It is probable that our difference of opinion may, in some measure, be

produced by a difference of character in those among whom we live. From

what I have seen of Massachusetts and Connecticut myself, and still more

from what I have heard, and the character given of the former by yourself,

(vol. 1, page 111,) who know them so much better, there seems to be in

those two States a traditionary reverence for certain families, which

has rendered the offices of the government nearly hereditary in those

families. I presume that from an early period of your history, members

of those families happening to possess virtue and talents, have honestly

exercised them for the good of the people, and by their services have

endeared their names to them. In coupling Connecticut with you, I mean

it politically only, not morally. For having made the Bible the common

law of their land, they seem to have modeled their morality on the story

of Jacob and Laban. But although this hereditary succession to office

with you, may, in some degree, be founded in real family merit, yet in a

much higher degree, it has proceeded from your strict alliance of Church

and State. These families are canonised in the eyes of the people on

common principles, "you tickle me, and I will tickle you." In Virginia

we have nothing of this. Our clergy, before the revolution, having been

secured against rivalship by fixed salaries, did not give themselves the

trouble of acquiring influence over the people. Of wealth, there were

great accumulations in particular families, handed down from generation

to generation, under the English law of entails. But the only object of

ambition for the wealthy was a seat in the King's Council. All their court

then was paid to the crown and its creatures; and they Philipised in all

collisions between the King and the people. Hence they were unpopular;

and that unpopularity continues attached to their names. A Randolph, a

Carter, or a Burwell must have great personal superiority over a common

competitor to be elected by the people even at this day. At the first

session of our legislature after the Declaration of Independence, we

passed a law abolishing entails. And this was followed by one abolishing

the privilege of primogeniture, and dividing the lands of intestates

equally among all their children, or other representatives. These laws,

drawn by myself, laid the axe to the foot of pseudo-aristocracy. And

had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work

would have been complete. It was a bill for the more general diffusion

of learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of five

or six miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward

a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide

for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools, who

might receive, at the public expense, a higher degree of education at

a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain

number of the most promising subjects, to be completed at an University,

where all the useful sciences should be taught. Worth and genius would

thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and completely

prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth

for public trusts. My proposition had, for a further object, to impart

to these wards those portions of self-government for which they are best

qualified, by confiding to them the care of their poor, their roads,

police, elections, the nomination of jurors, administration of justice

in small cases, elementary exercises of militia; in short, to have made

them little republics, with a warden at the head of each, for all those

concerns which, being under their eye, they would better manage than the

larger republics of the county or State. A general call of ward meetings

by their wardens on the same day through the State, would at any time

produce the genuine sense of the people on any required point, and would

enable the State to act in mass, as your people have so often done, and

with so much effect by their town meetings. The law for religious freedom,

which made a part of this system, having put down the aristocracy of

the clergy, and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind, and

those of entails and descents nurturing an equality of condition among

them, this on education would have raised the mass of the people to

the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety,

and to orderly government; and would have completed the great object

of qualifying them to select the veritable aristoi, for the trusts of

government, to the exclusion of the pseudalists; and the same Theognis

who has furnished the epigraphs of your two letters, assures us that

"Ουδεμιαν πω, Κυρν', αγαθοι πολιν ωλεσαν ανδρες." Although this law has

not yet been acted on but in a small and inefficient degree, it is still

considered as before the legislature, with other bills of the revised

code, not yet taken up, and I have great hope that some patriotic spirit

will, at a favorable moment, call it up, and make it the key-stone of

the arch of our government.

With respect to aristocracy, we should further consider, that before

the establishment of the American States, nothing was known to history

but the man of the old world, crowded within limits either small or

overcharged, and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. A

government adapted to such men would be one thing; but a very different

one, that for the man of these States. Here every one may have land to

labor for himself, if he chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any

other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford

a comfortable subsistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation from

labor in old age. Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory

situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men

may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control

over their public affairs, and a degree of freedom, which, in the hands

of the _canaille_ of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted

to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private. The

history of the last twenty-five years of France, and of the last forty

years in America, nay of its last two hundred years, proves the truth

of both parts of this observation.

But even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of

man. Science had liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and

the American example had kindled feelings of right in the people. An

insurrection has consequently begun, of science, talents, and courage,

against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed

in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument

used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty, and vice,

could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover

from the panic of this first catastrophe. Science is progressive, and

talents and enterprise on the alert. Resort may be had to the people

of the country, a more governable power from their principles and

subordination; and rank, and birth, and tinsel-aristocracy will finally

shrink into insignificance, even there. This, however, we have no right

to meddle with. It suffices for us, if the moral and physical condition

of our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good for the

direction of their government, with a recurrence of elections at such

short periods as will enable them to displace an unfaithful servant,

before the mischief he meditates may be irremediable.

I have thus stated my opinion on a point on which we differ, not with a

view to controversy, for we are both too old to change opinions which

are the result of a long life of inquiry and reflection; but on the

suggestions of a former letter of yours, that we ought not to die before

we have explained ourselves to each other. We acted in perfect harmony,

through a long and perilous contest for our liberty and independence.

A constitution has been acquired, which, though neither of us thinks

perfect, yet both consider as competent to render our fellow citizens

the happiest and the securest on whom the sun has ever shone. If we do

not think exactly alike as to its imperfections, it matters little to

our country, which, after devoting to it long lives of disinterested

labor, we have delivered over to our successors in life, who will be

able to take care of it and of themselves.

Of the pamphlet on aristocracy which has been sent to you, or who may be

its author, I have heard nothing but through your letter. If the person

you suspect, it may be known from the quaint, mystical, and hyperbolical

ideas, involved in affected, new-fangled and pedantic terms which stamp

his writings. Whatever it be, I hope your quiet is not to be affected

at this day by the rudeness or intemperance of scribblers; but that you

may continue in tranquillity to live and to rejoice in the prosperity

of our country, until it shall be your own wish to take your seat among

the aristoi who have gone before you. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO JOHN W. EPPES.

MONTICELLO, November 6, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--I had not expected to have troubled you again on the subject

of finance; but since the date of my last, I have received from Mr. Law

a letter covering a memorial on that subject, which, from its tenor, I

conjecture must have been before Congress at their two last sessions.

This paper contains two propositions; the one for issuing treasury

notes, bearing interest, and to be circulated as money; the other for

the establishment of a national bank. The first was considered in my

former letter; and the second shall be the subject of the present.

The scheme is for Congress to establish a national bank, suppose of

thirty millions capital, of which they shall contribute ten millions in

new six per cent. stock, the States ten millions, and individuals ten

millions, one half of the two last contributions to be of similar stock,

for which the parties are to give cash to Congress; the whole, however,

to be under the exclusive management of the individual subscribers, who

are to name all the directors; neither Congress nor the States having any

power of interference in its administration. Discounts are to be at five

per cent., but the profits are expected to be seven per cent. Congress

then will be paying six per cent. on twenty millions, and receiving seven

per cent. on ten millions, being its third of the institution; so that on

the ten millions cash which they receive from the States and individuals,

they will, in fact, have to pay but five per cent. interest. This is the

bait. The charter is proposed to be for forty or fifty years, and if any

future augmentations should take place, the individual proprietors are

to have the privilege of being the sole subscribers for that. Congress

are further allowed to issue to the amount of three millions of notes,

bearing interest, which they are to receive back in payment for lands

at a premium of five or ten per cent., or as subscriptions for canals,

roads, and bridges, in which undertakings they are, of course, to be

engaged. This is a summary of the case as I understand it; but it is

very possible I may not understand it in all its parts, these schemes

being always made unintelligible for the gulls who are to enter into

them. The advantages and disadvantages shall be noted promiscuously as

they occur; leaving out the speculation of canals, &c., which, being an

episode only in the scheme, may be omitted, to disentangle it as much

as we can.

1. Congress are to receive five millions from the States (if they will

enter into this partnership, which few probably will), and five millions

from the individual subscribers, in exchange for ten millions of six per

cent. stock, one per cent. of which, however, they will make on their

ten millions of stock remaining in bank, and so reduce it, in effect,

to a loan of ten millions at five per cent. interest. This is good; but

2. They authorize this bank to throw into circulation ninety millions

of dollars, (three times the capital,) which increases our circulating

medium fifty per cent., depreciates proportionably the present value

of a dollar, and raises the price of all future purchases in the same

proportion.

3. This loan of ten millions at five per cent., is to be once for all,

only. Neither the terms of the scheme, nor their own prudence could ever

permit them to add to the circulation in the same, or any other way,

for the supplies of the succeeding years of the war. These succeeding

years then are to be left unprovided for, and the means of doing it in

a great measure precluded.

4. The individual subscribers, on paying their own five millions of cash

to Congress, become the depositories of ten millions of stock belonging

to Congress, five millions belonging to the States, and five millions

to themselves, say twenty millions, with which, as no one has a right

ever to see their books, or to ask a question, they may choose their

time for running away, after adding to their booty the proceeds of as

much of their own notes as they shall be able to throw into circulation.

5. The subscribers may be one, two, or three, or more individuals, (many

single individuals being able to pay in the five millions,) whereupon

this bank oligarchy or monarchy enters the field with ninety millions

of dollars, to direct and control the politics of the nation; and of the

influence of these institutions on our politics, and into what scale it

will be thrown, we have had abundant experience. Indeed, England herself

may be the real, while her friend and trustee here shall be the nominal

and sole subscriber.

6. This state of things is to be fastened on us, without the power of

relief, for forty or fifty years. That is to say, the eight millions of

people now existing, for the sake of receiving one dollar and twenty-five

cents apiece, at five per cent. interest, are to subject the fifty

millions of people who are to succeed them within that term, to the

payment of forty-five millions of dollars, principal and interest, which

will be payable in the course of the fifty years.

7. But the great and national advantage is to be the relief of the

present _scarcity of money_, which is produced and proved by,

1. The additional industry created to supply a variety of articles for

the troops, ammunition, &c.

2. By the cash sent to the frontiers, and the vacuum occasioned in the

trading towns by that.

3. By the late loans.

4. By the necessity of recurring to shavers with _good_ paper, which

the existing banks are not able to take up; and

5. By the numerous applications of bank charters, showing that an increase

of circulating medium is wanting.

Let us examine these causes and proofs of the want of an increase of

medium, one by one.

1. The additional industry created to supply a variety of articles for

troops, ammunition, &c. Now, I had always supposed that war produced

a diminution of industry, by the number of hands it withdraws from

industrious pursuits for employment in arms, &c., which are totally

unproductive. And if it calls for new industry in the articles of

ammunition and other military supplies, the hands are borrowed from

other branches on which the demand is slackened by the war; so that it

is but a shifting of these hands from one pursuit to another.

2. The cash sent to the frontiers occasions a vacuum in the trading

towns, which requires a new supply. Let us examine what are the calls

for money to the frontiers. Not for clothing, tents, ammunition, arms,

which are all bought in the trading towns. Not for provisions; for

although these are bought partly in the immediate country, bank bills

are more acceptable there than even in the trading towns. The pay of

the army calls for some cash, but not a great deal, as bank notes are

as acceptable with the military men, perhaps more so; and what cash

is sent must find its way back again in exchange for the wants of the

upper from the lower country. For we are not to suppose that cash stays

accumulating there forever.

3. This scarcity has been occasioned by the late loans. But does the

government borrow money to keep it in their coffers? Is it not instantly

restored to circulation by payment for its necessary supplies? And are

we to restore a vacuum of twenty millions of dollars by an emission of

ninety millions?

4. The want of medium is proved by the recurrence of individuals with

_good_ paper to brokers at exorbitant interest; and

5. By the numerous applications to the State governments for additional

banks; New York wanting eighteen millions, Pennsylvania ten millions,

&c. But say more correctly, the speculators and spendthrifts of New York

and Pennsylvania, but never consider them as being the States of New

York and Pennsylvania. These two items shall be considered together.

It is a litigated question, whether the circulation of paper, rather

than of specie, is a good or an evil. In the opinion of England and of

English writers it is a good; in that of all other nations it is an evil;

and excepting England and her copyist, the United States, there is not

a nation existing, I believe, which tolerates a paper circulation. The

experiment is going on, however, desperately in England, pretty boldly

with us, and at the end of the chapter, we shall see which opinion

experience approves: for I believe it to be one of those cases where

mercantile clamor will bear down reason, until it is corrected by ruin.

In the meantime, however, let us reason on this new call for a national

bank.

After the solemn decision of Congress against the renewal of the charter

of the bank of the United States, and the grounds of that decision, (the

want of constitutional power,) I had imagined that question at rest, and

that no more applications would be made to them for the incorporation

of banks. The opposition on that ground to its first establishment,

the small majority by which it was overborne, and the means practiced

for obtaining it, cannot be already forgotten. The law having passed,

however, by a majority, its opponents, true to the sacred principle of

submission to a majority, suffered the law to flow through its term

without obstruction. During this, the nation had time to consider

the constitutional question, and when the renewal was proposed, they

condemned it, not by their representatives in Congress only, but by

express instructions from different organs of their will. Here then we

might stop, and consider the memorial as answered. But, setting authority

apart, we will examine whether the Legislature ought to comply with it,

even if they had the power.

Proceeding to reason on this subject, some principles must be premised as

forming its basis. The adequate price of a thing depends on the capital

and labor necessary to produce it. [In the term _capital_, I mean to

include science, because capital as well as labor has been employed to

acquire it.] Two things requiring the same capital and labor, should be

of the same price. If a gallon of wine requires for its production the

same capital and labor with a bushel of wheat, they should be expressed

by the same price, derived from the application of a common measure to

them. The comparative prices of things being thus to be estimated and

expressed by a common measure, we may proceed to observe, that were a

country so insulated as to have no commercial intercourse with any other,

to confine the interchange of all its wants and supplies within itself,

the amount of circulating medium, as a common measure for adjusting these

exchanges, would be quite immaterial. If their circulation, for instance,

were of a million of dollars, and the annual produce of their industry

equivalent to ten millions of bushels of wheat, the price of a bushel

of wheat might be one dollar. If, then, by a progressive coinage, their

medium should be doubled, the price of a bushel of wheat might become

progressively two dollars, and without inconvenience. Whatever be the

proportion of the circulating medium to the value of the annual produce

of industry, it may be considered as the representative of that industry.

In the first case, a bushel of wheat will be represented by one dollar;

in the second, by two dollars. This is well explained by Hume, and seems

admitted by Adam Smith, B. 2. c. 2, 436, 441, 490. But where a nation is

in a full course of interchange of wants and supplies with all others,

the proportion of its medium to its produce is no longer indifferent.

Ib. 441. To trade on equal terms, the common measure of values should be

as nearly as possible on a par with that of its corresponding nations,

whose medium is in a sound state; that is to say, not in an accidental

state of excess or deficiency. Now, one of the great advantages of specie

as a medium is, that being of universal value, it will keep itself at a

general level, flowing out from where it is too high into parts where

it is lower. Whereas, if the medium be of local value only, as paper

money, if too little, indeed, gold and silver will flow in to supply the

deficiency; but if too much, it accumulates, banishes the gold and silver

not locked up in vaults and hoards, and depreciates itself; that is too

say, its proportion to the annual produce of industry being raised, more

of it is required to represent any particular article of produce than

in the other countries. This is agreed by Smith, (B. 2. c. 2. 437,) the

principal advocate for a paper circulation; but advocating it on the

sole condition that it be strictly regulated. He admits, nevertheless,

that "the commerce and industry of a country cannot be so secure when

suspended on the Dædalian wings of paper money, as on the solid ground

of gold and silver; and that in time of war, the insecurity is greatly

increased, and great confusion possible where the circulation is for the

greater part in paper." B. 2. c. 2. 484. But in a country where loans

are uncertain, and a specie circulation the only sure resource for them,

the preference of that circulation assumes a far different degree of

importance, as is explained in my former letters.

The only advantage which Smith proposes by substituting paper in the room

of gold and silver money, B. 2. c. 2. 434, is "to replace an expensive

instrument with one much less costly, and _sometimes_ equally convenient;"

that is to say, page 437, "to allow the gold and silver to be sent abroad

and converted into foreign goods," and to substitute paper as being a

cheaper measure. But this makes no addition to the stock or capital of

the nation. The coin sent out was worth as much, while in the country,

as the goods imported and taking its place. It is only, then, a change

of form in a part of the national capital, from that of gold and silver

to other goods. He admits, too, that while a part of the goods received

in exchange for the coin exported may be materials, tools and provisions

for the employment of an additional industry, a part, also, may be

taken back in foreign wines, silks, &c., to be consumed by idle people

who produce nothing; and so far the substitution promotes prodigality,

increases expense and corruption, without increasing production. So far

also, then, it lessens the capital of the nation. What may be the amount

which the conversion of the part exchanged for productive goods may add

to the former productive mass, it is not easy to ascertain, because, as

he says, page 441, "it is impossible to determine what is the proportion

which the circulating money of any country bears to the whole value of

the annual produce. It has been computed by different authors, from a

fifth[6] to a thirtieth of that value." In the United States it must be

less than in any other part of the commercial world; because the great

mass of their inhabitants being in responsible circumstances, the great

mass of their exchanges in the country is effected on credit, in their

merchants' ledger, who supplies all their wants through the year, and at

the end of it receives the produce of their farms, or other articles of

their industry. It is a fact, that a farmer with a revenue of ten thousand

dollars a year, may obtain all his supplies from his merchant, and

liquidate them at the end of the year, by the sale of his produce to him,

without the intervention of a single dollar of cash. This, then, is merely

barter, and in this way of barter a great portion of the annual produce

of the United States is exchanged without the intermediation of cash. We

might safely, then, state our medium at the minimum of one-thirtieth. But

what is one-thirtieth of the value of the annual produce of the industry

of the United States? Or what is the whole value of the annual produce

of the United States? An able writer and competent judge of the subject,

in 1799, on as good grounds as probably could be taken, estimated it,

on the then population of four and a half millions of inhabitants, to be

thirty-seven and a half millions sterling, or one hundred and sixty-eight

and three-fourths millions of dollars. See Cooper's Political Arithmetic,

page 47. According to the same estimate for our present population, it

will be three hundred millions of dollars, one-thirtieth of which, Smith's

minimum, would be ten millions, and one-fifth, his maximum, would be

sixty millions for the quantum of circulation. But suppose that instead

of our needing the least circulating medium of any nation, from the

circumstance before mentioned, we should place ourselves in the middle

term of the calculation, to-wit: at thirty-five millions. One-fifth of

this, at the least, Smith thinks should be retained in specie, which

would leave twenty-eight millions of specie to be exported in exchange

for other commodities; and if fifteen millions of that should be returned

in productive goods, and not in articles of prodigality, that would be

the amount of capital which this operation would add to the existing

mass. But to what mass? Not that of the three hundred millions, which is

only its gross annual produce, but to that capital of which the three

hundred millions are but the annual produce. But this being gross, we

may infer from it the value of the capital by considering that the rent

of lands is generally fixed at one-third of the gross produce, and is

deemed its nett profit, and twenty times that its fee simple value. The

profits on landed capital may, with accuracy enough for our purpose, be

supposed on a par with those of other capital. This would give us then

for the United States, a capital of two thousand millions, all in active

employment, and exclusive of unimproved lands lying in a great degree

dormant. Of this, fifteen millions would be the hundred and thirty-third

part. And it is for this petty addition to the capital of the nation,

this minimum of one dollar, added to one hundred and thirty-three and

a third or three-fourths per cent., that we are to give up our gold

and silver medium, its intrinsic solidity, its universal value, and

its saving powers in time of war, and to substitute for it paper, with

all its train of evils, moral, political and physical, which I will not

pretend to enumerate.

There is another authority to which we may appeal for the proper quantity

of circulating medium for the United States. The old Congress, when

we were estimated at about two millions of people, on a long and able

discussion, June 22d, 1775, decided the sufficient quantity to be two

millions of dollars, which sum they then emitted.[7] According to this,

it should be eight millions, now that we are eight millions of people.

This differs little from Smith's minimum of ten millions, and strengthens

our respect for that estimate.

There is, indeed, a convenience in paper; its easy transmission from one

place to another. But this may be mainly supplied by bills of exchange,

so as to prevent any great displacement of actual coin. Two places

trading together balance their dealings, for the most part, by their

mutual supplies, and the debtor individuals of either may, instead of

cash, remit the bills of those who are creditors in the same dealings; or

may obtain them through some third place with which both have dealings.

The cases would be rare where such bills could not be obtained, either

directly or circuitously, and too unimportant to the nation to overweigh

the train of evils flowing from paper circulation.

From eight to thirty-five millions then being our proper circulation,

and two hundred millions the actual one, the memorial proposes to issue

ninety millions more, because, it says, a great scarcity of money is

proved by the numerous applications for banks; to wit, New York for

eighteen millions, Pennsylvania ten millions, &c. The answer to this

shall be quoted from Adam Smith, B. 2. c. 2. page 462; where speaking of

the complaints of the trader against the Scotch bankers, who had already

gone too far in their issues of paper, he says, "those traders and other

undertakers having got so much assistance from banks, wished to get still

more. The banks, they seem to have thought, could extend their credits

to whatever sum might be wanted, without incurring any other expense

besides that of a few reams of paper. They complained of the contracted

views and dastardly spirit of the directors of those banks, which did

not, they said, extend their credits in proportion to the extension of the

trade of the country; meaning, no doubt, by the extension of that trade,

the extension of their own projects beyond what they could carry on,

either _with their own capital_, or with what they had credit to borrow

of private people in the usual way of bond or mortgage. The banks, they

seem to have thought, were in honor bound to supply the deficiency, and

to provide them with all the capital which they wanted to trade with."

And again, page 470: "when bankers discovered that certain projectors

were trading, not with any capital of their own, but with that which they

advanced them, they endeavored to withdraw gradually, making every day

greater and greater difficulties about discounting. These difficulties

alarmed and enraged in the highest degree those projectors. Their own

distress, of which this prudent and necessary reserve of the banks was

no doubt the immediate occasion, they called the distress of the country;

and this distress of the country, they said, was altogether owing to the

ignorance, pusillanimity, and bad conduct of the banks, which did not

give a sufficiently liberal aid to the spirited undertakings of those

who exerted themselves in order to beautify, improve and enrich the

country. It was the duty of the banks, they seemed to think, to lend

for as long a time, and to as great an extent, as they might wish to

borrow." It is, probably, the _good paper_ of these projectors which the

memorial says, the bank being _unable_ to discount, goes into the hands

of brokers, who (knowing the risk of this _good paper_) discount it at

a much higher rate than legal interest, to the great distress of the

enterprising adventurers, who had rather try trade on borrowed capital,

than go to the plough or other laborious calling. Smith again says,

page 478, "that the industry of Scotland languished for want of money

to employ it, was the opinion of the famous Mr. Law. By establishing a

bank of a particular kind, which, he seems to have imagined might issue

paper to the amount of the whole value of all the lands in the country,

he proposed to remedy this want of money. It was afterwards adopted,

with some variations, by the Duke of Orleans, at that time Regent of

France. The idea of the possibility of multiplying paper to almost any

extent, was the real foundation of what is called the Mississippi scheme,

the most extravagant project both of banking and stock jobbing, that

perhaps the world ever saw. The principles upon which it was founded are

explained by Mr. Law himself, in a discourse concerning money and trade,

which he published in Scotland when he first proposed his project. The

splendid but visionary ideas which are set forth in that and some other

works upon the same principles, still continue to make an impression

upon many people, and have perhaps, in part, contributed to that excess

of banking which has of late been complained of both in Scotland and

in other places." The Mississippi scheme, it is well known, ended in

France in the bankruptcy of the public treasury, the crush of thousands

and thousands of private fortunes, and scenes of desolation and distress

equal to those of an invading army, burning and laying waste all before

it.

At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about "a

public debt being a public blessing;" that the stock representing it was

a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures

and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers

in dreams, and the gulls of that size entered _bonâ fide_ into it.

But the art and mystery of banks is a wonderful improvement on that.

It is established on the principle that "_private_ debts are a public

blessing." That the evidences of those private debts, called bank notes,

become active capital, and aliment the whole commerce, manufactures,

and agriculture of the United States. Here are a set of people, for

instance, who have bestowed on us the great blessing of running in our

debt about two hundred millions of dollars, without our knowing who

they are, where they are, or what property they have to pay this debt

when called on; nay, who have made us so sensible of the blessings of

letting them run in our debt, that we have exempted them by law from

the repayment of these debts beyond a given proportion, (generally

estimated at one-third.) And to fill up the measure of blessing, instead

of paying, they receive an interest on what they owe from those to whom

they owe; for all the notes, or evidences of what they owe, which we see

in circulation, have been lent to somebody on an interest which is levied

again on us through the medium of commerce. And they are so ready still

to deal out their liberalities to us, that they are now willing to let

themselves run in our debt ninety millions more, on our paying them the

same premium of six or eight per cent. interest, and on the same legal

exemption from the repayment of more than thirty millions of the debt,

when it shall be called for. But let us look at this principle in its

original form, and its copy will then be equally understood. "A public

debt is a public blessing." That our debt was juggled from forty-three

up to eighty millions, and funded at that amount, according to this

opinion was a great public blessing, because the evidences of it could

be vested in commerce, and thus converted into active capital, and then

the more the debt was made to be, the more active capital was created.

That is to say, the creditors could now employ in commerce the money

due them from the public, and make from it an annual profit of five per

cent., or four millions of dollars. But observe, that the public were

at the same time paying on it an interest of exactly the same amount of

four millions of dollars. Where then is the gain to either party, which

makes it a public blessing? There is no change in the state of things,

but of persons only. A has a debt due to him from the public, of which

he holds their certificate as evidence, and on which he is receiving an

annual interest. He wishes, however, to have the money itself, and to

go into business with it. B has an equal sum of money in business, but

wishes now to retire, and live on the interest. He therefore gives it

to A in exchange for A's certificates of public stock. Now, then, A has

the money to employ in business, which B so employed before. B has the

money on interest to live on, which A. lived on before; and the public

pays the interest to B. which they paid to A. before. Here is no new

creation of capital, no additional money employed, nor even a change in

the employment of a single dollar. The only change is of place between A

and B in which we discover no creation of capital, nor public blessing.

Suppose, again, the public to owe nothing. Then A not having lent his

money to the public, would be in possession of it himself, and would

go into business without the previous operation of selling stock. Here

again, the same quantity of capital is employed as in the former case,

though no public debt exists. In neither case is there any creation of

active capital, nor other difference than that there is a public debt

in the first case, and none in the last; and we may safely ask which of

the two situations is most truly a public blessing? If, then, a _public_

debt be no public blessing, we may pronounce, _à fortiori_, that a

private one cannot be so. If the debt which the banking companies owe

be a blessing to any body, it is to themselves alone, who are realizing

a solid interest of eight or ten per cent. on it. As to the public,

these companies have banished all our gold and silver medium, which,

before their institution, we had without interest, which never could

have perished in our hands, and would have been our salvation now in the

hour of war; instead of which they have given us two hundred million of

froth and bubble, on which we are to pay them heavy interest, until it

shall vanish into air, as Morris' notes did. We are warranted, then, in

affirming that this parody on the principle of "a public debt being a

public blessing," and its mutation into the blessing of private instead

of public debts, is as ridiculous as the original principle itself. In

both cases, the truth is, that capital may be produced by industry, and

accumulated by economy; but jugglers only will propose to create it by

legerdemain tricks with paper.

I have called the actual circulation of bank paper in the United States,

two hundred millions of dollars. I do not recollect where I have seen

this estimate; but I retain the impression that I thought it just at

the time. It may be tested, however, by a list of the banks now in

the United States, and the amount of their capital. I have no means of

recurring to such a list for the present day; but I turn to two lists

in my possession for the years of 1803 and 1804.

In 1803, there were thirty-four banks, whose capital

was $28,902,000

In 1804, there were sixty-six, consequently thirty-two

additional ones. Their capital is not stated, but

at the average of the others, (excluding the highest,

that of the United States, which was of ten

millions,) they would be of six hundred thousand

dollars each, and add 19,200,000

Making a total of ----------

$48,102,000

or say of fifty millions in round numbers. Now, every one knows the

immense multiplication of these institutions since 1804. If they have only

doubled, their capital will be of one hundred millions, and if trebled,

as I think probable, it will be one hundred and fifty millions, on which

they are at liberty to circulate treble the amount. I should sooner,

therefore, believe two hundred millions to be far below than above the

actual circulation. In England, by a late parliamentary document, (see

Virginia Argus of October the 18th, 1813, and other public papers of

about that date,) it appears that six years ago the Bank of England had

twelve millions of pounds sterling in circulation, which had increased to

forty-two millions in 1812, or to one hundred and eighty-nine millions

of dollars. What proportion all the other banks may add to this, I do

not know; if we were allowed to suppose they equal it, this would give a

circulation of three hundred and seventy-eight millions, or the double of

ours on a double population. But that nation is essentially commercial,

ours essentially agricultural, and needing, therefore, less circulating

medium, because the produce of the husbandman comes but once a year,

and is then partly consumed at home, partly exchanged by barter. The

dollar, which was of four shilling and sixpence sterling, was, by the same

document, stated to be then six shillings and nine pence, a depreciation

of exactly fifty per cent. The average price of wheat on the continent

of Europe, at the commencement of its present war with England, was about

a French crown, of one hundred and ten cents, the bushel. With us it was

one hundred cents, and consequently we could send it there in competition

with their own. That ordinary price has now doubled with us, and more

than doubled in England; and although a part of this augmentation may

proceed from the war demand, yet from the extraordinary nominal rise in

the prices of land and labor here, both of which have nearly doubled in

that period, and are still rising with every new bank, it is evident that

were a general peace to take place to-morrow, and time allowed for the

re-establishment of commerce, justice, and order, we could not afford

to raise wheat for much less than two dollars, while the continent of

Europe, having no paper circulation, and that of its specie not being

augmented, would raise it at their former price of one hundred and ten

cents. It follows, then, that with our redundancy of paper, we cannot,

after peace, send a bushel of wheat to Europe, unless extraordinary

circumstances double its price in particular places, and that then the

exporting countries of Europe could undersell us.

It is said that our paper is as good as silver, because we may have

silver for it at the bank where it issues. This is not true. One, two,

or three persons might have it; but a general application would soon

exhaust their vaults, and leave a ruinous proportion of their paper in

its intrinsic worthless form. It is a fallacious pretence, for another

reason. The inhabitants of the banking cities might obtain cash for their

paper, as far as the cash of the vaults would hold out, but distance

puts it out of the power of the country to do this. A farmer having a

note of a Boston or Charleston bank, distant hundreds of miles, has no

means of calling for the cash. And while these calls are impracticable

for the country, the banks have no fear of their being made from the

towns; because their inhabitants are mostly on their books, and there

on sufferance only, and during good behavior.

In this state of things, we are called on to add ninety millions more

to the circulation. Proceeding in this career, it is infallible, that

we must end where the revolutionary paper ended. Two hundred millions

was the whole amount of all the emissions of the old Congress, at which

point their bills ceased to circulate. We are now at that sum, but with

treble the population, and of course a longer tether. Our depreciation

is, as yet, but about two for one. Owing to the support its credit

receives from the small reservoirs of specie in the vaults of the

banks, it is impossible to say at what point their notes will stop.

Nothing is necessary to effect it but a general alarm; and that may take

place whenever the public shall begin to reflect on, and perceive the

impossibility that the banks should repay this sum. At present, caution

is inspired no farther than to keep prudent men from selling property

on long payments. Let us suppose the panic to arise at three hundred

millions, a point to which every session of the legislatures hasten us by

long strides. Nobody dreams that they would have three hundred millions

of specie to satisfy the holders of their notes. Were they even to stop

now, no one supposes they have two hundred millions in cash, or even the

sixty-six and two-third millions, to which amount alone the law compels

them to repay. One hundred and thirty-three and one-third millions of

loss, then, is thrown on the public by law; and as to the sixty-six and

two-thirds, which they are legally bound to pay, and ought to have in

their vaults, every one knows there is no such amount of cash in the

United States, and what would be the course with what they really have

there? Their notes are refused. Cash is called for. The inhabitants

of the banking towns will get what is in the vaults, until a few banks

declare their insolvency; when, the general crush becoming evident, the

others will withdraw even the cash they have, declare their bankruptcy

at once, and leave an empty house and empty coffers for the holders of

their notes. In this scramble of creditors, the country gets nothing,

the towns but little. What are they to do? Bring suits? A million

of creditors bring a million of suits against John Nokes and Robert

Styles, wheresoever to be found? All nonsense. The loss is total. And

a sum is thus swindled from our citizens, of seven times the amount of

the real debt, and four times that of the fictitious one of the United

States, at the close of the war. All this they will justly charge on

their legislatures; but this will be poor satisfaction for the two or

three hundred millions they will have lost. It is time, then, for the

public functionaries to look to this. Perhaps it may not be too late.

Perhaps, by giving time to the banks, they may call in and pay off their

paper by degrees. But no remedy is ever to be expected while it rests

with the State legislatures. Personal motive can be excited through so

many avenues to their will, that, in their hands, it will continue to

go on from bad to worse, until the catastrophe overwhelms us. I still

believe, however, that on proper representations of the subject, a great

proportion of these legislatures would cede to Congress their power of

establishing banks, saving the charter rights already granted. And this

should be asked, not by way of amendment to the constitution, because

until three-fourths should consent, nothing could be done; but accepted

from them one by one, singly, as their consent might be obtained. Any

single State, even if no other should come into the measure, would find

its interest in arresting foreign bank paper immediately, and its own

by degrees. Specie would flow in on them as paper disappeared. Their

own banks would call in and pay off their notes gradually, and their

constituents would thus be saved from the general wreck. Should the

greater part of the States concede, as is expected, their power over

banks to Congress, besides insuring their own safety, the paper of the

non-conceding States might be so checked and circumscribed, by prohibiting

its receipt in any of the conceding States, and even in the non-conceding

as to duties, taxes, judgments, or other demands of the United States,

or of the citizens of other States, that it would soon die of itself,

and the medium of gold and silver be universally restored. This is what

ought to be done. But it will not be done. _Carthago non delibitur._

The overbearing clamor of merchants, speculators, and projectors, will

drive us before them with our eyes open, until, as in France, under the

Mississippi bubble, our citizens will be overtaken by the crush of this

baseless fabric, without other satisfaction than that of execrations on

the heads of those functionaries, who, from ignorance, pusillanimity or

corruption, have betrayed the fruits of their industry into the hands

of projectors and swindlers.

When I speak comparatively of the paper emission of the old Congress

and the present banks, let it not be imagined that I cover them under

the same mantle. The object of the former was a holy one; for if ever

there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us

independence. The object of the latter, is to enrich swindlers at the

expense of the honest and industrious part of the nation.

The sum of what has been said is, that pretermitting the constitutional

question on the authority of Congress, and considering this application

on the grounds of reason alone, it would be best that our medium should

be so proportioned to our produce, as to be on a par with that of the

countries with which we trade, and whose medium is in a sound state; that

specie is the most perfect medium, because it will preserve its own level;

because, having intrinsic and universal value, it can never die in our

hands, and it is the surest resource of reliance in time of war; that

the trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience

for transmission, weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of

the precious metals; that it is liable to be abused, has been, is, and

forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted; that

it is already at a term of abuse in these States, which has never been

reached by any other nation, France excepted, whose dreadful catastrophe

should be a warning against the instrument which produced it; that we

are already at ten or twenty times the due quantity of medium; insomuch,

that no man knows what his property is now worth, because it is bloating

while he is calculating; and still less what it will be worth when the

medium shall be relieved from its present dropsical state; and that it

is a palpable falsehood to say we can have specie for our paper whenever

demanded. Instead, then, of yielding to the cries of scarcity of medium

set up by speculators, projectors and commercial gamblers, no endeavors

should be spared to begin the work of reducing it by such gradual means

as may give time to private fortunes to preserve their poise, and settle

down with the subsiding medium; and that, for this purpose, the States

should be urged to concede to the General Government, with a saving of

chartered rights, the exclusive power of establishing banks of discount

for paper.

To the existence of banks of _discount_ for _cash_, as on the continent

of Europe, there can be no objection, because there can be no danger

of abuse, and they are a convenience both to merchants and individuals.

I think they should even be encouraged, by allowing them a larger than

legal interest on short discounts, and tapering thence, in proportion as

the term of discount is lengthened, down to legal interest on those of

a year or more. Even banks of _deposit_, where cash should be lodged,

and a paper acknowledgment taken out as its representative, entitled

to a return of the cash on demand, would be convenient for remittances,

travelling persons, &c. But, liable as its cash would be to be pilfered

and robbed, and its paper to be fraudulently re-issued, or issued without

deposit, it would require skilful and strict regulation. This would

differ from the bank of Amsterdam, in the circumstance that the cash

could be redeemed on returning the note.

When I commenced this letter to you, my dear Sir, on Mr. Law's memorial,

I expected a short one would have answered that. But as I advanced, the

subject branched itself before me into so many collateral questions, that

even the rapid views I have taken of each have swelled the volume of my

letter beyond my expectations, and, I fear, beyond your patience. Yet

on a revisal of it, I find no part which has not so much bearing on the

subject as to be worth merely the time of perusal. I leave it then as

it is; and will add only the assurances of my constant and affectionate

esteem and respect.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The real cash or money necessary to carry on the circulation

and barter of a State, is nearly one-third part of all the annual

rents of the proprietors of the said State; that is, one-ninth

of the whole produce of the land. Sir William Petty supposes

one-tenth part of the value of the whole produce sufficient.

Postlethwait, voce, Cash.

[7] Within five months after this, they were compelled by the

necessities of the war, to abandon the idea of emitting only

an adequate circulation, and to make those necessities the sole

measure of their emissions.

TO JOHN JACOB ASTOR, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, November 9, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of October 18th has been duly received, and I learn

with great pleasure the progress you have made towards an establishment

on Columbia river. I view it as the germ of a great, free and independent

empire on that side of our continent, and that liberty and self-government

spreading from that as well as this side, will ensure their complete

establishment over the whole. It must be still more gratifying to yourself

to foresee that your name will be handed down with that of Columbus

and Raleigh, as the father of the establishment and founder of such an

empire. It would be an afflicting thing indeed, should the English be

able to break up the settlement. Their bigotry to the bastard liberty

of their own country, and habitual hostility to every degree of freedom

in any other, will induce the attempt; they would not lose the sale of

a bale of furs for the freedom of the whole world. But I hope your party

will be able to maintain themselves. If they have assiduously cultivated

the interests and affections of the natives, these will enable them to

defend themselves against the English, and furnish them an asylum even

if their fort be lost. I hope, and have no doubt our government will

do for its success whatever they have power to do, and especially that

at the negotiations for peace, they will provide, by convention with

the English, for the safety and independence of that country, and an

acknowledgment of our right of patronizing them in all cases of injury

from foreign nations. But no patronage or protection from this quarter

can secure the settlement if it does not cherish the affections of the

natives and make it their interest to uphold it. While you are doing

so much for future generations of men, I sincerely wish you may find a

present account in the just profits you are entitled to expect from the

enterprise. I will ask of the President permission to read Mr. Stuart's

journal. With fervent wishes for a happy issue to this great undertaking,

which promises to form a remarkable epoch in the history of mankind, I

tender you the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, November 12, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--As I owe you more for your letters of October 12th and 28th

than I shall be able to pay, I shall begin with the P. S. to the last.

I am very sorry to say that I cannot assist your memory in the inquiries

of your letter of August 22d. I really know not who was the compositor of

any one of the petitions or addresses you enumerate. Nay, further: I am

certain I never did know. I was so shallow a politician that I was not

aware of the importance of those compositions. They all appeared to me,

in the circumstances of the country, like children's play at marbles or

push-pin, or like misses in their teens, emulating each other in their

pearls, their bracelets, their diamond pins and Brussels lace.

In the Congress of 1774, there was not one member, except Patrick Henry,

who appeared to me sensible of the precipice, or rather the pinnacle on

which we stood, and had candor and courage enough to acknowledge it.

America is in total ignorance, or under infinite deception concerning

that assembly. To draw the characters of them all would require a volume,

and would now be considered as a characatured print. One-third Tories,

another Whigs, and the rest Mongrels.

There was a little aristocracy among us of talents and letters. Mr.

Dickinson was _primus interpares_, the bell-weather, the leader of the

aristocratical flock.

Billy, _alias_ Governor Livingston, and his son-in-law, Mr. Jay, were of

the privileged order. The credit of most if not all those compositions,

was often if not generally given to one or the other of these choice

spirits. Mr. Dickinson, however, was not on any of the original

committees. He came not into Congress till October 17th. He was not

appointed till the 15th by his assembly.

Vol. 1, 30. Congress adjourned October 27th, though our correct secretary

has not recorded any final adjournment or dissolution. Mr. Dickinson

was in Congress but ten days. The business was all prepared, arranged,

and even in a manner finished before his arrival.

R. H. Lee was the chairman of the committee for preparing the loyal and

dutiful address to his majesty. Johnson and Henry were acute spirits, and

understood the controversy very well, though they had not the advantages

of education like Lee and John Rutledge.

The subject had been near a month under discussion in Congress, and most

of the materials thrown out there. It underwent another deliberation

in committee, after which they made the customary compliment to their

chairman, by requesting him to prepare and report a draught, which was

done, and after examination, correction, amelioration or pejoration,

as usual reported to Congress. October 3d, 4th and 5th were taken up in

debating and deliberating on matters proper to be contained in the address

to his majesty, vol. 122. October 21st. The address to the king was, after

debate, re-committed, and Mr. John Dickinson added to the committee. The

first draught was made, and all the essential materials put together by

Lee. It might be embellished and seasoned afterwards with some of Mr.

Dickinson's piety, but I know not that it was. Neat and handsome as the

composition is, having never had any confidence in the utility of it, I

never have thought much about it since it was adopted. Indeed, I never

bestowed much attention on any of those addresses which were all but

repetitions of the same things, the same facts and arguments, dress and

ornament rather than body, soul or substance. My thoughts and cares were

nearly monopolized by the theory of our rights and wrongs, by measures

for the defence of the country, and the means of governing ourselves. I

was in a great error, no doubt, and am ashamed to confess it; for those

things were necessary to give popularity to our cause both at home and

abroad. And to show my stupidity in a stronger light, the reputation

of any one of those compositions has been a more splendid distinction

than any aristocratical star or garter in the escutcheon of every man

who has enjoyed it. Very sorry that I cannot give you more satisfactory

information, and more so that I cannot at present give more attention

to your two last excellent letters. I am, as usual, affectionately yours.

N. B. I am almost ready to believe that John Taylor, of Caroline, or of

Hazlewood, Port Royal, Virginia, is the author of 630 pages of printed

octavo upon my books that I have received. The style answers every

characteristic that you have intimated. Within a week I have received and

looked into his Arator. They must spring from the same brain, as Minerva

issued from the head of Jove, or rather as Venus rose from the froth of

the sea. There is, however, a great deal of good sense in Arator, and

there is some in his Aristocracy.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, November 15, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Accept my thanks for the comprehensive syllabus in your favor

of October 12th.

The Psalms of David, in sublimity, beauty, pathos and originality, or,

in one word, in poetry, are superior to all the odes, hymns and songs

in our language. But I had rather read them in our prose translation,

than in any version I have seen. His morality, however, often shocks

me, like Tristram Shandy's execrations.

Blacklock's translation of Horace's "Justum," is admirable; superior

to Addison's. Could David be translated as well, his superiority would

be universally acknowledged. We cannot compare the sublime poetry.

By Virgil's "Pollio," we may conjecture there was prophecy as well as

sublimity. Why have those verses been annihilated? I suspect Platonic

Christianity, Pharisaical Judaism or Machiavilian politics, in this

case, as in all other cases, of the destruction of records and literary

monuments,

The auri sacra fames, et dominandi sæva cupido.

Among all your researches in Hebrew history and controversy, have you ever

met a book the design of which is to prove that the ten commandments, as

we have them in our Catechisms and hung up in our churches, were not the

ten commandments written by the finger of God upon tables delivered to

Moses on Mount Sinai, and broken by him in a passion with Aaron for his

golden calf, nor those afterwards engraved by him on tables of stone;

but a very different set of commandments?

There is such a book, by J. W. Goethen, Schriften, Berlin 1775-1779. I

wish to see this book. You will perceive the question in Exodus, 20: 1,

17, 22, 28, chapter 24: 3, &c.; chapter 24: 12; chapter 25: 31; chapter

31: 18; chapter 31: 19; chapter 34: 1; chapter 34: 10, &c.

I will make a covenant with all this people. Observe that which I command

this day:

1. Thou shalt not adore any other God. Therefore take heed not to enter

into covenant with the inhabitants of the country; neither take for your

sons their daughters in marriage. They would allure thee to the worship

of false Gods. Much less shall you in any place erect images.

2. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days shalt thou

eat unleavened bread, at the time of the month Abib; to remember that

about that time, I delivered thee from Egypt.

3. Every first born of the mother is mine; the male of thine herd, be

it stock or flock. But you shall replace the first born of an ass with

a sheep. The first born of your sons shall you _redeem_. No man shall

appear before me with empty hands.

4. Six days shalt thou labor. The seventh day thou shalt rest from

ploughing and gathering.

5. The feast of weeks shalt thou keep with the firstlings of the wheat

harvest; and the feast of harvesting at the end of the year.

6. Thrice in every year all male persons shall appear before the Lord.

Nobody shall invade your country, as long as you obey this command.

7. Thou shalt not sacrifice the blood of a sacrifice of mine, upon

leavened bread.

8. The sacrifice of the Passover shall not remain till the next day.

9. The firstlings of the produce of your land, thou shalt bring to the

house of the Lord.

10. Thou shalt not boil the kid, while it is yet sucking.

And the Lord spake to Moses: Write these words, as after these words I

made with you and with Israel a covenant.

I know not whether Goethen translated or abridged from the Hebrew, or

whether he used any translation, Greek, Latin, or German. But he differs

in form and words somewhat from our version, Exodus 34: 10 to 28. The

sense seems to be the same. The tables were the evidence of the covenant,

by which the Almighty attached the people of Israel to himself. By these

laws they were separated from all other nations, and were reminded of

the principal epochs of their history.

When and where originated our ten commandments? The tables and the ark

were lost. Authentic copies in few, if any hands; the ten Precepts could

not be observed, and were little remembered.

If the book of Deuteronomy was compiled, during or after the Babylonian

captivity, from traditions, the error or amendment might come in those.

But you must be weary, as I am at present of problems, conjectures,

and paradoxes, concerning Hebrew, Grecian and Christian and all other

antiquities; but while we believe that the _finis bonorum_ will be happy,

we may leave learned men to their disquisitions and criticisms.

I admire your employment in selecting the philosophy and divinity of

Jesus, and separating it from all mixtures. If I had eyes and nerves

I would go through both Testaments and mark all that I understand. To

examine the Mishna, Gemara, Cabbala, Jezirah, Sohar, Cosri and Talmud of

the Hebrews would require the life of Methuselah, and after all his 969

years would be wasted to very little purpose. The dæmon of hierarchical

despotism has been at work both with the Mishna and Gemara. In 1238 a

French Jew made a discovery to the Pope (Gregory 9th) of the heresies

of the Talmud. The Pope sent thirty-five articles of error to the

Archbishops of France, requiring them to seize the books of the Jews and

burn all that contained any errors. He wrote in the same terms to the

kings of France, England, Arragon, Castile, Leon, Navarre and Portugal.

In consequence of this order, twenty cartloads of Hebrew books were

burnt in France; and how many times twenty cartloads were destroyed in

the other kingdoms? The Talmud of Babylon and that of Jerusalem were

composed from 120 to 500 years after the destruction of Jerusalem.

If Lightfoot derived light from what escaped from Gregory's fury,

in explaining many passages in the New Testament, by comparing the

expressions of the Mishna with those of the Apostles and Evangelists,

how many proofs of the corruptions of Christianity might we find in the

passages burnt?

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, November 15, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--I cannot appease my melancholy commiseration for our armies

in this furious snow storm, in any way so well as by studying your letter

of Oct. 28.

We are now explicitly agreed upon one important point, viz., that there

is a natural aristocracy among men, the grounds of which are virtue and

talents. You very justly indulge a little merriment upon this solemn

subject of aristocracy. I often laugh at it too, for there is nothing

in this laughable world more ridiculous than the management of it by

all the nations of the earth; but while we smile, mankind have reason

to say to us, as the frogs said to the boys, what is sport to you,

are wounds and death to us. When I consider the weakness, the folly,

the pride, the vanity, the selfishness, the artifice, the low craft

and mean cunning, the want of principle, the avarice, the unbounded

ambition, the unfeeling cruelty of a majority of those (in all nations)

who are allowed an aristocratical influence, and, on the other hand,

the stupidity with which the more numerous multitude not only become

their dupes, but even love to be taken in by their tricks, I feel a

stronger disposition to weep at their destiny, than to laugh at their

folly. But though we have agreed in one point, in words, it is not yet

certain that we are perfectly agreed in sense. Fashion has introduced

an indeterminate use of the word talents. Education, wealth, strength,

beauty, stature, birth, marriage, graceful attitudes and motions, gait,

air, complexion, physiognomy, are talents, as well as genius, science, and

learning. Any one of these talents that in fact commands or influences

two votes in society, gives to the man who possesses it the character

of an aristocrat, in my sense of the word. Pick up the first hundred

men you meet, and make a republic. Every man will have an equal vote;

but when deliberations and discussions are opened, it will be found

that twenty-five, by their talents, virtues being equal, will be able

to carry fifty votes. Every one of these twenty-five is an aristocrat

in my sense of the word; whether he obtains his one vote in addition to

his own, by his birth, fortune, figure, eloquence, science, learning,

craft, cunning, or even his character for good fellowship, and a _bon

vivant_.

What gave Sir William Wallace his amazing aristocratical superiority? His

strength. What gave Mrs. Clark her aristocratical influence--to create

generals, admirals, and bishops? Her beauty. What gave Pompadour and Du

Barry the power of making cardinals and popes? And I have lived for years

in the hotel de Valentinois, with Franklin, who had as many virtues as

any of them. In the investigation of the meaning of the word "talents,"

I could write 630 pages as pertinent as John Taylor's, of Hazlewood;

but I will select a single example; for female aristocrats are nearly as

formidable as males. A daughter of a green grocer walks the streets in

London daily, with a basket of cabbage sprouts, dandelions, and spinage,

on her head. She is observed by the painters to have a beautiful face,

an elegant figure, a graceful step, and a _debonair_. They hire her to

sit. She complies, and is painted by forty artists in a circle around

her. The scientific Dr. William Hamilton outbids the painters, sends

her to school for a genteel education, and marries her. This lady not

only causes the triumphs of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, but

separates Naples from France, and finally banishes the king and queen

from Sicily. Such is the aristocracy of the natural talent of beauty.

Millions of examples might be quoted from history, sacred and profane,

from Eve, Hannah, Deborah, Susanna, Abigail, Judith, Ruth, down to Helen,

Mrs. de Mainbenor, and Mrs. Fitzherbert. For mercy's sake do not compel

me to look to our chaste States and territories to find women, one of

whom let go would in the words of Holopherne's guards, deceive the whole

earth.

The proverbs of Theognis, like those of Solomon, are observations on

human nature, ordinary life, and civil society, with moral reflections on

the facts. I quoted him as a witness of the fact, that there was as much

difference in the races of men as in the breeds of sheep, and as a sharp

reprover and censurer of the sordid, mercenary practice of disgracing

birth by preferring gold to it. Surely no authority can be more expressly

in point to prove the existence of inequalities, not of rights, but of

moral, intellectual, and physical inequalities in families, descents and

generations. If a descent from pious, virtuous, wealthy, literary, or

scientific ancestors, is a letter of recommendation, or introduction in

a man's favor, and enables him to influence only one vote in addition

to his own, he is an aristocrat; for a democrat can have but one vote.

Aaron Burr has 100,000 votes from the single circumstance of his descent

from President Burr and President Edwards.

Your commentary on the proverbs of Theognis, reminded me of two solemn

characters; the one resembling John Bunyan, the other Scarron. The one

John Torrey, the other Ben Franklin. Torrey, a poet, an enthusiast, a

superstitious bigot, once very gravely asked my brother, whether it

would not be better for mankind if children were always begotten by

religious motives only? Would not religion in this sad case have as little

efficacy in encouraging procreation, as it has now in discouraging it?

I should apprehend a decrease of population, even in our country where

it increases so rapidly.

In 1775, Franklin made a morning visit at Mrs. Yard's, to Sam Adams

and John. He was unusually loquacious. "Man, a rational creature!"

said Franklin. "Come, let us suppose a rational man. Strip him of all

his appetites, especially his hunger and thirst. He is in his chamber,

engaged in making experiments, or in pursuing some problem. He is highly

entertained. At this moment a servant knocks. 'Sir, dinner is on the

table.' 'Dinner! pox! pough! but what have you for dinner?' 'Ham and

chickens.' 'Ham, and must I break the chain of my thoughts to go down

and gnaw a morsel of damned hog's arse? Put aside your ham; I will dine

to-morrow.'" Take away appetite, and the present generation would not

live a month, and no future generation would ever exist; and thus the

exalted dignity of human nature would be annihilated and lost, and in my

opinion the whole loss would be of no more importance than putting out

a candle, quenching a torch, or crushing a fire-fly, _if in this world

we only have hope_. Your distinction between natural and artificial

aristocracy, does not appear to me founded. Birth and wealth are conferred

upon some men as imperiously by nature as genius, strength, or beauty.

The heir to honors, and riches, and power, has often no more merit in

procuring these advantages, than he has in obtaining a handsome face,

or an elegant figure. When aristocracies are established by human laws,

and honor, wealth, and power are made hereditary by municipal laws and

political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to

commence; but this never commences till corruption in elections become

dominant and uncontrollable. But this artificial aristocracy can never

last. The everlasting envies, jealousies, rivalries, and quarrels

among them; their cruel rapacity upon the poor ignorant people, their

followers, compel them to set up Cæsar, a demagogue, to be a monarch, a

master; _pour mettre chacun à sa place_. Here you have the origin of all

artificial aristocracy, which is the origin of all monarchies. And both

artificial aristocracy and monarchy, and civil, military, political, and

hierarchical despotism, have all grown out of the natural aristocracy

of virtues and talents. We, to be sure, are far remote from this. Many

hundred years must roll away before we shall be corrupted. Our pure,

virtuous, public-spirited, federative republic will last forever, govern

the globe, and introduce the perfection of man; his perfectibility being

already proved by Price, Priestley, Condorcet, Rousseau, Diderot, and

Godwin. Mischief has been done by the Senate of the United States. I have

known and felt more of this mischief, than Washington, Jefferson, and

Madison, all together. But this has been all caused by the constitutional

power of the Senate, in executive business, which ought to be immediately,

totally, and essentially abolished. Your distinction between the Αριστοι

and ψευδο αριστοι, will not help the matter. I would trust one as well

as the other with unlimited power. The law wisely refuses an oath as a

witness in his own case, to the saint as well as the sinner. No romance

would be more amusing than the history of your Virginian and our New

England aristocratical families. Yet even in Rhode Island there has

been no clergy, no church, and I had almost said no State, and some

people say no religion. There has been a constant respect for certain

old families. Fifty-seven or fifty-eight years ago, in company with

Colonel, Counsellor, Judge, John Chandler, whom I have quoted before,

a newspaper was brought in. The old sage asked me to look for the news

from Rhode Island, and see how the elections had gone there. I read the

list of Wanbous, Watrous, Greens, Whipples, Malboues, &c. "I expected

as much," said the aged gentleman, "for I have always been of opinion

that in the most popular governments, the elections will generally go

in favor of the most ancient families." To this day, when any of these

tribes--and we may add Ellerys, Channings, Champlins, &c.,--are pleased

to fall in with the popular current, they are sure to carry all before

them.

You suppose a difference of opinion between you and me on the subject of

aristocracy. I can find none. I dislike and detest hereditary honors,

offices, emoluments, established by law So do you. I am for excluding

legal, hereditary distinctions from the United States as long as possible.

So are you. I only say that mankind have not yet discovered any remedy

against irresistible corruption in elections to offices of great power

and profit, but making them hereditary.

But will you say our elections are pure? Be it so, upon the whole;

but do you recollect in history a more corrupt election than that of

Aaron Burr to be President, or that of De Witt Clinton last year? By

corruption here, I mean a sacrifice of every national interest and honor

to private and party objects. I see the same spirit in Virginia that

you and I see in Rhode Island and the rest of New England. In New York

it is a struggle of family feuds--a feudal aristocracy. Pennsylvania is

a contest between German, Irish and old England families. When Germans

and Irish unite they give 30,000 majorities. There is virtually a white

rose and a red rose, a Cæsar and a Pompey, in every State in this Union,

and contests and dissensions will be as lasting. The rivalry of Bourbons

and Noaillises produced the French revolution, and a similar competition

for consideration and influence exists and prevails in every village

in the world. Where will terminate the _rabies agri_? The continent

will be scattered over with manors much larger than Livingston's,

Van Rensselaers's, or Philips's; even our Deacon Strong will have a

principality among you Southern folk. What inequality of talents will

be produced by these land jobbers. Where tends the mania of banks? At

my table in Philadelphia, I once proposed to you to unite in endeavors

to obtain an amendment of the constitution prohibiting to the separate

States the power of creating banks; but giving Congress authority to

establish one bank with a branch in each State, the whole limited to

ten millions of dollars. Whether this project was wise or unwise, I know

not, for I had deliberated little on it then, and have never thought it

worth thinking of since. But you spurned the proposition from you with

disdain. This system of banks, begotten, brooded and hatched by Duer,

Robert and Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton and Washington, I have always

considered as a system of national injustice. A sacrifice of public and

private interest to a few aristocratical friends and favorites. My scheme

could have had no such effect. Verres plundered temples, and robbed a

few rich men, but he never made such ravages among private property in

general, nor swindled so much out of the pockets of the poor, and middle

class of people, as these banks have done. No people but this would

have borne the imposition so long. The people of Ireland would not bear

Wood's half-pence. What inequalities of talent have been introduced into

this country by these aristocratical banks! Our Winthrops, Winslows,

Bradfords, Saltonstalls, Quinceys, Chandlers, Leonards, Hutchinsons,

Olivers, Sewalls, &c., are precisely in the situation of your Randolphs,

Carters, and Burwells, and Harrisons. Some of them unpopular for the

part they took in the late revolution, but all respected for their names

and connections; and whenever they fell in with the popular sentiments

are preferred _ceteris paribus_, to all others. When I was young the

_summum bonum_ in Massachusetts was to be worth £10,000 sterling, ride

in a chariot, be Colonel of a regiment of militia, and hold a seat in his

Majesty's council. No man's imagination aspired to anything higher beneath

the skies. But these plumbs, chariots, colonelships, and counsellorships,

are recorded and will never be forgotten. No great accumulations of

land were made by our early settlers. Mr. Baudoin, a French refugee,

made the first great purchases, and your General Dearborne, born under

a fortunate star, is now enjoying a large portion of the aristocratical

sweets of them. As I have no amanuenses but females, and there is so

much about generation in this letter that I dare not ask any of them to

copy it, and I cannot copy it myself, I must beg of you to return it to

me. Your old friend.

TO ----.

November 28, 1813.

I will not fatigue you, my dear Sir, with long and labored excuses for

having been so tardy in writing to you; but I will briefly mention that

the thousand hostile ships which cover the ocean render attempts to pass

it now very unfrequent, and these concealing their intentions from all

that they may not be known to the enemy, are gone before heard of in

such inland situations as mine. To this, truth must add the torpidity

of age as one of the obstacles to punctual correspondence.

Your letters of October 21 and November 15, 1811, and August 29, 1813,

were duly received, and with that of November 15 came the MS. copy of your

work on Economy. The extraordinary merit of the former volume had led

me to anticipate great satisfaction and edification from the perusal of

this, and I can say with truth and sincerity that these expectations were

completely fulfilled, new principles developed, former ones corrected, or

rendered more perspicuous, present us an interesting science, heretofore

voluminous and embarrassed, now happily simplified and brought within a

very moderate compass. After an attentive perusal, which enabled me to

bear testimony to its worth, I took measures for getting it translated

and printed in Philadelphia; the distance from which place prepared me

to expect great and unavoidable delays. But notwithstanding my continual

urgencies these have gone far beyond my calculations. In a letter of

September 26th from the editor, in answer to one of mine, after urging

in excuse the causes of the delay, he expresses his confidence that it

would be ready by the last of October, and that period being now past,

I am in daily expectation of hearing from him. As I write the present

letter without knowing by what conveyance it may go, I am not without

a hope of receiving a copy of the work in time to accompany this. I

shall then be anxious to learn that better health and more encouraging

circumstances enable you to pursue your plan through the two remaining

branches of morals and legislation, which executed in the same lucid,

logical and condensed style, will present such a whole as the age we live

in will not before have received. Should the same motives operate for

their first publication here, I am now offered such means, nearer to me,

as promise a more encouraging promptitude in the execution. And certainly

no effort should be spared on my part to ensure to the world such an

acquisition. The MS. of the first work has been carefully recalled and

deposited with me. That of the second, when done with, shall be equally

taken care of.

If unmerited praise could give pleasure to a candid mind, I should have

been highly exalted, in my own opinion, on the occasion of the first

work. One of the best judges and best men of the age has ascribed it to

myself; and has for some time been employed in translating it into French.

It would be a gratification to which you are highly entitled, could I

transcribe the sheets he has written me in praise, nay in rapture with

the work; and were I to name the man, you would be sensible there is not

another whose suffrage would be more encouraging. But the casualties

which lie between us would render criminal the naming any one. In a

letter which I am now writing him, I shall set him right as to myself,

and acknowledge my humble station far below the qualifications necessary

for that work; and shall discourage his perseverance in retranslating

into French a work the original of which is so correct in its diction

that not a word can be altered but for the worse; and from a translation,

too, where the author's meaning has sometimes been illy understood,

sometimes mistaken, and often expressed in words not the best chosen.

Indeed, when the work, through its translation, becomes more generally

known here, the high estimation in which it is held by all who become

acquainted with it, encourage me to hope I may get it printed in the

original. I sent a copy of it to the late President of William and Mary

College of this State, who adopted it at once as the elementary book

of that institution. From these beginnings it will spread and become

a political gospel for a nation open to reason, and in a situation to

adopt and profit by its results, without a fear of their leading to wrong.

I sincerely wish you all the health, comfort and leisure necessary to

dispose and enable you to persevere in employing yourself so useful for

present and future times, and I pray you to be assured you have not a

more grateful votary for your benefactions to mankind, nor one of higher

sentiments of esteem and affectionate respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, December 3, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--The proverbs of the old Greek poets are as short and pithy

as any of Solomon or Franklin. Hesiod has several. His Αθανατους μὲν

πρῶτα θεους νομω ως διακειται Τιμα. Honor the gods established by law.

I know not how we can escape martyrdom without a discreet attention to

this precept. You have suffered, and I have suffered more than you, for

want of a strict observance of this rule.

There is another oracle of this Hesiod, which requires a kind of dance

upon a tight rope and a slack rope too, in philosophy and theology:

Πιστις δ' αρα ομως και απιστια ωλεσαν ανδρας. If believing too little

or too much is so fatal to mankind, what will become of us all?

In studying the perfectability of human nature and its progress towards

perfection in this world, on this earth, remember that I have met many

curious and interesting characters.

About three hundred years ago, there appeared a number of men of letters,

who appeared to endeavor to believe neither too little nor too much.

They labored to imitate the Hebrew archers, who could shoot to an hair's

breadth. The Pope and his church believed too much. Luther and his

church believed too little. This little band was headed by three great

scholars: Erasmus, Vives and Badens. This triumvirate is said to have

been at the head of the republic of letters in that age. Had Condorcet

been master of his subject, I fancy he would have taken more notice, in

his History of the Progress of Mind, of these characters. Have you their

writings? I wish I had. I shall confine myself at present to Vives. He

wrote commentaries on the City of God of St. Augustine, some parts of

which were censured by the Doctors of the Louvain, as too bold and too

free. I know not whether the following passage of the learned Spaniard

was among the sentiments condemned or not:

"I have been much afflicted," says Vives, "when I have seriously

considered how diligently, and with what exact care, the actions of

Alexander, Hannibal, Scipio, Pompey, Cæsar and other commanders, and the

lives of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and other philosophers, have been

written and fixed in an everlasting remembrance, so that there is not the

least danger they can ever be lost; but then the acts of the Apostles,

and martyrs and saints of our religion, and of the affairs of the rising

and established church, being involved in much darkness, are almost

totally unknown, though they are of so much greater advantage than the

lives of the philosophers or great generals, both as to the improvement

of our knowledge and practice. For what is written of these holy men,

except a very few things, is very much corrupted and defaced with the

mixture of many fables, while the writer, indulging his own humor, doth

not tell us what the saint did, but what the historian would have had

him do. And the fancy of the writer dictates the life and not the truth

of things." And again Vives says: "There have been men who have thought

it a great piece of piety, to invent lies for the sake of religion."

The great Cardinal Barronius, too, confesses: "There is nothing which

seems so much neglected to this day, as a true and certain account of

the affairs of the church, collected with an exact diligence. And that

I may speak of the more ancient, it is very difficult to find any of

them who have published commentaries on this subject, which have hit

the truth in all points."

Canus, too, another Spanish prelate of great name, says: "I speak it

with grief and not by way of reproach, Laertius has written the lives of

the philosophers with more ease and industry than the Christians have

those of the saints. Suetonius has represented the lives of the Cæsars

with much more truth and sincerity than the Catholics have the affairs

(I will not say of the emperors) but even those of the martyrs, holy

virgins and confessors. For they have not concealed the vice nor the

very suspicions of vice, in good and commendable philosophers or princes,

and in the worst of them they discover the very colors or appearances of

virtue. But the greatest part of our writers either follow the conduct

of their affections, or industriously feign many things; so that I, for

my part, am very often both weary and ashamed of them, because I know

that they have thereby brought nothing of advantage to the church of

Christ, but very much inconvenience." Vives and Canus are moderns, but

Arnobius, the converter of Lætantius, was ancient. He says: "But neither

could all that was done be written, or arrive at the knowledge of all

men--many of our great actions being done by obscure men and those who

had no knowledge of letters. And if some of them are committed to letters

and writings, yet even here, by the malice of the devils and men like

them, whose great design and study is to intercept and ruin this truth,

by interpolating or adding some things to them, or by changing or taking

out words, syllables or letters, they have put a stop to the faith of

wise men, and corrupted the truth of things."

Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient

Christianism, which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions,

above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public?

Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents, wave succeeding

wave in the Catholic church, from the Council of Nice, and long before,

to this day.

Aristotle, no doubt, thought his Ουτε πασι πιστευοντες, ουτε πασιν

απιστουντες, very wise and very profound; but what is its worth? What man,

woman or child ever believed everything or nothing? Oh! that Priestley

could live again, and have leisure and means! An inquirer after truth,

who had neither time nor means, might request him to search and re-search

for answers to a few questions:

1. Have we more than two witnesses of the life of Jesus--Matthew and John?

2. Have we one witness to the existence of Matthew's gospel in the first

century?

3. Have we one witness of the existence of John's gospel in the first

century?

4. Have we one witness of the existence of Mark's gospel in the first

century?

5. Have we one witness of the existence of Luke's gospel in the first

century?

6. Have we any witness of the existence of St. Thomas' gospel, that is

the gospel of the infancy in the first century?

7. Have we any evidence of the existence of the Acts of the Apostles in

the first century?

8. Have we any evidence of the existence of the supplement to the Acts

of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, or Paul and Tecle, in the first century?

Here I was interrupted by a new book, Chateaubriand's Travels in Greece,

Palestine and Egypt, and by a lung fever with which the amiable companion

of my life has been violently and dangerously attacked.

December 13th. I have fifty more questions to put to Priestley, but must

adjourn them to a future opportunity.

I have read Chateaubriand with as much delight as I ever read Bunyan's

Pilgrims' Progress, Robinson Crusoe's Travels, or Gulliver's, or

Whitefield's, or Wesley's Life, or the Life of St. Francis, St.

Anthony, or St. Ignatius Loyola. A work of infinite learning, perfectly

well written, a magazine of information, but enthusiastic, bigoted,

superstitious, Roman Catholic throughout. If I were to indulge in

jealous criticism and conjecture, I should suspect that there had been

an Œcuemenical counsel of Popes, Cardinals and Bishops, and that this

traveller has been employed at their expense to make this tour, to lay

a foundation for the resurrection of the Catholic Hierarchy in Europe.

Have you read La Harpe's Course de Literature, in fifteen volumes? Have

you read St. Pierre's Studies of Nature?

I am now reading the controversy between Voltaire and Monotte.

Our friend Rush has given us for his last legacy, an analysis of some

of the diseases of the mind.

Johnson said, "We are all more or less mad;" and who is or has been more

mad than Johnson?

I know of no philosopher, or theologian, or moralist, ancient or modern,

more profound, more infallible than Whitefield, if the anecdote I heard

be true.

He began: "Father Abraham," with his hands and eyes gracefully directed to

the heavens, as I have more than once seen him; "Father Abraham, who have

you there with you? Have you Catholics?" "No." "Have you Protestants?"

"No." "Have you Churchmen?" "No." "Have you Dissenters?" "No." "Have you

Presbyterians?" "No." "Quakers?" "No." "Anabaptists?" "No." "Who have

you there? Are you alone?" "No."

"My brethren, you have the answer to all these questions in the words

of my text: 'He who feareth God and worketh righteousness, shall be

accepted of Him.'"

Allegiance to the Creator and Governor of the Milky-Way, and the Nebulæ,

and benevolence to all his creatures, is my Religion.

Si quid novisti rectius istis, candidus imperti.

I am as ever.

TO BARON DE HUMBOLDT.

December 6, 1813.

MY DEAR FRIEND AND BARON,--I have to acknowledge your two letters of

December 20 and 26, 1811, by Mr. Correa, and am first to thank you for

making me acquainted with that most excellent character. He was so kind

as to visit me at Monticello, and I found him one of the most learned

and amiable of men. It was a subject of deep regret to separate from so

much worth in the moment of its becoming known to us.

The livraison of your astronomical observations, and the 6th and 7th

on the subject of New Spain, with the corresponding atlasses, are duly

received, as had been the preceding cahiers. For these treasures of a

learning so interesting to us, accept my sincere thanks. I think it most

fortunate that your travels in those countries were so timed as to make

them known to the world in the moment they were about to become actors on

its stage. That they will throw off their European dependence I have no

doubt; but in what kind of government their revolution will end I am not

so certain. History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden

people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of

ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always

avail themselves for their own purposes. The vicinity of New Spain to

the United States, and their consequent intercourse, may furnish schools

for the higher, and example for the lower classes of their citizens. And

Mexico, where we learn from you that men of science are not wanting, may

revolutionize itself under better auspices than the Southern provinces.

These last, I fear, must end in military despotisms. The different casts

of their inhabitants, their mutual hatreds and jealousies, their profound

ignorance and bigotry, will be played off by cunning leaders, and each

be made the instrument of enslaving the others. But of all this you can

best judge, for in truth we have little knowledge of them to be depended

on, but through you. But in whatever governments they end they will be

_American_ governments, no longer to be involved in the never-ceasing

broils of Europe. The European nations constitute a separate division

of the globe; their localities make them part of a distinct system;

they have a set of interests of their own in which it is our business

never to engage ourselves. America has a hemisphere to itself. It must

have its separate system of interests, which must not be subordinated

to those of Europe. The insulated state in which nature has placed the

American continent, should so far avail it that no spark of war kindled

in the other quarters of the globe should be wafted across the wide

oceans which separate us from them. And it will be so. In fifty years

more the United States alone will contain fifty millions of inhabitants,

and fifty years are soon gone over. The peace of 1763 is within that

period. I was then twenty years old, and of course remember well all

the transactions of the war preceding it. And you will live to see the

epoch now equally ahead of us; and the numbers which will then be spread

over the other parts of the American hemisphere, catching long before

that the principles of our portion of it, and concurring with us in the

maintenance of the same system. You see how readily we run into ages

beyond the grave; and even those of us to whom that grave is already

opening its quiet bosom. I am anticipating events of which you will be

the bearer to me in the Elysian fields fifty years hence.

You know, my friend, the benevolent plan we were pursuing here for the

happiness of the aboriginal inhabitants in our vicinities. We spared

nothing to keep them at peace with one another. To teach them agriculture

and the rudiments of the most necessary arts, and to encourage industry

by establishing among them separate property. In this way they would

have been enabled to subsist and multiply on a moderate scale of landed

possession. They would have mixed their blood with ours, and been

amalgamated and identified with us within no distant period of time. On

the commencement of our present war, we pressed on them the observance

of peace and neutrality, but the interested and unprincipled policy of

England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate

people. They have seduced the greater part of the tribes within our

neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us, and the cruel massacres

they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by

surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive

them to new seats beyond our reach. Already we have driven their patrons

and seducers into Montreal, and the opening season will force them to

their last refuge, the walls of Quebec. We have cut off all possibility

of intercourse and of mutual aid, and may pursue at our leisure whatever

plan we find necessary to secure ourselves against the future effects

of their savage and ruthless warfare. The confirmed brutalization, if

not the extermination of this race in our America, is therefore to form

an additional chapter in the English history of the same colored man in

Asia, and of the brethren of their own color in Ireland, and wherever else

Anglo-mercantile cupidity can find a two-penny interest in deluging the

earth with human blood. But let us turn from the loathsome contemplation

of the degrading effects of commercial avarice.

That their Arrowsmith should have stolen your Map of Mexico, was in the

piratical spirit of his country. But I should be sincerely sorry if our

Pike has made an ungenerous use of your candid communications here; and

the more so as he died in the arms of victory gained over the enemies of

his country. Whatever he did was on a principle of enlarging knowledge,

and not for filthy shillings and pence of which he made none from that

work. If what he has borrowed has any effect it will be to excite an

appeal in his readers from his defective information to the copious

volumes of it with which you have enriched the world. I am sorry he

omitted even to acknowledge the source of his information. It has been

an oversight, and not at all in the spirit of his generous nature. Let

me solicit your forgiveness then of a deceased hero, of an honest and

zealous patriot, who lived and died for his country.

You will find it inconceivable that Lewis's journey to the Pacific should

not yet have appeared; nor is it in my power to tell you the reason. The

measures taken by his surviving companion, Clarke, for the publication,

have not answered our wishes in point of despatch. I think, however,

from what I have heard, that the mere journal will be out within a

few weeks in two volumes 8vo. These I will take care to send you with

the tobacco seed you desired, if it be possible for them to escape the

thousand ships of our enemies spread over the ocean. The botanical and

zoological discoveries of Lewis will probably experience greater delay,

and become known to the world through other channels before that volume

will be ready. The Atlas, I believe, waits on the leisure of the engraver.

Although I do not know whether you are now at Paris or ranging the

regions of Asia to acquire more knowledge for the use of men, I cannot

deny myself the gratification of an endeavor to recall myself to your

recollection, and of assuring you of my constant attachment, and of

renewing to you the just tribute of my affectionate esteem and high

respect and consideration.

TO MADAM DE TESSÉ.

December 8, 1813.

While at war, my dear Madam and friend, with the leviathan of the ocean,

there is little hope of a letter escaping his thousand ships; yet I cannot

permit myself longer to withhold the acknowledgment of your letter of

June 28 of the last year, with which came the memoirs of the Margrave of

Bareuth. I am much indebted to you for this singular morsel of history

which has given us a certain view of kings, queens and princes, disrobed

of their formalities. It is a peep into the state of the Egyptian god

Apis. It would not be easy to find grosser manners, coarser vices, or

more meanness in the poorest huts of our peasantry. The princess shows

herself the legitimate sister of Frederic, cynical, selfish, and without

a heart. Notwithstanding your wars with England, I presume you get the

publications of that country. The memoirs of Mrs. Clarke and of her

_darling_ prince, and the book, emphatically so called, because it is

the Biblia Sacra Deorum et Dearum sub-cœlestium, the Prince Regent, his

Princess and the minor deities of his sphere, form a worthy sequel to the

memoirs of Bareuth; instead of the vulgarity and penury of the court of

Berlin, giving us the vulgarity and profusion of that of London, and the

gross stupidity and profligacy of the latter, in lieu of the genius and

misanthropism of the former. The whole might be published as a supplement

to M. de Buffon, under the title of the "Natural History of Kings and

Princes," or as a separate work and called "Medicine for Monarchists."

The "Intercepted Letters," a later English publication of great wit

and humor, has put them to their proper use by holding them up as butts

for the ridicule and contempt of mankind. Yet by such worthless beings

is a great nation to be governed and even made to deify their old king

because he is only a fool and a maniac, and to forgive and forget his

having lost to them a great and flourishing empire, added nine hundred

millions sterling to their debt, for which the fee simple of the whole

island would not sell, if offered farm by farm at public auction, and

increased their annual taxes from eight to seventy millions sterling,

more than the whole rent-roll of the island. What must be the dreary

prospect from the son when such a father is deplored as a national loss.

But let us drop these odious beings and pass to those of an higher order,

the plants of the field. I am afraid I have given you a great deal more

trouble than I intended by my enquiries for the Maronnier or Castanea

Saliva, of which I wished to possess my own country, without knowing how

rare its culture was even in yours. The two plants which your researches

have placed in your own garden, it will be all but impossible to remove

hither. The war renders their safe passage across the Atlantic extremely

precarious, and, if landed anywhere but in the Chesapeake, the risk of

the additional voyage along the coast to Virginia, is still greater.

Under these circumstances it is better they should retain their present

station, and compensate to you the trouble they have cost you.

I learn with great pleasure the success of your new gardens at Auenay.

No occupation can be more delightful or useful. They will have the merit

of inducing you to forget those of Chaville. With the botanical riches

which you mention to have been derived to England from New Holland, we

are as yet unacquainted. Lewis's journey across our continent to the

Pacific has added a number of new plants to our former stock. Some of

them are curious, some ornamental, some useful, and some may by culture

be made acceptable on our tables. I have growing, which I destine for

you, a very handsome little shrub of the size of a currant bush. Its

beauty consists in a great produce of berries of the size of currants, and

literally as white as snow, which remain on the bush through the winter,

after its leaves have fallen, and make it an object as singular as it is

beautiful. We call it the snow-berry bush, no botanical name being yet

given to it, but I do not know why we might not call it Chionicoccos, or

Kallicoccos. All Lewis's plants are growing in the garden of Mr. McMahon,

a gardener of Philadelphia, to whom I consigned them, and from whom I

shall have great pleasure, when peace is restored, in ordering for you

any of these or of our other indigenous plants. The port of Philadelphia

has great intercourse with Bordeaux and Nantes, and some little perhaps

with Havre. I was mortified not long since by receiving a letter from

a merchant in Bordeaux, apologizing for having suffered a box of plants

addressed by me to you, to get accidentally covered in his warehouse by

other objects, and to remain three years undiscovered, when every thing

in it was found to be rotten. I have learned occasionally that others

rotted in the ware-houses of the English pirates. We are now settling

that account with them. We have taken their Upper Canada and shall add

the Lower to it when the season will admit; and hope to remove them fully

and finally from our continent. And what they will feel more, for they

value their colonies only for the bales of cloth they take from them,

we have established manufactures, not only sufficient to supersede our

demand from them, but to rivalize them in foreign markets. But for the

course of our war I will refer you to M. de La Fayette, to whom I state

it more particularly.

Our friend Mr. Short is well. He makes Philadelphia his winter quarters,

and New York, or the country, those of the summer. In his fortune he

is perfectly independent and at ease, and does not trouble himself with

the party politics of our country. Will you permit me to place here for

M. de Tessé the testimony of my high esteem and respect, and accept

for yourself an assurance of the warm recollections I retain of your

many civilities and courtesies to me, and the homage of my constant and

affectionate attachment and respect.

TO DON VALENTIN DE TORONDA CORUNA.

MONTICELLO, December 14, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--I have had the pleasure of receiving several letters from

you, covering printed propositions and pamphlets on the state of your

affairs, and all breathing the genuine sentiments of order, liberty and

philanthropy, with which I know you to be sincerely inspired. We learn

little to be depended on here as to your civil proceedings, or of the

division of sentiments among you; but in this absence of information

I have made whatever you propose the polar star of my wishes. What is

to be the issue of your present struggles we here cannot judge. But we

sincerely wish it may be what is best for the happiness and reinvigoration

of your country. That its divorce from its American colonies, which

is now unavoidable, will be a great blessing, it is impossible not to

pronounce on a review of what Spain was when she acquired them, and of

her gradual descent from that proud eminence to the condition in which

her present war found her. Nature has formed that peninsula to be the

second, and why not the first nation in Europe? Give equal habits of

energy to the bodies, and of science to the minds of her citizens, and

where could her superior be found? The most advantageous relation in

which she can stand with her American colonies is that of independent

friendship, secured by the ties of consanguinity, sameness of language,

religion, manners, and habits, and certain from the influence of these,

of a preference in her commerce, if, instead of the eternal irritations,

thwartings, machinations against their new governments, the insults and

aggressions which Great Britain has so unwisely practised towards us,

to force us to hate her against our natural inclinations, Spain yields,

like a genuine parent, to the forisfamiliation of her colonies, now at

maturity, if she extends to them her affections, her aid, her patronage

in every court and country, it will weave a bond of union indissoluble

by time. We are in a state of semi-warfare with your adjoining colonies,

the Floridas. We do not consider this as affecting our peace with Spain

or any other of her former possessions. We wish her and them well;

and under her present difficulties at home, and her doubtful future

relations with her colonies, both wisdom and interest will, I presume,

induce her to leave them to settle themselves the quarrels they draw

on themselves from their neighbors. The commanding officers in the

Floridas have excited and armed the neighboring savages to war against

us, and to murder and scalp many of our women and children as well as

men, taken by surprise--poor creatures! They have paid for it with the

loss of the flower of their strength, and have given us the right, as

we possess the power, to exterminate or to expatriate them beyond the

Mississippi. This conduct of the Spanish officers will probably oblige

us to take possession of the Floridas, and the rather as we believe the

English will otherwise seize them, and use them as stations to distract

and annoy us. But should we possess ourselves of them, and Spain retain

her other colonies in this hemisphere, I presume we shall consider them

in our hands as subjects of negociation.

We are now at the close of our second campaign with England. During the

first we suffered several checks, from the want of capable and tried

officers; all the higher ones of the Revolution having died off during an

interval of thirty years of peace. But this second campaign has been more

successful, having given us all the lakes and country of Upper Canada,

except the single post of Kingston, at its lower extremity. The two

immediate causes of the war were the Orders of Council, and impressment

of our seamen. The first having been removed after we had declared war,

the war is continued for the second; and a third has been generated by

their conduct during the war, in exciting the Indian hordes to murder

and scalp the women and children on our frontier. This renders peace for

ever impossible but on the establishment of such a meridian boundary to

their possessions, as that they never more can have such influence with

the savages as to excite again the same barbarities. The thousand ships,

too, they took from us in peace, and the six thousand seamen impressed,

call for this indemnification. On the water we have proved to the world

the error of their invincibility, and shown that with equal force and

well-trained officers, they can be beaten by other nations as brave as

themselves. Their lying officers and printers will give to Europe very

different views of the state of their war with us. But you will see now,

as in the Revolutionary war, that they will lie, and conquer themselves

out of all their possessions on this continent.

I pray for the happiness of your nation, and that it may be blessed with

sound views and successful measures, under the difficulties in which

it is involved; and especially that they may know the value of your

counsels, and to yourself I tender the assurances of my high respect

and esteem.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, December 25, 1813.

DEAR SIR,--Answer my letters at your leisure. Give yourself no concern.

I write as for a refuge and protection against _ennui_.

The fundamental principle of all philosophy and all christianity, is

"_Rejoice always in all things!_" "Be thankful at all times for all

good, and all that we call evil." Will it not follow that I ought to

rejoice and be thankful that Priestley has lived? That Gibbon has lived?

That Hume has lived, though a conceited Scotchman? That Bolingbroke has

lived, though a haughty, arrogant, supercilious dogmatist? That Burke

and Johnson have lived, though superstitious slaves, or self-deceiving

hypocrites, both? Is it not laughable to hear Burke call Bolingbroke a

superficial writer? To hear him ask: "Who ever read him through?" Had

I been present, I would have answered him, "I, I myself, I have read

him through more than fifty years ago, and more than five times in my

life, and once within five years past. And in my opinion, the epithet

'superficial,' belongs to you and your friend Johnson more than to him."

I might say much more. But I believe Burke and Johnson to have been as

political christians as Leo Tenth.

I return to Priestley, though I have great complaints against him for

personal injuries and persecution, at the same time that I forgive it

all, and hope and pray that he may be pardoned for it all above.

Dr. Brocklesby, an intimate friend and convivial companion of Johnson,

told me that Johnson died in agonies of horror of annihilation; and all

the accounts we have of his death, corroborate this account of Brocklesby.

Dread of annihilation! Dread of nothing! A dread of nothing, I should

think, would be no dread at all. Can there be any real, substantial,

rational fear of nothing? Were you on your death-bed, and in your last

moments informed by demonstration of revelation, that you would cease

to think and to feel, at your dissolution, should you be terrified?

You might be ashamed of yourself for having lived so long to bear the

proud man's contumely. You might be ashamed of your Maker, and compare

him to a little girl, amusing herself, her brothers and sisters, by

blowing bubbles in soap-suds. You might compare him to boys sporting

with crackers and rockets, or to men employed in making mere artificial

fire-works, or to men and women at fairs and operas, or Sadler's Wells'

exploits, or to politicians in their intrigues, or to heroes in their

butcheries, or to Popes in their devilisms. But what should you fear?

Nothing. _Emori nolo, sed me mortuum esse nihil estimo._

To return to Priestley. You could make a more luminous book than his,

upon the doctrines of heathen philosophers compared with those of

revelation. Why has he not given us a more satisfactory account of the

Pythagorean Philosophy and Theology? He barely names Œileus, who lived

long before Plato. His treatise of kings and monarchy has been destroyed,

I conjecture, by Platonic Philosophers, Platonic Jews or Christians,

or by fraudulent republicans or despots. His treatise of the universe

has been preserved. He labors to prove the eternity of the world. The

Marquis D'Argens translated it, in all its noble simplicity. The Abbé

Batteaux has since given another translation. D'Argens not only explains

the text, but sheds more light upon the ancient systems. His remarks are

so many treatises, which develop the concatenation of ancient opinions.

The most essential ideas of the theology, of the physics, and of the

morality of the ancients are clearly explained, and their different

doctrines compared with one another and with the modern discoveries. I

wish I owned this book and one hundred thousand more that I want every

day, now when I am almost incapable of making any use of them. No doubt

he informs us that Pythagoras was a great traveller. Priestley barely

mentions Timæus, but it does not appear that he had read him. Why has

he not given us an account of him and his book? He was before Plato,

and gave him the idea of his Timæus, and much more of his philosophy.

After his master, he maintained the existence of matter; that matter was

capable of receiving all sorts of forms; that a moving power agitated

all the parts of it, and that an intelligence produced a regular and

harmonious world. This intelligence had seen a plan, an _idea_ (Logos)

in conformity to which it wrought, and without which it would not have

known what it was about, nor what it wanted to do. This plan was the

_idea_, image or model which had represented to the Supreme Intelligence

the world before it existed, which had directed it in its action upon

the moving power, and which it contemplated in forming the elements, the

bodies and the world. This model was distinguished from the intelligence

which produced the world, as the architect is from his plans. He divided

the productive cause of the world into a spirit which directed the

moving force, and into an image which determined it in the choice of

the directions which it gave to the moving force, and the forms which

it gave to matter. I wonder that Priestley has overlooked this, because

it is the same philosophy with Plato's, and would have shown that the

Pythagorean as well as the Platonic philosophers probably concurred in

the fabrication of the Christian Trinity. Priestley mentions the name of

Achylas, but does not appear to have read him, though he was a successor

of Pythagoras, and a great mathematician, a great statesman and a great

general. John Gram, a learned and honorable Dane, has given a handsome

edition of his works, with a Latin translation and an ample account of his

life and writings. Seleucus, the Legislator of Locris, and Charondas, of

Sybaris, were disciples of Pythagoras, and both celebrated to immortality

for the wisdom of their laws, five hundred years before Christ. Why are

those laws lost? I say _the spirit of party_ has destroyed them; civil,

political and ecclesiastical bigotry.

Despotical, monarchical, aristocratical and democratical fury have all

been employed in this work of destruction of everything that could give

us true light, and a clear insight of antiquity. For every one of these

parties, when possessed of power, or when they have been undermost, and

struggling to get uppermost, has been equally prone to every species of

fraud and violence and usurpation.

Why has not Priestley mentioned these Legislators? The preamble to the

laws of Zaleucus, which is all that remains, is as orthodox christian

theology as Priestley's, and christian benevolence and forgiveness of

injuries almost as clearly expressed.

Priestley ought to have done impartial justice to philosophy and

philosophers. Philosophy, which is the result of reason, is the first,

the original revelation of the Creator to his creature, man. When this

revelation is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no

subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede

it. Philosophy is not only the love of wisdom, but the science of the

universe and its cause.

There is, there was, and there will be but one master of philosophy

in the universe. Portions of it, in different degrees, are revealed to

creatures.

Philosophy looks with an impartial eye on all terrestrial religions. I

have examined all, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means

and my busy life would allow me, and the result is, that the Bible is

the best book in the world. It contains more of my little philosophy

than all the libraries I have seen; and such parts of it as I cannot

reconcile to my little philosophy, I postpone for future investigation.

Priestley ought to have given us a sketch of the religion and morals

of Zoroaster, of Sanchoniathon, of Confucius, and all the founders of

religions before Christ, whose superiority would, from such a comparison,

have appeared the more transcendent.