It is wonderful to me that old men should not be sensible that their minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress of decay. Our old revolutionary friend Clinton, for example, who was a hero, but never a man of mind, is wonderfully jealous on this head. He tells eternally the stories of his younger days to prove his memory, as if memory and reason were the same faculty. Nothing betrays imbecility so much as the being insensible of it. Had not a conviction of the danger to which an unlimited occupation, of the Executive chair would expose the republican constitution of our government, made it conscientiously a duty to refuse when I did, the fear of becoming a dotard, and of being insensible of it, would of itself have resisted all solicitations to remain. --
TITLE: To Dr. Benjamin Rush.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,3.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 328.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
I have no doubt that the firmness of Alexander in favor of France, after the disposition of Bonaparte, has saved that country from evils still more severe than she is suffering, and perhaps even from partition. --
TITLE: To George Logan.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,20.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
His character is undoubtedly good, and the world, I think, may expect good effects from it. [* * *] I sincerely wish that the history of the secret proceedings at Vienna may become known, and may reconcile to our good opinion of him his participation in the demolition of ancient and independent States, transferring them and their
TITLE: To Dr. Logan.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,20.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,15.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 43.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I hope we shall [* * *] crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. --
TITLE: To George Logan.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 69.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: Nov. 1816
So different was the style of society then, and with those people, from what it is now and with us, that I think little edification can be obtained from their writings on the subject of government. They had just ideas of the value of personal liberty, but none at all of the structure of government best calculated to preserve it. They knew no medium between a democracy (the only pure republic, but impracticable beyond the limits of a town) and an abandonment of themselves to an aristocracy, or a tyranny independent of the people. It seems not to have occurred that where the citizens can not meet to transact their business in person, they alone have the right to choose the agents who shall transact it; and that in this way a republican, or popular government, of the second grade of purity, may be exer [Col 2] cised over any extent of country. The full experiment of a government, democratical, but representative, was and is still reserved for us. [* * *] The introduction of this new principle of representative democracy has rendered useless almost everything written before on the structure of government; and, in a great measure, relieves our regret, if the political writings of Aristotle, or of any other ancient, have been lost, or are unfaithfully rendered or explained to us. --
TITLE: To Isaac H. Tiffany.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
On the waters of the Pacific, we can found no claim in right of Louisiana. If we claim that country at all, it must be on Astor's settlement near the mouth of the Columbia, and the principle of the jus gentium of America, that when a civilized nation takes possession of the mouth of a river in a new country, that possession is considered as including all its waters. --
TITLE: To John Melish.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,51.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Leave no authority not responsible to the people. --
TITLE: To Isaac H. Tiffany.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I hope we shall [* * *] crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. --
TITLE: To George Logan.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 69.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: Nov. 1816
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,608.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 31.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,605.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 28.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: May. 1816
Like a dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded citizens are clamoring for more banks, more banks. The American mind is now in that state of fever which the world has so often seen in the history of other nations. We are under the bank bubble, as England was under the South Sea bubble, France under the Mississippi bubble, and as every nation is liable to be, under whatever bubble, design or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,515.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 2.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1816
We are destined to be a barrier against the return of ignorance and barbarism. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,27.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I believe [* * *] that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,27.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Promises cost him nothing when they could serve his purpose. On his return from Elba, what did he not promise? But those who had credited them a little, soon saw their total insignificance, and, satisfied that they could not fall under worse hands, refused every effort after the defeat of Waterloo. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,554.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, II.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I have grieved to see even good republicans so infatuated as to this man, as to consider his downfall as calamitous to the cause of liberty. In their indignation against England which is just, they seem to consider all her enemies as our friends, when it is well known there was not a being on earth who bore us so deadly a hatred. [* * *] To whine after this exorcised demon is a disgrace to republicans, and must have arisen either from want of reflection, or the indulgence of passion against principle. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,553.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, II.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Feb. 1816
Bonaparte saw nothing in this world but himself, and looked on the people under him as his cattle, beasts for burthen and slaughter. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,553.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 11.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
On the general scale of nations, the greatest wonder is Napoleon at St. Helena; and yet it would have been well for the lives and happiness of millions and millions, had he been deposited there twenty years ago. France would now have a free government, unstained by the enormities she has enabled him to commit on the rest of the world, and unprostrated by the vindictive hand, human or divine, now so heavily bearing upon her. --
TITLE: To Mrs. Trist.
EDITION: D. L. J.363.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: April. 1816
By the charter of Louis XIV. all the country comprehending the waters which flow into the Mississippi, was made a part of Louisiana. Consequently its northern boundary was the summit of the highlands in which its northern waters rise. But by the Xth Art. of the Treaty of Utrecht, France and England agreed to appoint commissioners to settle the boundary between their possessions in that quarter, and those commissioners settled it at the 49th degree of latitude. (See Hutchinson's Topographical Description of Louisiana, p. 7.) This it was which induced the British Commissioners, in settling the boundary with us, to follow the northern water line to the Lake of the Woods, at the latitude of 49°, and then go off on that parallel. This, then, is the true northern boundary of Louisiana. The western boundary of Louisiana is, rightfully, the Rio Bravo (its main stream), from its mouth to its source, and thence along the highlands and mountains dividing the waters of the Mississippi from those of the Pacific. The usurpations of Spain on the east side of that river, have induced geographers to suppose the Puerco or Salado to be the boundary. The line along the highlands stands on the charter of Louis XIV., that of the Rio Bravo on the circumstance that, when La Salle took possession of the Bay of St. Bernard, Panuco was the nearest possession of Spain, and the Rio Bravo the natural half-way boundary between them. On the waters of the Pacific, we can found no claims in right of Louisiana. --
TITLE: To John Mellish.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,51.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Speculative. -- The American mind is now in that state of fever which the world has so often seen in the history of other nations. We are under the bank bubble, as England was under the South Sea bubble, France under the Mississippi bubble, and as every nation is liable to be, under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,515.
EDITION: Ford ed.,X, 2.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1816
See Speculation.
Statue and. -- Who should make the Washington statue? There can be but one answer to this. Old Canova, of Rome. No artist in Europe would place himself in a line with him; and for thirty years, within my own knowledge, he has been considered by all Europe as without a rival. --
TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,534.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
If it be proposed to place an inscription on the Capitol, the lapidary style requires that essential facts only should be stated, and these with a brevity admitting no superfluous word. The essential facts in the two inscriptions proposed are these: “Founded 1791. -- Burnt by a British Army 1814. -- Restored by Congress 1817.” The reasons for this brevity are that the letters must be of extraordinary magnitude to be read from below; that little space is allowed them, being usually put into a pediment or in a frieze, or on a small tablet on the wall; and in our case, a third reason may be added, that no passion can be imputed to this inscription, every word being justifiable from the most classical examples. But a question of more importance is whether there should be one at all? The barbarism of the conflagration will immortalize that of the nation. It will place them forever in degraded comparison with the execrated Bonaparte, who, in possession of almost every capitol in Europe, injured no one. Of this, history will take care, which all will read, while our inscription will be seen by few. --
TITLE: To James Monroe.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,41.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 65.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
But a question of more importance is whether there should be one at all? The barbarism of the conflagration will immortalize that of the nation. It will place them forever in degraded comparison with the execrated Bonaparte, who, in possession of almost every capitol in Europe, injured no one. Of this, history will take care, which all will read, while our inscription will be seen by few. Great Britain, in her pride and ascendancy, has certainly hated and despised us beyond every earthly object. Her hatred May remain, but the hour of her contempt is passed and is succeeded by dread; not a present, but a deep and distant one. It is the greater as she feels herself plunged into an abyss of ruin from which no human means point out an issue. We have also more reason to hate her than any nation on earth. But she is not now an object for hatred. She is falling from her transcendant sphere, which all men ought to have wished, but not that she should lose all place among nations. It is for the interest of all that she should be maintained nearly on a par with other members of the republic of nations. Her power absorbed into that of any other, would be an object of dread to all, and to us more than all, because we are accessible to her alone and through her alone. The armies of Bonaparte with the fleets of Britain would change the aspect of our destinies. Under these circum
TITLE: To James Monroe.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,42.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 66.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
See Architecture.
His character was of a high order. A spotless integrity, sound judgment, handsome imagination, enriched by education and reading, quick and clear in his conceptions, of correct and ready elocution, impressing every hearer with the sincerity of the heart from which it flowed. His firmness was inflexible in whatever he thought was right; but when no moral principle stood in the way, never had man more of the milk of human kindness, of indulgence, of softness, of pleasantry of conversation and conduct. The number of his friends and the warmth of their affection, were proofs of his worth, and of their estimate of it. To give to [Col 2] those now living, an idea of the affliction produced by his death in the minds of all who knew him, I liken it to that lately felt by themselves on the death of his eldest son, Peter Carr, so like in all his endowments and moral qualities, and whose recollection can never recur without a deep-drawn sigh from the bosom of any one who knew him. --
TITLE: To Dabney Carr, Jr.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,528.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 17.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
For the articles of a statistical table, I think the last census of Congress presented what was proper, as far as it went, but did not go far enough. It required detailed accounts of our manufactures, and an enumeration of our people, according to ages, sexes and colors. But to this should be added an enumeration according to their occupations. We should know what proportion of our people are employed in agriculture, what proportion are carpenters, smiths, shoemakers, tailors, bricklayers, merchants, seamen, &c. No question is more curious than that of the distribution of society into occupations, and none more wanting. I have never heard of such tables being effected but in the instance of Spain, where it was first done under the administration, I believe, of Count D'Aranda, and a second time under the Count de Florida Blanca, and these have been considered as the most curious and valuable tables in the world. The combination of callings with us would occasion some difficulty, many of our tradesmen being, for instance, agriculturists also; but they might be classed under their principal occupation. --
TITLE: To Thomas W. Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,548.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
What has destroyed the liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian Senate. --
TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,543.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Ciracchi was second to no sculptor living except Canova; and, if he had lived, he would have rivalled him. His style had been formed on the fine models of antiquity in Italy, and he had caught their ineffable majesty of expression. On his return to Rome, he made the bust of General Washington in marble, from that in plaster; it was sent over here, was universally considered as the best effigy of him ever executed, was bought by the Spanish minister for the King of Spain, and sent to Madrid. --
TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,535.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that, if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles, and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease. We have most abundant resources of happiness within ourselves, which we May enjoy in peace and safety without permitting a few citizens, infected with the mania of rambling and gambling, to bring danger on the great mass engaged in innocent and safe pursuits at home. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.i ,6.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 34.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Give to every citizen, personally, a part in the administration of the public affairs. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,13.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The exercise, by our own citizens, of so much commerce as may suffice to exchange our superfluities for our wants, may be advantageous for the whole. But it does not follow, that with a territory so boundless, it is the interest of the whole to become a mere city of London, to carry on the business of one half the world at, the expense of eternal war with the other half. The agricultural capacities of our country constitute its distinguishing feature; and the adapting our policy and pursuits to that, is more likely to make us a numerous and happy people, than the mimicry of an Amsterdam, a Hamburg, or a city of London. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,6.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 34.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
No earthly consideration could induce my consent to contract such a debt as England has by her wars for commerce, to reduce our citizens by taxes to such wretchedness, as that laboring sixteen of the twenty-four hours, they are still unable to afford themselves bread, or barely to earn as much oatmeal or potatoes as will keep soul and body together. And all this to feed the avidity of a few millionary merchants, and to keep up one thousand ships of war for the protection of their commercial specula ions. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,7.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 35.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
You have fairly stated the alternatives between which we are to choose: 1, licentious commerce and gambling speculations for a few, with eternal war for the many; or, 2, restricted commerce, peace, and steady occupations for all. If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation with the first alternative, to a continuance in union without it, I have no hesitation in saying “let us separate.” I would rather the States should withdraw which are for unlimited commerce and war, and confederate
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,7.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 35.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
-- COMMERCE, Treaties of. -- See Treaties.
You you did not understand to what proceeding of Congress I alluded as likely to produce a removal of most of the members, and that by a spontaneous movement of the people, unsuggested by the newspapers, which had been silent on it. I alluded to the law giving themselves $1500 a year. There has never been an instant before of so unanimous an opinion of the people, and that through every State in the Union. A very few members of the first order of merit in the House will be reelected; Clay, of Kentucky, by a small majority, and a few others. But the almost entire mass will go out, not only those who supported the law or voted for it, or skulked from the vote, but those who voted against it or opposed it actively, if they took the money; and the examples of refusals to take it were very few. --
TITLE: To Albert Gallatin.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 63.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Sep. 1816
-- In the General Government, the House of Representatives is mainly republican; [* * *] as elected by the people directly. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,607.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 30.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The Constitution was a matter of compromise; a capitulation between conflicting interests and opinions. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,37.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 46.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
In the Constitution of Spain, as proposed by the late Cortes, there was a principle entirely new to me, [* * *] that no person, born after that day, should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant ralliance to the principles of the Constitution, and progressive amendments with the progressive advances of the human mind, or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual. Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. Although I do not, with some enthusiasts, believe that the human condition will ever advance to such a state of perfection as that there shall no longer be pain or vice in the world, yet I believe it susceptible of much improvement, and most of all, in matters of government and religion; and that the diffusion of knowledge among the people is to be the instrument by which it is to be effected. The Constitution of the Cortes had defects enough; but when I saw in it this amendatory provision, I was satisfied all would come right in time, under its salutary operation. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,592.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 24.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the convenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of bookreading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know, also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through blood and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms. Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of [Col 2] taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs. Let us [Virginia] , as our sister States have done, avail ourselves of our reason and experience, to correct the crude essays of our first and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous, and well meaning councils. And lastly, let us provide in our Constitution for its revision at stated periods. What these periods should be, nature herself indicates. By the European tables of mortality, of the adults living at any one moment of time, a majority will be dead in about nineteen years. At the end of that period then, a new majority is come into place; or, in other words, a new generation. Each generation is as independent of the one preceding as that was of all which has gone before. It has, then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the Constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can so long endure. It is now forty years since the Constitution of Virginia was formed. The same tables inform us, that, within that period, two-thirds of the adults then living are now dead. Have, then, the remaining third, even if they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their will, and to laws heretofore made by them, the other two-thirds, who, with themselves, compose the present mass of adults? If they have not, who has? The dead? But the dead have no rights. They are nothing; and nothing can not own something. Where there is no substance, there can be no accident. This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction; and this declaration can only be made by their majority. That majority, then, has a right to depute representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution what they think will be the best for themselves.... If this avenue be shut to the call of sufferance, it will make itself heard through that of force, and we shall go on, as other nations are doing, in the endless circle of oppression, rebellion, reformation; and oppression, rebellion, reformation, again; and so on forever. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival,
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,14.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 42.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The determination to appoint natives only is generally proper, but not always. These places are for the most part of little consequence to the public; and if they can be made resources of profit to our ex-military worthies, they are so far advantageous. You and I, however, know that one of these novices, knowing nothing of the laws, or authorities of his port, nor speaking a word of its language, is of no more account than the fifth wheel of a coach. --
TITLE: To James Monroe.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,552.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Having an insuperable aversion to be drawn into controversy in the public papers, I must request not to be quoted. --
TITLE: To Joseph Delaplaine.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,21.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 56.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction; and this declaration can only be made by their majority. That majority, then, has a right to depute representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution what they think will be the best for themselves. [* * *] If this avenue be shut to the call of sufferance it will make itself through that of force, and we shall go on, as other nations are doing, in the endless circle of oppression, rebellion, reformation; and oppression, rebellion, reformation, again; and so on forever. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,16.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 44.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
We have to join in mutual congratulations on the appointment of our friend Correa, to be minister or envoy of Portugal, here (Washington). This, I hope, will give him to us for life. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,5.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 33.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Deave no screen of a council behind which to skulk from responsibility. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,12.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
[The Governor's] Council [* * *] is at best but a fifth wheel to a wagon. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,10.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 38.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The organization of our [Virginia] county administration may be thought [* * *] difficult; but follow principle and the knot unties itself. Divide the counties into wards of such size as that every citizen can attend, when called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them the government of their wards in all things relating to themselves exclusively. A justice, chosen by themselves, in each, a constable, a military company, a patrol, a school, the care of their own poor, their own portion of the public roads, the choice of one or more jurors to serve in some court, and the delivery, within their own wards, of their own votes for all elective officers of higher sphere, will relieve the county administration of nearly all its business, will have it better done, and by making every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him by his strongest feelings to the independence of his country, and its republican constitution. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,12.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 40.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The article, nearest my heart, is the division of counties into wards. These will be pure and elementary republics, the sum of all which, taken together, composes the State, and will make of the whole a true democracy as to the business of the wards, which is that of nearest and [Col 2] daily concern. The affairs of the larger sections, of counties, of States, and of the Union, not admitting personal transactions by the people, will be delegated to agents elected by themselves; and representation will thus be substituted, where personal action becomes impracticable. Yet, even over these representative organs, should they become corrupt and perverted, the division into wards constituting the people, in their wards, a regularly organized power, enables them by that organization to crush, regularly and peaceably, the usurpations of their unfaithful agents, and rescues them from the dreadful necessity of doing it insurrectionally. In this way we shall be as republican as a large society can be; and secure the continuance of purity in our government, by the salutary, peaceable, and regular control of the people. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,35.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
As Cato concluded every speech with the words “Carthago delenda est,” so do I every opinion, with the injunction, “divide the counties into wards.” --
TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,544.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,13.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I acknowledge the value of this institution [County Courts] ; that it is in truth our principal executive and judiciary, and that it does much for little pecuniary reward. It is their self-appointment I wish to correct; to find some means of breaking up a cabal, when such a one gets possession of the bench. When this takes place, it becomes the most afflicting of tyrannies, because its powers are so various, and exercised on everything most immediately around us. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,18.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 52.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
It has been thought that the people are not competent electors of judges learned in the law. But I do not know that this is true, and, if doubtful, we should follow principle. In this, as in many other elections, they would be guided by reputation, which would not err oftener, perhaps, than the present mode of appointment. In one State of the Union, at least, it has long been tried, and with the most satisfactory success. The judges of Connecticut have been chosen by the people every six months, for nearly two centuries, and I believe there has hardly ever been an instance of change; so powerful is the curb of incessant responsibility. If prejudice, however, derived from a monarchical institution, is still to prevail against the vital elective principle of our own, and if the existing example among ourselves of periodical election of judges by the people be still mistrusted, let us at least not adopt the evil, and reject the good, of the English precedent; let us [Virginia] retain amovability on the concurrence of the executive and legislative branches, and nomination by the executive alone. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,12.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I have always very much despised the artificial canons of criticism. When I have read a work in prose or poetry, or seen a painting, a statue, &c., I have only asked myself whether it gives me pleasure, whether it is animating, interesting, attaching? If it is, it is good for these reasons. --
TITLE: To William Wirt.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 61.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
The dead have no rights. They are nothing; and nothing cannot own something. Where there is no substance, there can be no accident. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,16.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 44.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
See Generations.
When we have lived our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another. I enjoy good health: I am happy in what is around me, yet I assure you I am ripe for leaving all, this year, this day, this hour. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,26.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
There is a ripeness of time for death, regarding others as well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we should drop off, and make room for another growth. When we have lived our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,26.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
George III. in execution of the trust confided to him, has, within his own day, loaded the inhabitants of Great Britain with debts equal to the whole fee-simple value of their island, and under pretext of governing it, has alienated its whole soil to creditors who could lend money to be lavished on priests, pensions, plunder and perpetual war. This would not have been so, had the people retained organized means of acting on their agents. In this example, then, let us read a lesson for ourselves, and not “go and do likewise. ” --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,36.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The interest of the [English] national debt is now equal to such a portion of the profits of all the land and the labor of the island, as not to leave enough for the subsistence of those who labor. Hence the owners of the land abandon it and retire to other countries, and the laborer has not enough of his earnings left to him to cover his back and to fill his belly. The local insurrections, now almost general, are of the hungry and the naked, who cannot be quieted but by food and raiment. But where are the means of feeding and clothing them? The landholder has nothing of his own to give; he is but the fiduciary of those who have lent him money; the lender is so taxed in his meat, drink and clothing, that he has but a bare subsistence left. The landholder, then, must give up his land, or the lender his debt, or they must compromise by giving up each one-half. But will either consent peaceably, to such an abandonment of property? Or must it not be settled by civil conflict? If [Col 2] peaceably compromised, will they agree to risk another ruin under the same government unreformed? I think not, but I would rather know what you think; because you have lived with John Bull, and know better than I do the character of his herd. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,40.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. --
TITLE: To Governor Plumer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,19.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,14.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,14.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
No earthly consideration could induce my consent to contract such a debt as England has by her wars for commerce, to reduce our citizens by taxes to such wretchedness, as that laboring sixteen of the twenty-four hours, they are still unable to afford themselves bread, or barely to earn as much oatmeal or potatoes as will keep soul and body together. And all this to feed the avidity of a few millionary merchants, and to keep up one thousand ships of war for the protection of their commercial speculations. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,7.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 35.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
We of the United States are constitutionally and conscientiously Democrats. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,589.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 22.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
In government, as well as in every other business of life, it is by division and sub-division of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can be managed to perfection. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,13.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
This most heterogeneous principle was transplanted into ours from the British system by a man [Alexander Hamilton] whose mind was really powerful, but chained by native partialities to everything English; who had formed exaggerated ideas of the superior perfection of the English constitution, the superior wisdom of their government, and sincerely believed it for the good of this country to make them their model in everything; without considering that what might be wise and good for a nation essentially commercial, and entangled in complicated intercourse with numerous and powerful neighbors, might not be so for one essentially agricultural, and insulated by nature from the abusive governments of the old world. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,6.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 34.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I returned from Europe after our government had got under way, and had adopted from the British code the law of drawbacks. I early saw its effects in the jealousies and vexations of Britain; and that, retaining it, we must become, like her, an essentially warring nation, and meet, in the end, the catastrophe impending over her. No one can doubt that this alone produced the Orders of Council, the depredations which preceded, and the war which followed them. Had we carried but our own produce, and brought back but our own wants, no nation would have troubled us. [* * *] When war was declared, and especially after Massachusetts, who had produced it, took side with the enemy waging it, I pressed on some confidential friends in Congress to avail us of the happy opportunity of repealing the drawbacks and I do rejoice to find that you are in that sentiment. [* * *] It is one of three great measures necessary to insure us permanent prosperity. It preserves our peace. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,7.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 35.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Your undertaking [to read] the twelve volumes of Dupuis, is a degree of heroism to which I could not have aspired even in my younger days. I have been contented with the humble achievement of reading the analysis of his work by Destutt Tracy, in two hundred pages octavo. I believe I should have ventured on his own abridgment of the work, in one octavo volume, had it ever come to my hands; but the marrow of it in Tracy has satisfied my appetite; and even in that, the preliminary discourse of the analyser himself, and his conclusion, are worth more in my eye than the body of the work. For the object of that seems to be to smother all history under the mantle of allegory. If histories so unlike as that of Hercules and Jesus, can, by a fertile imagination and allegorical interpretations, be brought to the same tally, no line of distinction remains between fact and fancy. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,38.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
In government, as well as in every other business of life, it is by division and subdivision of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can be managed to perfection. And the whole is cemented by giving to every citizen, personally, a part in the administration of the public affairs. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,13.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him. --
TITLE: To F. W. GilMer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,3.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
No man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,3.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
See Natural Rights.
This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,16.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 44.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
We see in England the consequences of the want of economy; their laborers reduced to live on a penny in the shilling of their earnings, to give up bread, and resort to oatmeal and potatoes for food; and their landholders exiling themselves to live in penury and obscurity abroad, because at home the government must have all the clear profits of their land. In fact, they see the fee simple of the island transferred to the public creditors, all its profits going to them for the interest of their debts. Our laborers and landholders must come to this also, unless they severely adhere to the economy you recommend. --
TITLE: To Governor Plumer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,19.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,14.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
In so complicated a science as political economy, no one axiom can be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances, and for their contraries. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,523.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 10.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1816
Political economy in modern times assumed the form of a regular science first in the hands of the political sect in France, called the Economists. They made it a branch only of a comprehensive system on the natural order of societies. Quesnay first, Gournay, Le Frosne, Turgot, and Dupont de Nemours, the enlightened, philanthropic, and venerable citizen, now of the United States, led the way in these developments, and gave to our inquiries the direction they have since observed. Many sound and valuable principles established by them have received the sanction of general approbation. Some, as in the infancy of a science might be expected, have been brought into question, and have furnished occasion for much discussion. Their opinions on production, and on the proper subjects of taxation, have been particularly controverted; and whatever May be the merit of their principles of taxation, it is not wonderful they have not prevailed; not on the questioned score of correctness, but because not acceptable to the people, whose will must be the supreme law. Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of government, and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory. The general aim is, therefore, to adopt the mode most consonant with the circumstances and sentiments of the country. Adam Smith, first in England, published a rational and systematic work on Political Economy, adopting generally the ground of the Economists, but differing on the subjects before specified. The system being novel, much argument and detail seemed then necessary to establish principles which now are assented to as soon as proposed. Hence his book, admitted to be able, and of the first degree of merit, has yet been considered as prolix and tedious. In France, John Baptisté Say has the merit of producing a very superior work on the subject of Political Economy. His arrangement is luminous, ideas clear, style perspicuous, [Col 2] and the whole subject brought within half the volume of Smith's work. Add to this considerable advances in correctness and extension of principles. The work of Senator [Destutt] Tracy, now announced, comes forward with all the lights of his predecessors in the science, and with the advantages of further experience, more discussion, and greater maturity of subjects. It is certainly distinguished by important traits; a cogency of logic which has never been exceeded in any work, a rigorous enchainment of ideas, and constant recurrence to it to keep it in the reader's view, a fearless pursuit of truth whithersoever it leads, and a diction so correct that not a word can be changed but for the worse [* * *] --
TITLE: Introduction to Destutt Tracy's Political Economy.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,570.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1816
See Tracy.
I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues. --
TITLE: To Governor Plumer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,19.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,517.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 4.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Education is not a branch of municipal government, but, like the other arts and sciences, an accident only. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,17.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 51.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the
TITLE: To Dupont De Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,592.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 25.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
If the Legislature would add to the literary fund a perpetual tax of a cent a head on the population of the State, it would set agoing at once, and forever maintain, a system of primary or ward schools, and an university where might be taught, in its highest degree, every branch of science useful in our time and country; and it would rescue us from the tax of toryism, fanaticism, and indifferentism to their own State, which we now send our youth to bring from those of New England. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,517.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 4.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,592.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 25.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
Election [* * *] [is] a fundamental member in the structure of government. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,18.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 52.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Governments are more or less republican as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,608.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 31.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The rights [of the people] to the exercise and fruits of their own industry, can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods. --
TITLE: To Isaac H. Tiffany.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Submit the member of the Legislature to approbation or rejection at short intervals. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,11.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Great Britain, in her pride and ascendency, has certainly hated and despised us beyond every earthly object. Her hatred May remain, but the hour of her contempt is passed and is succeeded by dread; not a present, but a distant and deep one. It is the greater as she feels herself plunged into an abyss of ruin from which no human means point out an issue. We also have more reason to hate her than any nation on earth. --
TITLE: To James Monroe.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,41.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 66.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
See Hartford Convention.
I consider [the British] government as the most flagitious which has existed since the days of Philip of Macedon, whom they make their model. It is not only founded in corruption itself, but insinuates the same poison into the bowels of every other, corrupts its councils, nourishes factions, stirs up revolutions, and places its own happiness in fomenting commotions and civil wars among others, thus rendering itself truly the hostis humani generis. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,46.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
Our growth is now so well established [* * *] that we may safely call ourselves [* * *] forty millions in forty years. [* * *] Of what importance then to Great Britain must such a nation be, whether as friends or foes?
TITLE: To Sir John Sinclair.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,22.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Were the English people under a government which should treat us with justice and equity, I should myself feel with great strength the ties which bind us together, of origin, language, laws, and manners; and I am persuaded the two people would become in future, as it was with the ancient Greeks, among whom it was reproachful for Greek to be found fighting against Greek in a foreign army. 168 --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
George the Third and his minister, Pitt, and successors, have spent the fee simple of the kingdom under pretense of governing it; their sinecures, salaries, pensions, priests, prelates, princes and eternal wars, have mortgaged to its full value the last foot of their soil. They are reduced to the dilemma of a bankrupt spendthrift, who, having run through his whole fortune, now asks himself what he is to do? It is in vain he dismisses his coaches and horses, his grooms, liveries, cooks and butlers. This done, he still finds he has nothing to eat. What was his property is now that of his creditors; if still in his hands, it is only as their trustee. To them it belongs, and to them every farthing of its profits must go. The reformation of extravagance comes too late. All is gone. Nothing is left for retrenchment or frugality to go on. The debts of England, however, being due from the whole nation to one-half of it, being as much the debt of the creditor as debtor, if it could be referred to a court of equity, principles might be devised to adjust it peaceably. Dismiss their parasites, ship off their paupers to this country, let the land-holders give half their lands to the money lenders, and these last relinquish one-half of their debts. They would still have a fertile island, a sound and effective population to labor it, and would hold that station among political powers, to which their natural resources and faculties entitle them. They would no longer indeed, be the lords of the ocean and paymasters of all the princes of the earth. They would no longer enjoy the luxuries of pirating and plundering everything by sea, and of bribing and corrupting everything by land; but they might enjoy the more safe and lasting luxury of living on terms of equality, justice and good neighborhood with all nations. As it is, their first efforts will probably be to quiet things awhile by the palliatives of reformation; to nibble a little at pensions and sinecures, to bite off a bit here, and a bit there to amuse the people; and to keep the government agoing by encroachments on the interest of the public debt, one per cent. of which, for instance, withheld, gives them a spare revenue of ten millions for present subsistence, and spunges, in fact, two hundred millions of the debt. This remedy they may endeavor to administer in broken doses of a small pill at a time. The first May not occasion more than a strong nausea in the money lenders; but the second will probably produce a revulsion of the stomach, barbarisms. and spasmodic calls for fair settlement and compromise. But it is not in the char
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,43.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The individuals of the [British] nation I have ever honored and esteemed, the basis of their character being essentially worthy. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,46.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
While it is much our interest to see this power reduced from its towering and borrowed height, to within the limits of its natural resources, it is by no means our interest that she should be brought [Col 2] below that, or lose her competent place among the nations of Europe. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,45.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
I am in hopes a purer nation will result, and a purer government be instituted, one which, instead of endeavoring to make us their natural enemies, will see in us, what we really are, their natural friends and brethren, and more interested in a fraternal connection with them than with any other nation on earth. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,46.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
The doctrines of Epicurus, notwithstanding the calumnies of the Stoics and caricatures of Cicero, is the most rational system remaining of the
TITLE: To Charles Thompson.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,518.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 6.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,3.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The true foundation of republican government is in the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,11.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Submit the members of the Legislature to approbation or rejection at short intervals. Let the Executive be chosen in the same way, and for the same term, by those whose agent he is to be; and leave no screen of a Council behind which to skulk from responsibility. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,11.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,15.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 42.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,14.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 42.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
It is a great consolation to me that our government, as it cherishes most its duties to its own citizens, so is it the most exact in its moral conduct towards other nations. I do not believe that in the four Administrations which have taken place, there has been a single instance of departure from good faith towards other nations. We may sometimes have mistaken our rights, or made an erroneous estimate of the actions of others, but no voluntary wrong can be imputed to us. --
TITLE: To George Logan.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 68.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: Nov. 1816
We shall have our follies without doubt. Some one or more of them will always be afloat. But ours will be the follies of enthusiasm, not of bigotry [* * *] . --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,27.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
It is the multitude which possesses force, and wisdom must yield to that. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,592.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 25.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
She deserves much punishment, and her successes and reverses will be a wholesome lesson to the world hereafter; but she has now had enough, and we may lawfully pray for her resurrection, and I am confident the day is not distant. No one who knows that people, and the elasticity of their character, can believe they will long remain crouched on the earth as at present. They will rise by acclamation, and woe to their riders. What havoc are we not yet to see! --
TITLE: To Mrs. Trist.
EDITION: D. L. J.363.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: April. 1816
France is too highminded, has too much innate force, intelligence and elasticity, to remain under its present compression. Samson will arise in his strength, as of old, and as of old, will burst asunder the withes and the cords, and the webs of the Philistines. But what are to be the scenes of havoc and horror, and how widely they may spread between brethren of the same house, our ignorance of the interior feuds and antipathies of the country places beyond our ken. It will end, nevertheless, in a representative government, in a government in which the will of the people will be an effective ingredient. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,520.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 8.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I cannot say things by halves. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,17.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 44.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Both the United States and England ought to wish for peace and cordial friendship; we, because you can do us more harm than any other nation; and you, because we can do you more good than any other. Our growth is now so well established by regular enumerations through a course of forty years, and the same grounds of continuance so likely to endure for a much longer period, that, speaking in round numbers, we may safely call ourselves twenty millions in twenty years, and forty millions in forty years. Many of the statesmen now living saw the commencement of the first term, and many now living will see the end of the second. It is not then a mere concern of posterity; a third of those now in life will see that day. Of what importance, then, to you must such a nation be, whether as friends or foes. --
TITLE: To Sir John Sinclair.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,22.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
That [friendly] dispositions [towards Great Britain] have been strong on our part in every administration from the first to the present one, that we would at any time have gone our full half way to meet them, if a single step in advance had been taken by the other party, I can affirm of my own intimate knowledge of the fact. During the first year of my own administration, I thought I discovered in the conduct of Mr. Addington some marks of comity towards us, and a willingness to extend to us the decencies and duties observed towards other nations. My desire to catch at this, and to improve it for the benefit of my own country, induced me, in addition to the official declarations from the Secretary of State, to write with my own hand to Mr. King, then our Minister Plenipotentiary at London, in the following words: [See 3299.] My expectation was that Mr. King would show this letter to Mr. Addington, and that it would be received by him as an overture towards a cordial understanding between the two countries. He left the ministry, however, and I never heard more of it and certainly never perceived any good effect from it. I know that in the present temper, the boastful, the insolent, and the mendacious newspapers, on both sides, will present serious impediments. Ours will be insulting your public authorities, and boasting of victories; and yours will not be sparing of provocations and abuse of us. But if those at our helms could not place themselves above these pitiful notices, and throwing aside all personal feelings, look only to the in [Col 2] terest of their nations, they would be unequal to the trusts confided to them. I am equally confident, on our part, in the administration now in place, as in that which will succeed it; and that if friendship is not hereafter sincerely cultivated, it will not be their fault. [* * *] Although what I write is from no personal privity with the views or wishes of our government, yet believing them to be what they ought to be, and confident in their wisdom and integrity, I am sure I hazard no deception in what I have said of them, and I shall be happy indeed if some good shall result to both our countries. --
TITLE: To Sir John Sinclair.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,23.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
But is their friendship to be obtained by the irritating policy of fomenting among us party discord, and a teasing opposition; by bribing traitors, whose sale of themselves proves they would sell their purchasers also, if their treacheries were worth a price? How much cheaper would it be, how much easier, more honorable more magnanimous and secure, to gain the government itself by a moral, a friendly and respectful course of conduct, which is all they would ask for a cordial and faithful return. --
TITLE: To Sir John Sinclair.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,22.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Time and prudence on the part of the two governments may get over these [irritations, produced by the war of 1812] . Manifestations of cordiality between them, friendly and kind offices made visible to the people on both sides, will mollify their feelings, and second the wishes of their functionaries to cultivate peace and promote mutual interest. --
TITLE: To Sir John Sinclair.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,23.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I reciprocate congratulations with you sincerely on the restoration of peace between our two nations. [* * *] Let both parties now count soberly the value of mutual friendship. I am satisfied both will find that no advantage either can derive from any act of injustice whatever will be of equal value with those flowing from friendly intercourse. --
TITLE: To Sir John Sinclair.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,22.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,608.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 31.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth He made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,605.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 28.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: May. 1816
See Assumption of State Debts, Debt, Generations, and Hamilton.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,27.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Every generation comes equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth which He made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like, them, were but tenants for life. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,605.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 28.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: May. 1816
Let us [* * *] not weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs. Let us, as our sisters have done, avail ourselves of our reason and experience, to correct the crude essays of our first and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous, and well-meaning councils. And lastly, let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods. What these periods should be, nature herself indicates. By the European tables of mortality, of the adults living at any one moment of time, a majority will be dead in about nineteen years. At the end of that period, then, a new majority is come into place; or, in other words, a new generation. Each generation is as independent of the one preceding as that was of all which had gone before. It has, then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can so long endure. It is now forty years since the constitution of Virginia was formed. The same tables inform us that, within that period, two-thirds of the adults then living are now dead. Have, then, the remaining third, even if they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their will, and to the laws heretofore made by them, the other two-thirds, who, with themselves, compose the present mass of adults? If they have not, who has? The dead? But the dead have no rights. They are nothing and nothing cannot own something. Where there is no substance, there can be no accident. This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction; and this declaration can only be made by their majority. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,15.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 43.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
My wish is [* * *] to leave to those who are to live under it the settlement of their own constitution, and to pass in peace the remainder of my time. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,35.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,11.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
When we come to the moral principles on which the government is to be administered, we come to what is proper for all conditions of society. I meet you there in all the benevolence and rectitude of your native character; and I love myself always most where I concur most with you. Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of your Society. I believe with you that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force; that a right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings; that no one has a right to obstruct another, exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature; that justice is the fundamental law of society; that the majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society; that action by the citizens in person, in affairs within their reach and competence, and in all others by representatives, chosen immediately, and removable by themselves, constitutes the essence of a republic; that all governments are more or less republican in proportion as this principle enters more or less into their composition; and that a government by representation is capable of extension over a greater surface of country than one of any other form. These are the essentials in which you and I agree; however in our zeal for their maintenance, we may be perplexed and divaricate, as to the structure of society most likely to secure them. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,591.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 24.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
There is an error into which most of the speculators on government have fallen, and which the well-known state of society of our Indians ought, before now, to have corrected. In their hypothesis of the origin of government, they suppose it to have commenced in the patriarchal or monarchical form. Our Indians are evidently in that state of nature which has passed the association of a single family; and not yet submitted to the authority of positive laws, or of any acknowledged magistrate. Every man, with them, is perfectly free to follow his own inclinations. But if, in doing this, he violates the rights of another, if the case be slight, he is punished by the disesteem of his society, or, as we say, by public opinion; if serious, he is tomahawked as a dangerous enemy. Their leaders conduct them by the influence of their character only; and they follow, or not, as they please, him of whose character for wisdom or war they have the highest opinion. Hence the origin of the parties among them, adhering to different leaders, and governed by their advice, not by their command. The Cherokees, the only tribe I know to be contemplating the establishment of regular laws, magistrates, and government, propose a government of representatives, elected from every town. But, of all things, they least think of subjecting themselves to the will of one man. This, the only instance of actual fact within our knowledge, will be then a beginning by republican, and not by patriarchal or monarchical government, as speculative writers have generally conjectured. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,4.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
A government regulating itself by what is wise and just for the many, uninfluenced by the local and selfish views of the few who direct their affairs, has not been seen, perhaps, on earth. Or if it existed, for a moment, at the birth of ours, it would not be easy to fix the term of its continuance. Still, I believe it does exist here in a greater degree than anywhere else; and for its growth and continuance, [* * *] I offer sincere prayers. --
TITLE: To William Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,8.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 36.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
A government by representation is capable of extension over a greater surface of country than one of any other form. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,591.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 24.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
Governments are more or less republican as they have more or less of the element of popular election and con
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,608.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 31.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of the people and execute it. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,9.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 37.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
A government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its concerns (not indeed in person, which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city, or small township, but) by representatives chosen by himself, and responsible to him at short periods. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,10.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 38.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,589.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 22.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
We, of the United States, are constitutionally and conscientiously democrats. We consider society as one of the natural wants with which man has been created; that he has been endowed with faculties and qualities to effect its satisfaction by concurrence of others having the same want; that when, by the exercise of these faculties, he has procured
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,589.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 22.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
The elementary republics of the wards, the county republics, the State republics, and the Republic of the Union, would form a gradation of authorities, standing each on the basis of law, holding every one its delegated share of powers, and constituting truly a system of fundamental balances and checks for the government. Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or of some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Cœsar or a Bonaparte. --
TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,543.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
How powerfully did we feel the energy of this organization in the case of the Embargo? I felt the foundations of the Government shaken under my feet by the New England townships. There was not an individual in their States whose body was not thrown with all its momentum into action; and although the whole of the other States were known to be in favor of the measure, yet the organization of this little selfish minority enabled it to overrule the Union. What would the unwieldy counties of the middle, the south and the west do? Call a county meeting, and the drunken loungers at and about the court houses would have collected, the distances being too great for the good people and the industrious generally to attend. The character of those who really met would have been the measure of the weight they would have had in the scale of public opinion. --
TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,544.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
When we put into the same scale the abuses [of grief] with the afflictions of soul which even the uses of grief cost us, we may consider its value in the economy of the human being, as equivocal at least. Those afflictions cloud too great a portion of life to find a counterpoise in any benefits derived from its uses. For setting aside its paroxysms on the occasions of special bereavements, all the latter years of aged men are overshadowed with its gloom. Whither, for instance, can you and I look without seeing the graves of those we have known? And whom can we call up, of our early companions, who has not left us to regret his loss? This, indeed, may be one of the salutary effects of grief. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,37.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
A man of genius, of taste, of point, an acquaintance, the measure and traverses of whose mind I know. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,27.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
His mind was really powerful, but chained by native partialities to everything English. He had formed exaggerated ideas of the superior perfection of the English constitution, the superior wisdom of their government, and sincerely believed it for the good of this country to make them its model in everything; without considering that what might be wise and good for a nation essentially commercial, and entangled in complicated intercourse with numerous and powerful neighbors, might not be so for one essentially agricultural, and insulated by nature from the abusive governments of the old world. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,6.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 34.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Without virtue, happiness cannot be. --
TITLE: To Amos J. Cook.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,532.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
No man ever more undervalued chartered titles than himself. He drew all natural rights from a purer source -- the feelings of his own breast. --
TITLE: To William Wirt.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 60.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
You have certainly practiced vigorously [in the Life of Patrick Henry] the precept of “de mortius nil nisi bonum.” This presents a very difficult question, -- whether one only or both sides of the medal shall be presented. It constitutes, perhaps, the distinction between panegyric and history. --
TITLE: To William Wirt.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 61.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
True history, in which all will be believed, is preferable to unqualified panegyric, in which nothing is believed. --
TITLE: To Joseph Delaplaine.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,21.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 56.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
This single book [Hume's History of England] has done more to sap the free principles of the English constitution than the largest standing army of which their patriots have been so jealous. It is like the portraits of our countryman Wright, whose eye was so unhappy as to seize all the ugly features of his subject, and to present them faithfully, while it was entirely insensible to every lineament of beauty. So Hume has concentrated, in his fascinating style, all the arbitrary proceedings of the English Kings, as true evidences of the constitution, and glided over its Whig principles as the unfounded pretensions of factious demagogues. He even boasts, in his life written by himself, that of the numerous alterations suggested by the readers of his work, he had never adopted one proposed by a Whig. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,46.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
The man who is dishonest as a statesman, would be a dishonest man in any station. --
TITLE: To George Logan.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 68.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
You know our practice of placing our guests at their ease, by showing them we are so ourselves, and that we follow our necessary vocations, instead of fatiguing them by hanging unremittingly on their shoulders. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,5.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 33.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
We are destined to be a barrier against the return of ignorance and barbarism. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,27.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The rights of the people to the exercise and fruits of their own industry, can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods. --
TITLE: To Isaac H. Tiffany.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association -- the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it. --
TITLE: Note in Destutt Tracy's Political Economy.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,574.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1816
If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it. --
TITLE: Note to Tracy's Political Economy.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,575.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1816
[Your book 248] settles unanswerably the right of instructing representatives, and their duty to obey. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,605.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 28.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Virtue and interest are inseparable. --
TITLE: To George Logan.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 69.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
I am a great friend to the improvement of roads, canals, and schools. But I wish I could see some provision for the former as solid as that of the latter, -- something better than fog. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,517.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 4.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I am indeed an unskillful manager of my farms, and sensible of this from its effects, I have now committed them to better hands. 255 --
TITLE: To John W. Eppes.
EDITION: D. L. J., 364.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1816
See Agriculture, Farmer, Farmers and Farming.
In the General Government, [* * *] the Judiciary is independent of the nation, their coercion by impeachment being found nugatory. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,607.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 30.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The people [* * *] being competent to judge of the facts occurring in ordinary life, have retained the functions of judges of facts, under the name of jurors. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,590.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 22.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
I believe that justice is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society; that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another; that the non-existence of justice is not to be inferred from the fact that the same act is deemed virtuous and right in one society which is held vicious and wrong in another; because, as the circumstances and opinions of different societies vary, so the acts which may do them right or wrong must vary also; for virtue does not [Col 2] consist in the act we do, but in the end it is to effect. If it is to effect the happiness of him to whom it is directed, it is virtuous, while in a society under different circumstances and opinions, the same act might produce pain, and would be vicious. The essence of virtue is in doing good to others, while what is good may be one thing in one society, and its contrary in another. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Justice is the fundamental law of society. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,591.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 24.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
The most sacred of the duties of a government is to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens. --
TITLE: Note in Tracy's Political Economy.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,574.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1816
A character of justice is valuable to a nation as to an individual. --
TITLE: To Rev. Mr. Worcester.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,540.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1816
Destutt Tracy promises a work on morals, in which I lament to see that he will adopt the principles of Hobbes, or humiliation to human nature; that the sense of justice and injustice is not derived from our natural organization, but founded on convention only. [* * *] Assuming the fact, that the earth has been created in time, and consequently the dogma of final causes, we yield, of course, to this short syllogism: Man was created for social intercourse; but social intercourse cannot be maintained without a sense of justice; then man must have been created with a sense of justice. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,4.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Let us turn with abhorrence from these sceptered scelerats, and disregarding our own petty differences of opinion about men and measures, let us cling in mass to our country and to one another, and bid defiance, as we can if united, to the plundering combinations of the old world. --
TITLE: To Dr. George Logan.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,20.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
France has now a family of fools at its head, from whom, whenever it can shake off its foreign riders, it will extort a free constitution, or dismount them, and establish some other on the solid basis of national right. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,554.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, ii.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Feb. 1816
The rights of the people to the exercise and fruits of their own industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods. --
TITLE: To Isaac H. Tiffany.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
No other depositories of power [but the people themselves] have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,36.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
No earthly consideration could induce my consent to contract such a debt as England has by her wars for commerce; to reduce our citizens by taxes to such wretchedness, as that laboring sixteen of the twenty-four hours, they are still unable to afford themselves bread, or barely to earn as much oatmeal or potatoes as will keep [Col 2] soul and body together. And all this to feed the avidity of a few millionary merchants, and to keep up one thousand ships of war for the protection of their commercial speculations. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,7.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 35.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Measures and rhombs taken on the special surface of the earth, cannot be represented on a plain surface of paper without astronomical corrections; and paradoxical as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that we cannot know the relative position of two places on the earth, but by interrogating the sun, moon and stars. --
TITLE: To Governor Nicholas.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,587.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
Nature and reason, as well as all our constitutions, condemn retrospective conditions as mere acts of power against right. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,515.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 2.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Let every man who fights or pays, exercise his just and equal right in the election of the legislature. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,11.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,3.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Reduce the legislature to a convenient number for full, but orderly discussion. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,11.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,517.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 4.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies. --
TITLE: To Dr. George Logan.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 27.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Fifteen volumes of anecdotes and incidents, within the compass of my own time and cognizance, written by a man of genius, of taste, of point, an acquaintance, the measure and traverses of whose mind I know, could not fail to turn the scale in favor of life during their perusal. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,27.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
You ask, if I would agree to live my seventy or rather seventy-three years over again? To which I say, yea. I think with you, that it is a good world on the whole; that it has been framed on a principle of benevolence, and more pleasure than pain dealt out to us. There are, indeed, (who might say nay) gloomy and hypochondriac minds, inhabitants of diseased bodies, disgusted with the present, and despairing of the future; always counting that the worst will happen, because it may happen. To these I say, how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened! My temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear in the stern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy. There are, I acknowledge, even in the happiest life, some terrible convulsions, heavy set-offs against the opposite page of the account. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,575.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: April. 1816
Putting to myself your question, would I agree to live my seventy- [Col 2] three years over again forever? I hesitate to say. With Chew's limitations from twenty-five to sixty, I would say yes; and I might go further back, but not come lower down. For, at the latter period, with most of us, the powers of life are sensibly on the wane; sight becomes dim, hearing dull, memory constantly enlarging its frightful blank and parting with all we have ever seen or known, spirits evaporate, bodily debility creeps on palsying every limb, and so faculty after faculty quits us, and where, then, is life? If, in its full vigor, of good as well as evil, your friend Vassall could doubt its value, it must be purely a negative quantity when its evils alone remain. Yet I do not go into his opinion entirely. I do not agree that an age of pleasure is no compensation for a moment of pain. I think, with you, that life is a fair matter of account, and the balance often, nay generally, in its favor. It is not indeed easy, by calculation of intensity and time, to apply a common measure, or to fix the par between pleasure and pain; yet it exists, and is measurable. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,26.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1816
The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime; abuses its strength, and, by acting on the law of the strongest, breaks up the foundations of society. --
TITLE: To Dupont de Nemours.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,591.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 24.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction; and this declaration can only be made by their majority. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,16.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 44.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependence on England for manufactures. There was a time when I might have been so quoted with more candor, but within the thirty years which have since elapsed, how are circumstances changed! We were then in peace. Our independent place among nations was acknowledged. A commerce which offered the raw material in exchange for the same material after receiving the last touch of industry, was worthy of welcome to all nations. It was expected that those especially to whom manufacturing industry was important, would cherish the friendship of such customers by every favor, by every inducement, and, particularly, cultivate their peace by every act of justice and friendship. Under this prospect the question seemed legitimate, whether, with such an immensity of unimproved land, courting the hand of husbandry, the industry of agriculture, or that of manufactures, would add most to the national wealth? And the doubt was entertained on this consideration chiefly, that to the labor of the husbandman a vast addition is made by the spontaneous energies of the earth on which it is employed; for one grain of wheat committed to the earth,
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,521.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 8.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1816
An intimacy of forty years had proved to me his great worth, and a friendship which had begun in personal acquaintance, was maintained after separation, without abatement by a constant interchange of letters. His esteem, too, in this country was very general; his early and zealous cooperation in the establishment of our Independence having acquired for him here a great degree of favor. --
TITLE: To Giovanni Carmigiani.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 49.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Your letter brought me the first information of the death of my ancient friend Mazzei, which I learn with sincere regret. He had some peculiarities (and who of us has not?), but he was of solid worth; honest, able, zealous in sound principles, moral and political, constant in friendship, and punctual in all his undertakings. He was greatly esteemed in this country, and some one has inserted in our papers an account of his death, with a handsome and just eulogy of him, and a proposition to publish his life. --
TITLE: To Thomas Appleton.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 46.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I have never known in the United
TITLE: To Governor Nicholas.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,588.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1816 1816 gt;
You judge truly that I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain. --
TITLE: To Horatio Gates Spafford.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 13.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The sway of the clergy in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develop itself. If it does, they excite against it the public opinion which they command, and by little, but incessant and tearing persecutions, drive it from among them. Their present emigrations to the Western country are real flights from persecution, religious and political, but the abandonment of the country by those who wish to enjoy freedom of opinion leaves the despotism over the residue more intense, more oppressive. --
TITLE: To Horatio Gates Spafford.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 13.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
It is the self-appointment [of the county courts] I wish to correct; to find some means of breaking up a cabal, when such a one gets possession of the bench. When this takes place, it becomes the most afflicting of tyrannies, because its powers are so various, and exercised on everything most immediately around us. And how many instances have you and I known of these monopolies of county administration? I know a county in which a particular family (a numerous one) got possession of the bench, and for a whole generation never admitted a man on it who was not of its clan or connection. I know a county now of one thousand and five hundred militia, of which sixty are federalists. Its court is of thirty members, of whom twenty are federalists (every third man of the sect). There are large and populous districts in it without a justice, because without a federalist for appointment; the militia are as disproportionably under federal officers. [* * *] The remaining one thousand four hundred and forty, free, fighting and paying citizens, are governed by men neither of their choice or confidence, and without a hope of relief. They are certainly excluded from the blessings of a free government for life, and indefinitely, for aught the Constitution has provided. This solecism may be called anything but republican. --
TITLE: To John Taylor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,18.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 52.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
You know our practice of placing our guests at their ease, by showing them we are so ourselves and that we follow our necessary vocations, instead of fatiguing them by hanging unremittingly on their shoulders. --
TITLE: To Francis W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,5.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1816
I believe [* * *] that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Your ideas of the moral obligations of governments are perfectly correct. The man who is dishonest as a statesman would
TITLE: To George Logan.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 68.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: Nov. 1816
The eighteenth century certainly witnessed the sciences and arts, manners and morals, advanced to a higher degree than the world had ever before seen. And might we not go back to the era of the Borgias, by which time the barbarous ages had reduced national morality to its lowest point of depravity, and observe that the arts and sciences, rising from that point, advanced gradually through all the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, softening and correcting the manners and morals of man? --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,523.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
With some exceptions only, through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, morality occupied an honorable chapter in the political code of nations. You must have observed while in Europe, as I thought I did, that those who administered the governments of the greater powers at least, had a respect to faith, and considered the dignity of their government as involved in its integrity. A wound indeed was inflicted on this character of honor in the eighteenth century by the partition of Poland. But this was the atrocity of a barbarous government chiefly, in conjunction with a smaller one still scrambling to become great, while one only of those already great, and having character to lose, descended to the baseness of an accomplice in the crime. France, England, Spain, shared in it only inasmuch as they stood aloof and permitted its perpetration. How, then, has it happened that these nations, France especially, and England, so great, so dignified, so distinguished by science and the arts, plunged all at once into all the depths of human enormity, threw off suddenly and openly all the restraints of morality, all sensation to character, and unblushingly avowed and acted on the principle that power was right? Can this sudden apostasy from national rectitude be accounted for? The treaty of Pilnitz seems to have begun it, suggested perhaps by the baneful precedent of Poland. Was it from the terror of monarchs, alarmed at the light returning on them from the west, and kindling a volcano under their thrones? Was it a combination to extinguish that light, and to bring back, as their best auxiliaries, those enumerated by you, the Sorbonne, the Inquisition, the Index Expurgatorius, and the knights of Loyola? Whatever it was, the close of the new century saw the moral world thrown back again to the age of the Borgias, to the point from which it had departed three hundred years before. France, after crushing and punishing the conspiracy of Pilnitz, went deeper herself and deeper into the crimes she had been chastising. I say France and not Bonaparte; for, although he was the head and mouth, the nation furnished the hands which executed his enormities. England, although in opposition, kept full pace with France, not indeed by the manly force of her own arms, but by oppressing the weak and bribing the strong. At [Col 2] length the whole choir joined and divided the weaker nations among them. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,524.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1816
It is a great consolation to me that our government, as it cherishes most its duties to its own citizens, so is it the most exact in its moral conduct towards other nations. I do not believe that in the four Administrations which have taken place, there has been a single instance of departure from good faith towards other nations. We May sometimes have mistaken our rights, or made an erroneous estimate of the actions of others, but no voluntary wrong can be imputed to us. --
TITLE: To George Logan.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 68.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: Nov. 1816
I thank you for [* * *] the corrections of Colonel Williams's altitudes of the mountains of Virginia, [* * *] and especially for the very able extract on barometrical measures. The precision of the calculations, and soundness of the principles on which they are founded, furnish, I am satisfied, a great approximation towards truth, and raise that method of estimating heights to a considerable degree of rivalship with the trigonometrical. The last is not without some sources of inaccuracy. The admeasurement of the base is liable to errors which can be rendered insensible only by such degrees of care as have been exhibited by the mathematicians who have been employed in measuring degrees on the surface of the earth. [* * *] No two men can differ on a principle of trigonometry. Not so on the theories of barometrical mensuration. On these have been great differences of opinion, and among characters of just celebrity. [* * *] In 1776, I observed the height of the mercury at the base and summit of the mountain I live on, and by Nettleton's tables, estimated the height at 512.17 feet, and called it about 500 feet in the Notes on Virginia. But calculating it since on the same observations, according to Bongour's method with De Luc's improvements, the result was 579.5 feet; and lately I measured the same height trigonometrically, with the aid of a base line of 1,175 feet in a vertical plane with the summit, and at the distance of about 1500 yards from the axis of the mountain, and made it 599.35 feet. I consider this as testing the advance of the barometrical process towards truth by the adoption of the logarithmic ratio of heights and densities; and continued observations and experiments will continue to advance it still more. But the first character of a common measure of things being that of invariability, I can never suppose that a substance so heterogeneous and variable as the atmospheric fluid, changing daily and hourly its weight and dimensions to the amount, sometimes, of one-tenth of the whole, can be applied as a standard of measure to anything, with as much mathematical exactness, as a trigonometrical process. It is still, however, a resource of great value for these purposes, because its use is so easy, in comparison with the
TITLE: To Capt. A. Partridge.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,510.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
If [* * *] opinions are sound [* * *] they will prevail by their own weight without the aid of names. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,35.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The third great measure necessary to ensure us permanent prosperity, should ensure resources of money by the suppression of all paper circulation during peace, and licensing that of the nation alone during war. The metallic medium of which we should be possessed at the commencement of a war, would be a sufficient fund for all the loans we should need through its continuance; and if the national bills issued, be bottomed (as is indispensable) on pledges of specific taxes for their redemption within certain and moderate epochs, and be of proper denominations for circulation, no interest on them would be necessary or just, because they would answer to every one the purposes of the metallic money withdrawn and replaced by them. --
TITLE: To William H. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,8.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 36.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
See Banks, Dollar, Money, and Paper Money.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,517.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 4.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The condition of different descriptions of inhabitants in any country is a matter of municipal arrangement, of which no foreign country has a right to take notice. All its inhabitants are as men to them. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,37.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 46.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The [representative principle] has taken deep root in the European mind, and will have its growth; their despots, 351 sensible of this, are already offering this modification of their governments, as if of their own accord. In [Col 2] stead of the parricide treason of Bonaparte, in perverting the means confided to him as a republican magistrate, to the subversion of that republic and erection of a military despotism for himself and his family, had he used it honestly for the establishment and support of a free government in his own country, France would now have been in freedom and rest; and her example operating in a contrary direction, every nation in Europe would have had a government over which the will of the people would have had some control. His atrocious egotism has checked the salutary progress of principle, and deluged it with rivers of blood which are not yet run out. To the vast sum of devastation and of human misery, of which he has been the guilty cause, much is still to be added. But the object is fixed in the eye of nations, and they will press on to its accomplishment and to the general amelioration of the condition of man. What a germ have we planted, and how faithfully should we cherish the parent tree at home! --
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,520.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 8.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
When subjects are able to maintain themselves in the field, they are then an independent power as to all neutral nations, are entitled to their commerce, and to protection within their limits. --
TITLE: To James Monroe.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,550.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 19.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
A nation united can never be conquered. We have seen what the ignorant, bigoted and unarmed Spaniards could do against the disciplined veterans of their invaders. [* * *] The oppressors May cut off heads after heads, but like those of the Hydra they multiply at every stroke. The recruits within a nation's own limits are prompt and without number; while those of their invaders from a distance are slow, limited, and must come to an end. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,525.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,3.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights. --
TITLE: To F. W. Gilmer.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,3.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,517.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 4.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I confide them [opinions on government] to your honor, so to use them as to preserve me from the gridiron of the public papers. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,17.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 44.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Nomination to office is an executive function. To give it to the Legislature, as we [in Virginia] do, is a violation of the principle of the separation of powers. It swerves the members from correctness, by temptations to intrigue for office themselves, and to a corrupt barter of votes; and destroys responsibility by dividing it among a multitude. By leaving nomination in its proper place, among executive functions, the principle of the distribution of power is preserved, and responsibility weighs with its force on a single head. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,12.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 40.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
There is, perhaps, a degree of duty to avow a change of opinion called for by a change of circumstances. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Austin.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,553.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 11.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
I wish to avoid all collisions of opinion with all mankind. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,517.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 4.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Opinion is power. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,525.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Public opinion is a censor before which the most exalted tremble for their future as well as present fame. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,524.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
When public opinion changes, it is with the rapidity of thought. --
TITLE: To Charles Yancey.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,516.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 3.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
The spirit of our people would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly. --
TITLE: To Samuel Kerchival.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,11.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 39.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1816
Secure self-government by th