To complete and universalize the desolation of the globe, it has been

the will of Providence to raise up, at the same time, a tyrant as

unprincipled and as overwhelming, for the ocean. Not in the poor maniac

George, but in his government and nation. Bonaparte will die, and his

tyrannies with him. But a nation never dies. The English government, and

its piratical principles and practices, have no fixed term of duration.

Europe feels, and is writhing under the scorpion whips of Bonaparte. We

are assailed by those of England. The one continent thus placed under

the gripe of England, and the other of Bonaparte, each has to grapple

with the enemy immediately pressing on itself. We must extinguish the

fire kindled in our own house, and leave to our friends beyond the water

that which is consuming theirs. It was not till England had taken one

thousand of our ships, and impressed into her service more than six

thousand of our citizens; till she had declared, by the proclamation of

her Prince Regent, that she would not repeal her aggressive orders _as

to us_, until Bonaparte should have repealed his _as to all nations_;

till her minister, in formal conference with ours, declared, that no

proposition for protecting our seamen from being impressed, under color

of taking their own, was practicable or admissible; that, the door to

justice and to all amicable arrangement being closed, and negotiation

become both desperate and dishonorable, we concluded that the war she

had for years been waging against us, might as well become a war on

both sides. She takes fewer vessels from us since the declaration of

war than before, because they venture more cautiously; and we now make

full reprisals where before we made none. England is, in principle,

the enemy of all maritime nations, as Bonaparte is of the continental;

and I place in the same line of insult to the human understanding, the

pretension of conquering the ocean, to establish continental rights, as

that of conquering the continent, to restore maritime rights. No, my dear

Madam; the object of England is the _permanent dominion of the ocean_,

and the _monopoly of the trade of the world_. To secure this, she must

keep a larger fleet than her own resources will maintain. The resources

of other nations, then, must be impressed to supply the deficiency of

her own. This is sufficiently developed and evidenced by her successive

strides towards the usurpation of the sea. Mark them, from her first war

after William Pitt, the little, came into her administration. She first

forbade to neutrals all trade with her enemies in time of war, which

they had not in time of peace. This deprived them of their trade from

port to port of the same nation. Then she forbade them to trade from

the port of one nation to that of any other at war with her, although a

right fully exercised in time of peace. Next, instead of taking vessels

only _entering_ a blockaded port, she took them over the whole ocean, if

destined to that port, although ignorant of the blockade, and without

intention to violate it. Then she took them returning from that port,

as if infected by previous infraction of blockade. Then came her paper

blockades, by which she might shut up the whole world without sending

a ship to sea, except to take all those sailing on it, as they must, of

course, be bound to some port. And these were followed by her orders of

council, forbidding every nation to go to the port of any other, without

coming first to some port of Great Britain, there paying a tribute to

her, regulated by the cargo, and taking from her a license to proceed

to the port of destination; which operation the vessel was to repeat

with the return cargo on its way home. According to these orders, we

could not send a vessel from St. Mary's to St. Augustine, distant six

hours sail on our own coast, without crossing the Atlantic four times,

twice with the outward cargo, and twice with the inward. She found this

too daring and outrageous for a single step, retracted as to certain

articles of commerce, but left it in force as to others which constitute

important branches of our exports. And finally, that her views may no

longer rest on inference, in a recent debate her minister declared in

open parliament, that the object of the present war is a _monopoly of

commerce_.

In some of these atrocities, France kept pace with her fully in

speculative wrong, which her impotence only shortened in practical

execution. This was called retaliation by both; each charging the other

with the initiation of the outrage. As if two combatants might retaliate

on an innocent bystander, the blows they received from each other. To

make war on both would have been ridiculous. In order, therefore, to

single out an enemy, we offered to both, that if either would revoke

its hostile decrees, and the other should refuse, we would interdict all

intercourse whatever with that other; which would be war of course, as

being an avowed departure from neutrality. France accepted the offer, and

revoked her decrees as to us. England not only refused, but declared by a

solemn proclamation of her Prince Regent, that she would not revoke her

orders _even as to us_, until those of France should be annulled _as to

the whole world_. We thereon declared war, and with abundant additional

cause.

In the meantime, an examination before parliament of the ruinous effects

of these orders on her own manufacturers, exposing them to the nation and

to the world, their Prince issued a palinodial proclamation, _suspending_

the orders on certain conditions, but claiming to renew them at pleasure,

as a matter of right. Even this might have prevented the war, if done

and known here before its declaration. But the sword being once drawn,

the expense of arming incurred, and hostilities in full course, it would

have been unwise to discontinue them, until effectual provision should

be agreed to by England, for protecting our citizens on the high seas

from impressment by her naval commanders, through error, voluntary or

involuntary; the fact being notorious, that these officers, entering our

ships at sea under pretext of searching for their seamen, (which they

have no right to do by the law or usage of nations, which they neither

do, nor ever did, as to any other nation but ours, and which no nation

ever before pretended to do in any case,) entering our ships, I say,

under pretext of searching for and taking out their seamen, they took

ours, native as well as naturalized, knowing them to be ours, merely

because they wanted them; insomuch, that no American could safely cross

the ocean, or venture to pass by sea from one to another of our own

ports. It is not long since they impressed at sea two nephews of General

Washington, returning from Europe, and put them, as common seamen, under

the ordinary discipline of their ships of war. There are certainly other

wrongs to be settled between England and us; but of a minor character,

and such as a proper spirit of conciliation on both sides would not

permit to continue them at war. The sword, however, can never again be

sheathed, until the personal safety of an American on the ocean, among

the most important and most vital of the rights we possess, is completely

provided for.

As soon as we heard of her partial repeal of her orders of council, we

offered instantly to suspend hostilities by an armistice, if she would

suspend her impressments, and meet us in arrangements for securing

our citizens against them. She refused to do it, because impracticable

by any arrangement, as she pretends; but, in truth, because a body of

sixty to eighty thousand of the finest seamen in the world, which we

possess, is too great a resource for manning her exaggerated navy, to

be relinquished, as long as she can keep it open. Peace is in her hand,

whenever she will renounce the practice of aggression on the persons

of our citizens. If she thinks it worth eternal war, eternal war we

must have. She alleges that the sameness of language, of manners, of

appearance, renders it impossible to distinguish us from her subjects.

But because we speak English, and look like them, are we to be punished?

Are free and independent men to be submitted to their bondage?

England has misrepresented to all Europe this ground of the war. She

has called it a new pretension, set up since the repeal of her orders

of council. She knows there has never been a moment of suspension of our

reclamation against it, from General Washington's time inclusive, to the

present day; and that it is distinctly stated in our declaration of war,

as one of its principal causes. She has pretended we have entered into

the war to establish the principle of "free bottoms, free goods," or

to protect her seamen against her own rights over them. We contend for

neither of these. She pretends we are partial to France; that we have

observed a fraudulent and unfaithful neutrality between her and her enemy.

She knows this to be false, and that if there has been any inequality

in our proceedings towards the belligerents, it has been in her favor.

Her ministers are in possession of full proofs of this. Our accepting

at once, and sincerely, the mediation of the virtuous Alexander, their

greatest friend, and the most aggravated enemy of Bonaparte, sufficiently

proves whether we have partialities on the side of her enemy. I sincerely

pray that this mediation may produce a just peace. It will prove that

the immortal character, which has first stopped by war the career of

the destroyer of mankind, is the friend of peace, of justice, of human

happiness, and the patron of unoffending and injured nations. He is too

honest and impartial to countenance propositions of peace derogatory to

the freedom of the seas.

Shall I apologize to you, my dear Madam, for this long political

letter? But yours justifies the subject, and my feelings must plead

for the unreserved expression of them; and they have been the less

reserved, as being from a private citizen, retired from all connection

with the government of his country, and whose ideas, expressed without

communication with any one, are neither known, nor imputable to them.

The dangers of the sea are now so great, and the possibilities of

interception by sea and land such, that I shall subscribe no name to

this letter. You will know from whom it comes, by its reference to the

date of time and place of yours, as well as by its subject in answer to

that. This omission must not lessen in your view the assurances of my

great esteem, of my sincere sympathies for the share which you bear in

the afflictions of your country, and the deprivation to which a lawless

will has subjected you. In return, you enjoy the dignified satisfaction

of having met them, rather than be yoked with the abject, to his car;

and that, in withdrawing from oppression, you have followed the virtuous

example of a father whose name will ever be dear to your country and

to mankind. With my prayers that you may be restored to it, that you

may see it re-established in that temperate portion of liberty which

does not infer either anarchy or licentiousness, in that high degree

of prosperity which would be the consequence of such a government, in

that, in short, which the constitution of 1789 would have insured it,

if wisdom could have stayed at that point the fervid but imprudent zeal

of men, who did not know the character of their own countrymen, and

that you may long live in health and happiness under it, and leave to

the world a well-educated and virtuous representative and descendant of

your honored father, is the ardent prayer of the sincere and respectful

friend who writes this letter.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, May 27, 1813.

Another of our friends of seventy-six is gone, my dear Sir, another of

the co-signers of the Independence of our country. And a better man than

Rush could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer

genius, or more honest. We too must go; and that ere long. I believe we

are under half a dozen at present; I mean the signers of the Declaration.

Yourself, Gerry, Carroll, and myself, are all I know to be living. I

am the only one south of the Potomac. Is Robert Treat Payne, or Floyd

living? It is long since I heard of them, and yet I do not recollect to

have heard of their deaths.

Moreton's deduction of the origin of our Indians from the fugitive

Trojans, stated in your letter of January the 26th, and his manner of

accounting for the sprinkling of their Latin with Greek, is really

amusing. Adair makes them talk Hebrew. Reinold Foster derives them

from the soldiers sent by Kouli Khan to conquer Japan. Brerewood, from

the Tartars, as well as our bears, wolves, foxes, &c., which, he says,

"must of necessity fetch their beginning from Noah's ark, which rested,

after the deluge in Asia, seeing they could not proceed by the course of

nature, as the imperfect sort of living creatures do, from putrefaction."

Bernard Romans is of opinion that God created an original man and woman

in this part of the globe. Doctor Barton thinks they are not specifically

different from the Persians; but, taking afterwards a broader range,

he thinks, "that in all the vast countries of America, there is but one

language, nay, that it may be proven, or rendered highly probable, that

all the languages of the earth bear some affinity together." This reduces

it to a question of definition, in which every one is free to use his

own: to wit, what constitutes identity, or difference in two things, in

the common acceptation of _sameness_? All languages may be called the

same, as being all made up of the same primitive sounds, expressed by

the letters of the different alphabets. But, in this sense, all things

on earth are the same as consisting of matter. This gives up the useful

distribution into genera and species, which we form, arbitrarily indeed,

for the relief of our imperfect memories. To aid the question, from

whence our Indian tribes descended, some have gone into their religion,

their morals, their manners, customs, habits, and physical forms. By

such helps it may be learnedly proved, that our trees and plants of every

kind are descended from those of Europe; because, like them, they have no

locomotion, they draw nourishment from the earth, they clothe themselves

with leaves in spring, of which they divest themselves in autumn for

the sleep of winter, &c. Our animals too must be descended from those of

Europe, because our wolves eat lambs, our deer are gregarious, our ants

hoard, &c. But, when for convenience we distribute languages, according

to common understanding, into classes originally different, as we choose

to consider them, as the Hebrew, the Greek, the Celtic, the Gothic; and

these again into genera, or families, as the Icelandic, German, Swedish,

Danish, English; and these last into species, or dialects, as English,

Scotch, Irish, we then ascribe other meanings to the terms "same" and

"different." In some one of these senses, Barton, and Adair, and Foster,

and Brerewood, and Moreton, may be right, every one according to his

own definition of what constitutes "identity." Romans, indeed, takes a

higher stand, and supposes a separate creation. On the same unscriptural

ground, he had but to mount one step higher, to suppose no creation

at all, but that all things have existed without beginning in time, as

they now exist, and may forever exist, producing and reproducing in a

circle, without end. This would very summarily dispose of Mr. Moreton's

learning, and show that the question of Indian origin, like many others,

pushed to a certain height, must receive the same answer, "Ignoro."

You ask if the usage of hunting in circles has ever been known among

any of our tribes of Indians? It has been practised by them all; and is

to this day, by those still remote from the settlements of the whites.

But their numbers not enabling them, like Genghis Khan's seven hundred

thousand, to form themselves into circles of one hundred miles diameter,

they make their circle by firing the leaves fallen on the ground, which

gradually forcing the animals to a centre, they there slaughter them with

arrows, darts, and other missiles. This is called fire hunting, and has

been practised in this State within my time, by the white inhabitants.

This is the most probable cause of the origin and extension of the

vast prairies in the western country, where the grass having been of

extraordinary luxuriance, has made a conflagration sufficient to kill

even the old as well as the young timber.

I sincerely congratulate you on the successes of our little navy; which

must be more gratifying to you than to most men, as having been the early

and constant advocate of wooden walls. If I have differed with you on

this ground, it was not on the principle, but the time; supposing that

we cannot build or maintain a navy, which will not immediately fall into

the same gulf which has swallowed not only the minor navies, but even

those of the great second-rate powers of the sea. Whenever these can be

resuscitated, and brought so near to a balance with England that we can

turn the scale, then is my epoch for aiming at a navy. In the meantime,

one competent to keep the Barbary States in order, is necessary; these

being the only smaller powers disposed to quarrel with us. But I respect

too much the weighty opinions of others, to be unyielding on this point,

and acquiesce with the prayer "_quod felix faustumque sit_;" adding ever

a sincere one for your health and happiness.

TO COLONEL MONROE.

MONTICELLO, May 30, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for the communication of the President's Message,

which has not yet reached us through the public papers. It is an

interesting document, always looked for with anxiety, and the late one

is equally able as interesting. I hope Congress will act in conformity

with it, in all its parts. The unwarrantable ideas often expressed in the

newspapers, and by persons who ought to know better, that I intermeddle

in the Executive councils, and the indecent expressions, sometimes, of

a hope that Mr. Madison will pursue the principles of my administration,

expressions so disrespectful to his known abilities and dispositions, have

rendered it improper in me to hazard suggestions to him, on occasions

even where ideas might occur to me, that might accidentally escape him.

This reserve has been strengthened, too, by a consciousness that my

views must be very imperfect, from the want of a correct knowledge of

the whole ground.

I lately, however, hazarded to him a suggestion on the defence of

the Chesapeake, because, although decided on provisionally with the

Secretaries of War and the Navy formerly, yet as it was proposed only in

the case of war, which did not actually arise, and not relating to his

department, might not then have been communicated to him. Of this fact

my memory did not ascertain me. I will now hazard another suggestion

to yourself, which indeed grows out of that one: it is, the policy of

keeping our frigates together in a body, in some place where they can be

defended against a superior naval force, and from whence, nevertheless,

they can easily sally forth on the shortest warning. This would oblige

the enemy to take stations, or to cruise only in masses equal at least,

each of them, to our whole force; and of course they could be acting

only in two or three spots at a time, and the whole of our coast, except

the two or three portions where they might be present, would be open

to exportation and importation. I think all that part of the United

States over which the waters of the Chesapeake spread themselves, was

blockaded in the early season by a single ship. This would keep our

frigates in entire safety, as they would go out only occasionally to

oppress a blockading force known to be weaker than themselves, and thus

make them a real protection to our whole commerce. And it seems to me

that this would be a more essential service, than that of going out by

ones, or twos, in search of adventures, which contribute little to the

protection of our commerce, and not at all to the defence of our coast,

or the shores of our inland waters. A defence of these by militia is

most harassing to them. The applications from Maryland, which I have

seen in the papers, and those from Virginia, which I suspect, merely

because I see such masses of the militia called off from their farms,

must be embarrassing to the Executive, not only from a knowledge of

the incompetency of such a mode of defence, but from the exhausture

of funds which ought to be husbanded for the effectual operations of a

long war. I fear, too, it will render the militia discontented, perhaps

clamorous for an end of the war on any terms. I am happy to see that

it is entirely popular as yet, and that no symptom of flinching from it

appears among the people, as far as I can judge from the public papers,

or from my own observation, limited to the few counties adjacent to the

two branches of James river. I have such confidence that what I suggest

has been already maturely discussed in the Cabinet, and that for wise

and sufficient reasons the present mode of employing the frigates is the

best, that I hesitate about sending this even after having written. Yet

in that case it will only have given you the trouble of reading it. You

will bury it in your own breast, as _non-avenue_, and see in it only an

unnecessary zeal on my part, and a proof of the unlimited confidence of

yours ever and affectionately.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, June 15, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--I wrote you a letter on the 27th of May, which probably would

reach you about the 3d instant, and on the 9th I received yours of the

29th of May. Of Lindsay's Memoirs I had never before heard, and scarcely

indeed of himself. It could not, therefore, but be unexpected, that two

letters of mine should have anything to do with his life. The name of his

editor was new to me, and certainly presents itself for the first time

under unfavorable circumstances. Religion, I suppose, is the scope of

his book; and that a writer on that subject should usher himself to the

world in the very act of the grossest abuse of confidence, by publishing

private letters which passed between two friends, with no views to their

ever being made public, is an instance of inconsistency as well as of

infidelity, of which I would rather be the victim than the author.

By your kind quotation of the dates of my two letters, I have been enabled

to turn to them. They had completely vanished from my memory. The last

is on the subject of religion, and by its publication will gratify the

priesthood with new occasion of repeating their comminations against me.

They wish it to be believed that he can have no religion who advocates

its freedom. This was not the doctrine of Priestley; and I honored him

for the example of liberality he set to his order. The first letter is

political. It recalls to our recollection the gloomy transactions of the

times, the doctrines they witnessed, and the sensibilities they excited.

It was a confidential communication of reflections on these from one

friend to another, deposited in his bosom, and never meant to trouble

the public mind. Whether the character of the times is justly portrayed

or not, posterity will decide. But on one feature of them they can never

decide, the sensations excited in free yet firm minds by the terrorism

of the day. None can conceive who did not witness them, and they were

felt by one party only. This letter exhibits their side of the medal.

The federalists, no doubt, have presented the other in their private

correspondences as well as open action. If these correspondences should

ever be laid open to the public eye, they will probably be found not

models of comity towards their adversaries. The readers of my letter

should be cautioned not to confine its view to this country alone. England

and its alarmists were equally under consideration. Still less must they

consider it as looking personally towards you. You happen, indeed, to

be quoted, because you happened to express more pithily than had been

done by themselves, one of the mottos of the party. This was in your

answer to the address of the young men of Philadelphia. [See Selection

of Patriotic Addresses, page 198.] One of the questions, you know, on

which our parties took different sides, was on the improvability of the

human mind in science, in ethics, in government, &c. Those who advocated

reformation of institutions, _pari passu_ with the progress of science,

maintained that no definite limits could be assigned to that progress. The

enemies of reform, on the other hand, denied improvement, and advocated

steady adherence to the principles, practices and institutions of our

fathers, which they represented as the consummation of wisdom, and acme

of excellence, beyond which the human mind could never advance. Although

in the passage of your answer alluded to, you expressly disclaim the wish

to influence the freedom of inquiry, you predict that that will produce

nothing more worthy of transmission to posterity than the principles,

institutions and systems of education received from their ancestors. I

do not consider this as your deliberate opinion. You possess, yourself,

too much science, not to see how much is still ahead of you, unexplained

and unexplored. Your own consciousness must place you as far before our

ancestors as in the rear of our posterity. I consider it as an expression

lent to the prejudices of your friends; and although I happened to cite

it from you, the whole letter shows I had them only in view. In truth,

my dear Sir, we were far from considering you as the author of all the

measures we blamed. They were placed under the protection of your name,

but we were satisfied they wanted much of your approbation. We ascribed

them to their real authors, the Pickerings, the Wolcotts, the Tracys,

the Sedgwicks, et _id genus omne_, with whom we supposed you in a state

of duress. I well remember a conversation with you in the morning of the

day on which you nominated to the Senate a substitute for Pickering, in

which you expressed a just impatience under "the legacy of secretaries

which General Washington had left you," and whom you seemed, therefore,

to consider as under public protection. Many other incidents showed how

differently you would have acted with less impassioned advisers; and

subsequent events have proved that your minds were not together. You

would do me great injustice, therefore, by taking to yourself what was

intended for men who were then your secret, as they are now your open

enemies. Should you write on the subject, as you propose, I am sure we

shall see you place yourself farther from them than from us.

As to myself, I shall take no part in any discussions. I leave others to

judge of what I have done, and to give me exactly that place which they

shall think I have occupied. Marshall has written libels on one side;

others, I suppose, will be written on the other side; and the world will

sift both and separate the truth as well as they can. I should see with

reluctance the passions of that day rekindled in this, while so many of

the actors are living, and all are too near the scene not to participate

in sympathies with them. About facts you and I cannot differ; because

truth is our mutual guide. And if any opinions you may express should

be different from mine, I shall receive them with the liberality and

indulgence which I ask for my own, and still cherish with warmth the

sentiments of affectionate respect, of which I can with so much truth

tender you the assurance.

TO MR. SHORT.

MONTICELLO, June 18, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Yours of the 2d is received, and a copy of Higgenbotham's

mortgage is now enclosed. The journey to Bedford which I proposed in my

last, my engagements here have obliged me to postpone till after harvest,

which is now approaching; it is the most unpromising one I have seen. We

have been some days in expectation of seeing M. Correa. If he is on the

road, he has had some days of our very hottest weather. My thermometer

has been for two days at 92 and 92½°, the last being the maximum ever

seen here. Although we usually have the hottest day of the year in June,

yet it is soon interrupted by cooler weather. In July the heat, though

not so great, is more continuous and steady.

On the duration of the war I think there is uncertainty. Ever since

the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, the object of Great Britain has

visibly been the permanent conquest of the ocean, and levying a tribute

on every vessel she permits to sail on it, as the Barbary powers do on

the Mediterranean, which they call their sea. She must be conscious she

cannot from her own resources maintain the exaggerated fleet she now has,

and which is necessary to maintain her conquest; she must, therefore,

levy the deficiency of duties of transit on other nations. If she should

get another ministry with sense enough to abandon this senseless scheme,

the war with us ought to be short, because there is no material cause

now existing but impressment; and there our only difference is how to

establish a mode of discrimination between our citizens which she does

not claim, and hers which it is neither our wish or interest ever to

employ. The seamen which our navigation raises had better be of our

own. If this be all she aims at, it may be settled at Saint Petersburg.

My principle has ever been that war should not suspend either exports

or imports. If the piracies of France and England, however, are to be

adopted as the law of nations, or should become their practice, it will

oblige us to manufacture at home all the material comforts.

This may furnish a reason to check imports until necessary manufactures

are established among us. This offers the advantage, too, of placing the

consumer of our produce near the producer, but I should disapprove of

the prohibition of exports even to the enemy themselves, except indeed

refreshments and water to their cruisers on our coast, in order to oblige

them to intermit their cruises to go elsewhere for these supplies. The

idea of starving them as to bread, is a very idle one. It is dictated by

passion, not by reason. If the war is lengthened we shall take Canada,

which will relieve us from Indians, and Halifax, which will put an end

to their occupation of the American seas, because every vessel must then

go to England to repair every accident. To retain these would become

objects of first importance to us, and of great importance to Europe,

as the means of curtailing the British marine. But at present, being

merely _in posse_, they should not be an impediment to peace. We have a

great and a just claim of indemnifications against them for the thousand

ships they have taken piratically, and six thousand seamen impressed.

Whether we can, on this score, successfully insist on curtailing their

American possessions, by the meridian of Lake Huron, so as to cut them

off from the Indians bordering on us, would be matter for conversation

and experiment at the treaty of pacification. I sometimes allow my mind

to wander thus into the political field, but rarely, and with reluctance.

It is my desire as well as my duty to leave to the vigor of younger minds

to settle concerns which are no longer mine, but must long be theirs.

Affectionately adieu.

TO ----.

Your kind answer of the 16th entirely satisfies my doubts as to the

employment of the navy, if kept within striking distance of our coast;

and shows how erroneous views are apt to be with those who have not

all in view. Yet as I know from experience that profitable suggestions

sometimes come from lookers on, they may be usefully tolerated, provided

they do not pretend to the right of an answer. They would cost very

dear indeed were they to occupy the time of a high officer in writing

when he should be acting. I intended no such trouble to you, my dear

Sir, and were you to suppose I expected it, I must cease to offer a

thought on our public affairs. Although my entire confidence in their

direction prevents my reflecting on them but accidentally, yet sometimes

facts, and sometimes ideas occur, which I hazard as worth the trouble

of reading but not of answering. Of this kind was my suggestion of the

facts which I recollected as to the defence of the Chesapeake, and of

what had been contemplated at the time between the Secretaries of War

and the Navy and myself. If our views were sound, the object might be

effected in one year, even of war, and at an expense which is nothing

compared to the population and productions it would cover. We are here

laboring under the most extreme drought ever remembered at this season.

We have had but one rain to lay the dust in two months. That was a good

one, but was three weeks ago. Corn is but a few inches high and dying.

Oats will not yield their seed. Of wheat, the hard winter and fly leave

us about two-thirds of an ordinary crop. So that in the lotteries of

human life you see that even farming is but gambling. We have had three

days of excessive heat. The thermometer on the 16th was at 92°, on the

17th 92½°, and yesterday at 93°. It had never before exceeded 92½ at

this place; at least within the periods of my observations. Ever and

affectionately yours.

TO COLONEL MONROE.

MONTICELLO, June 18, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Your favors of the 7th and 16th are received, and I now

return you the memoir enclosed in the former. I am much gratified by its

communication, because, as the plan appeared in the newspapers soon after

the new Secretary of War came into office, we had given him the credit

of it. Every line of it is replete with wisdom; and we might lament that

our tardy enlistments prevented its execution, were we not to reflect

that these proceeded from the happiness of our people at home. It is more

a subject of joy that we have so few of the desperate characters which

compose modern regular armies. But it proves more forcibly the necessity

of obliging every citizen to be a soldier; this was the case with the

Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free State. Where there

is no oppression there will be no pauper hirelings. We must train and

classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction

a regular part of collegiate education. We can never be safe till this

is done.

I have been persuaded, _ab initio_, that what we are to do in Canada

must be done quickly; because our enemy, with a little time, can empty

pickpockets upon us faster than we can enlist honest men to oppose them.

If we fail in this acquisition, Hull is the cause of it. Pike, in his

situation, would have swept their posts to Montreal, because his army

would have grown as it went along. I fear the reinforcements arrived

at Quebec will be at Montreal before General Dearborne, and if so, the

game is up. If the marching of the militia into an enemy's country be

once ceded as unconstitutional (which I hope it never will be), then

will their force, as now strengthened, bid us permanent defiance. Could

we acquire that country, we might perhaps insist successfully at St.

Petersburg on retaining all westward of the meridian of Lake Huron, or

of Ontario, or of Montreal, according to the pulse of the place, as an

indemnification for the past and security for the future. To cut them off

from the Indians even west of the Huron would be a great future security.

Your kind answer of the 16th, entirely satisfies my doubts as to the

employment of a navy, if kept within striking distance of our coast, and

shows how erroneous views are apt to be with those who have not all in

view. Yet, as I know by experience that profitable suggestions sometimes

come from lookers on, they may be usefully tolerated, provided they

do not pretend to the right of an answer. They would cost very dear,

indeed, were they to occupy the time of a high officer in writing when

he should be acting. * * * * *

TO MR. MATTHEW CARR.

MONTICELLO, June 19, 1813.

SIR,--I thank you for the copy of Mr. Clarke's sketches of the naval

history of the United States, which you have been so kind as to send me.

It is a convenient repository of cases of that class, and has brought to

my recollection a number of individual cases of the Revolutionary war

which had escaped me. I received, also one of Mr. Clarke's circulars,

asking supplementary communications for a second edition. But these

things are so much out of the reach of my inland situation, that I am

the least able of all men to contribute anything to his desire. I will

indulge myself, therefore, in two or three observations, of which you

will make what use you may think they merit. 1. Bushnel's Turtle is

mentioned slightly. Would the description of the machine be too much

for the sale of the work? It may be found very minutely given in the

American Philosophical transactions. It was excellently contrived, and

might perhaps, by improvement, be brought into real use. I do not know

the difference between this and Mr. Fulton's submarine boat. But an

effectual machine of that kind is not beyond the laws of nature; and

whatever is within these, is not to be despaired of. It would be to the

United States the consummation of their safety. 2. The account of the loss

of the Philadelphia, does not give a fair impression of the transaction.

The proofs may be seen among the records of the Navy office. After this

loss, Capt. Bainbridge had a character to redeem. He has done it most

honorably, and no one is more gratified by it than myself. But still the

transaction ought to be correctly stated. 3. But why omit all mention of

the scandalous campaigns of Commodore Morris? A two years' command of an

effective squadron, with discretionary instructions, wasted in sailing

from port to port of the Mediterranean, and a single half day before the

port of the enemy against which he was sent. All this can be seen in

the proceedings of the court on which he was dismissed; and it is due

to the honorable truths with which the book abounds, to publish those

which are not so. A fair and honest narrative of the bad, is a voucher

for the truth of the good. In this way the old Congress set an example

to the world, for which the world amply repaid them, by giving unlimited

credit to whatever was stamped with the name of Charles Thompson. It is

known that this was never put to an untruth but once, and that where

Congress was misled by the credulity of their General (Sullivan). The

first misfortune of the Revolutionary war, induced a motion to suppress

or garble the account of it. It was rejected with indignation. The whole

truth was given in all its details, and there never was another attempt

in that body to disguise it. These observations are meant for the good

of the work, and for the honor of those whom it means to honor. Accept

the assurance of my esteem and respect.

TO PRESIDENT MADISON.

MONTICELLO, June 21, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 6th has been received, and I will beg leave

to add a few supplementary observations on the subject of my former

letter. I am not a judge of the best forms which may be given to the

gunboat; and indeed I suppose they should be of various forms, suited

to the various circumstances to which they would be applied. Among

these, no doubt, Commodore Barney's would find their place. While the

largest and more expensive are fitted for moving from one seaport to

another, coast-wise, to aid in a particular emergency, those of smaller

draught and expense suit shallower waters; and of these shallow and

cheap forms must be those for Lynhaven river. Commodore Preble, in his

lifetime, undertook to build such in the best manner for two or three

thousand dollars. Colonel Monroe, to whose knowledge of the face of the

country I had referred, approves, in a letter to me, of such a plan of

defence as was suggested, adding to it a fort on the middle grounds;

but thinks the work too great to be executed during a war. Such a fort,

certainly, could not be built during a war, in the face of an enemy.

Its practicability at any time has been doubted, and although a good

auxiliary, is not a necessary member of this scheme of defence. But the

canal of retreat is really a small work, of a few months' execution;

the laborers would be protected by the military guard on the spot, and

many of these would assist in the execution, for fatigue, rations, and

pay. The exact magnitude of the work I would not affirm, nor do I think

we should trust for it to Tatham's survey: still less would I call in

Latrobe, who would immediately contemplate a canal of Languedoc. I would

sooner trust such a man as Thomas Monroe to take the level, measure the

distances, and estimate the expense. And if the plan were all matured

the ensuing winter, and laborers engaged at the proper season, it might

be executed in time to mitigate the blockade of the next summer. On

recurring to an actual survey of that part of the country, made in the

beginning of the Revolutionary war, under the orders of the Governor

and Council, by Mr. Andrews I think, a copy of which I took with great

care, instead of the half a dozen miles I had conjectured in my former

letter, the canal would seem to be of not half that length. I send you

a copy of that part of the map, which may be useful to you on other

occasions, and is more to be depended on for minutia, probably, than

any other existing. I have marked on that the conjectured route of the

canal, to wit, from the bridge on Lynhaven river to King's landing, on

the eastern branch. The exact draught of water into Lynhaven river you

have in the Navy office. I think it is over four feet.

When we consider the population and productions of the Chesapeake country,

extending from the Génissee to the Saura towns and Albemarle Sound, its

safety and commerce seem entitled even to greater efforts, if greater

could secure them. That a defence at the entrance of the bay can be made

mainly effective, that it will cost less in money, harass the militia

less, place the inhabitants on its interior waters freer from alarm

and depredation, and render provisions and water more difficult to the

enemy, is so possible as to render thorough inquiry certainly expedient.

Some of the larger gun-boats, or vessels better uniting swiftness with

force, would also be necessary to scour the interior, and cut off any

pickaroons which might venture up the bay or rivers. The loss on James'

river alone, this year, is estimated at two hundred thousand barrels of

flour, now on hand, for which the half price is not to be expected. This

then is a million of dollars levied on a single water of the Chesapeake,

and to be levied every year during the war. If a concentration of its

defence at the entrance of the Chesapeake should be found inadequate,

then we must of necessity submit to the expenses of detailed defence,

to the harassment of the militia, the burnings of towns and houses,

depredations of farms, and the hard trial of the spirit of the Middle

States, the most zealous supporters of the war, and, therefore, the

peculiar objects of the vindictive efforts of the enemy. Those north of

the Hudson need nothing, because treated by the enemy as neutrals. All

their war is concentrated on the Delaware and Chesapeake; and these,

therefore, stand in principal need of the shield of the Union. The

Delaware can be defended more easily. But I should not think one hundred

gun-boats (costing less than one frigate) an over-proportioned allotment

to the Chesapeake country, against the over-proportioned hostilities

pointed at it.

I am too sensible of the partial and defective state of my information,

to be over-confident, or pertinacious, in the opinion I have formed.

A thorough examination of the ground will settle it. We may suggest,

perhaps it is a duty to do it. But you alone are qualified for decision,

by the whole view which you can command; and so confident am I in the

intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be

satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

While I trust that no difficulties will dishearten us, I am anxious to

lessen the trial as much as possible. Heaven preserve you under yours,

and help you through all its perplexities and perversities.

TO JOHN W. EPPES.

MONTICELLO, June 24, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--This letter will be on politics only. For although I do not

often permit myself to think on that subject, it sometimes obtrudes

itself, and suggests ideas which I am tempted to pursue. Some of these

relating to the business of finance, I will hazard to you, as being at

the head of that committee, but intended for yourself individually, or

such as you trust, but certainly not for a mixed committee.

It is a wise rule, and should be fundamental in a government disposed

to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it

within the limits of its faculties, "never to borrow a dollar without

laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and

the principle within a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to

the creditors on the public faith." On such a pledge as this, sacredly

observed, a government may always command, on a _reasonable interest_,

all the lendable money of their citizens, while the necessity of an

equivalent tax is a salutary warning to them and their constituents

against oppressions, bankruptcy, and its inevitable consequence,

revolution. But the term of redemption must be moderate, and at any

rate within the limits of their rightful powers. But what limits, it

will be asked, does this prescribe to their powers? What is to hinder

them from creating a perpetual debt? The laws of nature, I answer. The

earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. The will and the power

of man expire with his life, by nature's law. Some societies give it an

artificial continuance, for the encouragement of industry; some refuse

it, as our aboriginal neighbors, whom we call barbarians. The generations

of men may be considered as bodies or corporations. Each generation has

the usufruct of the earth during the period of its continuance. When it

ceases to exist, the usufruct passes on to the succeeding generation,

free and unincumbered, and so on, successively, from one generation to

another forever. We may consider each generation as a distinct nation,

with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none

to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another

country. Or the case may be likened to the ordinary one of a tenant for

life, who may hypothecate the land for his debts, during the continuance

of his usufruct; but at his death, the reversioner (who is also for life

only) receives it exonerated from all burthen. The period of a generation,

or the term of its life, is determined by the laws of mortality, which,

varying a little only in different climates, offer a general average,

to be found by observation. I turn, for instance, to Buffon's tables, of

twenty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four deaths, and the ages

at which they happened, and I find that of the numbers of all ages living

at one moment, half will be dead in twenty-four years and eight months.

But (leaving out minors, who have not the power of self-government) of

the adults (of twenty-one years of age) living at one moment, a majority

of whom act for the society, one half will be dead in eighteen years

and eight months. At nineteen years then from the date of a contract,

the majority of the contractors are dead, and their contract with them.

Let this general theory be applied to a particular case. Suppose the

annual births of the State of New York to be twenty-three thousand nine

hundred and ninety-four, the whole number of its inhabitants, according

to Buffon, will be six hundred and seventeen thousand seven hundred

and three, of all ages. Of these there would constantly be two hundred

and sixty-nine thousand two hundred and eighty-six minors, and three

hundred and forty-eight thousand four hundred and seventeen adults, of

which last, one hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and nine

will be a majority. Suppose that majority, on the first day of the year

1794, had borrowed a sum of money equal to the fee-simple value of the

State, and to have consumed it in eating, drinking and making merry in

their day; or, if you please, in quarrelling and fighting with their

unoffending neighbors. Within eighteen years and eight months, one half

of the adult citizens were dead. Till then, being the majority, they

might rightfully levy the interest of their debt annually on themselves

and their fellow-revellers, or fellow-champions. But at that period,

say at this moment, a new majority have come into place, in their

own right, and not under the rights, the conditions, or laws of their

predecessors. Are they bound to acknowledge the debt, to consider the

preceding generation as having had a right to eat up the whole soil

of their country, in the course of a life, to alienate it from them,

(for it would be an alienation to the creditors,) and would they think

themselves either legally or morally bound to give up their country and

emigrate to another for subsistence? Every one will say no; that the soil

is the gift of God to the living, as much as it had been to the deceased

generation; and that the laws of nature impose no obligation on them to

pay this debt. And although, like some other natural rights, this has

not yet entered into any declaration of rights, it is no less a law, and

ought to be acted on by honest governments. It is, at the same time,

a salutary curb on the spirit of war and indebtment, which, since the

modern theory of the perpetuation of debt, has drenched the earth with

blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burthens ever accumulating. Had

this principle been declared in the British bill of rights, England would

have been placed under the happy disability of waging eternal war, and

of contracting her thousand millions of public debt. In seeking, then,

for an ultimate term for the redemption of our debts, let us rally to

this principle, and provide for their payment within the term of nineteen

years at the farthest. Our government has not, as yet, begun to act on

the rule of loans and taxation going hand in hand. Had any loan taken

place in my time, I should have strongly urged a redeeming tax. For the

loan which has been made since the last session of Congress, we should

now set the example of appropriating some particular tax, sufficient

to pay the interest annually, and the principle within a fixed term,

less than nineteen years. And I hope yourself and your committee will

render the immortal service of introducing this practice. Not that it

is expected that Congress should formally declare such a principle They

wisely enough avoid deciding on abstract questions. But they may be

induced to keep themselves within its limits.

I am sorry to see our loans begin at so exorbitant an interest. And yet,

even at that you will soon be at the bottom of the loan-bag. We are an

agricultural nation. Such an one employs its sparings in the purchase or

improvement of land or stocks. The lendable money among them is chiefly

that of orphans and wards in the hands of executors and guardians, and

that which the farmer lays by till he has enough for the purchase in

view. In such a nation there is one and one only resource for loans,

sufficient to carry them through the expense of a war; and that will

always be sufficient, and in the power of an honest government, punctual

in the preservation of its faith. The fund I mean, is _the mass of

circulating coin_. Every one knows, that although not literally, it is

nearly true, that every paper dollar emitted banishes a silver one from

the circulation. A nation, therefore, making its purchases and payments

with bills fitted for circulation, thrusts an equal sum of coin out of

circulation. This is equivalent to borrowing that sum, and yet the vendor

receiving payment in a medium as effectual as coin for his purchases

or payments, has no claim to interest. And so the nation may continue

to issue its bills as far as its wants require, and the limits of the

circulation will admit. Those limits are understood to extend with us at

present, to two hundred millions of dollars, a greater sum than would be

necessary for any war. But this, the only resource which the government

could command with certainty, the States have unfortunately fooled away,

nay corruptly alienated to swindlers and shavers, under the cover of

private banks. Say, too, as an additional evil, that the disposal funds

of individuals, to this great amount, have thus been withdrawn from

improvement and useful enterprise, and employed in the useless, usurious

and demoralizing practices of bank directors and their accomplices. In

the war of 1755, our State availed itself of this fund by issuing a paper

money, bottomed on a specific tax for its redemption, and, to insure its

credit, bearing an interest of five per cent. Within a very short time,

not a bill of this emission was to be found in circulation. It was locked

up in the chests of executors, guardians, widows, farmers, &c. We then

issued bills bottomed on a redeeming tax, but bearing no interest. These

were readily received, and never depreciated a single farthing. In the

revolutionary war, the old Congress and the States issued bills without

interest, and without tax. They occupied the channels of circulation very

freely, till those channels were overflowed by an excess beyond all the

calls of circulation. But although we have so improvidently suffered the

field of circulating medium to be filched from us by private individuals,

yet I think we may recover it in part, and even in the whole, if the

States will co-operate with us. If treasury bills are emitted on a tax

appropriated for their redemption in fifteen years, and (to insure

preference in the first moments of competition) bearing an interest

of six per cent. there is no one who would not take them in preference

to the bank paper now afloat, on a principle of patriotism as well as

interest; and they would be withdrawn from circulation into private

hoards to a considerable amount. Their credit once established, others

might be emitted, bottomed also on a tax, but not bearing interest; and

if ever their credit faltered, open public loans, on which these bills

alone should be received as specie. These, operating as a sinking fund,

would reduce the quantity in circulation, so as to maintain that in an

equilibrium with specie. It is not easy to estimate the obstacles which,

in the beginning, we should encounter in ousting the banks from their

possession of the circulation; but a steady and judicious alternation of

emissions and loans, would reduce them in time. But while this is going

on, another measure should be pressed, to recover ultimately our right to

the circulation. The States should be applied to, to transfer the right

of issuing circulating paper to Congress exclusively, _in perpetuum_, if

possible, but during the war at least, with a saving of charter rights.

I believe that every State west and South of Connecticut river, except

Delaware, would immediately do it; and the others would follow in time.

Congress would, of course, begin by obliging unchartered banks to wind

up their affairs within a short time, and the others as their charters

expired, forbidding the subsequent circulation of their paper. This they

would supply with their own, bottomed, every emission, on an adequate

tax, and bearing or not bearing interest, as the state of the public

pulse should indicate. Even in the non-complying States, these bills

would make their way, and supplant the unfunded paper of their banks,

by their solidity, by the universality of their currency, and by their

receivability for customs and taxes. It would be in their power, too, to

curtail those banks to the amount of their actual specie, by gathering

up their paper, and running it constantly on them. The national paper

might thus take place even in the non-complying States. In this way,

I am not without a hope, that this great, this sole resource for loans

in an agricultural country, might yet be recovered for the use of the

nation during war; and, if obtained _in perpetuum_, it would always be

sufficient to carry us through any war; provided, that in the interval

between war and war, all the outstanding paper should be called in,

coin be permitted to flow in again, and to hold the field of circulation

until another war should require its yielding place again to the national

medium.

But it will be asked, are we to have no banks? Are merchants and others to

be deprived of the resource of short accommodations, found so convenient?

I answer, let us have banks; but let them be such as are alone to be

found in any country on earth, except Great Britain. There is not a

bank of discount on the continent of Europe, (at least there was not

one when I was there,) which offers anything but cash in exchange for

discounted bills. No one has a natural right to the trade of a money

lender, but he who has the money to lend. Let those then among us, who

have a monied capital, and who prefer employing it in loans rather than

otherwise, set up banks, and give cash or national bills for the notes

they discount. Perhaps, to encourage them, a larger interest than is

legal in the other cases might be allowed them, on the condition of

their lending for short periods only. It is from Great Britain we copy

the idea of giving paper in exchange for discounted bills; and while we

have derived from that country some good principles of government and

legislation, we unfortunately run into the most servile imitation of all

her practices, ruinous as they prove to her, and with the gulph yawning

before us into which these very practices are precipitating her. The

unlimited emission of bank paper has banished all her specie, and is

now, by a depreciation acknowledged by her own statesmen, carrying her

rapidly to bankruptcy, as it did France, as it did us, and will do us

again, and every country permitting paper to be circulated, other than

that by public authority, rigorously limited to the just measure for

circulation. Private fortunes, in the present state of our circulation,

are at the mercy of those self-created money lenders, and are prostrated

by the floods of nominal money with which their avarice deluges us.

He who lent his money to the public or to an individual, before the

institution of the United States Bank, twenty years ago, when wheat was

well sold at a dollar the bushel, and receives now his nominal sum when

it sells at two dollars, is cheated of half his fortune; and by whom? By

the banks, which, since that, have thrown into circulation ten dollars

of their nominal money where was one at that time.

Reflect, if you please, on these ideas, and use them or not as they

appear to merit. They comfort me in the belief, that they point out a

resource ample enough, without overwhelming war taxes, for the expense

of the war, and possibly still recoverable; and that they hold up to

all future time a resource within ourselves, ever at the command of

government, and competent to any wars into which we may be forced. Nor

is it a slight object to equalize taxes through peace and war.

* * * * *

Ever affectionately yours

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, June 27, 1813.

Ιδαν ες πολυδενδρον ανηρ ὑλητομος ελθων

Παπταινει, παρεοντος αδην, ποθεν αρξεται εργου

Τι πρατον καταλεξω; επει παρα μυρια ειπην.

And I too, my dear Sir, like the wood-cutter of Ida, should doubt where

to begin, were I to enter the forest of opinions, discussions, and

contentions which have occurred in our day. I should say with Theocritus,

Τι πρατον καταλεξω; επει παρα μυρια ειπην. But I shall not do it.

The _summum bonum_ with me is now truly epicurian, ease of body and

tranquillity of mind; and to these I wish to consign my remaining days.

Men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these

opinions, from the first origin of societies, and in all governments

where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same

political parties which now agitate the United States, have existed

through all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the αριστοι

should prevail, were questions which kept the States of Greece and Rome

in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds

and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. And in fact, the terms

of whig and tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They

denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals. To

come to our own country, and to the times when you and I became first

acquainted, we well remember the violent parties which agitated the old

Congress, and their bitter contests. There you and I were together, and

the Jays, and the Dickinsons, and other anti-independents, were arrayed

against us. They cherished the monarchy of England, and we the rights

of our countrymen. When our present government was in the mew, passing

from Confederation to Union, how bitter was the schism between the

Feds and Antis. Here you and I were together again. For although, for

a moment, separated by the Atlantic from the scene of action, I favored

the opinion that nine States should confirm the constitution, in order

to secure it, and the others hold off until certain amendments, deemed

favorable to freedom, should be made. I rallied in the first instant

to the wiser proposition of Massachusetts, that all should confirm,

and then all instruct their delegates to urge those amendments. The

amendments were made, and all were reconciled to the government. But as

soon as it was put into motion, the line of division was again drawn. We

broke into two parties, each wishing to give the government a different

direction; the one to strengthen the most popular branch, the other the

more permanent branches, and to extend their permanence. Here you and I

separated for the first time, and as we had been longer than most others

on the public theatre, and our names therefore were more familiar to our

countrymen, the party which considered you as thinking with them, placed

your name at their head; the other, for the same reason, selected mine.

But neither decency nor inclination permitted us to become the advocates

of ourselves, or to take part personally in the violent contests which

followed. We suffered ourselves, as you so well expressed it, to be

passive subjects of public discussion. And these discussions, whether

relating to men, measures or opinions, were conducted by the parties

with an animosity, a bitterness and an indecency which had never been

exceeded. All the resources of reason and of wrath were exhausted by each

party in support of its own, and to prostrate the adversary opinions;

one was upbraided with receiving the anti-federalists, the other the

old tories and refugees, into their bosom. Of this acrimony, the public

papers of the day exhibit ample testimony, in the debates of Congress,

of State Legislatures, of stump-orators, in addresses, answers, and

newspaper essays; and to these, without question, may be added the

private correspondences of individuals; and the less guarded in these,

because not meant for the public eye, not restrained by the respect

due to that, but poured forth from the overflowings of the heart into

the bosom of a friend, as a momentary easement of our feelings. In this

way, and in answers to addresses, you and I could indulge ourselves. We

have probably done it, sometimes with warmth, often with prejudice, but

always, as we believed, adhering to truth. I have not examined my letters

of that day. I have no stomach to revive the memory of its feelings. But

one of these letters, it seems, has got before the public, by accident

and infidelity, by the death of one friend to whom it was written, and

of his friend to whom it had been communicated, and by the malice and

treachery of a third person, of whom I had never before heard, merely to

make mischief, and in the same satanic spirit in which the same enemy

had intercepted and published, in 1776, your letter animadverting on

Dickinson's character. How it happened that I quoted you in my letter

to Doctor Priestley, and for whom, and not for yourself, the strictures

were meant, has been explained to you in my letter of the 15th, which

had been committed to the post eight days before I received yours of the

10th, 11th and 14th. That gave you the reference which these asked to

the particular answer alluded to in the one to Priestley. The renewal of

these old discussions, my friend, would be equally useless and irksome.

To the volumes then written on these subjects, human ingenuity can add

nothing new, and the rather, as lapse of time has obliterated many of

the facts. And shall you and I, my dear Sir, at our age, like Priam of

old, gird on the _arma, diu desueta, trementibus œvo humeris_? Shall

we, at our age, become the Athletæ of party, and exhibit ourselves as

gladiators in the arena of the newspapers? Nothing in the universe could

induce me to it. My mind has been long fixed to bow to the judgment of

the world, who will judge by my acts, and will never take counsel from

me as to what that judgment shall be. If your objects and opinions have

been misunderstood, if the measures and principles of others have been

wrongfully imputed to you, as I believe they have been, that you should

leave an explanation of them, would be an act of justice to yourself. I

will add, that it has been hoped that you would leave such explanations

as would place every saddle on its right horse, and replace on the

shoulders of others the burthens they shifted on yours.

But all this, my friend, is offered, merely for your consideration and

judgment, without presuming to anticipate what you alone are qualified

to decide for yourself. I mean to express my own purpose only, and the

reflections which have led to it. To me, then, it appears, that there

have been differences of opinion and party differences, from the first

establishment of governments to the present day, and on the same question

which now divides our own country; that these will continue through all

future time; that every one takes his side in favor of the many, or of

the few, according to his constitution, and the circumstances in which

he is placed; that opinions, which are equally honest on both sides,

should not affect personal esteem or social intercourse; that as we judge

between the Claudii and the Gracchi, the Wentworths and the Hampdens of

past ages, so of those among us whose names may happen to be remembered

for awhile, the next generations will judge, favorably or unfavorably,

according to the complexion of individual minds, and the side they shall

themselves have taken; that nothing new can be added by you or me to

what has been said by others, and will be said in every age in support

of the conflicting opinions on government; and that wisdom and duty

dictate an humble resignation to the verdict of our future peers. In

doing this myself, I shall certainly not suffer moot questions to affect

the sentiments of sincere friendship and respect, consecrated to you by

so long a course of time, and of which I now repeat sincere assurances.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, June 28, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--I know not what, unless it were the prophet of Tippecanoe,

had turned my curiosity to inquiries after the metaphysical science

of the Indians, their ecclesiastical establishments, and theological

theories; but your letter, written with all the accuracy, perpiscuity,

and elegance of your youth and middle age, as it has given me great

satisfaction, deserves my best thanks.

It has given me satisfaction, because, while it has furnished me with

information _where_ all the knowledge is to be obtained that books

afford, it has convinced me that I shall never know much more of the

subject than I do now. As I have never aimed at making my collection of

books upon this subject, I have none of those you abridged in so concise

a manner. Lafitan Adair, and De Bry, were known to me only by name.

The various ingenuity which has been displayed in inventions of

hypothesis, to account for the original population of America, and the

immensity of learning profusely expended to support them, have appeared to

me for a longer time than I can precisely recollect, what the physicians

call the _Literæ nihil Sanantes_. Whether serpents teeth were sown here

and sprang up men; whether men and women dropped from the clouds upon

this Atlantic Island; whether the Almighty created them here, or whether

they emigrated from Europe, are questions of no moment to the present or

future happiness of man. Neither agriculture, commerce, manufactures,

fisheries, science, literature, taste, religion, morals, nor any other

good will be promoted, or any evil averted, by any discoveries that can

be made in answer to these questions.

The opinions of the Indians and their usages, as they are represented

in your obliging letter of the 11th of June, appear to me to resemble

the Platonizing Philo, or the Philonizing Plato, more than the genuine

system of Indianism.

The philosophy both of Philo and Plato are at least as absurd. It is

indeed less intelligible.

Plato borrowed his doctrines from Oriental and Egyptian philosophers,

for he had travelled both in India and Egypt.

The Oriental philosophy, imitated and adopted, in part, if not the whole,

by Plato and Philo, was

1. One God the good.

2. The ideas, the thoughts, the reason, the intellect, the logos, the

ratio of God.

3. Matter, the universe, the production of the logos, or contemplations

of God. This matter was the source of evil.

Perhaps the three powers of Plato, Philo, the Egyptians, and Indians,

cannot be distinctly made out, from your account of the Indians, but--

1. The great spirit, the good, who is worshipped by the kings, sachems,

and all the great men, in their solemn festivals, as the Author, the

Parent of good.

2. The Devil, or the source of evil. They are not metaphysicians enough

as yet to suppose it, or at least to call it matter, like the wiscains

of Antiquity, and like Frederick the Great who has written a very silly

essay on the origin of evil, in which he ascribes it all to matter, as

if this was an original discovery of his own.

The watchmaker has in his head an idea of the system of a watch before

he makes it. The mechanician of the universe had a complete idea of the

universe before he made it; and this idea, this logos, was almighty, or

at least powerful enough to produce the world, but it must be made of

matter which was eternal; for creation out of nothing was impossible.

And matter was unmanageable. It would not, and could not be fashioned

into any system, without a large mixture of evil in it; for matter was

essentially evil.

The Indians are not metaphysicians enough to have discovered this _idea_,

this logos, this intermediate power between good and evil, God and matter.

But of the two powers, the good and the evil, they seem to have a full

conviction; and what son or daughter of Adam and Eve has not?

This logos of Plato seems to resemble, if it was not the prototype of,

the _Ratio and its Progress_ of Manilius, the astrologer; of the _Progress

of the Mind_ of Condorcet, and the _Age of Reason_ of Tom Payne.

I could make a system too. The seven hundred thousand soldiers of Zingis,

when the whole, or any part of them went to battle, they sent up a howl,

which resembled nothing that human imagination has conceived, unless it

be the supposition that all the devils in hell were let loose at once

to set up an infernal scream, which terrified their enemies, and never

failed to obtain them victory. The Indian yell resembles this; and,

therefore, America was peopled from Asia.

Another system. The armies of Zingis, sometimes two or three or four

hundred thousand of them, surrounded a province in a circle, and marched

towards the centre, driving all the wild beasts before them, lions,

tigers, wolves, bears, and every living thing, terrifying them with their

howls and yells, their drums, trumpets, &c., till they terrified and

tamed enough of them to victual the whole army. Therefore, the Scotch

Highlanders, who practice the same thing in miniature, are emigrants

from Asia. Therefore, the American Indians, who, for anything I know,

practice the same custom, are emigrants from Asia or Scotland.

I am weary of contemplating nations from the lowest and most beastly

degradations of human life, to the highest refinement of civilization. I

am weary of Philosophers, Theologians, Politicians, and Historians. They

are an immense mass of absurdities, vices, and lies. Montesquieu had sense

enough to say in jest, that all our knowledge might be comprehended in

twelve pages in duodecimo, and I believe him in earnest. I could express

my faith in shorter terms. He who loves the workman and his work, and

does what he can to preserve and improve it, shall be accepted of him.

I have also felt an interest in the Indians, and a commiseration for

them from my childhood. Aaron Pomham the priest, and Moses Pomham the

king of the Punkapang and Neponset tribes, were frequent visitors at my

father's house, at least seventy years ago. I have a distinct remembrance

of their forms and figures. They were very aged, and the tallest and

stoutest Indians I have ever seen. The titles of king and priest, and the

names of Moses and Aaron, were given them no doubt by our Massachusetts

divines and statesmen. There was a numerous family in this town, whose

wigwam was within a mile of this house. This family were frequently

at my father's house, and I, in my boyish rambles, used to call at

their wigwam, where I never failed to be treated with whortleberries,

blackberries, strawberries or apples, plums, peaches, &c., for they had

planted a variety of fruit trees about them. But the girls went out to

service, and the boys to sea, till not a soul is left. We scarcely see

an Indian in a year. I remember the time when Indian murder, scalpings,

depredations and conflagrations, were as frequent on the Eastern and

Northern frontier of Massachusetts, as they are now in Indiana, and

spread as much terror. But since the conquest of Canada, all has ceased;

and I believe with you that another conquest of Canada will quiet the

Indians forever, and be as great a blessing to them as to us.

The instance of Aaron Pomham made me suspect that there was an order of

priesthood among them. But, according to your account, the worship of the

good spirit was performed by the kings, sachems, and warriors, as among

the ancient Germans, whose highest rank of nobility were priests. The

worship of the evil spirit, Αθανατους μὲν πρωτα θεους νομῳ ως διακειται

τιμα.

We have war now in earnest. I lament the contumacious spirit that appears

about me. But I lament the cause that has given too much apology for it;

the total neglect and absolute refusal of all maritime protection and

defence. Money, mariners, and soldiers, would be at the public service,

if only a few frigates had been ordered to be built. Without this, our

Union will be a brittle china vase, a house of ice, or a palace of glass.

I am, Sir, with an affectionate respect, yours

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, June 28, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--It is very true that the denunciations of the priesthood are

fulminated against every advocate for a complete freedom of religion.

Comminations, I believe, would be plenteously pronounced by even the

most liberal of them, against Atheism, Deism, against every man who

disbelieved or doubted the resurrection of Jesus, or the miracles of

the New Testament. Priestley himself would denounce the man who should

deny the Apocalypse, or the Prophecies of Daniel. Priestley and Lindsay

both have denounced as idolaters and blasphemers all the Trinitarians,

and even the Arians.

Poor weak man, when will thy perfection arrive? Thy perfectability I

shall not deny; for a greater character than Priestley or Godwin has

said, "Be ye perfect," &c. For my part I can not deal damnation round

the land on all I judge the foes of God and man. But I did not intend to

say a word on this subject in this letter. As much of it as you please

hereafter, but let me return to politics.

With some difficulty I have hunted up, or down, the "address of the

young men of the city of Philadelphia, the district of Southwark, and

the Northern Liberties," and the answer.

The addresses say, "Actuated by the same principles on which our

forefathers achieved their independence, the recent attempts of a

foreign power to derogate from the dignity and rights of our country,

awaken our liveliest sensibility, and our strongest indignation." Huzza

my brave boys! Could Thomas Jefferson or John Adams hear those words

with insensibility, and without emotion? These boys afterwards add, "We

regard our liberty and independence as the richest portion given us by

our ancestors." And who were those ancestors? Among them were Thomas

Jefferson and John Adams. And I very coolly believe that no two men

among those ancestors did more towards it than those two. Could either

hear this like statues? If, one hundred years hence, your letters and

mine should see the light, I hope the reader will hunt up this address,

and read it all; and remember that we were then engaged, or on the point

of engaging, in a war with France. I shall not repeat the answer till

we come to the paragraph upon which you criticised to Dr. Priestley,

though every word of it is true, and I now rejoice to see it recorded,

and though I had wholly forgotten it.

The paragraph is, "Science and morals are the great pillars on which

this country has been raised to its present population, opulence and

prosperity, and these alone can advance, support, and preserve it.

Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity, or influence the freedom

of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious

and impartial researches, the longest liver of you all will find no

principles, institutions, or systems of education more fit, IN GENERAL,

to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from

your ancestors."

Now, compare the paragraph in the answer with the paragraph in the

address, as both are quoted above, and see if we can find the extent

and the limits of the meaning of both.

Who composed that army of fine young fellows that was then before my

eyes? There were among them Roman Catholics, English Episcopalians,

Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anabaptists,

German Lutherans, German Calvinists, Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans,

Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants and House

Protestants, Deists and Atheists; and "Protestans qui ne croyent rien."

Very few however of several of these species. Nevertheless, all educated

in the GENERAL PRINCIPLES of Christianity; and the general principles

of English and American liberty.

Could my answer be understood by any candid reader or hearer, to recommend

to all the others the general principles, institutions, or systems of

education of the Roman Catholics? Or those of the Quakers? Or those of

the Presbyterians? Or those of the Menonists? Or those of the Methodists?

Or those of the Moravians? Or those of the Universalists? Or those of

the Philosophers? No.

The GENERAL PRINCIPLES on which the fathers achieved independence, were

the only principles in which that beautiful assembly of young gentlemen

could unite, and these principles only could be intended by them in

their address, or by me in my answer.

And what were these GENERAL PRINCIPLES? I answer, the general principles

of Christianity, in which all those sects were united; and the GENERAL

PRINCIPLES of English and American liberty, in which all these young

men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities

sufficient to assert and maintain her independence.

Now I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those

general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the

existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty

are as unalterable as human nature, and our terrestrial mundane system.

I could therefore safely say, consistently with all my then and present

information, that I believed they would never make discoveries in

contradiction to these GENERAL PRINCIPLES. In favor of these GENERAL

PRINCIPLES in philosophy, religion and government, I would fill sheets

of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke,

Rousseau and Voltaire, as well as Newton and Locke; not to mention

thousands of divines and philosophers of inferior fame.

I might have flattered myself that my sentiments were sufficiently known

to have protected me against suspicions of narrow thoughts, contracted

sentiments, bigoted, enthusiastic, or superstitious principles, civil,

political, philosophical, or ecclesiastical. The first sentence of the

preface to my defence of the constitution, vol. 1st, printed in 1787,

is in these words: "The arts and sciences, in general, during the three

or four last centuries, have had a regular course of _progressive_

improvement. The inventions in mechanic arts, the discoveries in natural

philosophy, navigation, and commerce, and the advancement of civilization

and humanity, have occasioned changes in the condition of the world

and the human character, which would have astonished the most refined

nations of antiquity," &c. I will quote no farther; but request you

to read again that whole page, and then say whether the writer of it

could be suspected of recommending to youth "to look backward instead

of forward" for instruction and improvement.

This letter is already too long. In my next I shall consider the Terrorism

of the day. Meantime I am, as ever, your friend

TO DOCTOR JOHN L. E. W. SHECUT.

MONTICELLO, June 29, 1813.

SIR,--I am very sensible of the honor done me by the Antiquarian Society

of Charleston, in the Rule for the organization of their Society, which

you have been so good as to communicate, and I pray you to do me the

favor of presenting to them my thanks. Age, and my inland and retired

situation, make it scarcely probable that I shall be able to render them

any services. But, should any occasion occur wherein I can be useful

to them, I shall receive their commands with pleasure, and execute

them with fidelity. While the promotion of the arts and sciences is

interesting to every nation, and at all times, it becomes peculiarly so

to ours, at this time, when the total demoralization of the governments

of Europe, has rendered it safest, by cherishing internal resources,

to lessen the occasions of intercourse with them. The works of our

aboriginal inhabitants have been so perishable, that much of them must

have disappeared already. The antiquarian researches, therefore, of

the Society, cannot be too soon, or too assiduously directed, to the

collecting and preserving what still remain.

Permit me to place here my particular thankfulness for the kind sentiments

of personal regard which you have been pleased to express.

I have been in the constant hope of seeing the second volume of your

excellent botanical work. Its alphabetical form and popular style, its

attention to the properties and uses of plants, as well as to their

descriptions, are well calculated to encourage and instruct our citizens

in botanical inquiries.

I avail myself of this occasion, of enclosing you a little of the fruit

of a _Capsicum_ I have just received from the province of Texas, where

it is indigenous and perennial, and is used as freely as salt by the

inhabitants. It is new to me. It differs from your _Capsicum Minimum_,

in being perennial and probably hardier; perhaps, too, in its size,

which would claim the term of _Minutissimum_. This stimulant being found

salutary in a visceral complaint known on the sea-coast, the introduction

of a hardier variety may be of value. Accept the assurance of my great

respect and consideration.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, June 30, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--* * * * *

But to return, _for the present_, to "The sensations excited in free,

yet firm minds by the Terrorism of the day." You say none can conceive

them who did not witness them; and they were felt by one party only.

Upon this subject I despair of making myself understood by posterity, by

the present age, and even by you. To collect and arrange the documents

illustrative of it, would require as many lives as those of a cat. You

never felt the terrorism of Chaise's Rebellion in Massachusetts. I believe

you never felt the terrorism of Gallatin's insurrection in Pennsylvania.

You certainly never realized the terrorism of Tries's most outrageous

riot and rescue, as I call it. Treason, rebellion--as the world, and

great judges, and two juries pronounce it.

You certainly never felt the terrorism excited by Genet in 1793, when

ten thousand people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day,

threatened to drag Washington out of his house, and effect a revolution

in the government, or compel it to declare war in favor of the French

revolution, and against England. The coolest and the firmest minds,

even among the Quakers in Philadelphia, have given their opinions to

me, that nothing but the yellow fever, which removed Dr. Hutchinson and

Jonathan Dickinson Sargent from this world, could have saved the United

States from a total revolution of government. I have no doubt you were

fast asleep in philosophical tranquillity when ten thousand people, and

perhaps many more, were parading the streets of Philadelphia, on the

evening of my _Fast Day_. When even Governor Mifflin himself, thought

it his duty to order a patrol of horse and foot, to preserve the peace;

when Market Street was as full as men could stand by one another, and

even before my door; when some of my domestics, in phrenzy, determined

to sacrifice their lives in my defence; when all were ready to make a

desperate sally among the multitude, and others were with difficulty and

danger dragged back by the others; when I myself judged it prudent and

necessary to order chests of arms from the war office, to be brought

through by lanes and back doors; determined to defend my house at the

expense of my life, and the lives of the few, very few, domestics and

friends within it. What think you of terrorism, Mr. Jefferson? Shall I

investigate the causes, the motives, the incentives to these terrorisms?

Shall I remind you of Phillip Freneau, of Loyd, of Ned Church? Of

Peter Markoe, of Andrew Brown, of Duane? Of Callender, of Tom Paine, of

Greenleaf, of Cheatham, of Tennison at New York, of Benjamin Austin at

Boston?

But above all, shall I request you to collect circular letters

from members of Congress in the middle and southern States to their

constituents? I would give all I am worth for a complete collection of

all those circular letters. Please to recollect Edward Livingston's

motions and speeches, and those of his associates, in the case of

Jonathan Robbins. The real terrors of both parties have always been, and

now are, the fear that they shall lose the elections, and consequently

the loaves and fishes; and that their antagonists will obtain them.

Both parties have excited artificial terrors, and if I were summoned as

a witness to say, upon oath, which party had excited, Machiavillialy,

the most terror, and which had really felt the most, I could not give

a more sincere answer than in the vulgar style, put them in a bag and

shake them, and then see which comes out first.

Where is the terrorism now, my friend? There is now more real terrorism

in New England than there ever was in Virginia. The terror of a civil

war, _à La Vendee_, a division of the States, &c., &c., &c. How shall we

conjure down this damnable rivalry between Virginia and Massachusetts?

Virginia had recourse to Pennsylvania and New York. Massachusetts has

now recourse to New York. They have almost got New Jersey and Maryland,

and they are aiming at Pennsylvania. And all this in the midst of a war

with England, when all Europe is in flames.

I will give you a hint or two more on the subject of terrorism. When John

Randolph in the House, and Stephens Thompson Mason in the Senate, were

treating me with the utmost contempt; when Ned Livingston was threatening

me with impeachment for the murder of Jonathan Robbins, _the native of

Danvers in Connecticut_; when I had certain information, that the daily

language in an Insurance Office in Boston was, even from the mouth of

Charles Jarvis, "We must go to Philadelphia and drag that John Adams from

his chair;" I thank God that terror never yet seized on my mind. But I

have had more excitements to it, from 1761 to this day, than any other

man. Name the other if you can. I have been disgraced and degraded, and

I have a right to complain. But as I always expected it, I have always

submitted to it; perhaps often with too much tameness. The amount of all

the speeches of John Randolph in the House, for two or three years is,

that himself and myself are the only two honest and consistent men in

the United States. Himself eternally in opposition to government, and

myself as constantly in favor of it. He is now in correspondence with

his friend Quincy. What will come of it, let Virginia and Massachusetts

judge. In my next you may find something upon correspondences; Whig

and Tory; Federal and Democratic; Virginian and Novanglian; English and

French; Jacobinic and Despotic, &c.

Meantime I am as ever, your friend.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, July, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Correspondences! The letters of Bernard and Hutchinson, and

Oliver and Paxton, &c., were detected and exposed before the Revolution.

There are, I doubt not, thousands of letters now in being, (but still

concealed from their party,) to their friends, which will, one day, see

the light. I have wondered for more than thirty years, that so few have

appeared; and have constantly expected that a Tory History of the rise

and progress of the Revolution would appear; and wished it. I would

give more for it than for Marshall, Gordon, Ramsay, and all the rest.

Private letters of all parties will be found analogous to the newspapers,

pamphlets, and historians of the times. Gordon's and Marshall's histories

were written to make money; and fashioned and finished to sell high

in the London market. I should expect to find more truth in a history

written by Hutchinson, Oliver, or Sewall; and I doubt not, such histories

will one day appear. Marshall's is a Mausolæum, 100 feet square at the

base, and 200 feet high. It will be as durable as the monuments of the

Washington benevolent societies. Your character in history may easily

be foreseen. Your administration will be quoted by philosophers as a

model of profound wisdom; by politicians, as weak, superficial, and

short sighted. Mine, like Pope's woman, will have no character at all.

The impious idolatry to Washington destroyed all character. His legacy

of ministers was not the worst part of the tragedy; though by his own

express confession to me, and by Pickering's confession to the world, in

his letters to Sullivan, two of them, at least, were fastened upon him

by necessity, because he could get no other. The truth is, Hamilton's

influence over him was so well known, that no man fit for the office

of State or War would accept either. He was driven to the necessity of

appointing such as would accept; and this necessity was, in my opinion,

the real cause of his retirement from office; for you may depend upon

it, that retirement was not voluntary.

My friend, you and I have passed our lives in serious times. I know not

whether we have ever seen any moments more serious than the present.

The Northern States are now retaliating upon the Southern States their

conduct from 1797 to 1800. It is a mortification to me to see what

servile mimics they are. Their newspapers, pamphlets, hand-bills, and

their legislative proceedings, are copied from the examples set them,

especially by Virginia and Kentucky. I know not which party has the

most unblushing front, the most lying tongue, or the most impudent and

insolent, not to say the most seditious and rebellious pen.

If you desire explanation on any of the points in this letter, you shall

have them. This correspondence, I hope, will be concealed as long as

Hutchinson's and Oliver's; but I should have no personal objection to

the publication of it in the National Intelligencer. I am, and shall be

for life, your friend.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, July 9, 1813.

Lord! Lord! What can I do with so much Greek? When I was of your age,

young man, _i. e._, seven, or eight, or nine years ago, I felt a kind

of pang of affection for one of the flames of my youth, and again paid

my addresses to Isocrates, and Dionysius Hallicarnassensis, &c., &c. I

collected all my Lexicons and Grammars, and sat down to περὶ συνθησεως

ονοματων, &c. In this way I amused myself for some time; but I found,

that if I looked a word to-day, in less than a week I had to look it

again. It was to little better purpose than writing letters on a pail

of water.

Whenever I set down to write to you, I am precisely in the situation

of the wood-cutter on Mount Ida. I cannot see wood for trees. So many

subjects crowd upon me, that I know not with which to begin. But I will

begin, at random, with Belsham; who is, as I have no doubt, a man of

merit. He had no malice against you, nor any thought of doing mischief;

nor has he done any, though he has been imprudent. The truth is, the

dissenters of all denominations in England, and especially the Unitarians,

are cowed, as we used to say at College. They are ridiculed, insulted,

persecuted. They can scarcely hold their heads above water. They catch

at straws and shadows to avoid drowning. Priestley sent your letter to

Linsay, and Belsham printed it from the same motive, _i. e._ to derive

some countenance from the name of Jefferson. Nor has it done harm here

Priestley says to Linsay, "You see he is almost one of us, and he hopes

will soon be altogether such as we are." Even in our New England, I have

heard a high Federal Divine say, your letters had increased his respect

for you.

"The same political parties which now agitate the United States, have

existed through all time;" precisely. And this is precisely the complaint

in the preface to the first volume of my defence. While all other

sciences have advanced, that of government is at a stand; little better

understood; little better practiced now, than three or four thousand

years ago. What is the reason? I say, parties and factions will not

suffer, or permit improvements to be made. As soon as one man hints at

an improvement, his rival opposes it. No sooner has one party discovered

or invented an amelioration of the condition of man, or the order of

society, than the opposite party belies it, misconstrues, misrepresents

it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes it. Records are destroyed.

Histories are annihilated, or interpolated, or prohibited: sometimes by

popes, sometimes by emperors, sometimes by aristocratical, and sometimes

by democratical assemblies, and sometimes by mobs.

Aristotle wrote the history of eighteen hundred republics which existed

before his time. Cicero wrote two volumes of discourses on government,

which, perhaps, were worth all the rest of his works. The works of Livy

and Tacitus, &c., that are lost, would be more interesting than all that

remain. Fifty gospels have been destroyed, and where are St. Luke's world

of books that have been written? If you ask my opinion who has committed

all the havoc, I will answer you candidly,--Ecclesiastical and Imperial

despotism has done it, to conceal their frauds.

Why are the histories of all nations, more ancient than the Christian

era, lost? Who destroyed the Alexandrian library? I believe that Christian

priests, Jewish rabbis, Grecian sages, and emperors, had as great a hand

in it as Turks and Mahometans.

Democrats, Rebels and Jacobins, when they possessed a momentary power,

have shown a disposition both to destroy and forge records as vandalical

as priests and despots. Such has been and such is the world we live in.

I recollect, near some thirty years ago, to have said carelessly to

you that I wished I could find time and means to write something upon

aristocracy. You seized upon the idea, and encouraged me to do it with

all that friendly warmth that is natural and habitual to you. I soon

began, and have been writing upon that subject ever since. I have been

so unfortunate as never to be able to make myself understood.

Your "ἄριστοι" are the most difficult animals to manage of anything

in the whole theory and practice of government. They will not suffer

themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own subtlety,

industry and courage, but they employ the commonalty to knock to pieces

every plan and model that the most honest architects in legislation can

invent to keep them within bounds. Both patricians and plebeians are as

furious as the workmen in England, to demolish labor-saving machinery.

But who are these "ἄριστοι"? Who shall judge? Who shall select these

choice spirits from the rest of the congregation? Themselves? We must

first find out and determine who themselves are. Shall the congregation

choose? Ask Xenophon; perhaps hereafter I may quote you Greek. Too much in

a hurry at present, English must suffice. Xenophon says that the ecclesia

always chooses the worst men they can find, because none others will do

their dirty work. This wicked motive is worse than birth or wealth. Here

I want to quote Greek again. But the day before I received your letter

of June 27th, I gave the book to George Washington Adams, going to the

academy at Hingham. The title is Ηθικη ποιησις, a collection of moral

sentences from all the most ancient Greek poets. In one of the oldest

of them, I read in Greek, that I cannot repeat, a couplet, the sense

of which was: "Nobility in men is worth as much as it is in horses,

asses, or rams; but the meanest blooded puppy in the world, if he gets

a little money, is as good a man as the best of them." Yet birth and

wealth together have prevailed over virtue and talents in all ages. The

many will acknowledge no other "ἄριστοι"

Your experience of this truth will not much differ from that of your

best friend.

MR ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, July 13, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Let me allude to one circumstance more in one of your letters

to me, before I touch upon the subject of religion in your letters to

Priestley.

The first time that you and I differed in opinion on any material

question, was after your arrival from Europe, and that point was the

French revolution.

You were well persuaded in your own mind, that the nation would succeed

in establishing a free republican government. I was as well persuaded in

mine, that a project of such a government over five and twenty millions

of people, when four and twenty millions and five hundred thousand of

them could neither read nor write, was as unnatural, irrational and

impracticable as it would be over the elephants, lions, tigers, panthers,

wolves and bears in the royal menagerie at Versailles. Napoleon has

lately invented a word which perfectly expresses my opinion, at that

time and ever since. He calls the project Ideology; and John Randolph,

though he was, fourteen years ago, as wild an enthusiast for equality

and fraternity as any of them, appears to be now a regenerated proselyte

to Napoleon's opinion and mine, that it was all madness.

The Greeks, in their allegorical style, said that the two ladies,

Αριστοκρατια and δημοκρατια, always in a quarrel, disturbed every

neighborhood with their brawls. It is a fine observation of yours, that

"Whig and Tory belong to natural history." Inequalities of mind and

body are so established by God Almighty, in his constitution of human

nature, that no art or policy can ever plane them down to a level. I

have never read reasoning more absurd, sophistry more gross, in proof of

the Athanasian creed, or Transubstantiation, than the subtle labors of

Helvetius and Rousseau, to demonstrate the natural equality of mankind.

_Jus cuique_, the golden rule, do as you would be done by, is all the

equality that can be supported or defended by reason, or reconciled to

common sense.

It is very true, as you justly observe, I can say nothing new on this or

any other subject of government. But when Lafayette harangued you and me

and John Quincy Adams, through a whole evening in your hotel in the Cul

de Sac, at Paris, and developed the plans then in operation to reform

France, though I was as silent as you were, I then thought I could say

something new to him.

In plain truth, I was astonished at the grossness of his ignorance of

government and history, as I had been for years before, at that of Turgot,

Rochefaucault, Condorcet and Franklin. This gross Ideology of them all,

first suggested to me the thought and the inclination which I afterwards

hinted to you in London, of writing something upon aristocracy. I was

restrained for years, by many fearful considerations. Who, and what was

I? A man of no name or consideration in Europe. The manual exercise of

writing was painful and distressing to me, almost like a blow on the

elbow or knee. My style was habitually negligent, unstudied, unpolished;

I should make enemies of all the French patriots, the Dutch patriots,

the English republicans, dissenters, reformers, call them what you will;

and what came nearer home to my bosom than all the rest, I knew I should

give offence to many if not all of my best friends in America, and very

probably destroy all the little popularity I ever had, in a country where

popularity had more omnipotence than the British Parliament assumed.

Where should I get the necessary books? What printer or bookseller would

undertake to print such hazardous writings?

But when the French assembly of notables met, and I saw that Turgot's

"government in one centre, and that centre the nation," a sentence as

mysterious or as contradictory as the Athanasian creed, was about to

take place, and when I saw that Shaise's rebellion was about breaking

out in Massachusetts, and when I saw that even my obscure name was often

quoted in France as an advocate for simple democracy, when I saw that the

sympathies in America had caught the French flame, I was determined to

wash my own hands as clean as I could of all this foulness. I had then

strong forebodings that I was sacrificing all the honors and emoluments

of this life, and so it has happened, but not in so great a degree as

I apprehended.

In truth, my defence of the constitutions and "discourses on Davila,"

laid the foundation for that immense unpopularity which fell, like the

tower of Siloam, upon me. Your steady defence of democratical principles,

and your invariable favorable opinion of the French revolution, laid

the foundation of your unbounded popularity.

_Sic transit gloria mundi!_ Now I will forfeit my life, if you can find

one sentence in my defence of the constitutions, or the discourses on

Davila, which, by a fair construction, can favor the introduction of

hereditary monarchy or aristocracy into America.

They were all written to support and strengthen the constitutions of

the United States.

The wood-cutter on Ida, though he was puzzled to find a tree to chop at

first, I presume knew how to leave off when he was weary. But I never

know when to cease when I begin to write to you.

TO DOCTOR SAMUEL BROWN.

MONTICELLO, July 14, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of May 25th and June 13th have been duly received,

as also the first supply of Capsicum, and the second of the same article

with other seeds. I shall set great store by the Capsicum, if it is

hardy enough for our climate, the species we have heretofore tried being

too tender. The Galvance, too, will be particularly attended to, as it

appears very different from what we cultivate by that name. I have so many

grandchildren and others who might be endangered by the poison plant,

that I think the risk overbalances the curiosity of trying it. The most

elegant thing of that kind known is a preparation of the Jamestown weed,

Datura-Stramonium, invented by the French in the time of Robespierre.

Every man of firmness carried it constantly in his pocket to anticipate

the Guillotine. It brings on the sleep of death as quietly as fatigue does

the ordinary sleep, without the least struggle or motion. Condorcet, who

had recourse to it, was found lifeless on his bed a few minutes after his

landlady had left him there, and even the slipper which she had observed

half suspended on his foot, was not shaken off. It seems far preferable to

the Venesection of the Romans, the Hemlock of the Greeks, and the Opium

of the Turks. I have never been able to learn what the preparation is,

other than a strong concentration of its lethiferous principle. Could

such a medicament be restrained to self-administration, it ought not to

be kept secret. There are ills in life as desperate as intolerable, to

which it would be the rational relief, _e. g._ the inveterate cancer.

As a relief from tyranny indeed, for which the Romans recurred to it in

the times of the emperors, it has been a wonder to me that they did not

consider a poignard in the breast of the tyrant as a better remedy.

I am sorry to learn that a banditti from our country are taking part in

the domestic contests of the country adjoining you; and the more so as

from the known laxity of execution in our laws, they cannot be punished,

although the law has provided punishment. It will give a wrongful hue

to a rightful act of taking possession of Mobile, and will be imputed to

the national authority as Meranda's enterprise was, because not punished

by it. I fear, too, that the Spaniards are too heavily oppressed by

ignorance and superstition for self-government, and whether a change

from foreign to domestic despotism will be to their advantage remains

to be seen.

We have been unfortunate in our first military essays by land. Our men

are good, but our generals unqualified. Every failure we have incurred

has been the fault of the general, the men evincing courage in every

instance. At sea we have rescued our character; but the chief fruit of our

victories there is to prove to those who have fleets, that the English

are not invincible at sea, as Alexander has proved that Bonaparte is

not invincible by land. How much to be lamented that the world cannot

unite and destroy these two land and sea monsters! The one drenching

the earth with human gore, the other ravaging the ocean with lawless

piracies and plunder. Bonaparte will die, and the nations of Europe will

recover their independence with, I hope, better governments. But the

English government never dies, because their king is no part of it, he

is a mere formality, and the real government is the aristocracy of the

country, for their House of Commons is of that class. Their aim is to

claim the dominion of the ocean by conquest, and to make every vessel

navigating it pay a tribute to the support of the fleet necessary to

maintain that dominion, to which their own resources are inadequate.

I see no means of terminating their maritime dominion and tyranny but

in their own bankruptcy, which I hope is approaching. But I turn from

these painful contemplations to the more pleasing one of my constant

friendship and respect for you.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, July 15, 1813.

Never mind it, my dear Sir, if I write four letters to your one, your

one is worth more than my four.

It is true that I can say, and have said, nothing new on the subject of

government. Yet I did say in my defence and in my discourses on Davila,

though in an uncouth style, what was new to Locke, to Harrington, to

Milton, to Hume, to Montesquieu, to Rousseau, to Turgot, to Condorcet, to

Rochefaucault, to Price, to Franklin, and to yourself; and at that time

to almost all Europe and America. I can prove all this by indisputable

authorities and documents.

Writings on government had been not only neglected, but discountenanced

and discouraged throughout all Europe, from the restoration of Charles

the Second in England, till the French revolution commenced.

The English commonwealth, the fate of Charles the 1st, and the military

despotism of Cromwell, had sickened mankind with disquisitions on

government to such a degree, that there was scarcely a man in Europe

who had looked into the subject.

David Hume had made himself so fashionable with the aid of the court

and clergy, Atheist, as they called him, and by his elegant lies against

the republicans and gaudy daubings of the courtiers, that he had nearly

laughed into contempt Rapin, Sydney, and even Locke. It was ridiculous

and even criminal in almost all Europe to speak of constitutions, or

writers upon the principles or the fabrics of them.

In this state of things my poor, unprotected, unpatronized books appeared;

and met with a fate not quite so cruel as I had anticipated. They were

at last, however, overborne by misrepresentations, and will perish

in obscurity, though they have been translated into German as well as

French. The three emperors of Europe, the Prince Regents, and all the

ruling powers, would no more countenance or tolerate such writings, than

the Pope, the emperor of Haiti, Ben Austin, or Tom Paine.

The nations of Europe appeared to me, when I was among them, from the

beginning of 1778, to 1785, _i. e._ to the commencement of the troubles

in France, to be advancing by slow but sure steps towards an amelioration

of the condition of man in religion and government, in liberty, equality,

fraternity, knowledge, civilization and humanity.

The French revolution I dreaded, because I was sure it would not only

arrest the progress of improvement, but give it a retrograde course, for

at least a century, if not many centuries. The French patriots appeared

to me like young scholars from a college, or sailors flushed with recent

pay or prize money, mounted on wild horses, lashing and spurring till

they would kill the horses, and break their own necks.

Let me now ask you very seriously, my friend, where are now, in 1813,

the perfection and the perfectability of human nature? Where is now the

progress of the human mind? Where is the amelioration of society? Where

the augmentations of human comforts? Where the diminutions of human pains

and miseries? I know not whether the last day of Dr. Young can exhibit

to a mind unstaid by philosophy and religion [for I hold there can be

no philosophy without religion], more terrors than the present state

of the world. When, where, and how is the present chaos to be arranged

into order? There is not, there cannot be, a greater abuse of words

than to call the writings of Calender, Paine, Austin and Lowell, or the

speeches of Ned Livingston and John Randolph, public discussions. The

ravings and rantings of Bedlam merit the character as well; and yet Joel

Barlow was about to record Tom Paine as the great author of the American

Revolution! If he was, I desire that my name may be blotted out forever

from its records.

You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each

other.

I shall come to the subject of religion by-and-bye. Your friend.

I have been looking for some time for a space in my good husband's

letters to add the regards of an old friend, which are still cherished

and preserved through all the changes and vicissitudes which have taken

place since we first became acquainted, and will, I trust, remain as

long as

A. ADAMS.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, July 16, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Your letters to Priestley have increased my grief, if that were

possible, for the loss of Rush. Had he lived, I would have stimulated

him to insist on your promise to him, to write him on the subject of

religion. Your plan I admire.

In your letter to Priestley of March 21st, 1801, dated at Washington,

you call "The Christian Philosophy, the most sublime and benevolent, but

the most perverted system that ever shone upon man." That it is the most

sublime and benevolent, I agree. But whether it has been more perverted

than that of Moses, of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Sanchoniathan, of

Numa, of Mahomet, of the Druids, of the Hindoos, &c., &c., I cannot

as yet determine because I am not sufficiently acquainted with those

systems, or the history of their effects, to form a decisive opinion of

the result of the comparison.

In your letter dated Washington, April 9, 1803, you say, "In consequence

of some conversations with Dr. Rush, in the years 1798-99. 1 had promised

some day to write to him a letter, giving him my view of the Christian

system. I have reflected often on it since, and even sketched the outline

in my own mind. I should first take a general view of the moral doctrines

of the most remarkable of the ancient philosophers, of whose ethics we

have sufficient information to make an estimate; say of Pythagoras,

Epicurus, Epictetus, Socrates, Cicero, Seneca, Antonius. I should do

justice to the branches of morality they have treated well, but point out

the importance of those in which they are deficient. I should then take

a view of the Deism and Ethics of the Jews, and show in what a degraded

state they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation. I

should proceed to a view of the life, character, and doctrines of Jesus,

who, sensible of the incorrectness of their ideas of the Deity, and of

morality, endeavored to bring them to the principles of a pure Deism,

and juster notions of the attributes of God--to reform their moral

doctrines to the standard of reason, justice, and philanthropy, and to

inculcate the belief of a future state. This view would purposely omit

the question of his Divinity, and even of his inspiration. To do him

justice, it would be necessary to remark the disadvantages his doctrines

have to encounter, not having been committed to writing by himself, but

by the most unlettered of men, by memory, long after they had heard them

from him, when much was forgotten, much misunderstood, and presented

in very paradoxical shapes; yet such are the fragments remaining, as

to show a master workman, and that his system of morality was the most

benevolent and sublime, probably, that has been ever taught, and more

perfect than those of any of the ancient philosophers. His character and

doctrines have received still greater injury from those who pretend to

be his special disciples, and who have disfigured and sophisticated his

actions and precepts from views of personal interest, so as to induce

the unthinking part of mankind to throw off the whole system in disgust,

and to pass sentence, as an imposter, on the most innocent, the most

benevolent, the most eloquent and sublime character that has ever been

exhibited to man. This is the outline!"

"Sancte Socrate! ora pro nobis!"--Erasmus.

Priestley in his letter to Linsay, enclosing a copy of your letter to

him, says, "He is generally considered an unbeliever; if so, however, he

cannot be far from us, and I hope in the way to be not only almost, but

altogether what we are. He now attends public worship very regularly,

and his moral conduct was never impeached."

Now, I see not but you are as good a Christian as Priestley and Linsay.

Piety and morality were the end and object of the Christian system,

according to them, and according to you. They believed in the resurrection

of Jesus, in his miracles, and in his inspiration; but what inspiration?

Not all that is recorded in the New Testament, nor the Old. They have not

yet told us how much they believe, or how much they doubt or disbelieve.

They have not told us how much allegory, how much parable, they find,

nor how they explain them all, in the Old Testament or the New.

John Quincy Adams has written for years to his two sons, boys of ten and

twelve, a series of letters, in which he pursues a plan more extensive

than yours; but agreeing in most of the essential points. I wish these

letters could be preserved in the bosoms of his boys, but women and

priests will get them; and I expect, if he makes a peace, he will be

obliged to retire like a Jay, to study prophecies to the end of his

life. I have more to say on this subject of religion.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, July 18, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--I have more to say on religion. For more than sixty years

I have been attentive to this great subject. Controversies between

Calvinists and Armenians, Trinitarians and Unitarians, Deists and

Christians, Atheists and both, have attracted my attention, whenever

the singular life I have led would admit, to all these questions. The

history of this little village of Quincy, if it were worth recording,

would explain to you how this happened. I think I can now say I have

read away bigotry, if not enthusiasm. What does Priestley mean by an

unbeliever, when he applies it to you? How much did he "unbelieve"

himself? Gibbon had him right, when he determined his creed "scanty."

We are to understand, no doubt, that he believed the resurrection of

Jesus; some of his miracles; his inspiration, but in what degree? He did

not believe in the inspiration of the writings that contain his history,

yet he believed in the Apocalyptic beast, and he believed as much as he

pleased in the writings of Daniel and John. This great, excellent, and

extraordinary man, whom I sincerely loved, esteemed, and respected, was

really a phenomenon; a comet in the system, like Voltaire, Bolingbroke,

and Hume. Had Bolingbroke or Voltaire taken him in hand, what would they

have made of him and his creed.