It is often said there have been shining examples of men of great abilities, in all businesses of life, without any other science than what they had gathered from conversation and intercourse with the world. But, who can say what these men would not have been, had they started in the science on the shoulders of a Demosthenes or Cicero, of a Locke, or Bacon, or a Newton? --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,133.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1819
His deep conceptions, nervous style, and undaunted firmness, made him truly our bulwark in debate. --
TITLE: To Samuel A. Wells.
EDITION: Washington ed.i ,121.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 131.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
See Declaration of Independence.
He was truly a great man, wise in council, fertile in resources, immovable in his purposes, and had, I think, a greater share than any other member, in advising and directing our measures in the northern war especially. [* * *] Although not of fluent elocution, he was so rigorously logical, so clear in his views, abundant in good sense, and master always of his subject, that he commanded the most profound attention whenever he rose in an assembly by which the froth of declamation was heard with the most sovereign contempt. --
TITLE: To S. A. Wells.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,126.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 131.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I always considered him as more than any other member [in Congress] the fountain of our important measures. And although he was neither an eloquent nor easy speaker, whatever he said was sound, and commanded the profound attention of the House. In the discussions on the floor of Congress he reposed himself on our main pillar in debate, Mr. John Adams. These two gentlemen were verily a host in our councils. --
TITLE: To Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 124.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. --
TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,111.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 120.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
A decline of health at the age of 76, was naturally to be expected, and is a warning of an event which cannot be distant, and whose approach I contemplate with little concern; for indeed, in no circumstance has nature been kinder to us, than in the soft gradations by which she prepares us to part willingly with what we are not destined always to retain. First one faculty is withdrawn and then another, sight, hearing, memory, affection and friends, filched
TITLE: To Mr. Spafford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,118.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The mechanic needs ethics, mathematics, chemistry and natural philosophy. To them the languages are but ornament and comfort. --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,133.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
I am indebted to you for Mr. Bowditch's very learned mathematical papers, the calculations of which are not for every reader, although their results are readily enough understood. One of these impairs the confidence I had reposed in Laplace's demonstration, that the eccentricities of the planets of our system could oscillate only within narrow limits, and therefore could authorize no inference that the system must, by its own laws, come one day to an end. This would have left the question one of infinitude, at both ends of the line of time, clear of physical authority. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,112.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The enormous abuses of the banking system are not only prostrating our commerce, but producing revolution of property, which without more wisdom than we possess, will be much greater than were produced by the Revolutionary paper. That, too, had the merit of purchasing our liberties, while the present trash has only furnished aliment to usurers and swindlers. --
TITLE: To Richard Rush.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 133.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1819
The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their cause and consequences, and silence by their authority the interested clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving, and banking institutions. Till then we must be content to return, quoad hoc, to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property, for want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and wampum of the Indian, and to deliver up our citizens, their property and their labor, passive victims to the swindling tricks of bankers and mountebankers. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,115.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The banks themselves were doing business on capitals, three-fourths of which were fictitious; and to extend their profit they furnished fictitious capital to every man, who having nothing and disliking the labors of the plow, chose rather to call himself a merchant, to set up a house of $5,000 a year expense, to dash into every species of mercantile gambling, and if that ended as gambling generally does, a fraudulent bankruptcy was an ultimate resource of retirement and competence. This fictitious capital, probably of one hundred millions of dollars, is now to be lost, and to fall on somebody; it must take on those who have property to meet it, and probably on the less cautious part, who, not aware of the impending catastrophe have suffered themselves to contract, or to be in debt, and must now sacrifice their property of a value many times the amount of their debt. We have been truly sowing the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind. If the present crisis should end in the annihilation of these pennyless and ephemeral interlopers only, and reduce our commerce to the measure of our own wants and surplus productions, it will be a benefit in the end. But how to effect this, and give time to real capital, and the holders of real property, to back out of their enfanglements by degrees requires more knowledge of political economy than we possess. I believe it might be done, but I despair of its being done. The eyes of our citizens are not sufficiently open to the true cause of our distress. They ascribe them to everything but their true cause, the banking system; a system, which, if it could do good in any form, is yet so certain of leading to abuse, as to be utterly incompatible with the public safety and prosperity. At present, all is confusion, uncertainty and panic. --
TITLE: To Richard Rush.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 133.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1819
Interdict forever, to both the State and National governments the power of establishing any paper bank; for without this interdiction we shall have the same ebbs and flows of medium, and the same revolutions of property to go through every twenty or thirty years. --
TITLE: To W. C. Rives.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,147.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 151.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed, until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their course and consequences, and silence by their authority the interested clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving, and banking institutions. Till then we must be content to return, quoad hoc, to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property, for the want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and wampum of the Indian, and to deliver up our citizens, their property and their labor, passive victims to the swindling tricks of bankers and mountebankers. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,115.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The paper bubble is burst. This is what you and I, and every reasoning man, seduced by no obliquity of mind or interest, have long foreseen. We were laboring under a dropsical fulness of circulating medium. Nearly all of it is now called in by the banks, who have the regulation of the safety-valves of our fortunes, and who condense and explode them at their will. Lands in this State [Virginia] cannot now be sold for a year's rent; and unless our Legislature have wisdom enough to effect a remedy by a gradual diminution only of the medium, there will be a general revolution of property in this State. Over our own paper and that of other States coming among us, they have competent powers; over that of the Bank of the United States there is doubt, not here, but elsewhere. [Col 2] That bank will probably conform voluntarily to such regulations as the Legislature May prescribe for the others. If they do not, we must shut their doors, and join the other States which deny the right of Congress to establish banks, and solicit them to agree to some mode of settling this constitutional question. They have themselves twice decided against their right, and twice for it. Many of the States have been uniform in denying it, and between such parties the Constitution has provided no umpire. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,142.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 147.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Nov. 1819
See Money and Paper Money.
on to. -- After twenty years' confirmation of the federal system by the voice of the nation, declared through the medium of elections, we find the judiciary on every occasion, still driving us into consolidation. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,134.
EDITION: Ford ed.,X, 140.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
The letters of Cicero breathe the purest effusions of an exalted patriot, while the parricide C¢sar is lost in odious contrast. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,148.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 152.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
In the case of Marbury and Madison, the Federal judges declared that commissions, signed and sealed by the President, were valid, although not delivered. I deemed delivery essential to complete a deed, which, as long as it remains in the hands of the party, is yet no deed, it is in posse only, but not in esse, and I withheld delivery of the commissions. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,135.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
I am glad the bust of Condorcet has been saved. His genius should be before us; while the lamentable, but singular act of ingratitude which tarnished his latter days, May be thrown behind us. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,141.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 145.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
In denying the right they [the Supreme Court] usurp of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than you do, if I understand rightly your quotation from the Federalist, of an opinion that [Col 2] “the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived. ” If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se. For intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow; that such opinions as the one you combat, sent cautiously out, as you observe also, by detachment, not belonging to the case often, but sought for out of it, as if to rally the public opinion beforehand to their views, and to indicate the line they are to walk in, have been so quietly passed over as never to have excited animadversion, even in a speech of any one of the body entrusted with impeachment. The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. [* * *] My construction of the Constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,134.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 140.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
Each of the three departments has equally the right to decide for itself what is its duty under the Constitution, without any regard to what the others May have decided for themselves under a similar question. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,136.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
My construction of the Constitution is [* * *] that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal. I will explain myself by examples, which, having occurred while I was in office, are better known to me, and the principles which governed them. A Legislature had passed the Sedition law. The Federal courts had subjected certain individuals to its penalties of fine and imprisonment. On coming into office, I released these individuals by the power of pardon committed to executive discretion, which could never be more properly exercised than where citizens were suffering without the authority of law, or, which was equivalent, under a law unauthorized by the Constitution, and therefore null. In the case of Marbury vs. Madison, the Federal judges declared that commissions, signed and sealed by the President, were valid although not delivered. I deemed delivery essential to complete a deed, which, as long as it remains in the hands of
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,135.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 141.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
The painting lately executed by Colonel Trumbull, I have never seen, but as far back as the days of Horace at least, we are told that “pictoribus atque poetis; Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas.” He has exercised this licentia pictoris in like manner in the surrender of Yorktown, where he has placed Lord Cornwallis at the head of the surrender although it is well known that he was excused by General Washington from appearing. --
TITLE: To Samuel A. Wells.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 133.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The painting lately executed by Col. Trumbull, I have never seen, but as far back as the days of Horace, at least, we are told that “pictoribus atque poetis; Quidlibet audendi semper fuit œqua potestas.” He has exercised this licentia pictoris in like manner in the surrender at Yorktown, where he has placed Lord Cornwallis at the head of the surrender, although it is well known that he was excused by General Washington from appearing. --
TITLE: To S. A. Wells.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 133.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Governor McKean, in his letter to McCorkle of July 16th, [Col 2] 1817, has thrown some lights on the transactions of that day; but, trusting to his memory chiefly, at an age when our memories are not to be trusted, he has confounded two questions, and ascribed proceedings to one which belonged to the other. These two questions were, 1st, the Virginia motion of June the 7th, to declare Independence; and 2d, the actual Declaration, its matter and form. Thus he states the question on the Declaration itself as decided on the 1st of July; but it was the Virginia motion which was voted on that day in Committee of the Whole; South Carolina, as well as Pennsylvania, then voting against it. But the ultimate decision in the House, on the report of the Committee, being, by request, postponed to the next morning; all the States voted for it except New York, whose vote was delayed for the reason before stated. It was not till the 2d of July, that the Declaration itself was taken up; nor till the 4th, that it was decided, and it was signed by every member present, except Mr. Dickinson. --
TITLE: To Samuel A. Wells.
EDITION: Washington ed.i ,120.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 130.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The subsequent signatures of members who were not then present, and some of them not yet in office, is easily explained, if we observe who they were; to wit, that they were of New York and Pennsylvania. New York did not sign till the 15th, because if was not till the 9th (five days after the general signature), that their convention authorized them to do so. The Convention of Pennsylvania, learning that it had been signed by a minority only of their delegates, named a new delegation on the 20th, leaving out Mr. Dickinson, who had refused to sign. Willing and Humphreys who had withdrawn, reappointing the three members who had signed, Morris, who had not been present, and five new ones, to wit, Rush, Clymer, Smith, Taylor and Ross; and Morris, and the five new members were permitted to sign, because it manifested the assent of their full delegation and the express will of their Convention, which might have been doubted on the former signature of a minority only. Why the signature of Thornton, of New Hampshire, was permitted so late as the 4th of November, I cannot now say; but undoubtedly for some particular reason which we should find to have been good had it been expressed. These were the only post-signers, and you see that there were solid reasons for receiving those of New York and Pennsylvania, and that this circumstance in no wise affects the faith of this Declaratory Charter of our rights, and of the rights of man. --
TITLE: To Samuel A. Wells.
EDITION: Washington ed.i ,120.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 130.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
You seem to think the Mecklenburg Declaration genuine. I believe it spurious. I deem it to be a very unjustifiable quiz, like that of the volcano, so minutely related to us as having broken out in North Carolina, some half a dozen years ago, in that part of the country, and perhaps in that very county of Mecklenburg for I do not remember its precise locality. If this paper be really taken from the Raleigh Register, as quoted, I wonder it should have escaped Ritchie, who culls what is good from every paper, as the bee from every flower; and the National Intelligencer, too, which is edited by a North Carolinian; and that the fire should blaze out all at once in Essex, 137 one thousand miles from where the spark is said to have fallen. But if really taken from the Raleigh Register, who is the narrator, and is the name subscribed real, or is it as fictitious as the paper itself? It appeals, too, to an original book, which is burned, to Mr. Alexander, who is dead, to a joint letter from Caswell, Hughes and Hooper, all dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another sent to Dr. Williamson, now probably dead, whose memory did not recollect, in the history he has written of North Carolina, this gigantic step of its county of Mecklenburg. Horry, too, is silent in his history of Marion, whose scene of action was the county bordering on Mecklenburg. Ramsay, Marshall, Jones, Girardin, Wirt, historians of the adjacent States, all silent. When Mr. Henry's resolutions, far short of Independence, flew like lightning through every paper, and kindled both sides of the Atlantic, this flaming declaration of the same date, of the independence of Mecklenburg county, of North Carolina, absolving it from the British allegiance, and abjuring all political connection with that nation, although sent to Congress too, is never heard of. It is not known even a twelvemonth after, when a similar proposition is first made in that body. Armed with this bold example, would not you have addressed our timid brethren in peals of thunder on their tardy fears? Would not every advocate of Independence have rung the glories of Mecklenburg county in North Carolina, in the ears of the doubting Dickinson and others, who hung so heavily on us? Yet the example of independent Mecklenburg county, in North Carolina, was never once quoted. The paper speaks, too, of the continued exertions of their delegation (Caswell, Hooper, Hughes) “in the cause of liberty and independence.” Now, you remember as well as I do, that we had not a greater tory in Congress than Hooper; that Hughes was very wavering, sometimes firm, sometimes feeble, according as the day was clear or cloudy; that Caswell, indeed, was a good whig, and kept these gentlemen to the notch, while he was present; but that he left us soon, and their line of conduct became then uncertain until Penn came, who fixed Hughes and the vote of the State. I must not be understood as suggesting any doubtfulness in the State of North Carolina. No State was more fixed or forward. Nor do I affirm, positively, that this paper is a fabrication; because the proof of a negative can only [Col 2] be presumptive. But I shall believe it such until positive and solemn proof of its authenticity be produced. And if the name of McKnitt be real, and not a part of the fabrication, it needs a vindication by the production of such proof. For the present, I must be an unbeliever in the apocryphal gospel. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,128.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 136.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: July. 1819
I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us. Epictetus indeed, has given us what was good of the Stoics; all beyond, of their dogmas, being hypocrisy and grimace. Their great crime was in their calumnies of Epicurus and misrepresentations of his doctrines; in which we lament to see the candid character of Cicero engaging as an accomplice. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,138.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 143.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
[I send you] a syllabus of the doctrines of Epicurus:
Physical. -- The Universe eternal.
Its parts, great and small, interchangeable.
Matter and Void alone.
Motion inherent in matter which is weighty and declining.
Eternal circulation of the elements of bodies.
Gods, an order of beings next superior to man, enjoying in their sphere, their own felicities; but not meddling with the concerns of the scale of beings below them.
Moral. -- Happiness the aim of life.
Virtue the foundation of happiness.
Utility the test of virtue.
Pleasure active and In-do-lent.
In-do-lence is the absence of pain, the true felicity.
Active, consists in agreeable motion; it is not happiness, but the means to produce it:
Thus the absence of hunger is an article of felicity; eating the means to obtain it.
The summum bonum is to be not pained in body, nor troubled in mind. -- i. e. In-do-lence of body, tranquillity of mind.
To procure tranquillity of mind we must avoid desire and fear, the two principal diseases of the mind.
Man is a free agent.
Virtue consists in, 1. Prudence. 2. Temperance. 3. Fortitude. 4. Justice.
To which are opposed, 1. Folly. 2. Desire. 3. Fear. 4. Deceit. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,141.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 146.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
See Short.
Error bewilders us in one false consequence after another in endless succession. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,149.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 153.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The agriculturist needs ethics, mathematics, chemistry and natural philosophy. To them the languages are but ornament and comfort. --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,133.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
Fortitude teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties; not to fly from them, like cowards; and to fly, too, in vain, for they will meet and arrest us at every turn of our road. Fortitude is one of the four cardinal virtues of Epicurus. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,140.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 145.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I withdraw from all contests of opinion, and resign everything cheerfully to the generation now in place. They are wiser than we were, and their successors will be wiser than they, from the progressive advance of science. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,136.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
No government can continue good, but under the control of the people. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,149.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 153.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I feel a much greater interest in knowing what passed two or three thousand years ago than in what is passing now. I read nothing, therefore, but of the heroes of Troy, of the wars of Lacedæmon and Athens, of Pompey and Cæsar, and of Augustus, too, the Bonaparte and parricide scoundrel of that day. --
TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,111.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 120.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. --
TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,112.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 122.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Experience has already shown that the impeachment the Constitution has provided is not even a scarecrow. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,134.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 141.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
I observe Ritchie imputes to you and myself opinions against Jackson's conduct in the Seminole war. I certainly never doubted that the military entrance into Florida, the temporary occupation of their posts, and the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister were all justifiable. [* * *] I at first felt regret at the execution; but I have ceased to feel [manuscript torn] on mature reflection, and a belief the example will save much blood. --
TITLE: To James Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 124.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Of the public transactions in which I have borne a part, I have kept no narrative with a view of history. A life of constant action leaves no time for recording. Always thinking of what is next to be done, what has been done is dismissed, and soon obliterated from the memory. --
TITLE: To Mr. Spafford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,118.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
See History.
Against reading Greek by accent, instead of quantity, as Mr. Ciceitira, proposes, I raise both my hands. What becomes of the sublime measure of Homer, the full sounding rhythm of Demosthenes, if, abandoning quantity, you chop it up by accent? What ear can hesitate in its choice between the two following rhythms? “&Tgr;&ogr;`&ngr;, &dgr;'&agr;&pgr;&agr;&mgr;&egr;&igr;&bgr;&ogr;`&mgr;&egr;&ngr;&ogr;&sfgr; &pgr;&rgr;&ogr;&sgr;&egr;&phgr;&eegr;` &pgr;&ogr;´&dgr;&agr;&sfgr; &ohgr;&kgr;&ugr;`&sfgr; &Agr;&khgr;&igr;´&lgr;&lgr;&egr;&ugr;&sfgr;,
and
&Tgr;&ogr;&ngr; &dgr;'&agr;&pgr;&agr;&mgr;&egr;&igr;&bgr;&ogr;&mgr;&egr;&ngr;&ogr;´&sfgr; &pgr;&rgr;&ogr;&sfgr;&egr;&phgr;&eegr;` &pgr;&ogr;&dgr;&agr;&sfgr; &ohgr;´&khgr;&ugr;&sfgr; &Agr;&khgr;&igr;´&lgr;&lgr;&egr;&ugr;&sfgr;.” the latter noted according to prosody, the former by accent, and dislocating our teeth in its utterance; every syllable of it, except the first and last, being pronounced against quantity. And what becomes of the art of prosody? Is that perfect coincidence of its rules with the structure of their verse, merely accidental? or was it of design, and yet for no use? --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,114.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Of the origin of accentuation, I have never seen satisfactory proofs. But I have generally supposed the accents were intended to direct the inflections and modulations of the voice; but not to affect the quantity of the syllables. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,115.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Mr. Pickering's pamphlet on the pronunciation of the Greek, for which I am indebted to you, I have read with great pleasure. Early in life, the idea occurred to me that the people now inhabiting the ancient seats of the Greeks and Romans, although their languages in the intermediate ages had suffered great changes, and especially in the declension of their nouns, and in the terminations of their words generally, yet having preserved the body of the word radically the same, so they would preserve more of its pronunciation. That, at least, it was probable that a pronunciation, handed down by tradition, would retain, as the words themselves do, more of the original than that of any other people whose language has no affinity to that original. For this reason I learned, and have used the Italian pronunciation of the Latin. But that of the modern Greeks I had no opportunity of learning until I went to Paris. There I became acquainted with two learned Greeks, Count Carberri, and Mr. Paradise, and with a lady, a native Greek, the daughter of Baron de Tott, who did not understand the ancient language. Carberri and Paradise both spoke it. From these instructors I learned the modern pronunciation, and in general trusted to its orthodoxy. I say, in general, because sound being more fugitive than the written letter, we must, after such a lapse of time, presume in it some degeneracies, as we see there are in the written words. We May
While, therefore, I gave in to the modern prounciation generally, I have presumed, as an instance of degeneracy, their ascribing the same sound to the six letters, or combinations of letters, &egr;, &igr;, &ugr;, &egr;&igr;, &ogr;&igr;, &ugr;&igr;, to all of which they give the sound of our double e in the word meet. This useless equivalence of three vowels and three diphthongs did not probably exist among the ancient Greeks; and the less probably as, while this single sound, ee, is overcharged by so many different representative characters, the sounds we usually give to these characters and combinations would be left without any representative signs. This would imply either that they had not these sounds in their language, or no signs for their expression. Probability appears to me, therefore, against the practice of the modern Greeks of giving the same sound to all these different representatives, and to be in favor of that of foreign nations, who, adopting the Roman characters, have assimilated to them, in a considerable degree, the powers of the corresponding Greek letters. I have, accordingly, excepted this in my adoption of the modern pronunciation.
I have been more doubtful in the use of the &agr;&ugr;, &egr;&ugr;, &eegr;&ugr;, &ohgr;&ugr;, sounding the &ugr;, upsilon, as our f or v, because I find traces of that power of [] , or of [&ugr;] , in some modern languages. To go no further than our own, we have it in laugh, cough, trough, enough. The county of Louisa, adjacent to that in which I live, was, when I was a boy, universally pronounced Lovisa. That it is not the gh which gives the sound of f or v, in these words, is proved by the orthography of plough, trough, thought, fraught, caught. The modern Greeks themselves, too, giving up &ugr;, upsilon, in ordinary, the sound of our ee, strengthens the presumption that its anomalous sound of f or v, is a corruption. The same may be inferred from the cacophony of &egr;&lgr;&agr;&phgr;&ngr;&egr; (elavne) for &egr;&lgr;&agr;&ugr;&ngr;&egr; (elawne.) &Agr;&khgr;&igr;&lgr;&lgr;&egr;&phgr;&sfgr; (Achillefs) for &Agr;&khgr;&igr;&lgr;&lgr;&egr;&ugr;&sfgr; (Achilleise,) &egr;&phgr;&sfgr; (eves) for &egr;&udigr;&sfgr; (ee-use,) &ogr;&phgr;&kgr; (ovk) for [] &kgr; (ouk,) &ohgr;&phgr;&igr;&ogr;&sfgr; (ovetos) for &ohgr;&udigr;&tgr;&ogr;&sfgr; (o-u-tos,) &Zgr;&egr;&phgr;&sfgr; (zevs) for &Zgr;&egr;&ugr;&sfgr; (zese,) of which all nations have made their Jupiter; and the uselessness of the &ugr; in &egr;&ugr;&phgr;&ohgr;&ngr;&igr;&agr;, which would otherwise have been spelt &egr;&phgr;&ohgr;&ngr;&igr;&agr;. I, therefore, except this also from what I consider as approvable pronunciation. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,112.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Should Mr. Pickering ultimately establish the modern pronunciation of the letters without any exception, I shall think it a great step gained, and giving up my exceptions, shall willingly rally to him. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,115.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
If we adhere to the Erasmian pronunciation we must go to Italy for it, as we must do for the most probably correct pronunciation of the language of the Romans, because rejecting the modern, we must argue that the ancient pronunciation was prob [Col 2] ably brought from Greece with the language itself; and, as Italy was the country to which it was brought, and from which it emanated to other nations, we must presume it better preserved there than with the nations copying from them, who would be apt to affect its pronunciation with some of their own national peculiarities. And in fact, we find that no two nations pronounce it alike, although all pretend to the Erasmian pronunciation. But the whole subject is conjectural, and allows, therefore, full and lawful scope to the vagaries of the human mind. I am glad, however, to see the question stirred here; because it may excite among our young countrymen a spirit of enquiry and criticism, and lead them to more attention to this most beautiful of all languages. --
TITLE: To Mr. Moore.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,137.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I have little hope of the recovery of the ancient pronunciation of that finest of human languages, but still I rejoice at the attention the subject seems to excite with you, because it is an evidence that our country begins to have a taste for something more than merely as much Greek as will pass a candidate for clerical ordination. --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,131.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
The utilities we derive from the remains of the Greek and Latin languages are, first as models of pure taste in writing. To these we are certainly indebted for the natural and chaste style of modern composition, which so much distinguishes the nations to whom these languages are familiar. Without these models we should probably have continued the inflated style of our northern ancestors, or the hyperbolical and vague one of the East. --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,131.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1819
-- To whom are they [the classical languages] useful? Certainly not to all men. There are conditions of life to which they must be forever estranged. [* * *] To the moralist they are valuable, because they furnish ethical writings highly and justly esteemed; although in my own opinion the moderns are far advanced beyond them in this line of science; the divine finds in the Greek language a translation of his primary code, of more importance to him than the original because better understood; and, in the same language, the newer code, with the doctrines of the earliest fathers. [* * *] The lawyer finds in the Latin language the system of civil law most conformable with the principles of justice of any which has ever yet been established among men, and from which much has been incorporated into our own. The physician as good a code of his art as has been given us to this day. [* * *] The statesman will find in these languages history, politics, mathematics, ethics, eloquence, love of country, to which he must add the sciences of his own day, for which of them should be unknown to him? And all the sciences must recur to the classical languages for the etymon, and sound understanding of their fundamental terms. [Col 2] [* * *] To sum the whole, it may truly be said that the classical languages are a solid basis for most, and an ornament to all the sciences. --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,131.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
Among the values of classical learning, I estimate the luxury of reading the Greek and Roman authors in all the beauties of their originals. And why should not this innocent and elegant luxury take its preeminent stand ahead of all those addressed merely to the senses? I think myself more indebted to my father for this than for all the other luxuries his cares and affections have placed within my reach; and more now than when younger, and more susceptible of delights from other sources. When the decays of age have enfeebled the useful energies of the mind, the classic pages fill up the vacuum of ennui, and become sweet composers to that rest of the grave into which we are all sooner or later to descend. --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,131.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
See Education, Languages, Science, and University.
The drudgery of letter writing often denies me the leisure of reading a single page in a week. --
TITLE: To Ezra Stiles.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,127.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I endeavor to beguile the wearisomeness of declining life by the delights of classical reading and of mathematical truths, and by the consolations of a sound philosophy, equally indifferent to hope and fear. --
TITLE: To W. Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,140.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 145.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The request of the history of my physical habits would have puzzled me not a little, had it not been for the model with which you accompanied it, of Doctor Rush's answer to a similar inquiry. I live so much like other people, that I might refer to ordinary life as the history of my own. [* * *] I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables which constitute my principal diet. I double, however, the Doctor's glass and a half of wine, and even treble it with a friend; but halve its effects by drinking the weak wines only. The ardent wines I cannot drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in any form. Malt liquors and cider are my table drinks, and my breakfast is of tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs of digestion which accept and concoct, without ever murmuring, whatever the palate chooses to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth by age. I was a hard student until I entered on the business of life, the duties of which leave no idle time to those disposed to fulfil them; and now, retired, and at the age of seventy-six, I am again a hard student. Indeed, my fondness for reading and study revolts me from the drudgery of letter writing. And a stiff wrist, the consequence of an early dislocation, makes writing both slow and painful. I am not so regular in my sleep as the Doctor says he was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according as my company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go to bed without an hour, or half hour's previous reading of something moral, whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun. I use spectacles at night, but not necessarily in the day, unless in reading small print. My hearing is distinct in particular conversation, but confused when several voices cross each other, which unfits me for the society of the table. I have been more fortunate than my friend in the article of health. So free from catarrhs that I have not had one (in the breast, I mean) on an average of eight or ten years through life. I ascribe this exemption partly to the habit of bathing my feet in cold water every morning, for sixty years past. A fever of more than twenty-four hours I have not had above two or three times in my life. A periodical headache has afflicted me occasionally, once, perhaps, in six or eight years, for two or three weeks at a time, which now seems to have left me; and except on a late occasion of indisposition, I enjoy good health; too feeble, indeed, to walk much, but riding without fatigue six or eight miles a day, and sometimes thirty or forty. I may end these egotisms, therefore, as I began, by saying that my life has been so much like that of other people, that I might say with Horace, to every one “nomine mutato, de te fabula narratur”. --
TITLE: To Doctor Vine Utley.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,116.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 125.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I cannot be insensible to the partiality which has induced several persons to think my life worthy of remembrance. And towards none more than yourself, who give me so much credit, more than I am entitled to, as to what has been effected for the safeguard of our republican Constitution. Numerous and able coadjutors have participated in these efforts, and merit equal notice. My life, in fact, has been so much like that of others, that their history is my history with a mere difference of feature. --
TITLE: To Mr. Spafford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,118.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The government which steps out of the ranks of the ordinary articles of consumption to select and lay under disproportionate burthens a particular one, because it is a comfort, pleasing to the taste, or necessary to health, and will therefore be bought, is, in that particular, a tyranny. --
TITLE: To Samuel Smith.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,285.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 252.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
See Taxation.
While such men as yourself and your worthy colleagues of the legislature, and such characters as compose the executive administration, are watching for us all, [Col 2] I slumber without fear, and review in my dreams the visions of antiquity. 317 --
TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,111.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 120.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Loving mankind in my individual relations with them, I pray to be permitted to depart in their peace. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,136.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
So far as either facts or opinions have been truly quoted from me, they have never been meant to intercept the just fame of Massachusetts for the promptitude and perseverance of her early resistance. We willingly cede to her the laud of having been (although not exclusively ) “the cradle of sound principles”, and, if some of us believe she has deflected from them in her course, we retain full confidence in her ultimate return to them. --
TITLE: To Samuel A. Wells.
EDITION: Washington ed.i ,117.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 129.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Of the return of Massachusetts to sound principles I never had a doubt. The body of her citizens has never been otherwise than republican. Her would-be dukes and lords, indeed, have been itching for coronets; her lawyers for robes of ermine, her
TITLE: To Samuel A. Wells.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 133.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Theories and systems of medicine have been in perpetual change from the days of the good Hippocrates to the days of the good Rush, but which of them is the true one? The present, to be sure, as long as it is the present, but to yield its place in turn to the next novelty, which is then to, become the true system, and is to mark the vast advance of medicine since the days of Hippocrates. Our situation is certainly benefited by the discovery of some new and very valuable medicines; and substituting those for some of his with the treasure of facts, and of sound observations recorded by him (mixed to be sure with anilities of his day), we shall have nearly the present sum of the healing art. --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,132.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
For the merchant I should not say that the [classical] Languages are a necessary. Ethics, mathematics, geography, political economy, history, seem to constitute the immediate foundations of his calling. --
TITLE: To John Brazier.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,133.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
The science of the human mind is curious, but is one on which I have not indulged myself in much speculation. The times in which I have lived, and the scenes in which I have been engaged, have required me to keep the mind too much in action to have leisure to study minutely its laws of action. --
TITLE: To Ezra Stiles.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,127.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The banks, bankrupt law, manufactures, Spanish treaty, are nothing. These are occurrences which, like waves in a storm, will pass under the ship. But the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by revolt, and what more, God only knows. From the battle of Bunker's Hill to the treaty of Paris, we never had so ominous a question. [* * *] I thank God that I shall not live to witness its issue. 328 --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,148.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 151.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Dec. 1819
There is one evil which awakens me at times, because it jostles me at every turn. It is that we have now no measure of value. I am asked eighteen dollars for a yard of broadcloth, which, when we had dollars, I used to get for eighteen shillings; from this I can only understand that a dollar is now worth but two inches of broadcloth, but broadcloth is no standard of measure or value. I do not know, therefore, whereabouts I stand in the scale of property, nor what to ask, or what to give for it. I saw, indeed, the like machinery in action in the years '80 and '81, and without dissatisfaction; because in wearing out, it was working out our salvation. But I see nothing in this renewal of the game of “Robin's Alive” but a general demoralization of the nation, a filching from industry its honest earnings, wherewith to build up palaces, and raise gambling stock for swindlers and shavers,
TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,111.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 121.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed, until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their cause and consequences, and silence by their authority the interested clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving, and banking institutions. Till then we must be content to return, quoad hoc, to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property, for want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and wampum of the Indian, and to deliver up our citizens, their property and their labor, passive victims to the swindling tricks of bankers and mountebankers. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,115.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
See Banks, Dollar, National Currency, and Paper Money.
I have had, and still have, such entire confidence in the late and present Presidents, that I willingly put both soul and body into their pockets. --
TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,111.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 120.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
In that branch of religion which regards the moralities of life, and the duties of a social being, which teaches us to [love our neighbors as ourselves] , and to do good to [] you and I do not differ. --
TITLE: [] .
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,127.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
It is of great consequence to us, and merits every possible endeavor, to maintain in Europe a correct opinion of our political morality. --
TITLE: To President Monroe.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 123.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
With respect to impressions from any differences of political opinion, whether major or minor, [* * *] I have none. I left them all behind me on quitting Washington, where alone the state of things had, till then, required some attention to them. Nor was that the lightest part of the load I was there disburthened of; and could I permit myself to believe that with the change of circumstances a corresponding change had taken place in the minds of those who differed from me, and that I now stand in the peace and good will of my fellow-citizens generally, it would, indeed, be a sweetening ingredient in the last dregs of my life. --
TITLE: To John Nicholas.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,143.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 148.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
While duty required it, I met opposition with a firm and fearless step. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,136.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
The plethory of circulating medium which raised the prices of everything to several times their ordinary and standard value, in which state of things many and heavy debts were contracted; and the sudden withdrawing too great a proportion of that medium, and reduction of prices far below that standard, constitute the disease under which we are now laboring, and which must end in a general revolution of property, if some remedy is not applied. That remedy is clearly a gradual reduction of the medium to its standard level, that is to say, to the level which a metallic medium will always find for itself, so as to be in equilibrio with that of the nations with which we have commerce. To effect this: Let the whole of the present paper medium be suspended in its circulation after a certain and not distant day. Ascertain by proper inquiry the greatest sum of it which has at any one time been in actual circulation. Take a certain term of years for its gradual reduction. Suppose it to be five years; then let the solvent banks issue 5-6 of that amount in new notes, to be attested by a public officer, as a security that neither more nor less is issued, and to be given out in exchange [Col 2] for the suspended notes, and the surplus in discount. Let 1-5 of these notes bear on their face that the bank will discharge them with specie at the end of one year; another 5th at the end of two years; a third 5th at the end of three years; and so of the 4th and 5th. They will be sure to be brought in at their respective periods of redemption. Make it a high offense to receive or pass within this State a note of any other. There is little doubt that our banks will agree readily to this operation; if they refuse, declare their charters forfeited by their former irregularities, and give summary process against them for the suspended notes. The Bank of the United States will probably concur also; if not, shut their doors and join the other States in respectful, but firm applications to Congress, to concur in constituting a tribunal (a special convention, e. g.) for settling amicably the question of their right to institute a bank, and that also of the States to do the same. A stay-law for the [suspension] of executions, and their discharge at five annual instalments, should be accommodated to these measures. Interdict forever, to both the State and National Governments, the power of establishing any paper bank; for without this interdiction, we shall have the same ebbs and flows of medium, and the same revolutions of property to go through every twenty or thirty years. In this way the value of property, keeping pace nearly with the sum of circulating medium, will descend gradually to its proper level, at the rate of about 1-5 every year, the sacrifices of what shall be sold for payment of the first instalments of debts will be moderate, and time will be given for economy and industry to come in aid of those subsequent. Certainly no nation ever before abandoned to the avarice and jugglings of private individuals to regulate, according to their own interests, the quantum of circulating medium for the nation; to inflate, by deluges of paper, the nominal prices of property, and then to buy up that property at 1s. in the pound, having first withdrawn the floating medium which might endanger a competition in purchase. Yet this is what has been done, and will be done, unless stayed by the protecting hand of the Legislature. The evil has been produced by the error of their sanction of this ruinous machinery of banks; and justice, wisdom, duty, all require that they should interpose and arrest it before the schemes of plunder and spoliation desolate the country. It is believed that Harpies are already hoarding their money to commence these scenes on the separation of the Legislature; and we know that lands have been already sold under the hammer for less than a year's rent. --
TITLE: To W. C. Rives.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,145.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 150.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Nov. 1819
The power of pardon, committed to Executive discretion, [can] never be more properly exercised than where citizens [are] suffering without the authority of law, or, which [is] equivalent, under a law unauthorized by the Constitution, and therefore null. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,135.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 141.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
No government can continue good, but under the control of the people. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,149.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 153.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,134.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 141.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
The letters of Cicero breathe the purest effusions of an exalted patriot, while the parricide Cæsar is lost in odious contrast. When the enthusiasm, however, kindled by Cicero's pen and principles, subsides into cool reflection, I ask myself, what was that government, which the virtues of Cicero were so zealous to restore, and the ambition of Cæsar to subvert? And if Cæsar had been as virtuous as he was daring and sagacious, what could he, even in the plenitude of his [Col 2] usurped power, have done to lead his fellow citizens into good government? I do not say to restore it, because they never had it, from the rape of the Sabines to the ravages of the Cæsars. If their people, indeed, had been, like ourselves, enlightened, peaceable and really free, the answer would be obvious. “Restore independence to all your foreign conquests, relieve Italy from the government of the rabble of Rome, consult it as a nation entitled to self-government, and do its will”. But steeped in corruption, vice and venality, as the whole nation was (and nobody had done more than Cæsar to corrupt it), what could even Cicero, Cato, Brutus have done, had it been referred to them to establish a good government for their country? They had no ideas of government themselves, but of their degenerate Senate, nor the people of liberty, but of the factious opposition of their Tribunes. They had afterwards their Tituses, their Trajans and Antoninuses, who had the will to make them happy, and the power to mould their government into a good and permanent form. But it would seem as if they could not see their way clearly to do it. No government can continue good, but under the control of the people; and their people were so demoralized and depraved, as to be incapable of exercising a wholesome control. Their reformation then was to be taken up ab incunabulis. Their minds were to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and deterred from those of vice by the dread of punishments, proportioned, indeed, but irremissible; in all cases, to follow truth as the only safe guide, and to eschew error, which bewilders us in one false consequence after another, in endless succession. These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure of order and good government. But this would have been an operation of a generation or two, at least, within which period would have succeeded many Neros and Commoduses, who would have quashed the whole process. I confess, then, I can neither see what Cicero, Cato and Brutus, united and uncontrolled, could have devised to lead their people into good government, nor how this enigma can be solved, nor how further shown why it has been the fate of that delightful country never to have known, to this day, and through a course of five and twenty hundred years, the history of which we possess, one single day of free and rational government. Your intimacy with their history, ancient, middle and modern, your familiarity with the improvements in the science of government at this time, will enable you, if anybody, to go back with our principles and opinions to the times of Cicero, Cato and Brutus, and tell us by what process these great and virtuous men could have led so unenlightened and vitiated a people into freedom and good government. 384 --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,148.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 152.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I am Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us. Epictetus, indeed, has given us what was good of the Stoics; all beyond, of their dogmas being hypocrisy and grimace. Their great crime was in their calumnies of Epicurus and misrepresentations of his doctrines; in which we lament to see the candid character of Cicero engaging as an accomplice. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,138.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 143.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Seneca is, indeed, a fine moralist, disfiguring his work at times with some Stoicisms, and affecting too much of antithesis and point, yet giving us on the whole a great deal of sound and practical morality. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,139.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 144.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Of Socrates we have nothing genuine but in the Memorabilia of Xenophon; for Plato makes him one of his collocutors, merely to cover his own whimsies under the mantle of his name; a liberty of which we are told Socrates himself complained. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,139.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 144.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth [Col 2] in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,134.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 141.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
In the maintenance of [* * *] [our] principles [* * *] I verily believe the future happiness of our country essentially depends. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,136.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 143.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
The revolution of 1800 was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form; not effected, indeed, by the sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,133.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 140.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know. --
TITLE: To Ezra Stiles.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,127.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Your love of repose will lead, in its progress, to a suspension of healthy exercise, a relaxation of mind, an indifference to everything around you, and finally to a debility of body, and hebetude of mind, the farthest of all things from the happiness which the well-regulated indulgences of Epicurus ensure. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,140.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 145.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The revolution of 1800 was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form; not effected, indeed, by the sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people. The nation declared its will by dismissing functionaries of one principle, and electing those of another, in the two branches, Executive and Legislative, submitted to their election. Over the Judiciary department, the Constitution had deprived them of their control. That, therefore, has continued the reprobated system, and although new matter has been occasionally incorporated into the old, yet the leaven of the old mass seems to assimilate to itself the new, and after twenty years' confirmation of the federal system by the voice of the nation, declared through the medium of elections, we find the Judiciary on every occasion, still driving us into consolidation. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,133.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 140.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
See Centralization, Judiciary and Supreme Court.
It should be remembered, as an axiom of [Col 2] eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,134.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 141.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
A [* * *] misapprehension of [* * *] a passage in Mr. [William] Wirt's book, for which I am quoted, has produced a [* * *] reclamation of the part of Massachusetts, by some of her most distinguished and estimable citizens. I had been applied to by Mr. Wirt for such facts respecting Mr. [Patrick] Henry, as my intimacy with him and participation in the transactions of the day, [Col 2] might have placed within my knowledge. I accordingly committed them to paper; and Virginia being the theatre of his action, was the only subject within my contemplation, while speaking of him. Of the resolutions and measures here, in which he had the acknowledged lead, I used the expression that “Mr. Henry certainly gave the first impulse to the ball of revolution”. (Wirt, page 41.) The expression is, indeed, general, and in all its extension, would comprehend all the sister States; but indulgent construction would restrain it, as was really meant, to the subject matter under contemplation, which was Virginia alone; according to the rule of the lawyers and a fair canon of general criticism, that every expression should be construed secundum subjectam materiem. Where the first attack was made, there must have been, of course, the first act of resistance, and that was in Massachusetts. Our [Virginia's] first overt act of war was Mr. Henry's embodying a force of militia from several counties, regularly armed and organized, marching them in military array and making reprisal on the King's treasury at the seat of government, for the public powder taken away by his Governor. This was in the last days of April, 1775. Your formal battle of Lexington was ten or twelve days before that, which greatly overshadowed in importance, as it preceded in time, our little affray, which merely amounted to a levying of arms against the King; and, very possibly, you had had military affrays before the regular battle of Lexington. --
TITLE: To Samuel A. Wells.i, 116. vii, 120.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 128.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The Declaration of Independence, the Declaratory Charter of our rights, and of the rights of man. --
TITLE: To Samuel A. Wells.
EDITION: Washington ed.i ,121.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 131.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
When the British treaty of -- arrived, without any provision against the impressment of our seamen, I determined not to ratify it. The Senate thought I should ask their advice. I thought that would be a mockery of them, when I was predetermined against following it, should they advise ratification. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,135.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: Sep. 1819
The Constitution has made the advice of the Senate necessary to confirm a treaty, but not to reject it. This has been blamed by some; but I have never doubted its soundness. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,135.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
Seneca is a fine moralist, disfiguring his work at times with some Stoicisms and affecting too much antithesis and point, yet giving us on the whole a great deal of sound and practical morality. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,139.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 144.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I am not so regular in my sleep as the doctor [Dr. Rush] says he was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according as my company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go to bed without an hour, or half hour's, previous reading of something moral whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. But whether I retire to bed early or late I am up with the sun. --
TITLE: To Doctor Vine Utley.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,117.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 126.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
I was a hard student until I entered on the business of life, the duties of which leave no idle time to those disposed to fulfil them; and now, retired, and at the age of seventy-six, I am again a hard student. --
TITLE: To Dr. Vine Utley.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,116.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 126.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
The rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,133.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 140.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
I will presume to suggest to Mr. [John Quincy] Adams the question whether he should not send back Onis's letters in which he has the impudence to qualify you by the term “His Excellency”? An American gentleman in Europe can rank with the first nobility because we have no titles which stick him at any particular place in their line. So the President of the United States, under that designation ranks with the emperors and kings; but add Mr. Onis's courtesy of “His Excellency” and he is then on a level with Mr. Onis himself, with the governors of provinces, and even of every petty fort in Europe, or the colonies. --
TITLE: To President Monroe.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 123.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Tranquillity is the
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,136.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
When the British treaty of 18 -- arrived, without any provision against the impressment of our seamen, I determined not to ratify it. The Senate thought I should ask their advice. I thought that would be a mockery of them, when I was predetermined against following it, should they advise its ratification. The Constitution had made their advice necessary to confirm a treaty, but not to reject it. This has been blamed by some; but I have never doubted its soundness. --
TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,135.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 142.
PLACE: Popular Forest, Va. ,,
DATE: 1819 1819 gt;
In all cases, follow truth as the only safe guide, and
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,149.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 153.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
Our wish is to procure natives [for professorships] where they can be found [* * *] of the first order of requirement in their respective lines; but, preferring foreigners of the first order to natives of the second, we shall certainly have to go for several of our professors to countries more advanced in science than we are. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,130.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 139.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
No secondary character will be received among them. Either the ablest which America or Europe can furnish or none [Col 2] at all. They will give us the selected society of a great city separated from the dissipations and levities of its ephemeral insects. --
TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,141.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 145.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819
-- I live so much like other people, that I might refer to ordinary life as the history of my own. I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet. I double, however, the Doctor's [Rush's] glass and a half of wine, and even treble it with a friend; but halve its effects by drinking the weak wines only. The ardent wines I cannot drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in any form. Malt liquors and cider are my table drinks, and my breakfast is of tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs of digestion which accept and concoct, without ever murmuring, whatever the palate chooses to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth by age. --
TITLE: To Dr. Vine Utley.
EDITION: Washington ed.vii ,116.
EDITION: Ford ed.,x, 125.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1819