of the Politics of Aristotle, I can only say that it has the reputation

of being preferable to Ellis', the only rival translation into English.

I have never seen it myself, and therefore do not speak of it from my own

knowledge. But so different was the style of society then, and with those

people, from what it is now and with us, that I think little edification

can be obtained from their writings on the subject of government. They

had just ideas of the value of personal liberty, but none at all of the

structure of government best calculated to preserve it. They knew no

medium between a democracy (the only pure republic, but impracticable

beyond the limits of a town) and an abandonment of themselves to an

aristocracy, or a tyranny independent of the people. It seems not to have

occurred that where the citizens cannot meet to transact their business

in person, they alone have the right to choose the agents who shall

transact it; and that in this way a republican, or popular government, of

the second grade of purity, may be exercised over any extent of country.

The full experiment of a government democratical, but representative, was

and is still reserved for us. The idea (taken, indeed, from the little

specimen formerly existing in the English constitution, but now lost) has

been carried by us, more or less, into all our legislative and executive

departments; but it has not yet, by any of us, been pushed into all the

ramifications of the system, so far as to leave no authority existing

not responsible to the people; whose rights, however, to the exercise

and fruits of their own industry, can never be protected against the

selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods.

The introduction of this new principle of representative democracy has

rendered useless almost everything written before on the structure of

government; and, in a great measure, relieves our regret, if the political

writings of Aristotle, or of any other ancient, have been lost, or are

unfaithfully rendered or explained to us. My most earnest wish is to

see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of

its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may

be pure and perpetual. Accept my respectful salutations.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, September 3, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Dr. James Freeman is a learned, ingenious, honest and

benevolent man, who wishes to see President Jefferson, and requests me

to introduce him. If you would introduce some of your friends to me, I

could, with more confidence, introduce mine to you. He is a Christian,

but not a Pythagorian, a Platonic, or a Philonic Christian. You will

ken him, and he will ken you; but you may depend he will never betray,

deceive, or injure you.

Without hinting to him anything which had passed between you and me,

I asked him your question, "_What are the uses of grief?_" He stared,

and said "The question was new to him." All he could say at present

was, that he had known, in his own parish, more than one instance of

ladies who had been thoughtless, modish, extravagant in a high degree,

who, upon the death of a child, had become thoughtful, modest, humble;

as prudent, amiable women as any he had known. Upon this I read to him

your letters and mine upon this subject of grief, with which he seemed

to be pleased. You see I was not afraid to trust him, and you need not

be.

Since I am, accidentally, invited to write to you, I may add a few words

upon pleasures and pains of life. Vassall thought, an hundred years, nay,

an eternity of pleasure, was no compensation for one hour of bilious

cholic. Read again Molliores Spsyke, act 2d, scene 1st, on the subject

of grief. And read in another place, "_on est payè de mille maux, par un

heureux moment_." Thus differently do men speak of pleasures and pains.

Now, Sir, I will tease you with another question. What have been the

_abuses_ of grief?

In answer to this question, I doubt not you might write an hundred

volumes. A few hints may convince you that the subject is ample.

1st. The death of Socrates excited a general sensibility of grief at

Athens, in Attica, and in all Greece. Plato and Xenophon, two of his

disciples, took advantage of that sentiment, by employing their enchanting

style to represent their master to be greater and better than he probably

was; and what have been the effects of Socratic, Platonic, which were

Pythagorian, which was Indian philosophy, in the world?

2d. The death of Cæsar, tyrant as he was, spread a general compassion,

which always includes grief, among the Romans. The scoundrel Mark Antony

availed himself of this momentary grief to destroy the republic, to

establish the empire, and to proscribe Cicero.

3d. But to skip over all ages and nations for the present, and descend

to our own times. The death of Washington diffused a general grief.

The old tories, the hyperfederalists, the speculators, set up a general

howl. Orations, prayers, sermons, mock funerals, were all employed, not

that they loved Washington, but to keep in countenance the funding and

banking system; and to cast into the background and the shade, all others

who had been concerned in the service of their country in the Revolution.

4th. The death of Hamilton, under all its circumstances, produced a

general grief. His most determined enemies did not like to get rid of him

in that way. They pitied, too, his widow and children. His party seized

the moment of public feeling to come forward with funeral orations, and

printed panegyrics, reinforced with mock funerals and solemn grimaces,

and all this by people who have buried Otis, Sam Adams, Hancock, and

Gerry, in comparative obscurity. And why? Merely to disgrace the old

Whigs, and keep the funds and banks in countenance.

5th. The death of Mr. Ames excited a general regret. His long consumption,

his amiable character, and reputable talents, had attracted a general

interest, and his death a general mourning. His party made the most of

it, by processions, orations, and a mock funeral. And why? To glorify the

Tories, to abash the Whigs, and maintain the reputation of funds, banks,

and speculation. And all this was done in honor of that insignificant

boy, by people who have let a Dance, a Gerry, and a Dexter, go to their

graves without notice.

6th. I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example

of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--The

Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With

the rational respect which is due to it, knavish priests have added

prostitutions of it, that fill, or might fill, the blackest and bloodiest

pages of human history.

I am with ancient friendly sentiments,

TO SAMUEL KERCHIVAL.

MONTICELLO, September 5, 1816.

SIR,--Your letter of August the 16th is just received. That which I wrote

to you under the address of H. Tompkinson, was intended for the author

of the pamphlet you were so kind as to send me, and therefore, in your

hands, found its true destination. But I must beseech you, Sir, not to

admit a possibility of its being published. Many good people will revolt

from its doctrines, and my wish is to offend nobody; to leave to those

who are to live under it, the settlement of their own constitution,

and to pass in peace the remainder of my time. If those opinions are

sound, they will occur to others, and will prevail by their own weight,

without the aid of names, I am glad to see that the Staunton meeting has

rejected the idea of a limited convention. The article, however, nearest

my heart, is the division of counties into wards. These will be pure and

elementary republics, the sum of all which, taken together, composes the

State, and will make of the whole a true democracy as to the business

of the wards, which is that of nearest and daily concern. The affairs

of the larger sections, of counties, of States, and of the Union, not

admitting personal transaction by the people, will be delegated to agents

elected by themselves; and representation will thus be substituted, where

personal action becomes impracticable. Yet, even over these representative

organs, should they become corrupt and perverted, the division into wards

constituting the people, in their wards, a regularly organized power,

enables them by that organization to crush, regularly and peaceably,

the usurpations of their unfaithful agents, and rescues them from the

dreadful necessity of doing it insurrectionally. In this way we shall

be as republican as a large society can be; and secure the continuance

of purity in our government, by the salutary, peaceable, and regular

control of the people. No other depositories of power have ever yet been

found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings

of those committed to their charge. George the III. in execution of the

trust confided to him, has, within his own day, loaded the inhabitants

of Great Britain with debts equal to the whole fee-simple value of their

island, and under pretext of governing it, has alienated its whole soil

to creditors who could lend money to be lavished on priests, pensions,

plunder and perpetual war. This would not have been so, had the people

retained organized means of acting on their agents. In this example

then, let us read a lesson for ourselves, and not "go and do likewise."

Since writing my letter of July the 12th, I have been told, that on the

question of equal representation, our fellow citizens in some sections

of the State claim peremptorily a right of representation for their

slaves. Principle will, in this, as in most other cases, open the way

for us to correct conclusion. Were our State a pure democracy, in which

all its inhabitants should meet together to transact all their business,

there would yet be excluded from their deliberations, 1, infants, until

arrived at years of discretion. 2. Women, who, to prevent depravation of

morals and ambiguity of issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public

meetings of men. 3. Slaves, from whom the unfortunate state of things

with us takes away the rights of will and of property. Those then who

have no will could be permitted to exercise none in the popular assembly;

and of course, could delegate none to an agent in a representative

assembly. The business, in the first case, would be done by qualified

citizens only. It is true, that in the general constitution, our State is

allowed a larger representation on account of its slaves. But every one

knows, that that constitution was a matter of compromise; a capitulation

between conflicting interests and opinions. In truth, the condition

of different descriptions of inhabitants in any country is a matter

of municipal arrangement, of which no foreign country has a right to

take notice. All its inhabitants are men as to them. Thus, in the New

England States, none have the powers of citizens but those whom they

call _freemen_; and none are _freemen_ until admitted by a vote of the

freemen of the town. Yet, in the General Government, these non-freemen

are counted in their quantum of representation and of taxation. So,

slaves with us have no powers as citizens; yet, in representation in the

General Government, they count in the proportion of three to five; and

so also in taxation. Whether this is equal, is not here the question.

It is a capitulation of discordant sentiments and circumstances, and is

obligatory on that ground. But this view shows there is no inconsistency

in claiming representation for them for the other States, and refusing

it within our own. Accept the renewal of assurances of my respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, October 14, 1816.

Your letter, dear Sir, of May the 6th, had already well explained the

uses of grief. That of September the 3d, with equal truth, adduces

instances of its abuse; and when we put into the same scale these abuses,

with the afflictions of soul which even the uses of grief cost us, we

may consider its value in the economy of the human being, as equivocal

at least. Those afflictions cloud too great a portion of life to find

a counterpoise in any benefits derived from its uses. For setting aside

its paroxysms on the occasions of special bereavements, all the latter

years of aged men are overshadowed with its gloom. Whither, for instance,

can you and I look without seeing the graves of those we have known?

And whom can we call up, of our early companions, who has not left us

to regret his loss? This, indeed, may be one of the salutary effects

of grief; inasmuch as it prepares us to loose ourselves also without

repugnance. Doctor Freeman's instances of female levity cured by grief,

are certainly to the point, and constitute an item of credit in the

account we examine. I was much mortified by the loss of the Doctor's

visit, by my absence from home. To have shown how much I feel indebted

to you for making good people known to me, would have been one pleasure;

and to have enjoyed that of his conversation, and the benefits of his

information, so favorably reported by my family, would have been another.

I returned home on the third day after his departure. The loss of such

visits is among the sacrifices which my divided residence costs me.

Your undertaking the twelve volumes of Dupuis, is a degree of heroism

to which I could not have aspired even in my younger days. I have been

contented with the humble achievement of reading the analysis of his work

by Destutt Tracy, in two hundred pages octavo. I believe I should have

ventured on his own abridgment of the work, in one octavo volume, had it

ever come to my hands; but the marrow of it in Tracy has satisfied my

appetite; and even in that, the preliminary discourse of the analyzer

himself, and his conclusion, are worth more in my eye than the body of

the work. For the object of that seems to be to smother all history under

the mantle of allegory. If histories so unlike as those of Hercules and

Jesus, can, by a fertile imagination and allegorical interpretations,

be brought to the same tally, no line of distinction remains between

fact and fancy. As this pithy morsel will not overburthen the mail in

passing and repassing between Quincy and Monticello, I send it for your

perusal. Perhaps it will satisfy you, as it has me; and may save you

the labor of reading twenty-four times its volume. I have said to you

that it was written by Tracy; and I had so entered it on the title page,

as I usually do on anonymous works whose authors are known to me. But

Tracy requested me not to betray his anonyme, for reasons which may not

yet, perhaps, have ceased to weigh. I am bound, then, to make the same

reserve with you. Destutt Tracy is, in my judgment, the ablest writer

living on intellectual subjects, or the operations of the understanding.

His three octavo volumes on Ideology, which constitute the foundation

of what he has since written, I have not entirely read; because I am

not fond of reading what is merely abstract, and unapplied immediately

to some useful science. Bonaparte, with his repeated derisions of

Ideologists (squinting at this author), has by this time felt that true

wisdom does not lie in mere practice without principle. The next work

Tracy wrote was the Commentary on Montesquieu, never published in the

original, because not safe; but translated and published in Philadelphia,

yet without the author's name. He has since permitted his name to be

mentioned. Although called a Commentary, it is, in truth, an elementary

work on the principles of government, comprised in about three hundred

pages octavo. He has lately published a third work, on Political Economy,

comprising the whole subject within about the same compass; in which all

its principles are demonstrated with the severity of Euclid, and, like

him, without ever using a superfluous word. I have procured this to be

translated, and have been four years endeavoring to get it printed; but

as yet, without success. In the meantime, the author has published the

original in France, which he thought unsafe while Bonaparte was in power.

No printed copy, I believe, has yet reached this country. He has his

fourth and last work now in the press at Paris, closing, as he conceives,

the circle of metaphysical sciences. This work, which is on Ethics, I

have not seen, but suspect I shall differ from it in its foundation,

although not in its deductions. I gather from his other works that he

adopts the principle of Hobbes, that justice is founded in contract

solely, and does not result from the construction of man. I believe, on

the contrary, that it is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as

much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing;

as a wise creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined

to live in society; that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good

to another; that the non-existence of justice is not to be inferred from

the fact that the same act is deemed virtuous and right in one society

which is held vicious and wrong in another; because, as the circumstances

and opinions of different societies vary, so the acts which may do them

right or wrong must vary also; for virtue does not consist in the act

we do, but in the end it is to effect. If it is to effect the happiness

of him to whom it is directed, it is virtuous, while in a society under

different circumstances and opinions, the same act might produce pain,

and would be vicious. The essence of virtue is in doing good to others,

while what is good may be one thing in one society, and its contrary

in another. Yet, however we may differ as to the foundation of morals,

(and as many foundations have been assumed as there are writers on the

subject nearly,) so correct a thinker as Tracy will give us a sound

system of morals. And, indeed, it is remarkable, that so many writers,

setting out from so many different premises, yet meet all in the same

conclusions. This looks as if they were guided, unconsciously, by the

unerring hand of instinct.

Your history of the Jesuits, by what name of the author or other

description is it to be inquired for?

What do you think of the present situation of England? Is not this the

great and fatal crush of their funding system, which, like death, has

been foreseen by all, but its hour, like that of death, hidden from

mortal prescience? It appears to me that all the circumstances now

exist which render recovery desperate. The interest of the national debt

is now equal to such a portion of the profits of all the land and the

labor of the island, as not to leave enough for the subsistence of those

who labor. Hence the owners of the land abandon it and retire to other

countries, and the laborer has not enough of his earnings left to him

to cover his back and to fill his belly. The local insurrections, now

almost general, are of the hungry and the naked, who cannot be quieted

but by food and raiment. But where are the means of feeding and clothing

them? The landholder has nothing of his own to give; he is but the

fiduciary of those who have lent him money; the lender is so taxed in

his meat, drink and clothing, that he has but a bare subsistence left.

The landholder, then, must give up his land, or the lender his debt,

or they must compromise by giving up each one-half. But will either

consent, _peaceably_, to such an abandonment of property? Or must it not

be settled by civil conflict? If peaceably compromised, will they agree

to risk another ruin under the same government unreformed? I think not;

but I would rather know what you think; because you have lived with John

Bull, and know better than I do the character of his herd. I salute Mrs.

Adams and yourself with every sentiment of affectionate cordiality and

respect.

TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

MONTICELLO, October 16, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--If it be proposed to place an inscription on the capitol, the

lapidary style requires that essential facts only should be stated, and

these with a brevity admitting no superfluous word. The essential facts

in the two inscriptions proposed are these:

FOUNDED 1791.--BURNT BY A BRITISH ARMY 1814.--RESTORED BY

CONGRESS 1817.

The reasons for this brevity are that the letters must be of extraordinary

magnitude to be read from below; that little space is allowed them, being

usually put into a pediment or in a frieze, or on a small tablet on the

wall; and in our case, a third reason may be added, that no passion can

be imputed to this inscription, every word being justifiable from the

most classical examples.

But a question of more importance is whether there should be one at all?

The barbarism of the conflagration will immortalize that of the nation.

It will place them forever in degraded comparison with the execrated

Bonaparte, who, in possession of almost every capitol in Europe, injured

no one. Of this, history will take care, which all will read, while

our inscription will be seen by few. Great Britain, in her pride and

ascendency, has certainly hated and despised us beyond every earthly

object. Her hatred may remain, but the hour of her contempt is passed

and is succeeded by dread; not a present, but a distant and deep one.

It is the greater as she feels herself plunged into an abyss of ruin

from which no human means point out an issue. We also have more reason

to hate her than any nation on earth. But she is not now an object for

hatred. She is falling from her transcendent sphere, which all men ought

to have wished, but not that she should lose all place among nations. It

is for the interest of all that she should be maintained, _nearly_ on a

par with other members of the republic of nations. Her power, absorbed

into that of any other, would be an object of dread to all, and to us

more than all, because we are accessible to her alone and through her

alone. The armies of Bonaparte with the fleets of Britain, would change

the aspect of our destinies. Under these prospects should we perpetuate

hatred against her? Should we not, on the contrary, begin to open

ourselves to other and more rational dispositions? It is not improbable

that the circumstances of the war and her own circumstances may have

brought her wise men to begin to view us with other and even with kindred

eyes. Should not our wise men, then, lifted above the passions of the

ordinary citizen, begin to contemplate what _will be_ the interests of

our country on so important a change among the elements which influence

it? I think it would be better to give her time to show her present

temper, and to prepare the minds of our citizens for a corresponding

change of disposition, by acts of comity towards England rather than by

commemoration of hatred. These views might be greatly extended. Perhaps,

however, they are premature, and that I may see the ruin of England

nearer than it really is. This will be matter of consideration with those

to whose councils we have committed ourselves, and whose wisdom, I am

sure, will conclude on what is best. Perhaps they may let it go off on

the single and short consideration that the thing can do no good, and

may do harm. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

POPLAR FOREST, November 25, 1816.

I receive here, dear Sir, your favor of the 4th, just as I am preparing

my return to Monticello for winter quarters, and I hasten to answer

to some of your inquiries. The Tracy I mentioned to you is the one

connected by marriage with Lafayette's family. The mail which brought

your letter, brought one also from him. He writes me that he is become

blind, and so infirm that he is no longer able to compose anything. So

that we are to consider his works as now closed. They are three volumes

of Ideology, one on Political Economy, one on Ethics, and one containing

his Commentary on Montesquieu, and a little tract on Education. Although

his commentary explains his principles of government, he had intended

to have substituted for it an elementary and regular treatise on the

subject, but he is prevented by his infirmities. His Analyse de Dupuys

he does not avow.

My books are all arrived, some at New York, some at Boston, and I am

glad to hear that those for Harvard are safe also, and the Uranologia you

mention without telling me what it is. It is something good, I am sure,

from the name connected with it; and if you would add to it your fable

of the bees, we should receive valuable instruction as to the Uranologia

both of the father and son, more valuable than the Chinese will from

our bible societies. These incendiaries, finding that the days of fire

and fagot are over in the Atlantic hemisphere, are now preparing to put

the torch to the Asiatic regions. What would they say were the Pope to

send annually to this country, colonies of Jesuit priests with cargoes

of their missal and translations of their Vulgate, to be put gratis into

the hands of every one who would accept them? and to act thus nationally

on us as a nation?

I proceed to the letter you were so good as to enclose me. It is an

able letter, speaks volumes in few words, presents a profound view of

awful truths, and lets us see truths more awful, which are still to

follow. George the Third then, and his minister Pitt, and successors,

have spent the fee simple of the kingdom, under pretence of governing

it; their sinecures, salaries, pensions, priests, prelates, princes

and eternal wars, have mortgaged to its full value the last foot of

their soil. They are reduced to the dilemma of a bankrupt spendthrift,

who, having run through his whole fortune, now asks himself what he is

to do? It is in vain he dismisses his coaches and horses, his grooms,

liveries, cooks and butlers. This done, he still finds he has nothing

to eat. What was his property is now that of his creditors; if still in

his hands, it is only as their trustee. To them it belongs, and to them

every farthing of its profits must go. The reformation of extravagances

comes too late. All is gone. Nothing left for retrenchment or frugality

to go on. The debts of England, however, being due from the whole nation

to one half of it, being as much the debt of the creditor as debtor, if

it could be referred to a court of equity, principles might be devised

to adjust it peaceably. Dismiss their parasites, ship off their paupers

to this country, let the landholders give half their lands to the money

lenders, and these last relinquish one half of their debts. They would

still have a fertile island, a sound and effective population to labor

it, and would hold that station among political powers, to which their

natural resources and faculties entitle them. They would no longer,

indeed, be the lords of the ocean and paymasters of all the princes

of the earth. They would no longer enjoy the luxuries of pirating and

plundering everything by sea, and of bribing and corrupting everything

by land; but they might enjoy the more safe and lasting luxury of living

on terms of equality, justice and good neighborhood with all nations.

As it is, their first efforts will probably be to quiet things awhile

by the palliatives of reformation; to nibble a little at pensions and

sinecures, to bite off a bit here, and a bite there to amuse the people;

and to keep the government a going by encroachments on the interest of

the public debt, one per cent. of which, for instance, withheld, gives

them a spare revenue of ten millions for present subsistence, and spunges,

in fact, two hundred millions of the debt. This remedy they may endeavor

to administer in broken doses of a small pill at a time. The first may

not occasion more than a strong nausea in the money lenders; but the

second will probably produce a revulsion of the stomach, borborisms,

and spasmodic calls for fair settlement and compromise. But it is not

in the character of man to come to any peaceable compromise of such a

state of things. The princes and priests will hold to the flesh-pots,

the empty bellies will seize on them, and these being the multitude,

the issue is obvious, civil war, massacre, exile as in France, until

the stage is cleaned of everything but the multitude, and the lands get

into their hands by such processes as the revolution will engender. They

will then want peace and a government, and what will it be? certainly

not a renewal of that which has already ruined them. Their habits of

law and order, their ideas almost innate of the vital elements of free

government, of trial by jury, _habeas corpus_, freedom of the press,

freedom of opinion, and representative government, make them, I think,

capable of bearing a considerable portion of liberty. They will probably

turn their eyes to us, and be disposed to tread in our footsteps, seeing

how safely these have led us into port. There is no part of our model

to which they seem unequal, unless perhaps the elective presidency; and

even that might possibly be rescued from the tumult of elections, by

subdividing the electoral assemblages into very small parts, such as of

wards or townships, and making them simultaneous. But you know them so

much better than I do, that it is presumption to offer my conjectures

to you.

While it is much our interest to see this power reduced from its towering

and borrowed height, to within the limits of its natural resources, it is

by no means our interest that she should be brought below that, or lose

her competent place among the nations of Europe. The present exhausted

state of the continent will, I hope, permit them to go through their

struggle without foreign interference, and to settle their new government

according to their own will. I think it will be friendly to us, as the

nation itself would be were it not artfully wrought up by the hatred

their government bears us. And were they once under a government which

should treat us with justice and equity I should myself feel with great

strength the ties which bind us together, of origin, language, laws and

manners; and I am persuaded the two people would become in future, as

it was with the ancient Greeks, among whom it was reproachful for Greek

to be found fighting against Greek in a foreign army. The individuals of

the nation I have ever honored and esteemed, the basis of their character

being essentially worthy; but I consider their government as the most

flagitious which has existed since the days of Philip of Macedon, whom

they make their model. It is not only founded in corruption itself,

but insinuates the same poison into the bowels of every other, corrupts

its councils, nourishes factions, stirs up revolutions, and places its

own happiness in fomenting commotions and civil wars among others, thus

rendering itself truly the _hostis humani generis_. The effect is now

coming home to itself. Its first operation will fall on the individuals

who have been the chief instruments in its corruptions, and will eradicate

the families which have from generation to generation been fattening on

the blood of their brethren; and this scoria once thrown off, I am in

hopes a purer nation will result, and a purer government be instituted,

one which, instead of endeavoring to make us their natural enemies,

will see in us, what we really are, their natural friends and brethren,

and more interested in a fraternal connection with them than with any

other nation on earth. I look, therefore, to their revolution with great

interest. I wish it to be as moderate and bloodless as will effect the

desired object of an honest government, one which will permit the world

to live in peace, and under the bonds of friendship and good neighborhood.

In this tremendous tempest, the distinctions of whig and tory will

disappear like chaff on a troubled ocean. Indeed, they have been

disappearing from the day Hume first began to publish his history. This

single book has done more to sap the free principles of the English

constitution than the largest standing army of which their patriots have

been so jealous. It is like the portraits of our countryman Wright, whose

eye was so unhappy as to seize all the ugly features of his subject, and

to present them faithfully, while it was entirely insensible to every

lineament of beauty. So Hume has concentrated, in his fascinating style,

all the arbitrary proceedings of the English kings, as true evidences of

the constitution, and glided over its whig principles as the unfounded

pretensions of factious demagogues. He even boasts, in his life written

by himself, that of the numerous alterations suggested by the readers

of his work, he had never adopted one proposed by a whig.

But what, in this same tempest, will become of their colonies and their

fleets? Will the former assume independence, and the latter resort to

piracy for subsistence, taking possession of some island as a _point

d'appui_? A pursuit of these would add too much to the speculations on

the situation and prospects of England, into which I have been led by the

pithy text of the letter you so kindly sent me, and which I now return.

It is worthy the pen of Tacitus. I add, therefore, only my affectionate

and respectful souvenirs to Mrs. Adams and yourself.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, December 16, 1816.

Your letter, dear Sir, of November 25th, from Poplar Forest, was sent

to me from the post-office the next day after I had sent "The Analysis,"

with my thanks to you.

"Three vols. of Idiology!" Pray explain to me this Neological title!

What does it mean? When Bonaparte used it, I was delighted with it, upon

the common principle of delight in everything we cannot understand. Does

it mean Idiotism? The science of _non compos mentuism_? The science of

Lunacy? The theory of delirium? or does it mean the science of self-love?

Of _amour propre_? or the elements of vanity?

Were I in France at this time, I could profess blindness and infirmity,

and prove it too. I suppose he does not avow the analysis, as Hume did

not avow his essay on human nature. That analysis, however, does not

show a man of excessive mediocrity. Had I known any of these things two

years ago, I would have written him a letter. Of all things, I wish to

see his Idiology upon Montesquieu. If you, with all your influence,

have not been able to get your own translation of it, with your own

notes upon it, published in four years, where and what is the freedom

of the American press? Mr. Taylor of Hazelwood, Port Royal, can have

his voluminous and luminous works published with ease and despatch.

The Uranologia, as I am told, is a collection of plates, stamps, charts

of the Heavens upon a large scale, representing all the constellations.

The work of some Professor in Sweden. It is said to be the most perfect

that ever has appeared. I have not seen it. Why should I ride fifteen

miles to see it, when I can see the original every clear evening; and

especially as Dupuis has almost made me afraid to inquire after anything

more of it than I can see with my naked eye in a star-light night?

That the Pope will send Jesuits to this country, I doubt not; and the

church of England, missionaries too. And the Methodists, and the Quakers,

and the Moravians, and the Swedenburgers, and the Menonists, and the

Scottish Kirkers, and the Jacobites, and the Jacobins, and the Democrats,

and the Aristocrats, and the Monarchists, and the Despotists of all

denominations: and every emissary of every one of these sects will find

a party here already formed, to give him a cordial reception. No power

or intelligence less than Raphael's moderator, can reduce this chaos to

order.

I am charmed with the fluency and rapidity of your reasoning on the state

of Great Britain. I can deny none of your premises; but I doubt your

conclusion. After all the convulsions that you foresee, they will return

to that constitution which you say has ruined them, and I say has been

the source of all their power and importance. They have, as you say, too

much sense and knowledge of liberty, ever to submit to simple monarchy,

or absolute despotism, on the one hand; and too much of the devil in

them ever to be governed by popular elections of Presidents, Senators,

and Representatives in Congress. Instead of "turning their eyes to us,"

their innate feelings will turn them from us. They have been taught from

their cradles to despise, scorn, insult, and abuse us. They hate us more

vigorously than they do the French. They would sooner adopt the simple

monarchy of France, than our republican institutions. You compliment me

with more knowledge of them than I can assume or pretend. If I should

write you a volume of observations I made in England, you would pronounce

it a satire. Suppose the "Refrain," as the French call it, or the Burthen

of the Song, as the English express it, should be, the Religion, the

Government, the Commerce, the Manufactures, the Army and Navy of Great

Britain, are all reduced to the science of pounds, shillings and pence.

Elections appeared to me a mere commercial traffic; mere bargain and

sale. I have been told by sober, steady freeholders, that "they never had

been, and never would go to the poll, without being paid for their time,

travel and expenses." Now, suppose an election for a President of the

British empire. There must be a nomination of candidates by a national

convention, Congress, or caucus--in which would be two parties--Whigs

and Tories. Of course two candidates at least would be nominated. The

empire is instantly divided into two parties at least. Every man must

be paid for his vote by the candidate of his party. The only question

would be, which party has the deepest purse. The same reasoning will

apply to elections of Senators and Representatives too. A revolution

might destroy the Burroughs and the Inequalities of representation, and

might produce more toleration; and these acquisitions might be worth

all they would cost; but I dread the experiment.

Britain will never be our friend till we are her master.

This will happen in less time than you and I have been struggling with

her power; provided we remain united. Aye! there's the rub! I fear there

will be greater difficulties to preserve our Union, than you and I, our

fathers, brothers, friends, disciples and sons have had, to form it.

Towards Great Britain, I would adopt their own maxim. An English jockey

says, "If I have a wild horse to break, I begin by convincing him I am

his master; and then I will convince him that I am his friend." I am

well assured that nothing will restrain Great Britain from injuring us,

but fear.

You think that "in a revolution the distinction of Whig and Tory would

disappear." I cannot believe this. That distinction arises from nature

and society; is now, and ever will be, time without end, among Negroes,

Indians, and Tartars, as well as federalists and republicans. Instead of

"disappearing since Hume published his history," that history has only

increased the Tories and diminished the Whigs. That history has been

the bane of Great Britain. It has destroyed many of the best effects

of the revolution of 1688. Style has governed the empire. Swift, Pope

and Hume, have disgraced all the honest historians. Rapin and Burnet,

Oldmixen and Coke, contain more honest truth than Hume and Clarendon,

and all their disciples and imitators. But who reads any of them at

this day? Every one of the fine arts from the earliest times has been

enlisted in the service of superstition and despotism. The whole world

at this day gazes with astonishment at the grossest fictions, because

they have been immortalized by the most exquisite artists--Homer and

Milton, Phideas and Raphael. The rabble of the classic skies, and the

hosts of Roman Catholic saints and angels, are still adored in paint,

and marble, and verse. Raphael has sketched the actors and scenes in

all Apuleus's Amours of Psyche and Cupid. Nothing is too offensive to

morals, delicacy, or decency, for this painter. Raphael has painted in

one of the most ostentatious churches in Italy--the Creation--and with

what genius? God Almighty is represented as leaping into chaos, and

boxing it about with his fists, and kicking it about with his feet, till

he tumbles it into order!

Nothing is too impious or profane for this great master, who has painted

so many inimitable virgins and children.

To help me on in my career of improvement, I have now read four volumes of

La Harpe's correspondence with Paul and a Russian minister. Philosophers!

Never again think of annulling superstition per Saltum. _Testine cente._

TO MR. MELLISH.

MONTICELLO, December 31, 1816.

SIR,--Your favor of November 23d, after a very long passage, is received,

and with it the map which you have been so kind as to send me, for

which I return you many thanks. It is handsomely executed, and on a

well-chosen scale; giving a luminous view of the comparative possessions

of different powers in our America. It is on account of the value I set

on it, that I will make some suggestions. By the charter of Louis XIV.

all the country comprehending the waters which flow into the Mississippi,

was made a part of Louisiana. Consequently its northern boundary was

the summit of the highlands in which its northern waters rise. But by

the Xth Art. of the Treaty of Utrecht, France and England agreed to

appoint commissioners to settle the boundary between their possessions

in that quarter, and those commissioners settled it at the 49th degree

of latitude. See Hutchinson's Topographical Description of Louisiana, p.

7. This it was which induced the British Commissioners, in settling the

boundary with us, to follow the northern water line to the Lake of the

Woods, at the latitude of 49°, and then go off on that parallel. This,

then, is the true northern boundary of Louisiana.

The western boundary of Louisiana is, rightfully, the Rio Bravo, (its main

stream,) from its mouth to its source, and thence along the highlands

and mountains dividing the waters of the Mississippi from those of the

Pacific. The usurpations of Spain on the east side of that river, have

induced geographers to suppose the Puerco or Salado to be the boundary.

The line along the highlands stands on the charter of Louis XIV. that of

the Rio Bravo, on the circumstance that, when La Salle took possession

of the Bay of St. Bernard, Panuco was the nearest possession of Spain,

and the Rio Bravo the natural half-way boundary between them.

On the waters of the Pacific, we can found no claim in right of Louisiana.

If we claim that country at all, it must be on Astor's settlement near

the mouth of the Columbia, and the principle of the _jus gentium_ of

America, that when a civilized nation takes possession of the mouth of

a river in a new country, that possession is considered as including

all its waters.

The line of latitude of the southern source of the multnomat might be

claimed as appurtenant to Astoria. For its northern boundary, I believe

an understanding has been come to between our government and Russia,

which might be known from some of its members. I do not know it.

Although the irksomeness of writing, which you may perceive from the

present letter, and its labor, oblige me now to withdraw from letter

writing, yet the wish that your map should set to rights the ideas of our

own countrymen, as well as foreign nations, as to our correct boundaries,

has induced me to make these suggestions, that you may bestow on them

whatever inquiry they may merit. I salute you with esteem and respect.

TO MRS. ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, January 11, 1817.

I owe you, dear Madam, a thousand thanks for the letters communicated

in your favor of December 15th, and now returned. They give me more

information than I possessed before, of the family of Mr. Tracy. But what

is infinitely interesting, is the scene of the exchange of Louis XVIII.

for Bonaparte. What lessons of wisdom Mr. Adams must have read in that

short space of time! More than fall to the lot of others in the course

of a long life. Man, and the man of Paris, under those circumstances,

must have been a subject of profound speculation! It would be a singular

addition to that spectacle, to see the same beast in the cage of St.

Helena, like a lion in the tower. That is probably the closing verse

of the chapter of his crimes. But not so with Louis. He has other

vicissitudes to go through.

I communicated the letters, according to your permission, to my

grand-daughter, Ellen Randolph, who read them with pleasure and

edification. She is justly sensible of, and flattered by your kind

notice of her; and additionally so, by the favorable recollections of our

northern visiting friends. If Monticello has anything which has merited

their remembrance, it gives it a value the more in our estimation; and

could I, in the spirit of your wish, count backwards a score of years,

it would not be long before Ellen and myself would pay our homage

personally to Quincy. But those twenty years! Alas! where are they? With

those beyond the flood. Our next meeting must then be in the country to

which they have flown,--a country for us not now very distant. For this

journey we shall need neither gold nor silver in our purse, nor scrip,

nor coats, nor staves. Nor is the provision for it more easy than the

preparation has been kind. Nothing proves more than this, that the Being

who presides over the world is essentially benevolent. Stealing from

us, one by one, the faculties of enjoyment, searing our sensibilities,

leading us, like the horse in his mill, round and round the same beaten

circle,

----To see what we have seen,

To taste the tasted, and at each return

Less tasteful; o'er our palates to decant

Another vintage--

Until satiated and fatigued with this leaden iteration, we ask our own

_congé_. I heard once a very old friend, who had troubled himself with

neither poets nor philosophers, say the same thing in plain prose, that

he was tired of pulling off his shoes and stockings at night, and putting

them on again in the morning. The wish to stay here is thus gradually

extinguished; but not so easily that of returning once, in awhile, to see

how things have gone on. Perhaps, however, one of the elements of future

felicity is to be a constant and unimpassioned view of what is passing

here. If so, this may well supply the wish of occasional visits. Mercier

has given us a vision of the year 2440; but prophecy is one thing, and

history another. On the whole, however, perhaps it is wise and well to

be contented with the good things which the master of the feast places

before us, and to be thankful for what we have, rather than thoughtful

about what we have not. You and I, dear Madam, have already had more than

an ordinary portion of life, and more, too, of health than the general

measure. On this score I owe boundless thankfulness. Your health was,

some time ago, not so good as it has been; and I perceive in the letters

communicated, some complaints still. I hope it is restored; and that

life and health may be continued to you as many years as yourself shall

wish, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate and respectful friend.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, January 11, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--Forty-three volumes read in one year, and twelve of them

quarto! Dear Sir, how I envy you! Half a dozen octavos in that space

of time, are as much as I am allowed. I can read by candlelight only,

and stealing long hours from my rest; nor would that time be indulged

to me, could I by that light see to write. From sunrise to one or two

o'clock, and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing

table. And all this to answer letters into which neither interest nor

inclination on my part enters; and often from persons whose names I

have never before heard. Yet, writing civilly, it is hard to refuse

them civil answers. This is the burthen of my life, a very grievous one

indeed, and one which I must get rid of. Delaplaine lately requested me

to give him a line on the subject of his book; meaning, as I well knew,

to publish it. This I constantly refuse; but in this instance yielded,

that in saying a word for him, I might say two for myself. I expressed

in it freely my sufferings from this source; hoping it would have the

effect of an indirect appeal to the discretion of those, strangers and

others, who, in the most friendly dispositions, oppress me with their

concerns, their pursuits, their projects, inventions and speculations,

political, moral, religious, mechanical, mathematical, historical, &c.,

&c., &c. I hope the appeal will bring me relief, and that I shall be

left to exercise and enjoy correspondence with the friends I love, and

on subjects which they, or my own inclinations present. In that case,

your letters shall not be so long on my files unanswered, as sometimes

they have been, to my great mortification.

To advert now to the subjects of those of December the 12th and 16th.

Tracy's Commentaries on Montesquieu have never been published in the

original. Duane printed a translation from the original manuscript a

few years ago. It sold, I believe, readily, and whether a copy can now

be had, I doubt. If it can, you will receive it from my bookseller in

Philadelphia, to whom I now write for that purpose. Tracy comprehends,

under the word "Ideology," all the subjects which the French term

_Morale_, as the correlative to _Physique_. His works on Logic,

Government, Political Economy and Morality, he considers as making up the

circle of ideological subjects, or of those which are within the scope

of the understanding, and not of the senses. His Logic occupies exactly

the ground of Locke's work on the Understanding. The translation of that

on Political Economy is now printing; but it is no translation of mine.

I have only had the correction of it, which was, indeed, very laborious.

_Le premier jet_ having been by some one who understood neither French

or English, it was impossible to make it more than faithful. But it is

a valuable work.

The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the

four words, "Be just and good," is that in which all our inquiries must

end; as the riddles of all the priesthoods end in four more, "_ubi panis,

ibi deus_." What all agree in, is probably right. What no two agree in,

most probably wrong. One of our fan-coloring biographers, who paints

small men as very great, inquired of me lately, with real affection

too, whether he might consider as authentic, the change in my religion

much spoken of in some circles. Now this supposed that they knew what

had been my religion before, taking for it the word of their priests,

whom I certainly never made the confidants of my creed. My answer was,

"say nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself alone.

Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has

been _honest and dutiful_ to society, the religion which has regulated

it cannot be a bad one." Affectionately adieu.

TO WILLIAM LEE, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, January 16, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--I received, three days ago, a letter from M. Martin, 2d Vice

President, and M. Parmantier, Secretary of "the French Agricultural

and Manufacturing Society," dated at Philadelphia the 5th instant. It

covered resolutions proposing to apply to Congress for a grant of two

hundred and fifty thousand acres of land on the Tombigbee, and stating

some of the general principles on which the society was to be founded;

and their letter requested me to trace for them the basis of a social

pact for the local regulations of their society, and to address the

answer to yourself, their 1st Vice President at Washington. No one can

be more sensible than I am of the honor of their confidence in me, so

flatteringly manifested in this resolution; and certainly no one can

feel stronger dispositions than myself to be useful to them, as well in

return for this great mark of their respect, as from feelings for the

situation of strangers, forced by the misfortunes of their native country

to seek another by adoption, so distant and so different from that in all

its circumstances. I commiserate the hardships they have to encounter,

and equally applaud the resolution with which they meet them, as well

as the principles proposed for their government. That their emigration

may be for the happiness of their descendants, I can believe; but from

the knowledge I have of the country they have left, and its state of

social intercourse and comfort, their own personal happiness will undergo

severe trial here. The laws, however, which must effect this must flow

from their own habits, their own feelings, and the resources of their

own minds. No stranger to these could possibly propose regulations

adapted to them. Every people have their own particular habits, ways of

thinking, manners, &c., which have grown up with them from their infancy

are become a part of their nature, and to which the regulations which

are to make them happy must be accommodated. No member of a foreign

country can have a sufficient sympathy with these. The institutions of

Lycurgus, for example, would not have suited Athens, nor those of Solon,

Lacedæmon. The organizations of Locke were impracticable for Carolina,

and those of Rousseau and Mably for Poland. Turning inwardly on myself

from these eminent illustrations of the truth of my observation, I feel

all the presumption it would manifest, should I undertake to do what this

respectable society is alone qualified to do suitably for itself. There

are some preliminary questions, too, which are particularly for their

own consideration. Is it proposed that this shall be a separate State?

or a county of a State? or a mere voluntary association, as those of the

Quakers, Dunkars, Menonists? A separate State it cannot be, because from

the tract it asks it would not be more than twenty miles square; and in

establishing new States, regard is had to a certain degree of equality

in size. If it is to be a county of a State, it cannot be governed by

its own laws, but must be subject to those of the State of which it is

a part. If merely a voluntary association, the submission of its members

will be merely voluntary also; as no act of coercion would be permitted

by the general law. These considerations must control the society, and

themselves alone can modify their own intentions and wishes to them.

With this apology for declining a task to which I am so unequal, I pray

them to be assured of my sincere wishes for their success and happiness,

and yourself particularly of my high consideration and esteem.

TO DOCTOR THOMAS HUMPHREYS.

MONTICELLO, February 8, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of January 2d did not come to my hands until the

5th instant. I concur entirely in your leading principles of gradual

emancipation, of establishment on the coast of Africa, and the patronage

of our nation until the emigrants shall be able to protect themselves. The

subordinate details might be easily arranged. But the bare proposition of

purchase by the United States generally, would excite infinite indignation

in all the States north of Maryland. The sacrifice must fall on the States

alone which hold them; and the difficult question will be how to lessen

this so as to reconcile our fellow citizens to it. Personally I am ready

and desirous to make any sacrifice which shall ensure their gradual but

complete retirement from the State, and effectually, at the same time,

establish them elsewhere in freedom and safety. But I have not perceived

the growth of this disposition in the rising generation, of which I

once had sanguine hopes. No symptoms inform me that it will take place

in my day. I leave it, therefore, to time, and not at all without hope

that the day will come, equally desirable and welcome to us as to them.

Perhaps the proposition now on the carpet at Washington to provide an

establishment on the coast of Africa for voluntary emigrations of people

of color, may be the corner stone of this future edifice. Praying for

its completion as early as may most promote the good of all, I salute

you with great esteem and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, April 19, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--My loving and beloved friend Pickering, has been pleased to

inform the world that I have "few friends." I wanted to whip the rogue,

and I had it in my power, if it had been in my will to do it, till the

blood came. But all my real friends, as I thought then, with Dexter and

Gray at their head, insisted "that I should not say a word; that nothing

that such a person could write would do me the least injury; that it

would betray the constitution and the government, if a President, out or

in, should enter into a newspaper controversy with one of his ministers,

whom he had removed from his office, in justification of himself for

that removal, or anything else;" and they talked a great deal about the

DIGNITY of the office of President, which I do not find that any other

person, public or private regards very much.

Nevertheless, I fear that Mr. Pickering's information is too true. It

is impossible that any man should run such a gauntlet as I have been

driven through, and have many friends at last. This "all who know me

know," though I cannot say; who love me, tell.

I have, however, either friends who wish to amuse and solace my old age,

or enemies who mean to heap coals of fire on my head, and kill me with

kindness; for they overwhelm me with books from all quarters, enough

to obfuscate all eyes, and smother and stifle all human understanding.

Chateaubriand, Grimm, Tucker, Dupuis, La Harpe, Sismondi, Eustace, a

new translation of Herodotus, by Bedloe, with more notes than text.

What should I do with all this lumber? I make my "woman-kind," as the

antiquary expresses it, read to me all the English, but as they will

not read the French, I am obliged to excruciate my eyes to read it

myself; and all to what purpose? I verily believe I was as wise and

good, seventy years ago, as I am now. At that period Lemuel Bryant was

my parish priest, and Joseph Cleverly my Latin schoolmaster. Lemuel was

a jolly, jocular, and liberal scholar and divine. Joseph a scholar and a

gentleman; but a bigoted Episcopalian, of the school of Bishop Saunders,

and Dr. Hicks,--a downright conscientious, passive obedience man, in

Church and State. The parson and the pedagogue lived much together, but

were eternally disputing about government and religion. One day, when

the schoolmaster had been more than commonly fanatical, and declared "if

he were a monarch, _he would have but one religion in his dominions_;"

the parson coolly replied, "Cleverly! you would be the best man in the

world if you had no religion."

Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of

breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there

were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I should have been

as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would

be something not fit to be mentioned in polite society, I mean hell. So

far from believing in the total and universal depravity of human nature,

I believe there is no individual totally depraved. The most abandoned

scoundrel that ever existed, never yet wholly extinguished his conscience,

and while conscience remains there is some religion. Popes, Jesuits, and

Sorbonists, and Inquisitors, have some conscience and some religion. So

had Marius and Sylla, Cæsar, Catiline and Antony; and Augustus had not

much more, let Virgil and Horace say what they will.

What shall we think of Virgil and Horace, Sallust, Quintilian, Pliny, and

even Tacitus? and even Cicero, Brutus and Seneca? Pompey I leave out of

the question, as a mere politician and soldier. Every one of the great

creatures has left indelible marks of conscience, and consequently of

religion, though every one of them has left abundant proofs of profligate

violations of their consciences by their little and great passions and

paltry interests.

The vast prospect of mankind, which these books have passed in review

before me, from the most ancient records, histories, traditions and

fables, that remain to us to the present day, has sickened my very soul,

and almost reconciled me to Swift's travels among the Yahoos; yet I never

can be a misanthrope--_Homo sum_. I must hate myself before I can hate

my fellow men; and that I cannot, and will not do. No! I will not hate

any of them, base, brutal, and devilish as some of them have been to me.

From the bottom of my soul, I pity my fellow men. Fears and terrors

appear to have produced an universal credulity. Fears of calamities in

life, and punishments after death, seem to have possessed the souls of

all men. But fear of pain and death, here, do not seem to have been so

unconquerable, as fear of what is to come hereafter. Priests, Hierophants,

Popes, Despots, Emperors, Kings, Princes, Nobles, have been as credulous

as shoe-blacks, boots and kitchen scullions. The former seem to have

believed in their divine rights as sincerely as the latter.

_Auto de feés_, in Spain and Portugal, have been celebrated with as

good faith as excommunications have been practised in Connecticut, or

as baptisms have been refused in Philadelphia.

How is it possible that mankind should submit to be governed, as they

have been, is to me an inscrutable mystery. How they could bear to be

taxed to build the temple of Diana at Ephesus, the pyramids of Egypt,

Saint Peter's at Rome, Notre Dame at Paris, St. Paul's in London, with

a million et ceteras, when my navy yards and my quasi army made such a

popular clamor, I know not. Yet all my peccadillos never excited such

a rage as the late compensation law!

I congratulate you on the late election in Connecticut. It is a kind of

epocha. Several causes have conspired. One which you would not suspect.

Some one, no doubt instigated by the devil, has taken it into his head

to print a new edition of the "Independent Whig," even in Connecticut,

and has scattered the volumes through the State. These volumes, it is

said, have produced a burst of indignation against priestcraft, bigotry

and intolerance, and in conjunction with other causes, have produced

the late election.

When writing to you I never know when to subscribe,

J. A.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, May 5, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--Absences and avocations had prevented my acknowledging your

favor of February the 2d, when that of April the 19th arrived. I had

not the pleasure of receiving the former by the hands of Mr. Lyman.

His business probably carried him in another direction; for I am far

inland, and distant from the great line of communication between the

trading cities. Your recommendations are always welcome, for indeed,

the subjects of them always merit that welcome, and some of them in

an extraordinary degree. They make us acquainted with what there is

excellent in our ancient sister State of Massachusetts, once venerated

and beloved, and still hanging on our hopes, for what need we despair

of after the resurrection of Connecticut to light and liberality. I

had believed that the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and

abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other

States a century ahead of them. They seemed still to be exactly where

their forefathers were when they schismatized from the covenant of works,

and to consider as dangerous heresies all innovations good or bad. I

join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the

priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no

longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by _religion_

we are to understand _sectarian dogmas_, in which no two of them agree,

then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be

the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." But

if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical

constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines

of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which

all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be,

as you again say, "something not fit to be named, even indeed, a hell."

You certainly acted wisely in taking no notice of what the malice of

Pickering could say of you. Were such things to be answered, our lives

would be wasted in the filth of fendings and provings, instead of

being employed in promoting the happiness and prosperity of our fellow

citizens. The tenor of your life is the proper and sufficient answer. It

is fortunate for those in public trust, that posterity will judge them

by their works, and not by the malignant vituperations and invectives

of the Pickerings and Gardiners of their age. After all, men of energy

of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every

question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect,

those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as

they feel that effect. Thus, in the revolution, Hancock and the Adamses

were the raw-head and bloody bones of tories and traitors who yet knew

nothing of you personally but what was good. I do not entertain your

apprehensions for the happiness of our brother Madison in a state of

retirement. Such a mind as his, fraught with information and with matter

for reflection, can never know _ennui_. Besides, there will always be

work enough cut out for him to continue his active usefulness to his

country. For example, he and Monroe (the President) are now here on the

work of a collegiate institution to be established in our neighborhood,

of which they and myself are three of six visitors. This, if it succeeds,

will raise up children for Mr. Madison to employ his attention through

life. I say if it succeeds; for we have two very essential wants in our

way, first, means to compass our views; and, second, men qualified to

fulfil them. And these, you will agree, are essential wants indeed.

I am glad to find you have a copy of Sismondi, because his is a field

familiar to you, and on which you can judge him. His work is highly

praised, but I have not yet read it. I have been occupied and delighted

with reading another work, the title of which did not promise much

useful information or amusement, "_l'Italia avanti il dominio dei Romani

dal Micali_." It has often, you know, been a subject of regret, that

Carthage had no writer to give her side of her own history, while her

wealth, power and splendor, prove she must have had a very distinguished

policy and government. Micali has given the counterpart of the Roman

history, for the nations over which they extended their dominion. For

this he has gleaned up matter from every quarter, and furnished materials

for reflection and digestion to those who, thinking as they read, have

perceived that there was a great deal of matter behind the curtain, could

that be fully withdrawn. He certainly gives new views of a nation whose

splendor has masked and palliated their barbarous ambition. I am now

reading Botta's history of our own Revolution. Bating the ancient practice

which he has adopted, of putting speeches into mouths which never made

them, and fancying motives of action which we never felt, he has given

that history with more detail, precision and candor, than any writer I

have yet met with. It is, to be sure, compiled from those writers; but

it is a good secretion of their matter, the pure from the impure, and

presented in a just sense of right, in opposition to usurpation.

Accept assurances for Mrs. Adams and yourself of my affectionate esteem

and respect.

TO DR. JOSEPHUS B. STUART.

MONTICELLO, May 10, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of April 2d is duly received. I am very sensible of

the partiality with which you are so good as to review the course I have

held in public life, and I have also to be thankful to my fellow-citizens

for a like indulgence generally shown to my endeavors to be useful to

them. They give quite as much credit as is merited to the difficulties

supposed to attend the public administration. There are no mysteries in

it. Difficulties indeed sometimes arise; but common sense and honest

intentions will generally steer through them, and, where they cannot

be surmounted, I have ever seen the well-intentioned part of our fellow

citizens sufficiently disposed not to look for impossibilities. We all

know that a farm, however large, is not more difficult to direct than

a garden, and does not call for more attention or skill.

I hope with you that the policy of our country will settle down with as

much navigation and commerce only as our own exchanges will require, and

that the disadvantage will be seen of our undertaking to carry on that

of other nations. This, indeed, may bring gain to a few individuals, and

enable them to call off from our farms more laborers to be converted into

lackeys and grooms for them, but it will bring nothing to our country

but wars, debt, and dilapidation. This has been the course of England,

and her examples have fearful influence on us. In copying her we do

not seem to consider that like premises induce like consequences. The

bank mania is one of the most threatening of these imitations. It is

raising up a monied aristocracy in our country which has already set the

government at defiance, and although forced at length to yield a little

on this first essay of their strength, their principles are unyielded

and unyielding. These have taken deep root in the hearts of that class

from which our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus from fable

has become history. Their principles lay hold of the good, their pelf

of the bad, and thus those whom the constitution had placed as guards

to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their duties. That

paper money has some advantages, is admitted. But that its abuses also

are inevitable, and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery

of all private property, cannot be denied. Shall we ever be able to put

a constitutional veto on it?

You say I must go to writing history. While in public life I had not time,

and now that I am retired, I am past the time. To write history requires

a whole life of observation, of inquiry, of labor and correction. Its

materials are not to be found among the ruins of a decayed memory. At

this day I should begin where I ought to have left off. The "_solve senes

centem equum_," is a precept we learn in youth but for the practice of

age; and were I to disregard it, it would be but a proof the more of its

soundness. If anything has ever merited to me the respect of my fellow

citizens, themselves, I hope, would wish me not to lose it by exposing

the decay of faculties of which it was the reward. I must then, dear Sir,

leave to yourself and your brethren of the rising generation, to arraign

at your tribunal the actions of your predecessors, and to pronounce the

sentence they may have merited or incurred. If the sacrifices of that

age have resulted in the good of this, then all is well, and we shall

be rewarded by their approbation, and shall be authorized to say, "go

ye and do likewise." To yourself I tender personally the assurance of

my great esteem and respect.

TO MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.

MONTICELLO, May 14, 1817.

Although, dear Sir, much retired from the world, and meddling little

in its concerns, yet I think it almost a religious duty to salute at

times my old friends, were it only to say and to know that "all's well."

Our hobby has been politics; but all here is so quiet, and with you so

desperate, that little matter is furnished us for active attention. With

you too, it has long been forbidden ground, and therefore imprudent for a

foreign friend to tread, in writing to you. But although our speculations

might be intrusive, our prayers cannot but be acceptable, and mine are

sincerely offered for the well-being of France. What government she can

bear, depends not on the state of science, however exalted, in a select

band of enlightened men, but on the condition of the general mind.

That, I am sure, is advanced and will advance; and the last change of

government was fortunate, inasmuch as the new will be less obstructive

to the effects of that advancement. For I consider your foreign military

oppressions as an ephemeral obstacle only.

Here all is quiet. The British war has left us in debt; but that is

a cheap price for the good it has done us. The establishment of the

necessary manufactures among ourselves, the proof that our government

is solid, can stand the shock of war, and is superior even to civil

schism, are precious facts for us; and of these the strongest proofs

were furnished, when, with four eastern States tied to us, as dead to

living bodies, all doubt was removed as to the achievements of the war,

had it continued. But its best effect has been the complete suppression

of party. The federalists who were truly American, and their great mass

was so, have separated from their brethren who were mere Anglomen, and

are received with cordiality into the republican ranks. Even Connecticut,

as a State, and the last one expected to yield its steady habits (which

were essentially bigoted in politics as well as religion), has chosen a

republican governor, and republican legislature. Massachusetts indeed

still lags; because most deeply involved in the parricide crimes and

treasons of the war. But her gangrene is contracting, the sound flesh

advancing on it, and all there will be well. I mentioned Connecticut as

the most hopeless of our States. Little Delaware had escaped my attention.

That is essentially a Quaker State, the fragment of a religious sect

which, there, in the other States, in England, are a homogeneous mass,

acting with one mind, and that directed by the mother society in England.

Dispersed, as the Jews, they still form, as those do, one nation, foreign

to the land they live in. They are Protestant Jesuits, implicitly devoted

to the will of their superior, and forgetting all duties to their country

in the execution of the policy of their order. When war is proposed with

England, they have religious scruples; but when with France, these are

laid by, and they become clamorous for it. They are, however, silent,

passive, and give no other trouble than of whipping them along. Nor is

the election of Monroe an inefficient circumstance in our felicities.

Four and twenty years, which he will accomplish, of administration in

republican forms and principles, will so consecrate them in the eyes of

the people as to secure them against the danger of change. The evanition

of party dissensions has harmonized intercourse, and sweetened society

beyond imagination. The war then has done us all this good, and the

further one of assuring the world, that although attached to peace from

a sense of its blessings, we will meet war when it is made necessary.

I wish I could give better hopes of our southern brethren. The achievement

of their independence of Spain is no longer a question. But it is a very

serious one, what will then become of them? Ignorance and bigotry, like

other insanities, are incapable of self-government. They will fall under

military despotism, and become the murderous tools of the ambition of

their respective Bonapartes; and whether this will be for their greater

happiness, the rule of one only has taught you to judge. No one, I hope,

can doubt my wish to see them and all mankind exercising self-government,

and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish,

but what is practicable? As their sincere friend and brother then, I do

believe the best thing for them, would be for themselves to come to an

accord with Spain, under the guarantee of France, Russia, Holland, and

the United States, allowing to Spain a nominal supremacy, with authority

only to keep the peace among them, leaving them otherwise all the powers

of self-government, until their experience in them, their emancipation

from their priests, and advancement in information, shall prepare them for

complete independence. I exclude England from this confederacy, because

her selfish principles render her incapable of honorable patronage or

disinterested co-operation; unless, indeed, what seems now probable, a

revolution should restore to her an honest government, one which will

permit the world to live in peace. Portugal grasping at an extension

of her dominion in the south, has lost her great northern province of

Pernambuco, and I shall not wonder if Brazil should revolt in mass, and

send their royal family back to Portugal. Brazil is more populous, more

wealthy, more energetic, and as wise as Portugal. I have been insensibly

led, my dear friend, while writing to you, to indulge in that line of

sentiment in which we have been always associated, forgetting that these

are matters not belonging to my time. Not so with you, who have still

many years to be a spectator of these events. That these years may indeed

be many and happy, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate friend.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, May 18, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--Lyman was mortified that he could not visit Monticello. He

is gone to Europe a second time. I regret that he did not see you, he

would have executed any commission for you in the literary line, at any

pain or any expense. I have many apprehensions for his health, which is

very delicate and precarious, but he is seized with the mania of all

our young clerical spirits for foreign travel; I fear they will lose

more than they acquire, they will lose that unadulterated enthusiasm for

their native country, which has produced the greatest characters among

us.

Oh! Lord! Do you think that Protestant Popedom is annihilated in America?

Do you recollect, or have you ever attended to the ecclesiastical strifes

in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and every part of New England? What

a mercy it is that these people cannot whip, and crop, and pillory,

and roast, _as yet_ in the United States! If they could, they would.

Do you know the General of the Jesuits, and consequently all his host,

have their eyes on this country? Do you know that the Church of England

is employing more means and more art, to propagate their demi-popery

among us, than ever? Quakers, Anabaptists, Moravians, Swedenborgians,

Methodists, Unitarians, Nothingarians in all Europe are employing

underhand means to propagate their sectarian system in these States.

The multitude and diversity of them, you will say, is our security against

them all. God grant it. But if we consider that the Presbyterians and

Methodists are far the most numerous and the most likely to unite, let

a George Whitefield arise, with a military cast, like Mahomet or Loyola,

and what will become of all the other sects who can never unite?

My friends or enemies continue to overwhelm me with books. Whatever may

be their intention, charitable or otherwise, they certainly contribute

to continue me to vegetate, much as I have done for the sixteen years

last past.

Sir John Malcolm's history of Persia, and Sir William Jones' works, are

now poured out upon me, and a little cargo is coming from Europe. What

can I do with all this learned lumber? Is it necessary to salvation to

investigate all these Cosmogonies and Mythologies? Are Bryant, Gebelin,

Dupuis, or Sir William Jones, right? What a frown upon mankind was the

premature death of Sir William Jones! Why could not Jones and Dupuis

have conversed or corresponded with each other? Had Jones read Dupuis,

or Dupuis Jones, the works of both would be immensely improved, though

each would probably have adhered to his system.

I should admire to see a counsel composed of Gebelin, Bryant, Jones and

Dupuis. Let them live together and compare notes. The human race ought

to contribute to furnish them with all the books in the Universe, and

the means of subsistence.

I am not expert enough in Italian to read Botta, and I know not that

he has been translated. Indeed, I have been so little satisfied with

histories of the American revolution, that I have long since ceased to

read them. The truth is lost, in adulatory panegyrics, and in vituperary

insolence. I wish you, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, success in your

collegiate institution. And I wish that superstition in religion, exciting

superstition in politics, and both united in directing military force,

alias glory, may never blow up all your benevolent and philanthropic

lucubrations. But the history of all ages is against you.

It is said that no effort in favor of virtue is ever lost. I doubt whether

it was ever true; whether it is now true; but hope it will be true. In

the moral government of the world, no doubt it was, is, and ever will

be true; but it has not yet appeared to be true on this earth.

I am, Sir, sincerely your friend.

P. S. Have you seen the Philosophy of Human Nature, and the History of

the War in the western States, from Kentucky? How vigorously science

and literature spring up, as well as patriotism and heroism, in

transalleganian regions? Have you seen Wilkinson's history? &c., &c.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, May 26, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--Mr. Leslie Combes of Kentucky has sent me a history of the

late war, in the western country, by Mr. Robert B. M'Siffee, and the

Philosophy of Human Nature, by Joseph Buchanan. The history I am glad

to see, because it will preserve facts to the honor and immortal glory

of the western people. Indeed, I am not sorry that the Philosophy has

been published, because it has been a maxim with me for sixty years at

least, never to be afraid of a book.

Nevertheless, I cannot foresee much utility in reviewing, in this

country, the controversy between the Spiritualists and the Materialists.

Why should time be wasted in disputing about two substances, when both

parties agree that neither knows anything about either.

If spirit is an abstraction, a conjecture, a chimera; matter is an

abstraction, a conjecture, a chimera; for we know as much, or rather as

little, about one as the other. We may read Cudworth, Le Clerc, Leibnitz,

Berkley, Hume, Bolingbroke and Priestley, and a million other volumes in

all ages, and be obliged at last to confess that we have learned nothing.

Spirit and matter still remain riddles. Define the terms, however, and

the controversy is soon settled. If spirit is an active something, and

matter an inactive something, it is certain that one is not the other. We

can no more conceive that extension, or solidity, can think, or feel, or

see, or hear, or taste, or smell; than we can conceive that perception,

memory, imagination, or reason, can remove a mountain, or blow a rock.

This enigma has puzzled mankind from the beginning, and probably will

to the end. Economy of time requires that we should waste no more in so

idle an amusement.

In the eleventh discourse of Sir William Jones, before the Asiatic

Society, vol. iii., page 229, of his works, we find that Materialists

and Immaterialists existed in India, and that they accused each other of

atheism, before Berkley, or Priestley, or Dupuis, or Plato, or Pythagoras,

were born.

Indeed, Newton himself appears to have discovered nothing that was

not known to the ancient Indians. He has only furnished more complete

demonstrations of the doctrines they taught. Sir John Malcolm agrees

with Jones and Dupuis, in the Astrological origin of heathen mythologies.

Vain man! mind your own business! Do no wrong;--do all the good you can!

Eat your canvas-back ducks! Drink your Burgundy! Sleep your siesta when

necessary, and TRUST IN GOD!

What a mighty bubble, what a tremendous waterspout, has Napoleon been,

according to his life, written by himself! He says he was the creature

of the principles and manners of the age; by which, no doubt, he means

the age of Reason; the progress of Manilius' Ratio, of Plato's Logos,

&c. I believe him. A whirlwind raised him, and a whirlwind blowed him

away to St. Helena. He is very confident that the age of Reason is not

past, and so am I; but I hope that Reason will never again rashly and

hastily create such creatures as him. Liberty, equality, fraternity,

and humanity, will never again, I hope, blindly surrender themselves

to an unbounded ambition for national conquests, nor implicitly commit

themselves to the custody and guardianship of arms and heroes. If they

do, they will again end in St. Helena, Inquisitions, Jesuits, and _sacre

liques_.

Poor Laureate Southey is writhing in torments under the laugh of the

three kingdoms, all Europe, and America, upon the publication of his "Wat

Tyler." I wonder whether he or Bonaparte suffers most. I congratulate

you, and Madison, and Monroe, on your noble employment in founding a

university. From such a noble Triumvirate, the world will expect something

very great and very new; but if it contains anything quite original, and

very excellent, I fear the prejudices are too deeply rooted to suffer

it to last long, though it may be accepted at first. It will not always

have three such colossal reputations to support it.

The Pernambuco Ambassador, his Secretary of legation, and private

Secretary, respectable people, have made me a visit. Having been some

year or two in a similar situation, I could not but sympathize with him.

As Bonaparte says, the age of Reason is not ended. Nothing can totally

extinguish, or eclipse the light which has been shed abroad by the press.

I am, Sir, with hearty wishes for your health and happiness, your friend

and humble servant.

TO DOCTOR JOHN MANNERS.

MONTICELLO, June 12, 1817.

SIR,--Your favor of May 20th has been received some time since, but the

increasing inertness of age renders me slow in obeying the calls of the

writing-table, and less equal than I have been to its labors.

My opinion on the right of Expatriation has been, so long ago as the

year 1776, consigned to record in the act of the Virginia code, drawn

by myself, recognizing the right expressly, and prescribing the mode of

exercising it. The evidence of this natural right, like that of our right

to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness,

is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but

is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the

charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of kings. If he

has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, he

has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode; and we may

safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on

which Nature has traced, for each individual, the geographical line

which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness. It certainly

does not exist in his mind. Where, then, is it? I believe, too, I might

safely affirm, that there is not another nation, civilized or savage,

which has ever denied this natural right. I doubt if there is another

which refuses its exercise. I know it is allowed in some of the most

respectable countries of continental Europe, nor have I ever heard of

one in which it was not. How it is among our savage neighbors, who have

no law but that of Nature, we all know.

Though long estranged from legal reading and reasoning, and little

familiar with the decisions of particular judges, I have considered that

respecting the obligation of the common law in this country as a very

plain one, and merely a question of document. If we are under that law,

the document which made us so can surely be produced; and as far as this

can be produced, so far we are subject to it, and farther we are not. Most

of the States did, I believe, at an early period of their legislation,

adopt the English law, common and statute, more or less in a body, as

far as localities admitted of their application. In these States, then,

the common law, so far as adopted, is the _lex-loci_. Then comes the law

of Congress, declaring that what is law in any State, shall be the rule

of decision in their courts, as to matters arising within that State,

except when controlled by their own statutes. But this law of Congress

has been considered as extending to civil cases only; and that no such

provision has been made for criminal ones. A similar provision, then,

for criminal offences, would, in like manner, be an adoption of more or

less of the common law, as part of the _lex-loci_, where the offence

is committed; and would cover the whole field of legislation for the

general government. I have turned to the passage you refer to in Judge

Cooper's Justinian, and should suppose the general expressions there

used would admit of modifications conformable to this doctrine. It would

alarm me indeed, in any case, to find myself entertaining an opinion

different from that of a judgment so accurately organized as his. But I

am quite persuaded that, whenever Judge Cooper shall be led to consider

that question simply and nakedly, it is so much within his course of

thinking, as liberal as logical, that, rejecting all blind and undefined

obligation, he will hold to the positive and explicit precepts of the

law alone. Accept these hasty sentiments on the subjects you propose,

as hazarded in proof of my great esteem and respect.

TO BARON HUMBOLDT.

MONTICELLO, June 13, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--The receipt of your Distributio Geographica Plantarum, with

the duty of thanking you for a work which sheds so much new and valuable

light on botanical science, excites the desire, also, of presenting

myself to your recollection, and of expressing to you those sentiments

of high admiration and esteem, which, although long silent, have never

slept. The physical information you have given us of a country hitherto so

shamefully unknown, has come exactly in time to guide our understandings

in the great political revolution now bringing it into prominence on the

stage of the world. The issue of its struggles, as they respect Spain,

is no longer matter of doubt. As it respects their own liberty, peace and

happiness, we cannot be quite so certain. Whether the blinds of bigotry,

the shackles of the priesthood, and the fascinating glare of rank and

wealth, give fair play to the common sense of the mass of their people,

so far as to qualify them for self-government, is what we do not know.

Perhaps our wishes may be stronger than our hopes. The first principle

of republicanism is, that the _lex-majoris partis_ is the fundamental law

of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of

the society enounced by the majority of a single vote, as sacred as if

unanimous, is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which

is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but

that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism. This has

been the history of the French revolution, and I wish the understanding

of our Southern brethren may be sufficiently enlarged and firm to see

that their fate depends on its sacred observance.

In our America we are turning to public improvements. Schools, roads,

and canals, are everywhere either in operation or contemplation. The

most gigantic undertaking yet proposed, is that of New York, for drawing

the waters of Lake Erie into the Hudson. The distance is 353 miles,

and the height to be surmounted 661 feet. The expense will be great,

but its effect incalculably powerful in favor of the Atlantic States.

Internal navigation by steamboats is rapidly spreading through all our

States, and that by sails and oars will ere long be looked back to as

among the curiosities of antiquity. We count much, too, on its efficacy

for harbor defence; and it will soon be tried for navigation by sea.

We consider the employment of the contributions which our citizens can

spare, after feeding, and clothing, and lodging themselves comfortably,

as more useful, more moral, and even more splendid, than that preferred

by Europe, of destroying human life, labor and happiness.

I write this letter without knowing where it will find you. But wherever

that may be, I am sure it will find you engaged in something instructive

for man. If at Paris, you are of course in habits of society with Mr.

Gallatin, our worthy, our able, and excellent minister, who will give

you, from time to time, the details of the progress of a country in

whose prosperity you are so good as to feel an interest, and in which

your name is revered among those of the great worthies of the world. God

bless you, and preserve you long to enjoy the gratitude of your fellow

men, and to be blessed with honors, health and happiness.

TO M. DE MARBOIS.

MONTICELLO, June 14, 1817.

I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy of the interesting narrative of

the Complet d'Arnold, which you have been so kind as to send me. It

throws light on that incident of history which we did not possess

before. An incident which merits to be known, as a lesson to mankind,

in all its details. This mark of your attention recalls to my mind the

earlier period of life at which I had the pleasure of your personal

acquaintance, and renews the sentiments of high respect and esteem

with which that acquaintance inspired me. I had not failed to accompany

your personal sufferings during the civil convulsions of your country,

and had sincerely sympathized with them. An awful period, indeed, has

passed in Europe since our first acquaintance. When I left France at the

close of '89, your revolution was, as I thought, under the direction of

able and honest men. But the madness of some of their successors, the

vices of others, the malicious intrigues of an envious and corrupting

neighbor, the tracasserie of the Directory, the usurpations, the havoc,

and devastations of your Attila, and the equal usurpations, depredations

and oppressions of your hypocritical deliverers, will form a mournful

period in the history of man, a period of which the last chapter will not

be seen in your day or mine, and one which I still fear is to be written

in characters of blood. Had Bonaparte reflected that such is the moral

construction of the world, that no national crime passes unpunished in

the long run, he would not now be in the cage of St. Helena; and were

your present oppressors to reflect on the same truth, they would spare

to their own countries the penalties on their present wrongs which will

be inflicted on them on future times. The seeds of hatred and revenge

which they are now sowing with a large hand, will not fail to produce

their fruits in time. Like their brother robbers on the highway, they

suppose the escape of the moment a final escape, and deem infamy and

future risk countervailed by present gain. Our lot has been happier.

When you witnessed our first struggles in the war of independence, you

little calculated, more than we did, on the rapid growth and prosperity

of this country; on the practical demonstration it was about to exhibit,

of the happy truth that man is capable of self-government, and only

rendered otherwise by the moral degradation designedly superinduced on

him by the wicked acts of his tyrants.

I have much confidence that we shall proceed successfully for ages to

come, and that, contrary to the principle of Montesquieu, it will be

seen that the larger the extent of country, the more firm its republican

structure, if founded, not on conquest, but in principles of compact and

equality. My hope of its duration is built much on the enlargement of the

resources of life going hand in hand with the enlargement of territory,

and the belief that men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of

doing so are open to them. With the consolation of this belief in the

future result of our labors, I have that of other prophets who foretell

distant events, that I shall not live to see it falsified. My theory

has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as

cheap, and pleasanter than the gloom of despair. I wish to yourself a

long life of honors, health and happiness.

TO ALBERT GALLATIN.

MONTICELLO, June 16, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--The importance that the enclosed letters should safely reach

their destination, impels me to avail myself of the protection of your

cover. This is an inconvenience to which your situation exposes you,

while it adds to the opportunities of exercising yourself in works of

charity.

According to the opinion I hazarded to you a little before your

departure, we have had almost an entire change in the body of Congress.

The unpopularity of the compensation law was completed, by the manner

of repealing it as to all the world except themselves. In some States,

it is said, every member is changed; in all, many. What opposition there

was to the original law, was chiefly from southern members. Yet many of

those have been left out, because they received the advanced wages. I

have never known so unanimous a sentiment of disapprobation; and what

is remarkable is, that it was spontaneous. The newspapers were almost

entirely silent, and the people not only unled by their leaders, but

in opposition to them. I confess I was highly pleased with this proof

of the innate good sense, the vigilance, and the determination of the

people to act for themselves.

Among the laws of the late Congress, some were of note; a navigation

act, particularly, applicable to those nations only who have navigation

acts; pinching one of them especially, not only in the general way, but

in the intercourse with her foreign possessions. This part may re-act

on us, and it remains for trial which may bear longest. A law respecting

our conduct as a neutral between Spain and her contending colonies, was

passed by a majority of one only, I believe, and against the very general

sentiment of our country. It is thought to strain our complaisance to

Spain beyond her right or merit, and almost against the right of the

other party, and certainly against the claims they have to our good

wishes and neighborly relations. That we should wish to see the people

of other countries free, is as natural, and at least as justifiable, as

that one King should wish to see the Kings of other countries maintained

in their despotism. Right to both parties, innocent favor to the juster

cause, is our proper sentiment.

You will have learned that an act for internal improvement, after passing

both Houses, was negatived by the President. The act was founded,

avowedly, on the principle that the phrase in the constitution which

authorizes Congress "to lay taxes, to pay the debts and provide for the

general welfare," was an extension of the powers specifically enumerated

to whatever would promote the general welfare; and this, you know, was

the federal doctrine. Whereas, our tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is

almost the only landmark which now divides the federalists from the

republicans, that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the

general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated;

and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but

by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant

they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place

under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a

limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. I think the

passage and rejection of this bill a fortunate incident. Every State will

certainly concede the power; and this will be a national confirmation

of the grounds of appeal to them, and will settle forever the meaning of

this phrase, which, by a mere grammatical quibble, has countenanced the

General Government in a claim of universal power. For in the phrase, "to

lay taxes, to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare," it is a

mere question of syntax, whether the two last infinitives are governed by

the first or are distinct and co-ordinate powers; a question unequivocally

decided by the exact definition of powers immediately following. It is

fortunate for another reason, as the States, in conceding the power,

will modify it, either by requiring the federal ratio of expense in each

State, or otherwise, so as to secure us against its partial exercise.

Without this caution, intrigue, negotiation, and the barter of votes

might become as habitual in Congress, as they are in those legislatures

which have the appointment of officers, and which, with us, is called

"logging," the term of the farmers for their exchanges of aid in rolling

together the logs of their newly-cleared grounds. Three of our papers

have presented us the copy of an act of the legislature of New York,

which, if it has really passed, will carry us back to the times of the

darkest bigotry and barbarism, to find a parallel. Its purport is, that

all those who shall _hereafter_ join in communion with the religious

sect of Shaking Quakers, shall be deemed civilly dead, their marriages

dissolved, and all their children and property taken out of their

hands. This act being published nakedly in the papers, without the usual

signatures, or any history of the circumstances of its passage, I am not

without a hope it may have been a mere abortive attempt. It contrasts

singularly with a cotemporary vote of the Pennsylvania legislature, who,

on a proposition to make the belief in God a necessary qualification for

office, rejected it by a great majority, although assuredly there was

not a single atheist in their body. And you remember to have heard, that

when the act for religious freedom was before the Virginia Assembly, a

motion to insert the name of Jesus Christ before the phrase, "the author

of our holy religion," which stood in the bill, was rejected, although

that was the creed of a great majority of them.

I have been charmed to see that a Presidential election now produces

scarcely any agitation. On Mr. Madison's election there was little,

on Monroe's all but none. In Mr. Adams' time and mine, parties were so

nearly balanced as to make the struggle fearful for our peace. But since

the decided ascendency of the republican body, federalism has looked on

with silent but unresisting anguish. In the middle, southern and western

States, it is as low as it ever can be; for nature has made some men

monarchists and tories by their constitution, and some, of course, there

always will be.

* * * * *

We have had a remarkably cold winter. At Hallowell, in Maine, the mercury

was at thirty-four degrees below zero, of Fahrenheit, which is sixteen

degrees lower than it was in Paris in 1788-9. Here it was at six degrees

above zero, which is our greatest degree of cold.

Present me respectfully to Mrs. Gallatin, and be assured of my constant

and affectionate friendship.

TO MR. ADAMS.

POPLAR FOREST, September 8, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--A month's absence from Monticello has added to the delay of

acknowledging your last letters, and indeed for a month before I left it,

our projected college gave me constant employment; for, being the only

visitor in its immediate neighborhood, all its administrative business

falls on me, and that, where building is going on, is not a little. In

yours of July 15th, you express a wish to see our plan, but the present

visitors have sanctioned no plan as yet. Our predecessors, the first

trustees, had desired me to propose one to them, and it was on that

occasion I asked and received the benefit of your ideas on the subject.

Digesting these with such other schemes as I had been able to collect, I

made out a prospectus, the looser and less satisfactory from the uncertain

amount of the funds to which it was to be adapted. This I addressed, in

the form of a letter, to their President, Peter Carr, which, going before

the legislature when a change in the constitution of the college was

asked, got into the public papers, and, among others, I think you will

find it in Niles' Register, in the early part of 1815. This, however,

is to be considered but as a _premiere ebauche_, for the consideration

and amendment of the present visitors, and to be accommodated to one of

two conditions of things. If the institution is to depend on private

donations alone, we shall be forced to accumulate on the shoulders of

four professors a mass of sciences which, if the legislature adopts it,

should be distributed among ten. We shall be ready for a professor of

languages in April next, for two others the following year, and a fourth

a year after. How happy should we be if we could have a Ticknor for our

first. A critical classic is scarcely to be found in the United States.

To this professor, a fixed salary of five hundred dollars, with liberal

tuition fees from the pupils, will probably give two thousand dollars a

year. We are now on the look-out for a professor, meaning to accept of

none but of the very first order.

You ask if I have seen Buchanan's, McAfee's, or Wilkinson's books?

I have seen none of them, but have lately read, with great pleasure,

Reid & Eaton's life of Jackson, if life may be called what is merely a

history of his campaign of 1814. Reid's part is well written. Eaton's

continuation is better for its matter than style. The whole, however,

is valuable.

I have lately received a pamphlet of extreme interest from France. It

is De Pradt's Historical Recital of the first return of Louis XVIII. to

Paris. It is precious for the minutiæ of the proceedings which it details,

and for their authenticity, as from an eye-witness. Being but a pamphlet

I enclose it for your perusal, assured, if you have not seen it, that it

will give you pleasure. I will ask its return, because I value it as a

morsel of genuine history, a thing so rare as to be always valuable. I

have received some information from an eye-witness also of what passed on

the occasion of the second return of Louis XVIII. The Emperor Alexander,

it seems, was solidly opposed to this. In the consultation of the allied

sovereigns and their representatives with the executive council at Paris,

he insisted that the Bourbons were too incapable and unworthy of being

placed at the head of the nation; declared he would support any other

choice they should freely make, and continued to urge most strenuously

that some other choice should be made. The debates ran high and warm,

and broke off after midnight, every one retaining his own opinion. He

lodged, as you know, at Talleyrand's. When they returned into council

the next day, his host had overcome his firmness. Louis XVIII. was

accepted, and through the management of Talleyrand, accepted without any

capitulation, although the sovereigns would have consented that he should

be first required to subscribe and swear to the constitution prepared,

before permission to enter the kingdom. It would seem as if Talleyrand

had been afraid to admit the smallest interval of time, lest a change of

mind would bring back Bonaparte on them. But I observe that the friends

of a limited monarchy there consider the popular representation as much

improved by the late alteration, and confident it will in the end produce

a fixed government in which an elective body, fairly representative of

the people, will be an efficient element.

I congratulate Mrs. Adams and yourself on the return of your excellent

and distinguished son, and our country still more on such a minister of

their foreign affairs; and I renew to both the assurance of my high and

friendly respect and esteem.

TO GEORGE FLOWER.

POPLAR FOREST, September 12, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of August 12th was yesterday received at this

place, and I learn from it with pleasure that you have found a tract of

country which will suit you for settlement. To us your first purchase

would have been more gratifying, by adding yourself and your friends

to our society; but the overruling consideration, with us as with you,

is your own advantage, and as it would doubtless be a great comfort to

you to have your ancient neighbors and friends settled around you. I

sincerely wish that your proposition to "purchase a tract of land in the

Illinois on favorable terms, for introducing a colony of English farmers,"

may encounter no difficulties from the established rules of our land

department. The general law prescribes an open sale, where all citizens

may compete on an equal footing for any lot of land which attracts their

choice. To dispense with this in any particular case, requires a special

law of Congress, and to special legislation we are generally averse,

lest a principle of favoritism should creep in and pervert that of equal

rights. It has, however, been done on some occasions where a special

national advantage has been expected to overweigh that of adherence to

the general rule. The promised introduction of the culture of the vine

procured a special law in favor of the Swiss settlement on the Ohio.

That of the culture of oil, wine and other southern productions, did

the same lately for the French settlement on the Tombigbee. It remains

to be tried whether that of an improved system of farming, interesting

to so great a proportion of our citizens, may not also be thought worth

a dispensation with the general rule. This I suppose is the principal

ground on which your proposition will be questioned. For although as

to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage their settling

together in large masses, wherein, as in our German settlements, they

preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of

government, and that they should distribute themselves sparsely among

the natives for quicker amalgamation. Yet English emigrants are without

this inconvenience. They differ from us little but in their principles

of government, and most of those (merchants excepted) who come here,

are sufficiently disposed to adopt ours. What the issue, however, of

your proposition may probably be, I am less able to advise you than many

others; for during the last eight or ten years I have no knowledge of the

administration of the land office or the principles of its government.

Even the persons on whom it will depend are all changed within that

interval, so as to leave me small means of being useful to you. Whatever

they may be, however, they shall be freely exercised for your advantage,

and that, not on the selfish principle of increasing our own population at

the expense of other nations, for the additions to that from emigration

are but as a drop in a bucket to those by natural procreation, but to

consecrate a sanctuary for those whom the misrule of Europe may compel

to seek happiness in other climes. This refuge once known will produce

reaction on the happiness even of those who remain there, by warning

their task-masters that when the evils of Egyptian oppression become

heavier than those of the abandonment of country, another Canaan is open

where their subjects will be received as brothers, and secured against

like oppressions by a participation in the right of self-government. If

additional motives could be wanting with us to the maintenance of this

right, they would be found in the animating consideration that a single

good government becomes thus a blessing to the whole earth, its welcome

to the oppressed restraining within certain limits the measure of their

oppressions. But should even this be counteracted by violence on the

right of expatriation, the other branch of our example then presents

itself for imitation, to rise on their rulers and do as we have done. You

have set to your own country a good example, by showing them a peaceable

mode of reducing their rulers to the necessity of becoming more wise,

more moderate, and more honest, and I sincerely pray that the example

may work for the benefit of those who cannot follow it, as it will for

your own.

With Mr. Burckbeck, the associate of your late explanatory journeying,

I have not the happiness of personal acquaintance; but I know him

through his narrative of your journeyings together through France. The

impressions received from that, give me confidence that a participation

with yourself in assurances of the esteem and respect of a stranger

will not be unacceptable to him, and the less when given through you

and associated with those to yourself.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, October 10, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for your kind congratulations on the return of

my little family from Europe. To receive them all in fine health and

good spirits, after so long an absence, was a greater blessing than at

my time of life when they went away, I had any right to hope, or reason

to expect.

If the Secretary of State can give satisfaction to his fellow-citizens in

his new office, it will be a source of consolation to me while I live;

although it is not probable that I shall long be a witness of his good

success, or ill success. I shall soon be obliged to say to him, and to

you, and to your country and mine, God bless you all! Fare-thee-well!

Indeed, I need not wait a moment. I can say all that now, with as good

a will, and as clear a conscience, as at any time past, or future.

I thank you, also, for the loan of De Pradt's narration of the intrigues,

at the second restoration of the Bourbons. In this, as in many other

instances, is seen the influence of a single subtle mind, and a trifling

accident, in deciding the fate of mankind for ages. De Pradt and

Talleyrand were well associated.

I have ventured to send the pamphlet to Washington with a charge to return

it to you. The French have a King, a chamber of Peers, and a chamber of

Deputies. _Voila! les ossimens_ of a constitution of a limited monarchy;

and of a good one, provided the bones are united by good joints, and

knitted together by strong tendons. But where does the sovereignty reside?

Are the three branches sufficiently defined? A fair representation of the

body of the people by elections, sufficiently frequent, is essential to

a free government; but if the Commons cannot make themselves respected

by the Peers, and the King, they can do no good, nor prevent any evil.

Can any organization of government secure public and private liberty

without a general or universal freedom, without license, or licentiousness

of thinking, speaking, and writing. Have the French such freedom? Will

their religion, or policy, allow it?

When I think of liberty, and a free government, in an ancient, opulent,

populous, and commercial empire, I fear I shall always recollect a fable

of Plato.

Love is a son of the god of riches, and the goddess of poverty. He

inherits from his father the intrepidity of his courage, the enthusiasm

of his thoughts, his generosity, his prodigality, his confidence in

himself, the opinion of his own merit, the impatience to have always the

preference; but he derives from his mother that indigence which makes

him always a beggar; that importunity with which he demands everything;

that timidity which sometimes hinders him from daring to ask anything;

that disposition which he has to servitude, and that dread of being

despised, which he can never overcome.

Such is Love according to Plato. Who calls him a demon? And such is

liberty in France, and England, and all other great, rich, old, corrupted

commercial nations. The opposite qualities of the father and mother are

perpetually tearing to pieces himself and his friends as well as his

enemies.

Mr. Monroe has got the universal character among all our common people

of "A very smart man." And verily I am of the same mind. I know not

another who could have executed so great a plan so cleverly.

I wish him the same happy success through his whole administration.

I am, Sir, with respect and friendship, yours,

J. A.

TO THE HONORABLE JOHN Q. ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, November 1, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--Yours of the 4th of October was not received here until the

20th, having been sixteen days on its passage; since which unavoidable

avocations have made this the first moment it has been in my power to

acknowledge its receipt. Of the character of M. de Pradt his political

writings furnish a tolerable estimate, but not so full as you have

favored me with. He is eloquent, and his pamphlet on colonies shows him

ingenious. I was gratified by his _Recit Historique_, because, pretending,

as all men do, to some character, and he to one of some distinction, I

supposed he would not place before the world facts of glaring falsehood,

on which so many living and distinguished witnesses could convict him.

We, too, who are retired from the business of the world, are glad to

catch a glimpse of truth, here and there as we can, to guide our path

through the boundless field of fable in which we are bewildered by public

prints, and even by those calling themselves histories. A word of truth

to us is like the drop of water supplicated from the tip of Lazarus'

finger. It is as an observation of latitude and longitude to the mariner

long enveloped in clouds, for correcting the ship's way.

On the subject of weights and measures, you will have, at its threshold,

to encounter the question on which Solon and Lycurgus acted differently.

Shall we mould our citizens to the law, or the law to our citizens? And

in solving this question their peculiar character is an element not to

be neglected. Of the two only things in nature which can furnish an

invariable standard, to wit, the dimensions of the globe itself, and

the time of its diurnal revolution on its axis, it is not perhaps of

much importance which we adopt. That of the dimensions of the globe,

preferred ultimately by the French, after first adopting the other, has

been objected to from the difficulty, not to say impracticability, of

the verification of their admeasurement by other nations. Except the

portion of a meridian which they adopted for their operation, there

is not another on the globe which fulfils the requisite conditions,

to wit, of so considerable length, that length too divided, not very

unequally, by the 45th degree of latitude, and terminating at each end

in the ocean. Now, this singular line lies wholly in France and Spain.

Besides the immensity of expense and time which a verification would

always require, it cannot be undertaken by any nation without the joint

consent of these two powers. France having once performed the work,

and refusing, as she may, to let any other nation re-examine it, she

makes herself the sole depository of the original standard for all

nations; and all must send to her to obtain, and from time to time to

prove their standards. To this, indeed, it may be answered, that there

can be no reason to doubt that the mensuration has been as accurately

performed as the intervention of numerous waters, and of high ridges of

craggy mountains, would admit; that all the calculations have been free

of error, their coincidences faithfully reported, and that, whether in

peace or war, to foes as well as friends, free access to the original

will at all times be admitted. In favor of the standard to be taken from

the time employed in a revolution of the earth on its axis, it may be

urged that this revolution is a matter of fact present to all the world,

that its division into seconds of time is known and received by all the

world, that the length of a pendulum vibrating seconds in the different

circles of latitude is already known to all, and can at any time and in

any place be ascertained by any nation or individual, and inferred by

known laws from their own to the medium latitude of 45°, whenever any

doubt may make this desirable; and that this is the particular standard

which has at different times been contemplated and desired[1] by the

philosophers of every nation, and even by those of France, except at the

particular moment when this change was suddenly proposed and adopted,

and under circumstances peculiar to the history of the moment. But the

cogent reason which will decide the fate of whatever you report is, that

England has lately adopted the reference of its measures to the pendulum.

It is the mercantile part of our community which will have most to do in

this innovation; it is that which having command of all the presses can

make the loudest outcry, and you know their identification with English

regulations, practices, and prejudices. It is from this identification

alone you can hope to be permitted to adopt even the English reference to

a pendulum. But the English proposition goes only to say what proportion

their measures bear to the second pendulum of their own latitude, and

not at all to change their unit, or to reduce into any simple order

the chaos of their weights and measures. That would be innovation, and

innovation there is heresy and treason. Whether the Senate meant more

than this I do not know; and much doubt if more can be effected. However,

in endeavors to improve our situation, we should never despair; and I

sincerely wish you may be able to rally us to either standard, and to

give us an unit, the aliquot part of something invariable which may be

applied simply and conveniently to our measures, weights, and coins,

and most especially that the decimal divisions may pervade the whole.

The convenience of this in our monied system has been approved by all,

and France has followed the example. The volume of tracts which you have

noted in the library of Congress, contains everything which I had then

been able to collect on this subject. You will find some details which

may be of use in two thin 4to vols., Nos. 399, 400, of chapter xxiv.;

the latter being a collection of sheets selected from the "_Encyclopedie

Methodique_," on the weights, measures and coins of all nations, bound

up together and alone; and the former a supplement by Beyerlé. Cooper's

Emporium too, for May 1812, and August 1813, may offer something. The

reports of the Committees of Parliament of 1758-9, I think you will find

in Postlethwaite's Dictionary, which is also in the library, chapter

20, No. 10. That of Mechain and Delambre I have not, nor do I know who

has it.

I have lately seen a book which your office ought to possess, if it has

it not already, entitled "_Memoire sur la Louisiane_, par M. le Comte de

Vergennes, 8vo, Paris, chez Lepetit, Jeune, 1802." It contains more in

detail the proofs of the extent of Louisiana as far as the Rio Grande

than I have ever before seen, and its author gives it authenticity.

It has been executed with great industry and research into the French

records. This reminds me of a MS. which Governor Claiborne found in a

private family in Louisiana, being a journal kept (I forget by whom,

but) by a confidential officer of the government, proving exactly by

what connivance between the agents of the _compagnie d'occident_ and

the Spaniards these last smuggled settlements into Louisiana as far as

Assinais, Adais, &c., for the purpose of covering the contraband trade

of the company. Claiborne being afraid to trust the original by mail

without keeping a copy, sent it on. It arrived safe, and was deposited

in the office of State. He then sent me the copy on the destruction of

the office at Washington by the British, apprehending the original might

be involved in that destruction. I sent the copy to Colonel Monroe,

then Secretary of State, with a request to return it if the original

was safe, and to keep it if not. I have heard no more of it; but will

now request of you to have search made for the original, and if safe, to

return me the copy. I propose to deposit it with the historical committee

of the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, for safe keeping. I have

no use nor wish for such a thing myself, but think it will be safer in

two deposits than one. My recommendation to Colonel Monroe, was to have

it printed. I have barely left myself room to express my satisfaction

at your call to the important office you hold, and to tender you the

assurance of my great esteem and respect.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] If conforming to this desire of other nations, we adopt

the second pendulum, 3/10 of that for our foot will be the

same as ⅕ or, 2/10 of the second rod, because that rod is to

the pendulum as 3 to 2. This would make our foot ¼ inch less

than the present one.

TO MR. DUPONCEAU.

MONTICELLO, November 7, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--A part of the information of which the expedition of Lewis

and Clarke was the object, has been communicated to the world by

the publication of their journal; but much and valuable matter yet

remains uncommunicated. The correction of the longitudes of their map

is essential to its value; to which purpose their observations of the

lunar distances are to be calculated and applied. The new subjects they

discovered in the vegetable, animal, and mineral departments, are to

be digested and made known. The numerous vocabularies they obtained of

the Indian languages are to be collated and published. Although the

whole expense of the expedition was furnished by the public, and the

information to be derived from it was theirs also, yet on the return

of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, the government thought it just to leave

to them any pecuniary benefit which might result from a publication of

the papers, and supposed, indeed, that this would secure the best form

of publication. But the property in these papers still remained in the

government for the benefit of their constituents. With the measures

taken by Governor Lewis for their publication, I was never acquainted.

After his death, Governor Clarke put them, in the first instance, into

the hands of the late Doctor Barton, from whom some of them passed to

Mr. Biddle, and some again, I believe, from him to Mr. Allen. While

the MS. books of journals were in the hands of Dr. Barton, I wrote to

him, on behalf of Governor Lewis' family, requesting earnestly, that,

as soon as these should be published, the originals might be returned,

as the family wished to have them preserved. He promised in his answer

that it should be faithfully done. After his death, I obtained, through

the kind agency of Mr. Correa, from Mrs. Barton, three of these books,

of which I knew there had been ten or twelve, having myself read them.

These were all she could find. The rest, therefore, I presume, are in

the hands of the other gentlemen. After the agency I had had in effecting

this expedition, I thought myself authorized, and, indeed, that it would

be expected of me, that I should follow up the subject, and endeavor to

obtain its fruits for the public. I wrote to General Clarke, therefore,

for authority to receive the original papers. He gave it in the letters

to Mr. Biddle and to myself, which I now enclose. As the custody of

these papers belonged properly to the War-Office, and that was vacant

at the time, I have waited several months for its being filled. But the

office still remaining vacant, and my distance rendering any effectual

measures, by myself, impracticable, I ask the agency of your committee,

within whose province I propose to place the matter, by making it the

depository of the papers generally. I therefore now forward the three

volumes of MS. journals in my possession, and authorize them, under

General Clarke's letters, to inquire for and to receive the rest. So also

the astronomical and geographical papers, those relating to zoological,

botanical, and mineral subjects, with the Indian vocabularies, and

statistical tables relative to the Indians. Of the astronomical and

geographical papers, if the committee will be so good as to give me a

statement, I will, as soon as a Secretary at War is appointed, propose

to him to have made, at the public expense, the requisite calculations,

to have the map corrected in its longitudes and latitudes, engraved

and published on a proper scale; and I will ask from General Clarke the

one he offers, with his corrections. With respect to the zoological and

mineralogical papers and subjects, it would perhaps be agreeable to the

Philosophical Society, to have a digest of them made, and published in

their transactions or otherwise. And if it should be within the views

of the historical committee to have the Indian vocabularies digested

and published, I would add to them the remains of my collection. I had

through the course of my life availed myself of every opportunity of

procuring vocabularies of the languages of every tribe which either myself

or my friends could have access to. They amounted to about forty, more

or less perfect. But in their passage from Washington to this place, the

trunk in which they were was stolen and plundered, and some fragments

only of the vocabularies were recovered. Still, however, they were such

as would be worth incorporation with a larger work, and shall be at the

service of the historical committee, if they can make any use of them.

Permit me to request the return of General Clarke's letter, and to add

assurances of my respect and esteem.

P. S. With the volumes of MS. journal, Mrs. Barton delivered one by

mistake I suppose, which seems to have been the journal of some botanist.

I presume it was the property of Dr. Barton, and therefore forward it

to you to be returned to Mrs. Barton.

TO MR. CORREA.

POPLAR FOREST, November 25, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--I am highly gratified by the interest you take in our Central

College, and the more so as it may possibly become an inducement to

pass more of your time with us. It is even said you had thought of

engaging a house in its neighborhood. But why another house? Is not one

enough? and especially one whose inhabitants are made so happy by your

becoming their inmate? When you shall have a wife and family wishing

to be to themselves, then the question of another house may be taken

_ad referendum_. I wish Dr. Cooper could have the same partialities. He

seems to have misunderstood my last letter; in the former I had spoken

of opening our Physical School in the spring of '19, but learning that

that delay might render his engagement uncertain, the visitors determined

to force their preparations so as to receive him by midsummer next, and

so my letter stated. In one I now write, I recall his attention to that

circumstance. But his decision will no doubt be governed by the result

of the proposition, to permit the medical students of Philadelphia to

attend him. I can never regret any circumstance which may add to his

well-being, for I most sincerely wish him well. That himself and Mrs.

Cooper will be happier in the society of Philadelphia, cannot be doubted.

It would be flattering enough to us to be his second choice. I find from

his information that we are not to expect to obtain in this country

either a classical or mathematical professor of the first order: and

as our institution cannot be raised above the common herd of academies,

colleges, &c., already scattered over our country, but by super-eminent

professors, we have determined to accept of no mediocrity, and to seek

in Europe for what is eminent. We shall go to Edinburgh in preference,

because of the advantage to students of receiving communications in

their native tongue, and because peculiar and personal circumstances

will enable us to interest Dugald Stewart and Professor Leslie, of

that College, in procuring us subjects of real worth and eminence.

I put off writing to them for a classical and mathematical professor

only until I see what our legislature, which meets on Monday next, is

disposed to do, either on the question singly of adopting our college

for their university, or on that of entering at once on a general system

of instruction, for which they have, for some time been preparing. For

this last purpose I have sketched, and put into the hands of a member

a bill, delineating a practicable plan, entirely within the means they

already have on hand, destined to this object. My bill proposes, 1.

Elementary schools in every county, which shall place every householder

within three miles of a school. 2. District colleges, which shall place

every father within a day's ride of a college where he may dispose of

his son. 3. An university in a healthy and central situation, with the

offer of the lands, buildings, and funds of the Central College, if

they will accept that place for their establishment. In the 1st will

be taught reading, writing, common arithmetic, and general notions of

geography. In the 2d, ancient and modern languages, geography fully, a

higher degree of numerical arithmetic, mensuration, and the elementary

principles of navigation. In the 3d, all the useful sciences in their

highest degree. To all of which is added a selection from the elementary

schools of subjects of the most promising genius, whose parents are too

poor to give them further education, to be carried at the public expense

through the colleges and university. The object is to bring into action

that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country, for

want of the means of development, and thus give activity to a mass of

mind, which, in proportion to our population, shall be the double or

treble of what it is in most countries. The expense of the elementary

schools for every county, is proposed to be levied on the wealth of the

county, and all children rich and poor to be educated at these three

years gratis. The expense of the colleges and university, admitting two

professors to each of the former, and ten to the latter, can be completely

and permanently established with a sum of five hundred thousand dollars,

in addition to the present funds of our Central College. Our literary

fund has already on hand, and appropriated to these purposes, a sum of

seven hundred thousand dollars, and that increasing yearly. This is

in fact and substance the plan I proposed in a bill forty years ago,

but accommodated to the circumstances of this, instead of that day. I

derive my present hopes that it may now be adopted, from the fact that

the House of Representatives, at their last session, passed a bill, less

practicable and boundlessly expensive, and therefore alone rejected by

the Senate, and printed for public consideration and amendment. Mine,

after all, may be an Utopian dream, but being innocent, I have thought

I might indulge in it till I go to the land of dreams, and sleep there

with the dreamers of all past and future times.

I have taken measures to obtain the crested turkey, and will endeavor

to perpetuate that beautiful and singular characteristic, and shall be

not less earnest in endeavors to raise the Moronnier. God bless you,

and preserve you long in life and health, until wearied with delighting

your kindred spirits here, you may wish to encounter the great problem,

untried by the living, unreported by the dead.

TO MR. DUPONCEAU.

MONTICELLO, December 30, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--An absence of six weeks has occasioned your letters of the

5th and 11th inst., to lie thus long unacknowledged. After I had sent

off the two other Westover MSS. I received a third of the same journal.

On perusing it I am not sensible by memory, of anything not contained in

the former, except eight pages of a preliminary account of the abridgment

of our limits by successive charters to other colonies. I suppose this

to be a copy of the largest of the other two, entered fair in a folio

volume, with other documents relating to the government of Virginia. It

is bound in vellum, and, by the arms pasted in it, seems to have been

intended for the shelves of the author's library. As this journal is

complete it might enable us to supply the hiatuses of the other copies.

I now send you the remains of my Indian vocabularies, some of which are

perfect. I send with them the fragments of my digest of them, which were

gathered up on the banks of the river where they had been strewed by the

plunderers of the trunk in which they were. Those will merely show the

arrangement I had given the vocabularies, according to their affinities

and degrees of resemblance or dissimilitude.

If you can recover Capt. Lewis' collection, they will make an important

addition, for there was no part of his instructions which he executed more

fully or carefully, never meeting with a single Indian of a new tribe,

without making his vocabulary the first object. What Professor Adelung

mentions of the Empress Catharine's having procured many vocabularies of

our Indians, is correct. She applied to M. de La Fayette, who, through

the aid of General Washington, obtained several; but I never learnt of

what particular tribes. The great works of Pallas being rare, I will

mention that there are two editions of it, the one in two volumes, the

other in four volumes 4to, in the library I ceded to Congress, which

maybe consulted. But the Professor's account of the supposed Mexican MS.

is quite erroneous, nor can I conceive through whom he can have received

his information. It has probably been founded on an imperfect knowledge

of the following fact: Soon after the acquisition of Louisiana, Governor

Claiborne found, in a private family there, a MS. journal kept, (I forget

by whom,) but by a confidential officer of the French government, proving

exactly by what connivance between the agents of the compagnie d'occident,

and the Spaniards, these last smuggled settlements into Louisiana, as

far as Assinais, Adais, &c., for the purpose of covering the contraband

trade of the company. Claiborne, being afraid to trust the original by

mail, without keeping a copy, sent it on after being copied. It arrived

safe, and was deposited by me in the office of State. He then sent me

the copy, on the destruction of the office at Washington by the British;

apprehending the original might be involved in that destruction, I sent

the copy to Colonel Monroe, then Secretary of State, with a request to

return it, if the original was safe, and to keep it, if not. I have

heard no more of it. My intention was, and is, if it is returned to

me, to deposit it with your committee for safe keeping or publication.

While on the subject of Louisiana, I have thought I had better commit

to you also an historical memoir of my own respecting the important

question of its limits. When we first made the purchase we knew little

of its extent, having never before been interested to inquire into it.

Possessing, then, in my library, everything respecting America which I

had been able to collect by unremitting researches, during my residence

in Europe, particularly and generally through my life, I availed myself

of the leisure of my succeeding autumnal recess from Washington, to bring

together everything which my collection furnished on the subject of its

boundary. The result was the memoir I now send you, copies of which were

furnished to our ministers at Paris and Madrid, for their information as

to the extent of territory claimed under our purchase. The New Orleans

MS. afterwards discovered, furnished some valuable supplementary proofs

of title.

I defer writing to the Secretary at War respecting the observations of

longitude and latitude by Capt. Lewis, until I learn from you whether

they are recovered, and whether they are so complete as to be susceptible

of satisfactory calculation. I salute you with great respect and esteem.

TO MR. WIRT.

MONTICELLO, January 5, 1818.

I have first to thank you, dear Sir, for the copy of your late work

which you have been so kind as to send me, and then to render you double

congratulations, first, on the general applause it has so justly received,

and next on the public testimony of esteem for its author, manifested

by your late call to the executive councils of the nation. All this I

do heartily, and then proceed to a case of business on which you will

have to advise the government on the threshold of your office. You have

seen the death of General Kosciusko announced in the papers in such a

way as not to be doubted. He had in the funds of the United States a

very considerable sum of money, on the interest of which he depended for

subsistence. On his leaving the United States, in 1798, he placed it under

my direction by a power of attorney, which I executed entirely through

Mr. Barnes, who regularly remitted his interest. But he left also in my

hands an autograph will, disposing of his funds in a particular course

of charity, and making me his executor. The question the government

will ask of you, and which I therefore ask, is in what court must this

will be proved, and my qualification as executor be received, to justify

the United States in placing these funds under the trust? This is to be

executed wholly in this State, and will occupy so long a course of time

beyond what I can expect to live, that I think to propose to place it

under the Court of Chancery. The place of probate generally follows the

residence of the testator. That was in a foreign country in the present

case. Sometimes the _bona notabilia_. The evidences or representations

of these (the certificates) are in my hands. The things represented (the

money) in those of the United States. But where are the United States?

Everywhere, I suppose, where they have government or property liable to

the demand on payment. That is to say, in every State of the Union, in

this, for example, as well as any other, strengthened by the circumstances

of the deposit of the will, the residence of the executor, and the place

where the trust is to be executed. In no instance, I believe, does the

mere habitation of the debtor draw to it the place of probate, and if it

did, the United States are omnipresent by their functionaries, as well as

property in every State of the Union. I am led by these considerations

to suppose our district or general court competent to the object; but

you know best, and by your advice, sanctioned by the Secretary of the

Treasury, I shall act. I write to the Secretary on this subject. If our

district court will do, I can attend it personally; if the general court

only be competent, I am in hopes it will find means of dispensing with

my personal attendance. I salute you with affectionate esteem and respect.

TO DR. BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE.

MONTICELLO, March 3, 1818.

DEAR SIR,--I have just received your favor of February 20th, in which you

observe that Mr. Wirt, on page 47 of his Life of Patrick Henry, quotes

me as saying that "Mr. Henry certainly gave the first impulse to the

ball of revolution." I well recollect to have used some such expression

in a letter to him, and am tolerably certain that our own State being

the subject under contemplation, I must have used it with respect to

that only. Whether he has given it a more general aspect I cannot say,

as the passage is not in the page you quote, nor, after thumbing over

much of the book, have I been able to find it.[2] In page 417 there is

something like it, but not the exact expression, and even there it may

be doubted whether Mr. Wirt had his eye on Virginia alone, or on all

the colonies. But the question, who commenced the revolution? is as

difficult as that of the first inventors of a thousand good things. For

example, who first discovered the principle of gravity? Not Newton; for

Galileo, who died the year that Newton was born, had measured its force

in the descent of gravid bodies. Who invented the Lavoiserian chemistry?

The English say Dr. Black, by the preparatory discovery of latent heat.

Who invented the steamboat? Was it Gerbert, the Marquis of Worcester,

Newcomen, Savary, Papin, Fitch, Fulton? The fact is, that one new idea

leads to another, that to a third, and so on through a course of time

until some one, with whom no one of these ideas was original, combines

all together, and produces what is justly called a new invention. I

suppose it would be as difficult to trace our revolution to its first

embryo. We do not know how long it was hatching in the British cabinet

before they ventured to make the first of the experiments which were to

develop it in the end and to produce complete parliamentary supremacy.

Those you mention in Massachusetts as preceding the stamp act, might

be the first visible symptoms of that design. The proposition of that

act in 1764, was the first here. Your opposition, therefore, preceded

ours, as occasion was sooner given there than here, and the truth, I

suppose, is, that the opposition in every colony began whenever the

encroachment was presented to it. This question of priority is as the

inquiry would be who first, of the three hundred Spartans, offered his

name to Leonidas? I shall be happy to see justice done to the merits of

all, by the unexceptionable umpirage of date and facts, and especially

from the pen which is proposed to be employed in it.

I rejoice, indeed, to learn from you that Mr. Adams retains the strength

of his memory, his faculties, his cheerfulness, and even his epistolary

industry. This last is gone from me. The aversion has been growing on

me for a considerable time, and now, near the close of seventy-five,

is become almost insuperable. I am much debilitated in body, and my

memory sensibly on the wane. Still, however, I enjoy good health and

spirits, and am as industrious a reader as when a student at college.

Not of newspapers. These I have discarded. I relinquish, as I ought to

do, all intermeddling with public affairs, committing myself cheerfully

to the watch and care of those for whom, in my turn, I have watched and

cared. When I contemplate the immense advances in science and discoveries

in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look

forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation,

and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have

been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches.

Even the metaphysical contest, which you so pleasantly described to me

in a former letter, will probably end in improvement, by clearing the

mind of Platonic mysticism and unintelligible jargon. Although age is

taking from me the power of communicating by letter with my friends

as industriously as heretofore, I shall still claim with them the same

place they will ever hold in my affections, and on this ground I, with

sincerity and pleasure, assure you of my great esteem and respect.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] It was found page 41.

TO N. BURWELL, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, March 14, 1818.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter of February 17th found me suffering under an attack

of rheumatism, which has but now left me at sufficient ease to attend

to the letters I have received. A plan of female education has never

been a subject of systematic contemplation with me. It has occupied my

attention so far only as the education of my own daughters occasionally

required. Considering that they would be placed in a country situation,

where little aid could be obtained from abroad, I thought it essential

to give them a solid education, which might enable them, when become

mothers, to educate their own daughters, and even to direct the course

for sons, should their fathers be lost, or incapable, or inattentive.

My surviving daughter accordingly, the mother of many daughters as well

as sons, has made their education the object of her life, and being a

better judge of the practical part than myself, it is with her aid and

that of one of her elevès, that I shall subjoin a catalogue of the books

for such a course of reading as we have practiced.

A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for

novels, and the time lost in that reading which should be instructively

employed. When this poison infects the mind, it destroys its tone

and revolts it against wholesome reading. Reason and fact, plain and

unadorned, are rejected. Nothing can engage attention unless dressed in

all the figments of fancy, and nothing so bedecked comes amiss. The result

is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the

real businesses of life. This mass of trash, however, is not without some

distinction; some few modelling their narratives, although fictitious,

on the incidents of real life, have been able to make them interesting

and useful vehicles of a sound morality. Such, I think, are Marmontel's

new moral tales, but not his old ones, which are really immoral. Such are

the writings of Miss Edgeworth, and some of those of Madame Genlis. For

a like reason, too, much poetry should not be indulged. Some is useful

for forming style and taste. Pope, Dryden, Thompson, Shakspeare, and of

the French, Molière, Racine, the Corneilles, may be read with pleasure

and improvement.

The French language, become that of the general intercourse of nations,

and from their extraordinary advances, now the depository of all

science, is an indispensable part of education for both sexes. In the

subjoined catalogue, therefore, I have placed the books of both languages

indifferently, according as the one or the other offers what is best.

The ornaments too, and the amusements of life, are entitled to their

portion of attention. These, for a female, are dancing, drawing, and

music. The first is a healthy exercise, elegant and very attractive

for young people. Every affectionate parent would be pleased to

see his daughter qualified to participate with her companions, and

without awkwardness at least, in the circles of festivity, of which

she occasionally becomes a part. It is a necessary accomplishment,

therefore, although of short use; for the French rule is wise, that no

lady dances after marriage. This is founded in solid physical reasons,

gestation and nursing leaving little time to a married lady when this

exercise can be either safe or innocent. Drawing is thought less of in

this country than in Europe. It is an innocent and engaging amusement,

often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who is to

become a mother and an instructor. Music is invaluable where a person has

an ear. Where they have not, it should not be attempted. It furnishes

a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the

day, and lasts us through life. The taste of this country, too, calls

for this accomplishment more strongly than for either of the others.

I need say nothing of household economy, in which the mothers of our

country are generally skilled, and generally careful to instruct their

daughters. We all know its value, and that diligence and dexterity in

all its processes are inestimable treasures. The order and economy of

a house are as honorable to the mistress as those of the farm to the

master, and if either be neglected, ruin follows, and children destitute

of the means of living.

This, Sir, is offered as a summary sketch on a subject on which I have

not thought much. It probably contains nothing but what has already

occurred to yourself, and claims your acceptance on no other ground than

as a testimony of my respect for your wishes, and of my great esteem

and respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, May 17, 1818.

DEAR SIR,--I was so unfortunate as not to receive from Mr. Holly's own

hand your favor of January the 28th, being then at my other home. He

dined only with my family, and left them with an impression which has

filled me with regret that I did not partake of the pleasure his visit

gave them. I am glad he is gone to Kentucky. Rational Christianity will

thrive more rapidly there than here. They are freer from prejudices

than we are, and bolder in grasping at truth. The time is not distant,

though neither you nor I shall see it, when we shall be but a secondary

people to them. Our greediness for wealth, and fantastical expense, have

degraded, and will degrade, the minds of our maritime citizens. These

are the peculiar vices of commerce.

I had been long without hearing _from_ you, but I had heard _of_ you

through a letter from Doctor Waterhouse. He wrote to reclaim against

an expression of Mr. Wirt's, as to the commencement of motion in the

revolutionary ball. The lawyers say that words are always to be expounded

_secundum subjectam materiem_, which, in Mr. Wirt's case, was Virginia.

It would, moreover, be as difficult to say at what moment the Revolution

began, and what incident set it in motion, as to fix the moment that the

embryo becomes an animal, or the act which gives him a beginning. But

the most agreeable part of his letter was that which informed me of your

health, your activity, and strength of memory; and the most wonderful,

that which assured me that you retained your industry and promptness in

epistolary correspondence. Here you have entire advantage over me. My

repugnance to the writing table becomes daily and hourly more deadly

and insurmountable. In place of this has come on a canine appetite

for reading. And I indulge it, because I see in it a relief against

the _tædium senectutis_; a lamp to lighten my path through the dreary

wilderness of time before me, whose bourne I see not. Losing daily all

interest in the things around us, something else is necessary to fill

the void. With me it is reading, which occupies the mind without the

labor of producing ideas from my own stock.

I enter into all your doubts as to the event of the revolution of South

America. They will succeed against Spain. But the dangerous enemy is

within their own breasts. Ignorance and superstition will chain their

minds and bodies under religious and military despotism. I do believe

it would be better for them to obtain freedom by degrees only; because

that would by degrees bring on light and information, and qualify them

to take charge of themselves understandingly; with more certainty,

if in the meantime, under so much control as may keep them at peace

with one another. Surely, it is our duty to wish them independence and

self-government, because they wish it themselves, and they have the

right, and we none, to choose for themselves; and I wish, moreover, that

our ideas may be erroneous, and theirs prove well founded. But these

are speculations, my friend, which we may as well deliver over to those

who are to see their development. We shall only be lookers on, from the

clouds above, as now we look down on the labors, the hurry and bustle of

the ants and bees. Perhaps in that super-mundane region, we may be amused

with seeing the fallacy of our own guesses, and even the nothingness of

those labors which have filled and agitated our own time here.

_En attendant_, with sincere affections to Mrs. Adams and yourself, I

salute you both cordially.

TO M. JULLIEN.

MONTICELLO, July 23, 1818.

SIR,--Your favor of March 30th, 1817, came to my hands on the 1st of

March, 1818. While the statement it contained of the many instances

of your attention in sending to me your different writings was truly

flattering, it was equally mortifying to perceive that two only of

the eight it enumerates, had ever come to my hands; and that both of

my acknowledgments of these had miscarried also. Your first favor of

November 5th, 1809, was received by me on the 6th of May, 1810, and was

answered on the 15th of July of the same year, with an acknowledgment

of the receipt of your "_Essai general d'education physique morale, et

intellectuelle,_" and of the high sense I entertained of its utility.

I do not recollect through what channel I sent this answer, but have

little doubt that it was through the office of our Secretary of State,

and our minister then at the court of France.

In a letter from Mr. E. I. Dupont of August 11, 1817, I received the

favor of your "_Esquisse d'un ouvrage sur l'education comparée,_" which

he said had been received by his father a few days before his death;

and on the 9th of September, 1817, I answered his letter, in which was

the following paragraph: "I duly received the pamphlet of M. Jullien on

Education, to whom I had been indebted some years before for a valuable

work on the same subject. Of this I expressed to him my high estimation in

a letter of thanks, which I trust he received. The present pamphlet is an

additional proof of his useful assiduities on this interesting subject,

which, if the condition of man is to be progressively ameliorated, as

we fondly hope and believe, is to be the chief instrument in effecting

it." I hoped that Mr. E. I. Dupont, in acknowledging to you the receipt

of your letter to his father, would be the channel of conveying to you

my thanks, as he was to me of the work for which they were rendered. Be

assured, Sir, that not another scrip, either written or printed, ever came

to me from you; and that I was incapable of omitting the acknowledgments

they called for, and of the neglect which you have had so much reason

to impute to me. I know well the uncertainty of transmissions across the

Atlantic, but never before experienced such a train of them as has taken

place in your favors and my acknowledgments of them. You will perceive

that the letter I am now answering was eleven months on its passage to

me.

The distance between the scenes of action of General Kosciusko and myself,

during our revolutionary war,--his in the military, mine in the civil

department,--was such, that I could give no particulars of the part he

acted in that war. But immediately on the receipt of your letter, I wrote

to General Armstrong, who had been his companion in arms, and an aid to

General Gates, with whom General Kosciusko mostly served, and requested

him to give me all the details within his knowledge; informing him for

whom, and for what purpose they were asked. I received, two days ago

only, the paper of which the enclosed is a copy, and copied by myself,

because the original is in such a handwriting as I am confident no

foreigner could ever decypher. However heavily pressed by the hand of

age, and unequal to the duties of punctual correspondence, of which my

friends generally would have a right to complain, if the cause depended

on myself, I am happy to find that in that with yourself there has

been no ground of reproach. Least of all things could I have omitted

any researches within my power which might do justice to the memory of

General Kosciusko, the brave auxiliary of my country in its struggle for

liberty, and, from the year 1797, when our particular acquaintance began,

my most intimate and much beloved friend. On his last departure from the

United States in 1798, he left in my hands an instrument appropriating

after his death all the property he had in our public funds, the price

of his military services here, to the education and emancipation of as

many of the children of bondage in this country as it should be adequate

to. I am now too old to undertake a business _de si longue haleine_;

but I am taking measures to place it in such hands as will ensure a

faithful discharge of the philanthropic intentions of the donor. I learn

with pleasure your continued efforts for the instruction of the future

generations of men, and, believing it the only means of effectuating

their rights, I wish them all possible success, and to yourself the

eternal gratitude of those who will feel their benefits, and beg leave

to add the assurance of my high esteem and respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, November 13, 1818.

The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your

letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself

in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection

which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost,

what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same

trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are

the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open

afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my

tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that

it is of some comfort to us both, that the term is not very distant, at

which we are to deposit in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering

bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends

we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose

again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.

TO ROBERT WALSH.

MONTICELLO, December 4, 1818.

DEAR SIR,--Yours of November the 8th has been some time received; but

it is in my power to give little satisfaction as to its inquiries. Dr.

Franklin had many political enemies, as every character must, which,

with decision enough to have opinions, has energy and talent to give

them effect on the feelings of the adversary opinion. These enmities

were chiefly in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. In the former, they were

merely of the proprietary party. In the latter, they did not commence

till the Revolution, and then sprung chiefly from personal animosities,

which spreading by little and little, became at length of some extent.

Dr. Lee was his principal calumniator, a man of much malignity, who,

besides enlisting his whole family in the same hostility, was enabled,

as the agent of Massachusetts with the British government, to infuse it

into that State with considerable effect. Mr. Izard, the Doctor's enemy

also, but from a pecuniary transaction, never countenanced these charges

against him. Mr. Jay, Silas Deane, Mr. Laurens, his colleagues also, ever

maintained towards him unlimited confidence and respect. That he would

have waived the formal recognition of our independence, I never heard on

any authority worthy notice. As to the fisheries, England was urgent to

retain them exclusively, France neutral, and I believe, that had they been

ultimately made a _sine quâ non_, our commissioners (Mr. Adams excepted)

would have relinquished them, rather than have broken off the treaty. To

Mr. Adams' perseverance alone, on that point, I have always understood

we were indebted for their reservation. As to the charge of subservience

to France, besides the evidence of his friendly colleagues before named,

two years of my own service with him at Paris, daily visits, and the

most friendly and confidential conversation, convince me it had not a

shadow of foundation. He possessed the confidence of that government in

the highest degree, insomuch, that it may truly be said, that they were

more under his influence, than he under theirs. The fact is, that his

temper was so amiable and conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never

urging impossibilities, or even things unreasonably inconvenient to them,

in short, so moderate and attentive to their difficulties, as well as

our own, that what his enemies called subserviency, I saw was only that

reasonable disposition, which, sensible that advantages are not all to

be on one side, yielding what is just and liberal, is the more certain

of obtaining liberality and justice. Mutual confidence produces, of

course, mutual influence, and this was all which subsisted between Dr.

Franklin and the government of France.

I state a few anecdotes of Dr. Franklin, within my own knowledge, too

much in detail for the scale of Delaplaine's work, but which may find _a

cadre_ in some of the more particular views you contemplate. My health is

in a great measure restored, and our family join with me in affectionate

recollections and assurances of respect.

TO M. DE NEUVILLE.

MONTICELLO, December 13, 1818.

I thank your Excellency for the notice with which your letters favor me,

of the liberation of France from the occupation of the allied powers. To

no one, not a native, will it give more pleasure. In the desolation of

Europe, to gratify the atrocious caprices of Bonaparte, France sinned

much; but she has suffered more than retaliation. Once relieved from

the incubus of her late oppression, she will rise like a giant from

her slumbers. Her soil and climate, her arts and eminent sciences, her

central position and free constitution, will soon make her greater than

she ever was. And I am a false prophet, if she does not at some future

day, remind of her sufferings those who have inflicted them the most

eagerly. I hope, however, she will be quiet for the present, and risk

no new troubles. Her constitution, as now amended, gives as much of

self-government as perhaps she can yet bear, and will give more, when

the habits of order shall have prepared her to receive more. Besides the

gratitude which every American owes her, as our sole ally during the

war of independence, I am additionally affectioned by the friendships

I contracted there, by the good dispositions I witnessed, and by the

courtesies I received.

I rejoice, as a moralist, at the prospect of a reduction of the duties

on wine, by our national legislature. It is an error to view a tax on

that liquor as merely a tax on the rich. It is a prohibition of its use

to the middling class of our citizens, and a condemnation of them to

the poison of whiskey, which is desolating their houses. No nation is

drunken where wine is cheap; and none sober, where the dearness of wine

substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is, in truth, the

only antidote to the bane of whiskey. Fix but the duty at the rate of

other merchandise, and we can drink wine here as cheap as we do grog; and

who will not prefer it? Its extended use will carry health and comfort

to a much enlarged circle. Every one in easy circumstances (as the bulk

of our citizens are) will prefer it to the poison to which they are now

driven by their government. And the treasury itself will find that a

penny a piece from a dozen, is more than a groat from a single one. This

reformation, however, will require time. Our merchants know nothing of

the infinite variety of cheap and good wines to be had in Europe; and

particularly in France, in Italy, and the Græcian islands; as they know

little also, of the variety of excellent manufactures and comforts to

be had anywhere out of England. Nor will these things be known, nor of

course called for here, until the native merchants of those countries,

to whom they are known, shall bring them forward, exhibit and vend them

at the moderate profits they can afford. This alone will procure them

familiarity with us, and the preference they merit in competition with

corresponding articles now in use.

Our family renew with pleasure their recollections of your kind visit

to Monticello, and join me in tendering sincere assurances of the

gratification it afforded us, and of our great esteem and respectful

consideration.

TO NATHANIEL MACON, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, January 12, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--The problem you had wished to propose to me was one which

I could not have solved; for I knew nothing of the facts. I read no

newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for

they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. I feel a

much greater interest in knowing what has passed two or three thousand

years ago, than in what is now passing. I read nothing, therefore, but

of the heroes of Troy, of the wars of Lacedæmon and Athens, of Pompey and

Cæsar, and of Augustus too, the Bonaparte and parricide scoundrel of that

day. I have had, and still have, such entire confidence in the late and

present Presidents, that I willingly put both soul and body into their

pockets. While such men as yourself and your worthy colleagues of the

legislature, and such characters as compose the executive administration,

are watching for us all, I slumber without fear, and review in my dreams

the visions of antiquity. There is, indeed, one evil which awakens me

at times, because it jostles me at every turn. It is that we have now no

measure of value. I am asked eighteen dollars for a yard of broadcloth,

which, when we had dollars, I used to get for eighteen shillings; from

this I can only understand that a dollar is now worth but two inches of

broadcloth, but broadcloth is no standard of measure or value. I do not

know, therefore, whereabouts I stand in the scale of property, nor what

to ask, or what to give for it. I saw, indeed, the like machinery in

action in the years '80 and '81, and without dissatisfaction; because in

wearing out, it was working out our salvation. But I see nothing in this

renewal of the game of "Robin's alive" but a general demoralization of

the nation, a filching from industry its honest earnings, wherewith to

build up palaces, and raise gambling stock for swindlers and shavers, who

are too close to their career of piracies by fraudulent bankruptcies.

My dependence for a remedy, however, is with the wisdom which grows

with time and suffering. Whether the succeeding generation is to be more

virtuous than their predecessors, I cannot say; but I am sure they will

have more worldly wisdom, and enough, I hope, to know that honesty is

the first chapter in the book of wisdom. I have made a great exertion to

write you thus much; my antipathy to taking up a pen being so intense

that I have never given you a stronger proof, than in the effort of

writing a letter, how much I value you, and of the superlative respect

and friendship with which I salute you.

TO MR. ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, March 21, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--I am indebted to you for Mr. Bowditch's very learned

mathematical papers, the calculations of which are not for every reader,

although their results are readily enough understood. One of these

impairs the confidence I had reposed in La Place's demonstration, that

the eccentricities of the planets of our system could oscillate only

within narrow limits, and therefore could authorize no inference that

the system must, by its own laws, come one day to an end. This would

have left the question one of infinitude, at both ends of the line of

time, clear of physical authority.

Mr. Pickering's pamphlet on the pronunciation of the Greek, for which I

am indebted to you also, I have read with great pleasure. Early in life,

the idea occurred to me that the people now inhabiting the ancient seats

of the Greeks and Romans, although their languages in the intermediate

ages had suffered great changes, and especially in the declension of

their nouns, and in the terminations of their words generally, yet

having preserved the body of the word radically the same, so they would

preserve more of its pronunciation. That at least it was probable that

a pronunciation, handed down by tradition, would retain, as the words

themselves do, more of the original than that of any other people whose

language has no affinity to that original. For this reason I learnt,

and have used the Italian pronunciation of the Latin. But that of the

modern Greeks I had no opportunity of learning until I went to Paris.

There I became acquainted with two learned Greeks, Count Carberri and

Mr. Paradise, and with a lady, a native Greek, the daughter of Baron de

Tott, who did not understand the ancient language. Carberri and Paradise

spoke it. From these instructors I learnt the modern pronunciation,

and in _general_ trusted to its orthodoxy. I say, _in general_, because

sound being more fugitive than the written letter, we must, after such

a lapse of time, presume in it some degeneracies, as we see there are

in the written words. We may not, indeed, be able to put our finger on

them confidently, yet neither are they entirely beyond the reach of all

indication. For example, in a language so remarkable for the euphony of

its sounds, if that euphony is preserved in particular combinations of

its letters, by an adherence to the powers ordinarily ascribed to them,

and is destroyed by a change of these powers, and the sound of the word

thereby rendered harsh, inharmonious, and inidiomatical, here we may

presume some degeneracy has taken place. While, therefore, I gave in

to the modern pronunciation generally, I have presumed, as an instance

of degeneracy, their ascribing the same sound to the six letters, or

combinations of letters, ε, ι, υ, ει, οι, υι, to all of which they give

the sound of our double _e_ in the word _meet_. This useless equivalence

of three vowels and three diphthongs, did not probably exist among the

ancient Greeks; and the less probably as, while this single sound, _ee_,

is overcharged by so many different representative characters, the sounds

we usually give to these characters and combinations would be left without

any representative signs. This would imply either that they had not these

sounds in their language, or no signs for their expression. Probability

appears to me, therefore, against the practice of the modern Greeks of

giving the same sound to all these different representatives, and to be

in favor of that of foreign nations, who, adopting the Roman characters,

have assimilated to them, in a considerable degree, the powers of the

corresponding Greek letters. I have, accordingly, excepted this in my

adoption of the modern pronunciation. I have been more doubtful in the

use of the αυ, ευ, ηυ, ωυ, sounding the υ, upsilon, as our _f_ or _v_,

because I find traces of that power of υ, or of _v_, in some modern

languages. To go no further than our own, we have it in _laugh_, _cough_,

_trough_, _enough_. The county of Louisa, adjacent to that in which I

live, was, when I was a boy, universally pronounced Lovisa. That it is

not the _gh_ which gives the sound of _f_ or _v_, in these words, is

proved by the orthography of _plough_, _trough_, _thought_, _fraught_,

_caught_. The modern Greeks themselves, too, giving up υ, upsilon, in

ordinary, the sound of our _ee_, strengthens the presumption that its

anomalous sound of _f_ or _v_, is a corruption. The same may be inferred

from the cacophony of ελαφνε (elavne) for ελαυνε, (elawne,) Αχιλλεφς

(Achillefs) for Αχιλλευς, (Achilleise,) εφς (eves) for εϋς, (eeuse,)

οφκ (ovk) for ouk, (ouk,) ωφτος (ovetos) for ωϋτος, (o-u-tos,) Ζεφς (zevs)

for Ζευς (zese,) of which all nations have made their Jupiter; and the

uselessness of the υ in ευφωνια which would otherwise have been spelt

εφωνια. I therefore except this also from what I consider as approvable

pronunciation.

Against reading Greek by accent, instead of quantity, as Mr. Ciceitira

proposes, I raise both my hands. What becomes of the sublime measure of

Homer, the full sounding rhythm of Demosthenes, if, abandoning quantity,

you chop it up by accent? What ear can hesitate in its choice between

the two following rhythms?

"Tὸν, δ' απαμειβὸμενος προσεφὴ πόδας ωκὺς Αχιλλευς,

and,

Τον, δ' απαμειβομενός προσεφὴ ποδας ώκυς Αχίλλευς,"

the latter noted according to prosody, the former by accent, and

dislocating our teeth in its utterance; every syllable of it, except the

first and last, being pronounced against quantity. And what becomes of

the art of prosody? Is that perfect coincidence of its rules with the

structure of their verse, merely accidental? or was it of design, and

yet for no use.

On the whole, I rejoice that this subject is taken up among us, and that

it is in so able hands as those of Mr. Pickering. Should he ultimately

establish the modern pronunciation of the letters without any exception,

I shall think it a great step gained, and giving up my exceptions,

shall willingly rally to him; and as he has promised us another paper

on the question whether we shall read by quantity or by accent, I can

confidently trust it to the correctness of his learning and judgment.

Of the origin of accentuation, I have never seen satisfactory proofs.

But I have generally supposed the accents were intended to direct the

inflections and modulations of the voice; but not to affect the quantity

of the syllables. You did not expect, I am sure, to draw on yourself so

long a disquisition on letters and sounds, nor did I intend it, but the

subject run before me, and yet I have dropped much of it by the way.

I am delighted with your high approbation of Mr. Tracy's book. The evils

of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed, until our citizens

are generally and radically instructed in their cause and consequences,

and silence by their authority the interested clamors and sophistry of

speculating, shaving, and banking institutions. Till then we must be

content to return, _quod hoc_, to the savage state, to recur to barter

in the exchange of our property, for want of a stable, common measure of

value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and wampum of the

Indian, and to deliver up our citizens, their property and their labor,

passive victims to the swindling tricks of bankers and mountebankers. If

I had your permission to put your letter into the hands of the editor,

(Milligan,) with or without any verbal alterations you might choose, it

would ensure the general circulation, which my prospectus and prefatory

letter will less effectually recommend. There is nothing in the book of

mine but these two articles, and the note on taxation in page 202. I never

knew who the translator was; but I thought him some one who understood

neither French nor English; and probably a Caledonian, from the number

of Scotticisms I found in his MS. The innumerable corrections in that,

cost me more labor than would have done a translation of the whole _de

novo_; and made at last but an inelegant although faithful version of

the sense of the author. _Dios guarde á V. S. muchos años._

TO DOCTOR VINE UTLEY.

MONTICELLO, March 21, 1819.

SIR,--Your letter of February the 18th came to hand on the 1st instant;

and the request of the history of my physical habits would have puzzled

me not a little, had it not been for the model with which you accompanied

it, of Doctor Rush's answer to a similar inquiry. I live so much like

other people, that I might refer to ordinary life as the history of my

own. Like my friend the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating little

animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the

vegetables, which constitute my principal diet. I double, however, the

Doctor's glass and a half of wine, and even treble it with a friend; but

halve its effects by drinking the weak wines only. The ardent wines I

cannot drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in any form. Malt liquors and

cider are my table drinks, and my breakfast, like that also of my friend,

is of tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs of digestion which

accept and concoct, without ever murmuring, whatever the palate chooses

to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth by age. I was a hard

student until I entered on the business of life, the duties of which

leave no idle time to those disposed to fulfil them; and now, retired,

and at the age of seventy-six, I am again a hard student. Indeed, my

fondness for reading and study revolts me from the drudgery of letter

writing. And a stiff wrist, the consequence of an early dislocation, makes

writing both slow and painful. I am not so regular in my sleep as the

Doctor says he was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according

as my company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go to

bed without an hour, or half hour's previous reading of something moral,

whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. But whether I retire to

bed early or late, I rise with the sun. I use spectacles at night, but

not necessarily in the day, unless in reading small print. My hearing is

distinct in particular conversation, but confused when several voices

cross each other, which unfits me for the society of the table. I have

been more fortunate than my friend in the article of health. So free

from catarrhs that I have not had one, (in the breast, I mean) on an

average of eight or ten years through life. I ascribe this exemption

partly to the habit of bathing my feet in cold water every morning, for

sixty years past. A fever of more than twenty-four hours I have not had

above two or three times in my life. A periodical headache has afflicted

me occasionally, once, perhaps, in six or eight years, for two or three

weeks at a time, which seems now to have left me; and except on a late

occasion of indisposition, I enjoy good health; too feeble, indeed, to

walk much, but riding without fatigue six or eight miles a day, and

sometimes thirty or forty. I may end these egotisms, therefore, as I

began, by saying that my life has been so much like that of other people,

that I might say with Horace, to every one "_nomine mutato, narratur

fabula de te_." I must not end, however, without due thanks for the kind

sentiments of regard you are so good as to express towards myself; and

with my acknowledgments for these, be pleased to accept the assurances

of my respect and esteem.

TO MR. SPAFFORD.

MONTICELLO, May 11, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--The interest on the late derangement of my health which was so

kindly expressed by many, could not but be gratifying to me, as much as

it manifested a sentiment that I had not been merely an useless cypher

of society. Yet a decline of health at the age of 76, was naturally to

be expected, and is a warning of an event which cannot be distant, and

whose approach I contemplate with little concern; for indeed, in no

circumstance has nature been kinder to us, than in the soft gradations

by which she prepares us to part willingly with what we are not destined

always to retain. First one faculty is withdrawn and then another, sight,

hearing, memory, affections, and friends, filched one by one, till we are

left among strangers, the mere monuments of times, facts, and specimens

of antiquity for the observation of the curious.

To your request of materials for writing my life, I know not what to

say, although I have been obliged to say something to several preceding

applications of the same kind. One answer indeed is obvious, that I

am by decay of memory, aversion to labor, and cares more suited to my

situation, unequal to such a task. Of the public transactions in which

I have borne a part, I have kept no narrative with a view of history. A

life of constant action leaves no time for recording. Always thinking

of what is next to be done, what has been done is dismissed, and soon

obliterated from the memory. I cannot be insensible to the partiality

which has induced several persons to think my life worthy of remembrance.

And towards none more than yourself, who give me so much credit more than

I am entitled to, as to what has been effected for the safeguard of our

republican constitution. Numerous and able coadjutors have participated

in these efforts, and merit equal notice. My life, in fact, has been

so much like that of others, that their history is my history, with

a mere difference of feature. The only valuable materials for history

which I possessed, were the pamphlets of the day, carefully collected

and preserved; but these past on to Congress with my library, and are

to be found in their depository. Except the Notes on Virginia, I never

wrote anything but acts of office, of which I rarely kept a copy. These

will all be found in the journals and gazettes of the times. There was

a book published in England about 1801, or soon after, entitled "Public

Characters," in which was given a sketch of my history to that period. I

never knew, nor could conjecture by whom this was written; but certainly

by some one pretty intimately acquainted with myself and my connections.

There were a few inconsiderable errors in it, but in general it was

correct. Delaplaine, in his Repository, has also given some outlines on

the same subject; he sets out indeed with an error as to the county of

my birth. Chesterfield, which he states as such, was the residence of my

grandfather and remoter ancestors, but Albemarle was that of my father,

and of my own birth and residence. Excepting this error, I remark no other

but in his ascriptions of more merit than I have deserved. Girardin's

History of Virginia, too, gives many particulars on the same subject,

which are correct. These publications furnish all the details of facts

and dates which can interest anybody, and more than I could now furnish

myself from a decayed memory, or any notes I retain. While, therefore,

I feel just acknowledgments for the partial selection of a subject for

your employment, I am persuaded you will perceive there is too little

new and worthy of public notice to devote to it a time which may be so

much more usefully employed; and with a due sense of the partiality of

your friendship, I salute you with assurances of the greatest esteem

and respect.

TO S. A. WELLS, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, May 12, 1819.

SIR,--An absence of some time at an occasional and distant residence

must apologize for the delay in acknowledging the receipt of your favor

of April 12th. And candor obliges me to add that it has been somewhat

extended by an aversion to writing, as well as to calls on my memory for

facts so much obliterated from it by time as to lessen my confidence in

the traces which seem to remain. One of the inquiries in your letter,

however, may be answered without an appeal to the memory. It is that

respecting the question whether committees of correspondence originated

in Virginia or Massachusetts? On which you suppose me to have claimed it

for Virginia. But certainly I have never made such a claim. The idea, I

suppose, has been taken up from what is said in Wirt's history of Mr.

Henry, p. 87, and from an inexact attention to its precise terms. It

is there said "this house [of burgesses of Virginia] had the merit of

originating that powerful engine of resistance, corresponding committees

_between the legislatures of the different colonies_." That the fact as

here expressed is true, your letter bears witness when it says that the

resolutions of Virginia for this purpose were transmitted to the speakers

of the different Assemblies, and by that of Massachusetts was laid at

the next session before that body, who appointed a committee for the

specified object: adding, "thus in Massachusetts there were two committees

of correspondence, one chosen by the people, the other appointed by

the House of Assembly; in the former, Massachusetts preceded Virginia;

in the latter, Virginia preceded Massachusetts." To the origination of

committees for the interior correspondence between the counties and towns

of a State, I know of no claim on the part of Virginia; but certainly

none was ever made by myself. I perceive, however, one error into

which memory had led me. Our committee for national correspondence was

appointed in March, '73, and I well remember that going to Williamsburg

in the month of June following, Peyton Randolph, our chairman, told me

that messengers, bearing despatches between the two States, had crossed

each other by the way; that of Virginia carrying our propositions for a

committee of national correspondence, and that of Massachusetts bringing,

as my memory suggested, a similar proposition. But here I must have

misremembered; and the resolutions brought us from Massachusetts were

probably those you mention of the town meeting of Boston, on the motion

of Mr. Samuel Adams, appointing a committee "to state the rights of the

colonists, and of that province in particular, and the infringements

of them, to communicate them to the several towns, as the sense of the

town of Boston, and to request of each town a free communication of its

sentiments on this subject"? I suppose, therefore, that these resolutions

were not received, as you think, while the House of Burgesses was in

session in March, 1773; but a few days after we rose, and were probably

what was sent by the messenger who crossed ours by the way. They may,

however, have been still different. I must therefore have been mistaken

in supposing and stating to Mr. Wirt, that the proposition of a committee

for national correspondence was nearly simultaneous in Virginia and

Massachusetts.

A similar misapprehension of another passage in Mr. Wirt's book, for

which I am also quoted, has produced a similar reclamation of the part of

Massachusetts by some of her most distinguished and estimable citizens.

I had been applied to by Mr. Wirt for such facts respecting Mr. Henry,

as my intimacy with him, and participation in the transactions of the

day, might have placed within my knowledge. I accordingly committed them

to paper, and Virginia being the theatre of his action, was the only

subject within my contemplation, while speaking of him. Of the resolutions

and measures here, in which he had the acknowledged lead, I used the

expression that "Mr. Henry certainly gave the first impulse to the ball

of revolution." [Wirt, p. 41.] The expression is indeed general, and in

all its extension would comprehend all the sister States. But indulgent

construction would restrain it, as was really meant, to the subject

matter under contemplation, which was Virginia alone; according to the

rule of the lawyers, and a fair canon of general criticism, that every

expression should be construed _secundum subjectam materiem_. Where the

first attack was made, there must have been of course, the first act

of resistance, and that was of Massachusetts. Our first overt act of

war was Mr. Henry's embodying a force of militia from several counties,

regularly armed and organized, marching them in military array, and

making reprisal on the King's treasury at the seat of government for

the public powder taken away by his Governor. This was on the last days

of April, 1775. Your formal battle of Lexington was ten or twelve days

before that, which greatly overshadowed in importance, as it preceded

in time our little affray, which merely amounted to a levying of arms

against the King, and very possibly you had had military affrays before

the regular battle of Lexington.

These explanations will, I hope, assure you, Sir, that so far as either

facts or opinions have been truly quoted from me, they have never been

meant to intercept the just fame of Massachusetts, for the promptitude

and perseverance of her early resistance. We willingly cede to her the

laud of having been (although not exclusively) "the cradle of sound

principles," and if some of us believe she has deflected from them in

her course, we retain full confidence in her ultimate return to them.

I will now proceed to your quotation from Mr. Galloway's statements

of what passed in Congress on their declaration of independence, in

which statement there is not one word of truth, and where, bearing some

resemblance to truth, it is an entire perversion of it. I do not charge

this on Mr. Galloway himself; his desertion having taken place long

before these measures, he doubtless received his information from some of

the loyal friends whom he left behind him. But as yourself, as well as

others, appear embarrassed by inconsistent accounts of the proceedings

on that memorable occasion, and as those who have endeavored to restore

the truth have themselves committed some errors, I will give you some

extracts from a written document on that subject, for the truth of

which I pledge myself to heaven and earth; having, while the question

of independence was under consideration before Congress, taken written

notes, in my seat, of what was passing, and reduced them to form on

the final conclusion. I have now before me that paper, from which the

following are extracts:

"On Friday the 7th of June, 1776, the delegates from Virginia moved,

in obedience to instructions from their constituents, that the Congress

should declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be,

free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance

to the British crown, and that all political connection between them

and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dissolved;

that measures should be immediately taken for procuring the assistance

of foreign powers, and a confederation be formed to bind the colonies

more closely together. The house being obliged to attend at that time to

some other business, the proposition was referred to the next day, when

the members were ordered to attend punctually at ten o'clock. Saturday,

June 8th, they proceeded to take it into consideration, and referred

it to a committee of the whole, into which they immediately resolved

themselves, and passed that day and Monday the 10th in debating on the

subject.

"It appearing in the course of these debates, that the colonies of New

York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina

were not yet matured for falling from the parent stem, but that they were

fast advancing to that state, it was thought most prudent to wait awhile

for them, and to postpone the final decision to July 1st. But that this

might occasion as little delay as possible, a committee was appointed

to prepare a Declaration of Independence. The committee were J. Adams,

Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and myself. This was

reported to the House on Friday the 28th of June, when it was read and

ordered to lie on the table. On Monday the 1st of July the House resolved

itself into a committee of the whole, and resumed the consideration of

the original motion made by the delegates of Virginia, which being again

debated through the day, was carried in the affirmative by the votes of

New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey,

Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. South Carolina and

Pennsylvania] voted against it. Delaware having but two members present,

they were divided. The delegates for New York declared they were for it

themselves, and were assured their constituents were for it; but that

their instructions having been drawn near a twelvemonth before, when

reconciliation was still the general object, they were enjoined by them

to do nothing which should impede that object. They therefore thought

themselves not justifiable in voting on either side, and asked leave to

withdraw from the question, which was given them. The Committee rose and

reported their resolution to the House. Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina,

then requested the determination might be put off to the next day, as

he believed his colleagues, though they disapproved of the resolution,

would then join in it for the sake of unanimity. The ultimate question

whether the House would agree to the resolution of the committee was

accordingly postponed to the next day, when it was again moved, and South

Carolina concurred in voting for it; in the meantime a third member had

come post from the Delaware counties, and turned the vote of that colony

in favor of the resolution. Members of a different sentiment attending

that morning from Pennsylvania also, their vote was changed; so that

the whole twelve colonies, who were authorized to vote at all, gave

their votes for it; and within a few days, [July 9th,] the convention of

New York approved of it, and thus supplied the void occasioned by the

withdrawing of their delegates from the vote." [Be careful to observe

that this vacillation and vote was on the original motion of the 7th of

June by the Virginia delegates, that Congress should declare the colonies

independent.]

"Congress proceeded the same day to consider the Declaration of

Independence, which has been reported and laid on the table the Friday

preceding, and on Monday referred to a committee of the whole. The

pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms

with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason those passages

which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest

they give them offence. The debates having taken up the greater parts

of the 2d, 3d and 4th days of July, were, in the evening of the last,

closed. The declaration was reported by the committee, agreed to by the

House, and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson." So far

my notes.

Governor McKean, in his letter to McCorkle of July 16th, 1817, has

thrown some lights on the transactions of that day, but trusting to

his memory chiefly at an age when our memories are not to be trusted,

he has confounded two questions, and ascribed proceedings to one which

belonged to the other. These two questions were, 1. The Virginia motion

of June 7th to declare independence, and 2. The actual declaration, its

matter and form. Thus he states the question on the declaration itself

as decided on the 1st of July. But it was the Virginia motion which was

voted on that day in committee of the whole; South Carolina, as well as

Pennsylvania, then voting against it. But the ultimate decision in _the

House_ on the report of the committee being by request postponed to the

next morning, all the States voted for it, except New York, whose vote

was delayed for the reason before stated. It was not till the 2d of July

that the declaration itself was taken up, nor till the 4th that it was

decided; and it was signed by every member present, except Mr. Dickinson.

The subsequent signatures of members who were not then present, and some

of them not yet in office, is easily explained, if we observe who they

were; to wit, that they were of New York and Pennsylvania. New York did

not sign till the 15th, because it was not till the 9th, (five days after

the general signature,) that their convention authorized them to do so.

The convention of Pennsylvania, learning that it had been signed by a

minority only of their delegates, named a new delegation on the 20th,

leaving out Mr. Dickinson, who had refused to sign. Willing and Humphreys

who had withdrawn, reappointing the three members who had signed, Morris

who had not been present, and five new ones, to wit, Rush, Clymer, Smith,

Taylor and Ross; and Morris and the five new members were permitted to

sign, because it manifested the assent of their full delegation, and the

express will of their convention, which might have been doubted on the

former signature of a minority only. Why the signature of Thornton of

New Hampshire was permitted so late as the 4th of November, I cannot now

say; but undoubtedly for some particular reason which we should find to

have been good, had it been expressed. These were the only post-signers,

and you see, Sir, that there were solid reasons for receiving those of

New York and Pennsylvania, and that this circumstance in no wise affects

the faith of this declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights

of man.

With a view to correct errors of fact before they become inveterate by

repetition, I have stated what I find essentially material in my papers;

but with that brevity which the labor of writing constrains me to use.

On the fourth particular articles of inquiry in your letter, respecting

your grandfather, the venerable Samuel Adams, neither memory nor

memorandums enable me to give any information. I can say that he was

truly a great man, wise in council, fertile in resources, immovable in

his purposes, and had, I think, a greater share than any other member, in

advising and directing our measures, in the northern war especially. As a

speaker he could not be compared with his living colleague and namesake,

whose deep conceptions, nervous style, and undaunted firmness, made him

truly our bulwark in debate. But Mr. Samuel Adams, although not of fluent

elocution, was so rigorously logical, so clear in his views, abundant in

good sense, and master always of his subject, that he commanded the most

profound attention whenever he rose in an assembly by which the froth

of declamation was heard with the most sovereign contempt. I sincerely

rejoice that the record of his worth is to be undertaken by one so much

disposed as you will be to hand him down fairly to that posterity for

whose liberty and happiness he was so zealous a laborer.

With sentiments of sincere veneration for his memory, accept yourself

this tribute to it with the assurances of my great respect.

P. S. August 6th, 1822, since the date of this letter, to wit, this day,

August 6th, '22, I received the new publication of the secret Journals

of Congress, wherein is stated a resolution, July 19th, 1776, that the

declaration passed on the 4th be fairly engrossed on parchment, and when

engrossed, be signed by every member; and another of August 2d, that being

engrossed and compared at the table, was signed by the members. That is

to say the copy engrossed on parchment (for durability) was signed by the

members after being compared at the table with the original one, signed

on paper as before stated. I add this P. S. to the copy of my letter

to Mr. Wells, to prevent confounding the signature of the original with

that of the copy engrossed on parchment.

TO EZRA STYLES, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, June 25, 1819.

Your favor, Sir, of the 14th, has been duly received, and with it the

book you were so kind as to forward to me. For this mark of attention, be

pleased to accept my thanks. The science of the human mind is curious,

but is one on which I have not indulged myself in much speculation.

The times in which I have lived, and the scenes in which I have been

engaged, have required me to keep the mind too much in action to have

leisure to study minutely its laws of action. I am therefore little

qualified to give an opinion on the comparative worth of books on that

subject, and little disposed to do it on any book. Yours has brought

the science within a small compass, and that is the merit of the first

order; and especially with one to whom the drudgery of letter writing

often denies the leisure of reading a single page in a week. On looking

over the summary of the contents of your book, it does not seem likely

to bring into collision any of those sectarian differences which you

suppose may exist between us. In that branch of religion which regards

the moralities of life, and the duties of a social being, which teaches

us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do good to all men, I am

sure that you and I do not differ. We probably differ in the dogmas of

theology, the foundation of all sectarianism, and on which no two sects

dream alike; for if they did they would then be of the same. You say

you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I

know. I am not a Jew, and therefore do not adopt their theology, which

supposes the God of infinite justice to punish the sins of the fathers

upon their children, unto the third and fourth generation; and the

benevolent and sublime reformer of that religion has told us only that

God is good and perfect, but has not defined him. I am, therefore, of his

theology, believing that we have neither words nor ideas adequate to that

definition. And if we could all, after this example, leave the subject as

undefinable, we should all be of one sect, doers of good, and eschewers

of evil. No doctrines of his lead to schism. It is the speculations of

crazy theologists which have made a Babel of a religion the most moral

and sublime ever preached to man, and calculated to heal, and not to

create differences. These religious animosities I impute to those who

call themselves his ministers, and who engraft their casuistries on the

stock of his simple precepts. I am sometimes more angry with them than

is authorized by the blessed charities which he preaches. To yourself

I pray the acceptance of my great respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, July 9, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--I am in debt to you for your letters of May the 21st, 27th,

and June the 22d. The first, delivered me by Mr. Greenwood, gave me the

gratification of his acquaintance; and a gratification it always is, to

be made acquainted with gentlemen of candor, worth, and information, as

I found Mr. Greenwood to be. That, on the subject of Mr. Samuel Adams

Wells, shall not be forgotten in time and place, when it can be used to

his advantage.

But what has attracted my peculiar notice, is the paper from Mecklenburg

county, of North Carolina, published in the Essex Register, which you

were so kind as to enclose in your last, of June the 22d. And you seem

to think it genuine. I believe it spurious. I deem it to be a very

unjustifiable quiz, like that of the volcano, so minutely related to us

as having broken out in North Carolina, some half a dozen years ago, in

that part of the country, and perhaps in that very county of Mecklenburg,

for I do not remember its precise locality. If this paper be really taken

from the Raleigh Register, as quoted, I wonder it should have escaped

Ritchie, who culls what is good from every paper, as the bee from every

flower; and the National Intelligencer, too, which is edited by a North

Carolinian; and that the fire should blaze out all at once in Essex,

one thousand miles from where the spark is said to have fallen. But if

really taken from the Raleigh Register, who is the narrator, and is the

name subscribed real, or is it as fictitious as the paper itself? It

appeals, too, to an original book, which is burnt, to Mr. Alexander,

who is dead, to a joint letter from Caswell, Hughes, and Hooper, all

dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another sent to Doctor

Williamson, now probably dead, whose memory did not recollect, in the

history he has written of North Carolina, this gigantic step of its

county of Mecklenberg. Horry, too, is silent in his history of Marion,

whose scene of action was the country bordering on Mecklenburg. Ramsay,

Marshall, Jones, Girardin, Wirt, historians of the adjacent States,

all silent. When Mr. Henry's resolutions, far short of independence,

flew like lightning through every paper, and kindled both sides of the

Atlantic, this flaming declaration of the same date, of the independence

of Mecklenburg county, of North Carolina, absolving it from the British

allegiance, and abjuring all political connection with that nation,

although sent to Congress too, is never heard of. It is not known even

a twelvemonth after, when a similar proposition is first made in that

body. Armed with this bold example, would not you have addressed our

timid brethren in peals of thunder on their tardy fears? Would not every

advocate of independence have rung the glories of Mecklenberg county in

North Carolina, in the ears of the doubting Dickinson and others, who

hung so heavily on us? Yet the example of independent Mecklenberg county,

in North Carolina, was never once quoted. The paper speaks, too, of the

continued exertions of their delegation (Caswell, Hooper, Hughes) "in

the cause of liberty and independence." Now you remember as well as I

do, that we had not a greater tory in Congress than Hooper; that Hughes

was very wavering, sometimes firm, sometimes feeble, according as the

day was clear or cloudy; that Caswell, indeed, was a good whig, and kept

these gentlemen to the notch, while he was present; but that he left us

soon, and their line of conduct became then uncertain until Penn came,

who fixed Hughes and the vote of the State. I must not be understood as

suggesting any doubtfulness in the State of North Carolina. No State was

more fixed or forward. Nor do I affirm, positively, that this paper is

a fabrication; because the proof of a negative can only be presumptive.

But I shall believe it such until positive and solemn proof of its

authenticity be produced. And if the name of McKnitt be real, and not

a part of the fabrication, it needs a vindication by the production of

such proof. For the present, I must be an unbeliever in the apocryphal

gospel.

I am glad to learn that Mr. Ticknor has safely returned to his friends;

but should have been much more pleased had he accepted the Professorship

in our University, which we should have offered him in form. Mr. Bowditch,

too, refuses us; so fascinating is the _vinculum_ of the _dulce natale

solum_. Our wish is to procure natives, where they can be found, like

these gentlemen, of the first order of requirement in their respective

lines; but preferring foreigners of the first order to natives of the

second, we shall certainly have to go for several of our Professors, to

countries more advanced in science than we are.

I set out within three or four days for my other home, the distance

of which, and its cross mails, are great impediments to epistolary

communications. I shall remain there about two months; and there, here,

and everywhere, I am and shall always be, affectionately and respectfully

yours.

TO JOHN BRAZIER, THE AUTHOR OF THE REVIEW OF PICKERING ON GREEK

PRONUNCIATION.

POPLAR FOREST, August 24, 1819.

SIR,--The acknowledgment of your favor of July 15th, and thanks for the

Review which it covered of Mr. Pickering's Memoir on the Modern Greek,

have been delayed by a visit to an occasional but distant residence

from Monticello, and to an attack here of rheumatism which is just now

moderating. I had been much pleased with the memoir, and was much also

with your review of it. I have little hope indeed of the recovery of

the ancient pronunciation of that finest of human languages, but still

I rejoice at the attention the subject seems to excite with you, because

it is an evidence that our country begins to have a taste for something

more than merely as much Greek as will pass a candidate for clerical

ordination.

You ask my opinion on the extent to which classical learning should

be carried in our country. A sickly condition permits me to think, and

a rheumatic hand to write too briefly on this litigated question. The

utilities we derive from the remains of the Greek and Latin languages

are, first, as models of pure taste in writing. To these we are certainly

indebted for the national and chaste style of modern composition which

so much distinguishes the nations to whom these languages are familiar.

Without these models we should probably have continued the inflated

style of our northern ancestors, or the hyperbolical and vague one of

the east. Second. Among the values of classical learning, I estimate

the luxury of reading the Greek and Roman authors in all the beauties

of their originals. And why should not this innocent and elegant luxury

take its preëminent stand ahead of all those addressed merely to the

senses? I think myself more indebted to my father for this than for

all the other luxuries his cares and affections have placed within my

reach; and more now than when younger, and more susceptible of delights

from other sources. When the decays of age have enfeebled the useful

energies of the mind, the classic pages fill up the vacuum of _ennui_,

and become sweet composers to that rest of the grave into which we are

all sooner or later to descend. Third. A third value is in the stores

of real science deposited and transmitted us in these languages, to-wit:

in history, ethics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, natural history, &c.

But to whom are these things useful? Certainly not to all men. There

are conditions of life to which they must be forever estranged, and

there are epochs of life too, after which the endeavor to attain them

would be a great misemployment of time. Their acquisition should be the

occupation of our early years only, when the memory is susceptible of deep

and lasting impressions, and reason and judgment not yet strong enough

for abstract speculations. To the moralist they are valuable, because

they furnish ethical writings highly and justly esteemed: although in

my own opinion, the moderns are far advanced beyond them in this line

of science, the divine finds in the Greek language a translation of his

primary code, of more importance to him than the original because better

understood; and, in the same language, the newer code, with the doctrines

of the earliest fathers, who lived and wrote before the simple precepts

of the founder of this most benign and pure of all systems of morality

became frittered into subtleties and mysteries, and hidden under jargons

incomprehensible to the human mind. To these original sources he must

now, therefore, return, to recover the virgin purity of his religion.

The lawyer finds in the Latin language the system of civil law most

conformable with the principles of justice of any which has ever yet

been established among men, and from which much has been incorporated

into our own. The physician as good a code of his art as has been given

us to this day. Theories and systems of medicine, indeed, have been in

perpetual change from the days of the good Hippocrates to the days of the

good Rush, but which of them is the true one? the present, to be sure,

as long as it is the present, but to yield its place in turn to the next

novelty, which is then to become the true system, and is to mark the

vast advance of medicine since the days of Hippocrates. Our situation

is certainly benefited by the discovery of some new and very valuable

medicines; and substituting those for some of his with the treasure

of facts, and of sound observations recorded by him (mixed to be sure

with anilities of his day) and we shall have nearly the present sum of

the healing art. The statesman will find in these languages history,

politics, mathematics, ethics, eloquence, love of country, to which he

must add the sciences of his own day, for which of them should be unknown

to him? And all the sciences must recur to the classical languages for

the etymon, and sound understanding of their fundamental terms. For the

merchant I should not say that the languages are a necessary. Ethics,

mathematics, geography, political economy, history, seem to constitute

the immediate foundations of his calling. The agriculturist needs ethics,

mathematics, chemistry and natural philosophy. The mechanic the same.

To them the languages are but ornament and comfort. I know it is often

said there have been shining examples of men of great abilities in all

the businesses of life, without any other science than what they had

gathered from conversations and intercourse with the world. But who can

say what these men would not have been had they started in the science

on the shoulders of a Demosthenes or Cicero, of a Locke or Bacon, or

a Newton? To sum the whole, therefore, it may truly be said that the

classical languages are a solid basis for most, and an ornament to all

the sciences.

I am warned by my aching fingers to close this hasty sketch, and to place

here my last and fondest wishes for the advancement of our country in

the useful sciences and arts, and my assurances of respect and esteem

for the Reviewer of the Memoir on modern Greek.

TO JUDGE ROANE.

POPLAR FOREST, September 6, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--I had read in the Enquirer, and with great approbation,

the pieces signed Hampden, and have read them again with redoubled

approbation, in the copies you have been so kind as to send me. I

subscribe to every title of them. They contain the true principles of the

revolution of 1800, for that was as real a revolution in the principles

of our government as that of 1776 was in its form; not effected indeed

by the sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument

of reform, the suffrage of the people. The nation declared its will by

dismissing functionaries of one principle, and electing those of another,

in the two branches, executive and legislative, submitted to their

election. Over the judiciary department, the constitution had deprived

them of their control. That, therefore, has continued the reprobated

system, and although new matter has been occasionally incorporated into

the old, yet the leaven of the old mass seems to assimilate to itself

the new, and after twenty years' confirmation of the federated system

by the voice of the nation, declared through the medium of elections, we

find the judiciary on every occasion, still driving us into consolidation.

In denying the right they usurp of exclusively explaining the

constitution, I go further than you do, if I understand rightly your

quotation from the Federalist, of an opinion that "the judiciary is the

last resort in relation _to the other departments_ of the government,

but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under

which the judiciary is derived." If this opinion be sound, then indeed

is our constitution a complete _felo de se_. For intending to establish

three departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check

and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to

one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of

the others, and to that one too, which is unelected by, and independent

of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment

it has provided is not even a scare-crow; that such opinions as the one

you combat, sent cautiously out, as you observe also, by detachment, not

belonging to the case often, but sought for out of it, as if to rally

the public opinion beforehand to their views, and to indicate the line

they are to walk in, have been so quietly passed over as never to have

excited animadversion, even in a speech of any one of the body entrusted

with impeachment. The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing

of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into

any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal

truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent,

is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the

people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence

can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently

independent of all but moral law. My construction of the constitution is

very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly

independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself

what is the meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its

action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal.

I will explain myself by examples, which, having occurred while I was

in office, are better known to me, and the principles which governed them.

A legislature had passed the sedition law. The federal courts had

subjected certain individuals to its penalties of fine and imprisonment.

On coming into office, I released these individuals by the power of

pardon committed to executive discretion, which could never be more

properly exercised than where citizens were suffering without the

authority of law, or, which was equivalent, under a law unauthorized by

the constitution, and therefore null. In the case of Marbury and Madison,

the federal judges declared that commissions, signed and sealed by the

President, were valid, although not delivered. I deemed delivery essential

to complete a deed, which, as long as it remains in the hands of the

party, is as yet no need, it is in _posse_ only, but not in _esse_, and

I withheld delivery of the commissions. They cannot issue a mandamus

to the President or legislature, or to any of their officers.[3] When

the British treaty of ---- arrived, without any provision against the

impressment of our seamen, I determined not to ratify it. The Senate

thought I should ask their advice. I thought that would be a mockery of

them, when I was predetermined against following it, should they advise

its ratification. The constitution had made their advice necessary to

confirm a treaty, but not to reject it. This has been blamed by some;

but I have never doubted its soundness. In the cases of two persons,

_antenati_, under exactly similar circumstances, the federal court had

determined that one of them (Duane) was not a citizen; the House of

Representatives nevertheless determined that the other (Smith, of South

Carolina) was a citizen, and admitted him to his seat in their body.

Duane was a republican, and Smith a federalist, and these decisions were

made during the federal ascendancy.

These are examples of my position, that each of the three departments

has equally the right to decide for itself what is its duty under the

constitution, without any regard to what the others may have decided

for themselves under a similar question. But you intimate a wish that my

opinion should be known on this subject. No, dear Sir, I withdraw from all

contests of opinion, and resign everything cheerfully to the generation

now in place. They are wiser than we were, and their successors will be

wiser than they, from the progressive advance of science. Tranquillity

is the _summum bonum_ of age. I wish, therefore, to offend no man's

opinion, nor to draw disquieting animadversions on my own. While duty

required it, I met opposition with a firm and fearless step. But loving

mankind in my individual relations with them, I pray to be permitted to

depart in their peace; and like the superannuated soldier, "_quadragenis

stipendiis emeritis_," to hang my arms on the post. I have unwisely, I

fear, embarked in an enterprise of great public concern, but not to be

accomplished within my term, without their liberal and prompt support. A

severe illness the last year, and another from which I am just emerged,

admonish me that repetitions may be expected, against which a declining

frame cannot long bear up. I am anxious, therefore, to get our University

so far advanced as may encourage the public to persevere to its final

accomplishment. That secured, I shall sing my _nunc demittas_. I hope

your labors will be long continued in the spirit in which they have

always been exercised, in maintenance of those principles on which I

verily believe the future happiness of our country essentially depends.

I salute you with affectionate and great respect.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] The constitution controlling the common law in this

particular.

TO MR. MOORE.

MONTICELLO, September 22, 1819.

I thank you, Sir, for the remarks on the pronunciation of the Greek

language which you have been so kind as to send me. I have read them with

pleasure, as I had the pamphlet of Mr. Pickering on the same subject.

This question has occupied long and learned inquiry, and cannot, as I

apprehend, be ever positively decided. Very early in my classical days,

I took up the idea that the ancient Greek language having been changed

by degrees into the modern, and the present race of that people having

received it by tradition, they had of course better pretensions to the

ancient pronunciation also, than any foreign nation could have. When at

Paris, I became acquainted with some learned Greeks, from whom I took

pains to learn the modern pronunciation. But I could not receive it

as genuine _in toto_. I could not believe that the ancient Greeks had

provided six different notations for the simple sound of ι, iota, and

left the five other sounds which we give to η, υ, ει, οι, υι, without any

characters of notation at all. I could not acknowledge the υ, upsillon,

as an equivalent to our _v_, as in Αχιλλευς, which they pronounce

Achillevs, nor the γ gamma, to our _y_, as in αλγε', which they pronounce

alye. I concluded, therefore, that as experience proves to us that the

pronunciation of all languages changes, in their descent through time,

that of the Greek must have done so also in some degree; and the more

probably, as the body of the words themselves had substantially changed,

and I presumed that the instances above mentioned might be classed with

the degeneracies of time; a presumption strengthened by their remarkable

cacophony. As to all the other letters, I have supposed we might yield

to their traditionary claim of a more orthodox pronunciation. Indeed,

they sound most of them as we do, and, where they differ, as in the β, δ,

χ, their sounds do not revolt us, nor impair the beauty of the language.

If we adhere to the Erasmian pronunciation, we must go to Italy for

it, as we must do for the most probably correct pronunciation of the

language of the Romans, because rejecting the modern, we must argue

that the ancient pronunciation was probably brought from Greece, with

the language itself; and, as Italy was the country to which it was

brought, and from which it emanated to other nations, we must presume

it better preserved there than with the nations copying from them, who

would be apt to affect its pronunciation with some of their own national

peculiarities. And in fact, we find that no two nations pronounce it

alike, although all pretend to the Erasmian pronunciation. But the whole

subject is conjectural, and allows therefore full and lawful scope to

the vagaries of the human mind. I am glad, however, to see the question

stirred here; because it may excite among our young countrymen a spirit

of inquiry and criticism, and lead them to more attention to this most

beautiful of all languages. And wishing that the salutary example you

have set may have this good effect, I salute you with great respect and

consideration.

TO MR. SHORT.

MONTICELLO, October 31, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 21st is received. My late illness, in which

you are so kind as to feel an interest, was produced by a spasmodic

stricture of the ilium, which came upon me on the 7th inst. The crisis

was short, passed over favorably on the fourth day, and I should soon

have been well but that a dose of calomel and jalap, in which were only

eight or nine grains of the former, brought on a salivation. Of this,

however, nothing now remains but a little soreness of the mouth. I have

been able to get on horseback for three or four days past.

As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not

the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in

moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us. Epictetus indeed,

has given us what was good of the stoics; all beyond, of their dogmas,

being hypocrisy and grimace. Their great crime was in their calumnies of

Epicurus and misrepresentations of his doctrines; in which we lament to

see the candid character of Cicero engaging as an accomplice. Diffuse,

vapid, rhetorical, but enchanting. His prototype Plato, eloquent as

himself, dealing out mysticisms incomprehensible to the human mind, has

been deified by certain sects usurping the name of Christians; because,

in his foggy conceptions, they found a basis of impenetrable darkness

whereon to rear fabrications as delirious, of their own invention.

These they fathered blasphemously on him whom they claimed as their

founder, but who would disclaim them with the indignation which their

caricatures of his religion so justly excite. Of Socrates we have nothing

genuine but in the Memorabilia of Xenophon; for Plato makes him one of

his Collocutors merely to cover his own whimsies under the mantle of

his name; a liberty of which we are told Socrates himself complained.

Seneca is indeed a fine moralist, disfiguring his work at times with

some Stoicisms, and affecting too much of antithesis and point, yet

giving us on the whole a great deal of sound and practical morality. But

the greatest of all the reformers of the depraved religion of his own

country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the

rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from

the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond

from the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime

morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man; outlines which it is

lamentable he did not live to fill up. Epictetus and Epicurus give laws

for governing ourselves, Jesus a supplement of the duties and charities

we owe to others. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character

of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of

imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems,[4] invented by

ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him,

is a most desirable object, and one to which Priestley has successfully

devoted his labors and learning. It would in time, it is to be hoped,

effect a quiet euthanasia of the heresies of bigotry and fanaticism which

have so long triumphed over human reason, and so generally and deeply

afflicted mankind; but this work is to be begun by winnowing the grain

from the chaff of the historians of his life. I have sometimes thought

of translating Epictetus (for he has never been tolerably translated

into English) by adding the genuine doctrines of Epicurus from the

Syntagma of Gassendi, and an abstract from the Evangelists of whatever

has the stamp of the eloquence and fine imagination of Jesus. The last

I attempted too hastily some twelve or fifteen years ago. It was the

work of two or three nights only, at Washington, after getting through

the evening task of reading the letters and papers of the day. But with

one foot in the grave, these are now idle projects for me. My business

is to beguile the wearisomeness of declining life, as I endeavor to do,

by the delights of classical reading and of mathematical truths, and by

the consolations of a sound philosophy, equally indifferent to hope and

fear.

I take the liberty of observing that you are not a true disciple of

our master Epicurus, in indulging the indolence to which you say you

are yielding. One of his canons, you know, was that "that indulgence

which presents a greater pleasure, or produces a greater pain, is to be

avoided." Your love of repose will lead, in its progress, to a suspension

of healthy exercise, a relaxation of mind, an indifference to everything

around you, and finally to a debility of body, and hebetude of mind,

the farthest of all things from the happiness which the well-regulated

indulgences of Epicurus ensure; fortitude, you know, is one of his four

cardinal virtues. That teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties; not

to fly from them, like cowards; and to fly, too, in vain, for they will

meet and arrest us at every turn of our road. Weigh this matter well;

brace yourself up; take a seat with Correa, and come and see the finest

portion of your country, which, if you have not forgotten, you still do

not know, because it is no longer the same as when you knew it. It will

add much to the happiness of my recovery to be able to receive Correa and

yourself, and prove the estimation in which I hold you both. Come, too,

and see our incipient University, which has advanced with great activity

this year. By the end of the next, we shall have elegant accommodations

for seven professors, and the year following the professors themselves.

No secondary character will be received among them. Either the ablest

which America or Europe can furnish, or none at all. They will give us

the selected society of a great city separated from the dissipations

and levities of its ephemeral insects.

I am glad the bust of Condorcet has been saved and so well placed. His

genius should be before us; while the lamentable, but singular act of

ingratitude which tarnished his latter days, may be thrown behind us.

I will place under this a syllabus of the doctrines of Epicurus, somewhat

in the lapidary style, which I wrote some twenty years ago, a like one

of the philosophy of Jesus, of nearly the same age, is too long to be

copied. _Vale, et tibi persuade carissimum te esse mihi._

_Syllabus of the doctrines of Epicurus._

_Physical._--The Universe eternal.

Its parts, great and small, interchangeable.

Matter and Void alone.

Motion inherent in matter which is weighty and declining.

Eternal circulation of the elements of bodies.

Gods, an order of beings next superior to man, enjoying in their sphere,

their own felicities; but not meddling with the concerns of the scale

of beings below them.

_Moral._--Happiness the aim of life.

Virtue the foundation of happiness.

Utility the test of virtue.

Pleasure active and In-do-lent.

In-do-lence is the absence of pain, the true felicity.

Active, consists in agreeable motion; it is not happiness, but the means

to produce it.

Thus the absence of hunger is an article of felicity; eating the means

to obtain it.

The _summum bonum_ is to be not pained in body, nor troubled in mind.

_i. e._ In-do-lence of body, tranquillity of mind.

To procure tranquillity of mind we must avoid desire and fear, the two

principal diseases of the mind.

Man is a free agent.

Virtue consists in 1. Prudence. 2. Temperance. 3. Fortitude. 4. Justice.

To which are opposed, 1. Folly. 2. Desire. 3. Fear. 4. Deceit.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] _e. g._ The immaculate conception of Jesus, his

deification, the creation of the world by him, his

miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension,

his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity,

original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of

Hierarchy, &c.

TO J. ADAMS, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, November 7, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--Three long and dangerous illnesses within the last twelve

months, must apologize for my long silence towards you.

The paper bubble is then burst. This is what you and I, and every

reasoning man, seduced by no obliquity of mind or interest, have long

foreseen; yet its disastrous effects are not the less for having been

foreseen. We were laboring under a dropsical fulness of circulating

medium. Nearly all of it is now called in by the banks, who have the

regulation of the safety-valves of our fortunes, and who condense and

explode them at their will. Lands in this State cannot now be sold for

a year's rent; and unless our Legislature have wisdom enough to effect

a remedy by a gradual diminution only of the medium, there will be a

general revolution of property in this State. Over our own paper and that

of other States coming among us, they have competent powers; over that of

the bank of the United States there is doubt, not here, but elsewhere.

That bank will probably conform voluntarily to such regulations as the

Legislature may prescribe for the others. If they do not, we must shut

their doors, and join the other States which deny the right of Congress

to establish banks, and solicit them to agree to some mode of settling

this constitutional question. They have themselves twice decided against

their right, and twice for it. Many of the States have been uniform in

denying it, and between such parties the Constitution has provided no

umpire. I do not know particularly the extent of this distress in the

other States; but southwardly and westwardly I believe all are involved

in it. God bless you, and preserve you many years.

TO COLONEL JOHN NICHOLAS.

MONTICELLO, November 10, 1819.

SIR,--Your letter, and the draught of a memorial proposed to be presented

to the Legislature, are duly received. With respect to impressions from

any differences of political opinion, whether major or minor, alluded

to in your letter, I have none. I left them all behind me on quitting

Washington, where alone the state of things had, till then, required

some attention to them. Nor was that the lightest part of the load I

was there disburthened of; and could I permit myself to believe that

with the change of circumstances a corresponding change had taken place

in the minds of those who differed from me, and that I now stand in the

peace and good will of my fellow-citizens generally, it would indeed be

a sweetening ingredient in the last dregs of my life. It is not then

from that source that my testimony may be scanty, but from a decaying

memory, illy retaining things of recent transaction, and scarcely with

any distinctness those of forty years back, the period to which your

memorial refers: general impressions of them remain, but details are

mostly obliterated.

Of the transfer of your corps from the general to the State line, and the

other facts in the memorial preceding my entrance on the administration

of the State government, June 2, 1779, I, of course, have no knowledge;

but public documents, as well as living witnesses, will probably supply

this. In 1780, I remember your appointment to a command in the militia

sent under General Stevens to the aid of the Carolinas, of which fact the

commission signed by myself is sufficient proof. But I have no particular

recollections which respect yourself personally in that service. Of what

took place during Arnold's invasion in the subsequent winter I have

more knowledge, because so much passed under my own eye, and I have

the benefit of some notes to aid my memory. In the short interval of

fifty-seven hours between our knowing they had entered James river and

their actual debarkation at Westover, we could get together but a small

body of militia, (my notes say of three hundred men only,) chiefly from

the city and its immediate vicinities. You were placed in the command

of these, and ordered to proceed to the neighborhood of the enemy, not

with any view to face them directly with so small a force, but to hang

on their skirts, and to check their march as much as could be done, to

give time for the more distant militia to assemble. The enemy were not

to be delayed, however, and were in Richmond in twenty-four hours from

their being formed on shore at Westover. The day before their arrival at

Richmond, I had sent my family to Tuckahoe, as the memorial states, at

which place I joined them about 1 o'clock of that night, having attended

late at Westham, to have the public stores and papers thrown across the

river. You came up to us at Tuckahoe the next morning, and accompanied

me, I think, to Britton's opposite Westham, to see about the further

safety of the arms and other property. Whether you stayed there to look

after them, or went with me to the heights of Manchester, and returned

thence to Britton's, I do not recollect. The enemy evacuated Richmond at

noon of the 5th of January, having remained there but twenty-three hours.

I returned to it in the morning of the 8th, they being still encamped

at Westover and Berkley, and yourself and corps at the Forest. They

re-embarked at 1 o'clock of the 10th. The particulars of your movements

down the river, to oppose their re-landing at different points, I do

not specifically recollect, but, as stated in the memorial, they are so

much in agreement with my general impressions, that I have no doubt of

their correctness, and know that your conduct from the first advance

of the enemy to his departure, was approved by myself and by others

generally. The rendezvous of the militia at the Tuckahoe bridge, and

your having the command of them, I think I also remember, but nothing

of their subsequent movements. The legislature had adjourned to meet at

Charlottesville, where, at the expiration of my second year, I declined

a re-election in the belief that a military man would be more likely to

render services adequate to the exigencies of the times. Of the subsequent

facts, therefore, stated in the memorial, I have no knowledge.

This, Sir, is the sum of the information I am able to give on the

subjects of your memorial, and if it may contribute to the purposes of

justice in your case, I shall be happy that in bearing testimony to the

truth, I shall have rendered you a just service. I return the memorial

and commission, as requested, and pray you to accept my respectful

salutations.

TO MR. RIVES.

MONTICELLO, November 28, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--The distresses of our country, produced first by the flood,

then by the ebb of bank paper, are such as cannot fail to engage the

interposition of the legislature. Many propositions will, of course, be

offered, from all of which something may probably be culled to make a

good whole. I explained to you my project, when I had the pleasure of

possessing you here; and I now send its outline in writing, as I believe

I promised you. Although preferable things will I hope be offered, yet

some twig of this may perhaps be thought worthy of being engrafted on

a better stock. But I send it with no particular object or request,

but to use it as you please. Suppress it, suggest it, sound opinions,

or anything else, at will, only keeping my name unmentioned, for which

purpose it is copied in another hand, being ever solicitous to avoid

all offence which is heavily felt, when retired from the bustle and

contentions of the world. If we suffer the moral of the present lesson

to pass away without improvement by the eternal suppression of bank

_paper_, then indeed is the condition of our country desperate, until

the slow advance of public instruction shall give to our functionaries

the wisdom of their station. _Vale, et tibi persuade carissimum te mihi

esse._

_Plan for reducing the circulating medium._

The plethory of circulating medium which raised the prices of everything

to several times their ordinary and standard value, in which state of

things many and heavy debts were contracted; and the sudden withdrawing

too great a proportion of that medium, and reduction of prices far below

that standard, constitute the disease under which we are now laboring,

and which must end in a general revolution of property, if some remedy

is not applied. That remedy is clearly a gradual reduction of the medium

to its standard level, that is to say, to the level which a metallic

medium will always find for itself, so as to be in equilibrio with that

of the nations with which we have commerce.

To effect this,

Let the whole of the present paper medium be suspended in its circulation

after a certain and not distant day.

Ascertain by proper inquiry the greatest sum of it which has at any one

time been in actual circulation.

Take a certain term of years for its gradual reduction, suppose it to be

five years; then let the solvent banks issue ⅚ of that amount in new

notes, to be attested by a public officer, as a security that neither

more or less is issued, and to be given out in exchange for the suspended

notes, and the surplus in discount.

Let ⅕th of these notes bear on their face that the bank will discharge

them with specie at the end of one year; another 5th at the end of two

years; a third 5th at the end of three years; and so of the 4th and

5th. They will be sure to be brought in at their respective periods of

redemption.

Make it a high offence to receive or pass within this State a note of

any other.

There is little doubt that our banks will agree readily to this operation;

if they refuse, declare their charters forfeited by their former

irregularities, and give summary process against them for the suspended

notes.

The Bank of the United States will probably concur also; if not, shut

their doors and join the other States in respectful, but firm applications

to Congress, to concur in constituting a tribunal (a special convention,

_e. g._) for settling amicably the question of their right to institute

a bank, and that also of the States to do the same.

A stay-law for the suspension of executions, and their discharge at five

annual instalments, should be accommodated to these measures.

Interdict forever, to both the State and national governments, the power

of establishing any paper bank; for without this interdiction, we shall

have the same ebbs and flows of medium, and the same revolutions of

property to go through every twenty or thirty years.

In this way the value of property, keeping pace nearly with the sum of

circulating medium, will descend gradually to its proper level, at the

rate of about ⅕ every year, the sacrifices of what shall be sold for

payment of the first instalments of debts will be moderate, and time will

be given for economy and industry to come in aid of those subsequent.

Certainly no nation ever before abandoned to the avarice and jugglings of

private individuals to regulate, according to their own interests, the

quantum of circulating medium for the nation, to inflate, by deluges of

paper, the nominal prices of property, and then to buy up that property

at 1s. in the pound, having first withdrawn the floating medium which

might endanger a competition in purchase. Yet this is what has been

done, and will be done, unless stayed by the protecting hand of the

legislature. The evil has been produced by the error of their sanction of

this ruinous machinery of banks; and justice, wisdom, duty, all require

that they should interpose and arrest it before the schemes of plunder

and spoliation desolate the country. It is believed that Harpies are

already hoarding their money to commence these scenes on the separation

of the legislature; and we know that lands have been already sold under

the hammer for less than a year's rent.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, December 10, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of November

the 23d. The banks, bankrupt law, manufactures, Spanish treaty, are

nothing. These are occurrences which, like waves in a storm, will pass

under the ship. But the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose

the Missouri country by revolt, and what more, God only knows. From the

battle of Bunker's Hill to the treaty of Paris, we never had so ominous

a question. It even damps the joy with which I hear of your high health,

and welcomes to me the consequences of my want of it. I thank God that

I shall not live to witness its issue. _Sed hæc hactenus._

I have been amusing myself latterly with reading the voluminous letters

of Cicero. They certainly breathe the purest effusions of an exalted

patriot, while the parricide Cæsar is lost in odious contrast. When the

enthusiasm, however, kindled by Cicero's pen and principles, subsides

into cool reflection, I ask myself, what was that government which the

virtues of Cicero were so zealous to restore, and the ambition of Cæsar

to subvert? And if Cæsar had been as virtuous as he was daring and

sagacious, what could he, even in the plenitude of his usurped power,

have done to lead his fellow citizens into good government? I do not

say to _restore it_, because they never had it, from the rape of the

Sabines to the ravages of the Cæsars. If their people indeed had been,

like ourselves, enlightened, peaceable, and really free, the answer

would be obvious. "Restore independence to all your foreign conquests,

relieve Italy from the government of the rabble of Rome, consult it as

a nation entitled to self-government, and do its will." But steeped in

corruption, vice and venality, as the whole nation was, (and nobody had

done more than Cæsar to corrupt it,) what could even Cicero, Cato, Brutus

have done, had it been referred to them to establish a good government

for their country? They had no ideas of government themselves, but of

their degenerate Senate, nor the people of liberty, but of the factious

opposition of their Tribunes. They had afterwards their Tituses, their

Trajans and Antoninuses, who had the will to make them happy, and the

power to mould their government into a good and permanent form. But

it would seem as if they could not see their way clearly to do it. No

government can continue good, but under the control of the people; and

their people were so demoralized and depraved, as to be incapable of

exercising a wholesome control. Their reformation then was to be taken

up _ab incunabulis_. Their minds were to be informed by education what is

right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue, and deterred

from those of vice by the dread of punishments, proportioned indeed,

but irremissible; in all cases, to follow truth as the only safe guide,

and to eschew error, which bewilders us in one false consequence after

another, in endless succession. These are the inculcations necessary

to render the people a sure basis for the structure of order and good

government. But this would have been an operation of a generation or

two, at least, within which period would have succeeded many Neros and

Commoduses, who would have quashed the whole process. I confess then, I

can neither see what Cicero, Cato, and Brutus, united and uncontrolled,

could have devised to lead their people into good government, nor how

this enigma can be solved, nor how further shown why it has been the

fate of that delightful country never to have known, to this day, and

through a course of five and twenty hundred years, the history of which

we possess, one single day of free and rational government. Your intimacy

with their history, ancient, middle and modern, your familiarity with

the improvements in the science of government at this time, will enable

you, if any body, to go back with our principles and opinions to the

times of Cicero, Cato and Brutus, and tell us by what process these great

and virtuous men could have led so unenlightened and vitiated a people

into freedom and good government, _et eris mihi magnus Apollo. Cura ut

valeas, et tibi persuadeas carissimum te mihi esse._

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

MONTEZILLO, December 21, 1819.

DEAR SIR,--I must answer your great question of the 10th in the words of

Dalembert to his correspondent, who asked him what is matter--"_Je vous

avoue je ne sçais rien_." In some part of my life I record a great work

of a Scotchman on the court of Augustus, in which, with much learning,

hard study, and fatiguing labor, he undertook to prove that had Brutus

and Cassius been conqueror, they would have restored virtue and liberty

to Rome.

_Mais je n'en crois rien._ Have you ever found in history one single

example of a nation, thoroughly corrupted, that was afterwards restored

to virtue, and without virtue there can be no political liberty.

If I were a Calvinist, I might pray that God by a miracle of divine grace

would instantaneously convert a whole contaminated nation from turpitude

to purity; but even in this I should be inconsistent, for the fatalism

of Mahometanism, Materialists, Atheists, Pantheists, and Calvinists,

and church of England articles, appear to me to render all prayer futile

and absurd. The French and the Dutch, in our day, have attempted reforms

and revolutions. We know the results, and I fear the English reformers

will have no better success.

Will you tell me how to prevent riches from becoming the effects of

temperance and industry. Will you tell me how to prevent riches from

producing luxury. Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing

effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly? When you will

answer me these questions, I hope I may venture to answer yours; yet all

these ought not to discourage us from exertion, for with my friend Jeb,

I believe no effort in favor of virtue is lost, and all good men ought

to struggle both by their council and example.

The Missouri question, I hope, will follow the other waves under the

ship, and do no harm. I know it is high treason to express a doubt

of the perpetual duration of our vast American empire, and our free

institution; and I say as devoutly as father Paul, _estor perpetua_,

but I am sometimes Cassandra enough to dream that another Hamilton, and

another Burr, might rend this mighty fabric in twain, or perhaps into

a leash; and a few more choice spirits of the same stamp, might produce

as many nations in North America as there are in Europe.

To return to the Romans. I never could discover that they possessed

much virtue, or real liberty. Their Patricians were in general griping

usurers, and tyrannical creditors in all ages. Pride, strength, and

courage, were all the virtues that composed their national characters; a

few of their nobles effecting simplicity, frugality, and piety, perhaps

really possessing them, acquired popularity amongst the plebeians, and

extended the power and dominions of the republic, and advanced in glory

till riches and luxury come in, sat like an incubus on the Republic,

_victam que ulcissitur orbem_.

Our winter sets in a fortnight earlier than usual, and is pretty severe.

I hope you have fairer skies, and milder air. Wishing your health may

last as long as your life, and your life as long as you desire it, I

am, dear Sir, respectfully and affectionately,

TO H. NELSON, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, March 12, 1820.

I thank you, dear Sir, for the information in your favor of the 4th

instant, of the settlement, _for the present_, of the Missouri question.

I am so completely withdrawn from all attention to public matters, that

nothing less could arouse me than the definition of a geographical line,

which on an abstract principle is to become the line of separation of

these States, and to render desperate the hope that man can ever enjoy

the two blessings of peace and self-government. The question sleeps for

the present, but is not dead. This State is in a condition of unparalleled

distress. The sudden reduction of the circulating medium from a plethory

to all but annihilation is producing an entire revolution of fortune.

In other places I have known lands sold by the sheriff for one year's

rent; beyond the mountain we hear of good slaves selling for one hundred

dollars, good horses for five dollars, and the sheriffs generally

the purchasers. Our produce is now selling at market for one-third

of its price, before this commercial catastrophe, say flour at three

and a quarter and three and a half dollars the barrel. We should have

less right to expect relief from our legislators if they had been the

establishers of the unwise system of banks. A remedy to a certain degree

was practicable, that of reducing the quantum of circulation gradually

to a level with that of the countries with which we have commerce, and

an eternal abjuration of paper. But they have adjourned without doing

anything. I fear local insurrections against these horrible sacrifices

of property. In every condition of trouble or tranquillity be assured

of my constant esteem and respect.

TO MR. ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, March 14, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--A continuation of poor health makes me an irregular

correspondent. I am, therefore, your debtor for the two letters of

January 20th and February 21st. It was after you left Europe that Dugald

Stuart, concerning whom you inquire, and Lord Dare, second son of the

Marquis of Lansdown, came to Paris. They brought me a letter from Lord

Wycombe, whom you knew. I became immediately intimate with Stuart, calling

mutually on each other and almost daily, during their stay at Paris,

which was of some months. Lord Dare was a young man of imagination, with

occasional flashes indicating deep penetration, but of much caprice,

and little judgment. He has been long dead, and the family title is

now, I believe, in the third son, who has shown in Parliament talents

of a superior order. Stuart is a great man, and among the most honest

living. I have heard nothing of his dying at top, as you suppose. Mr.

Tickner, however, can give you the best information on that subject,

as he must have heard particularly of him when in Edinburgh, although

I believe he did not see him. I have understood he was then in London

superintending the publication of a new work. I consider him and Tracy as

the ablest metaphysicians living; by which I mean investigators of the

thinking faculty of man. Stuart seems to have given its natural history

from facts and observations; Tracy its modes of action and deduction,

which he calls Logic, and Ideology; and Cabanis, in his Physique et

Morale de l'Homme, has investigated anatomically, and most ingeniously,

the particular organs in the human structure which may most probably

exercise that faculty. And they ask why may not the mode of action called

thought, have been given to a material organ of peculiar structure, as

that of magnetism is to the needle, or of elasticity to the spring by

a particular manipulation of the steel. They observe that on ignition

of the needle or spring, their magnetism and elasticity cease. So on

dissolution of the material organ by death, its action of thought may

cease also, and that nobody supposes that the magnetism or elasticity

retire to hold a substantive and distinct existence. These were qualities

only of particular conformations of matter; change the conformation, and

its qualities change also. Mr. Locke, you know, and other materialists,

have charged with blasphemy the spiritualists who have denied the Creator

the power of endowing certain forms of matter with the faculty of thought.

These, however, are speculations and subtleties in which, for my own

part, I have little indulged myself. When I meet with a proposition

beyond finite comprehension, I abandon it as I do a weight which human

strength cannot lift, and I think ignorance, in these cases, is truly the

softest pillow on which I can lay my head. Were it necessary, however, to

form an opinion, I confess I should, with Mr. Locke, prefer swallowing

one incomprehensibility rather than two. It requires one effort only

to admit the single incomprehensibility of matter endowed with thought,

and two to believe, first that of an existence called spirit, of which

we have neither evidence nor idea, and then secondly how that spirit,

which has neither extension nor solidity, can put material organs into

motion. Those are things which you and I may perhaps know ere long. We

have so lived as to fear neither horn of the dilemma. We have, willingly,

done injury to no man; and have done for our country the good which has

fallen in our way, so far as commensurate with the faculties given us.

That we have not done more than we could, cannot be imputed to us as

a crime before any tribunal. I look, therefore, to the crisis, as I am

sure you also do, as one "_qui summum nec metuit diem nec optat_." In

the meantime be our last as cordial as were our first affections.

TO THE HONORABLE MARK LANGDON HILL.

MONTICELLO, April 5, 1820.

SIR,--A near relation of my late friend Governor Langdon, needs no apology

for addressing a letter to me, that relationship giving sufficient title

to all my respect. We were fellow laborers from the beginning of the first

to the accomplishment of the second revolution in our government, of the

same zeal and the same sentiments, and I shall honor his memory while

memory remains to me. The letter you mention is proof of my friendship

and unreserved confidence in him; it was written in warm times, and is

therefore too warmly expressed for the more reconciled temper of the

present day. I must pray you, therefore, not to let it get before the

public, lest it rekindle a flame which burnt too long and too fiercely

against me. It was my lot to be placed at the head of the column which

made the first breach in the ramparts of federalism, and to be charged,

on that event, with the duty of changing the course of the government

from what we deemed a monarchical, to its republican tack. This made me

the mark for every shaft which calumny and falsehood could point against

me. I bore them with resignation, as one of the duties imposed on me

by my post. But I assure you it was among the most painful duties from

which I hoped to find relief in retirement. Tranquillity is the _summum

bonum_ of old age and ill health, and nothing could so much disturb

this with me as to awaken angry feelings from the slumber in which I

wish them ever to remain. I beseech you then, good Sir, in the name of

my departed friend, not to bring on me a contention which neither duty

nor public good require me to encounter.

I regret the circumstances which have deprived us of the pleasure of

your visit, but console myself with the French proverb that "all is not

lost which is deferred," and the hope that more favorable circumstances

will some day give us that gratification. I congratulate you on the

sleep of the Missouri question. I wish I could say on its death, but

of this I despair. The idea of a geographical line once suggested will

brood in the minds of all those who prefer the gratification of their

ungovernable passions to the peace and union of their country. If I do

not contemplate this subject with pleasure, I do sincerely that of the

independence of Maine, and the wise choice they have made of General King

in the agency of their affairs, and I tender to yourself the assurance

of my esteem and respect.

TO WILLIAM SHORT.

MONTICELLO, April 13, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of March the 27th is received, and as you request,

a copy of the syllabus is now enclosed. It was originally written to Dr.

Rush. On his death, fearing that the inquisition of the public might get

hold of it, I asked the return of it from the family, which they kindly

complied with. At the request of another friend, I had given him a copy.

He lent it to _his_ friend to read, who copied it, and in a few months it

appeared in the Theological Magazine of London. Happily that repository

is scarcely known in this country, and the syllabus, therefore, is still

a secret, and in your hands I am sure it will continue so.

But while this syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in

its true and high light, as no impostor himself, but a great reformer

of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am

with him in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of

Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness

of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it, &c., &c.

It is the innocence of his character, the purity and sublimity of his

moral precepts, the eloquence of his inculcations, the beauty of the

apologues in which he conveys them, that I so much admire; sometimes,

indeed, needing indulgence to eastern hyperbolism. My eulogies, too, may

be founded on a postulate which all may not be ready to grant. Among the

sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many

passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely

benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity,

so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible

that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I

separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to him the former,

and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of

his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great

Coryphæus, and first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable

interpolations and falsifications of his doctrines, led me to try to

sift them apart. I found the work obvious and easy, and that his part

composed the most beautiful morsel of morality which has been given to

us by man. The syllabus is therefore of _his_ doctrines, not _all_ of

_mine_. I read them as I do those of other ancient and modern moralists,

with a mixture of approbation and dissent.

I rejoice, with you, to see an encouraging spirit of internal improvement

prevailing in the States. The opinion I have ever expressed of the

advantages of a western communication through the James river, I still

entertain; and that the Cayuga is the most promising of the links of

communication.

The history of our University you know so far. Seven of the ten pavilions

destined for the professors, and about thirty dormitories, will be

completed this year, and three other, with six hotels for boarding, and

seventy other dormitories, will be completed the next year, and the whole

be in readiness then to receive those who are to occupy them. But means

to bring these into place, and to set the machine into motion, must come

from the legislature. An opposition, in the meantime, has been got up.

That of our _alma mater_, William and Mary, is not of much weight. She

must descend into the secondary rank of academies of preparation for

the University. The serious enemies are the priests of the different

religious sects, to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is

ominous. Their pulpits are now resounding with denunciations against

the appointment of Doctor Cooper, whom they charge as a monotheist in

opposition to their tritheism. Hostile as these sects are, in every other

point, to one another, they unite in maintaining their mystical theogony

against those who believe there is one God only. The Presbyterian clergy

are loudest; the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannical and

ambitious; ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could be now

obtained, to put the torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin

hemisphere, the flames in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor

Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which

has demonstrated that three are one and one is three, nor subscribe

to that of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all

heretics to Calvinistic Creed. They pant to re-establish, _by law_, that

holy inquisition, which they can now only infuse into _public opinion_.

We have most unwisely committed to the hierophants of our particular

superstition, the direction of public opinion, that lord of the universe.

We have given them stated and privileged days to collect and catechise

us, opportunities of delivering their oracles to the people in mass,

and of moulding their minds as wax in the hollow of their hands. But in

despite of their fulminations against endeavors to enlighten the general

mind, to improve the reason of the people, and encourage them in the use

of it, the liberality of this State will support this institution, and

give fair play to the cultivation of reason. Can you ever find a more

eligible occasion of visiting once more your native country, than that

of accompanying Mr. Correa, and of seeing with him this beautiful and

hopeful institution _in ovo_?

Although I had laid down as a law to myself, never to write talk, or

even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs, and therefore

had ceased to read newspapers, yet the Missouri question aroused and

filled me with alarm. The old schism of federal and republican threatened

nothing, because it existed in every State, and united them together

by the fraternism of party. But the coincidence of a marked principle,

moral and political, with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared

would never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring

on every occasion and renewing irritations, until it would kindle such

mutual and mortal hatred, as to render separation preferable to eternal

discord. I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union

would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, and see the event at

no great distance, and the direct consequence of this question; not by

the line which has been so confidently counted on; the laws of nature

control this; but by the Potomac, Ohio and Missouri, or more probably,

the Mississippi upwards to our northern boundary. My only comfort and

confidence is, that I shall not live to see this; and I envy not the

present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers'

sacrifices of life and fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment

which was to decide ultimately whether man is capable of self-government?

This treason against human hope, will signalize their epoch in future

history, as the counterpart of the medal of their predecessors.

You kindly inquire after my health. There is nothing in it immediately

threatening, but swelled legs, which are kept down mechanically, by

bandages from the toe to the knee. These I have worn for six months. But

the tendency to turgidity may proceed from debility alone. I can walk

the round of my garden; not more. But I ride six or eight miles a day

without fatigue. I shall set out for Poplar Forest within three or four

days; a journey from which my physician augurs much good.

I salute you with constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

TO JOHN HOLMES.

MONTICELLO, April 22, 1820.

I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send

me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is

a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read

newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were

in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore

from which I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a fire

bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it

at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment.

But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line,

coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived

and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated;

and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with

conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more

than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any _practicable_

way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a

bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a

general emancipation and _expatriation_ could be effected; and gradually,

and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have

the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him

go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of

one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to

another, would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be

so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them

individually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment

of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of

coadjutors. An abstinence too, from this act of power, would remove the

jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition

of the different descriptions of men composing a State. This certainly

is the exclusive right of every State, which nothing in the constitution

has taken from them and given to the General Government. Could Congress,

for example, say, that the non-freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen,

or that they shall not emigrate into any other State?

I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice

of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government

and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and

unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be,

that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh

the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more

likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before

they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason

against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate

of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MONTICELLO, May 14, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 3d is received, and always with welcome.

These texts of truth relieve me from the floating falsehoods of the public

papers. I confess to you I am not sorry for the non-ratification of the

Spanish treaty. Our assent to it has proved our desire to be on friendly

terms with Spain; their dissent, the imbecility and malignity of their

government towards us, have placed them in the wrong in the eyes of the

world, and that is well; but to us the province of Techas will be the

richest State of our Union, without any exception. Its southern part will

make more sugar than we can consume, and the Red river, on its north, is

the most luxuriant country on earth. Florida, moreover, is ours. Every

nation in Europe considers it such a right. We need not care for its

occupation in time of peace, and, in war, the first cannon makes it ours

without offence to anybody. The friendly advisements, too, of Russia

and France, as well as the change of government in Spain, now ensured,

require a further and respectful forbearance. While their request will

rebut the plea of proscriptive possession, it will give us a right to

their approbation when taken in the maturity of circumstances. I really

think, too, that neither the state of our finances, the condition of our

country, nor the public opinion, urges us to precipitation into war.

The treaty has had the valuable effect of strengthening our title to

the Techas, because the cession of the Floridas in exchange for Techas

imports an acknowledgment of our right to it. This province moreover,

the Floridas and possibly Cuba, will join us on the acknowledgment of

their independence, a measure to which their new government will probably

accede voluntarily. But why should I be saying all this to you, whose

mind all the circumstances of this affair have had possession for years?

I shall rejoice to see you here; and were I to live to see you here

finally, it would be a day of jubilee. But our days are all numbered,

and mine are not many. God bless you and preserve you _muchos años_

TO GENERAL TAYLOR.

MONTICELLO, May 16, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--We regretted much your absence at the late meeting of the

Board of Visitors, but did not doubt it was occasioned by uncontrollable

circumstances. As the matters which came before us were of great

importance to the institution, I think it a duty to inform you of them.

You know the sanction of the legislature to our borrowing $60,000 on

the pledge of our annuity of $15,000. The Literary Board offered us

$40,000 on that pledge, to be repaid at five instalments, commencing at

the end of the third year from the date of the loan, and interest to

be regularly paid in the meantime. We endeavored to obtain permission

to draw for only $15,000 at first, and for $2,000 monthly afterwards,

to avoid the payment of dead interest. This they declined, as bound

themselves to keep the whole of their capital always in a course of

fructification. We then requested a postponement of the instalments to

the fourth instead of the third year, with an additional loan of the

further sum of $20,000, authorized by the law. To the postponement they

acceded, and we are assured they will to the further loan. To explain

to them the urgency of this additional year's postponement, a paper was

laid before them of which I enclose you a copy, and on which you are now

acting. Should the legislature not help us to the $93,600 there noted, the

result will be that at the end of the next year all the buildings will

be completed, (the library excepted,) and will then remain unoccupied

five years longer, until our funds shall be free for the engagements of

professors. Should they, on the other hand, give this aid, our funds will

be free, at the beginning of the next year, and will enable us to take

measures for procuring professors in the course of that summer, and to

open the University. We were all of opinion that we ought to complete the

buildings for the ten professors contemplated, as well as accommodations

for the students, before opening the institution; for were we to stop

at any point short of the full establishment, and open partially, as

our funds would thenceforward be absorbed by the professors' salaries,

we should never be able to advance a step further, nor to cover the

whole field of science contemplated by the law, and made the object of

our care and duty. We thought it better, therefore, to risk a delay of

eight years for a perfect establishment, than to begin earlier and go on

forever with a defective one; and we suppose it impossible that either

the legislature, or their constituents, should not consider an immediate

commencement as worth the sum necessary to procure it. You will observe

that in the estimate enclosed, no account is taken of our subscription

monies. They are, in fact, too uncertain in their collection to found

any necessary contracts; and we thought it better therefore to reserve

them as a contingent fund, and a resource to cover miscalculations and

accidents.

Another subject on this, as on former occasions, gave us embarrassment.

You may have heard of the hue and cry raised from the different pulpits

on our appointment of Dr. Cooper, whom they charge with Unitarianism

as boldly as if they knew the fact, and as presumptuously as if it

were a crime, and one for which, like Servetus, he should be burned;

and perhaps you may have seen the particular attack made on him in

the Evangelical magazine. For myself I was not disposed to regard the

denunciations of these satellites of religious inquisition; but our

colleagues, better judges of popular feeling, thought that they were not

to be altogether neglected; and that it might be better to relieve Dr.

Cooper, ourselves and the institution from this crusade. I had received

a letter from him expressing his uneasiness, not only for himself, but

lest this persecution should become embarrassing to the visitors, and

injurious to the institution; with an offer to resign, if we had the

same apprehensions. The Visitors, therefore, desired the committee of

Superintendence to place him at freedom on this subject, and to arrange

with him a suitable indemnification. I wrote accordingly in answer to his,

and a meeting of trustees of the college at Columbia happening to take

place soon after his receipt of my letter, they resolved unanimously that

it should be proposed to, and urged on their legislature, to establish

a professorship of Geology and Mineralogy, or a professorship of law,

with a salary of $1,000 a year to be given him, in addition to that of

chemistry, which is $2,000 a year, and to purchase his collection of

minerals; and they have no doubt of the legislature's compliance. On

the subject of indemnification, he is contented with the balance of the

$1,500 we had before agreed to give him, and which he says will not more

than cover his actual losses of time and expense; he adds, "it is right

I should acknowledge the liberality of your board with thanks. I regret

the storm that has been raised on my account; for it has separated me

from many fond hopes and wishes. Whatever my religious creed may be,

and perhaps I do not exactly know it myself, it is pleasure to reflect

that my conduct has not brought, and is not likely to bring, discredit

to my friends. Wherever I have been, it has been my good fortune to meet

with, or to make ardent and affectionate friends. I feel persuaded I

should have met with the same lot in Virginia had it been my chance to

have settled there, as I had hoped and expected, for I think my course

of conduct is sufficiently habitual to count on its effects."

I do sincerely lament that untoward circumstances have brought on us

the irreparable loss of this professor, whom I have looked to as the

corner-stone of our edifice. I know no one who could have aided us so

much in forming the future regulations for our infant institution; and

although we may perhaps obtain from Europe equivalents in science, they

can never replace the advantages of his experience, his knowledge of the

character, habits and manners of our country, his identification with

its sentiments and principles, and high reputation he has obtained in

it generally.

In the hope of meeting you at our fall visitation, and that you will do

me the favor of making this your head quarters, and of coming the day

before, at least, that we may prepare our business at ease, I tender

you the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO WILLIAM SHORT.

MONTICELLO, August 4, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--I owe you a letter for your favor of June the 29th, which was

received in due time; and there being no subject of the day, of particular

interest, I will make this a supplement to mine of April the 13th. My

aim in that was, to justify the character of Jesus against the fictions

of his pseudo-followers, which have exposed him to the inference of

being an impostor. For if we could believe that he really countenanced

the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanisms which his biographers

father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and

theorizations of the fathers of the early, and fanatics of the latter

ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind, that

he was an impostor. I give no credit to their falsifications of his

actions and doctrines, and to rescue his character, the postulate in

my letter asked only what is granted in reading every other historian.

When Livy and Siculus, for example, tell us things which coincide with

our experience of the order of nature, we credit them on their word,

and place their narrations among the records of credible history. But

when they tell us of calves speaking, of statues sweating blood, and

other things against the course of nature, we reject these as fables

not belonging to history. In like manner, when an historian, speaking

of a character well known and established on satisfactory testimony,

imputes to it things incompatible with that character, we reject them

without hesitation, and assent to that only of which we have better

evidence. Had Plutarch informed us that Cæsar and Cicero passed their

whole lives in religious exercises, and abstinence from the affairs

of the world, we should reject what was so inconsistent with their

established characters, still crediting what he relates in conformity

with our ideas of them. So again, the superlative wisdom of Socrates is

testified by all antiquity, and placed on ground not to be questioned.

When, therefore, Plato puts into his mouth such paralogisms, such quibbles

on words, and sophisms as a school boy would be ashamed of, we conclude

they were the whimsies of Plato's own foggy brain, and acquit Socrates

of puerilities so unlike his character. (Speaking of Plato, I will add,

that no writer, ancient or modern, has bewildered the world with more

_ignus fatui_, than this renowned philosopher, in Ethics, in Politics,

and Physics. In the latter, to specify a single example, compare his

views of the animal economy, in his Timæus, with those of Mrs. Bryan in

her Conversations on Chemistry, and weigh the science of the canonized

philosopher against the good sense of the unassuming lady. But Plato's

visions have furnished a basis for endless systems of mystical theology,

and he is therefore all but adopted as a Christian saint. It is surely

time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of

names so artificially magnified. But to return from this parenthesis.) I

say, that this free exercise of reason is all I ask for the vindication of

the character of Jesus. We find in the writings of his biographers matter

of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance,

of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications.

Intermixed with these, again, are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being,

aphorisms, and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned

by a life of humility, innocence and simplicity of manners, neglect

of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence

and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed. These could not be

inventions of the grovelling authors who relate them. They are far beyond

the powers of their feeble minds. They show that there was a character,

the subject of their history, whose splendid conceptions were above all

suspicion of being interpolations from their hands. Can we be at a loss

in separating such materials, and ascribing each to its genuine author?

The difference is obvious to the eye and to the understanding, and we

may read as we run to each his part; and I will venture to affirm, that

he who, as I have done, will undertake to winnow this grain from the

chaff, will find it not to require a moment's consideration. The parts

fall asunder of themselves, as would those of an image of metal and clay.

There are, I acknowledge, passages not free from objection, which we may,

with probability, ascribe to Jesus himself; but claiming indulgence from

the circumstances under which he acted. His object was the reformation

of some articles in the religion of the Jews, as taught by Moses. That

sect had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific

character, cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust. Jesus, taking

for his type the best qualities of the human head and heart, wisdom,

justice, goodness, and adding to them power, ascribed all of these, but

in infinite perfection, to the Supreme Being, and formed him really

worthy of their adoration. Moses had either not believed in a future

state of existence, or had not thought it essential to be explicitly

taught to his people. Jesus inculcated that doctrine with emphasis and

precision. Moses had bound the Jews to many idle ceremonies, mummeries,

and observances, of no effect towards producing the social utilities

which constitute the essence of virtue; Jesus exposed their futility and

insignificance. The one instilled into his people the most anti-social

spirit toward other nations; the other preached philanthropy and universal

charity and benevolence. The office of reformer of the superstitions of a

nation, is ever dangerous. Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of

reason and religion; and a step to right or left might place him within

the grasp of the priests of the superstition, a blood-thirsty race, as

cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family

God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel.

They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of

the law. He was justifiable, therefore, in avoiding these by evasions,

by sophisms, by misconstructions and misapplications of scraps of the

prophets, and in defending himself with these their own weapons, as

sufficient, _ad homines_, at least. That Jesus did not mean to impose

himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been

convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore.

But that he might conscientiously believe himself inspired from above,

is very possible. The whole religion of the Jew, inculcated on him from

his infancy, was founded in the belief of divine inspiration. The fumes

of the most disordered imaginations were recorded in their religious

code, as special communications of the Deity; and as it could not but

happen that, in the course of ages, events would now and then turn up

to which some of these vague rhapsodies might be accommodated by the

aid of allegories, figures, types, and other tricks upon words, they

have not only preserved their credit with the Jews of all subsequent

times, but are the foundation of much of the religions of those who

have schismatised from them. Elevated by the enthusiasm of a warm and

pure heart, conscious of the high strains of an eloquence which had not

been taught him, he might readily mistake the coruscations of his own

fine genius for inspirations of an higher order. This belief carried,

therefore, no more personal imputation, than the belief of Socrates, that

himself was under the care and admonitions of a guardian Dæmon. And how

many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations,

while perfectly sane on all other subjects. Excusing, therefore, on these

considerations, those passages in the gospels which seem to bear marks

of weakness in Jesus, ascribing to him what alone is consistent with

the great and pure character of which the same writings furnish proofs,

and to their proper authors their own trivialities and imbecilities. I

think myself authorized to conclude the purity and distinction of his

character, in opposition to the impostures which those authors would fix

upon him; and that the postulate of my former letter is no more than is

granted in all other historical works.

Mr. Correa is here, on his farewell visit to us. He has been much pleased

with the plan and progress of our University, and has given some valuable

hints to its botanical branch. He goes to do, I hope, much good in his

new country; the public instruction there, as I understand, being within

the department destined for him. He is not without dissatisfaction,

and reasonable dissatisfaction too, with the piracies of Baltimore;

but his justice and friendly dispositions will, I am sure, distinguish

between the iniquities of a few plunderers, and the sound principles

of our country at large, and of our government especially. From many

conversations with him, I hope he sees, and will promote in his new

situation, the advantages of a cordial fraternization among all the

American nations, and the importance of their coalescing in an American

system of policy, totally independent of and unconnected with that of

Europe. The day is not distant, when we may formally require a meridian

of partition through the ocean which separates the two hemispheres, on

the hither side of which no European gun shall ever be heard, nor an

American on the other; and when, during the rage of the eternal wars of

Europe, the lion and the lamb, within our regions, shall lie down together

in peace. The excess of population in Europe, and want of room, render

war, in their opinion, necessary to keep down that excess of numbers.

Here, room is abundant, population scanty, and peace the necessary means

for producing men, to whom the redundant soil is offering the means of

life and happiness. The principles of society there and here, then, are

radically different, and I hope no American patriot will ever lose sight

of the essential policy of interdicting in the seas and territories of

both Americas, the ferocious and sanguinary contests of Europe. I wish

to see this coalition begun. I am earnest for an agreement with the

maritime powers of Europe, assigning them the task of keeping down the

piracies of their seas and the cannibalisms of the African coasts, and

to us, the suppression of the same enormities within our seas; and for

this purpose, I should rejoice to see the fleets of Brazil and the United

States riding together as brethren of the same family, and pursuing the

same object. And indeed it would be of happy augury to begin at once

this concert of action here, on the invitation of either to the other

government, while the way might be preparing for withdrawing our cruisers

from Europe, and preventing naval collisions there which daily endanger

our peace.

* * * * *

Accept assurances of the sincerity of my friendship and respect for you.

TO DOCTOR COOPER.

MONTICELLO, August 14, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--Yours of the 24th ult. was received in due time, and I shall

rejoice indeed if Mr. Elliot and Mr. Nulty are joined to you in the

institution at Columbia, which now becomes of immediate interest to me.

Mr. Stack has given notice to his first class that he shall dismiss them

on the 10th of the next month, and his mathematical assistant also at

the same time, being determined to take only small boys in future. My

grandson, Eppes, is of the first class; and I have proposed to his father

to send him to Columbia, rather than anywhere northwardly. I am obliged,

therefore, to ask of you by what day he ought to be there, so as to be

at the commencement of what they call a session, and to be so good as to

do this by the first mail, as I shall set out to Bedford within about

a fortnight. He is so far advanced in Greek and Latin that he will be

able to pursue them by himself hereafter; and being between eighteen and

nineteen years of age he has no time to lose. I propose that he shall

commence immediately with the mathematics and natural philosophy, to be

followed by astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, natural history. It

would be time lost for him to attend professors of ethics, metaphysics,

logic, &c. The first of these may be as well acquired in the closet as

from living lectures; and supposing the two last to mean the _science

of mind_, the simple reading of Locke, Tracy, and Stewart, will give

him as much in that branch as is _real_ science. A relation of his (Mr.

Baker) and classmate will go with him.

I hope and believe you are mistaken in supposing the reign of fanaticism

to be on the advance. I think it certainly declining. It was first excited

artificially by the sovereigns of Europe as an engine of opposition to

Bonaparte and to France. It rose to a great height there, and became

indeed a powerful engine of loyalism, and of support to their governments.

But that loyalism is giving way to very different dispositions, and

its prompter fanaticism, is vanishing with it. In the meantime it had

been wafted across the Atlantic, and chiefly from England, with their

other fashions, but it is here also on the wane. The ambitious sect of

Presbyterians indeed, the Loyalists of our country, spare no pains to

keep it up. But their views of ascendency over all other sects in the

United States seem to excite alarm in all, and to unite them as against

a common and threatening enemy. And although the Unitarianism they

impute to you is heterodoxy with all of them, I suspect the other sects

will admit it to their alliance in order to strengthen the phalanx of

opposition against the enterprises of their more aspiring antagonists.

Although spiritualism is most prevalent with all these sects, yet with

none of them, I presume, is materialism declared heretical. Mr. Locke,

on whose authority they often plume themselves, openly maintained the

materialism of the soul; and charged with blasphemy those who denied

that it was in the power of an Almighty Creator to endow with the faculty

of thought any composition of matter he might think fit. The fathers of

the church of the three first centuries generally, if not universally,

were materialists, extending it even to the Creator himself; nor indeed

do I know exactly[5] in what age of the christian church the heresy of

spiritualism was introduced. Huet, in his commentaries on Origen,[6]

says, "Deus igitur, cui anima similis est, juxta Origenem, reapse

corporalis est, sed graviorum tantum ratione corporum incorporeus."[7]

St. Macari,[8] as speaking of angels says, "quam vis enim subtilia sint,

tamen in substantia, forma, et figura, secundum tenuitatem naturæ eorum

corpora sunt tenuia, quemadmodum et hoc corpus in substantia sua crassum

et solidum est."[9] St. Justin martyr says expressly "το θειον φαμεν

ειναι ασωματον, ουκ δε εστιν ασωματον."

Tertullian's words are, "quid enim Deus nisi corpus?" and again, "quis

autem negabit Deum esse corpus? et si deus spiritus, spiritus etiam

corpus est sui generis, in suâ effigie," and that the soul is matter

he adduces the following tangible proof: "in ipso ultimo voluptatis

aestu, quo genitale virus expellitur, nonne aliquid de animâ sentimus

exire?"[10] The holy father thus asserting, and, as it would seem, from

his own feelings, that the sperm infused into the female matrix deposits

there the matter and germ of both soul and body, conjunctim, of the new

fœtus. Although I do not pretend to be familiar with these fathers, and

give the preceding quotations at second hand, yet I learn from authors

whom I respect, that not only those I have named, but St. Augustin,[11]

St. Basil, Lactantius, Tatian, Athenagoras, and others, concurred in the

materiality of the soul. Our modern doctors would hardly venture or wish

to condemn their fathers as heretics, the main pillars of their fabric

resting on their shoulders.

In the consultations of the visitors of the university on the subject of

releasing you from your engagement with us, although one or two members

seemed alarmed at this cry of "fire" from the Presbyterian pulpits,

yet the real ground of our decision was that our funds were in fact

hypotheticated for five or six years to redeem the loan we had reluctantly

made; and although we hoped and trusted that the ensuing legislature

would remit the debt and liberate our funds, yet it was not just, on

this possibility, to stand in the way of your looking out for a more

certain provision. The completing all our buildings for professors and

students by the autumn of the ensuing year, is now secured by sufficient

contracts, and our confidence is most strong that neither the State nor

their legislature will bear to see those buildings shut up for five or

six years, when they have the money in hand, and actually appropriated

to the object of education, which would open their doors at once for

the reception of their sons, now waiting and calling aloud for that

institution. The legislature meets on the 1st Monday of December, and

before Christmas we shall know what are their intentions. If such as we

expect, we shall then immediately take measures to engage our professors

and bring them into place the ensuing autumn or early winter. My hope is

that you will be able and willing to keep yourself uncommitted, to take

your place among them about that time; and I can assure you there is

not a voice among us which will not be cordially given for it. I think,

too, I may add, that if the Presbyterian opposition should not die by

that time, it will be directed at once against the whole institution,

and not amuse itself with nibbling at a single object. It did that only

because there was no other, and they might think it politic to mask

their designs on the body of the fortress, under the ---- of a battery

against a single bastion. I will not despair then of the avail of your

services in an establishment which I contemplate as the future bulwark

of the human mind in this hemisphere. God bless you and preserve you

_multos annos_.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] I believe by Athenasius and the council of Nicea.

[6] Ocellus de d'Argens, p. 97.

[7] Enfield, vi. 3.

[8] Ib. 105.

[9] Timæus, 17. Enfield, vi. 3.

[10] Hist. des Saints, 2 c. 4 p. 212, 215.

[11] Ocellus, 90.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, August 15, 1820.

I am a great defaulter, my dear Sir, in our correspondence, but prostrate

health rarely permits me to write; and when it does, matters of business

imperiously press their claims. I am getting better however, slowly,

swelled legs being now the only serious symptom, and these, I believe,

proceed from extreme debility. I can walk but little; but I ride six

or eight miles a day without fatigue; and within a few days, I shall

endeavor to visit my other home, after a twelvemonth's absence from it.

Our University, four miles distant, gives me frequent exercise, and the

oftener, as I direct its architecture. Its plan is unique, and it is

becoming an object of curiosity for the traveller. I have lately had

an opportunity of reading a critique on this institution in your North

American Review of January last, having been not without anxiety to see

what that able work would say of us; and I was relieved on finding in it

much coincidence of opinion, and even where criticisms were indulged,

I found they would have been obviated had the developments of our plan

been fuller. But these were restrained by the character of the paper

reviewed, being merely a report of outlines, not a detailed treatise, and

addressed to a legislative body, not to a learned academy. For example,

as an inducement to introduce the Anglo-Saxon into our plan, it was said

that it would reward amply the _few weeks_ of attention which alone would

be requisite for its attainment; leaving both term and degree under an

indefinite expression, because I know that not much time is necessary

to attain it to an useful degree, sufficient to give such instruction in

the etymologies of our language as may satisfy ordinary students, while

more time would be requisite for those who should propose to attain

a critical knowledge of it. In a letter which I had occasion to write

to Mr. Crofts, who sent you, I believe, as well as myself, a copy of

his treatise on the English and German languages, as preliminary to an

etymological dictionary he meditated, I went into explanations with him

of an easy process for simplifying the study of the Anglo-Saxon, and

lessening the terrors and difficulties presented by its rude alphabet,

and unformed orthography. But this is a subject beyond the bounds of a

letter, as it was beyond the bounds of a report to the legislature. Mr.

Crofts died, I believe, before any progress was made in the work he had

projected.

The reviewer expresses doubt, rather than decision, on our placing

military and naval architecture in the department of pure mathematics.

Military architecture embraces fortification and fieldworks, which,

with their bastions, curtains, hornworks, redoubts, &c., are based on a

technical combination of lines and angles. These are adapted to offence

and defence, with and against the effects of bombs, balls, escalades,

&c. But lines and angles make the sum of elementary geometry, a branch

of pure mathematics; and the direction of the bombs, balls, and other

projectiles, the necessary appendages of military works, although no

part of their architecture, belong to the conic sections, a branch of

transcendental geometry. Diderot and D'Alembert, therefore, in their

_Arbor scientiæ_, have placed military architecture in the department

of elementary geometry. Naval architecture teaches the best form and

construction of vessels; for which best form it has recourse to the

question of the solid of least resistance; a problem of transcendental

geometry. And its appurtenant projectiles belong to the same branch, as

in the preceding case. It is true, that so far as respects the action

of the water on the rudder and oars, and of the wind on the sails, it

may be placed in the department of mechanics, as Diderot and D'Alembert

have done; but belonging quite as much to geometry, and allied in its

military character to military architecture, it simplified our plan

to place both under the same head. These views are so obvious, that

I am sure they would have required but a second thought, to reconcile

the reviewer to their _location_ under the head of pure mathematics.

For this word _location_, see Bailey, Johnson, Sheridan, Walker, &c.

But if dictionaries are to be the arbiters of language, in which of

them shall we find _neologism_. No matter. It is a good word, well

sounding, obvious, and expresses an idea, which would otherwise require

circumlocution. The reviewer was justifiable, therefore, in using it;

although he noted at the same time, as unauthoritative, _centrality_,

_grade_, _sparse_; all which have been long used in common speech and

writing. I am a friend to _neology_. It is the only way to give to a

language copiousness and euphony. Without it we should still be held

to the vocabulary of Alfred or of Ulphilas; and held to their state of

science also: for I am sure they had no words which could have conveyed

the ideas of oxygen, cotyledons, zoophytes, magnetism, electricity,

hyaline, and thousands of others expressing ideas not then existing,

nor of possible communication in the state of their language. What a

language has the French become since the date of their revolution, by

the free introduction of new words! The most copious and eloquent in

the living world; and equal to the Greek, had not that been regularly

modifiable almost _ad infinitum_. Their rule was, that whenever their

language furnished or adopted a root, all its branches, in every part of

speech, were legitimated by giving them their appropriate terminations.

Αδελφος, αδελφη, αδελφιδιον, αδελφοτης, αδελφιξις, αδελφιδους, αδελφικος,

αδελφιζω, αδελφικως. And this should be the law of every language. Thus,

having adopted the adjective _fraternal_, it is a root which should

legitimate _fraternity_, _fraternation_, _fraternisation_, _fraternism_,

_to fraternate_, _fraternise_, _fraternally_. And give the word

_neologism_ to our language, as a root, and it should give us its fellow

substantives, _neology_, _neologist_, _neologisation_; its adjectives,

_neologous_, _neological_, _neologistical_; its verb, _neologise_; and

adverb, _neologically_. Dictionaries are but the depositories of words

already legitimated by usage. Society is the workshop in which new ones

are elaborated. When an individual uses a new word, if ill formed, it is

rejected in society; if well formed, adopted, and after due time, laid

up in the depository of dictionaries. And if, in this process of sound

neologisation, our trans-Atlantic brethren shall not choose to accompany

us, we may furnish, after the Ionians, a second example of a colonial

dialect improving on its primitive.

But enough of criticism: let me turn to your puzzling letter of May the

12th, on matter, spirit, motion, &c. Its crowd of scepticisms kept me from

sleep. I read it, and laid it down; read it, and laid it down, again and

again; and to give rest to my mind, I was obliged to recur ultimately to

my habitual anodyne, "I feel, therefore I exist." I feel bodies which are

not myself: there are other existences then. I call them _matter_. I feel

them changing place. This gives me _motion_. Where there is an absence

of matter, I call it _void_, or _nothing_, or _immaterial space_. On the

basis of sensation, of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all

the certainties we can have or need. I can conceive _thought_ to be an

action of a particular organization of matter, formed for that purpose

by its creator, as well as that _attraction_ is an action of matter, or

_magnetism_ of loadstone. When he who denies to the Creator the power

of endowing matter with the mode of action called _thinking_, shall show

how he could endow the sun with the mode of action called _attraction_,

which reins the planets in the track of their orbits, or how an absence

of matter can have a will, and by that will put matter into motion, then

the Materialist may be lawfully required to explain the process by which

matter exercises the faculty of thinking. When once we quit the basis

of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of _immaterial_ existences,

is to talk of _nothings_. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are

immaterial, is to say, they are _nothings_, or that there is no God, no

angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported

in my creed of materialism by the Lockes, the Tracys, and the Stewarts.

At what age[12] of the Christian church this heresy of _immaterialism_,

or masked atheism, crept in, I do not exactly know. But a heresy it

certainly is. Jesus taught nothing of it. He told us, indeed, that "God

is a spirit," but he has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that it

is not _matter_. And the ancient fathers generally, of the three first

centuries, held it to be matter, light and thin indeed, an etherial

gas; but still matter. Origen says, "Deus se ipse corporalis est; sed

graviorum tantum corporum ratione, incorporeus." Tertullian, "quid enim

deus nisi corpus?" And again, "quis negabit deum esse corpus? Etsi deus

spiritus, spiritus etiam corpus est, sui generis in sua effigie." St.

Justin Martyr, "το θειον φαμεν ειναι ασωματον· ουχ 'οτι ασωματον'--επειδη

δε το μη κρατεισθαι ὑπο τινος του κρατεισθαι τιμιωτερον εστι δια τουτο

καλουμεν αυτον ασωματον." And St. Macarius, speaking of angels, says,

"quamvis enim subtilia sint, tamen in substantia, forma et figurâ,

secundum tenuitatem naturæ eorum, corpora sunt tenuia." And St. Austin,

St. Basil, Lactantius, Tatian, Athenagoras and others, with whose writings

I pretend not a familiarity, are said by those who are better acquainted

with them, to deliver the same doctrine. (Enfield x. 3, 1.) Turn to your

Ocellus d'Argens, 97, 105, and to his Timæus 17, for these quotations.

In England, these Immaterialists might have been burnt until the 29 Car.

2, when the writ _de hæretico comburendo_ was abolished; and here until

the Revolution, that statute not having extended to us. All heresies

being now done away with us, these schismatists are merely atheists,

differing from the material atheist only in their belief, that "nothing

made something," and from the material deist, who believes that matter

alone can operate on matter.

Rejecting all organs of information, therefore, but my senses, I rid

myself of the pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations

hyperphysical and antiphysical, so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind.

A single sense may indeed be sometimes deceived, but rarely; and never

all our senses together, with their faculty of reasoning. They evidence

realities, and there are enough of these for all the purposes of life,

without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am

satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without

tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of

which I have no evidence. I am sure that I really know many, many things,

and none more surely than that I love you with all my heart, and pray

for the continuance of your life until you shall be tired of it yourself.

FOOTNOTE:

[12] That of Athanasius and the Council of Nicæa, anno.

324.

TO MR. JARVIS.

MONTICELLO, September 28, 1820.

I thank you, Sir, for the copy of your Republican which you have been so

kind as to send me, and I should have acknowledged it sooner but that I

am just returned home after a long absence. I have not yet had time to

read it seriously, but in looking over it cursorily I see much in it to

approve, and shall be glad if it shall lead our youth to the practice

of thinking on such subjects and for themselves. That it will have this

tendency may be expected, and for that reason I feel an urgency to note

what I deem an error in it, the more requiring notice as your opinion

is strengthened by that of many others. You seem, in pages 84 and 148,

to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional

questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place

us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as

other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions

for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is

"_boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem_," and their power the more

dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the

other functionaries are, to the elective control. The constitution has

erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided,

with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots.

It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign

within themselves. If the legislature fails to pass laws for a census,

for paying the judges and other officers of government, for establishing

a militia, for naturalization as prescribed by the constitution, or if

they fail to meet in congress, the judges cannot issue their mandamus to

them; if the President fails to supply the place of a judge, to appoint

other civil or military officers, to issue requisite commissions, the

judges cannot force him. They can issue their mandamus or distringas to

no executive or legislative officer to enforce the fulfilment of their

official duties, any more than the president or legislature may issue

orders to the judges or their officers. Betrayed by English example, and

unaware, as it should seem, of the control of our constitution in this

particular, they have at times overstepped their limit by undertaking to

command executive officers in the discharge of their executive duties; but

the constitution, in keeping three departments distinct and independent,

restrains the authority of the judges to judiciary organs, as it does the

executive and legislative to executive and legislative organs. The judges

certainly have more frequent occasion to act on constitutional questions,

because the laws of _meum_ and _tuum_ and of criminal action, forming the

great mass of the system of law, constitute their particular department.

When the legislative or executive functionaries act unconstitutionally,

they are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The

exemption of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I know no

safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people

themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise

their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take

it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the

true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. Pardon me, Sir, for

this difference of opinion. My personal interest in such questions is

entirely extinct, but not my wishes for the longest possible continuance

of our government on its pure principles; if the three powers maintain

their mutual independence on each other it may last long, but not so

if either can assume the authorities of the other. I ask your candid

re-consideration of this subject, and am sufficiently sure you will form

a candid conclusion. Accept the assurance of my great respect.

TO MR PINCKNEY.

MONTICELLO, September 30, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--An absence of some time from home has occasioned me to be thus

late in acknowledging the receipt of your favor of the 6th, and I see

in it with pleasure evidences of your continued health and application

to business. It is now, I believe, about twenty years since I had the

pleasure of seeing you, and we are apt, in such cases, to lose sight of

time, and to conceive that our friends remain stationary at the same

point of health and vigor as when we last saw them. So I perceive by

your letter you think with respect to myself, but twenty years added

to fifty-seven make quite a different man. To threescore and seventeen

add two years of prostrate health, and you have the old, infirm, and

nerveless body I now am, unable to write but with pain, and unwilling to

think without necessity. In this state I leave the world and its affairs

to the young and energetic, and resign myself to their care, of whom I

have endeavored to take care when young. I read but one newspaper and

that of my own State, and more for its advertisements than its news. I

have not read a speech in Congress for some years. I have heard, indeed,

of the questions of the tariff and Missouri, and formed _primâ facie_

opinions on them, but without investigation. As to the tariff, I should

say put down all banks, admit none but a _metallic circulation_, that

will take its proper level with the like circulation in other countries,

and then our manufacturers may work in fair competition with those of

other countries, and the import duties which the government may lay for

the purposes of revenue will so far place them above equal competition.

The Missouri question is a mere party trick. The leaders of federalism,

defeated in their schemes of obtaining power by rallying partisans to the

principle of monarchism, a principle of personal not of local division,

have changed their tack, and thrown out another barrel to the whale. They

are taking advantage of the virtuous feelings of the people to effect a

division of parties by a geographical line; they expect that this will

ensure them, on local principles, the majority they could never obtain on

principles of federalism; but they are still putting their shoulder to the

wrong wheel; they are wasting Jeremiads on the miseries of slavery, as if

we were advocates for it. Sincerity in their declamations should direct

their efforts to the true point of difficulty, and unite their counsels

with ours in devising some reasonable and practicable plan of getting

rid of it. Some of these leaders, if they could attain the power, their

ambition would rather use it to keep the Union together, but others have

ever had in view its separation. If they push it to that, they will find

the line of separation very different from their 36° of latitude, and

as manufacturing and navigating States, they will have quarrelled with

their bread and butter, and I fear not that after a little trial they

will think better of it, and return to the embraces of their natural and

best friends. But this scheme of party I leave to those who are to live

under its consequences. We who have gone before have performed an honest

duty, by putting in the power of our successors a state of happiness

which no nation ever before had within their choice. If that choice is

to throw it away, the dead will have neither the power nor the right to

control them. I must hope, nevertheless, that the mass of our honest and

well-meaning brethren of the other States, will discover the use which

designing leaders are making of their best feelings, and will see the

precipice to which they are lead, before they take the fatal leap. God

grant it, and to you health and happiness.

TO RICHARD RUSH, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, October 20, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--In your favor of May 3d, which I have now to acknowledge, you

so kindly proffered your attentions to any little matters I might have

on that side of the water, that I take the liberty of availing myself

of this proof of your goodness so far as to request you to put the

enclosed catalogue in the hands of some _honest_ bookseller of London,

who will procure and forward the books to me, with care and good faith.

They should be packed in a cheap trunk, and not put on ship-board until

April, as they would be liable to damage on a winter passage. I ask an

_honest_ correspondent in that line, because, when we begin to import

for the library of our Universary, we shall need one worthy of entire

confidence.

I send this letter open to my correspondent in Richmond, Captain Bernard

Peyton, with a request that he will put into it a bill of exchange on

London of £40 sterling, which of course, therefore, I cannot describe

to you by naming drawer and drawee. He will also forward, by other

conveyance, the duplicate and triplicate as usual. This sum would more

than cover the cost of the books written for, according to their prices

stated in printed catalogues; but as books have risen with other things

in price, I have enlarged the printed amount by about 15 per cent. to

cover any rise. Still, should it be insufficient, the bookseller is

requested to dock the catalogue to the amount of the remittance.

I have no news to give you; for I have none but from the newspapers, and

believing little of that myself, it would be an unworthy present to my

friends. But the important news lies now on your side of the Atlantic.

England, in throes from a trifle, as it would seem, but that trifle

the symptom of an irremediable disease proceeding from a long course of

exhaustion by efforts and burthens beyond her natural strength; France

agonizing between royalists and constitutionalists; the other States

of Europe pressing on to revolution and the rights of man, and the

colossal powers of Russia and Austria marshalled against them. These

are more than specks of hurricane in the horizon of the world. You,

who are young, may live to see its issue; the beginning only is for my

time. Nor is our side of the water entirely untroubled, the boisterous

sea of liberty is never without a wave. A hideous evil, the magnitude

of which is seen, and at a distance only, by the one party, and more

sorely felt and sincerely deplored by the other, from the difficulty

of the cure, divides us at this moment too angrily. The attempt by one

party to prohibit willing States from sharing the evil, is thought by

the other to render desperate, by accumulation, the hope of its final

eradication. If a little time, however, is given to both parties to cool,

and to dispel their visionary fears, they will see that concurring in

sentiment as to the evil, moral and political, the duty and interest of

both is to concur also in divining a practicable process of cure. Should

time not be given, and the schism be pushed to separation, it will be

for a short term only; two or three years trial will bring them back,

like quarrelling lovers to renewed embraces, and increased affections.

The experiment of separation would soon prove to both that they had

mutually miscalculated their best interests. And even were the parties

in Congress to secede in a passion, the soberer people would call a

convention and cement again the severance attempted by the insanity of

their functionaries. With this consoling view, my greatest grief would be

for the fatal effect of such an event on the hopes and happiness of the

world. We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government,

so modelled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is

a practicable government. Were we to break to pieces, it would damp the

hopes and the efforts of the good, and give triumph to those of the bad

through the whole enslaved world. As members, therefore, of the universal

society of mankind, and standing in high and responsible relation with

them, it is our sacred duty to suppress passion among ourselves, and not

to blast the confidence we have inspired of proof that a government of

reason is better than one of force. This letter is not of facts but of

opinions, as you will observe; and although the converse is generally

the most acceptable, I do not know that, in your situation, the opinions

of your countrymen may not be as desirable to be known to you as facts.

They constitute, indeed, moral facts, as important as physical ones to

the attention of the public functionary. Wishing you a long career to

the services you may render your country, and that it may be a career

of happiness and prosperity to yourself, I salute you with affectionate

attachment and respect.

TO MR. CORREA.

MONTICELLO, October 24, 1820.

Your kind letter, dear Sir, of October 12th, was handed to me by Dr.

Cooper, and was the first correction of an erroneous belief that you had

long since left our shores. Such had been Colonel Randolph's opinion,

and his had governed mine. I received your adieu with feelings of sincere

regret at the loss we were to sustain, and particularly of those friendly

visits by which you had made me so happy. I shall feel, too, the want of

your counsel and approbation in what we are doing and have yet to do in

our University, the last of my mortal cares, and the last service I can

render my country. But turning from myself, throwing egotism behind me,

and looking to your happiness, it is a duty and consolation of friendship

to consider that that may be promoted by your return to your own country.

There I hope you will receive the honors and rewards you merit, and which

may make the rest of your life easy and happy; there too you will render

precious services by promoting the science of your country, and blessing

its future generations with the advantages that bestows. Nor even there

shall we lose all the benefits of your friendship; for this motive, as

well as the love of your own country, will be an incitement to promote

that intimate harmony between our two nations which is so much the

interest of both. Nothing is so important as that America shall separate

herself from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own. Our

circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct, the principles

of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with that quarter

of the globe should be avoided if we mean that peace and justice shall

be the polar stars of the American societies. I had written a letter to

a friend while you were here, in a part of which these sentiments were

expressed, and I had made an extract from it to put into your hands, as

containing my creed on that subject. You had left us, however, in the

morning earlier than I had been aware; still I enclose it to you, because

it would be a leading principle with me, had I longer to live. During

six and thirty years that I have been in situations to attend to the

conduct and characters of foreign nations, I have found the government

of Portugal the most just, inoffensive and unambitious of any one with

which we had concern, without a single exception. I am sure that this is

the character of ours also. Two such nations can never wish to quarrel

with each other. Subordinate officers may be negligent, may have their

passions and partialities, and be criminally remiss in preventing the

enterprises of the lawless banditti who are to be found in every seaport

of every country. The late piratical depredations which your commerce

has suffered as well as ours, and that of other nations, seem to have

been committed by renegado rovers of several nations, French, English,

American, which they as well as we have not been careful enough to

suppress. I hope our Congress now about to meet will strengthen the

measures of suppression. Of their disposition to do it there can be no

doubt; for all men of moral principle must be shocked at these atrocities.

I had repeated conversations on this subject with the President while

at his seat in this neighborhood. No man can abhor these enormities more

deeply. I trust it will not have been in the power of abandoned rovers,

nor yet of negligent functionaries, to disturb the harmony of two nations

so much disposed to mutual friendship, and interested in it. To this, my

dear friend, you can be mainly instrumental, and I know your patriotism

and philanthropy too well to doubt your best efforts to cement us. In

these I pray for your success, and that heaven may long preserve you

in health and prosperity to do all the good to mankind to which your

enlightened and benevolent mind disposes you. Of the continuance of my

affectionate friendship, with that of my life, and of its fervent wishes

for your happiness, accept my sincere assurance.

TO THE REVEREND JARED SPARKS.

MONTICELLO, November 4, 1820.

SIR,--Your favor of September 18th is just received, with the book

accompanying it. Its delay was owing to that of the box of books from

Mr. Guegan, in which it was packed. Being just setting out on a journey

I have time only to look over the summary of contents. In this I see

nothing in which I am likely to differ materially from you. I hold

the precepts of Jesus, as delivered by himself, to be the most pure,

benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to

the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent innovations

as corruptions of his religion, having no foundation in what came from

him. The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin,

are, to my understanding, mere relapses into polytheism, differing from

paganism only by being more unintelligible. The religion of Jesus is

founded in the Unity of God, and this principle chiefly, gave it triumph

over the rabble of heathen gods then acknowledged. Thinking men of all

nations rallied readily to the doctrine of one only God, and embraced it

with the pure morals which Jesus inculcated. If the freedom of religion,

guaranteed to us by law _in theory_, can ever rise _in practice_ under

the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, truth will prevail over

fanaticism, and the genuine doctrines of Jesus, so long perverted by his

pseudo-priests, will again be restored to their original purity. This

reformation will advance with the other improvements of the human mind,

but too late for me to witness it. Accept my thanks for your book, in

which I shall read with pleasure your developments of the subject, and

with them the assurance of my high respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL.

POPLAR FOREST, November 28, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--I sent in due time the Report of the Visitors to the Governor,

with a request that he would endeavor to convene the Literary Board

in time to lay it before the legislature on the second day of their

session. It was enclosed in a letter which will explain itself to you.

If delivered before the crowd of other business presses on them, they may

act on it immediately, and before there will have been time for unfriendly

combinations and manœuvres by the enemies of the institution. I enclose

you now a paper presenting some views which may be useful to you in

conversations, to rebut exaggerated estimates of what our institution is

to cost, and reproaches of deceptive estimates. One hundred and sixty-two

thousand three hundred and sixty-four dollars will be about the cost of

the whole establishment, when completed. Not an office at Washington has

cost less. The single building of the court house of Henrico has cost

nearly that; and the massive walls of the millions of bricks of William

and Mary could not now be built for a less sum.

Surely Governor Clinton's display of the gigantic efforts of New York

towards the education of her citizens, will stimulate the pride as

well as the patriotism of our legislature, to look to the reputation

and safety of their own country, to rescue it from the degradation of

becoming the Barbary of the Union, and of falling into the ranks of

our own negroes. To that condition it is fast sinking. We shall be in

the hands of the other States, what our indigenous predecessors were

when invaded by the science and arts of Europe. The mass of education

in Virginia, before the Revolution, placed her with the foremost of her

sister colonies. What is her education now? Where is it? The little we

have we import, like beggars, from other States; or import their beggars

to bestow on us their miserable crumbs. And what is wanting to restore

us to our station among our confederates? Not more money from the people.

Enough has been raised by them, and appropriated to this very object. It

is that it should be employed understandingly, and for their greatest

good. That good requires, that while they are instructed in general,

competently to the common business of life, others should employ their

genius with necessary information to the useful arts, to inventions for

saving labor and increasing our comforts, to nourishing our health, to

civil government, military science, &c.

Would it not have a good effect for the friends of this University to

take the lead in proposing and effecting a practical scheme of elementary

schools? To assume the character of the friends, rather than the opponents

of that object. The present plan has appropriated to the primary schools

forty-five thousand dollars for three years, making one hundred and

thirty-five thousand dollars. I should be glad to know if this sum has

educated one hundred and thirty-five poor children? I doubt it much. And

if it has, they have cost us one thousand dollars a piece for what might

have been done with thirty dollars. Supposing the literary revenue to be

sixty thousand dollars, I think it demonstrable, that this sum, equally

divided between the two objects, would amply suffice for both. One hundred

counties, divided into about twelve wards each, on an average, and a

school in each ward of perhaps ten children, would be one thousand and

two hundred schools, distributed proportionably over the surface of the

State. The inhabitants of each ward, meeting together (as when they work

on the roads), building good log houses for their school and teacher,

and contributing for his provisions, rations of pork, beef, and corn,

in the proportion each of his other taxes, would thus lodge and feed

him without feeling it; and those of them who are able, paying for the

tuition of their own children, would leave no call on the public fund but

for the tuition fee of, here and there, an accidental pauper, who would

still be fed and lodged with his parents. Suppose this fee ten dollars,

and three hundred dollars apportioned to a county on an average, (more or

less proportioned,) would there be thirty such paupers for every county?

I think not. The truth is, that the want of common education with us is

not from our poverty, but from want of an orderly system. More money

is now paid for the education of a part, than would be paid for that

of the whole, if systematically arranged. Six thousand common schools

in New York, fifty pupils in each, three hundred thousand in all; one

hundred and sixty thousand dollars annually paid to the masters; forty

established academies, with two thousand two hundred and eighteen pupils;

and five colleges, with seven hundred and eighteen students; to which

last classes of institutions seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars

have been given; and the whole appropriations for education estimated

at two and a half millions of dollars! What a pigmy to this is Virginia

become, with a population almost equal to that of New York! And whence

this difference? From the difference their rulers set on the value of

knowledge, and the prosperity it produces. But still, if a pigmy, let

her do what a pigmy may do. If among fifty children in each of the six

thousand schools of New York, there are only paupers enough to employ

twenty-five dollars of public money to each school, surely among the

ten children of each of our one thousand and two hundred schools, the

same sum of twenty-five dollars to each school will teach its paupers,

(five times as much as to the same number in New York,) and will amount

for the whole to thirty thousand dollars a year, the one-half only of

our literary revenue.

Do then, dear Sir, think of this, and engage our friends to take in

hand the whole subject. It will reconcile the friends of the elementary

schools, and none are more warmly so than myself, lighten the difficulties

of the University, and promote in every order of men the degree of

instruction proportioned to their condition, and to their views in life.

It will combine with the mass of our force, a wise direction of it,

which will insure to our country its future prosperity and safety. I

had formerly thought that visitors of the school might be chosen by the

county, and charged to provide teachers for every ward, and to superintend

them. I now think it would be better for every ward to choose its own

resident visitor, whose business it would be to keep a teacher in the

ward, to superintend the school, and to call meetings of the ward for all

purposes relating to it; their accounts to be settled, and wards laid

off by the courts. I think ward elections better for many reasons, one

of which is sufficient, that it will keep elementary education out of

the hands of fanaticising preachers, who, in county elections, would be

universally chosen, and the predominant sect of the county would possess

itself of all its schools.

A wrist stiffened by an ancient accident, now more so by the effect of

age, renders writing a slow and irksome operation with me. I cannot,

therefore, present these views, by separate letters to each of our

colleagues in the legislature, but must pray you to communicate them to

Mr. Johnson and General Breckenridge, and to request them to consider

this as equally meant for them. Mr. Gordon being the local representative

of the University, and among its most zealous friends, would be a more

useful second to General Breckenridge in the House of Delegates, by a

free communication of what concerns the University, with which he has

had little opportunity of becoming acquainted. So, also, would it be to

Mr. Rives, who would be a friendly advocate.

Accept the assurances of my constant and affectionate esteem and respect.

TO MR. MADISON.

POPLAR FOREST, November 29, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--The enclosed letter from our ancient friend Tenche Coxe, came

unfortunately to Monticello after I had left it, and has had a dilatory

passage to this place, where I received it yesterday, and obey its

injunction of immediate transmission to you. We should have recognized

the style even without a signature, and although so written as to be

much of it indecipherable. This is a sample of the effects we may expect

from the late mischievous law vacating every four years nearly all

the executive officers of the government. It saps the constitutional

and salutary functions of the President, and introduces a principle

of intrigue and corruption, which will soon leaven the mass, not only

of Senators, but of citizens. It is more baneful than the attempt

which failed in the beginning of the government, to make all officers

irremovable but with the consent of the Senate. This places, every four

years, all appointments under their power, and even obliges them to act

on every one nomination. It will keep in constant excitement all the

hungry cormorants for office, render them, as well as those in place,

sycophants to their Senators, engage these in eternal intrigue to turn

out one and put in another, in cabals to swap work; and make of them what

all executive directories become, mere sinks of corruption and faction.

This must have been one of the midnight signatures of the President,

when he had not time to consider, or even to read the law; and the more

fatal as being irrepealable but with the consent of the Senate, which

will never be obtained.

F. Gilmer has communicated to me Mr. Correa's letter to him of adieux to

his friends here, among whom he names most affectionately Mrs. Madison

and yourself. No foreigner, I believe, has ever carried with him more

friendly regrets. He was to sail the next day (November 10) in the

British packet for England, and thence take his passage in January for

Brazil. His present views are of course liable to be affected by the

events of Portugal, and the possible effects of their example on Brazil.

I expect to return to Monticello about the middle of the ensuing month,

and salute you with constant affection and respect.

TO THOMAS RITCHIE.

MONTICELLO, December 25, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--On my return home after a long absence, I find here your favor

of November the 23d, with Colonel Taylor's "Construction Construed,"

which you have been so kind as to send me, in the name of the author as

well as yourself. Permit me, if you please, to use the same channel for

conveying to him the thanks I render you also for this mark of attention.

I shall read it, I know, with edification, as I did his Inquiry, to

which I acknowledge myself indebted for many valuable ideas, and for the

correction of some errors of early opinion, never seen in a correct light

until presented to me in that work. That the present volume is equally

orthodox, I know before reading it, because I know that Colonel Taylor

and myself have rarely, if ever, differed in any political principle

of importance. Every act of his life, and every word he ever wrote,

satisfies me of this. So, also, as to the two Presidents, late and now

in office, I know them both to be of principles as truly republican as

any men living. If there be anything amiss, therefore, in the present

state of our affairs, as the formidable deficit lately unfolded to us

indicates, I ascribe it to the inattention of Congress to their duties,

to their unwise dissipation and waste of the public contributions. They

seemed, some little while ago, to be at a loss for objects whereon to

throw away the supposed fathomless funds of the treasury. I had feared

the result, because I saw among them some of my old fellow laborers, of

tried and known principles, yet often in their minorities. I am aware

that in one of their most ruinous vagaries, the people were themselves

betrayed into the same phrenzy with their Representatives. The deficit

produced, and a heavy tax to supply it, will, I trust, bring both to

their sober senses.

But it is not from this branch of government we have most to fear. Taxes

and short elections will keep them right. The judiciary of the United

States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working

under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric.

They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general

and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will

lay all things at their feet, and they are too well versed in English

law to forget the maxim, "_boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem_."

We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring stride their

five lawyers have lately taken. If they do, then, with the editor of

our book, in his address to the public, I will say, that "against this

every man should raise his voice," and more, should uplift his arm. Who

wrote this admirable address? Sound, luminous, strong, not a word too

much, nor one which can be changed but for the worse. That pen should

go on, lay bare these wounds of our constitution, expose the decisions

_seriatim_, and arouse, as it is able, the attention of the nation to

these bold speculators on its patience. Having found, from experience,

that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scare-crow, they

consider themselves secure for life; they sculk from responsibility to

public opinion, the only remaining hold on them, under a practice first

introduced into England by Lord Mansfield. An opinion is huddled up in

conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous, and

with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a crafty

chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his mind, by the turn of his

own reasoning. A judiciary law was once reported by the Attorney General

to Congress, requiring each judge to deliver his opinion _seriatim_ and

openly, and then to give it in writing to the clerk to be entered in

the record. A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a

good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism,

at least in a republican government.

But to return to your letter; you ask for my opinion of the work you send

me, and to let it go out to the public. This I have ever made a point of

declining, (one or two instances only excepted.) Complimentary thanks

to writers who have sent me their works, have betrayed me sometimes

before the public, without my consent having been asked. But I am far

from presuming to direct the reading of my fellow citizens, who are good

enough judges themselves of what is worthy their reading. I am, also,

too desirous of quiet to place myself in the way of contention. Against

this I am admonished by bodily decay, which cannot be unaccompanied by

corresponding wane of the mind. Of this I am as yet sensible, sufficiently

to be unwilling to trust myself before the public, and when I cease

to be so, I hope that my friends will be too careful of me to draw me

forth and present me, like a Priam in armor, as a spectacle for public

compassion. I hope our political bark will ride through all its dangers;

but I can in future be but an inert passenger.

I salute you with sentiments of great friendship and respect.

TO M. DE LA FAYETTE.

MONTICELLO, December 26, 1820.

It is long, indeed, my very dear friend, since I have been able to address

a letter to you. For more than two years my health has been so entirely

prostrate, that I have, of necessity, intermitted all correspondence. The

dislocated wrist, too, which perhaps you may recollect, has now become so

stiff from the effects of age, that writing is become a slow and painful

operation, and scarcely ever undertaken but under the goad of imperious

business. In the meantime your country has been going on less well than

I had hoped. But it will go on. The light which has been shed on the

mind of man through the civilized world, has given it a new direction,

from which no human power can divert it. The sovereigns of Europe who

are wise, or have wise counsellors, see this, and bend to the breeze

which blows; the unwise alone stiffen and meet its inevitable crush.

The volcanic rumblings in the bowels of Europe, from north to south,

seem to threaten a general explosion, and the march of armies into Italy

cannot end in a simple march. The disease of liberty is catching; those

armies will take it in the south, carry it thence to their own country,

spread there the infection of revolution and representative government,

and raise its people from the prone condition of brutes to the erect

altitude of man. Some fear our envelopment in the wars engendering from

the unsettled state of our affairs with Spain, and therefore are anxious

for a ratification of our treaty with her. I fear no such thing, and

hope that if ratified by Spain it will be rejected here. We may justly

say to Spain, "when this negotiation commenced, twenty years ago, your

authority was acknowledged by those you are selling to us. That authority

is now renounced, and their right of self-disposal asserted. In buying

them from you, then, we buy but a war-title, a right to subdue them,

which you can neither convey nor we acquire. This is a family quarrel in

which we have no right to meddle. Settle it between yourselves, and we

will then treat with the party whose right is acknowledged." With whom

that will be, no doubt can be entertained. And why should we revolt them

by purchasing them as cattle, rather than receiving them as fellow-men?

Spain has held off until she sees they are lost to her, and now thinks

it better to get something than nothing for them. When she shall see

South America equally desperate, she will be wise to sell that also.

With us things are going on well. The boisterous sea of liberty indeed

is never without a wave, and that from Missouri is now rolling towards

us, but we shall ride over it as we have over all others. It is not

a moral question, but one merely of power. Its object is to raise a

geographical principle for the choice of a president, and the noise

will be kept up till that is effected. All know that permitting the

slaves of the south to spread into the west will not add one being to

that unfortunate condition, that it will increase the happiness of those

existing, and by spreading them over a larger surface, will dilute the

evil everywhere, and facilitate the means of getting finally rid of it,

an event more anxiously wished by those on whom it presses than by the

noisy pretenders to exclusive humanity. In the meantime, it is a ladder

for rivals climbing to power.

In a letter to Mr. Porrey, of March 18th, 1819, I informed him of the

success of our application to Congress on his behalf. I enclosed this

letter to you, but hearing nothing from him, and as you say nothing of

it in yours of July 20th, I am not without fear it may have miscarried.

In the present I enclose for him the Auditor's certificate, and the

letters of General Washington and myself, which he had forwarded to me

with a request of their return. Your kindness in delivering this will

render unnecessary another letter from me, an effort which necessarily

obliges me to spare myself.

If you shall hear from me more seldom than heretofore, ascribe it, my

ever dear friend, to the heavy load of seventy-seven years and to waning

health, but not to weakened affections; these will continue what they

have ever been, and will ever be sincere and warm to the latest breath

of yours devotedly.

TO MR. ROSCOE.

MONTICELLO, December 27, 1820.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter received more than a twelvemonth ago, with the two

tracts on penal jurisprudence, and the literary institution of Liverpool,

ought long since to have called for the thanks I now return, had it been

in my power sooner to have tendered them. But a long continuance of ill

health has suspended all power of answering the kind attentions with which

I have been honored during it; and it is only now that a state of slow

and uncertain convalescence enables me to make acknowledgments which have

been so long and painfully delayed. The treatise on penal jurisprudence I

read with great pleasure. Beccaria had demonstrated general principles,

but practical applications were difficult. Our States are trying them

with more or less success; and the great light you have thrown on the

subject will, I am sure, be useful to our experiment. For the thing,

as yet, is but in experiment. Your Liverpool institution will also aid

us in the organization of our new University, an establishment now in

progress in this State, and to which my remaining days and faculties

will be devoted. When ready for its Professors, we shall apply for them

chiefly to your island. Were we content to remain stationary in science,

we should take them from among ourselves; but, desirous of advancing, we

must seek them in countries already in advance; and identity of language

points to our best resource. To furnish inducements, we provide for the

Professors separate buildings, in which themselves and their families

may be handsomely and comfortably lodged, and to liberal salaries will

be added lucrative perquisites. This institution will be based on the

illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to

follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as

reason is left free to combat it.

We are looking with wonder at what is passing among you. It

"Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,

To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."

There must be something in these agitations more than meets the eye of a

distant spectator. Your queen must be used in this as a rallying point

merely, around which are gathering the discontents of every quarter

and character. If these flowed from theories of government only, and if

merely from the heads of speculative men, they would admit of parley,

of negotiation, of management. But I fear they are the workings of

hungry bellies, which nothing but food will fill and quiet. I sincerely

wish you safely out of them. Circumstances have nourished between our

kindred countries angry dispositions which both ought long since to have

banished from their bosoms. I have ever considered a cordial affection

as the first interest of both. No nation on earth can hurt us so much

as yours, none be more useful to you than ours. The obstacle, we have

believed, was in the obstinate and unforgiving temper of your late

king, and a continuance of his prejudices kept up from habit, after he

was with drawn from power. I hope I now see symptoms of sounder views

in your government; in which I know it will be cordially met by ours,

as it would have been by every administration which has existed under

our present constitution. None desired it more cordially than myself,

whatever different opinions were impressed on your government by a party

who wishes to have its weight in their scale as its exclusive friends.

My ancient friend and classmate, James Maury, informs me by letter that

he has sent me a bust which I shall receive with great pleasure and

thankfulness, and shall arrange in honorable file with those of some

cherished characters. Will you permit me to place here my affectionate

souvenirs of him, and accept for yourself the assurance of the highest

consideration and esteem.

TO FRANCIS EPPES.

MONTICELLO, January 19, 1821.

DEAR FRANCIS,--Your letter of the 1st came safely to hand. I am sorry

you have lost Mr. Elliot, however the kindness of Dr. Cooper will be

able to keep you in the track of what is worthy of your time.

You ask my opinion of Lord Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine. They were alike

in making bitter enemies of the priests and pharisees of their day. Both

were honest men; both advocates for human liberty. Paine wrote for a

country which permitted him to push his reasoning to whatever length it

would go. Lord Bolingbroke in one restrained by a constitution, and by

public opinion. He was called indeed a tory; but his writings prove him

a stronger advocate for liberty than any of his countrymen, the whigs of

the present day. Irritated by his exile, he committed one act unworthy

of him, in connecting himself momentarily with a prince rejected by

his country. But he redeemed that single act by his establishment of

the principles which proved it to be wrong. These two persons differed

remarkably in the style of their writing, each leaving a model of what is

most perfect in both extremes of the simple and the sublime. No writer

has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity

of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming

language. In this he may be compared with Dr. Franklin; and indeed

his Common Sense was, for awhile, believed to have been written by Dr.

Franklin, and published under the borrowed name of Paine, who had come

over with him from England. Lord Bolingbroke's, on the other hand, is a

style of the highest order. The lofty, rhythmical, full-flowing eloquence

of Cicero. Periods of just measure, their members proportioned, their

close full and round. His conceptions, too, are bold and strong, his

diction copious, polished and commanding as his subject. His writings are

certainly the finest samples in the English language, of the eloquence

proper for the Senate. His political tracts are safe reading for the

most timid religionist, his philosophical, for those who are not afraid

to trust their reason with discussions of right and wrong.

You have asked my opinion of these persons, and, _to you_, I have given

it freely. But, remember, that I am old, that I wish not to make new

enemies, nor to give offence to those who would consider a difference

of opinion as sufficient ground for unfriendly dispositions. God bless

you, and make you what I wish you to be.

TO ARCHIBALD THWEAT.

MONTICELLO, January 19, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--I duly received your favor of the 11th, covering Judge Roane's

letter, which I now return. Of the kindness of his sentiments expressed

towards myself I am highly sensible; and could I believe that my public

services had merited the approbation he so indulgently bestows, the

satisfaction I should derive from it would be reward enough to his wish

that I would take a part in the transactions of the present day. I am

sensible of my incompetence. For first, I know little about them, having

long withdrawn my attention from public affairs, and resigned myself

with folded arms to the care of those who are to care for us all. And,

next, the hand of time pressing heavily on me, in mind as well as body,

leaves to neither sufficient energy to engage in public contentions.

I am sensible of the inroads daily making by the federal, into the

jurisdiction of its co-ordinate associates, the State governments. The

legislative and executive branches may sometimes err, but elections

and dependence will bring them to rights. The judiciary branch is the

instrument which, working like gravity, without intermission, is to

press us at last into one consolidated mass. Against this I know no

one who, equally with Judge Roane himself, possesses the power and the

courage to make resistance; and to him I look, and have long looked,

as our strongest bulwark. If Congress fails to shield the States from

dangers so palpable and so imminent, the States must shield themselves,

and meet the invader foot to foot. This is already half done by Colonel

Taylor's book; because a conviction that we are right accomplishes half

the difficulty of correcting wrong. This book is the most effectual

retraction of our government to its original principles which has ever

yet been sent by heaven to our aid. Every State in the Union should

give a copy to every member they elect, as a standing instruction, and

ours should set the example. Accept with Mrs. Thweat the assurance of

my affectionate and respectful attachment.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, January 22, 1821.

I was quite rejoiced, dear Sir, to see that you had health and spirits

enough to take part in the late convention of your State, for revising

its constitution, and to bear your share in its debates and labors. The

amendments of which we have as yet heard, prove the advance of liberalism

in the intervening period; and encourage a hope that the human mind will

some day get back to the freedom it enjoyed two thousand years ago. This

country, which has given to the world the example of physical liberty,

owes to it that of moral emancipation also, for as yet it is but nominal

with us. The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice, the

freedom asserted by the laws in theory.

Our anxieties in this quarter are all concentrated in the question,

what does the Holy Alliance in and out of Congress mean to do with

us on the Missouri question? And this, by-the-bye, is but the name of

the case, it is only the John Doe or Richard Roe of the ejectment. The

real question, as seen in the States afflicted with this unfortunate

population, is, are our slaves to be presented with freedom and a

dagger? For if Congress has the power to regulate the conditions of the

inhabitants of the States, within the States, it will be but another

exercise of that power, to declare that all shall be free. Are we then

to see again Athenian and Lacedemonian confederacies? To wage another

Peloponnesian war to settle the ascendency between them? Or is this

the tocsin of merely a servile war? That remains to be seen; but not, I

hope, by you or me. Surely, they will parley awhile, and give us time

to get out of the way. What a Bedlamite is man? But let us turn from

our own uneasiness to the miseries of our southern friends. Bolivar

and Morillo, it seems, have come to the parley, with dispositions at

length to stop the useless effusion of human blood in that quarter. I

feared from the beginning, that these people were not yet sufficiently

enlightened for self-government; and that after wading through blood and

slaughter, they would end in military tyrannies, more or less numerous.

Yet as they wished to try the experiment, I wished them success in it;

they have now tried it, and will possibly find that their safest road

will be an accommodation with the mother country, which shall hold them

together by the single link of the same chief magistrate, leaving to him

power enough to keep them in peace with one another, and to themselves

the essential power of self-government and self-improvement, until they

shall be sufficiently trained by education and habits of freedom, to walk

safely by themselves. Representative government, native functionaries,

a qualified negative on their laws, with a previous security by compact

for freedom of commerce, freedom of the press, _habeas corpus_ and trial

by jury, would make a good beginning. This last would be the school in

which their people might begin to learn the exercise of civic duties as

well as rights. For freedom of religion they are not yet prepared. The

scales of bigotry have not sufficiently fallen from their eyes, to accept

it for themselves individually, much less to trust others with it. But

that will come in time, as well as a general ripeness to break entirely

from the parent stem. You see, my dear Sir, how easily we prescribe

for others a cure for their difficulties, while we cannot cure our own.

We must leave both, I believe, to heaven, and wrap ourselves up in the

mantle of resignation, and of that friendship of which I tender to you

the most sincere assurances.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL.

MONTICELLO, January 31, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--Your favors of the 18th and 25th came together, three days

ago. They fill me with gloom as to the dispositions of our legislature

towards the University. I perceive that I am not to live to see it

opened. As to what had better be done within the limits of their will,

I trust with entire confidence to what yourself, Gen. Breckenridge and

Mr. Johnson shall think best. You will see what is practicable, and give

it such shape as you think best. If a loan is to be resorted to, I think

sixty thousand dollars will be necessary, including the library. Its

instalments cannot begin until those of the former loan are accomplished;

and they should not begin later, nor be less than thirteen thousand

dollars a year. (I think it safe to retain two thousand dollars a year

for care of the buildings, improvement of the grounds, and unavoidable

contingencies.) To extinguish this second loan, will require between

five and six instalments, which will carry us to the end of 1833, or

thirteen years from this time. My individual opinion is, that we had

better not open the institution until the buildings, library, and all,

are finished, and our funds cleared of incumbrance. Those buildings once

erected, will secure the full object infallibly at the end of thirteen

years, and as much earlier as the legislature shall choose. And if we

were to begin sooner, with half funds only, it would satisfy the common

mind, prevent their aid beyond that point, and our institution remaining

at that forever, would be no more than the paltry academies we now have.

Even with the whole funds we shall be reduced to six professors. While

Harvard will still prime it over us with her twenty professors. How many

of our youths she now has, learning the lessons of anti-Missourianism,

I know not; but a gentleman lately from Princeton, told me he saw there

the list of the students at that place, and that more than half were

Virginians. These will return home, no doubt, deeply impressed with the

sacred principles of our Holy Alliance of restrictionists.

But the gloomiest of all prospects, is in the desertion of the best

friends of the institution, for desertion I must call it. I know not

the necessities which may force this on you. General Cocke, you say,

will explain them to me; but I cannot conceive them, nor persuade

myself they are uncontrollable. I have ever hoped, that yourself, Gen.

Breckenridge and Mr. Johnson would stand at your posts in the legislature,

until everything was effected, and the institution opened. If it is so

difficult to get along with all the energy and influence of our present

colleagues in the legislature, how can we expect to proceed at all,

reducing our moving power? I know well your devotion to your country,

and your foresight of the awful scenes coming on her, sooner or later.

With this foresight, what service can we ever render her equal to this?

What object of our lives can we propose so important? What interest of

our own which ought not to be postponed to this? Health, time, labor,

on what in the single life which nature has given us, can these be

better bestowed than on this immortal boon to our country? The exertions

and the mortifications are temporary; the benefit eternal. If any

member of our college of visitors could justifiably withdraw from this

sacred duty, it would be myself, who, _quadragenis stipendiis jamdudum

peractis_, have neither vigor of body nor mind left to keep the field;

but I will die in the last ditch, and so I hope you will, my friend, as

well as our firm-breasted brothers and colleagues, Mr. Johnson and Gen.

Breckenridge. Nature will not give you a second life wherein to atone for

the omissions of this. Pray then, dear and very dear Sir, do not think

of deserting us, but view the sacrifices which seem to stand in your

way, as the lesser duties, and such as ought to be postponed to this,

the greatest of all. Continue with us in these holy labors, until having

seen their accomplishment, we may say with old Simeon, "_nunc dimittas,

Domine_." Under all circumstances, however, of praise or blame, I shall

be affectionately yours.

TO JARED MANSFIELD, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 13, 1821.

I am favored, Sir, with your letter of January 26th, and am duly

sensible of the honor proposed of giving to my portrait a place among

the benefactors of our nation, and of the establishment of West Point

in particular. I have ever considered that establishment as of major

importance to our country, and in whatever I could do for it, I viewed

myself as performing a duty only. This is certainly more than requited

by the kind sentiments expressed in your letter. The real debt of the

institution is to its able and zealous professors. Mr. Sully, I fear,

however, will consider the trouble of his journey, and the employment

of his fine pencil, as illy bestowed on an ottamy of 78. Voltaire, when

requested by a female friend to sit for his bust by the sculptor Pigalle,

answered, "J'ai soixante seize ans; et M. Pigalle doit, dit-on venir

modeler mon visage. Mais, Madame, il faudrait que j'eusse un visage. On

n'en devinerait à peine la place mes yeux sont enfonces de trois pouces;

mes joues sont de vieux parchemin mal collés sur des os qui ne tiennent à

rien. Le peu de dents que j'avais est parti." I will conclude, however,

with him, that what remains is at your service, and that of the pencil

of Mr. Sully. I shall be at home till the middle of April, when I shall

go for some time to an occasional and distant residence. Within this

term Mr. Sully will be pleased to consult his own convenience, in which

the state of the roads will of course have great weight. Every day of

it will be equal with me.

I pray you, Sir, to convey to the brethren of your institution, and to

accept for yourself also, the assurance of my high consideration and

regard.

TO GENERAL BRECKENRIDGE.

MONTICELLO, February 15, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--I learn, with deep affliction, that nothing is likely to be

done for our University this year. So near as it is to the shore that

one shove more would land it there, I had hoped that would be given;

and that we should open with the next year an institution on which the

fortunes of our country may depend more than may meet the general eye.

The reflections that the boys of this age are to be the men of the next;

that they should be prepared to receive the holy charge which we are

cherishing to deliver over to them; that in establishing an institution

of wisdom for them, we secure it to all our future generations; that

in fulfilling this duty, we bring home to our own bosoms the sweet

consolation of seeing our sons rising under a luminous tuition, to

destinies of high promise; these are considerations which will occur to

all; but all, I fear, do not see the speck in our horizon which is to

burst on us as a tornado, sooner or later. The line of division lately

marked out between different portions of our confederacy, is such as will

never, I fear, be obliterated, and we are now trusting to those who are

against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the

minds and affections of our youth. If, as has been estimated, we send

three hundred thousand dollars a year to the northern seminaries, for

the instruction of our own sons, then we must have there five hundred

of our sons, imbibing opinions and principles in discord with those of

their own country. This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence,

and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy. We are now certainly

furnishing recruits to their school. If it be asked what are we to do,

or said we cannot give the last lift to the University without stopping

our primary schools, and these we think most important; I answer, I know

their importance. Nobody can doubt my zeal for the general instruction

of the people. Who first started that idea? I may surely say, myself.

Turn to the bill in the revised code, which I drew more than forty years

ago, and before which the idea of a plan for the education of the people,

generally, had never been suggested in this State. There you will see

developed the first rudiments of the whole system of general education

we are now urging and acting on; and it is well known to those with whom

I have acted on this subject, that I never have proposed a sacrifice of

the primary to the ultimate grade of instruction. Let us keep our eye

steadily on the whole system. If we cannot do everything at once, let

us do one at a time. The primary schools need no preliminary expense;

the ultimate grade requires a considerable expenditure in advance. A

suspension of proceeding for a year or two on the primary schools, and

an application of the whole income, during that time, to the completion

of the buildings necessary for the University, would enable us then to

start both institutions at the same time. The intermediate branch, of

colleges, academies and private classical schools, for the middle grade,

may hereafter receive any necessary aids when the funds shall become

competent. In the meantime, they are going on sufficiently, as they

have ever yet gone on, at the private expense of those who use them,

and who in numbers and means are competent to their own exigencies. The

experience of three years has, I presume, left no doubt that the present

plan of primary schools, of putting money into the hands of twelve hundred

persons acting for nothing, and under no responsibility, is entirely

inefficient. Some other must be thought of; and during this pause, if

it be only for a year, the whole revenue of that year, with that of the

last three years which has not been already thrown away, would place our

University in readiness to start with a better organization of primary

schools, and both may then go on, hand in hand, forever. No diminution

of the capital will in this way have been incurred; a principle which

ought to be deemed sacred. A relinquishment of interest on the late loan

of sixty thousand dollars, would so far, also, forward the University

without lessening the capital.

But what may be best done I leave with entire confidence to yourself and

your colleagues in legislation, who know better than I do the conditions

of the literary fund and its wisest application; and I shall acquiesce

with perfect resignation to their will. I have brooded, perhaps with

fondness, over this establishment, as it held up to me the hope of

continuing to be useful while I continued to live. I had believed that

the course and circumstances of my life had placed within my power some

services favorable to the outset of the institution. But this may be

egotism; pardonable, perhaps, when I express a consciousness that my

colleagues and successors will do as well, whatever the legislature

shall enable them to do.

I have thus, my dear Sir, opened my bosom, with all its anxieties, freely

to you. I blame nobody for seeing things in a different light. I am

sure that all act conscientiously, and that all will be done honestly

and wisely which can be done. I yield the concerns of the world with

cheerfulness to those who are appointed in the order of nature to succeed

to them; and for yourself, for our colleagues, and for all in charge of

our country's future fame and fortune, I offer up sincere prayers.

TO DABNEY TERRELL, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 26, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--While you were in this neighborhood, you mentioned to me

your intention of studying the law, and asked my opinion as to the

sufficient course of reading. I gave it to you, _ore tenus_, and with

so little consideration that I do not remember what it was; but I have

since recollected that I once wrote a letter to Dr. Cooper,[13] on

good consideration of the subject. He was then law-lecturer, I believe,

at Carlisle. My stiffening wrist makes writing now a slow and painful

operation, but my granddaughter Ellen undertakes to copy the letter,

which I shall enclose herein.

I notice in that letter four distinct epochs at which the English laws

have been reviewed, and their whole body, as existing at each epoch,

well digested into a code. These digests were by Bracton, Coke, Matthew

Bacon and Blackstone. Bracton having written about the commencement of

the extant statutes, may be considered as having given a digest of the

laws then in being, written and unwritten, and forming, therefore, the

textual code of what is called the common law, just at the period too

when it begins to be altered by statutes to which we can appeal. But

so much of his matter is become obsolete by change of circumstances or

altered by statute, that the student may omit him for the present, and

1st. Begin with [14]Coke's four Institutes. These give a complete body

of the law as it stood in the reign of the first James, an epoch the

more interesting to us, as we separated at that point from English

legislation, and acknowledge no subsequent statutory alterations.

2. Then passing over (for occasional reading as hereafter proposed)

all the reports and treatises to the time of Matthew Bacon, read his

abridgment, compiled about one hundred years after Coke's, in which they

are all embodied. This gives numerous applications of the old principles

to new cases, and gives the general state of the English law at that

period.

Here, too, the student should take up the chancery branch of the law,

by reading the first and second abridgments of the cases in Equity. The

second is by the same Matthew Bacon, the first having been published

some time before. The alphabetical order adopted by Bacon, is certainly

not as satisfactory as the systematic. But the arrangement is under

very general and leading heads, and these, indeed, with very little

difficulty, might be systematically instead of alphabetically arranged

and read.

3. Passing now in like manner over all intervening reports and tracts,

the student may take up Blackstone's Commentaries, published about

twenty-five years later than Bacon's abridgment, and giving the substance

of these new reports and tracts. This review is not so full as that of

Bacon, by any means, but better digested. Here, too, Wooddeson should be

read as supplementary to Blackstone, under heads too shortly treated by

him. Fonblanque's edition of Francis' Maxims of Equity, and Bridgman's

digested Index, into which the latter cases are incorporated, are also

supplementary in the chancery branch, in which Blackstone is very short.

This course comprehends about twenty-six 8vo volumes, and reading four

or five hours a day would employ about two years.

After these, the best of the reporters since Blackstone should be read

for the new cases which have occurred since his time. Which they are I

know not, as all of them are since my time.

By way of change and relief for another hour or two in the day, should

be read the law-tracts of merit which are many, and among them all those

of Baron Gilbert are of the first order. In these hours, too, may be

read Bracton, (now translated,) and Justinian's Institute. The method

of these two last works is very much the same, and their language often

quite so. Justinian is very illustrative of the doctrines of equity,

and is often appealed to, and Cooper's edition is the best on account

of the analogies and contrasts he has given of the Roman and English

law. After Bracton, Reeves' History of the English Law may be read to

advantage. During this same hour or two of lighter law reading, select

and leading cases of the reporters may be successively read, which the

several digests will have pointed out and referred to.

* * * * *

I have here sketched the reading in common law and chancery which I

suppose necessary for a reputable practitioner in those courts. But

there are other branches of law in which, although it is not expected

he should be an adept, yet when it occurs to speak of them, it should

be understandingly to a decent degree. There are the Admiralty law,

Ecclesiastical law, and the Law of Nations. I would name as elementary

books in these branches, Molloy de Jure Maritimo. Brown's Compend. of

the Civil and Admiralty Law, 2 vols. 8vo. The Jura Ecclesiastica, 2

vols. 8vo. And Les Institutions du droit de la Nature et des Gens de

Reyneval, 1 vol. 8vo.

Besides these six hours of law reading, light and heavy, and those

necessary for the repasts of the day, for exercise and sleep, which

suppose to be ten or twelve, there will still be six or eight hours for

reading history, politics, ethics, physics, oratory, poetry, criticism,

&c., as necessary as law to form an accomplished lawyer.

The letter to Dr. Cooper, with this as a supplement, will give you those

ideas on a sufficient course of law reading which I ought to have done

with more consideration at the moment of your first request. Accept

them now as a testimony of my esteem, and of sincere wishes for your

success; and the family, _unâ voce_, desires me to convey theirs with

my own affectionate salutations.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] January 16, 1814.

[14] Since the date of this letter, a most important

and valuable edition has been published of Coke's First

Institute. The editor, Thomas, has analyzed the whole work,

and re-composed its matter in the order of Blackstone's

Commentaries, not omitting a sentence of Lord Coke's text,

nor inserting one not his. In notes, under the text,

he has given the modern decisions relating to the same

subjects, rendering it thus as methodical, lucid, easy and

agreeable to the reader as Blackstone, and more precise

and profound. It can now be no longer doubted that this is

the very best elementary work for a beginner in the study

of the law. It is not, I suppose, to be had in this State,

and questionable if in the North, as yet, and it is dear,

costing in England four guineas or nineteen dollars, to

which add the duty here on imported books, which, on the

three volumes 8vo, is something more than three dollars, or

one dollar the 8vo volume. This is a tax on learned readers

to support printers for the readers of "The Delicate

Distress, and The Wild Irish Boy".

TO TIMOTHY PICKERING, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 27, 1821.

I have received, Sir, your favor of the 12th, and I assure you I received

it with pleasure. It is true, as you say, that we have differed in

political opinions; but I can say with equal truth, that I never suffered

a political to become a personal difference. I have been left on this

ground by some friends whom I dearly loved, but I was never the first

to separate. With some others, of politics different from mine, I have

continued in the warmest friendship to this day, and to all, and to

yourself particularly, I have ever done moral justice.

I thank you for Mr. Channing's discourse, which you have been so kind as

to forward me. It is not yet at hand, but is doubtless on its way. I had

received it through another channel, and read it with high satisfaction.

No one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason

in its advances towards rational Christianity. When we shall have done

away the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that

three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the

artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure

of Jesus; when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has

been taught since his day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines

he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples; and

my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely

from his lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian.

I know that the case you cite, of Dr. Drake, has been a common one. The

religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus,

so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured

them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable

thinkers, to revolt them against the whole, and drive them rashly to

pronounce its founder an impostor. Had there never been a commentator,

there never would have been an infidel. In the present advance of truth,

which we both approve, I do not know that you and I may think alike

on all points. As the Creator has made no two faces alike, so no two

minds, and probably no two creeds. We well know that among Unitarians

themselves there are strong shades of difference, as between Doctors

Price and Priestley, for example. So there may be peculiarities in your

creed and in mine. They are honestly formed without doubt. I do not

wish to trouble the world with mine, nor to be troubled for them. These

accounts are to be settled only with him who made us; and to him we leave

it, with charity for all others, of whom, also, he is the only rightful

and competent judge. I have little doubt that the whole of our country

will soon be rallied to the unity of the Creator, and, I hope, to the

pure doctrines of Jesus also.

In saying to you so much, and without reserve, on a subject on which

I never permit myself to go before the public, I know that I am safe

against the infidelities which have so often betrayed my letters to the

strictures of those for whom they were not written, and to whom I never

meant to commit my peace. To yourself I wish every happiness, and will

conclude, as you have done, in the same simple style of antiquity, _da

operam ut valeas; hoc mihi gratius facere nihil potes_.

TO JUDGE ROANE.

MONTICELLO, March 9, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--I am indebted for your favor of February 25th, and especially

for your friendly indulgence to my excuses for retiring from the polemical

world. I should not shrink from the post of duty, had not the decays of

nature withdrawn me from the list of combatants. Great decline in the

energies of the body import naturally a corresponding wane of the mind,

and a longing after tranquillity as the last and sweetest asylum of age.

It is a law of nature that the generations of men should give way, one

to another, and I hope that the one now on the stage will preserve for

their sons the political blessings delivered into their hands by their

fathers. Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must

expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption

of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be

ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the

day be kept off as long as possible. We see already germs of this, as

might be expected. But we are not the less bound to press against them.

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income,

growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the

employment of the pruning-knife; and I doubt not it will be employed;

good principles being as yet prevalent enough for that.

The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like

gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance,

gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulphing

insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds

them. The recent recall to first principles, however, by Colonel Taylor,

by yourself, and now by Alexander Smith, will, I hope, be heard and

obeyed, and that a temporary check will be effected. Yet be not weary

of well doing. Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.

Last and most portentous of all is the Missouri question. It is smeared

over for the present; but its geographical demarcation is indelible.

What it is to become, I see not; and leave to those who will live to

see it. The University will give employment to my remaining years, and

quite enough for my senile faculties. It is the last act of usefulness

I can render, and could I see it open I would not ask an hour more of

life. To you I hope many will still be given; and, certain they will

all be employed for the good of our beloved country, I salute you with

sentiments of especial friendship and respect.

TO JUDGE ROANE.

MONTICELLO, June 27, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--I have received through the hands of the Governor, Colonel

Taylor's letter to you. It is with extreme reluctance that I permit

myself to usurp the office of an adviser of the public, what books they

should read, and what not. I yield, however, on this occasion to your

wish and that of Colonel Taylor, and do what (with a single exception

only) I never did before, on the many similar applications made to me.

On reviewing my letters to Colonel Taylor and to Mr. Thweat, neither

appeared exactly proper. Each contained matter which might give offence

to the judges, without adding strength to the opinion. I have, therefore,

out of the two, cooked up what may be called "an extract of a letter from

Th: J. to ----;" but without saying it is published _with my consent_.

That would forever deprive me of the ground of declining the office of

a Reviewer of books in future cases. I sincerely wish the attention

of the public may be drawn to the doctrines of the book; and if this

self-styled extract may contribute to it, I shall be gratified. I salute

you with constant friendship and respect.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM TH: JEFFERSON TO ----.

I have read Colonel Taylor's book of "Constructions Construed," with

great satisfaction, and, I will say, with edification; for I acknowledge

it corrected some errors of opinion into which I had slidden without

sufficient examination. It is the most logical retraction of our

governments to the original and true principles of the constitution

creating them, which has appeared since the adoption of that instrument.

I may not perhaps concur in all its opinions, great and small; for no

two men ever thought alike on so many points. But on all its important

questions, it contains the true political faith, to which every catholic

republican should steadfastly hold. It should be put into the hands

of all our functionaries, authoritatively, as a standing instruction,

and true exposition of our Constitution, as understood at the time we

agreed to it. It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our State

governments are superior to the federal, or the federal to the States.

The people, to whom all authority belongs, have divided the powers of

government into two distinct departments, the leading characters of

which are _foreign_ and domestic; and they have appointed for each a

distinct set of functionaries. These they have made co-ordinate, checking

and balancing each other, like the three cardinal departments in the

individual States: each equally supreme as to the powers delegated to

itself, and neither authorized ultimately to decide what belongs to

itself, or to its coparcenor in government. As independent, in fact, as

different nations, a spirit of forbearance and compromise, therefore,

and not of encroachment and usurpation, is the healing balm of such a

constitution; and each party should prudently shrink from all approach

to the line of demarcation, instead of rashly overleaping it, or throwing

grapples ahead to haul to hereafter. But, finally, the peculiar happiness

of our blessed system is, that in differences of opinion between these

different sets of servants, the appeal is to neither, but to their

employers peaceably assembled by their representatives in Convention.

This is more rational than the _jus fortioris_, or the cannon's mouth,

the _ultima et sola ratio regum_.

TO GENERAL DEARBORNE.

MONTICELLO, August 17, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 8th came to hand yesterday evening. I

hope you will never suppose your letters to be among those which are

troublesome to me. They are always welcome, and it is among my great

comforts to hear from my ancient colleagues, and to know that they are

well. The affectionate recollection of Mrs. Dearborne, cherished by our

family, will ever render her health and happiness interesting to them.

You are so far astern of Mr. Adams and myself, that you must not yet

talk of old age. I am happy to hear of his good health. I think he will

outlive us all, I mean the Declaration-men, although our senior since

the death of Colonel Floyd. It is a race in which I have no ambition to

win. Man, like the fruit he eats, has his period of ripeness. Like that,

too, if he continues longer hanging to the stem, it is but an useless

and unsightly appendage. I rejoice, with you that the State of Missouri

is at length a member of our Union. Whether the question it excited

is dead, or only sleepeth, I do not know. I see only that it has given

resurrection to the Hartford convention men. They have had the address,

by playing on the honest feelings of our former friends, to seduce them

from their kindred spirits, and to borrow their weight into the federal

scale. Desperate of regaining power under political distinctions, they

have adroitly wriggled into its seat under the auspices of morality, and

are again in the ascendency from which their sins had hurled them. It

is indeed of little consequence who governs us, if they sincerely and

zealously cherish the principles of union and republicanism.

I still believe that the Western extension of our confederacy will ensure

its duration, by overruling local factions, which might shake a smaller

association. But whatever may be the merit or demerit of that acquisition,

I divide it with my colleagues, to whose councils I was indebted for a

course of administration which, notwithstanding this late coalition of

clay and brass, will, I hope, continue to receive the approbation of

our country.

The portrait by Stewart was received in due time and good order, and

claims, for this difficult acquisition, the thanks of the family, who

join me in affectionate souvenirs of Mrs. Dearborne and yourself. My

particular salutations to both flow, as ever, from the heart, continual

and warm.

TO MR. C. HAMMOND.

MONTICELLO, August 18, 1821.

SIR,--Your favor of the 7th is just now received. The letter to which

it refers was written by me with the sole view of recommending to the

study of my fellow citizens a book which I considered as containing

more genuine doctrines on the subject of our government, and carrying

us back more truly to its fundamental principles, than any one which

had been written since the adoption of our constitution. As confined

to this object, I thought, and still think, its language as plain and

intelligible as I can make it. But when we see inspired writings made to

speak whatever opposite controversialists wish them to say, we cannot

ourselves expect to find language incapable of similar distortion. My

expressions were general; their perversion is in their misapplication

to a particular case. To test them truly, they should turn to the book

with whose opinion they profess to coincide. If the book establishes that

a State has no right to tax the monied property within its limits, or

that it can be called, as a party, to the bar of the federal judiciary,

then they may infer that these are my opinions. If no such doctrines

are there, my letter does not authorize their imputation to me.

It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from

its expression, (although I do not choose to put it into a newspaper,

nor, like a Priam in armor, offer myself its champion,) that the germ

of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the

federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a

scare-crow,) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little

to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a

thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from

the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. To this

I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in

little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of

all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government

on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government

from which we separated. It will be as in Europe, where every man must

be either pike or gudgeon, hammer or anvil. Our functionaries and theirs

are wares from the same work-shop; made of the same materials, and by

the same hand. If the States look with apathy on this silent descent of

their government into the gulf which is to swallow all, we have only to

weep over the human character formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron,

and the blasphemers of man, as incapable of self-government, become his

true historians.

But let me beseech you, Sir, not to let this letter get into a newspaper.

Tranquillity, at my age, is the supreme good of life. I think it a duty,

and it is my earnest wish, to take no further part in public affairs; to

leave them to the existing generation to whose turn they have fallen, and

to resign the remains of a decaying body and mind to their protection.

The abuse of confidence by publishing my letters has cost me more than

all other pains, and make me afraid to put pen to paper in a letter

of sentiment. If I have done it frankly in answer to your letter, it

is in full trust that I shall not be thrown by you into the arena of a

newspaper. I salute you with great respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, September 12, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--I am just returned from my other home, and shall within a

week go back to it for the rest of the autumn. I find here your favor

of August 20th, and was before in arrear for that of May 19th. I cannot

answer, but join in, your question of May 19th. Are we to surrender

the pleasing hopes of seeing improvement in the moral and intellectual

condition of man? The events of Naples and Piedmont cast a gloomy cloud

over that hope, and Spain and Portugal are not beyond jeopardy. And what

are we to think of this northern triumvirate, arming their nations to

dictate despotisms to the rest of the world? And the evident connivance

of England, as the price of secret stipulations for continental armies,

if her own should take side with her malcontent and pulverized people?

And what of the poor Greeks, and their small chance of amelioration even

if the hypocritical Autocrat should take them under the iron cover of

his Ukazes. Would this be lighter or safer than that of the Turk? These,

my dear friend, are speculations for the new generation, as, before they

will be resolved, you and I must join our deceased brother Floyd. Yet

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope

that light and liberty are on steady advance. We have seen, indeed,

once within the records of history, a complete eclipse of the human

mind continuing for centuries. And this, too, by swarms of the same

northern barbarians, conquering and taking possession of the countries

and governments of the civilized world. Should this be again attempted,

should the same northern hordes, allured again by the corn, wine, and

oil of the south, be able again to settle their swarms in the countries

of their growth, the art of printing alone, and the vast dissemination

of books, will maintain the mind where it is, and raise the conquering

ruffians to the level of the conquered, instead of degrading these to

that of their conquerors. And even should the cloud of barbarism and

despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country

remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short,

the flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much

of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on

the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

I think with you that there should be a school of instruction for our

navy as well as artillery; and I do not see why the same establishment

might not suffice for both. Both require the same basis of general

mathematics, adding projectiles and fortifications for the artillery

exclusively, and astronomy and theory of navigation exclusively for the

naval students. Berout conducted both schools in France, and has left

us the best book extant for their joint and separate instruction. It

ought not to require a separate professor.

A 4th of July oration delivered in the town of Milford, in your State,

gives to Samuel Chase the credit of having "first started the cry of

independence in the ears of his countrymen." Do you remember anything

of this? I do not. I have no doubt it was uttered in Massachusetts even

before it was by Thomas Paine. But certainly I never considered Samuel

Chase as foremost, or even forward in that hallowed cry. I know that

Maryland hung heavily on our backs, and that Chase, although first named,

was not most in unison with us of that delegation, either in politics

or morals, _et c'est ainsi que l'on ecrit l'histoire_!

Your doubt of the legitimacy of the word _gloriola_, is resolved by

Cicero, who, in his letter to Lucceius expresses a wish "_ut nos metipsi

vivi gloriola nostra perfruamur_." Affectionately adieu.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

MONTEZILLO, September 24, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for your favor of the 12th instant. Hope springs

eternal. Eight millions of Jews hope for a Messiah more powerful and

glorious than Moses, David, or Solomon; who is to make them as powerful

as he pleases. Some hundreds of millions of Musslemen expect another

prophet more powerful than Mahomet, who is to spread Islamism over the

whole earth. Hundreds of millions of Christians expect and hope for

a millennium in which Jesus is to reign for a thousand years over the

whole world before it is burnt up. The Hindoos expect another and final

incarnation of Vishnu, who is to do great and wonderful things, I know

not what. All these hopes are founded on real or pretended revelation.

The modern Greeks, too, it seems, hope for a deliverer who is to produce

them--the Themistocleses and Demostheneses--the Platos and Aristotles--the

Solons and Lycurguses. On what prophecies they found their belief, I

know not. You and I hope for splendid improvements in human society, and

vast amelioration in the condition of mankind. Our faith may be supposed

by more rational arguments than any of the former, I own that I am very

sanguine in the belief of them, as I hope and believe you are, and your

reasoning in your letter confirmed me in them.

As Brother Floyd has gone, I am now the oldest of the little Congressional

group that remain. I may therefore rationally hope to be the first to

depart; and as you are the youngest and most energetic in mind and body,

you may therefore rationally hope to be the last to take your flight,

and to rake up the fire as father Sherman, who always staid to the last,

and commonly two days afterwards, used to say, "that it was his office

to sit up and rake the ashes over the coals." And much satisfaction may

you have in your office.

The cholera morbus has done wonders in St. Helena and in London. We shall

soon hear of a negotiation for a second wife. Whether in the body, or

out of the body, I shall always be your friend.

The anecdote of Mr. Chase, contained in the oration delivered at Milford,

must be an idle rumor, for neither the State of Maryland, nor of their

delegates, were very early in their conviction of the necessity of

independence, nor very forward in promoting it. The old speaker Tilghman,

Johnson, Chase, and Paca, were steady in promoting resistance, but after

some of them, Maryland sent one, at least, of the most turbulent Tories

that ever came to Congress.

TO ----.

MONTICELLO, September 28, 1821.

SIR,--The government of the United States, at a very early period, when

establishing its tariff on foreign importations, were very much guided

in their selection of objects by a desire to encourage manufactures

within ourselves. Among other articles then selected were books, on

the importation of which a duty of fifteen per cent, was imposed,

which, by ordinary custom house charges, amount to about eighteen per

cent., and adding the importing booksellers profit on this, becomes

about twenty-seven per cent. This was useful at first, perhaps, towards

exciting our printers to make a beginning in that business here. But

it is found in experience that the home demand is not sufficient to

justify the re-printing any but the most popular English works, and

cheap editions of a few of the classics for schools. For the editions of

value, enriched by notes, commentaries, &c., and for books in foreign

living languages, the demand here is too small and sparse to reimburse

the expense of re-printing them. None of these, therefore, are printed

here, and the duty on them becomes consequently not a protecting, but

really a prohibitory one. It makes a very serious addition to the price

of the book, and falls chiefly on a description of persons little able

to meet it. Students who are destined for professional callings, as

most of our scholars are, are barely able for the most part to meet

the expenses of tuition. The addition of eighteen or twenty-seven per

cent. on the books necessary for their instruction, amounts often to a

prohibition as to them. For want of these aids, which are open to the

students of all other nations but our own, they enter on their course

on a very unequal footing with those of the same professions in foreign

countries, and our citizens at large, too, who employ them, do not derive

from that employment all the benefit which higher qualifications would

give them. It is true that no duty is required on books imported for

seminaries of learning, but these, locked up in libraries, can be of no

avail to the practical man when he wishes a recurrence to them for the

uses of life. Of many important books of reference there is not perhaps

a single copy in the United States; of others but a few, and these too

distant often to be accessible to scholars generally. It is believed,

therefore, that if the attention of Congress could be drawn to this

article, they would, in their wisdom, see its impolicy. Science is more

important in a republican than in any other government. And in an infant

country like ours, we must much depend for improvement on the science of

other countries, longer established, possessing better means, and more

advanced than we are. To prohibit us from the benefit of foreign light,

is to consign us to long darkness.

The northern seminaries following with parental solicitude the interests

of their elevès in the course for which they have prepared them, propose

to petition Congress on this subject, and wish for the coöperation

of those of the south and west, and I have been requested, as more

convenient in position than they are, to solicit that coöperation. Having

no personal acquaintance with those who are charged with the direction

of the college of ---- ----, I do not know how more effectually to

communicate these views to them, than by availing myself of the knowledge

I have of your zeal for the happiness and improvement of our country.

I take the liberty, therefore, of requesting you to place the subject

before the proper authorities of that institution, and if they approve

the measure, to solicit a concurrent proceeding on their part to carry

it into effect. Besides petitioning Congress, I would propose that they

address in their corporate capacity, a letter to their delegates and

senators in Congress, soliciting their best endeavors to obtain the

repeal of the duty on imported books. I cannot but suppose that such an

application will be respected by them, and will engage their votes and

endeavors to effect an object so reasonable. A conviction that science

is important to the preservation of our republican government, and that

it is also essential to its protection against foreign power, induces

me, on this occasion, to step beyond the limits of that retirement to

which age and inclination equally dispose me, and I am without a doubt

that the same considerations will induce you to excuse the trouble I

propose to you, and that you will kindly accept the assurance of my high

respect and esteem.

TO NATHANIEL MACON.

MONTICELLO, November 23, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--Absence at an occasional but distant residence, prevented my

receiving your friendly letter of October 20th till three days ago. A

line from my good old friends is like balm to my soul. You ask me what

you are to do with my letter of September 19th? I wrote it, my dear

Sir, with no other view than to pour my thoughts into your bosom. I knew

they would be safe there, and I believed they would be welcome. But if

you think, as you say, that "good may be done by showing it to a few

_well-tried friends_," I have no objection to that, but ultimately you

cannot do better than to throw it into the fire.

My confidence, as you kindly observed, has been often abused by the

publication of my letters for the purposes of interest or vanity, and

it has been to me the source of much pain to be exhibited before the

public in forms not meant for them. I receive letters expressed in the

most friendly and even affectionate terms, sometimes, perhaps, asking

my opinion on some subject. I cannot refuse to answer such letters,

nor can I do it dryly and suspiciously. Among a score or two of such

correspondents, one perhaps betrays me. I feel it mortifyingly, but

conclude I had better incur one treachery than offend a score or two

of good people. I sometimes expressly desire that my letter may not be

published; but this is so like requesting a man not to steal or cheat,

that I am ashamed of it after I have done it.

Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road

it will pass to destruction, to-wit: by consolidation first, and then

corruption, its necessary consequence. The engine of consolidation will

be the federal judiciary; the two other branches, the corrupting and

corrupted instruments. I fear an explosion in our State Legislature. I

wish they may restrain themselves to a strong but temperate protestation.

Virginia is not at present in favor with her co-States. An opposition

headed by her would determine all the anti-Missouri States to take the

contrary side. She had better lie by, therefore, till the shoe shall

pinch an eastern State. Let the cry be first raised from that quarter,

and we may fall into it with effect. But I fear our eastern associates

wish for consolidation, in which they would be joined by the smaller

States generally. But, with one foot in the grave, I have no right to

meddle with these things. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO ----.

MONTICELLO, November 29, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--You have often gratified me by your astronomical

communications, and I am now about to amuse you with one of mine.

But I must first explain the circumstances which have drawn me into a

speculation so foreign to the path of life which the times in which I

have lived, more than my own inclinations have led me to pursue.

I had long deemed it incumbent on the authorities of our country, to

have the great western wilderness beyond the Mississippi, explored, to

make known its geography, its natural productions, its general character

and inhabitants. Two attempts which I had myself made formerly, before

the country was ours, the one from west to east, the other from east to

west, had both proved abortive. When called to the administration of

the general government, I made this an object of early attention, and

proposed it to Congress. They voted a sum of five thousand dollars for

its execution, and I placed Captain Lewis at the head of the enterprise.

No man within the range of my acquaintance, united so many of the

qualifications necessary for its successful direction. But he had not

received such an astronomical education as might enable him to give us

the geography of the country with the precision desired. The Missouri and

Columbia, which were to constitute the tract of his journey, were rivers

which varied little in their progressive latitudes, but changed their

longitudes rapidly and at every step. To qualify him for making these

observations, so important to the value of the enterprise, I encouraged

him to apply himself to this particular object, and gave him letters to

Doctor Patterson and Mr. Ellicott, requesting them to instruct him in the

necessary processes. Those for the longitude would of course be founded

on the lunar distances. But as these require essentially the aid of a

time-keeper, it occurred to me that during a journey of two, three, or

four years, exposed to so many accidents as himself and the instrument

would be, we might expect with certainty that it would become deranged,

and in a desert country where it could not be repaired. I thought it

then highly important that some means of observation should be furnished

him, if any could be, which should be practicable and competent to

ascertain his longitudes in that event. The equatorial occurred to myself

as the most promising substitute. I observed only that Ramsden, in his

explanation of its uses, and particularly that of finding the longitude

at land, still required his observer to have the aid of a time-keeper.

But this cannot be necessary, for the margin of the equatorial circle of

this instrument being divided into time by hours, minutes, and seconds,

supplies the main functions of the time-keeper, and for measuring merely

the interval of the observations, is such as not to be neglected. A

portable pendulum, for counting, by an assistant, would fully answer

that purpose. I suggested my fears to several of our best astronomical

friends, and my wishes that other processes should be furnished him,

if any could be, which might guard us ultimately from disappointment.

Several other methods were proposed, but all requiring the use of a

time-keeper. That of the equatorial being recommended by none, and other

duties refusing me time for protracted consultations, I relinquished the

idea for that occasion. But, if a sound one, it should not be abandoned.

Those deserts are yet to be explored, and their geography given to the

world and ourselves with a correctness worthy of the science of the age.

The acquisition of the country before Captain Lewis' departure facilitated

our enterprise, but his time-keeper failed early in his journey. His

dependence, then, was on the compass and log-line, with the correction

of latitudes only; and the true longitudes of the different points of

the Missouri, of the Stony Mountains, the Columbia and Pacific, at its

mouth, remain yet to be obtained by future enterprise.

The circumstance which occasions a recurrence of the subject to my mind

at this time particularly is this: our legislature, some time ago, came

to a determination that an accurate map should be made of our State. The

late John Wood was employed on it. Its first elements are prepared by maps

of the several counties. But these have been made by chain and compass

only, which suppose the surface of the earth to be a plane. To fit them

together, they must be accommodated to its real spherical surface; and

this can be done only by observations of latitude and longitude, taken at

different points of the area to which they are to be reduced. It is true

that in the lower and more populous parts of the State, the method of

lunar distances by the circle or sextant, and time-keeper, may be used;

because those parts furnish means of repairing or replacing a deranged

time-keeper. But the deserts beyond the Alleghany are as destitute of

resource in that case, as those of the Missouri. The question then recurs

whether the equatorial, without the auxiliary of a time-keeper, is not

competent to the ascertainment of longitudes at land, where a fixed

meridian can always be obtained? and whether indeed it may not everywhere

at land, be a readier and preferable instrument for that purpose? To

these questions I ask your attentions; and to show the grounds on which

I entertain the opinion myself, I will briefly explain the principles

of the process, and the peculiarities of the instrument which give it

the competence I ascribe to it. And should you concur in the opinion,

I will further ask you to notice any particular circumstances claiming

attention in the process, and the corrections which the observations may

necessarily require. As to myself, I am an astronomer of theory only,

little versed in practical observations, and the minute attentions and

corrections they require. I proceed now to the explanation.

A method of finding the longitude of a place _at land, without a

time-keeper_.

If two persons, at different points of the same hemisphere, (as Greenwich

and Washington, for example,) observe the same celestial phenomenon, at

the same instant of time, the difference of the times marked by their

respective clocks is the difference of their longitudes, or the distance

between their meridians. To catch with precision the same instant of

time for these simultaneous observations, the moon's motion in her

orbit is the best element; her change of place (about a half second of

space in a second of time) is rapid enough to be ascertained by a good

instrument with sufficient precision for the object. But suppose the

observer at Washington, or in a desert, to be without a time-keeper;

the equatorial is the instrument to be used in that case. Again, we have

supposed a contemporaneous observer at Greenwich. But his functions may

be supplied by the nautical almanac, adapted to that place, and enabling

us to calculate for any instant of time the meridian distances there of

the heavenly bodies necessary to be observed for this purpose.

The observer at Washington, choosing the time when their position is

suitable, is to adjust his equatorial to his meridian, to his latitude,

and to the plane of his horizon; or if he is in a desert where neither

meridian nor latitude is yet ascertained, the advantages of this noble

instrument are, that it enables him to find both in the course of a

few hours. Thus prepared, let him ascertain by observation the right

ascension of the moon from that of a known star, or their horary distance;

and, at the same instant, her horary distance from his meridian. Her

right ascension at the instant thus ascertained, enter with that of

the nautical almanac, and calculate, by its tables, what was her horary

distance from the meridian of Greenwich at the instant she had attained

that point of right ascension, or that horary distance from the same

star. The addition of these meridian distances, if the moon was between

the two meridians, or the subtraction of the lesser from the greater, if

she was on the same side of both, is the differences of their longitudes.

This general theory admits different cases, of which the observer may

avail himself, according to the particular position of the heavenly

bodies at the moment of observation.

Case 1st. When the moon is on his meridian, or on that of Greenwich.

Second. When the star is on either meridian.

Third. When the moon and star are on the same side of his meridian.

Fourth. When they are on different sides.

For instantaneousness of observation, the equatorial has great advantage

over the circle or sextant; for being truly placed in the meridian

beforehand, the telescope may be directed sufficiently in advance of

the moon's motion, for time to note its place on the equatorial circle,

before she attains that point. Then observe, until her limb touches

the cross-hairs; and in that instant direct the telescope to the star;

that completes the observation, and the place of the star may be read

at leisure. The apparatus for correcting the effects of refraction and

parallax, which is fixed on the eye-tube of the telescope, saves time

by rendering the notation of altitudes unnecessary, and dispenses with

the use of either a time-keeper or portable pendulum.

I have observed that, if placed in a desert where neither meridian nor

latitude is yet ascertained, the equatorial enables the observer to

find both in a few hours. For the latitude, adjust by the cross-levels

the azimuth plane of the instrument to the horizon of the place. Bring

down the equatorial plane to an exact parallelism with it, its pole then

becoming vertical. By the nut and pinion commanding it, and by that of

the semi-circle of declination, direct the telescope to the sun. Follow

its path with the telescope by the combined use of these two pinions,

and when it has attained its greatest altitude, calculate the latitude

as when taken by a sextant.

For finding the meridian, set the azimuth circle to the horizon, elevate

the equatorial circle to the complement of the latitude, and fix it by

the clamp and tightening screw of the two brass segments of arches below.

By the declination semicircle set the telescope to the sun's declination

of the moment. Turn the instrument towards the meridian by guess, and

by the combined movement of the equatorial and azimuth circles direct

the telescope to the sun, then by the pinion of the equatorial alone,

follow the path of the sun with the telescope. If it swerves from that

path, turn the azimuth circle until it shall follow the sun accurately.

A distant stake or tree should mark the meridian, to guard against its

loss by any accidental jostle of the instrument. The 12 o'clock line will

then be in the true meridian, and the axis of the equatorial circle will

be parallel with that of the earth. The instrument is then in its true

position for the observations of the night. To the competence and the

advantages of this method, I will only add that these instruments are

high-priced. Mine cost thirty-five guineas in Ramsden's shop, a little

before the Revolution. I will lengthen my letter, already too long, only

by assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO ---- NICHOLAS.

MONTICELLO, December 11, 1821.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter of December the 19th places me under a dilemma,

which I cannot solve but by an exposition of the naked truth. I would

have wished this rather to have remained as hitherto, without inquiry;

but your inquiries have a right to be answered. I will do it as exactly

as the great lapse of time and a waning memory will enable me. I may

misremember indifferent circumstances, but can be right in substance.

At the time when the republicans of our country were so much alarmed

at the proceedings of the federal ascendency in Congress, in the

executive and the judiciary departments, it became a matter of serious

consideration how head could be made against their enterprises on the

constitution. The leading republicans in Congress found themselves of no

use there, brow-beaten, as they were, by a bold and overwhelming majority.

They concluded to retire from that field, take a stand in the State

legislatures, and endeavor there to arrest their progress. The alien and

sedition laws furnished the particular occasion. The sympathy between

Virginia and Kentucky was more cordial, and more intimately confidential,

than between any other two States of republican policy. Mr. Madison came

into the Virginia legislature. I was then in the Vice-Presidency, and

could not leave my station. But your father, Colonel W. C. Nicholas,

and myself happening to be together, the engaging the co-operation of

Kentucky in an energetic protestation against the constitutionality of

those laws, became a subject of consultation. Those gentlemen pressed me

strongly to sketch resolutions for that purpose, your father undertaking

to introduce them to that legislature, with a solemn assurance, which I

strictly required, that it should not be known from what quarter they

came. I drew and delivered them to him, and in keeping their origin

secret, he fulfilled his pledge of honor. Some years after this, Colonel

Nicholas asked me if I would have any objection to its being known that

I had drawn them. I pointedly enjoined that it should not. Whether he had

unguardedly intimated it before to any one, I know not; but I afterwards

observed in the papers repeated imputations of them to me; on which,

as has been my practice on all occasions of imputation, I have observed

entire silence. The question, indeed, has never before been put to me,

nor should I answer it to any other than yourself; seeing no good end to

be proposed by it, and the desire of tranquillity inducing with me a wish

to be withdrawn from public notice. Your father's zeal and talents were

too well known, to derive any additional distinction from the penning

these resolutions. That circumstance, surely, was of far less merit than

the proposing and carrying them through the legislature of his State.

The only fact in this statement, on which my memory is not distinct, is

the time and occasion of the consultation with your father and Colonel

Nicholas. It took place here I know; but whether any other person was

present, or communicated with, is my doubt. I think Mr. Madison was

either with us, or consulted, but my memory is uncertain as to minute

details.

I fear, dear Sir, we are now in such another crisis, with this difference

only, that the judiciary branch is alone and single handed in the present

assaults on the constitution. But its assaults are more sure and deadly,

as from an agent seemingly passive and unassuming. May you and your

cotemporaries meet them with the same determination and effect, as your

father and his did the alien and sedition laws, and preserve inviolate

a constitution, which, cherished in all its chastity and purity, will

prove in the end a blessing to all the nations of the earth. With these

prayers, accept those for your own happiness and prosperity.

TO MESSRS. GEORGE W. SUMMERS AND JOHN B. GARLAND.

MONTICELLO, February 27, 1822.

GENTLEMEN,--I have received your favor of the 18th, and am duly sensible

of the honor done my name by its association with the institution formed

in your college for improvement in the art of speaking. The efforts of the

members will, I trust, give a just reputation to the society and reflect

on its name the honor which it cannot derive from it. In a country and

government like ours, eloquence is a powerful instrument, well worthy of

the special pursuit of our youth. Models, indeed, of chaste and classical

oratory are truly too rare with us; nor do I recollect any remarkable in

England. Among the ancients the most perfect specimens are perhaps to be

found in Livy, Sallust and Tacitus. Their pith and brevity constitute

perfection itself for an audience of sages, on whom froth and fancy

would be lost in air. But in ordinary cases, and with us particularly,

more development is necessary. For senatorial eloquence, Demosthenes is

the finest model; for the bar, Cicero. The former had more logic, the

latter more imagination.

Of the eloquence of the pen we have fine samples in English. Robertson,

Sterne, Addison, are of the first merit in the different characters of

composition. Hume, in the circumstance of style is equal to any; but

his tory principles spread a cloud over his many and great excellencies.

The charms of his style and matter have made tories of all England, and

doubtful republicans here.

You say that any advice which I could give you would be acceptable. But,

for this, you cannot be in better hands than of the worthy professors of

your own college. Their counsels would, I am sure, embrace everything

I could offer. It will not, however, be a work of mere supereorgation

if it will gratify you, and will furnish a stronger proof of my desire

to encourage you in your laudable dispositions. Some thirty-six or

thirty-seven years ago, I had a nephew, the late Peter Carr, whose

education I directed, and had much at heart his future fortunes. Residing

abroad at the time in public service, my counsels to him were necessarily

communicated by letters. Searching among my papers I find a letter

written to him, and conveying such advice as I thought suitable to the

particular period of his age and education. He was then about fifteen, and

had made some progress in classical reading. As your present situation

may be somewhat similar, you may find in that letter some things worth

remembering. I enclose you a copy therefore. It was written in haste,

under the pressure of official labors, and with no view of being ever

seen but by himself. It might otherwise have been made more correct in

style and matter. But such as it is, I place it at your service, and

pray you to receive it merely as a compliance with your own request,

and as a proof of my good will and of my best wishes for your success in

the career of life for which you are so worthily and laudably preparing

yourselves.

TO MR. EDWARD EVERETT, OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.

MONTICELLO, March 2, 1822.

I am thankful to you, Sir, for the very edifying view of Europe which

you have been so kind as to send me. Tossed at random by the newspapers

on an ocean of uncertainties and falsehoods, it is joyful at times to

catch the glimmering of a beacon which shows us truly where we are. De

Pradt's Europe had some effect in this way; but the less as the author

was less known in character. The views presented by your brother unite

our confidence with the soundness of his observation and information. I

have read the work with great avidity and profit, and have found my ideas

of Europe in general, rallied by it to points of good satisfaction. In

the single chapter on England only, where his theories are new, if we

cannot suddenly give up all our old notions, he furnishes us abundant

matter for reflection and a revisal of them. I have long considered

the present crisis of England, and the origin of the evils which are

lowering over her, as produced by enormous excess of her expenditures

beyond her income. To pay even the interest of the debt contracted,

she is obliged to take from the industrious so much of their earnings,

as not to leave enough for their backs and bellies. They are daily,

therefore, passing over to the pauper-list, to subsist on the declining

means of those still holding up, and when these also shall be exhausted,

what next? Reformation cannot remedy this. It could only prevent its

recurrence when once relieved from the debt. To effect that relief I

see but one possible and just course. Considering the funded and real

property as equal, and the debt as much of the one as the other, for

the holder of property to give up one-half to those of the funds, and

the latter to the nation the whole of what it owes them. But this the

nature of man forbids us to expect without blows, and blows will decide

it by a promiscuous sacrifice of life and property. The debt thus, or

otherwise, extinguished, a _real_ representation introduced into the

government of either property or people, or of both, renouncing eternal

war, restraining future expenses to future income, and breaking up forever

the consuming circle of extravagance, debt, insolvency, and revolution,

the island would then again be in the degree of force which nature has

measured out to it, of respectable station in the scale of nations, but

not at their head. I sincerely wish she could peaceably get into this

state of being, as the present prospects of southern Europe seem to need

the acquisition of new weights in their balance, rather than the loss

of old ones. I set additional value on this volume, inasmuch as it has

procured me the occasion of expressing to you my high estimation of your

character, the interest with which I look to it as an American, and the

great esteem and respect with which I beg leave to salute you.

TO JEDEDIAH MORSE.

MONTICELLO, March 6, 1822.

SIR,--I have duly received your letter of February the 16th, and have now

to express my sense of the honorable station proposed to my ex-brethren

and myself, in the constitution of the society for the civilization and

improvement of the Indian tribes. The object too expressed, as that of the

association, is one which I have ever had much at heart, and never omitted

an occasion of promoting while I have been in situations to do it with

effect, and nothing, even now, in the calm of age and retirement, would

excite in me a more lively interest than an approvable plan of raising

that respectable and unfortunate people from the state of physical and

moral abjection, to which they have been reduced by circumstances foreign

to them. That the plan now proposed is entitled to unmixed approbation,

I am not prepared to say, after mature consideration, and with all the

partialities which its professed object would rightfully claim from me.

I shall not undertake to draw the line of demarcation between private

associations of laudable views and unimposing numbers, and those whose

magnitude may rivalize and jeopardize the march of regular government.

Yet such a line does exist. I have seen the days, they were those which

preceded the revolution, when even this last and perilous engine became

necessary; but they were days which no man would wish to see a second

time. That was the case where the regular authorities of the government

had combined against the rights of the people, and no means of correction

remained to them but to organize a collateral power, which, with their

support, might rescue and secure their violated rights. But such is

not the case with our government. We need hazard no collateral power,

which, by a change of its original views, and assumption of others we

know not how virtuous or how mischievous, would be ready organized and

in force sufficient to shake the established foundations of society,

and endanger its peace and the principles on which it is based. Is not

the machine now proposed of this gigantic stature? It is to consist of

the ex-Presidents of the United States, the Vice President, the Heads

of all the executive departments, the members of the supreme judiciary,

the Governors of the several States and territories, all the members

of both Houses of Congress, all the general officers of the army, the

commissioners of the navy, all Presidents and Professors of colleges

and theological seminaries, all the clergy of the United States, the

Presidents and Secretaries of all associations having relation to

Indians, all commanding officers within or near Indian territories, all

Indian superintendents and agents; all these _ex officio_; and as many

private individuals as will pay a certain price for membership. Observe,

too, that the clergy will constitute[15] nineteen twentieths of this

association, and, by the law of the majority, may command the twentieth

part, which, composed of all the high authorities of the United States,

civil and military, may be outvoted and wielded by the nineteen parts

with uncontrollable power, both as to purpose and process. Can this

formidable array be reviewed without dismay? It will be said, that in

this association will be all the confidential officers of the government;

the choice of the people themselves. No man on earth has more implicit

confidence than myself in the integrity and discretion of this chosen

band of servants. But is confidence or discretion, or is _strict limit_,

the principle of our constitution? It will comprehend, indeed, all the

functionaries of the government; but seceded from their constitutional

stations as guardians of the nation, and acting not by the laws of

their station, but by those of a voluntary society, having no limit to

their purposes but the same will which constitutes their existence. It

will be the authorities of the people and all influential characters

from among them, arrayed on one side, and on the other, the people

themselves deserted by their leaders. It is a fearful array. It will be

said that these are imaginary fears. I know they are so at present. I

know it is as impossible for these agents of our choice and unbounded

confidence, to harbor machinations against the adored principles of our

constitution, as for gravity to change its direction, and gravid bodies

to mount upwards. The fears are indeed imaginary, but the example is

_real_. Under its authority, as a precedent, future associations will

arise with objects at which we should shudder at this time. The society

of Jacobins, in another country, was instituted on principles and views

as virtuous as ever kindled the hearts of patriots. It was the pure

patriotism of their purposes which extended their association to the

limits of the nation, and rendered their power within it boundless; and

it was this power which degenerated their principles and practices to

such enormities as never before could have been imagined. Yet these were

men, and we and our descendants will be no more. The present is a case

where, if ever, we are to guard against ourselves; not against ourselves

as we are, but as we may be; for who can now imagine what we may become

under circumstances not now imaginable? The object of this institution,

seems to require so hazardous an example as little as any which could be

proposed. The government is, at this time, going on with the process of

civilizing the Indians, on a plan probably as promising as any one of us

is able to devise, and with resources more competent than we could expect

to command by voluntary taxation. Is it that the new characters called

into association with those of the government, are wiser than these? Is

it that a plan originated by a meeting of private individuals is better

than that prepared by the concentrated wisdom of the nation, of men not

self-chosen, but clothed with the full confidence of the people? Is it

that there is no danger that a new authority, marching, independently,

along side of the government, in the same line and to the same object,

may not produce collision, may not thwart and obstruct the operations of

the government, or wrest the object entirely from their hands? Might we

not as well appoint a committee for each department of the government,

to counsel and direct its head separately, as volunteer ourselves to

counsel and direct the whole, in mass? And might we not do it as well

for their foreign, their fiscal, and their military, as for their Indian

affairs? And how many societies, auxiliary to the government, may we

expect to see spring up, in imitation of this, offering to associate

themselves in this and that of its functions? In a word, why not take

the government out of its constitutional hands, associate them indeed

with us, to preserve a semblance that the acts are theirs, but insuring

them to be our own by allowing them a minor vote only.

These considerations have impressed my mind with a force so irresistible,

that (in duty bound to answer your polite letter, without which I should

not have obtruded an opinion) I have not been able to withhold the

expression of them. Not knowing the individuals who have proposed this

plan, I cannot be conceived as entertaining personal disrespect for them.

On the contrary, I see in the printed list persons for whom I cherish

sentiments of sincere friendship, and others, for whose opinions and

purity of purpose I have the highest respect. Yet thinking as I do, that

this association is unnecessary; that the government is proceeding to

the same object under control of the law; that they are competent to it

in wisdom, in means, and inclination; that this association, this wheel

within a wheel, is more likely to produce collision than aid; and that

it is, in its magnitude, of dangerous example; I am bound to say, that,

as a dutiful citizen, I cannot in conscience become a member of this

society, possessing as it does my entire confidence in the integrity

of its views. I feel with awe the weight of opinion to which I may be

opposed, and that, for myself, I have need to ask the indulgence of a

belief that the opinion I have given is the best result I can deduce from

my own reason and experience, and that it is sincerely conscientious.

Repeating, therefore, my just acknowledgments for the honor proposed to

me, I beg leave to add the assurances to the society and yourself of my

highest confidence and consideration.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] The clergy of the United States may probably be

estimated at eight thousand. The residue of this society

at four hundred; but if the former number be halved, the

reasoning will be the same.

TO GENERAL BRECKENRIDGE.

MONTICELLO, April 9, 1822.

DEAR GENERAL,--Your favor of March 28th was received on the 7th instant.

We failed in having a quorum on the 1st. Mr. Johnson and General Taylor

were laboring for Lithgow in Richmond, and Mr. Madison was unwell. On the

score of business it was immaterial, as there was not a single measure

to be proposed. The loss was of the gratification of meeting in society

with those whom we esteem. This is the valuable effect of our semi-annual

meetings, jubilees, in fact, for feasting the mind and fostering the

best affections of the heart towards those who merit them.

The four rows of buildings of accommodation are so nearly completed, that

they are certain of being entirely so in the course of the summer; and

our funds, as you have seen stated in our last Report, are sufficient

to meet the expense, except that the delays in collecting the arrears of

subscriptions oblige us to borrow temporarily from this year's annuity,

which, according to that Report, had another destination. These buildings

done, we are to rest on our oars, and passively await the will of the

legislature. Our future course is a plain one. We have proceeded from

the beginning on the sound determination to finish the buildings before

opening the institution; because, once opened, all its funds will be

absorbed by professors' salaries, &c., and nothing remain ever to finish

the buildings. And we have thought it better to begin two or three years

later, in the full extent proposed, than to open, and go on forever, with

a half-way establishment. Of the wisdom of this proceeding, and of its

greater good to the public finally, I cannot a moment doubt. Our part

then is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right

nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that

the public approbation will in the end be with us. The councils of the

legislature, at their late session, were poisoned unfortunately by the

question of the seat of government, and the consequent jealousies of our

views in erecting the large building still wanting. This lost us some

friends who feel a sincere interest in favor of the University, but a

stronger one in the question respecting the seat of government. They seem

not to have considered that the seat of the government, and that of the

University, are incompatible with one another; that if the former were to

come here, the latter must be removed. Even Oxford and Cambridge placed

in the middle of London, they would be deserted as seats of learning,

and as proper places for training youth. These groundless jealousies,

it is to be hoped, will be dissipated by sober reflection, during the

separation of the members; and they will perceive, before their next

meeting, that the large building, without which the institution cannot

proceed, has nothing to do with the question of the seat of government.

If, however, the ensuing session should still refuse their patronage,

a second or a third will think better, and result finally in fulfilling

the object of our aim, the securing to our country a full and perpetual

institution for all the useful sciences; one which will restore us to

our former station in the confederacy. It may be a year or two later

indeed; but it will replace us in full grade, and not leave us among

the mere subalterns of the league. Patience and steady perseverance on

our part will secure the blessed end. If we shrink, it is gone forever.

Our autumnal meeting will be interesting. The question will be whether

we shall relinquish the scale of a real University, the rallying centre

of the South and the West, or let it sink to that of a common academy.

I hope you will be with us, and give us the benefit of your firm and

enlarged views. I am not at all disheartened with what has passed, nor

disposed to give up the ship. We have only to lie still, to do and say

nothing, and firmly avoid opening. The public opinion is advancing. It

is coming to our aid, and will force the institution on to consummation.

The numbers are great, and many from great distances, who visit it daily

as an object of curiosity. They become strengthened if friends, converted

if enemies, and all loud and zealous advocates, and will shortly give

full tone to the public voice. Our motto should be "be not wearied with

well-doing." Accept the assurance of my affectionate friendship and

respect.

TO MESSRS. RITCHIE AND GOOCH.

MONTICELLO, May 13, 1822.

MESSRS. RITCHIE AND GOOCH,--I am thankful to you for the paper you

have been so kind as to send me, containing the arraignment of the

Presidents of the United States generally, as peculators or accessories

to peculation, by an informer who masks himself under the signature

of "a Native Virginian." What relates to myself in this paper, (being

his No. VI., and the only No. I have seen) I had before read in the

"Federal Republican" of Baltimore, of August 28th, which was sent to me

by a friend, with the real name of the author. It was published there

during the ferment of a warmly-contested election. I considered it,

therefore, as an electioneering manœuvre merely, and did not even think

it required the trouble of recollecting, after a lapse of thirty-three

years, the circumstances of the case in which he charges me with having

purloined from the treasury of the United States the sum of $1,148. But

as he has thought it worth repeating in his Roll of informations against

your Presidents nominally, I shall give the truths of the case, which

he has omitted, perhaps because he did not know them, and ventured too

inconsiderately to supply them from his own conjectures.

On the return from my mission to France, and joining the government here,

in the spring of 1790, I had a long and heavy account to settle with the

United States, of the administration of their pecuniary affairs in Europe,

of which the superintendence had been confided to me while there. I gave

in my account early, but the pressure of other business did not permit

the accounting officers to attend to it till October 10th, 1792, when

we settled, and a balance of $888 67 appearing to be due from me, (but

erroneously as will be shown,) I paid the money the same day, delivered

up my vouchers, and received a certificate of it. But still the articles

of my draughts on the bankers could be only _provisionally_ past; until

their accounts also should be received to be confronted with mine. And

it was not till the 24th of June, 1804, that I received a letter from

Mr. Richard Harrison the auditor, informing me "that my accounts, as

Minister to France, had been adjusted and closed," adding, "the bill

drawn and credited by you under date of the 21st of October, 1789, for

banco florins 2,800, having never yet appeared in any account of the Dutch

bankers, stand at your debit only as a _provisional_ charge. If it should

hereafter turn out, as I incline to think it will, that this bill has

never been negotiated or used by Mr. Grand, you will have a just claim on

the public for its value." This was the first intimation to me that I had

too hastily charged myself with that draught. I determined, however, as

I had allowed it in my account, and paid up the balance it had produced

against me, to let it remain awhile, as there was a possibility that the

draught might still be presented by the holder to the bankers; and so

it remained till I was near leaving Washington, on my final retirement

from the administration in 1809. I then received from the auditor, Mr.

Harrison, the following note: "Mr. Jefferson, in his accounts as late

Minister to France, credited among other sums, a bill drawn by him on

the 21st October, 1789, to the order of Grand & Co., on the bankers of

the United States at Amsterdam, f. Banco f. 2,800, equal with _agio_ to

current florins 2,870, and which was charged to him _provisionally_ in

the official statement made at the Treasury, in the month of October,

1804. But as this bill has not yet been noticed in any account rendered

by the bankers, the presumption is strong that it was never negotiated

or presented for payment, and Mr. Jefferson, therefore, appears justly

entitled to receive the value of it, which, at forty cents the gilder,

(the rate at which it was estimated in the above-mentioned statement,)

amounts to $1,148. Auditor's office, January 24th, 1809."

Desirous of leaving nothing unsettled behind me, I drew the money from

the treasury, but without any interest, although I had let it lie there

twenty years, and had actually on that error paid $888 67, an apparent

balance against me, when the true balance was in my favor $259 33. The

question then is, how has this happened? I have examined minutely and

can state it clearly.

Turning to my pocket diary I find that on the 21st day of October, 1789,

the date of this bill, I was at Cowes in England, on my return to the

United States. The entry in my diary is in these words: "1789, October

21st. Sent to Grand & Co., letter of credit on Willinks, Van Staphorsts

and Hubbard, for 2,800 florins Banco." And I immediately credited it

in my account with the United States in the following words: "1789,

October 21. By my bill on Willinks, Van Staphorsts and Hubbard, in

favor of Grand & Co., for 2,800 florins, equal to 6,250 livres 18 sous."

My account having been kept in livres and sous of France, the auditor

settled this sum at the current exchange, making it $1,148. This bill,

drawn at Cowes in England, had to pass through London to Paris by the

English and French mails, in which passage it was lost, by some unknown

accident, to which it was the more exposed in the French mail, by the

confusion then prevailing; for it was exactly at the time that martial

law was proclaimed at Paris, the country all up in arms, and executions

by the mobs were daily perpetrating through town and country. However

this may have been, the bill never got to the hands of Grand & Co., was

never, of course, forwarded by them to the bankers of Amsterdam, nor

anything more ever heard of it. The auditor's first conjecture then was

the true one, that it never was negotiated, nor therefore charged to the

United States in any of the bankers' accounts. I have now under my eye

a duplicate furnished me by Grand of his account of that date against

the United States, and his private account against myself, and I affirm

that he has not noticed this bill in either of these accounts, and the

auditor assures us the Dutch bankers had never charged it. The sum of the

whole then is, that I drew a bill on the United States bankers, charged

myself with it on the presumption it would be paid, that it never was

paid however, either by the bankers of the United States, or anybody

else. It was surely just then to return me the money I had paid for it.

Yet "the Native Virginian" thinks that this act of receiving back the

money I had thus through error overpaid, "_was a palpable and manifest

art of moral turpitude, about which no two honest, impartial men can

possibly differ_." I ascribe these hard expressions to the ardor of

his zeal for the public good, and as they contain neither argument nor

proof, I pass them over without observation. Indeed, I have not been in

the habit of noticing these morbid ejections of spleen either with or

without the names of those venting them. But I have thought it a duty

on the present occasion to relieve my fellow citizens and my country

from the degradation in the eyes of the world to which this informer

is endeavoring to reduce it by representing it as governed hitherto

by a succession of swindlers and peculators. Nor shall I notice any

further endeavors to prove or to palliate this palpable misinformation.

I am too old and inert to undertake minute investigations of intricate

transactions of the last century; and I am not afraid to trust to the

justice and good sense of my fellow-citizens on future, as on former

attempts to lessen me in their esteem.

I ask of you, gentlemen, the insertion of this letter in your paper;

and I trust that the printers who have hazarded the publication of the

libel, on anonymous authority, will think that of the answer a moderate

retribution of the wrong to which they have been accessory.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, June 1, 1822.

It is very long, my dear Sir, since I have written to you. My dislocated

wrist is now become so stiff that I write slow and with pain, and

therefore write as little as I can. Yet it is due to mutual friendship

to ask once in awhile how we do? The papers tell us that General Starke

is off at the age of 93. Charles Thomson still lives at about the same

age, cheerful, slender as a grasshopper, and so much without memory

that he scarcely recognizes the members of his household. An intimate

friend of his called on him not long since; it was difficult to make

him recollect who he was, and, sitting one hour, he told him the same

story four times over. Is this life?

"With lab'ring step

To tread our former footsteps? pace the round

Eternal?--to beat and beat

The beaten track? to see what we have seen,

To taste the tasted? o'er our palates to decant

Another vintage?"

It is at most but the life of a cabbage; surely not worth a wish. When

all our faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by one, sight,

hearing, memory, every avenue of pleasing sensation is closed, and

athumy, debility and malaise left in their places, when friends of our

youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around us whom we know

not, is death an evil?

When one by one our ties are torn,

And friend from friend is snatched forlorn,

When man is left alone to mourn,

Oh! then how sweet it is to die!

When trembling limbs refuse their weight,

And films slow gathering dim the sight,

When clouds obscure the mental light

'Tis nature's kindest boon to die!

I really think so. I have ever dreaded a doting old age; and my health

has been generally so good, and is now so good, that I dread it still.

The rapid decline of my strength during the last winter has made me

hope sometimes that I see land. During summer I enjoy its temperature,

but I shudder at the approach of winter, and wish I could sleep through

it with the Dormouse, and only wake with him in spring, if ever. They

say that Starke could walk about his room. I am told you walk well and

firmly. I can only reach my garden, and that with sensible fatigue. I

ride, however, daily. But reading is my delight. I should wish never to

put pen to paper; and the more because of the treacherous practice some

people have of publishing one's letters without leave. Lord Mansfield

declared it a breach of trust, and punishable at law. I think it should

be a penitentiary felony; yet you will have seen that they have drawn

me out into the arena of the newspapers; although I know it is too late

for me to buckle on the armor of youth, yet my indignation would not

permit me passively to receive the kick of an ass.

To turn to the news of the day, it seems that the Cannibals of Europe

are going to eating one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey

is like the battle of the kite and snake. Whichever destroys the other,

leaves a destroyer the less for the world. This pugnacious humor of

mankind seems to be the law of his nature, one of the obstacles to too

great multiplication provided in the mechanism of the Universe. The cocks

of the henyard kill one another up. Bears, bulls, rams, do the same. And

the horse, in his wild state, kills all the young males, until worn down

with age and war, some vigorous youth kills him, and takes to himself

the Harem of females. I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the

Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder, is better than that

of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these

maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other

parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the

Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail. God bless you,

and give you health, strength, and good spirits, and as much of life as

you think worth having.

TO REV. MR. WHITTEMORE.

MONTICELLO, June 5, 1822.

I thank you, Sir, for the pamphlets you have been so kind as to send

me, and am happy to learn that the doctrine of Jesus that there is but

one God, is advancing prosperously among our fellow citizens. Had his

doctrines, pure as they came from himself, been never sophisticated

for unworthy purposes, the whole civilized world would at this day have

formed but a single sect. You ask my opinion on the items of doctrine in

your catechism. I have never permitted myself to meditate a specified

creed. These formulas have been the bane and ruin of the Christian

church, its own fatal invention, which, through so many ages, made of

Christendom a slaughter-house, and at this day divides it into casts of

inextinguishable hatred to one another. Witness the present internecine

rage of all other sects against the Unitarian. The religions of antiquity

had no particular formulas of creed. Those of the modern world none,

except those of the religionists calling themselves Christians, and

even among these the Quakers have none. And hence, alone, the harmony,

the quiet, the brotherly affections, the exemplary and unschismatising

society of the Friends, and I hope the Unitarians, will follow their

happy example. With these sentiments of the mischiefs of creeds and

confessions of faith, I am sure you will excuse my not giving opinions

on the items of any particular one; and that you will accept, at the

same time, the assurance of the high respect and consideration which I

bear to its author.

TO MESSRS. RITCHIE AND GOOCH.

MONTICELLO, June 10, 1822.

MESSRS. RITCHIE AND GOOCH,--In my letter to you of May 13th, in answer

to a charge by a person signing himself "A Native Virginian," that on

a bill drawn by me for a sum equivalent to $1,148, the treasury of the

United States had made _double payment_, I supposed I had done as much as

would be required when I showed they had only returned to me money which

I had previously paid into the treasury on the presumption that such a

bill had been paid for me, but that this bill being lost or destroyed on

the way, had never been presented, consequently never paid by the United

States, and that the money was therefore returned to me. This being too

plain for controversy, the pseudo Native of Virginia, in his reply, No.

32, in the Federal Republican of May 24th, reduces himself ultimately

to the ground of a _double receipt_ of the money by me, first on sale or

negotiation of the bill in Europe, and a second time from the treasury.

But the bill was never sold or negotiated anywhere. It was not drawn

to raise money in the market. I sold it to nobody, received no money

on it, but enclosed it to Grand & Co. for some purpose of account, for

what particular purpose neither my memory, after a lapse of thirty-three

years, nor my papers enable me to say. Had I preserved a copy of my

letter to Grand enclosing the bill, that would doubtless have explained

the purpose. But it was drawn on the eve of my embarkation with my family

from Cowes for America, and probably the hurry of preparation for that

did not allow me time to take a copy. I presume this because I find no

such letter among my papers. Nor does any subsequent correspondence

with Grand explain it, because I had no private account with him; my

account as minister being kept with the treasury directly, so that he,

receiving no intimation of this bill, could never give me notice of its

miscarriage. But, however satisfactory might have been an explanation

of the purpose of the bill, it is unnecessary at least; the material

fact being established that it never got to hand, nor was ever paid by

the United States.

And how does the Native Virginian maintain his charge that I received the

cash when I drew the bill? by unceremoniously inserting into the entry

of that article in my account, words of his own, making me say in direct

terms that I did receive the cash for the bill. In my account rendered

to the treasury, it is entered in these words: "1789, Oct. 1. By my bill

on Willincks, Van Staphorsts & Hubbard in favor of Grand & Co. for 2,800

florins, equal to 6,230 livres 18 sous," but he quotes it as stated in

my account rendered to and settled at the treasury, and yet remaining,

as it is to be presumed, among the archives of that department, "_By

cash received of Grand_ for bill on Willincks, &c." Now the words "_cash

received of Grand_" constitute "the very point, the pivot, on which

the matter turns," as himself says, and not finding, he has furnished

them. Although the interpolation of them is sufficiently refuted by

the fact that Grand was, at the time, in France, and myself in England,

yet wishing that conviction of the interpolation should be founded on

official document, I wrote to the auditor, Mr. Harrison, requesting an

official certificate of the _very words_ in which that article stood in

my autograph account deposited in the office. I received yesterday his

answer of the 3d, in which he says, "I am unable to furnish the extract

you require, as the original account rendered by you of your pecuniary

transactions of a public nature in Europe, together with the vouchers

and documents connected with it, were all destroyed in the Register's

office in the memorable conflagration of 1814. With respect, therefore,

to the sum of $1,148 in question, I can only say that, after full and

repeated examinations, I considered you as most righteously and justly

entitled to receive it. Otherwise, it will, I trust, be believed that I

could not have consented to the re-payment." Considering the intimacy

which the Native Virginian shows with the treasury affairs, we might

be justified in suspecting that he knew this fact of the destruction

of the original by fire when he ventured to misquote. But certainly we

may call on him to say, and to show, from what original he copied these

words: "cash received from Grand"? I say, most assuredly, from none,

for none such ever existed. Although the original be lost, which would

have convicted him officially, it happens that when I made from my rough

draft a fair copy of my account for the treasury, I took also, with a

copying-machine, a press-copy of every page, which I kept for my own

use. It is known that copies by this well-known machine are taken by

impression on damp paper laid on the face of the written page while fresh,

and passed between rollers as copper plates are. They must therefore be

true _fac similies_. This press-copy now lies before me, has been shown

to several persons, and will be shown to as many as wish or are willing

to examine it; and this article of my account is entered in it in these

words: "1789, Oct. 1. By my bill on Willincks, Van Staphorsts & Hubbard

for 2,800 florins, equal to 6,230 livres 18 sous." An inspection of the

account, too, shows that whenever I received _cash_ for a bill, it is

uniformly entered "by cash received of such an one, &c;" but where a

bill was drawn to constitute an item of account only, the entry is "by

my bill on, &c." Now to these very words "cash received of Grand," not

in my original but interpolated by himself, he constantly appeals as

proofs of an acknowledgment _under my own hand_ that _I received the

cash_. In proof of this, I must request patience to read the following

quotations from his denunciations as standing in the Federal Republican

of May 24:

Page 2, column 2, 1. 48 to 29 from the bottom, "he [Mr. J.] admits in

his account rendered in 1790 and settled in 1792, that he had _received

the_ '_cash_,' [placing the word _cash_ between inverted commas to

have it marked particularly as a quotation] that he had _received the_

'_cash_' for the bill in question, and he does not directly deny it now.

Will he, can he, in the _face of his own declaration in writing_ to the

contrary, publicly say that he did not receive the money for this bill in

Europe? This is _the point_ on which the whole matter rests, the _pivot_

on which the arguments turn. If he did receive the money in Europe,

(no matter whether at Cowes or at Paris,) he certainly had no right to

receive it a second time from the public treasury of the United States.

This is admitted I believe on all sides. Now, _that he did receive the

money in Europe_ on this bill, is proved by the _acknowledgment of the

receiver himself_, who credits the amount in his account as settled at

the treasury thus: "_cash received of Grand_ for bill on Willincks, Van

Staphorsts, 2,876 gilders, 1,148 dollars."

Col. 3, 1. 28 to 21 from bottom. There is a plain difference in the

phraseology of the account, from which an extract is given by Mr. J. as

above, and that _which he rendered to the Treasury_. In the former he

gives the credit thus, "By my bills on Willincks," &c. In the latter he

states, "By _cash received of Grand_ for bill on Willincks, &c." There

is a difference, indeed, as he states it, but it is made solely by his

own interpolation.

Col. 3, 1. 8, from bottom. "That Mr. Jefferson should, in the very teeth

of the facts of the evidence before us, and in his own breast, gravely

say that he had paid the money for this bill, and that therefore it

was but just to return him the amount of it, when he had, _by his own

acknowledgment_, sent it to Grand & Co., and _received the money for

it_, is, I confess, not only matter of utter astonishment but regret."

I spare myself the qualifications which these paragraphs may merit,

leaving them to be applied by every reader according to the feelings

they may excite in his own breast.

He proceeds: "And now to place this case beyond the reach of cavil or

doubt, and to show _most conclusively_ that he had negotiated this bill

in Europe, and _received the cash_ for it there, and that such was the

understanding of the matter at the treasury in 1809, when he received

the money." These are his own words. Col. 4, he brings forward the

overwhelming fact "not hitherto made public but stated from the most

creditable and authentic source, that one of the accounting officers

of the treasury suggested in writing the propriety of taking bond and

security from Mr. J., for indemnification of the United States against

any future claim on this bill. But it seems the bond was not taken, and

the government is now liable in law, and in good faith for the payment of

this bill to the rightful owner." How this suggestion of taking bond at

the treasury, so solemnly paraded, is _more conclusive_ proof than his

own interpolation, that the _cash was received_, I am so dull as not to

perceive; but I say, that had the suggestion been made to me, it would

have been instantly complied with. But I deny his law. Were the bill now

to be presented to the treasury, the answer would and should be the same

as a merchant would give: "You have held up this bill three and thirty

years without notice; we have settled in the meantime with the drawer,

and have no effects of his left in our hands. Apply to him for payment."

On his application to me, I should first inquire into the history of the

bill; where it had been lurking for three and thirty years? how came he

by it? by interception? by trover? by assignment from Grand? by purchase?

from whom, when and where? And according to his answers I should either

institute criminal process against him, or if he showed that all was

fair and honest, I should pay him the money, and look for reimbursement

to the quarter appearing liable. The law deems seven years' absence of

a man, without being heard of, such presumptive evidence of his death,

as to distribute his estate, and to allow his wife to marry again. The

Auditor thought that twenty years non-appearance of a bill which had

been risked through the post-offices of two nations, was sufficient

presumption of its loss. But this self-styled native of Virginia thinks

that the thirty-three years now elapsed are not sufficient. Be it so.

If the accounting officers of the treasury have any uneasiness on that

subject, I am ready to give a bond of indemnification to the United

States in any sum the officers will name, and with the security which

themselves shall approve. Will this satisfy the native Virginian? or will

he now try to pick some other hole in this transaction, to shield himself

from a candid acknowledgment, that in making up his case, he supplied by

gratuitous conjectures, the facts which were not within his knowledge,

and that thus he has sinned against truth in his declarations before the

public? Be this as it may, I have so much confidence in the discernment

and candor of my fellow-citizens, as to leave to their judgment, and

dismiss from my own notice any future torture of words or circumstances

which this writer may devise for their deception. Indeed, could such

a denunciation, and on such proof, bereave me of that confidence and

consolation, I should, through the remainder of life, brood over the

afflicting belief that I had lived and labored in vain.

TO MR. GOODENOW.

MONTICELLO, June 13, 1822.

SIR,--I thank you for the volume of American Jurisprudence, which you

have been so kind as to send me. I am now too old to read books solidly,

unless they promise present amusement or future benefit. To me books

of law offer neither. But I read your 6th chapter with interest and

satisfaction, on the question whether the common law (of England) makes

a part of the laws of our general government? That it makes more or less

a part of the laws of the States is, I suppose, an unquestionable fact.

Not by _birthright_, a conceit as inexplicable as the trinity, but by

adoption. But, as to the general government, the Virginia Report on the

alien and sedition laws, has so completely pulverized this pretension

that nothing new can be said on it. Still, seeing that judges of the

Supreme Court, (I recollect, for example, Elsworth and Story) had been

found capable of such paralogism, I was glad to see that the Supreme

Court had given it up. In the case of Libel in the United States district

Court of Connecticut, the rejection of it was certainly sound; because

no law of the general government had made it an offence. But such a case

might, I suppose, be sustained in the State Courts which have state

laws against libels. Because as to the portions of power within each

State assigned to the general government, the President is as much the

Executive of the State, as their particular governor is in relation to

State powers. These, however, are speculations with which I no longer

trouble myself; and therefore, to my thanks, I will only add assurances

of my great respect.

TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE.

MONTICELLO, June 26, 1822.

DEAR SIR,--I have received and read with thankfulness and pleasure your

denunciation of the abuses of tobacco and wine. Yet, however sound in

its principles, I expect it will be but a sermon to the wind. You will

find it is as difficult to inculcate these sanative precepts on the

sensualities of the present day, as to convince an Athanasian that there

is but one God. I wish success to both attempts, and am happy to learn

from you that the latter, at least, is making progress, and the more

rapidly in proportion as our Platonizing Christians make more stir and

noise about it. The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the

happiness of man.

1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect.

2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.

3. That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is

the sum of religion. These are the great points on which he endeavored to

reform the religion of the Jews. But compare with these the demoralizing

dogmas of Calvin.

1. That there are three Gods.

2. That good works, or the love of our neighbour, are nothing.

3. That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the

proposition, the more merit in its faith.