Thomas Jefferson
Selected Letters
REBELLION, SECESSION, AND DIPLOMACY
To James Madison
Paris, Jan. 30, 1787
DEAR SIR, -- My last to you was of the 16th of Dec, since which
I have received yours of Nov 25, & Dec 4, which afforded me, as your letters
always do, a treat on matters public, individual & oeconomical. I am impatient
to learn your sentiments on the late troubles in the Eastern states. So far
as I have yet seen, they do not appear to threaten serious consequences. Those
states have suffered by the stoppage of the channels of their commerce, which
have not yet found other issues. This must render money scarce, and make the
people uneasy. This uneasiness has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable; but
I hope they will provoke no severities from their governments. A consciousness
of those in power that their administration of the public affairs has been honest,
may perhaps produce too great a degree of indignation: and those characters
wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from these instances
of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible
of any other government but that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth,
nor experience. Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable.
1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the
will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight
degree, and in our states, in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as
is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have
an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is
a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that
the 1st condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with
any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in
it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty &
happiness. It has it's evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to
which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and
it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even
this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and
nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little
rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political
world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish
the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation
of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment
of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary
for the sound health of government. If these transactions give me no uneasiness,
I feel very differently at another piece of intelligence, to wit, the possibility
that the navigation of the Mississippi may be abandoned to Spain. I never had
any interest Westward of the Alleghaney; & I never will have any. But I
have had great opportunities of knowing the character of the people who inhabit
that country. And I will venture to say that the act which abandons the navigation
of the Mississippi is an act of separation between the Eastern & Western
country. It is a relinquishment of five parts out of eight of the territory
of the United States, an abandonment of the fairest subject for the paiment
of our public debts, & the chaining those debts on our own necks in perpetuum.
I have the utmost confidence in the honest intentions of those who concur in
this measure; but I lament their want of acquaintance with the character &
physical advantages of the people who, right or wrong, will suppose their interests
sacrificed on this occasion to the contrary interests of that part of the confederacy
in possession of present power. If they declare themselves a separate people,
we are incapable of a single effort to retain them. Our citizens can never be
induced, either as militia or as souldiers, to go there to cut the throats of
their own brothers & sons, or rather to be themselves the subjects instead
of the perpetrators of the parricide. Nor would that country requite the cost
of being retained against the will of it's inhabitants, could it be done. But
it cannot be done. They are able already to rescue the navigation of the Mississippi
out of the hands of Spain, & to add New Orleans to their own territory.
They will be joined by the inhabitants of Louisiana. This will bring on a war
between them & Spain; and that will produce the question with us whether
it will not be worth our while to become parties with them in the war, in order
to reunite them with us, & thus correct our error? & were I to permit
my forebodings to go one step further, I should predict that the inhabitants
of the U S would force their rulers to take the affirmative of that question.
I wish I may be mistaken in all these opinions.
We have for some time expected that the Chevalier de la Luzerne
would obtain a promotion in the diplomatic line, by being appointed to some
of the courts where this country keeps an ambassador. But none of the vacancies
taking place which had been counted on, I think the present disposition is to
require his return to his station in America. He told me himself lately, that
he should return in the spring. I have never pressed this matter on the court,
tho' I knew it to be desirable and desired on our part; because if the compulsion
on him to return had been the work of Congress, he would have returned in such
ill temper with them, as to disappoint them in the good they expected from it.
He would forever have laid at their door his failure of promotion. I did not
press it for another reason, which is that I have great reason to believe that
the character of the Count de Moustier, who would go were the Chevalier to be
otherwise provided for, would give the most perfect satisfaction in America.
As you are now returned into Congress it will become of importance
that you should form a just estimate of certain public characters: on which
therefore I will give you such notes as my knolege of them has furnished me
with. You will compare them with the materials you are otherwise possessed of,
and decide on a view of the whole. You know the opinion I formerly entertained
of my friend Mr. Adams. Yourself & the governor were the first who shook
that opinion. I afterwards saw proofs which convicted him of a degree of vanity,
and of a blindness to it, of which no germ had appeared in Congress. A 7-month's
intimacy with him here and as many weeks in London have given me opportunities
of studying him closely. He is vain, irritable and a bad calculator of the force
& probable effect of the motives which govern men. This is all the ill which
can possibly be said of him. He is as disinterested as the being which made
him: he is profound in his views: and accurate in his judgment except where
knowledge of the world is necessary to form a judgment. He is so amiable, that
I pronounce you will love him, if ever you become acquainted with him. He would
be, as he was, a great man in Congress. Mr. Carmichael, is, I think, very little
known in America. I never saw him, & while I was in Congress I formed rather
a disadvantageous idea of him. His letters, received then, showed him vain,
& more attentive to ceremony & etiquette than we suppose men of sense
should be. I have now a constant correspondence with him, and find him a little
hypochondriac and discontented. He possesses very good understanding, tho' not
of the first order. I have had great opportunities of searching into his character,
and have availed myself of them. Many persons of different nations, coming from
Madrid to Paris, all speak of him as in high esteem, & I think it certain
that he has more of the Count de Florida Blanca's friendship, than any diplomatic
character at that court. As long as this minister is in office, Carmichael can
do more than any other person who could be sent there. You will see Franks,
and doubtless he will be asking some appointment. I wish there may be any one
for which he is fit. He is light, indiscreet, active, honest, affectionate.
Tho' Bingham is not in diplomatic office, yet as he wishes to be so, I will
mention such circumstances of him, as you might otherwise be deceived in. He
will make you believe he was on the most intimate footing with the first characters
in Europe, & versed in the secrets of every cabinet. Not a word of this
is true. He had a rage for being presented to great men, & had no modesty
in the methods by which he could if he attained acquaintance. Afterwards it
was with such 90 who were susceptible of impression from the beauty of his wife.
I must except the Marquis de Bonclearren who had been an old acquaintance.
The Marquis de La Fayette is a most valuable auxiliary to me. His
zeal is unbounded, & his weight with those in power, great. His education
having been merely military, commerce was an unknown field to him. But his good
sense enabling him to comprehend perfectly whatever is explained to him, his
agency has been very efficacious. He has a great deal of sound genius, is well
remarked by the King, & rising in popularity. He has nothing against him,
but the suspicion of republican principles. I think he will one day be of the
ministry. His foible is, a canine appetite for popularity and fame; but he will
get above this. The Count de Vergennes is ill. The possibility of his recovery,
renders it dangerous for us to express a doubt of it: but he is in danger. He
is a great minister in European affairs, but has very imperfect ideas of our
institutions, and no confidence in them. His devotion to the principles of pure
despotism, renders him unaffectionate to our governments. But his fear of England
makes him value us as a make weight. He is cool, reserved in political conversations,
but free and familiar on other subjects, and a very attentive, agreeable person
to do business with. It is impossible to have a clearer, better organized head;
but age has chilled his heart. Nothing should be spared, on our part, to attach
this country to us. It is the only one on which we can rely for support, under
every event. Its inhabitants love us more, I think, than they do any other nation
on earth. This is very much the effect of the good dispositions with which the
French officers returned. In a former letter, I mentioned to you the dislocation
of my wrist. I can make not the least use of it, except for the single article
of writing, though it is going on five months since the accident happened. I
have great anxieties, lest I should never recover any considerable use of it.
I shall, by the advice of my surgeons, set out in a fortnight for the waters
of Aix, in Provence. I chose these out of several they proposed to me, because
if they fail to be effectual, my journey will not be useless altogether. It
will give me an opportunity of examining the canal of Languedoc, and of acquiring
knowledge of that species of navigation, which may be useful hereafter; but
more immediately, it will enable me to make the tour of the ports concerned
in commerce with us, to examine, on the spot, the defects of the late regulations
respecting our commerce, to learn the further improvements which may be made
in it, and on my return, to get this business finished. I shall be absent between
two and three months, unless anything happens to recall me here sooner, which
may always be effected in ten days, in whatever part of my route I may be. In
speaking of characters, I omitted those of Reyneval and Hennin, the two eyes
of Count de Vergennes. The former is the most important character, because possessing
the most of the confidence of the Count. He is rather cunning than wise, his
views of things being neither great nor liberal. He governs himself by principles
which he has learned by rote, and is fit only for the details of execution.
His heart is susceptible of little passions but not of good ones. He is brother-in-law
to M. Gerard, from whom he received disadvantageous impressions of us, which
cannot be effaced. He has much duplicity. Hennin is a philosopher, sincere,
friendly, liberal, learned, beloved by everybody; the other by nobody. I think
it a great misfortune that the United States are in the department of the former.
As particulars of this kind may be useful to you, in your present situation,
I may hereafter continue the chapter. I know it will be safely lodged in your
discretion.
Feb. 5. Since writing thus far, Franks is returned from England.
I learn that Mr. Adams desires to be recalled, & that Smith should be appointed
chargé des affaires there. It is not for me to decide whether any diplomatic
character should be kept at a court, which keeps none with us. You can judge
of Smith's abilities by his letters. They are not of the first order, but they
are good. For his honesty, he is like our friend Monroe; turn his soul wrong
side outwards, and there is not a speck on it. He has one foible, an excessive
inflammability of temper, but he feels it when it comes on, and has resolution
enough to suppress it, and to remain silent till it passes over.
I send you by Colo. Franks, your pocket telescope, walking stick
& chemical box. The two former could not be combined together. The latter
could not be had in the form you referred to. Having a great desire to have
a portable copying machine, & being satisfied from some experiments that
the principle of the large machine might be applied in a small one, planned
one when in England & had it made. It answers perfectly. I have since set
a workman to making them here, & they are in such demand that he has his
hands full. Being assured that you will be pleased to have one, when you shall
have tried it's convenience, I send you one by Colo. Franks. The machine costs
96 livres, the appendages 24 livres, and I send you paper & ink for 12 livres;
in all 132 livres. There is a printed paper of directions; but you must expect
to make many essays before you succeed perfectly. A soft brush, like a shaving
brush, is more convenient than the sponge. You can get as much ink & paper
as you please from London. The paper costs a guinea a ream.
OBJECTIONS TO THE CONSTITUTION
To James Madison
Paris, Dec. 20, 1787
DEAR SIR, -- My last to you was of Oct. 8 by the Count de Moustier.
Yours of July 18. Sep. 6. & Oct. 24. have been successively received, yesterday,
the day before & three or four days before that. I have only had time to read
the letters, the printed papers communicated with them, however interesting, being
obliged to lie over till I finish my dispatches for the packet, which dispatches
must go from hence the day after tomorrow. have much to thank you for. First and
most for the cyphered paragraph respecting myself. These little informations are
very material towards forming my own decisions. I would be glad even to know when
any individual member thinks I have gone wrong in any instance. If I know myself
it would not excite ill blood in me, while it would assist to guide my conduct,
perhaps to justify it, and to keep me to my duty, alert. I must thank you too
for the information in Thos. Burke's case, tho' you will have found by a subsequent
letter that I have asked of you a further investigation of that matter. It is
to gratify the lady who is at the head of the Convent wherein my daughters are,
& who, by her attachment & attention to them, lays me under great obligations.
I shall hope therefore still to receive from you the result of the further enquiries
my second letter had asked. -- The parcel of rice which you informed me had miscarried
accompanied my letter to the Delegates of S. Carolina. Mr. Bourgoin was to be
the bearer of both & both were delivered together into the hands of his relation
here who introduced him to me, and who at a subsequent moment undertook to convey
them to Mr. Bourgoin. This person was an engraver particularly recommended to
D^r. Franklin & Mr. Hopkinson. Perhaps he may have mislaid the little parcel
of rice among his baggage. -- I am much pleased that the sale of Western lands
is so successful. hope they will absorb all the Certificates of our Domestic debt
speedily, in the first place, and that then offered for cash they will do the
same by our foreign one.
The season admitting only of operations in the Cabinet, and these
being in a great measure secret, I have little to fill a letter. I will therefore
make up the deficiency by adding a few words on the Constitution proposed by our
Convention. I like much the general idea of framing a government which should
go on of itself peaceably, without needing continual recurrence to the state legislatures.
I like the organization of the government into Legislative, Judiciary & Executive.
I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely
approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly. For tho' I think
a house chosen by them will be very illy qualified to legislate for the Union,
for foreign nations &c. yet this evil does not weigh against the good of preserving
inviolate the fundamental principle that the people are not to be taxed but by
representatives chosen immediately by themselves. I am captivated by the compromise
of the opposite claims of the great & little states, of the latter to equal,
and the former to proportional influence. I am much pleased too with the substitution
of the method of voting by persons, instead of that of voting by states: and I
like the negative given to the Executive with a third of either house, though
I should have liked it better had the Judiciary been associated for that purpose,
or invested with a similar and separate power. There are other good things of
less moment. I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of
rights providing clearly & without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion,
freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against
monopolies, the eternal & unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and
trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land & not
by the law of nations. To say, as Mr. Wilson does that a bill of rights was not
necessary because all is reserved in the case of the general government which
is not given, while in the particular ones all is given which is not reserved,
might do for the audience to whom it was addressed, but is surely a gratis dictum,
opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as well as from
the omission of the clause of our present confederation which had declared that
in express terms. It was a hard conclusion to say because there has been no uniformity
among the states as to the cases triable by jury, because some have been so incautious
as to abandon this mode of trial, therefore the more prudent states shall be reduced
to the same level of calamity. It would have been much more just & wise to
have concluded the other way that as most of the states had judiciously preserved
this palladium, those who had wandered should be brought back to it, and to have
established general right instead of general wrong. Let me add that a bill of
rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general
or particular, & what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.
The second feature I dislike, and greatly dislike, is the abandonment in every
instance of the necessity of rotation in office, and most particularly in the
case of the President. Experience concurs with reason in concluding that the first
magistrate will always be re-elected if the Constitution permits it. He is then
an officer for life. This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to
certain nations to have a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs that they
will interfere with money & with arms. A Galloman or an Angloman will be supported
by the nation he befriends. If once elected, and at a second or third election
out voted by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession
of the reins of government, be supported by the States voting for him, especially
if they are the central ones lying in a compact body themselves & separating
their opponents: and they will be aided by one nation of Europe, while the majority
are aided by another. The election of a President of America some years hence
will be much more interesting to certain nations of Europe than ever the election
of a king of Poland was. Reflect on all the instances in history antient &
modern, of elective monarchies, and say if they do not give foundation for my
fears. The Roman emperors, the popes, while they were of any importance, the German
emperors till they became hereditary in practice, the kings of Poland, the Deys
of the Ottoman dependances. It may be said that if elections are to be attended
with these disorders, the seldomer they are renewed the better. But experience
shews that the only way to prevent disorder is to render them uninteresting by
frequent changes. An incapacity to be elected a second time would have been the
only effectual preventative. The power of removing him every fourth year by the
vote of the people is a power which will not be exercised. The king of Poland
is removeable every day by the Diet, yet he is never removed. -- Smaller objections
are the Appeal in fact as well as law, and the binding all persons Legislative
Executive & Judiciary by oath to maintain that constitution. I do not pretend
to decide what would be the best method of procuring the establishment of the
manifold good things in this constitution, and of getting rid of the bad. Whether
by adopting it in hopes of future amendment, or, after it has been duly weighed
& canvassed by the people, after seeing the parts they generally dislike,
& those they generally approve, to say to them `We see now what you wish.
Send together your deputies again, let them frame a constitution for you omitting
what you have condemned, & establishing the powers you approve. Even these
will be a great addition to the energy of your government.' -- At all events I
hope you will not be discouraged from other trials, if the present one should
fail of its full effect. -- I have thus told you freely what I like & dislike:
merely as a matter of curiosity, for I know your own judgment has been formed
on all these points after having heard everything which could be urged on them.
I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should
have done. Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course of 11 years,
is but one for each state in a century & a half. No country should be so long
without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections.
France, with all it's despotism, and two or three hundred thousand men always
in arms has had three insurrections in the three years I have been here in every
one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts & a great
deal more blood was spilt. In Turkey, which Montesquieu sup-poses more despotic,
insurrections are the events of every day. In England, where the hand of power
is lighter than here, but heavier than with us they happen every half dozen years.
Compare again the ferocious depredations of their insurgents with the order, the
moderation & the almost self extinguishment of ours. -- After all, it is my
principle that the will of the majority should always prevail. If they approve
the proposed Convention in all it's parts, I shall concur in it chearfully, in
hopes that they will amend it whenever they shall find it work wrong. I think
our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly
agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part
of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe,
they will become corrupt as in Europe. Above all things I hope the education of
the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may
rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty. I
have tired you by this time with my disquisitions & will therefore only add
assurances of the sincerity of those sentiments of esteem & attachment with
which I am Dear Sir your affectionate friend & servant
P. S. The instability of our laws is really an immense evil. I think
it would be well to provide in our constitutions that there shall always be a
twelve-month between the ingross-ing a bill & passing it: that it should then
be offered to it's passage without changing a word: and that if circum-stances
should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two thirds of
both houses instead of a bare majority.
A BILL OF RIGHTS
To James Madison
Paris, Mar 15, 1789
DEAR SIR, -- I wrote you last on the 12th of Jan. since which I have
received yours of Octob 17, Dec 8 & 12. That of Oct. 17. came to hand only
Feb 23. How it happened to be four months on the way, I cannot tell, as I never
knew by what hand it came. Looking over my letter of Jan 12th, I remark an error
of the word "probable" instead of "improbable," which doubtless however you had
been able to correct. Your thoughts on the subject of the Declaration of rights
in the letter of Oct 17. I have weighed with great satisfaction. Some of them
had not occurred to me before, but were acknoleged just in the moment they were
presented to my mind. In the arguments in favor of a declaration of rights, you
omit one which has great weight with me, the legal check which it puts into the
hands of the judiciary. This is a body, which if rendered independent & kept
strictly to their own department merits great confidence for their learning &
integrity. In fact what degree of confidence would be too much for a body composed
of such men as Wythe, Blair & Pendleton? On characters like these the "civium
ardor prava jubentium" would make no impression. I am happy to find that on the
whole you are a friend to this amendment. The Declaration of rights is like all
other human blessings alloyed with some inconveniences, and not accomplishing
fully it's object. But the good in this instance vastly overweighs the evil. I
cannot refrain from making short answers to the objections which your letter states
to have been raised. 1. That the rights in question are reserved by the manner
in which the federal powers are granted. Answer. A constitutive act may certainly
be so formed as to need no declaration of rights. The act itself has the force
of a declaration as far as it goes; and if it goes to all material points nothing
more is wanting. In the draught of a constitution which I had once a thought of
proposing in Virginia, & printed afterwards, I endeavored to reach all the
great objects of public liberty, and did not mean to add a declaration of rights.
Probably the object was imperfectly executed; but the deficiencies would have
been supplied by others, in the course of discussion. But in a constitutive act
which leaves some precious articles unnoticed, and raises implications against
others, a declaration of rights becomes necessary by way of supplement. This is
the case of our new federal constitution. This instrument forms us into one state
as to certain objects, and gives us a legislative & executive body for these
objects. It should therefore guard us against their abuses of power within the
field submitted to them. 2. A positive declaration of some essential rights could
not be obtained in the requisite latitude. Answer. Half a loaf is better than
no bread. If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can. 3. The
limited powers of the federal government & jealousy of the subordinate governments
afford a security which exists in no other instance. Answer. The first member
of this seems resolvable into the first objection before stated. The jealousy
of the subordinate governments is a precious reliance. But observe that those
governments are only agents. They must have principles furnished them whereon
to found their opposition. The declaration of rights will be the text whereby
they will try all the acts of the federal government, In this view it is necessary
to the federal government also; as by the same text they may try the opposition
of the subordinate governments. 4. Experience proves the inefficacy of a bill
of rights. True. But tho it is not absolutely efficacious under all circumstances,
it is of great potency always, and rarely inefficacious. A brace the more will
often keep up the building which would have fallen with that brace the less. There
is a remarkable difference between the characters of the Inconveniences which
attend a Declaration of rights, & those which attend the want of it. The inconveniences
of the Declaration are that it may cramp government in it's useful exertions.
But the evil of this is short-lived, trivial & reparable. The inconveniences
of the want of a Declaration are permanent, afflicting & irreparable. They
are in constant progression from bad to worse. The executive in our governments
is not the sole, it is scarcely the principal object of my jealousy. The tyranny
of the legislatures is the most formidable dread at present, and will be for long
years. That of the executive will come in it's turn, but it will be at a remote
period. I know there are some among us who would now establish a monarchy. But
they are inconsiderable in number and weight of character. The rising race are
all republicans. We were educated in royalism; no wonder if some of us retain
that idolatry still. Our young people are educated in republicanism, an apostasy
from that to royalism is unprecedented & impossible. I am much pleased with
the prospect that a declaration of rights will be added; and hope it will be done
in that way which will not endanger the whole frame of the government, or any
essential part of it.
I have hitherto avoided public news in my letters to you, because
your situation insured you a communication of my letters to Mr. Jay. This circumstance
being changed, I shall in future indulge myself in these details to you. There
had been some slight hopes that an accommodation might be affected between the
Turks & two empires but these hopes do not strengthen, and the season is approaching
which will put an end to them for another campaign at least. The accident to the
King of England has had great influence on the affairs of Europe. His mediation
joined with that of Prussia, would certainly have kept Denmark quiet, and so have
left the two empires in the hands of the Turks & Swedes. But the inactivity
to which England is reduced, leaves Denmark more free, and she will probably go
on in opposition to Sweden. The K. of Prussia too had advanced so far that he
can scarcely retire. This is rendered the more difficult by the troubles he has
excited in Poland. He cannot well abandon the party he had brought forward there
so that it is very possible he may be engaged in the ensuing campaign. France
will be quiet this year, because this year at least is necessary for settling
her future constitution. The States will meet the 27th of April: and the public
mind will I think by that time be ripe for a just decision of the Question whether
they shall vote by orders or persons. I think there is a majority of the nobles
already for the latter. If so, their affairs cannot but go on well. Besides settling
for themselves a tolerably free constitution, perhaps as free a one as the nation
is yet prepared to bear, they will fund their public debts. This will give them
such a credit as will enable them to borrow any money they may want, & of
course to take the field again when they think proper. And I believe they mean
to take the field as soon as they can. The pride of every individual in the nation
suffers under the ignominies they have lately been exposed to and I think the
states general will give money for a war to wipe off the reproach. There have
arisen new bickerings between this court & the Hague, and the papers which
have passed shew the most bitter acrimony rankling at the heart of this ministry.
They have recalled their ambassador from the Hague without appointing a successor.
They have given a note to the Diet of Poland which shews a disapprobation of their
measures. The insanity of the King of England has been fortunate for them as it
gives them time to put their house in order. The English papers tell you the King
is well: and even the English ministry say so. They will naturally set the best
foot foremost: and they guard his person so well that it is difficult for the
public to contradict them. The King is probably better, but not well by a great
deal. 1. He has been bled, and judicious physicians say that in his exhausted
state nothing could have induced a recurrence to bleeding but symptoms of relapse.
2. The Prince of Wales tells the Irish deputation he will give them a definitive
answer in some days; but if the king had been well he could have given it at once.
3. They talk of passing a standing law for providing a regency in similar cases.
They apprehend then they are not yet clear of the danger of wanting a regency.
4. They have carried the king to church; but it was his private chapel. If he
be well why do not they shew him publicly to the nation, & raise them from
that consternation into which they have been thrown by the prospect of being delivered
over to the profligate hands of the prince of Wales. In short, judging from little
facts which are known in spite of their teeth the King is better, but not well.
Possibly he is getting well, but still, time will be wanting to satisfy even the
ministry that it is not merely a lucid interval. Consequently they cannot interrupt
France this year in the settlement of her affairs, & after this year it will
be too late.
As you will be in a situation to know when the leave of absence will
be granted me which I have asked, will you be so good as to communicate it by
a line to Mr. Lewis & Mr. Eppes? hope to see you in the summer, and that if
you are not otherwise engaged, you will encamp with me at Monticello for awhile.
"THE EARTH BELONGS TO THE LIVING"
To James Madison
Paris, September 6, 1789
DEAR SIR, -- I sit down to write to you without knowing by what occasion
I shall send my letter. I do it because a subject comes into my head which I would
wish to develope a little more than is practicable in the hurry of the moment
of making up general despatches.
The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another,
seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet
it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place
also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection
in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented
this question to my mind; and that no such obligation can be transmitted I think
very capable of proof. I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident,
"that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;" that the dead have neither
powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be
his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. If the society has
formed no rules for the appropriation of its lands in severalty, it will be taken
by the first occupants. These will generally be the wife and children of the decedent.
If they have formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife
and children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the deceased. So they
may give it to his creditor. But the child, the legatee or creditor takes it,
not by any natural right, but by a law of the society of which they are members,
and to which they are subject. Then no man can by natural right oblige the lands
he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment
of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might during his own life, eat
up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands
would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be reverse of our
principle. What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of
them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum
of the rights of individuals. To keep our ideas clear when applying them to a
multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men to be born on the same day,
to attain mature age on the same day, and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding
generation in the moment of attaining their mature age all together. Let the ripe
age be supposed of 21. years, and their period of life 34. years more, that being
the average term given by the bills of mortality to persons who have already attained
21. years of age. Each successive generation would, in this way, come on and go
off the stage at a fixed moment, as individuals do now. Then I say the earth belongs
to each of these generations during it's course, fully, and in their own right.
The 2d. generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the 1st.,
the 3d. of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. could charge it with a debt, then
the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation. Then no generation
can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of it's own existence.
At 21. years of age they may bind themselves and their lands for 34. years to
come: at 22. for 33: at 23 for 32. and at 54 for one year only; because these
are the terms of life which remain to them at those respective epochs. But a material
difference must be noted between the succession of an individual and that of a
whole generation. Individuals are parts only of a society, subject to the laws
of a whole. These laws may appropriate the portion of land occupied by a decedent
to his creditor rather than to any other, or to his child, on condition he satisfies
his creditor. But when a whole generation, that is, the whole society dies, as
in the case we have supposed, and another generation or society succeeds, this
forms a whole, and there is no superior who can give their territory to a third
society, who may have lent money to their predecessors beyond their faculty of
paying.
What is true of a generation all arriving to self-government on the
same day, and dying all on the same day, is true of those on a constant course
of decay and renewal, with this only difference. A generation coming in and going
out entire, as in the first case, would have a right in the 1st year of their
self dominion to contract a debt for 33. years, in the 10th. for 24. in the 20th.
for 14. in the 30th. for 4. whereas generations changing daily, by daily deaths
and births, have one constant term beginning at the date of their contract, and
ending when a majority of those of full age at that date shall be dead. The length
of that term may be estimated from the tables of mortality, corrected by the circumstances
of climate, occupation &c. peculiar to the country of the contractors. Take,
for instance, the table of M. de Buffon wherein he states that 23,994 deaths,
and the ages at which they happened. Suppose a society in which 23,994 persons
are born every year and live to the ages stated in this table. The conditions
of that society will be as follows. 1st. it will consist constantly of 617,703
persons of all ages. 2dly. of those living at any one instant of time, one half
will be dead in 24. years 8. months. 3dly. 10,675 will arrive every year at the
age of 21. years complete. 4thly. it will constantly have 348,417 persons of all
ages above 21. years. 5ly. and the half of those of 21. years and upwards living
at any one instant of time will be dead in 18. years 8. months, or say 19. years
as the nearest integral number. Then 19. years is the term beyond which neither
the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can
validly extend a debt.
To render this conclusion palpable by example, suppose that Louis
XIV. and XV. had contracted debts in the name of the French nation to the amount
of 10.000 milliards of livres and that the whole had been contracted in Genoa.
The interest of this sum would be 500 milliards, which is said to be the whole
rent-roll, or nett proceeds of the territory of France. Must the present generation
of men have retired from the territory in which nature produced them, and ceded
it to the Genoese creditors? No. They have the same rights over the soil on which
they were produced, as the preceding generations had. They derive these rights
not from their predecessors, but from nature. They then and their soil are by
nature clear of the debts of their predecessors. Again suppose Louis XV. and his
contemporary generation had said to the money lenders of Genoa, give us money
that we may eat, drink, and be merry in our day; and on condition you will demand
no interest till the end of 19. years, you shall then forever after receive an
annual interest of 12.^5 per cent. 100£ at a compound interest of 6 per
cent makes at the end of 19 years an aggregate of principal and interest of £252.14
the interest of which is a £12xx. 12". 7^d. which is nearly 12". p^r. cent
on the first capital of £100. The money is lent on these conditions, is
divided among the living, eaten, drank, and squandered. Would the present generation
be obliged to apply the produce of the earth and of their labour to replace their
dissipations? Not at all.
I suppose that the received opinion, that the public debts of one
generation devolve on the next, has been suggested by our seeing habitually in
private life that he who succeeds to lands is required to pay the debts of his
ancestor or testator, without considering that this requisition is municipal only,
not moral, flowing from the will of the society which has found it convenient
to appropriate the lands become vacant by the death of their occupant on the condition
of a paiment of his debts; but that between society and society, or generation
and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature.
We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to
another as one independant nation to another."
The interest of the national debt of France being in fact but a two
thousandth part of it's rent-roll, the paiment of it is practicable enough; and
so becomes a question merely of honor or expediency. But with respect to future
debts; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution
they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly
contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term
of 19. years? And that all future contracts shall be deemed void as to what shall
remain unpaid at the end of 19. years from their date? This would put the lenders,
and the borrowers also, on their guard. By reducing too the faculty of borrowing
within its natural limits, it would bridle the spirit of war, to which too free
a course has been procured by the inattention of money lenders to this law of
nature, that succeeding generations are not responsible for the preceding.
On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual
constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living
generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please,
during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently
may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects
of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished
them, in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being. This could
preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution,
then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced
longer, it is an act of force and not of right.
It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising in fact
the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had
been expressly limited to 19. years only. In the first place, this objection admits
the right, in proposing an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivalent.
It might be indeed if every form of government were so perfectly contrived that
the will of the majority could always be obtained fairly and without impediment.
But this is true of no form. The people cannot assemble themselves; their representation
is unequal and vicious. Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition.
Factions get possession of the public councils. Bribery corrupts them. Personal
interests lead them astray from the general interests of their constituents; and
other impediments arise so as to prove to every practical man that a law of limited
duration is much more manageable than one which needs a repeal.
This principle that the earth belongs to the living and not to the
dead is of very extensive application and consequences in every country, and most
especially in France. It enters into the resolution of the questions Whether the
nation may change the descent of lands holden in tail? Whether they may change
the appropriation of lands given antiently to the church, to hospitals, colleges,
orders of chivalry, and otherwise in perpetuity? whether they may abolish the
charges and privileges attached on lands, including the whole catalogue ecclesiastical
and feudal? it goes to hereditary offices, authorities and jurisdictions; to hereditary
orders, distinctions and appellations; to perpetual monopolies in commerce, the
arts or sciences; with a long train of et ceteras: and it renders the question
of reimbursement a question of generosity and not of right. In all these cases
the legislature of the day could authorize such appropriations and establishments
for their own time, but no longer; and the present holders, even where they or
their ancestors have purchased, are in the case of bona fide purchasers of what
the seller had no right to convey.
Turn this subject in your mind, my Dear Sir, and particularly as
to the power of contracting debts, and develope it with that perspicuity and cogent
logic which is so peculiarly yours. Your station in the councils of our country
gives you an opportunity of producing it to public consideration, of forcing it
into discussion. At first blush it may be rallied as a theoretical speculation;
but examination will prove it to be solid and salutary. It would furnish matter
for a fine preamble to our first law for appropriating the public revenue; and
it will exclude, at the threshold of our new government the contagious and ruinous
errors of this quarter of the globe, which have armed despots with means not sanctioned
by nature for binding in chains their fellow-men. We have already given, in example
one effectual check to the Dog of war, by transferring the power of letting him
loose from the executive to the Legislative body, from those who are to spend
to those who are to pay. I should be pleased to see this second obstacle held
out by us also in the first instance. No nation can make a declaration against
the validity of long-contracted debts so disinterestedly as we, since we do not
owe a shilling which may not be paid with ease principal and interest, within
the time of our own lives. Establish the principle also in the new law to be passed
for protecting copy rights and new inventions, by securing the exclusive right
for 19. instead of 14. years [a line entirely faded] an instance the more of our
taking reason for our guide instead of English precedents, the habit of which
fetters us, with all the political herecies of a nation, equally remarkable for
it's encitement from some errors, as long slumbering under others. I write you
no news, because when an occasion occurs shall write a separate letter for that.
EMANCIPATION AND THE YOUNGER GENERATION
To Edward Coles
Monticello, August 25, 1814
DEAR SIR, -- Your favour of July 31, was duly received, and was read
with peculiar pleasure. The sentiments breathed through the whole do honor to
both the head and heart of the writer. Mine on the subject of slavery of negroes
have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to
give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally
the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have
pleaded it so long in vain, and should have produced not a single effort, nay
fear not much serious willingness to relieve them & ourselves from our present
condition of moral & political reprobation. From those of the former generation
who were in the fulness of age when I came into public life, which was while our
controversy with England was on paper only, I soon saw that nothing was to be
hoped. Nursed and educated in the daily habit of seeing the degraded condition,
both bodily and mental, of those unfortunate beings, not reflecting that that
degradation was very much the work of themselves & their fathers, few minds
have yet doubted but that they were as legitimate subjects of property as their
horses and cattle. The quiet and monotonous course of colonial life has been disturbed
by no alarm, and little reflection on the value of liberty. And when alarm was
taken at an enterprize on their own, it was not easy to carry them to the whole
length of the principles which they invoked for themselves. In the first or second
session of the Legislature after I became a member, drew to this subject the attention
of Col. Bland, one of the oldest, ablest, & most respected members, and he
undertook to move for certain moderate extensions of the protection of the laws
to these people. I seconded his motion, and, as a younger member, was more spared
in the debate; but he was denounced as an enemy of his country, & was treated
with the grossest indecorum. From an early stage of our revolution other &
more distant duties were assigned to me, so that from that time till my return
from Europe in 1789, and I may say till I returned to reside at home in 1809,
I had little opportunity of knowing the progress of public sentiment here on this
subject. I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early
impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast, &
had become as it were the vital spirit of every American, that the generous temperament
of youth, analogous to the motion of their blood, and above the suggestions of
avarice, would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their
love of liberty beyond their own share of it. But my intercourse with them, since
my return has not been sufficient to ascertain that they had made towards this
point the progress I had hoped. Your solitary but welcome voice is the first which
has brought this sound to my ear; and I have considered the general silence which
prevails on this subject as indicating an apathy unfavorable to every hope. Yet
the hour of emancipation is advancing, in the march of time. It will come; and
whether brought on by the generous energy of our own minds; or by the bloody process
of St Domingo, excited and conducted by the power of our present enemy, if once
stationed permanently within our Country, and offering asylum & arms to the
oppressed, is a leaf of our history not yet turned over. As to the method by which
this difficult work is to be effected, if permitted to be done by ourselves, I
have seen no proposition so expedient on the whole, as that as emancipation of
those born after a given day, and of their education and expatriation after a
given age. This would give time for a gradual extinction of that species of labour
& substitution of another, and lessen the severity of the shock which an operation
so fundamental cannot fail to produce. For men probably of any color, but of this
color we know, brought from their infancy without necessity for thought or forecast,
are by their habits rendered as incapable as children of taking care of themselves,
and are extinguished promptly wherever industry is necessary for raising young.
In the mean time they are pests in society by their idleness, and the depredations
to which this leads them. Their amalgamation with the other color produces a degradation
to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character
can innocently consent. I am sensible of the partialities with which you have
looked towards me as the person who should undertake this salutary but arduous
work. But this, my dear sir, is like bidding old Priam to buckle the armour of
Hector "trementibus aequo humeris et inutile ferruncingi." No, have overlived
the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and
influence. This enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and
bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, & these
are the only weapons of an old man. But in the mean time are you right in abandoning
this property, and your country with it? I think not. My opinion has ever been
that, until more can be done for them, we should endeavor, with those whom fortune
has thrown on our hands, to feed and clothe them well, protect them from all ill
usage, require such reasonable labor only as is performed voluntarily by freemen,
& be led by no repugnancies to abdicate them, and our duties to them. The
laws do not permit us to turn them loose, if that were for their good: and to
commute them for other property is to commit them to those whose usage of them
we cannot control. I hope then, my dear sir, you will reconcile yourself to your
country and its unfortunate condition; that you will not lessen its stock of sound
disposition by withdrawing your portion from the mass. That, on the contrary you
will come forward in the public councils, become the missionary of this doctrine
truly christian; insinuate & inculcate it softly but steadily, through the
medium of writing and conversation; associate others in your labors, and when
the phalanx is formed, bring on and press the proposition perseveringly until
its accomplishment. It is an encouraging observation that no good measure was
ever proposed, which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end. We have proof
of this in the history of the endeavors in the English parliament to suppress
that very trade which brought this evil on us. And you will be supported by the
religious precept, "be not weary in well-doing." That your success may be as speedy
& complete, as it will be of honorable & immortal consolation to yourself,
I shall as fervently and sincerely pray as I assure you of my great friendship
and respect.
"A FIRE BELL IN THE NIGHT"
To John Holmes
Monticello, April 22, 1820
I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send
me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is a perfect
justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay
any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content
to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But this
momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with
terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed,
for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical
line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived
and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every
new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth,
that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve
us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind
of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second
thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected;
and gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we
have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.
Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am
certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make
a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion
over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally
facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on
a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence too, from this act of power, would
remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition
of the different descriptions of men composing a State. This certainly is the
exclusive right of every State, which nothing in the constitution has taken from
them and given to the General Government. Could Congress, for example, say, that
the non-freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate
into any other State?
I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice
of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness
to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of
their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over
it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away,
against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission,
they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves,
and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate
of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.