CCX. TO ELBRIDGE GERRY, May 13, 1797
TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.
Philadelphia, May 13, 1797.
My Dear Friend,
Your favor of the 4th instant came to hand yesterday. That of the 4th of April, with the one for Monroe, has never been received. The first, of March the 27th, did not reach me till April the 21st, when I was within a few days of setting out for this place, and I put off acknowledging it till I should come here. I entirely commend your dispositions towards Mr. Adams; knowing his worth as intimately and esteeming it as much as any one, and acknowledging the preference of his claims, if any I could have had, to the high office conferred on him. But in truth, I had neither claims nor wishes on the subject, though I know it will be difficult to obtain belief of this. When I retired from this place and the office of Secretary of State, it was in the firmest contemplation of never more returning here. There had indeed been suggestions in the public papers, that I was looking towards a succession to the President’s chair, but feeling a consciousness of their falsehood, and observing that the suggestions came from hostile quarters, I considered them as intended merely to excite public odium against me. I never in my life exchanged a word with any person on the subject, till I found my name brought forward generally, in competition with that of Mr. Adams. Those with whom I then communicated, could say, if it were necessary, whether I met the call with desire, or even with a ready acquiescence, and whether from the moment of my first acquiescence, I did not devoutly pray that the very thing might happen which has happened. The second office of this government is honorable and easy, the first is but a splendid misery.
You express apprehensions that stratagems will be used, to produce a misunderstanding between the President and myself. Though not a word having this tendency has ever been hazarded to me by any one, yet I consider as a certainty that nothing will be left untried to alienate him from me. These machinations will proceed from the Hamiltonians by whom he is surrounded, and who are only a little less hostile to him than to me. It cannot but damp the pleasure of cordiality, when we suspect that it is suspected. I cannot help thinking, that it is impossible for Mr. Adams to believe that the state of my mind is what it really is; that he may think I view him as an obstacle in my way. I have no supernatural power to impress truth on the mind of another, nor he any to discover that the estimate which he may form, on a just view of the human mind as generally constituted, may not be just in its application to a special constitution. This may be a source of private uneasiness to us; I honestly confess that it is so to me at this time. But neither of us is capable of letting it have effect on our public duties. Those who may endeavor to separate us, are probably excited by the fear that I might have influence on the executive councils: but when they shall know that I consider my office as constitutionally confined to legislative functions, and that I could not take any part whatever in executive consultations, even were it proposed, their fears may perhaps subside, and their object be found not worth a machination.
I do sincerely wish with you, that we could take our stand on a ground perfectly neutral and independent towards all nations. It has been my constant object through my public life: and with respect to the English and French, particularly, I have too often expressed to the former my wishes, and made to them propositions verbally and in writing, officially and privately, to official and private characters, for them to doubt of my views, if they would be content with equality. Of this they are in possession of several written and formal proofs, in my own hand-writing. But they have wished a monopoly of commerce and influence with us; and they have in fact obtained it. When we take notice that theirs is the workshop to which we go for all we want; that with them centre either immediately or ultimately all the labors of our hands and lands; that to them belongs either openly or secretly the great mass of our navigation; that even the factorage of their affairs here, is kept to themselves by factitious citizenships; that these foreign and false citizens now constitute the great body of what are called our merchants, fill our sea-ports, are planted in every little town and district of the interior country, sway every thing in the former places by their own votes, and those of their dependents, in the latter, by their insinuations and the influence of their ledgers; that they are advancing fast to a monopoly of our banks and public funds, and thereby placing our public finances under their control; that they have in their alliance the most influential characters in and out of office; when they have shown that by all these bearings on the different branches of the government, they can force it to proceed in whatever direction they dictate, and bend the interests of this country entirely to the will of another; when all this, I say, is attended to, it is impossible for us to say we stand on independent ground, impossible for a free mind not to see and to groan under the bondage in which it is bound. If anything after this could excite surprise, it would be that they have been able so far to throw dust in the eyes of our own citizens, as to fix on those who wish merely to recover self-government the charge of subserving one foreign influence because they resist submission to another. But they possess our printing presses, a powerful engine in their government of us. At this very moment, they would have drawn us into a war on the side of England, had it not been for the failure of her bank. Such was their open and loud cry, and that of their gazettes, till this event. After plunging us in all the broils of the European nations, there would remain but one act to close our tragedy, that is, to break up our union; and even this they have ventured seriously and solemnly to propose and maintain by arguments in a Connecticut paper. I have been happy, however, in believing, from the stifling of this effort, that that dose was found too strong, and excited as much repugnance there as it did horror in other parts of our country, and that whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators. Much as I abhor war, and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind, and anxiously as I wish to keep out of the broils of Europe, I would yet go with my brethren into these, rather than separate from them. But I hope we may still keep clear of them, notwithstanding our present thraldom, and that time may be given us to reflect on the awful crisis we have passed through, and to find some means of shielding ourselves in future from foreign influence, political, commercial, or in whatever other form it may be attempted. I can scarcely withhold myself from joining in the wish of Silas Deane, that there were an ocean of fire between us and the old world.
A perfect confidence that you are as much attached to peace and union as myself, that you equally prize independence of all nations and the blessings of self-government, has induced me freely to unbosom myself to you, and let you see the light in which I have viewed what has been passing among us from the beginning of the war. And I shall be happy, at all times, in an intercommunication of sentiments with you, believing that the dispositions of the different parts of our country have been considerably misrepresented and misunderstood in each part, as to the other, and that nothing but good can result from an exchange of information and opinions between those whose circumstances and morals admit no doubt of the integrity of their views.
I remain, with constant and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXI. TO GENERAL GATES, May 30,1797
TO GENERAL GATES.
Philadelphia, May 30,1797.
Dear General,
I thank you for the pamphlet of Erskine enclosed in your favor of the 9th instant, and still more for the evidence which your letter affords me of the health of your mind, and I hope of your body also. Erskine has been reprinted here, and has done good. It has refreshed the memory of those who had been willing to forget how the war between France and England had been produced; and who, aping St. James’s, called it a defensive war on the part of England. I wish any events could induce us to cease to copy such a model, and to assume the dignity of being original. They had their paper system, stockjobbing, speculations, public debt, monied interest, &c, and all this was contrived for us. They raised their cry against jacobinism and revolutionists, we against democratic societies and anti-federalists; their alarmists sounded insurrection, ours marched an army to look for one, but they could not find it. I wish the parallel may stop here, and that we may avoid, instead of imitating, a general bankruptcy and disastrous war.
Congress, or rather the Representatives, have been a fortnight debating between a more or less irritating answer to the President’s speech. The latter was lost yesterday, by forty-eight against fifty-one or fifty-two. It is believed, however, that when they come to propose measures leading directly to war, they will lose some of their numbers. Those who have no wish but for the peace of their country, and its independence of all foreign influence, have a hard struggle indeed, overwhelmed by a cry as loud and imposing as if it were true, of being under French influence, and thus raised by a faction composed of English subjects residing among us, or such as are English in all their relations and sentiments. However, patience will bring all to rights, and we shall both live to see the mask taken from their faces, and our citizens sensible on which side true liberty and independence are sought. Should any circumstance draw me further from home, I shall with great cordiality pay my respects to you at Rose-Hill, and am not without hope of meeting you here some time.
Here, there, and every where else, I am, with great and sincere attachment and respect, your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXII. TO JAMES MADISON, June 1, 1797
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, June 1, 1797.
Dear Sir, I wrote you on the 18th of May. The address of the Senate was soon after that. The first draught was responsive to the speech, and higher toned. Mr. Henry arrived the day it was reported; the addressers had not yet their strength around them. They listened therefore to his objections, recommitted the papers, added him and Tazewell to the committee, and it was reported with considerable alterations; but one great attack was made on it, which was to strike out the clause approving every thing heretofore done by the executive. This clause was retained by a majority of four. They received a new accession of members, held a caucus, took up all the points recommended in the speech, except the raising money, agreed the list of every committee, and on Monday passed the resolutions and appointed the committees, by an uniform vote of seventeen to eleven. (Mr. Henry was accidentally absent; Ross not then come.) Yesterday they took up the nomination of John Quincy Adams to Berlin, which had been objected to as extending our diplomatic establishment. It was approved by eighteen to fourteen. (Mr. Tatnall accidentally absent.) From the proceedings we are able to see, that eighteen on the one side and ten on the other, with two wavering votes, will decide every question. Schuyler is too ill to come this session, and Gunn has not yet come. Pinckney (the General), John Marshall, and Dana are nominated Envoys Extraordinary to France. Charles Lee consulted a member from Virginia, to know whether Marshall would be agreeable. He named you, as more likely to give satisfaction. The answer was,’ Nobody of Mr. Madison’s way of thinking will be appointed.’
The representatives have not yet got through their addresses. An amendment of Mr. Nicholas’s, which you will have seen in the papers, was lost by a division of forty-six to fifty-two. A clause by Mr. Dayton, expressing a wish that France might be put on an equal footing with other nations, was inserted by fifty-two against forty-seven. This vote is most worthy of notice, because the moderation and justice of the proposition being unquestionable, it shows that there are forty-seven decided to go to all lengths to
*****
They have received a new orator from the district of Mr. Ames. He is the son of the Secretary of the Senate. They have an accession from South Carolina also, that State being exactly divided. In the House of Representatives I learned the following facts, which give me real concern. When the British treaty arrived at Charleston, a meeting, as you know, was called, and a committee of seventeen appointed, of whom General Pinckney was one. He did not attend. They waited for him, sent for him: he treated the mission with great hauteur, and disapproved of their meddling. In the course of subsequent altercations, he declared that his brother T. Pinckney, approved of every article of the treaty, under the existing circumstances, and since that time the politics of
[* A few lines ave here unintelligible.]
Charleston have been assuming a different hue. Young Rutledge joining Smith and Harper, is an ominous fact as to that whole interest.
Tobacco is at nine dollars, and flour very dull of sale. A great stagnation in commerce generally. During the present bankruptcy in England, the merchants seem disposed to lie on their oars. It is impossible to conjecture the rising of Congress, as it will depend on the system they decide on; whether of preparation for war, or inaction. In the vote of forty-six to fifty-two, Morgan, Machir, and Evans were of the majority, and Clay kept his seat, refusing to vote with either. In that of forty-seven to fifty-two, Evans was the only one of our delegation who voted against putting France on an equal footing with other nations.
P. M. So far I had written in the morning. I now take up my pen to add, that the addresses having been reported to the House, it was moved to disagree to so much of the amendment as went to the putting France on an equal footing with other nations, and Morgan and Machir turning tail (in consequence, as is said, of having been closeted last night by Charles Lee), the vote was forty-nine to fifty. So the principle was saved by a single vote. They then proposed that compensations for spoliations shall be a sine qua non, and this will be decided on to-morrow,
Yours affectionately,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXIII. TO COLONEL BURR, June 17,1797
TO COLONEL BURR.
Philadelphia, June 17,1797.
Dear Sir,
The newspapers give, so minutely what is passing in Congress, that nothing of detail can be wanting for your information. Perhaps, however, some general view of our situation and prospects, since you left us, may not be unacceptable. At any rate, it will give me an opportunity of recalling myself to your memory, and of evidencing my esteem for you. You well know how strong a character of division had been impressed on the Senate by the British treaty. Common error, common censure, and common efforts of defence had formed the treaty majority into a common band, which feared to separate even on other subjects. Towards the close of the last Congress, however, it had been hoped that their ties began to loosen, and their phalanx to separate a little.
This hope was blasted at the very opening of the present session, by the nature of the appeal which the President made to the nation; the occasion for which had confessedly sprung from the fatal British treaty. This circumstance rallied them again to their standard, and hitherto we have had pretty regular treaty votes on all questions of principle. And indeed I fear, that as long as the same individuals remain, so long we shall see traces of the same division. In the House of Representatives the republican body has also lost strength. The non-attendance of five or six of that description has left the majority very equivocal indeed. A few individuals of no fixed system at all, governed by the panic or the prowess of the moment, flap as the breeze blows against the republican or the aristocratic bodies, and give to the one or the other a preponderance entirely accidental. Hence the dissimilar aspect of the address, and of the proceedings subsequent to that. The inflammatory composition of the speech excited sensations of resentment which had slept under British injuries, threw the wavering into the war scale, and produced the war address. Bonaparte’s victories and those on the Rhine, the Austrian peace, British bankruptcy, mutiny of the seamen, and Mr. King’s exhortations to pacific measures, have cooled them down again, and the scale of peace preponderates. The threatening propositions therefore, founded in the address, are abandoned one by one, and the cry begins now to be, that we have been called together to do nothing. The truth is, there is nothing to do, the idea of war being scouted by the events of Europe: but this only proves that war was the object for which we were called. It proves that the executive temper was for war; and that the convocation of the Representatives was an experiment of the temper of the nation, to see if it was in unison. Efforts at negotiation indeed were promised; but such a promise was as difficult to withhold, as easy to render nugatory. If negotiation alone had been meant, that might have been pursued without so much delay, and without calling the Representatives; and if strong and earnest negotiation had been meant, the additional nomination would have been of persons strongly and earnestly attached to the alliance of 1778. War then was intended. Whether abandoned or not, we must judge from future indications and events: for the same secrecy and mystery are affected to be observed by the present, which marked the former administration. I had always hoped, that the popularity of the late President being once withdrawn from active effect, the natural feelings of the people towards liberty would restore the equilibrium between the executive and legislative departments, which had been destroyed by the superior weight and effect of that popularity; and that their natural feelings of moral obligation would discountenance the ungrateful predilection of the executive in favor of Great Britain. But unfortunately, the preceding measures had already alienated the nation who were the object of them, had excited reaction from them, and this reaction has on the minds of our citizens an effect which supplies that of the Washington popularity. This effect was sensible on some of the late congressional elections, and this it is which has lessened the republican majority in Congress. When it will be reinforced, must depend on events, and these are so incalculable, that I consider the future character of our republic as in the air; indeed its future fortune will be in the air, if war is made on us by France, and if Louisiana becomes a Gallo-American colony.
I have been much pleased to see a dawn of change in the spirit of your State. The late elections have indicated something, which, at a distance, we do not understand. However, what with the English influence in the lower, and the Patroon influence in the upper parts of your State, I presume little is to be hoped. If a prospect could be once opened upon us of the penetration of truth into the Eastern States: if the people there, who are unquestionably republicans, could discover that they have been duped into the support of measures calculated to sap the very foundations of republicanism, we might still hope for salvation, and that it would come, as of old, from the East. But will that region ever awake to the true state of things? Can the middle, southern, and western States hold on till they awake? These are painful and doubtful questions: and if, in assuring me of your health, you can give me a comfortable solution of them, it will relieve a mind devoted to the preservation of our republican government in the true form and spirit in which it was established, but almost oppressed with apprehensions that fraud will at length effect what force could not, and that what with currents and counter-currents, we shall in the end, be driven back to the land from which we launched twenty years ago. Indeed, my dear Sir, we have been but a sturdy fish on the hook of a dexterous angler who letting us flounce till we have spent Our force, brings us up at last.
I am tired of the scene, and this day se’nnight shall change it for one, where, to tranquillity of mind, may be added pursuits of private utility, since none public are admitted by the state of things. I am with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson,
P. S. Since writing the above, we have received a report that the French Directory has proposed a declaration of war against the United States to the Council of Ancients, who have rejected it. Thus we see two nations who love one another affectionately, brought by the ill temper of their executive administrations, to the very brink of a necessity to imbrue their hands in the blood of each other. T. J.
CCXIV. TO ELBRIDGE GERRY, June 21, 1797
TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.
Philadelphia, June 21, 1797.
My Dear Friend,
It was with infinite joy to me, that you were yesterday announced to the Senate, as Envoy Extraordinary, jointly with General Pinckney and Mr. Marshall, to the French republic. It gave me certain assurances that there would be a preponderance in the mission, sincerely disposed to be at peace with the French government and nation. Peace is undoubtedly at present the first object of our nation. Interest and honor are also national considerations. But interest, duly weighed, is in favor of peace even at the expense of spoliations past and future; and honor cannot now be an object. The insults and injuries committed on, us by both the belligerent parties, from, the beginning of 1793 to this day, and still continuing, cannot now be wiped off by engaging in war with one of them. As there is great reason to expect this is the last campaign in Europe, it would certainly be better for us to rub through this year, as we have done through the four preceding ones, and hope that, on the restoration of peace, we may be able to establish some plan for our foreign connections more likely to secure our peace, interest, and honor, in future. Our countrymen have divided themselves by such strong affections, to the French and the English, that nothing will secure us internally but a divorce from both nations; and this must be the object of every real American, and its attainment is practicable without much self-denial. But, for this, peace is necessary. Be assured of this, my dear Sir, that if we engage in a war during our present passions, and our present weakness in some quarters, our Union runs the greatest risk of not coming out of that war in the shape in which it enters it. My reliance for our preservation is in your acceptance of this mission. I know the tender circumstances which will oppose themselves to it. But its duration will be short, and its reward long. You have it in your power, by accepting and determining the character of the mission, to secure the present peace and eternal union of your country. If you decline, on motives of private pain, a substitute may be named who has enlisted his passions in the present contest, and by the preponderance of his vote in the mission may entail on us calamities, your share in which, and your feelings, will outweigh whatever pain a temporary absence from your family could give you. The sacrifice will be short, the remorse would be never-ending. Let me then, my dear Sir, conjure your acceptance, and that you will, by this act, seal the mission with the confidence of all parties. Your nomination has given a spring to hope, which was dead before.
I leave this place in three days, and therefore shall not here have the pleasure of learning your determination. But it will reach me in my retirement, and enrich the tranquillity of that scene. It will add to the proofs which have convinced me that the man who loves his country on its own account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power, can never be divorced from it, can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off. Make then an effort, my friend, to renounce your domestic comforts for a few months, and reflect that to be a good husband and good father at this moment, you must be also a good citizen. With sincere wishes for your acceptance and success, I am, with unalterable esteem, Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXV. TO EDWARD RUTLEDGE, June 24, 1797
TO EDWARD RUTLEDGE.
Philadelphia, June 24, 1797.
My Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge your two favors of May the 4th and 19th, and to thank you for your attentions to the commissions for the pease and oranges, which I learn have arrived in Virginia. Your draft I hope will soon follow on Mr. John Barnes, merchant here, who, as I before advised you, is directed to answer it.
When Congress first met, the assemblage of facts presented in the President’s speech, with the multiplied accounts of spoliations by the French West-Indians, appeared, by sundry votes on the address, to incline a majority to put themselves in a posture of war. Under this influence the address was formed, and its spirit would probably have been pursued by corresponding measures, had the events of Europe been of an ordinary train. But this has been so extraordinary, that numbers have gone over to those, who, from the first, feeling with sensibility the French insults, as they had felt those of England before, thought now as they thought then, that war measures should be avoided, and those of peace pursued. Their favorite engine, on the former occasion, was commercial regulations, in preference to negotiations, to war preparation, and increase of debt. On the latter, as we have no commerce with France, the restriction of which could press on them, they wished for negotiation. Those of the opposite sentiment had, on the former occasion, preferred negotiation, but at the same time voted for great war preparations, and increase of debt: now also they were for negotiation, war preparations, and debt. The parties have in debate mutually charged each other with inconsistency, and with being governed by an attachment to this or that of the belligerent nations, rather than the dictates of reason and pure Americanism. But in truth, both have been consistent: the same men having voted for war measures who did before, and the same against them now who did before. The events of Europe coming to us in astonishing and rapid succession, to wit, the public bankruptcy of England, Bonaparte’s successes, the successes on the Rhine, the Austrian peace, mutiny of the British fleet, Irish insurrection, a demand of forty-three millions for the current services of the year, and above all, the warning voice, as is said, of Mr. King, to abandon all thought of connection with Great Britian, that she is going down irrecoverably, and will sink us also, if we do not clear ourselves, have brought over several to the pacific party, so as, at present, to give majorities against all threatening measures. They go on with frigates and fortifications, because they were going on with them before. They direct eighty thousand of their militia to hold themselves in readiness for service. But they reject the propositions to raise cavalry, artillery, and a provisional army, and to trust private ships with arms in the present combustible state of things. They believe the present is the last campaign of Europe, and wish to rub through this fragment of a year as they have through the four preceding ones, opposing patience to insult, and interest to honor. They will, therefore, immediately adjourn. This is indeed a most humiliating state of things, but it commenced in 1793. Causes have been adding to causes, and effects accumulating on effects, from that time to this. We had, in 1793, the most respectable character in the universe. What the neutral nations think of us now, I know not; but we are low indeed with the belligerents. Their kicks and cuffs prove their contempt. If we weather the present storm, I hope we shall avail ourselves of the calm of peace, to place our foreign connections under a new and different arrangement. We must make the interest of every nation stand surety for their justice, and their own loss to follow injury to us, as effect follows its cause. As to every thing except commerce, we ought to divorce ourselves from them all. But this system would require time, temper, wisdom, and occasional sacrifice of interest: and how far all of these will be ours, our children may see, but we shall not. The passions are too high at present, to be cooled in our day. You and I have formerly seen warm debates and high political passions. But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and separate the business of the Senate from that of society. It is not so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives, cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their hats. This may do for young men with whom passion is enjoyment. But it is afflicting to peaceable minds. Tranquillity is the old man’s milk. I go to enjoy it in a few days, and to exchange the roar and tumult of bulls and bears, for the prattle of my grand-children and senile rest. Be these yours, my dear friend, through long years, with every other blessing, and the attachment of friends as warm and sincere, as yours affectionately,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER, CCXVI.--TO JAMES MADISON, August 3, 1797
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JAMES MADISON.
Monticello, August 3, 1797.
I scribbled you a line on the 24th ultimo: it missed of the post, and so went by a private hand. I perceive from yours by Mr. Bringhurst, that you had not received it. In fact, it was only an earnest exhortation to come here with Monroe, which I still hope you will do. In the mean time, I enclose you a letter from him, and wish your opinion on its principal subject. The variety of other topics the day I was with you, kept out of sight the letter to Mazzei imputed to me in the papers, the general substance of which is mine, though the diction has been considerably altered and varied in the course of its translations from English into Italian, from Italian into French, and from French into English. I first met with it at Bladensburg, and for a moment conceived I must take the field of the public papers. I could not disavow it wholly, because the greatest part was mine in substance, though not in form. I could not avow it as it stood, because the form was not mine, and, in one place, the substance very materially falsified. This, then, would render explanations necessary; nay, it would render proofs of the whole necessary, and draw me at length into a publication of all (even the secret) transactions of the administration, while I was of it: and embroil me personally with every member of the executive, with the judiciary, and with others still. I soon decided in my own mind, to be entirely silent. I consulted with several friends at Philadelphia, who, every one of them, were clearly against my avowing or disavowing, and some of them conjured me most earnestly to let nothing provoke me to it. I corrected in conversation with them, a substantial misrepresentation in the copy published. The original has a sentiment like this (for I have it not before me), ‘They are endeavoring to submit us to the substance, as they already have to the forms of the British government;’ meaning by forms, the birth-days, levees, processions to parliament, inauguration pomposities, fee. But the copy published says, ‘as they have already submitted us to the form of the British,’ &c.; making me express hostility to the form of our government, that is to say, to the constitution itself. For this is really the difference of the word form, used in the singular or plural, in that phrase, in the English language. Now it would be impossible for me to explain this publicly, without bringing on a personal difference between General Washington and myself, which nothing before the publication of this letter has ever done. It would embroil me also with all those with whom his character is still popular, that is to say, nine tenths of the people of the United States; and what good would be obtained by avowing the letter with the necessary explanations? Very little indeed, in my opinion, to counterbalance a good deal of harm. From my silence in this instance, it cannot be inferred that I am afraid to own the general sentiments of the letter. If I am subject to either imputation, it is to that of avowing such sentiments too frankly both in private and public, often when there is no necessity for it, merely because I disdain every thing like duplicity. Still, however, I am open to conviction. Think for me on the occasion, and advise me what to do, and confer with Colonel Monroe on the subject.
Let me entreat you again to come with him; there are other important things to consult on. One will be his affair. Another is the subject of the petition now enclosed to you, to be proposed to our district, on the late presentment of our representative by the grand jury: the idea it brings forward is still confined to my own breast. It has never been mentioned to any mortal, because I first wish your opinion on the expediency of the measure. If you approve it, I shall propose to ------ or some other, to father it, and to present it to the counties at their general muster. This will be in time for our Assembly. The presentment going in the public papers just at the moment when Congress was together, produced a great effect both on its friends and foes in that body, very much to the disheartening and mortification of the latter. I wish this petition, if approved, to arrive there under the same circumstances, to produce the counter effect so wanting for their gratification. I could have wished to receive it from you again at our court on Monday, because ------ and ------ will be there, and might also be consulted, and commence measures for putting it into motion. If you can return it then, with your opinion, it will be of importance. Present me affectionately to Mrs. Madison, and convey to her my entreaties to interpose her good offices and persuasives with you to bring her here, and before we uncover our house, which will yet be some weeks. Salutations and adieu.
CCXVII. TO COLONEL ARTHUR CAMPBELL, September 1, 1797
TO COLONEL ARTHUR CAMPBELL.
Monticello, September 1, 1797.
Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of July the 4th, and to recognise in it the sentiments you have ever held, and worthy of the day on which it is dated. It is true that a party has risen up among us, or rather has come among us, which is endeavoring to separate us from all friendly connection with France, to unite our destinies with those of Great Britian, and to assimilate our government to theirs. Our lenity in permitting the return of the old tories, gave the first body to this party; they have been increased by large importations of British merchants and factors, by American merchants dealing on British capital, and by stock-dealers and banking-companies, who, by the aid of a paper system are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing-presses, which their wealth commands, and by other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen. Hitherto, their influence and their system have been irresistible, and they have raised up an executive power which is too strong for the legislature. But I flatter myself they have passed their zenith. The people, while these things were doing, were lulled into rest and security from a cause which no longer exists. No prepossessions now will shut their ears to truth. They begin to see to what port their leaders were steering during their slumbers, and there is yet time to haul in, if we can avoid a war with France. All can be done peaceably, by the people confining their choice of Representatives and Senators to persons attached to republican government and the principles of 1776, not office-hunters, but farmers, whose interests are entirely agricultural. Such men are the true representatives of the great American interest, and are alone to be relied on for expressing the proper American sentiments. We owe gratitude to France, justice to England, good-will to all, and subservience to none. All this must be brought about by the people, using their elective rights with prudence and self-possession, and not suffering themselves to be duped by treacherous emissaries. It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back. I am happy in this occasion of reviving the memory of old things, and of assuring you of the continuance of the esteem and respect of, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXVIII. TO JAMES MONROE, September 7, 1797
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JAMES MONROE.
Monticello, September 7, 1797.
The doubt which you suggest as to our jurisdiction over the case of the Grand Jury vs. Cabell had occurred to me, and naturally occurs on first view of the question. But I knew, that to send the petition to the House of Representatives in Congress, would make bad worse; that a majority of that House would pass a vote of approbation. On examination of the question, too, it appeared to me that we could maintain the authority of our own government over it.
A right of free correspondence between citizen and citizen, on their joint interests, whether public or private, and under whatsoever laws these interests arise (to wit, of the State, of Congress, of France, Spain, or Turkey), is a natural right: it is not the gift of any municipal law, either of England, of Virginia, or of Congress: but in common with all our other natural rights, it is one of the objects for the protection of which society is formed, and municipal laws established.
The courts of this commonwealth (and among them the General Court, as a court of impeachment) are originally competent to the cognizance of all infractions of the rights of one citizen by another citizen: and they still retain all their judiciary cognizances not expressly alienated by the federal constitution.
The federal constitution alienates from them all cases arising, 1st, under the constitution; 2ndly, under the laws of Congress; 3rdly, under treaties, &c. But this right of free correspondence, whether with a public representative in General Assembly, in Congress, in France, in Spain, or with a private one charged with pecuniary trust, or with a private friend, the object of our esteem, or any other, has not been given to us under, 1st, the federal constitution; 2ndly, any law of Congress; or 3rdly, any treaty; but, as before observed, by nature. It is therefore not alienated, but remains under the protection of our courts.
Were the question even doubtful, that is no reason for abandoning it. The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all. Besides, it is not right for those who are only to act in a preliminary form, to let their own doubts preclude the judgment of the court of ultimate decision. We ought to let it go to the House of Delegates for their consideration, and they, unless the contrary be palpable, ought to let it go to the General Court, who are ultimately to decide on it.
It is of immense consequence that the States retain as complete authority as possible over their own citizens. The withdrawing themselves under the shelter of a foreign jurisdiction, is so subversive of order and so pregnant of abuse, that it may not be amiss to consider how far a law of præmunire should be revised and modified, against all citizens who attempt to carry their causes before any other than the State courts, in cases where those other courts have no right to their cognizance. A plea to the jurisdiction of the courts of their State, or a reclamation of a foreign jurisdiction, if adjudged valid, would be safe; but if adjudged invalid, would be followed by the punishment of præmunire for the attempt.
Think further of the preceding part of this letter, and we will have further conference on it. Adieu.
P. S. Observe, that it is not the breach of Mr. Cabell’s privilege which we mean to punish: that might lie with Congress. It is the wrong done to the citizens of our district. Congress have no authority to punish that wrong. They can only take cognizance of it in vindication of their member.
CCXIX. TO JAMES MADISON, January 3, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, January 3, 1798
Dear Sir,
Your favor of the 25th came to hand yesterday. I shall observe your direction with respect to the post-day. I have spoken with the Deputy Postmaster-General on the subject of our Fredericksburg post. He never knew before that the Fredericksburg printer had taken the contract of the rider. He will be glad, if either in your neighborhood or ours, some good person will undertake to ride from April next. The price given this year is three hundred and thirty dollars, and it will go to the lowest bidder, who can be depended on. I understand (though not from him) that Wyatt will be changed; and in general they determine that printers shall not be postmasters or riders.
Our weather has been, here as with you, cold and dry. The thermometer has been at eight degrees. The river closed here the first week of December, which has caught a vast number of vessels destined for departure. It deadens also the demand for wheat. The price at New York is one dollar seventy-five cents, and of flour eight dollars fifty cents to nine dollars; tobacco eleven to twelve dollars; there need be no doubt of greater prices. The bankruptcies here continue: the prison is full of the most reputable merchants, and it is understood that the scene has not yet got to its height. Prices have fallen greatly. The market is cheaper than it has been for four years. Labor and house-rent much reduced. Dry goods somewhat. It is expected that they will fall till they get nearly to old prices. Money scarce beyond all example.
The Representatives have rejected the President’s proposition for enabling him to prorogue them. A law has passed putting off the stamp-act till July next. The land-tax will not be brought on. The Secretary of the Treasury says he has money enough. No doubt these two measures may be taken up more boldly at the next session, when most of the elections will be over. It is imagined the stamp-act will be extended or attempted on every possible object. A bill has passed the Representatives to suspend for three years the law arresting the currency of foreign coins. The Senate propose an amendment, continuing the currency of the foreign gold only. Very possibly the bill may be lost. The object of opposing the bill is to make the French crowns a subject of speculation (for it seems they fell on the President’s proclamation to a dollar in most of the States), and to force bank-paper (for want of other medium) through all the States generally. Tench Coxe is displaced, and no reason even spoken of. It is therefore understood to be for his activity during the late election. It is said that the people from hence, quite to the eastern extremity, are beginning to be sensible, that their government has been playing a foul game. In Vermont, Chipman was elected Senator by a majority of one, against the republican candidate. In Maryland, Loyd by a majority of one, against Winder, the republican candidate. Tichenor chosen Governor of Vermont by a very small majority. The House of Representatives of this State has become republican by a firm majority of six. Two counties, it is said, have come over generally to the republican side. It is thought the republicans have also a majority in the New York House of Representatives. Hard elections are expected there between Jay and Livingston, and here between Ross and M’Kean. In the House of Representatives of Congress, the republican interest has at present, on strong questions, a majority of about half a dozen, as is conjectured, and there are as many of their firmest men absent; not one of the anti-republicans is from his post. The bill for permitting private vessels to arm, was put off to the first Monday in February by a sudden vote, and a majority of five. It was considered as an index of their dispositions on that subject, though some voted both ways on other ground. It is most evident that the anti-republicans wish to get rid of Blount’s impeachment. Many metaphysical niceties are handing about in conversation, to show that it cannot be sustained. To show the contrary, it is evident, must be the task of the republicans, or of nobody. Monroe’s book is considered as masterly by all those who are not opposed in principle, and it is deemed unanswerable. An answer, however, is commenced in Fenno’s paper of yesterday, under the signature of Scipio. The real author not yet conjectured. As I take these papers merely to preserve them, I will forward them to you, as you can easily return them to me on my arrival at home; for I shall not see you on my way, as I mean to go by the Eastern Shore and Petersburg. Perhaps the paragraphs in some of these abominable papers may draw from you now and then a squib. A pamphlet of Fauchet’s appeared yesterday. I send you a copy under another cover. A hand-bill has just arrived here from New York, where they learn from a vessel which left Havre about the 9th of November, that the Emperor had signed the definitive articles, given up Mantua, evacuated Mentz, agreed to give passage to the French troops to Hanover, and that the Portuguese ambassador had been ordered to quit Paris, on account of the seizure of fort St. Julian’s by the, English, supposed with the connivance of Portugal. Though this is ordinary mercantile news, it looks like truth. The latest official intelligence from Paris, is from Talleyrand to the French Consul here (Lastombe), dated September the 28th, saying that our Envoys were arrived, and would find every disposition on the part of his government to accommodate with us.
My affectionate respects to Mrs. Madison; to yourself, health and friendship. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXX. TO JAMES MADISON, January 25, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, January 25, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 2nd instant, on which day I received yours of December the 25th. I have not resumed my pen, because there has really been nothing worth writing about, but what you would see in the newspapers. There is, as yet, no certainty what will be the aspect of our affairs with France. Either the Envoys have not written to the government, or their communications are hushed up. This last is suspected, because so many arrivals have happened from Bordeaux and Havre. The letters from American correspondents in France have been always to Boston: and the experience we had last summer of their adroitness in counterfeiting this kind of intelligence, inspires doubts as to their late paragraphs. A letter is certainly received here by an individual, from Talleyrand, which says our Envoys have been heard, that their pretensions are high, that possibly no arrangement may take place, but that there will be no declaration of war by France. It is said that Bournonville has written that he has hopes of an accommodation (three audiences having then, November, been had), and to be himself a member of a new diplomatic mission to this country. On the whole, I am entirely suspended as to what is to be expected. The Representatives have been several days in debate on the bill for foreign intercourse. A motion has been made to reduce it to what it was before the extension of 1796. The debate will probably have good effects, in several ways, on the public mind, but the advocates for the reformation expect to lose the question. They find themselves deceived in the expectation entertained in the beginning of the session, that they had a majority. They now think the majority is on the other side by two or three, and there are moreover two or three of them absent. Blount’s affair is to come on next. In the mean time, the Senate have before them a bill for regulating proceedings in impeachment. This will be made the occasion of offering a clause for the introduction of juries into these trials. (Compare the paragraph in the constitution which says, that all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury, with the eighth amendment, which says, that in all criminal prosecutions, the trial shall be by jury.) There is no expectation of carrying this; because the division in the Senate is of two to one, but it will draw forth the principles of the parties, and concur in accumulating proofs on which side all the sound principles are to be found.
Very acrimonious altercations are going on between the Spanish Minister and the executive, and at the Natchez something worse than mere altercation. If hostilities have not begun there, it has not been for want of endeavors to bring them on, by our agents. Marshall, of Kentucky, this day proposed in Senate some amendments to the constitution. They were barely read just as we were adjourning, and not a word of explanation given. As far as I caught them in my ear, they went only to modifications of the elections of President and Vice-President, by authorizing voters to add the office for which they name each, and giving to the Senate the decision of a disputed election of President, and to the Representatives that of Vice-President. But I am apprehensive I caught the thing imperfectly, and probably incorrectly. Perhaps this occasion may be taken of proposing again the Virginia amendments, as also to condemn elections by the legislatures, themselves to transfer the power of trying impeachments from the Senate to some better constituted court, &c. &c.
Good tobacco here is thirteen dollars, flour eight dollars and fifty cents, wheat one dollar and fifty cents, but dull, because only the millers buy. The river, however, is nearly open, and the merchants will now come to market and give a spur to the price. But the competition will not be what it has been. Bankruptcies thicken, and the height of them has by no means yet come on. It is thought this, winter will be very trying.
Friendly salutations to Mrs. Madison. Adieu affectionately.
Th: Jefferson.
January 28. I enclose Marshall’s propositions. They have been this day postponed to the 1st of June, chiefly by the vote of the anti-republicans, under the acknowledged fear that other amendments would be also proposed, and that this is not the time for agitating the public mind. T. J.
CCXXI. TO JAMES MADISON, February 8, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, February 8, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 25th ultimo; since which yours of the 21st has been received. Bache had put five hundred copies of Monroe’s book on board a vessel, which was stopped by the early and unexpected freezing of the river. He tried in vain to get them carried by fifties at a time, by the stage. The river is now open here, the vessels are falling down, and if they can get through the ice below, the one with Bache’s packet will soon be at Richmond. It is surmised here that Scipio is written by C. Lee. Articles of impeachment were yesterday given in against Blount. But many great preliminary questions will arise. Must not a formal law settle the oath of the Senators, form of pleadings, process against person or goods, &c. May he not appear by attorney? Must he not be tried by a jury? Is a Senator impeachable? Is an ex-Senator impeachable? You will readily conceive that these questions, to be settled by twenty-nine lawyers, are not likely to come to speedy issue. A very disagreeable question of privilege has suspended all other proceedings for some days. You will see this in the newspapers. The question of arming vessels came on, on Monday last; that morning, the President sent in an inflammatory message about a vessel taken and burnt by a French privateer, near Charleston. Of this he had been possessed some time, and it had been through all the newspapers. It seemed to come in now apropos for spurring on the disposition to arm. However, the question has not come on. In the mean time the general spirit, even of the merchants, is becoming adverse to it. In New Hampshire and Rhode Island they are unanimously against arming; so in Baltimore. This place is becoming more so. Boston divided and desponding. I know nothing of New York; but I think there is no danger of the question being carried, unless something favorable to it is received from our Envoys. From them we hear nothing. Yet it seems reasonably believed that the executive has heard, and that it is something which would not promote their views of arming. For every action of theirs shows they are panting to come to blows. Giles has arrived.
My friendly salutations to Mrs. Madison. Adieu affectionately.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXII. TO JAMES MADISON, February 15, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, February 15, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 8th. We have still not a word from our Envoys. This long silence (if they have been silent) proves things are not going on very roughly. If they have not been silent, it proves their information, if made public, would check the disposition to arm. I had flattered myself, from the progress of the public sentiment against arming, that the same progress had taken place in the legislature. But I am assured by those who have better opportunities of forming a good judgment, that if the question against arming is carried at all, it will not be by more than a majority of two: and particularly, that there will not be more than four votes against it from the five eastern states, or five votes at the utmost. You will have perceived that Dayton has gone over completely. He expects to be appointed Secretary of War in the room of M’Henry, who it is said will retire. He has been told, as report goes, that they would not have confidence enough in him to appoint him. The desire of inspiring them with more, seems the only way to account for the eclat which he chooses to give to his conversion. You will have seen the disgusting proceedings in the case of Lyon: if they would have accepted even of a commitment to the Serjeant it might have been had. But to get rid of his vote was the most material object. These proceedings must degrade the General Government, and lead the people to lean more on their State governments, which have been sunk under the early popularity of the former. This day the question of the jury in cases of impeachment comes on. There is no doubt how it will go. The general division of the Senate is twenty-two and ten; and under the probable prospect of what it will for ever be, I see nothing in the mode of proceeding by impeachment but the most formidable weapon for the purposes of dominant faction that ever was contrived. It would be the most effectual one of getting rid of any man whom they consider as dangerous to their views, and I do not know that we could count on one third in an emergency. All depends then on the House of Representatives, who are the impeachers; and there the majorities are of one, two, or three only; and these sometimes one way and sometimes another: in a question of pure party they have the majority, and we do not know what circumstances may turn up to increase that majority temporarily, it not permanently. I know of no solid purpose of punishment which the courts of law are not equal to, and history shows, that, in England, impeachment has been an engine more of passion than justice. A great ball is to be given here on the 22nd, and in other great towns of the Union. This is, at least, very indelicate, and probably excites uneasy sensations in some. I see in it, however, this useful deduction, that the birth-days which have been kept, have been, not those of the President, but of the General. I enclose, with the newspapers, the two acts of parliament passed on the subject of our commerce, which are interesting. The merchants here, say, that the effect of the countervailing tonnage on American vessels, will throw them completely out of employ as soon as there is peace. The eastern members say nothing but among themselves. But it is said that it is working like grave in their stomachs. Our only comfort is, that they have brought it on themselves. My respectful salutations to Mrs. Madison; and to yourself, friendship and adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXIII. TO GENERAL GATES, February 21, 1798
TO GENERAL GATES.
Philadelphia, February 21, 1798.
Dear General,
I received duly your welcome favor of the 15th, and had an opportunity of immediately delivering the one it enclosed to General Kosciusko. I see him often, and with great pleasure mixed with commiseration. He is as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known, and of that liberty which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. We are here under great anxiety to hear from our Envoys.
*****
I agree with you that some of our merchants have been milking the cow: yet the great mass of them have become deranged, they are daily falling down by bankruptcies, and on the whole, the condition of our commerce far less firm and really prosperous, than it would have been by the regular operations and steady advances which a state of peace would have occasioned. Were a war to take place, and throw our agriculture into equal convulsions with our commerce, our business would be done at both ends. But this I hope will not be. The good news from the Natchez has cut off the fear of a breach in that quarter, where a crisis was brought on which has astonished every one. How this mighty duel is to end between Great Britain and France, is a momentous question. The sea which divides them makes it a game of chance; but it is narrow, and all the chances are not on one side. Should they make peace, still our fate is problematical.
The countervailing acts of Great Britain, now laid before Congress, threaten, in the opinion of merchants, the entire loss of our navigation to England. It makes a difference, from the present state of things, of five hundred guineas on a vessel of three hundred and fifty tons. If, as the newspapers have told us, France has renewed her Arrêt of 1789, laying a duty of seven livres a hundred on all tobacco brought in foreign bottoms (even our own), and should extend it to rice and other commodities, we are done, as navigators, to that country also. In fact, I apprehend that those two great nations will think it their interest not to permit us to be navigators. France had thought otherwise, and had shown an equal desire to encourage our navigation as her own, while she hoped its weight would at least not be thrown into the scale of her enemies. She sees now that that is not to be relied on, and will probably use her own means, and those of the nations under her influence, to exclude us from the ocean. How far it may lessen our happiness to be rendered merely agricultural, how far that state is more friendly to principles of virtue and liberty, are questions yet to be solved. Kosciusko has been disappointed by the sudden peace between France and Austria. A ray of hope seemed to gleam on his mind for a moment, that the extension of the revolutionary spirit through Italy and Germany, might so have occupied the remnants of monarchy there, as that his country might have risen again. I sincerely rejoice to find that you preserve your health so well. That you may so go on to the end of the chapter, and that it may be a long one, I sincerely pray. Make my friendly salutations acceptable to Mrs. Gates, and accept yourself assurances of the great and constant esteem and respect of, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXIV. TO JAMES MADISON, February 22, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, February 22, 1798.
Dear Sir,
Yours of the 12th is received. I wrote you last on the 15th, but the letter getting misplaced, will only go by this post. We still hear nothing from our Envoys. Whether the executive hear, we know not. But if war were to be apprehended, it is impossible our Envoys should not find means of putting us on our guard, or that the executive should hold back their information. No news, therefore, is good news. The countervailing act, which I sent you by the last post, will, confessedly, put American bottoms out of employ in our trade with Great Britain. So say well informed merchants. Indeed, it seems probable, when we consider that hitherto, with the advantage of our foreign tonnage, our vessels could only share with the British, and the countervailing duties will, it is said, make a difference of five hundred guineas to our prejudice on a ship of three hundred and fifty tons. Still the eastern men say nothing. Every appearance and consideration render it probable, that on the restoration of peace, both France and Britain will consider it their interest to exclude us from the ocean, by such peaceable means as are in their power. Should this take place, perhaps it may be thought just and politic to give to our native capitalists the monopoly of our internal commerce. This may at once relieve us from the dangers of wars abroad and British thraldom at home. The news from the Natchez, of the delivery of the posts, which you will see in the papers, is to be relied on. We have escaped a dangerous crisis there. The great contest between Israel and Morgan, of which you will see the papers full, is to be decided this day. It is snowing fast at this time, and the most sloppy walking I ever saw. This will be to the disadvantage of the party which has the most invalids. Whether the event will be known this evening, I am uncertain. I rather presume not, and, therefore, that you will not learn it till next post.
You will see in the papers, the ground on which the introduction of the jury into the trial by impeachment was advocated by Mr. Tazewell, and the fate of the question. Reader’s motion, which I enclosed you, will probably be amended and established, so as to declare a Senator unimpeachable, absolutely; and yesterday an opinion was declared, that not only officers of the State governments, but every private citizen of the United States, are impeachable. Whether they will think this the time to make the declaration, I know not; but if they bring it on, I think there will be not more than two votes north of the Potomac against the universality of the impeaching power. The system of the Senate may be inferred from their transactions heretofore, and from the following declaration made to me personally by their oracle.* ‘No republic Can ever be of any duration without a Senate, and a Senate deeply and strongly rooted, strong enough to bear up against all popular storms and passions. The only fault in the constitution of our Senate is, that their term of office is not durable enough. Hitherto they have done well, but probably they will be forced to give way in time.’ I suppose their having done well hitherto, alluded to the stand they made on the British treaty. This declaration may be considered as their text: that they consider themselves as the bulwarks of the government, and will be rendering that the more secure, in proportion as they can assume greater powers. The foreign intercourse bill is set for to-day: but the parties are so equal on that in the House of Representatives, that they seem mutually to fear the encounter.
My friendly salutations to Mrs. Madison and the family. To
yourself, friendly adieus.
Th: Jefferson.
[* Here, in the margin of the copy filed, is written by the author, in pencil, ‘Mr, Adams.’]
CCXXV. TO JAMES MADISON, March 2, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, March 2, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote to you last on the 22nd ultimo; since which I have received yours without date, but probably of April the 18th or 19th. An arrival to the eastward brings us some news, which you will see detailed in the papers. The new partition of Europe is sketched, but how far authentic we know not. It has some probability in its favor. The French appear busy in their preparations for the invasion of England; nor is there any appearance of movements on the part of Russia and Prussia which might divert them from it.
The late birth-night has certainly sown tares among the exclusive federalists. It has winnowed the grain from the chaff. The sincerely Adamites did not go. The Washingtonians went religiously, and took the secession of the others in high dudgeon. The one sect threatens to desert the levees, the other the parties. The whigs went in number, to encourage the idea that the birth-nights hitherto kept had been for the General and not the President, and of course that time would bring an end to them. Goodhue, Tracy, Sedgwick, &c. did not attend; but the three Secretaries and Attorney General did.
We were surprised, the last week, with a symptom of a disposition to repeal the stamp act. Petitions for that purpose had come from Rhode Island and Virginia, and had been committed to rest with the Ways and Means. Mr. Harper, the chairman, in order to enter on the law for amending it, observed it would be necessary first to put the petitions for repeal out of the way, and moved an immediate decision on this. The Rhode-Islanders begged and prayed for a postponement; that not knowing that this was the next question to be called up, they were not at all prepared: but Harper would show no mercy; not a moment’s delay would be allowed. It was taken up, and, on question without debate, determined in favor of the petitions by a majority of ten. Astonished and confounded, when an order to bring in a bill for revisal was named, they began in turn to beg for time; two weeks, one week, three days, one day; not a moment would be yielded. They made three attempts for adjournment. But the majority appeared to grow. It was decided, by a majority of sixteen, that the bill should be brought in. It was brought in the next day, and on the day after passed and was sent up to the Senate, who instantly sent it back rejected by a vote of fifteen to twelve. Rhode Island and New Hampshire voted for the repeal in Senate. The act will therefore go into operation July the 1st, but probably without amendments. However, I am persuaded it will be shortlived. It has already excited great commotion in Vermont, and grumblings in Connecticut. But they are so priest-ridden, that nothing is to be expected from them, but the most bigoted passive obedience.
No news yet from our commissioners; but their silence is admitted to augur peace. There is no talk yet of the time of adjourning, though it is admitted we have nothing to do, but what could be done in a fortnight or three weeks. When the spring opens, and we hear from our commissioners, we shall probably draw pretty rapidly to a conclusion. A friend of mine here wishes to get a copy of Mazzei’s ‘Recherches Historiques et Politiques.’ Where are they?
Salutations and adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXVI. TO JAMES MADISON, March 15, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, March 15, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 2nd instant. Yours of the 4th is now at hand. The public papers will give you the news of Europe. The French decree making the vessel friendly or enemy, according to the hands by which the cargo was manufactured, has produced a great sensation among the merchants here. Its operation is not yet perhaps well understood; but probably it will put our shipping out of competition, because British bottoms, which can come under convoy, will alone be trusted with return cargoes. Ours, losing this benefit, would need a higher freight out, in which, therefore, they will be underbid by the British. They must then retire from the competition. Some no doubt will try other channels of commerce, and return cargoes from other countries. This effect would be salutary. A very well informed merchant, too, (a Scotchman, entirely in the English trade) told me, bethought it would have another good effect, by checking and withdrawing our extensive commerce and navigation (the fruit of our natural position) within those bounds to which peace must necessarily bring them. That this being done by degrees, will probably prevent those numerous failures produced generally by a peace coming on suddenly. Notwithstanding this decree, the sentiments of the merchants become more and more cooled and settled down against arming. Yet it is believed the Representatives do not cool; and though we think the question against arming will be carried, yet probably by a majority of only four or five. Their plan is to have convoys furnished for our vessels going to Europe, and smaller vessels for the coasting defence. On this condition, they will agree to fortify southern harbors and build some galleys. It has been concluded among them, that if war takes place, Wolcott is to be retained in office, that the President must give up M’Henry, and as to Pickering they are divided, the eastern men being determined to retain him, their middle and southern brethren wishing to get rid of him. They have talked of General Pinckney as successor to M’Henry. This information is certain. However, I hope we shall avoid war, and save them the trouble of a change of ministry. The President has nominated John Quincy Adams Commissioner Plenipotentiary to renew the treaty with Sweden. Tazewell made a great stand against it, on the general ground that we should let our treaties drop, and remain without any. He could only get eight votes against twenty. A trial will be made today in another form, which he thinks will give ten or eleven against sixteen or seventeen, declaring the renewal inexpedient. In this case, notwithstanding the nomination has been confirmed, it is supposed the President would perhaps not act under it, on the probability that more than the third would be against the ratification. I believe, however, that he would act, and that a third could not be got to oppose the ratification. It is acknowledged we have nothing to do but to decide the question about arming. Yet not a word is said about adjourning; and some even talk of continuing the session permanently; others talk of July and August. An effort, however, will soon be made for an early adjournment. My friendly salutations to Mrs. Madison; to yourself an affectionate adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXVII. TO JAMES MADISON, March 21, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, March 21, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 15th; since that, yours of the 12th has been received. Since that, too, a great change has taken place in the appearance of our political atmosphere. The merchants, as before, continue, a respectable part of them, to wish to avoid arming. The French decree operated on them as a sedative, producing more alarm than resentment: on the Representatives, differently. It excited indignation highly in the war party, though I do not know that it had added any new friends, to that side of the question. We still hoped a majority of about four: but the insane message which you will see in the public papers has had great effect. Exultation on the one side, and a certainty of victory; while the other is petrified with astonishment. Our Evans, though his soul is wrapt up in the sentiments of this message, yet afraid to give a vote openly for it, is going off to-morrow, as is said. Those who count, say there are still two members of the other side who will come over to that of peace. If so, the members will be for war measures, fifty-two, against them fifty-three; if all are present except Evans. The question is, what is to be attempted, supposing we have a majority: I suggest two things: 1. As the President declares he has withdrawn the executive prohibition to arm, that Congress should pass a legislative one. If that should fail in the Senate, it would heap coals of fire on their heads. 2. As, to do nothing and to gain time is everything with us, I propose, that they shall come to a resolution of adjournment, ‘in order to go home and consult their constituents on the great crisis of American affairs now existing.’ Besides gaining time enough by this, to allow the descent on England to have its effect here as well as there, it will be a means of exciting the whole body of the people from the state of inattention in which they are; it will require every member to call for the sense of his district by petition or instruction; it will show the people with which side of the House their safety as well as their rights rest, by showing them which is for war and which for peace; and their representatives will return here invigorated by the avowed support of the American people. I do not know, however, whether this will be approved, as there has been little consultation on the subject. We see a new instance of the inefficiency of constitutional guards.
We had relied with great security on that provision, which requires two thirds of the legislature to declare war. But this is completely eluded by a majority’s taking such measures as will be sure to produce war. I wrote you in my last, that an attempt was to be made on that day in Senate, to declare the inexpediency of renewing our treaties. But the measure is put off under the hope of its being attempted under better auspices. To return to the subject of war, it is quite impossible, when we consider all the existing circumstances, to find any reason in its favor resulting from views either of interest or honor, and plausible enough to impose even on the weakest mind; and especially, when it would be undertaken by a majority of one or two only. Whatever then be our stock of charity or liberality, we must resort to other views. And those so well known to have been entertained at Annapolis, and afterwards at the grand convention, by a particular set of men, present themselves as those alone which can account for so extraordinary a degree of impetuosity. Perhaps, instead of what was then in contemplation, a separation of the Union, which has been so much the topic to the eastward of late, may be the thing aimed at. I have written so far, two days before the departure of the post. Should any thing more occur to-day or to-morrow, it shall be added. Adieu affectionately.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXVIII. TO JAMES MADISON, March 29, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, March 29, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 21st. Yours of the 12th, therein acknowledged, is the last received. The measure I suggested in mine, of adjourning for consultation with their constituents, was not brought forward; but on Tuesday three resolutions were moved, which you will see in the public papers. They were offered in committee to prevent their being suppressed by the previous question, and in the committee on the state of the Union, to put it out of their power, by the rising of the committee and not sitting again, to get rid of them. They were taken by surprise, not expecting to be called to vote on such a proposition as ‘that it is inexpedient to resort to war against the French republic’. After spending the first day in seeking on every side some hole to get out at, like an animal first put into a cage, they gave up their resource. Yesterday they came forward boldly, and openly combated the proposition. Mr. Harper and Mr. Pinckney pronounced bitter philippics against France, selecting such circumstances and aggravations as to give the worst picture they could present. The latter, on this, as in the affair of Lyon and Griswold, went far beyond that moderation he has on other occasions recommended. We know not how it will go. Some think the resolution will be lost, some, that it will be carried; but neither way, by a majority of more than, one or two. The decision of the Executive, of two thirds of the Senate, and half the House of Representatives, is too much for the other half of that House. We therefore fear it will be borne down, and are under the most gloomy apprehensions. In fact, the question of war and peace depends now on a toss of cross and pile. If we could but gain this season, we should be saved. The affairs of Europe would of themselves save us. Besides this, there can be no doubt that a revolution of opinion in Massachusetts and Connecticut is working. Two whig presses have been set up in each of those States. There has been for some days a rumor, that a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive with Great Britain, has arrived. Some circumstances have occasioned it to be listened to; to wit, the arrival of Mr. King’s secretary, which is affirmed, the departure of Mr. Liston’s secretary, which I know is to take place on Wednesday next, the high tone of the executive measures at the last, and present session, calculated to raise things to the unison of such a compact, and supported so desperately in both Houses in opposition to the pacific wishes of the people, and at the risk of their approbation at the ensuing election. Langdon yesterday, in debate, mentioned this current report. Tracy, in reply, declared he knew of no such thing, did not believe it, nor would be its advocate.
An attempt has been made to get the Quakers to come forward with a petition, to aid with the weight of their body the feeble band of peace. They have, with some effort, got a petition signed by a few of their society; the main body of their society refuse it. M’Lay’s peace motion in the Assembly of Pennsylvania was rejected with an unanimity of the Quaker vote, and it seems to be well understood, that their attachment to England is stronger than to their principles or their country. The revolution war was a first proof of this. Mr. White, from the federal city, is here, soliciting money for the buildings at Washington. A bill for two hundred thousand dollars has passed the House of Representatives, and is before the Senate, where its fate is entirely uncertain. He has become perfectly satisfied that Mr. Adams is radically against the government’s being there. Goodhue (his oracle) openly said in committee, in presence of White, that he knew the government was obliged to go there, but they would not be obliged to stay there. Mr. Adams said to White, that it would be better that the President should rent a common house there, to live in; that no President would live in the one now building. This harmonizes with Goodhue’s idea of a short residence. I wrote this in the morning, but need not part with it till night. If any thing occurs in the day, it shall be added. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXIX. TO JAMES MADISON, April 5, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, April 5, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 29th ultimo; since which I have no letter from you. These acknowledgments regularly made and attended to will show whether any of my letters are intercepted, and the impression of my seal on wax (which shall be constant hereafter) will discover whether they are opened by the way. The nature of some of my communications furnishes ground of inquietude for their safe conveyance. The bill for the federal buildings labors hard in Senate, though, to lessen opposition, the Maryland Senator himself proposed to reduce the two hundred thousand dollars to one third of that sum. Sedgwick and Hill-house violently oppose it. I conjecture that the votes will be either thirteen for and fifteen against it, or fourteen and fourteen. Every member declares he means to go there, but though charged with an intention to come away again, not one of them disavow it. This will engender incurable distrust. The debate on Mr. Sprigg’s resolutions has been interrupted by a motion to call for papers. This was carried by a great majority. In this case, there appeared a separate squad, to wit, the Pinckney interest, which is a distinct thing, and will be seen sometimes to lurch the President. It is in truth the Hamilton party, whereof Pinckney is only made the stalking-horse. The papers have been sent in and read, and it is now under debate in both Houses, whether they shall be published. I write in the morning, and if determined in the course of the day in favor of publication, I will add in the evening a general idea of their character. Private letters from France, by a late vessel which sailed from Havre, February the 5th, assure us that France, classing us in her measures with the Swedes and Danes, has no more notion of declaring war against us than them. You will see a letter in Bache’s paper of yesterday, which came addressed to me. Still the fate of Spring’s resolutions seems in perfect equilibrio. You will see in Fenno, two numbers of a paper signed Marcellus. They promise much mischief, and are ascribed, without any difference of opinion, to Hamilton. You must, my dear Sir, take up your pen against this champion. You know the ingenuity of his talents; and there is not a person but yourself who can foil him. For Heaven’s sake, then, take up your pen, and do not desert the public cause altogether. Thursday evening. The Senate have, to-day, voted the publication of the communications from our Envoys. The House of Representatives decided against the publication by a majority of seventy-five to twenty-four. The Senate adjourned, over to-morrow (good Friday), to Saturday morning: but as the papers cannot be printed within that time, perhaps the vote of the House of Representatives may induce the Senate to reconsider theirs. For this reason, I think it my duty to be silent on them. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXX. TO JAMES MADISON, April 6, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, April 6, 1798.
Dear Sir,
So much of the communications from our Envoys has got abroad, and so partially, that there can now be no ground for reconsideration with the Senate. I may therefore, consistently with duty do what every member of the body is doing. Still, I would rather you would use the communication with reserve till you see the whole papers. The first impressions from them are very disagreeable and confused. Reflection, however, and analysis resolve them into this. Mr. Adams’s speech to Congress in May is deemed such a national affront, that no explanation on other topics can be entered on till that, as a preliminary, is wiped away by humiliating disavowals or acknowledgments. This working hard with our Envoys, and indeed seeming impracticable for want of that sort of authority, submission to a heavy amercement (upwards of a million sterling) was, at an after meeting, suggested as an alternative, which might be admitted if proposed by us. These overtures had been through informal agents; and both the alternatives bringing the Envoys to their ne plus, they resolve to have no more communication through inofficial characters, but to address a letter directly to the government, to bring forward their pretensions. This letter had not yet, however, been prepared. There were interwoven with these overtures some base propositions on the part of Talleyrand, through one of his agents, to sell his interest and influence with the Directory towards soothing difficulties with them, in consideration of a large sum (fifty thousand pounds sterling); and the arguments to which his agent resorted to induce compliance with this demand were very unworthy of a great nation (could they be imputed to them), and calculated to excite disgust and indignation in Americans generally, and alienation in the republicans particularly, whom they so far mistake, as to presume an attachment to France and hatred to the federal party, and not the love of their country, to be their first passion. No difficulty was expressed towards an adjustment of all differences and misunderstandings, or even ultimately a payment for spoliations, if the insult from our executive should be first wiped away. Observe, that I state all this from only a single hearing of the papers, and therefore it may not be rigorously correct. The little slanderous imputation before mentioned, has been the bait which hurried the opposite party into this publication. The first impressions with the people will be disagreeable, but the last and permanent one will be, that the speech in May is now the only obstacle to accommodation, and the real cause of war, if war takes place. And how much will be added to this by the speech of November, is yet to be learned. It is evident however, on reflection, that these papers do not offer one motive the more for our going to war. Yet such is their effect on the minds of wavering characters, that I fear, that, to wipe off the imputation of being French partisans, they will go over to the war measures so furiously pushed by the other party. It seems, indeed, as if they were afraid they should not be able to get into war till Great Britain shall be blown up, and the prudence of our countrymen from that circumstance, have, influence enough to prevent it. The most artful misrepresentations of the contents of these papers were published yesterday, and produced such a shock in the republican mind, as had never been seen since our independence. We are to dread the effects of this dismay till their fuller information. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXXI. TO JAMES MADISON, April 12, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, April 12, 1798.
Dear Sir, I wrote you two letters on the 5th and 6th instant; since which I have received yours of the 2nd. I send you, in a separate package, the instructions to our Envoys and their communications. You will find that my representation of their contents from memory, was substantially just. The public mind appears still in a state of astonishment. There never was a moment in which the aid of an able pen was so important to place things in their just attitude. On this depend the inchoate movement in the eastern mind, and the fate of the elections in that quarter, now beginning and to continue through the summer. I would not propose to you such a task on any ordinary occasion. But be assured that a well digested analysis of these papers would now decide the future turn of things, which are at this moment on the creen. The merchants here are meeting under the auspices of Fitzsimmons, to address the President and approve his propositions. Nothing will be spared on that side. Sprigg’s first resolution against the expediency of war, proper at the time it was moved, is now postponed as improper, because to declare that, after we have understood it has been proposed to us to try peace, would imply an acquiescence under that proposition. All. therefore, which the advocates of peace can now attempt, is to prevent war measures externally, consenting to every rational measure of internal defence and preparation. Great expenses will be incurred; and it will be left to those whose measures render them necessary, to provide to meet them. They already talk of stopping all payments of interest, and of a land-tax. These will probably not be opposed. The only question will be, how to modify the land-tax. On this there may be a great diversity of sentiment. One party will want to make it a new source of patronage and expense. If this business is taken up, it will lengthen our session. We had pretty generally, till now, fixed on the beginning of May for adjournment. I shall return by my usual routes, and not by the Eastern-shore, on account of the advance of the season. Friendly salutations to Mrs. Madison and yourself. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXXII. TO JAMES MADISON, April 26, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON,
Philadelphia, April 26, 1798.
Dear Sir,
*****
The bill for the naval armament (twelve vessels) passed by a majority of about four to three in the House of Representatives: all restrictions on the objects for which the vessels should be used were struck out. The bill for establishing a department of Secretary of the Navy was tried yesterday, on its passage to the third reading, and prevailed by forty-seven against forty-one. It will be read the third time to-day. The provisional army of twenty thousand men will meet some difficulty. It would surely be rejected if our members were all here. Giles, Clopton, Cabell, and Nicholas have gone, and Clay goes to-morrow. He received here news of the death of his wife. Parker has completely gone over to the war-party. In this state of things they will carry what they please. One of the war-party, in a fit of unguarded passion, declared some time ago they would pass a citizen-bill, an alien-bill, and a sedition-bill: accordingly, some days ago, Coit laid a motion on the table of the House of Representatives for modifying the citizen-law. Their threats pointed at Gallatin, and it is believed they will endeavor to reach him by this bill. Yesterday Mr. Hillhouse laid on the table of the Senate a motion for giving power to send away suspected aliens. This is understood to be meant for Volney and Collot. But it will not stop there when it gets into a course of execution. There is now only wanting, to accomplish the whole declaration before mentioned, a sedition-bill, which we shall certainly soon see proposed. The object of that, is the suppression of the whig presses. Bache’s has been particularly named. That paper and also Carey’s totter for want of subscriptions. We should really exert ourselves to procure them, for if these papers fall, republicanism will be entirely brow-beaten. Carey’s paper comes out three times a week, at five dollars. The meeting of the people which was called at New York, did nothing. It was found that the majority would be against the address. They therefore chose to circulate it individually. The committee of Ways and Means have voted a land-tax. An additional tax on salt will certainly be proposed in the House, and probably prevail to some degree. The stoppage of interest on the public debt will also, perhaps, be proposed, but not with effect. In the mean time, that paper cannot be sold. Hamilton is coming on as Senator from New York. There have been so much contrivance and combination in that, as to show there is some great object in hand. Troup, the district judge of New York, resigns towards the close of the session of their Assembly. The appointment of Mr. Hobart, then Senator, to succeed Troup, is not made by the President till after the Assembly had risen. Otherwise, they would have chosen the Senator in place of Hobart. Jay then names Hamilton Senator, but not till a day or two before his own election as Governor was to come on, lest the unpopularity of the nomination should be in time to affect his own election. We shall see in what all this is to end; but surely in something. The popular movement in the Eastern States is checked, as we expected, and war addresses are showering in from New Jersey and the great trading towns. However, we still trust that a nearer view of war and a land-tax will oblige the great mass of the people to attend. At present, the war-hawks talk of septembrizing, deportation, and the examples for quelling sedition set by the French executive. All the firmness of the human mind is now in a state of requisition.
Salutations to Mrs. Madison; and to yourself, friendship and adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXXIII. TO JAMES MADISON, May 3, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, May 3, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 26th; since which yours of the 22nd of April has been received, acknowledging mine of the 12th; so that all appear to have been received to that date. The spirit kindled up in the towns is wonderful. These and New Jersey are pouring in their addresses, offering life and fortune. Even these addresses are not the worst things. For indiscreet declarations and expressions of passion may be pardoned to a multitude acting from the impulse of the moment. But we cannot expect a foreign nation to show that apathy to the answers of the President, which are more thrasonic than the addresses. Whatever chance for peace might have been left us after the publication of the despatches, is completely lost by these answers. Nor is it France alone, but his own fellow-citizens, against whom his threats are uttered. In Fenno, of yesterday, you will see one, wherein he says to the address from Newark, ‘The delusions and misrepresentations which have misled so many citizens, must be discountenanced by authority as well as by the citizens at large’; evidently alluding to those letters from the Representatives to their constituents, which they have been in the habit of seeking after and publishing: while those sent by the tory part of the House to their constituents, are ten times more numerous, and replete with the most atrocious falsehoods and calumnies. What new law they will propose on this subject, has not yet leaked out. The citizen-bill sleeps. The alien-bill, proposed by the Senate, has not yet been brought in. That proposed by the House of Representatives has been so moderated, that it will not answer the passionate purposes of the war gentlemen. Whether, therefore, the Senate will push their bolder plan, I know not. The provisional army does not go down so smoothly in the House as it did in the Senate. They are whittling away some of its choice ingredients; particularly that of transferring their own constitutional discretion over the raising of armies to the President. A committee of the Representatives have struck out his discretion, and hang the raising of the men on the contingencies of invasion, insurrection, or declaration of war. Were all our members here, the bill would not pass. But it will, probably, as the House now is. Its expense is differently estimated, from five to eight millions of dollars a year. Their purposes before voted, require two millions above all the other taxes, which, therefore, are voted to be raised on lands, houses, and slaves. The provisional army will be additional to this. The threatening appearances from the alien-bills have so alarmed the French who are among us, that they are going off. A ship, chartered by themselves for this purpose, will sail within about a fortnight for France, with as many as she can carry. Among these I believe will be Volney, who has in truth been the principal object aimed at by the law.
Notwithstanding the unfavorableness of the late impressions, it is believed the New York elections, which are over, will give us two or three republicans more than we now have. But it is supposed Jay is re-elected. It is said Hamilton declines coming to the Senate. He very soon stopped his Marcellus. It was rather the sequel which was feared than what actually appeared. He comes out on a different plan in his Titus Manlius, if that be really his. The appointments to the Mississippi were so abominable that the Senate could not swallow them. They referred them to a committee to inquire into characters, and the President withdrew the nomination.
*****
As there is nothing material now to be proposed, we generally expect to rise in about three weeks. However, I do not venture to order my horses.
My respectful salutations to Mrs. Madison. To yourself affectionate friendship, and adieu,
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. Perhaps the President’s expression before quoted, may look to the sedition-bill which has been spoken of, and which may be meant to put the printing-presses under the imprimatur of the executive. Bache is thought a main object of it. Cabot, of Massachusetts, is appointed Secretary of the Navy. T. J.
CCXXXIV. TO JAMES LEWIS, JUNIOR, May 9, 1798
TO JAMES LEWIS, JUNIOR.
Philadelphia, May 9, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I am much obliged by your friendly letter of the 4th instant. As soon as I saw the first of Mr. Martin’s letters, I turned to the newspapers of the day, and found Logan’s speech, as translated by a common Indian interpreter. The version I had used, had been made by General Gibson. Finding from Mr. Martin’s style, that his object was not merely truth, but to gratify party passions, I never read another of his letters. I determined to do my duty by searching into the truth, and publishing it to the world, whatever it should be. This I shall do at a proper season. I am much indebted to many persons, who, without any acquaintance with me, have voluntarily sent me information on the subject. Party passions are indeed high. Nobody has more reason to know it than myself. I receive daily bitter proofs of it from people who never saw me, nor know any thing of me but through Porcupine and Fenno. At this moment all the passions are boiling over, and one who keeps himself cool and clear of the contagion, is so far below the point of ordinary conversation, that he finds himself insulated in every society. However, the fever will not last. War, land-tax, and stamp-tax are sedatives which must cool its ardor. They will bring on reflection, and that, with information, is all which our countrymen need, to bring themselves and their affairs to rights. They are essentially republicans. They retain unadulterated the principles of ‘75, and those who are conscious of no change in themselves have nothing to fear in the long run. It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war: but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it. In that, I have no doubt, we shall act as one man. But if we can ward off actual war till the crisis of England is over, I shall hope we may escape it altogether.
I am, with much esteem, Dear Sir, your must obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXXV. TO JAMES MADISON, May 31, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, May 31, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 24th; since which yours of the 20th has been received. I must begin by correcting two errors in my last. It was false arithmetic to say, that two measures therein mentioned to have been carried by majorities of eleven, would have failed if the fourteen absentees (wherein a majority of six is ours) had been present. Six coming over from the other side would have turned the scale, and this was the idea floating in my mind, which produced the mistake. The second error was in the version of Mr. Adams’s expression, which I stated to you. His real expression was, ‘that he would not unbrace a single nerve for any treaty France could offer; such was their entire want of faith, morality, &c.’
The bill from the Senate for capturing French armed vessels found hovering on our coast, was passed in two days by the lower House, without a single alteration; and the Ganges, a twenty-gun sloop, fell down the river instantly to go on a cruise. She has since been ordered to New York, to convoy a vessel from that to this port. The alien-bill will be ready to-day, probably, for its third reading in the Senate. It has been considerably modified, particularly by a proviso saving the rights of treaties. Still, it is a most detestable thing. I was glad, in yesterday’s discussion, to hear it admitted on all hands, that laws of the United States, subsequent to a treaty, control its operation, and that the legislature is the only power which can control a treaty. Both points are sound beyond doubt. This bill will unquestionably pass the House of Representatives; the majority there being very decisive, consolidated, and bold enough to do any thing. I have no doubt from the hints dropped, they will pass a bill to declare the French treaty void. I question if they will think a declaration of war prudent, as it might alarm, and all its effects are answered by the act authorizing captures. A bill is brought in for suspending all communication with the dominions of France, which will no doubt pass. It is suspected they mean to borrow money of individuals in London, on the credit of our land-tax, and perhaps the guarantee of Great Britain. The land-tax was yesterday debated, and a majority of six struck out the thirteenth section of the classification of houses, and taxed them by a different scale from the lands. Instead of this, is to be proposed a valuation of the houses and lands together. Macon yesterday laid a motion on the table for adjourning on the 14th. Some think they do not mean to adjourn; others, that they wait first the return of the Envoys, for whom it is now avowed the brig Sophia was sent. It is expected she would bring them off about the middle of this month. They may, therefore, be expected here about the second week of July. Whatever be their decision as to adjournment, I think it probable my next letter will convey orders for my horses, and that I shall leave this place from the 20th to the 25th of June: for I have no expectation they will actually adjourn sooner. Volney and a ship-load of others sail on Sunday next. Another ship-load will go off in about three weeks. It is natural to expect they go under irritations calculated to fan the flame. Not so Volney. He is most thoroughly impressed with the importance of preventing war, whether considered with reference to the interests of the two countries, of the cause of republicanism, or of man on the broad scale. But an eagerness to render this prevention impossible, leaves me without any hope. Some of those who have insisted that it was long since war on the part of France, are candid enough to admit that it is now begun on our part also. I enclose for your perusal a poem on the alien-bill, written by Mr. Marshall. I do this, as well for your amusement, as to get you to take care of this copy for me till I return; for it will be lost by lending it, if I retain it here, as the publication was suppressed after the sale of a few copies, of which I was fortunate enough to get one. Your locks hinges, &c. shall be immediately attended to.
My respectful salutations and friendship to Mrs. Madison, to the family, and to yourself. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. The President, it is said, has refused an Exequatur to the Consul General of France, Dupont. T. J.
CCXXXVI. TO JOHN TAYLOR, June 1, 1798
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JOHN TAYLOR.
Philadelphia, June 1, 1798.
*****
Mr. New showed me your letter on the subject of the patent, which gave me an opportunity of observing what you said as to the effect, with you, of public proceedings, and that it was not unwise now to estimate the separate mass of Virginia and North Carolina, with a view to their separate existence. It is true that we are completely under the saddle of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings, as well as exhausting our strength and subsistence. Their natural friends, the three other eastern States, join them from a sort of family pride, and they have the art to divide certain other parts of the Union so as to make use of them to govern the whole. This is not new, it is the old practice of despots; to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have once got an ascendency, and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage. But our present situation is not a natural one. The republicans, through every part of the Union, say, that it was the irresistible influence and popularity of General Washington played off by the cunning of Hamilton, which turned the government over to anti-republican hands, or turned the republicans chosen by the people into anti-republicans. He delivered it over to his successor in this state, and very untoward events since, improved with great artifice, have produced on the public mind the impressions we see. But still I repeat it, this is not the natural state. Time alone would bring round an order of things more correspondent to the sentiments of our constituents. But are there no events impending, which will do it within a few months? The crisis with England, the public and authentic avowal of sentiments hostile to the leading principles of our constitution, the prospect of a war, in which we shall stand alone, land-tax, stamp-tax, increase of public debt, &c. Be this as it may, in every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. Perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch and delate to the people the proceedings of the other. But if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no federal government can ever exist. If to rid ourselves of the present rule of Massachusetts and Connecticut, we break the Union, will the evil stop there? Suppose the New England States alone cut off, will our natures be changed? Are we not men still to the south of that, and with all the passions of men? Immediately, we shall see a Pennsylvania and a Virginia party arise in the residuary confederacy, and the public mind will be distracted with the same party-spirit. What a game too will the one party have in their hands, by eternally threatening the other, that unless they do so and so, they will join their northern neighbors. If we reduce our Union to Virginia and North Carolina, immediately the conflict will be established between the representatives of these two States, and they will end by breaking into their simple units. Seeing, therefore, that an association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town-meeting or a vestry; seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel with, I had rather keep our New England associates for that purpose, than to see our bickerings transferred to others. They are circumscribed within such narrow limits, and their population so full, that their numbers will ever be the minority, and they are marked, like the Jews, with such a perversity of character, as to constitute, from that circumstance, the natural division of our parties. A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, restoring their government to its true principles. It is true, that in the mean time, we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war, and long oppressions of enormous public debt. But who can say what would be the evils of a scission, and when and where they would end? Better keep together as we are, haul off from Europe as soon as we can, and from all attachments to any portions of it; and if they show their powers just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost For this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all, and health, happiness, and friendly salutations to yourself. Adieu.
P. S. It is hardly necessary to caution you to let nothing of mine get before the public; a single sentence got hold of by the Porcupines, will suffice to abuse and persecute me in their papers for months. T. J.
CCXXXVII. TO GENERAL KOSCIUSKO, June 1, 1798
TO GENERAL KOSCIUSKO.
Philadelphia, June 1, 1798.
Dear Sir,
Mr. Volney’s departure for France gives me an opportunity of writing to you. I was happy in observing, for many days after your departure, that our winds were favorable for you. I hope, therefore, you quickly passed the cruising grounds on our coast, and have safely arrived at the term of your journey. Your departure is not yet known, or even suspected.* Niemsevioz was much affected. He is now at the federal city. He desired me to have some things taken care of for you. There were some kitchen furniture, backgammon table, and chess men, and a pelisse of fine fur. The latter I have taken to my own apartment and had packed in hops, and sewed up; the former are put into a warehouse of Mr. Barnes; all subject to your future orders. Some letters came for you soon after your departure: the person who delivered them said there were enclosed in them some for your friend whom you left here, and desired I would open them. I did so in his presence, found only one letter for your friend, took it out and sealed the letters again in the presence of the same person, without reading a word or looking who they were from. I now forward them to you, as I do this to my friend.
[* Shortly before, Mr. Jefferson had obtained passports for General Kosciusko, under an assumed name, from the foreign ministers in this country. The annexed is the note addressed to Mr. Liston, soliciting one from him.
‘Thomas Jefferson presents his respects to Mr. Liston, and asks the favor of the passport for his friend Thomas Kanberg, of whom he spoke to him yesterday. He is a native of the north of Europe (perhaps of Germany), has been known to Thomas Jefferson these twenty years in America, is of a most excellent character, stands in no relation whatever to any of the belligerent powers, as to whom Thomas Jefferson is not afraid to be responsible for his political innocence, as he goes merely for his private affairs. He will sail from Baltimore, if he finds there a good opportunity for France; and if not, he wi I come on here. March 27, 1798.’]
Jacob Van Staphorst at Paris. Our alien-bill struggles hard for a passage. It has been considerably mollified. It is not yet through the Senate. We are proceeding further and further in war-measures. I consider that event as almost inevitable. I am extremely anxious to hear from you, to know what sort of a passage you had, how you find yourself and the state and prospect of things in Europe. I hope I shall not be long without hearing from you. The first dividend which will be drawn for you and remitted, will be in January, and as the winter passages are dangerous, it will not be forwarded till April: after that, regularly, from six months to six months. This will be done by Mr. Barnes. I shall leave this place in three weeks. The times do not permit an indulgence in political disquisitions. But they forbid not the effusion of friendship, and not my warmest towards you, which no time will alter. Your principles and dispositions were made to be honored, revered, and loved. True to a single object, the freedom and happiness of man, they have not veered about with the changelings and apostates of our acquaintance. May health and happiness ever attend you. Accept sincere assurances of my affectionate esteem and respect. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXXXVIII. TO JAMES MADISON, June 21, 1798
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, June 21, 1798.
Dear Sir,
Yours of the 10th instant is received. I expected mine of the 14th would have been my last from hence, as I had proposed to set out on the 20th; but on the morning of the 19th, we heard of the arrival of Marshall at New York, and I concluded to stay and see whether that circumstance would produce any new projects. No doubt he there received more than hints from Hamilton as to the tone required to be assumed. Yet I apprehend he is not hot enough for his friends. Livingston came with him from New York. Marshall told him they had no idea in France of a war with us. That Talleyrand sent passports to him and Pinckney, but none for Gerry. Upon this, Gerry stayed, without explaining to them the reason. He wrote, however, to the President by Marshall, who knew nothing of the contents of the letter. So that there must have been a previous understanding between Talleyrand and Gerry. Marshall was received here with the utmost eclat. The Secretary of State and many carriages, with all the city cavalry, went to Frankfort to meet him, and on his arrival here in the evening, the bells rung till late in the night, and immense crowds were collected to see and make part of the show, which was circuitously paraded through the streets before he was set down at the City tavern. All this was to secure him to their views, that he might say nothing which would oppose the game they have been playing. Since his arrival I can hear of nothing directly from him, while they are disseminating through the town, things, as from him, diametrically opposite to what he said to Livingston. Doctor Logan, about a fortnight ago, sailed for Hamburgh. Though for a twelvemonth past he had been intending to go to Europe as soon as he could get money enough to carry him there, yet when he had accomplished this, and fixed a time for going, he very unwisely made a mystery of it; so that his disappearance without notice excited conversation. This was seized by the war-hawks, and given out as a secret mission from the Jacobins here to solicit an army from France, instruct them as to their landing, he. This extravagance produced a real panic among the citizens; and happening just when Bache published Talleyrand’s letter, Harper, on the 18th, gravely announced to the House of Representatives, that there existed a traitorous correspondence between the Jacobins here and the French Directory; that he had got hold of some threads and clues of it, and would soon be able to develope the whole. This increased the alarm; their libelists immediately set to work, directly and indirectly to implicate whom they pleased. Porcupine gave me a principal share in it, as I am told, for I never read his papers. This state of things added to my reasons for not departing at the time I intended. These follies seem to have died away in some degree already. Perhaps I may renew my purpose by the 25th. Their system is, professedly, to keep up an alarm. Tracy, at the meeting of the joint committee for adjournment, declared it necessary for Congress to stay together to keep up the inflammation of the public mind; and Otis has expressed a similar sentiment since. However, they will adjourn. The opposers of an adjournment in Senate, yesterday agreed to adjourn on the 10th of July. But I think the 1st of July will be carried. That is one of the objects which detain myself, as well as one or two more of the Senate, who had got leave of absence. I imagine it will be decided tomorrow or next day. To separate Congress now, will be withdrawing the fire from under a boiling pot.
My respectful salutations to Mrs. Madison, and cordial friendship to yourself.
Th: Jefferson.
P.M. A message to both Houses this day from the President, with the following communications.
March 23. Pickering’s letter to the Envoys, directing them, if they are not actually engaged in negotiation with authorized persons, or if it is not conducted bonâ fide, and not merely for procrastination, to break up and come home, and at any rate to consent to no loan.
April 3. Talleyrand to Gerry. He supposes the other two gentlemen, perceiving that their known principles are an obstacle to negotiation, will leave the republic, and proposes to renew the negotiations with Gerry immediately.
April 4. Gerry to Talleyrand. Disclaims a power to conclude any thing separately, can only confer informally and as an unaccredited person or individual, reserving to lay every thing before the government of the United States for approbation.
April 14. Gerry to the President. He communicates the preceding, and hopes the President will send other persons instead of his colleagues and himself, if it shall appear that any thing can be done.
The President’s message says, that as the instructions were not to consent to any loan, he considers the negotiation as at an end, and that he will never send another minister to France, until he shall be assured that he will be received and treated with the respect due to a great, powerful, free, and independent nation.
A bill was brought into the Senate this day, to declare the treaties with France void, prefaced by a list of grievances in the style of a manifesto. It passed to the second reading by fourteen to five.
A bill for punishing forgeries of bank-paper passed to the third reading by fourteen to six. Three of the fourteen (Laurence, Bingham, and Read) bank directors.
CCXXXIX. TO SAMUEL SMITH, August 22, 1798
TO SAMUEL SMITH.
Monticello, August 22, 1798.
Dear Sir,
Your favor of August the 4th came to hand by our last post, together with the ‘extract of a letter from a gentleman of Philadelphia, dated July the 10th,’ cut from a newspaper, stating some facts which respect me. I shall notice these facts. The writer says, that ‘the day after the last despatches were communicated to Congress, Bache, Leib, &c, and a Dr. Reynolds, were closeted with me.’ If the receipt of visits in my public room, the door continuing free to every one who should call at the same time, may be called closeting, then it is true that I was closeted with every person who visited me; in no other sense is it true as to any person. I sometimes received visits from Mr. Bache and Dr. Leib. I received them always with pleasure, because they are men of abilities, and of principles the most friendly to liberty and our present form of government. Mr. Bache has another claim on my respect, as being the grandson of Dr. Franklin, the greatest man and ornament of the age and country in which he lived. Whether I was visited by Mr. Bache or Dr. Leib the day after the communication referred to, I do not remember. I know that all my motions at Philadelphia, here, and every where, are watched and recorded. Some of these spies, therefore, may remember, better than I do, the dates of these visits. If they say these two gentlemen visited me the day after the communication, as their trade proves their accuracy, I shall not contradict them, though I affirm that I do not recollect it. However, as to Dr. Reynolds, I can be more particular, because I never saw him but once, which was on an introductory visit he was so kind as to pay me. This, I well remember, was before the communication alluded to, and that during the short conversation I had with him, not one word was said on the subject of any of the communications. Not that I should not have spoken freely on their subject to Dr. Reynolds, as I should also have done to the letter-writer, or to any other person who should have introduced the subject. I know my own principles to be pure, and therefore am not ashamed of them. On the contrary, I wish them known, and therefore willingly express them to every one. They are the same I have acted on from the year 1775 to this day, and are the same, I am sure, with those of the great body of the American people. I only wish the real principles of those who censure mine were also known. But warring against those of the people, the delusion of the people is necessary to the dominant party. I see the extent to which that delusion has been already carried, and I see there is no length to which it may not be pushed by a party in possession of the revenues and the legal authorities of the United States, for a short time indeed, but yet long enough to admit much particular mischief. There is no event, therefore, however atrocious, which may not be expected. I have contemplated every event which the Maratists of the day can perpetrate, and am prepared to meet every one in such a way, as shall not be derogatory either to the public liberty or my own personal honor. This letter-writer says, I am ‘for peace; but it is only with France.’ He has told half the truth. He would have told the whole, if he had added England. I am for peace with both countries. I know that both of them have given, and are daily giving, sufficient cause of war; that in defiance of the laws of nations, they are every day trampling on the rights of the neutral powers, whenever they can thereby do the least injury, either to the other. But, as I view a peace between France and England the ensuing winter to be certain, I have thought it would have been better for us to have continued to bear from France through the present summer, what we have been bearing both from her and England these four years, and still continue to bear from England, and to have required indemnification in the hour of peace, when I verily believe it would have been yielded by both. This seems to be the plan of the other neutral nations; and whether this, or the commencing war on one of them, as we have done, would have been wisest, time and events must decide. But I am quite at a loss on what ground the letter-writer can question the opinion, that France had no intention of making war on us, and was willing to treat with Mr. Gerry, when we have this from Talleyrand’s letter, and from the written and verbal information of our Envoys. It is true then, that, as with England, we might of right have chosen either war or peace, and have chosen peace, and prudently in my opinion, so with France, we might also of right have chosen either peace or war, and we have chosen war. Whether the choice may be a popular one in the other States, I know not. Here it certainly is not; and I have no doubt the whole American people will rally ere long to the same sentiment, and re-judge those, who, at present, think they have all judgment in their own hands.
These observations will show you how far the imputations in the paragraph sent me approach the truth. Yet they are not intended for a newspaper. At a very early period of my life, I determined never to put a sentence into any newspaper. I have religiously adhered to the resolution through my life, and have great reason to be contented with it. Were I to undertake to answer the calumnies of the newspapers, it would be more than all my own time and that of twenty aids could effect. For while I should be answering one, twenty new ones would be invented. I have thought it better to trust to the justice of my countrymen, that they would judge me by what they see of my conduct on the stage where they have placed me, and what they knew of me before the epoch, since which a particular party has supposed it might answer some view of theirs to vilify me in the public eye. Some, I know, will not reflect how apocryphal is the testimony of enemies so palpably betraying the views with which they give it. But this is an injury to which duty requires every one to submit whom the public think proper to call into its councils. I thank you, my dear Sir, for the interest you have for me on this occasion. Though I have made up my mind not to suffer calumny to disturb my tranquillity, yet I retain all my sensibilities for the approbation of the good and just. That is, indeed, the chief consolation for the hatred of so many, who, without the least personal knowledge, and on the sacred evidence of Porcupine and Fenno alone, cover me with their implacable hatred. The only return I will ever make them, will be to do them all the good I can, in spite of their teeth.
I have the pleasure to inform you that all your friends in this quarter are well, and to assure you of the sentiments of sincere esteem and respect with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXL. TO A. H. ROWAN, September 26, 1798
TO A. H. ROWAN.
Monticello, September 26, 1798.
Sir,
To avoid the suspicions and curiosity of the post-office, which would have been excited by seeing your name and mine on the back of a letter, I have delayed acknowledging the receipt of your favor of July last, till an occasion to write to an inhabitant of Wilmington gives me an opportunity of putting my letter under cover to him. The system of alarm and jealousy which has been so powerfully played off in England, has been mimicked here, not entirely without success. The most long-sighted politician could not, seven years ago, have imagined that the people of this wide extended country could have been enveloped in such delusion, and made so much afraid of themselves and their own power, as to surrender it spontaneously to those who are manoeuvring them into a form of government, the principal branches of which may be beyond their control. The commerce of England, however, has spread its roots over the whole face of our country. This is the real source of all the obliquities of the public mind: and I should have had doubts of the ultimate term they might attain; but happily, the game, to be worth the playing of those engaged in it, must flush them with money. The authorized expenses of this year are beyond those of any year in the late war for independence, and they are of a nature to beget great and constant expenses. The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. It is to be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ. In this State, however, the delusion has not prevailed. They are sufficiently on their guard to have justified the assurance, that should you choose it for your asylum, the laws of the land, administered by upright judges, would protect you from any exercise of power unauthorized by the constitution of the United States. The habeas corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against every thing which is not law, whatever shape it may assume. Should this, or any other circumstance, draw your footsteps this way, I shall be happy to be among those who may have an opportunity of testifying, by every attention in our power, the sentiments of esteem and respect which the circumstances of your history have inspired, and which are peculiarly felt by, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXLI. TO STEPHENS THOMPSON MASON, October 11, 1798
TO STEPHENS THOMPSON MASON.
Monticello, October 11, 1798.
Dear Sir,
I have to thank you for your favor of July the 6th, from Philadelphia. I did not immediately acknowledge it, because I knew you would have come away. The X. Y. Z. fever has considerably abated through the country, as I am informed, and the alien and sedition laws are working hard. I fancy that some of the State legislatures will take strong ground on this occasion. For my own part, I consider those laws as merely an experiment on the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the constitution. If this goes down, we shall immediately see attempted another act of Congress, declaring that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, and the establishment of the Senate for life. At least, this may be the aim of the Oliverians, while Monk and the Cavaliers (who are perhaps the strongest) may be playing their game for the restoration of his Most Gracious Majesty George the Third. That these things are in contemplation, I have no doubt; nor can I be confident of their failure, after the dupery of which our countrymen have shown themselves susceptible.
You promised to endeavor to send me some tenants. I am waiting for them, having broken up two excellent farms with twelve fields in them of forty acres each, some of which I have sowed with small grain. Tenants of any size may be accommodated with the number of fields suited to their force. Only send me good people, and write me what they are. Adieu.
Yours affectionately,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXLII. TO JOHN TAYLOR, November 26, 1798
TO JOHN TAYLOR.
Monticello, November 26, 1798,
Dear Sir,
We formerly had a debtor and creditor account of letters on farming: but the high price of tobacco, which is likely to continue for some short time, has tempted me to go entirely into that culture, and in the mean time, my farming schemes are in abeyance, and my farming fields at nurse against the time of my resuming them. But I owe you a political letter. Yet the infidelities of the post-office and the circumstances of the times are against my writing fully and freely, whilst my own dispositions are as much against mysteries, innuendoes, and half confidences. I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things. Yet Lyon’s judges, and a jury of all nations, are objects of national fear. We agree in all the essential ideas of your letter. We agree particularly in the necessity of some reform, and of some better security for civil liberty. But perhaps we do not see the existing circumstances in the same point of view. There are many considerations dehors of the State, which will occur to you without enumeration. I should not apprehend them, if all was sound within. But there is a most respectable part of our State who have been enveloped in the X. Y. Z. delusion, and who destroy our unanimity for the present moment. This disease of the imagination will pass over, because the patients are essentially republicans. Indeed, the Doctor is now on his way to cure it, in the guise of a tax-gatherer. But give time for the medicine to work, and for the repetition of stronger doses, which must be administered. The principle of the present majority is excessive expense, money enough to fill all their maws, or it will not be worth the risk of their supporting. They cannot borrow a dollar in Europe, or above two or three millions in America. This is not the fourth of the expenses of this year, unprovided for. Paper money would be perilous even to the paper men. Nothing then but excessive taxation can get us along: and this will carry reason and reflection to every man’s door, and particularly in the hour of election.
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or any thing else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year, would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars would be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas. For the present, I should be for resolving the alien and sedition laws to be against the constitution and merely void, and for addressing the other States to obtain similar declarations; and I would not do any thing at this moment which should commit us further, but reserve ourselves to shape our future measures or no measures, by the events which may happen. It is a singular phenomenon, that while our State governments are the very best in the world, without exception or comparison, our General Government has, in the rapid course of nine or ten years, become more arbitrary, and has swallowed more of the public liberty, than even that of England. I enclose you a column, cut out of a London paper, to show you that the English, though charmed with our making their enemies our enemies, yet blush and weep over our sedition-law. But I enclose you something more important. It is a petition for a reformation in the manner of appointing our juries, and a remedy against the jury of all nations, which is handing about here for signature, and will be presented to your House. I know it will require but little ingenuity to make objections to the details of its execution; but do not be discouraged by small difficulties; make it as perfect as you can at a first essay, and depend on amending its defects as they develope themselves in practice. I hope it will meet with your approbation and patronage. It is the only thing which can yield us a little present protection against the dominion of a faction, while circumstances are maturing for bringing and keeping the government in real unison with the spirit of their constituents. I am aware that the act of Congress has directed that juries shall be appointed by lot or otherwise, as the laws now (at the date of the act) in force in the several States provide. The New England States have always had them elected by their selectmen, who are elected by the people. Several or most of the other States have a large number appointed (I do not know how) to attend, out of whom twelve for each cause are taken by lot. This provision of Congress will render it necessary for our Senators or Delegates to apply for an amendatory law, accommodated to that prayed for in the petition. In the mean time, I would pass the law as if the amendatory one existed, in reliance, that our select jurors attending, the federal judge will under a sense of right direct the juries to be taken from among them. If he does not, or if Congress refuses to pass the amendatory law, it will serve as eye-water for their constituents. Health, happiness, safety, and esteem to yourself and my ever honored and ancient friend Mr. Pendleton. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXLIII. TO JAMES MADISON, January 3, 1799
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, January 3, 1799.
Dear Sir,
I have suffered the post hour to come so nearly on me, that I must huddle over what I have more than appears in the public papers. I arrived here on Christmas day, not a single bill or other article of business having yet been brought into Senate. The President’s speech, so unlike himself in point of moderation, is supposed to have been written by the military conclave, and particularly Hamilton. When the Senate gratuitously hint Logan to him, you see him in his reply come out in his genuine colors. The debates on that subject and Logan’s declaration you will see in the papers. The republican spirit is supposed to be gaining ground in this State and Massachusetts. The tax-gatherer has already excited discontent. Gerry’s correspondence with Talleyrand, promised by the President at the opening of the session, is still kept back. It is known to show France in a very conciliatory attitude, and to contradict some executive assertions. Therefore, it is supposed they will get their war measures well taken before they will produce this damper. Vans Murray writes them, that the French government is sincere in their overtures for reconciliation, and have agreed, if these fail, to admit the mediation offered by the Dutch government.
*****
General Knox has become bankrupt for four hundred thousand dollars, and has resigned his military commission. He took in General Lincoln for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which breaks him. Colonel Jackson also sunk with him. It seems generally admitted, that several cases of the yellow fever still exist in the city, and the apprehension is, that it will re-appear early in the spring. You promised me a copy of McGee’s bill of prices. Be so good as to send it on to me here. Tell Mrs. Madison her friend Madame d’Yrujo is as well as one can be so near to a formidable crisis. Present my friendly respects to her, and accept yourself my sincere and affectionate salutations. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
P.S. I omitted to mention that a petition has been presented to the President, signed by several thousand persons in Vermont, praying a remitment of Lyon’s fine. He asked the bearer of the petition if Lyon himself had petitioned, and being answered in the negative, said, ‘Penitence must precede pardon.’ T.J.
CCXLIV. TO JAMES MADISON, January 16, 1799
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, January 16, 1799.
Dear Sir,
The forgery lately attempted to be played off by Mr. H. on the House of Representatives, of a pretended memorial presented by Logan to the French government, has been so palpably exposed, as to have thrown ridicule on the whole of the clamors they endeavored to raise as to that transaction. Still, however, their majority will pass the bill. The real views in the importance they have given to Logan’s enterprise are mistaken by nobody. Mr. Gerry’s communications relative to his transactions after the departure of his colleagues, though he has now been returned five months, and they have been promised to the House six or seven weeks, are still kept back. In the mean time, the paper of this morning promises them from the Paris papers. It is said, they leave not a possibility to doubt the sincerity and the anxiety of the French government to avoid the spectacle of a war with us. Notwithstanding this is well understood, the army and a great addition to our navy are steadily intended. A loan of five millions is opened at eight per cent. interest!
*****
In a society of members, between whom and yourself are great mutual esteem and respect, a most anxious desire is expressed that you would publish your debates of the convention. That these measures of the army, navy, and direct-tax, will bring about a revolution of public sentiment is thought certain and that the constitution will then receive a different explanation. Could those debates be ready to appear critically, their effect would be decisive. I beg of you to turn this subject in your mind. The arguments against it will be personal; those in favor of it moral; and something is required from you as a set-off against the sin of your retirement. Your favor of December the 29th came to hand January the 5th; seal sound. I pray you always to examine the seals of mine to you, and the strength of the impression. The suspicions against the government on this subject are strong. I wrote you January the 5th. Accept for yourself and Mrs. Madison my affectionate salutations. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXLV. TO ELBRIDGE GERRY
TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.
Philadelphia, January 26, 1799.
Mr Dear Sir,
Your favor of November the 12th was safely delivered to me by Mr. Binney; but not till December the 28th, as I arrived here only three days before that date. It was received with great satisfaction. Our very long intimacy as fellow-laborers in the same cause, the recent expressions of mutual confidence which had preceded your mission, the interesting course which that had taken, and particularly and personally as it regarded yourself, made me anxious to hear from you on your return. I was the more so too, as I had myself during the whole of your absence, as well as since your return, been a constant butt for every shaft of calumny which malice and falsehood could form, and the presses, public speakers, or private letters disseminate. One of these, too, was of a nature to touch yourself; as if, wanting confidence in your efforts, I had been capable of usurping powers committed to you, and authorizing negotiations private and collateral to yours. The real truth is, that though Doctor Logan, the pretended missionary, about four or five days before he sailed for Hamburg, told me he was going there, and thence to Paris, and asked and received from me a certificate of his citizenship, character, and circumstances of life, merely as a protection, should he be molested on his journey in the present turbulent and suspicious state of Europe, yet I had been led to consider his object as relative to his private affairs; and though, from an intimacy of some standing, he knew well my wishes for peace and my political sentiments in general, he nevertheless received then no particular declaration of them, no authority to communicate them to any mortal, nor to speak to any one in my name, or in any body’s name, on that, or any other subject whatever; nor did I write by him a scrip of a pen to any person whatever. This he has himself honestly and publicly declared since his return; and from his well known character and every other circumstance, every candid man must perceive that his enterprise was dictated by his own enthusiasm, without consultation or communication with any one; that he acted in Paris on his own ground, and made his own way. Yet to give some color to his proceedings, which might implicate the republicans in general, and myself particularly, they have not been ashamed to bring forward a supposititious paper, drawn by one of their own party in the name of Logan, and falsely pretended to have been presented by him to the government of France; counting that the bare mention of my name therein, would connect that in the eye of the public with this transaction. In confutation of these and all future calumnies, by way of anticipation, I shall make to you a profession of my political faith; in confidence that you will consider every future imputation on me of a contrary complexion, as bearing on its front the mark of falsehood and calumny.
I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation of our present federal constitution, according to the true sense in which it was adopted by the States, that in which it was advocated by its friends, and not that which its enemies apprehended, who, therefore, became its enemies: and I am opposed to the monarchizing its features by the forms of its administration, with a view to conciliate a first transition to a President and Senate for life, and from that to an hereditary tenure of these offices, and thus to worm out the elective principle. I am for preserving to the States the powers not yielded by them to the Union, and to the legislature of the Union its constitutional share, in the division of powers; and I am not for transferring all the powers of the States to the General Government, and all those of that government to the executive branch. I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt: and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing. I am for relying, for internal defence, on our militia solely, till actual invasion, and for such a naval force only as may protect our coasts and harbors from such depredations as we have experienced: and not for a standing army in time of peace, which may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy, which, by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens, and sink us under them. I am for free commerce with all nations; political connection with none; and little or no diplomatic establishment. And I am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of Europe; entering that field of slaughter to preserve their balance, or joining in the confederacy of kings to war against the principles of liberty. I am for freedom of religion, and against all manoeuvres to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another: for freedom of the press and against all violations of the constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents. And I am for encouraging the progress of science in all its branches: and not for raising a hue and cry against the sacred name of philosophy; for awing the human mind by stories of raw-head and bloody-bones to a distrust of its own vision, and to repose implicitly on that of others; to go backwards instead of forwards to look for improvement; to believe that government, religion, morality, and every other science were in the highest perfection in ages of the darkest ignorance, and that nothing can ever be devised more perfect than what was established by our forefathers. To these I will add, that I was a sincere well-wisher to the success of the French revolution, and still wish it may end in the establishment of a free and well-ordered republic: but I have not been insensible under the atrocious depredations they have committed on our commerce. The first object of my heart is my own country. In that is embarked my family, my fortune, and my own existence. I have not one farthing of interest, nor one fibre of attachment out of it, nor a single motive of preference of anyone nation to another, but in proportion as they are more or less friendly to us. But though deeply feeling the injuries of France, I did not think war the surest means of redressing them. I did believe, that a mission, sincerely disposed to preserve peace, would obtain for us a peaceable and honorable settlement and retribution; and I appeal to you to say, whether this might not have been obtained, if either of your colleagues had been of the same sentiment with yourself.
These, my friend, are my principles; they are unquestionably the principles of the great body of our fellow-citizens, and I know there is not one of them which is not yours also. In truth, we never differed but on one ground, the funding system; and as, from the moment of its being adopted by the constituted authorities, I became religiously principled in the sacred discharge of it to the uttermost farthing, we are united now even on that single ground of difference.
I turn now to your inquiries. The enclosed paper will answer one of them. But you also ask for such political information as may be possessed by me, and interesting to yourself in regard to your embassy. As a proof of my entire confidence in you, I shall give it fully and candidly. When Pinckney, Marshall, and Dana were nominated to settle our differences with France, it was suspected by many, from what was understood of their dispositions, that their mission would not result in a settlement of differences; but would produce circumstances tending to widen the breach, and to provoke our citizens to consent to a war with that nation, and union with England. Dana’s resignation and your appointment gave the first gleam of hope of a peaceable issue to the mission. For it was believed that you were sincerely disposed to accommodation: and it was not long after your arrival there, before symptoms were observed of that difference of views which had been suspected to exist. In the mean time, however, the aspect of our government towards the French republic had become so ardent, that the people of America generally took the alarm. To the southward, their apprehensions were early excited. In the Eastern States also, they at length began to break out. Meetings were held in many of your towns, and addresses to the government agreed on in opposition to war. The example was spreading like a wild-fire. Other meetings were called in other places, and a general concurrence of sentiment against the apparent inclinations of the government was imminent; when, most critically for the government, the despatches of October the 22nd, prepared by your colleague Marshall, with a view to their being made public, dropped into their laps. It was truly a God-send to them, and they made the most of it. Many thousands of copies were printed and dispersed gratis, at the public expense; and the zealots for war co-operated so heartily, that there were instances of single individuals who printed and dispersed ten or twelve thousand copies at their own expense. The odiousness of the corruption supposed in those papers excited a general and high indignation among the people. Unexperienced in such manoeuvres, they did not permit themselves even to suspect that the turpitude of private swindlers might mingle itself unobserved, and give its own hue to the communications of the French government, of whose participation there was neither proof nor probability. It served, however, for a time, the purpose intended. The people, in many places, gave a loose to the expressions of their warm indignation, and of their honest preference of war to dishonor. The fever was long and successfully kept up, and in the mean time, war measures as ardently crowded. Still, however, as it was known that your colleagues were coming away, and yourself to stay, though disclaiming a separate power to conclude a treaty, it was hoped by the lovers of peace, that a project of treaty would have been prepared, ad referendum, on principles which would have satisfied our citizens, and overawed any bias of the government towards a different policy. But the expedition of the Sophia, and, as was supposed, the suggestions of the person charged with your despatches, and his probable misrepresentations of the real wishes of the American people, prevented these hopes. They had then only to look forward to your return for such information, either through the executive, or from yourself, as might present to our view the other side of the medal. The despatches of October 22nd, 1797, had presented one face. That information, to a certain degree, is now received, and the public will see from your correspondence with Talleyrand, that France, as you testify, ‘was sincere and anxious to obtain a reconciliation, not wishing us to break the British treaty, but only to give her equivalent stipulations; and in general, was disposed to a liberal treaty.’ And they will judge whether Mr. Pickering’s report shows an inflexible determination to believe no declarations the French government can make, nor any opinion which you, judging on the spot and from actual view, can give of their sincerity, and to meet their designs of peace with operations of war. The alien and sedition acts have already operated in the south as powerful sedatives of the X. Y. Z. inflammation. In your quarter, where violations of principle are either less regarded or more concealed, the direct tax is likely to have the same effect, and to excite inquiries into the object of the enormous expenses and taxes we are bringing on. And your information supervening, that we might have a liberal accommodation if we would, there can be little doubt of the reproduction of that general movement which had been changed, for a moment, by the despatches of October the 22nd. And though small checks and stops, like Logan’s pretended embassy, may be thrown in the way, from time to time, and may a little retard its motion, yet the tide is already turned and will sweep before it all the feeble obstacles of art. The unquestionable republicanism of the American mind will break through the mist under which it has been clouded, and will oblige its agents to reform the principles and practices of their administration.
You suppose, that you have been abused by both parties. As far as has come to my knowledge, you are misinformed. I have never seen or heard a sentence of blame uttered against you by the republicans; unless we were so to construe their wishes that you had more boldly co-operated in a project of a treaty, and would more explicitly state, whether there was in your colleagues that flexibility, which persons earnest after peace would have practised. Whether, on the contrary, their demeanor was not cold, reserved, and distant, at least, if not backward; and whether, if they had yielded to those informal conferences which Talleyrand seems to have courted, the liberal accommodation you suppose, might not have been effected, even with their agency. Your fellow-citizens think they have a right to full information, in a case of such great concernment to them. It is their sweat which is to earn all the expenses of the war, and their blood which is to flow in expiation of the causes of it. It may be in your power to save them from these miseries by full communications and unrestrained details, postponing motives of delicacy to those of duty. It rests with you to come forward independently; to make your stand on the high ground of your own character; to disregard calumny, and to be borne above it on the shoulders of your grateful fellow-citizens; or to sink into the humble oblivion to which the federalists (self-called) have secretly condemned you; and even to be happy if they will indulge you with oblivion, while they have beamed on your colleagues meridian splendor. Pardon me, my dear Sir, if my expressions are strong. My feelings are so much more so, that it is with difficulty I reduce them even to the tone I use. If you doubt the dispositions towards you, look into the papers, on both sides, for the toasts which were given throughout the States on the fourth of July. You will there see whose hearts were with you, and whose were ulcerated against you. Indeed, as soon as it was known that you had consented to stay in Paris, there was no measure observed in the execrations of the war-party. They openly wished you might be guillotined, or sent to Cayenne, or any thing else. And these expressions were finally stifled from a principle of policy only, and to prevent you from being urged to a justification of yourself. From this principle alone proceed the silence and cold respect they observe towards you. Still, they cannot prevent at times the flames bursting from under the embers, as Mr. Pickering’s letters, report, and conversations testify, as well as the indecent expressions respecting you, indulged by some of them in the debate on these despatches. These sufficiently show that you are never more to be honored or trusted by them, and that they wait to crush you for ever, only till they can do it without danger to themselves.
When I sat down to answer your letter, but two courses presented themselves, either to say nothing or every thing; for half confidences are not in my character. I could not hesitate which was due to you. I have unbosomed myself fully; and it will certainly be highly gratifying if I receive like confidence from you. For even if we differ in principle more than I believe we do, you and I know too well the texture of the human mind, and the slipperiness of human reason, to consider differences of opinion otherwise than differences of form or feature. Integrity of views, more than their soundness, is the basis of esteem. I shall follow your direction in conveying this by a private hand; though I know not as yet when one worthy of confidence will occur. And my trust in you leaves me without a fear that this letter, meant as a confidential communication of my impressions, may ever go out of your own hand, or be suffered in any wise to commit my name. Indeed, besides the accidents which might happen to it even under your care, considering the accident of death to which you are liable, I think it safest to pray you, after reading it as often as you please, to destroy at least the second and third leaves. The first contains principles only, which I fear not to avow; but the second and third contain facts stated for your information, and which, though sacredly conformable to my firm belief, yet would be galling to some, and expose me to illiberal attacks. I therefore repeat my prayer to burn the second and third leaves. And did we ever expect to see the day, when, breathing nothing but sentiments of love to our country and its freedom and happiness, our correspondence must be as secret as if we were hatching its destruction? Adieu, my friend, and accept my sincere and affectionate salutations. I need not add my signature.
CCXLVI. TO EDMUND PENDLETON, January 29, 1799
TO EDMUND PENDLETON.
Philadelphia, January 29, 1799.
Dear Sir,
Your patriarchal address to your country is running through all the republican papers, and has a very great effect on the people. It is short, simple, and presents things in a view they readily comprehend. The character and circumstances too of the writer leave them without doubts of his motives. If, like the patriarch of old, you had but one blessing to give us, I should have wished it directed to a particular object. But I hope you have one for this also. You know what a wicked use has been made of the French negotiation; and particularly, the X. Y. Z. dish, cooked up by ------ , where the swindlers are made to appear as the French government. Art and industry combined, have certainly wrought out of this business a wonderful effect on the people. Yet they have been astonished more than they have understood it, and now that Gerry’s correspondence comes out, clearing the French government of that turpitude, and showing them ‘sincere in their dispositions for peace, not wishing us to break the British treaty, and willing to arrange a liberal one with us,’ the people will be disposed to suspect they have been duped. But these communications are too voluminous for them, and beyond their reach. A recapitulation is now wanting of the whole story, stating every thing according to what we may now suppose to have been the truth, short, simple, and levelled to every capacity. Nobody in America can do it so well as yourself, in the same character of the father of your country, or any form you like better, and so concise, as, omitting nothing material, may yet be printed in handbills, of which we could print and disperse ten or twelve thousand copies under letter covers, through all the United States, by the members of Congress when they return home. If the understanding of the people could be rallied to the truth on this subject, by exposing the dupery practised on them, there are so many other things about to bear on them favorably for the resurrection of their republican spirit, that a reduction of the administration to constitutional principles cannot fail to be the effect. These are the alien and sedition laws, the vexations of the stamp-act, the disgusting particularities of the direct tax, the additional army without an enemy, and recruiting officers lounging at every Court-House to decoy the laborer from his plough, a navy of fifty ships, five millions to be raised to build it, on the usurious interest of eight per cent., the perseverance in war on our part, when the French government shows such an anxious desire to keep at peace with us, taxes often millions now paid by four millions of people, and yet a necessity, in a year or two, of raising five millions more for annual expenses. These things will immediately be bearing on the public mind, and if it remain not still blinded by a supposed necessity, for the purposes of maintaining our independence and defending our country, they will set things to rights. I hope you will undertake this statement. If any body else had possessed your happy talent for this kind of recapitulation, I would have been the last to disturb you with the application; but it will really be rendering our country a service greater than it is in the power of any other individual to render. To save you the trouble of hunting the several documents from which this statement is to be taken, I have collected them here completely, and enclose them to you.
Logan’s bill has passed. On this subject it is hardly necessary for me to declare to you, on every thing sacred, that the part they ascribed to me was entirely a calumny. Logan called on me, four or five days before his departure, and asked and received a certificate (in my private capacity) of his citizenship and circumstances of life, merely as a protection, should he be molested in the present turbulent state of Europe. I have given such to an hundred others, and they have been much more frequently asked and obtained by tories than whigs.
*****
Accept my sincere prayers for long and happy years to you still, and my affectionate salutations and adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXLVII. TO JAMES MADISON, February 5, 1799
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, February 5, 1799.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 30th of January; since which yours of the 25th has been received.
*********
The bill for continuing the suspension of intercourse with France and her dependencies, is still before the Senate, but will pass by a very great vote. An attack is made on what is called the Toussaint’s clause, the object of which, as is charged by the one party and admitted by the other, is to facilitate the separation of the island from France. The clause will pass, however, by about nineteen to eight, or perhaps eighteen to nine. Rigaud, at the head of the people of color, maintains his allegiance. But they are only twenty-five thousand souls, against five hundred thousand, the number of the blacks. The treaty made with them by Maitland is (if they are to be separated from France) the best thing for us. They must get their provisions from us. It will indeed be in English bottoms, so that we shall lose the carriage. But the English will probably forbid them the ocean, confine them to their island, and thus prevent their becoming an American Algiers. It must be admitted, too, that they may play them off on us when they please. Against this there is no remedy but timely measures on our part, to clear ourselves, by degrees, of the matter on which that lever can work.
*****
A piece published in Bache’s paper on foreign influence, has had the greatest currency and effect. To an extraordinary first impression, they have been obliged to make a second, and of an extraordinary number. It is such things as these the public want. They say so from all quarters, and that they wish to hear reason instead of disgusting blackguardism. The public sentiment being now on the creen, and many heavy circumstances about to fall into the republican scale, we are sensible that this summer is the season for systematic energies and sacrifices. The engine is the press. Every man must lay his purse and his pen under contribution. As to the former, it is possible I may be obliged to assume something for you. As to the latter, let me pray and beseech you to set apart a certain portion of every post-day to write what may be proper for the public. Send it to me while here, and when I go away I will let you know to whom you may send, so that your name shall be sacredly secret. You can render such incalculable services in this way, as to lessen the effect of our loss of your presence here. I shall see you on the 5th or 6th of March.
Affectionate salutations to Mrs. Madison and yourself. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCXLVIII. TO EDMUND PENDLETON, February 14, 1799
TO EDMUND PENDLETON.
Philadelphia, February 14, 1799.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you a petition on the 29th of January. I know the extent of this trespass on your tranquillity, and how indiscreet it would have been under any other circumstances. But the fate of this country, whether it shall be irretrievably plunged into a form of government rejected by the makers of the constitution, or shall get back to the true principles of that instrument, depends on the turn which things may take within a short period of time ensuing the present moment. The violations of the constitution, propensities to war, to expense, and to a particular foreign connection, which we have lately seen, are becoming evident to the people, and are dispelling that mist which X. Y. Z. had spread before their eyes. This State is coming forward with a boldness not yet seen. Even the German counties of York and Lancaster, hitherto the most devoted, have come about, and by petitions with four thousand signers remonstrate against the alien and sedition laws, standing armies, and discretionary powers in the President. New York and Jersey are also getting into great agitation. In this State, we fear that the ill-designing may produce insurrection. Nothing could be so fatal. Any thing like force would check the progress of the public opinion and rally them round the government. This is not the kind of opposition the American people will permit. But keep away all show of force, and they will bear down the evil propensities of the government, by the constitutional means of election and petition. If we can keep quiet, therefore, the tide now turning will take a steady and proper direction. Even in New Hampshire there are strong symptoms of a rising inquietude. In this state of things, my dear Sir, it is more in your power than any other man’s in the United States, to give the coup de grace to the ruinous principles and practices we have seen. In hopes you have consented to it, I shall furnish to you some additional matter which has arisen since my last.
I enclose you a part of a speech of Mr. Gallatin on the naval bill. The views he takes of our finances, and of the policy of our undertaking to establish a great navy, may furnish some hints. I am told, something on the same subject from Mr. J. Nicholas will appear in the Richmond and Fredericksburg papers. I mention the real author, that you may respect it duly, for I presume it will be anonymous. The residue of Gallatin’s speech shall follow when published. A recent fact proving the anxiety of France for a reconciliation with us, is the following. You know that one of the armed vessels which we took from her was refitted by us, sent to cruise against her, re-captured, and carried into Guadaloupe under the name of the Retaliation. ‘On the arrival there of Desfourneaux, the new commissioner, he sent Victor Hughes home in irons; called up our captain; told him that he found he had a regular commission as an officer of the United States; that his vessel was then lying in the harbor; that he should inquire into no fact preceding his own arrival (by this he avoided noticing that the vessel was really French property), and that, therefore, himself and crew were free to depart with their vessel; that as to the differences between France and the United States, commissioners were coming out to settle them, and, in the mean time, no injury should be done on their part. The captain insisted on being a prisoner; the other disclaimed; and so he arrived here with vessel and crew the day before yesterday. Within an hour after this was known to the Senate, they passed the retaliation bill, of which I enclose you a copy. This was the more remarkable, as the bill was founded expressly on the Arrêt of October the 29th, which had been communicated by the President as soon as received, and he remarked, ‘that it could not be too soon communicated to the two Houses and the public’. Yet he almost in the same instant received, through the same channel, Mr. King’s information that that Arrêt was suspended, and though he knew we were making it the foundation of a retaliation bill, he has never yet communicated it. But the Senate knew the fact informally from the Secretary of State, and knowing it, passed the bill.
The President has appointed, and the Senate approved, Rufus King, to enter into a treaty of commerce with the Russians, at London, and William Smith (Phocion), Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, to go to Constantinople to make one with the Turks. So that as soon as there is a coalition of Turks, Russians, and English, against France, we seize that moment to countenance it as openly as we dare, by treaties, which we never had with them before. All this helps to fill up the measure of provocation towards France, and to get from them a declaration of war, which we are afraid to be the first in making. It is certain the French have behaved atrociously towards neutral nations, and us particularly; and though we might be disposed not to charge them with all the enormities committed in their name in the West Indies, yet they are to be blamed for not doing more to prevent them. A just and rational censure ought to be expressed on them, while we disapprove the constant billingsgate poured on them officially. It is at the same time true, that their enemies set the first example of violating neutral rights, and continue it to this day: insomuch, that it is declared on all hands, and particularly by the insurance companies, and denied by none, that the British spoliations have considerably exceeded the French during the last six months. Yet not a word of these things is said officially to the legislature.
Still further, to give the devil his due (the French), it should be observed that it has been said without contradiction, and the people made to believe, that their refusal to receive our Envoys was contrary to the law of nations, and a sufficient cause of war: whereas every one who ever read a book on the law of nations knows, that it is an unquestionable right in every power, to refuse to receive any minister who is personally disagreeable. Martens, the latest and a very respected writer, has laid it down so clearly and shortly in his ‘Summary of the Law of Nations,’ B. 7. ch. 2. sect. 9. that I will transcribe the passage verbatim. ‘Section 9. Of choice in the person of the minister. The choice of the person to be sent as minister depends of right on the sovereign who sends him, leaving the right, however, of him to whom he is sent, of refusing to acknowledge any one, to whom he has a personal dislike, or who is inadmissible by the laws and usages of the country.’ And he adds notes proving by instances, &c. This is the whole section.
Notwithstanding all these appearances of peace from France, we are, besides our existing army of five thousand men, and additional army of nine thousand (now officered and levying), passing a bill for an eventual army of thirty regiments (thirty thousand) and for rigimenting, brigading, officering, and exercising at the public expense our volunteer army, the amount of which we know not. I enclose you a copy of the bill, which has been twice read and committed in Senate. To meet this expense, and that of the six seventy-fours and six eighteens, part of the proposed fleet, we have opened a loan of five millions at eight per cent., and authorize another of two millions: and, at the same time, every man voting for these measures acknowledges there is no probability of an invasion by France. While speaking of the restoration of our vessel, I omitted to add, that it is said that our government contemplate restoring the Frenchmen taken originally in the same vessel, and kept at Lancaster as prisoners. This has furnished the idea of calling her a cartel vessel, and pretending that she came as such for an exchange of prisoners, which is false. She was delivered free and without condition, but it does not suit to let any new evidence appear of the desire of conciliation in France.
I believe it is now certain that the commissioners on the British debts can proceed together no longer. I am told that our two have prepared a long report, which will perhaps be made public. The result will be, that we must recur again to negotiation, to settle the principles of the British claims. You know that Congress rises on the 3rd of March, and that if you have acceded to my prayers, I should hear from you at least a week before our rising. Accept my affectionate salutations, and assurances of the sincere esteem with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCXLIX. TO JAMES MADISON, February 19, 1799
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, February 19, 1799.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 11th; yesterday the bill for the eventual army of thirty regiments (thirty thousand) and seventy-five thousand volunteers, passed the Senate. By an amendment, the President was authorized to use the volunteers for every purpose for which he can use militia, so that the militia are rendered completely useless. The friends of the bill acknowledge that the volunteers are a militia, and agreed that they might properly be called the ‘Presidential militia.’ They are not to go out of their State without their own consent. Consequently, all service out of the State is thrown on the constitutional militia, the Presidential militia being exempted from doing duty with them. Leblane, an agent from Desfourneaux, of Guadaloupe, came in the Retaliation. You will see in the papers Desfourneaux’s letter to the President, which will correct some immaterial circumstances of the statement in my last. You will see the truth of the main fact, that the vessel and crew were liberated without condition. Notwithstanding this, they have obliged Leblane to receive the French prisoners, and to admit, in the papers, the terms, ‘in exchange for prisoners taken from us,’ he denying at the same time that they consider them as prisoners, or had any idea of exchange. The object of his mission was not at all relative to that; but they choose to keep up the idea of a cartel, to prevent the transaction from being used as evidence of the sincerity of the French government towards a reconciliation. He came to assure us of a discontinuance of all irregularities in French privateers from Guadaloupe. He has been received very cavalierly. In the mean time, a Consul General is named to St. Domingo: who may be considered as our Minister to Toussaint.
But the event of events was announced to the Senate yesterday. It is this: it seems that soon after Gerry’s departure, overtures must have been made by Pichon, French Chargé d’Affaires at the Hague, to Murray. They were so soon matured, that on the 28th of September, 1798, Talleyrand writes to Pichon, approving what had been done, and particularly of his having assured Murray that whatever Plenipotentiary the government of the United States should send to France to end our differences, would undoubtedly be received with the respect due to the representative of a free, independent, and powerful nation; declaring that the President’s instructions to his Envoys at Paris, if they contain the whole of the American government’s intentions, announce dispositions which have been always entertained by the Directory; and desiring him to communicate these expressions to Murray, in order to convince him of the sincerity of the French government, and to prevail on him to transmit them to his government. This is dated September the 28th, and may have been received by Pichon October the 1st; and nearly five months elapse before it is communicated. Yesterday the President nominated to the Senate William Vans Murray Minister Plenipotentiary to the French republic, and added, that he shall be instructed not to go to France, without direct and unequivocal assurances from the French government that he shall be received in character, enjoy the due privileges, and a minister of equal rank, title, and power, be appointed to discuss and conclude our controversy by a new treaty. This had evidently been kept secret from the federalists of both Houses, as appeared by their dismay. The Senate have passed over this day without taking it up. It is said they are graveled and divided; some are for opposing, others do not know what to do. But in the mean time, they have been permitted to go on with all the measures of war and patronage, and when the close of the session is at hand it is made known. However, it silences all arguments against the sincerity of France, and renders desperate every further effort towards war. I enclose you a paper with more particulars. Be so good as to keep it till you see me, and then return it, as it is the copy of one I sent to another person, and is the only copy I have. Since I began my letter I have received yours of February the 7th and 8th, with its enclosures; that referred to my discretion is precious, and shall be used accordingly.
Affectionate salutations to Mrs. Madison and yourself, and adieu.
Th: Jefferson,
CCL. TO GENERAL KOSCIUSKO, February 21, 1799
TO GENERAL KOSCIUSKO.
Philadelphia, February 21, 1799.
My Dear Friend,
*****
On politics I must write sparingly, lest it should fall into the hands of persons who do not love either you or me. The wonderful irritation produced in the minds of our citizens by the X. Y. Z. story, has in a great measure subsided. They begin to suspect and to see it coolly in its true light. Mr. Gerry’s communications, with other information, prove to them that France is sincere in her wishes for reconciliation; and a recent proposition from that country, through Mr. Murray, puts the matter out of doubt. What course the government will pursue, I know not. But if we are left in peace, I have no doubt the wonderful turn in the public opinion now manifestly taking place and rapidly increasing, will, in the course of this summer, become so universal and so weighty, that friendship abroad and freedom at home will be firmly established by the influence and constitutional powers of the people at large. If we are forced into war, we must give up political differences of opinion, and unite as one man to defend our country. But whether at the close of such a war, we should be as free as we are now, God knows. In fine, if war takes place, republicanism has every thing to fear; if peace, be assured that your forebodings and my alarms will prove vain; and that the spirit of our citizens now rising as rapidly as it was then running crazy, and rising with a strength and majesty which show the loveliness of freedom, will make this government in practice, what it is in principle, a model for the protection of man in a state of freedom and order. May Heaven have in store for your country a restoration of these blessings, and you be destined as the instrument it will use for that purpose. But if this be forbidden by fate, I hope we shall be able to preserve here an asylum where your love of liberty and disinterested patriotism will be for ever protected and honored, and where you will find in the hearts of the American people, a good portion of that esteem and affection which glow in the bosom of the friend who writes this; and who with sincere prayers for your health, happiness, and success, and cordial salutations, bids you, for this time, adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCLI. TO JAMES MADISON, February 26, 1799
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, February 26, 1799.
Dear Sir,
My last to you was of the 19th; it acknowledged yours of the 8th. In mine I informed you of the nomination of Murray. There is evidence that the letter of Talleyrand was known to one of the Secretaries, therefore probably to all; the nomination, however, is declared by one of them to have been kept secret from them all. He added, that he was glad of it, as, had they been consulted, the advice would have been against making the nomination. To the rest of the party, however, the whole was a secret till the nomination was announced. Never did a party show a stronger mortification, and consequently, that war had been their object. Dana declared in debate (as I have from those who were present) that we had done every thing which might provoke France to war; that we had given her insults which no nation ought to have borne; and yet she would not declare war. The conjecture as to the executive is, that they received Talleyrand’s letter before or about the meeting of Congress: that not meaning to meet the overture effectually, they kept it secret, and let all the war measures go on; but that just before the separation of the Senate, the President, not thinking he could justify the concealing such an overture, nor indeed that it could be concealed, made a nomination, hoping that his friends in the Senate would take on their own shoulders the odium of rejecting it; but they did not choose it. The Hamiltonians would not, and the others could not, alone. The whole artillery of the phalanx, therefore, was played secretly on the President, and he was obliged himself to take a step which should parry the overture while it wears the face of acceding to it. (Mark that I state this as conjecture; but founded on workings and indications which have been under our eyes.) Yesterday, therefore, he sent in a nomination of Oliver Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, and William Vans Murray, Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to the French Republic, but declaring the two former should not leave this country till they should receive from the French Directory assurances that they should be received with the respect due by the law of nations to their character, &c. This, if not impossible, must at least keep off the day, so hateful and so fatal to them, of reconciliation, and leave more time for new projects of provocation. Yesterday witnessed a scandalous scene in the House of Representatives. It was the day for taking up the report of their committee against the alien and sedition laws, &.c. They held a caucus and determined that not a word should be spoken on their side, in answer to any thing which should be said on the other. Gallatin took up the alien, and Nicholas the sedition law; but after a little while of common silence, they began to enter into loud conversations, laugh, cough, &c., so that for the last hour of these gentlemen’s speaking, they must have had the lungs of a vendue-master to have been heard. Livingston, however, attempted to speak. But after a few sentences, the speaker called him to order, and told him what he was saying was not to the question. It was impossible to proceed. The question was taken and carried in favor of the report, fifty-two to forty-eight; the real strength of the two parties is fifty-six to fifty. But two of the latter have not attended this session. I send you the report of their committee. I still expect to leave this on the 1st, and be with you on the 7th of March. But it is possible I may not set out till the 4th, and then shall not be with you till the 10th. Affectionately adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
CCLII. TO T. LOMAX, March 12, 1799
TO T. LOMAX.
Monticello, March 12, 1799.
Dear Sir,
Your welcome favor of last month came to my hands in Philadelphia. So long a time has elapsed since we have been separated by events, that it was like a letter from the dead, and recalled to my memory very dear recollections. My subsequent journey through life has offered nothing which, in comparison with those, is not cheerless and dreary. It is a rich comfort sometimes to look back on them.
I take the liberty of enclosing a letter to Mr. Baylor, open, because I solicit your perusal of it. It will, at the same time, furnish the apology for my not answering you from Philadelphia. You ask for any communication I may be able to make, which may administer comfort to you. I can give that which is solid. The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful manoeuvres, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves. But time and truth have dissipated the delusion, and opened their eyes. They see now that France has sincerely wished peace, and their seducers have wished war, as well for the loaves and fishes which arise out of war expenses, as for the chance of changing the constitution, while the people should have time to contemplate nothing but the levies of men and money. Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York are coming majestically round to the true principles. In Pennsylvania, thirteen out of twenty-two counties had already petitioned on the alien and sedition laws. Jersey and New York had begun the same movement, and though the rising of Congress stops that channel for the expression of their sentiment, the sentiment is going on rapidly, and before their next meeting those three States will be solidly embodied in sentiment with the six southern and western ones. The atrocious proceedings of France towards this country had well nigh destroyed its liberties. The Anglomen and monocrats had so artfully confounded the cause of France with that of freedom, that both went down in the same scale. I sincerely join you in abjuring all political connection with every foreign power: and though I cordially wish well to the progress of liberty in all nations, and would for ever give it the weight of our countenance, yet they are not to be touched without contamination, from their other bad principles. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Accept assurances of the constant and unaltered affection of, Dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCLIII. TO EDMUND RANDOLPH, August 18, 1799
TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.
Monticello, August 18, 1799
Dear Sir,
I received only two days ago your favor of the 12th, and as it was on the eve of the return of our post, it was not possible to make so prompt a despatch of the answer. Of all the doctrines which have ever been broached by the federal government, the novel one, of the common law being in force and cognizable as an existing law in their courts, is to me the most formidable. All their other assumptions of ungiven powers have been in the detail. The bank-law, the treaty-doctrine, the sedition-act, alien-act, the undertaking to change the State laws of evidence in the State courts by certain parts of the stamp-act, &c. &c. have been solitary, inconsequential, timid things, in comparison with the audacious, barefaced, and sweeping pretension to a system of law for the United States, without the adoption of their legislature, and so infinitely beyond their power to adopt. If this assumption be yielded to, the State courts may be shut up, as there will then be nothing to hinder citizens of the same State suing each other in the federal courts in every case, as on a bond for instance, because the common law obliges payment of it, and the common law they say is their law. I am happy you have taken up the subject; and I have carefully perused and considered the notes you enclosed, and find but a single paragraph which I do not approve. It is that wherein (page 2) you say, that laws being emanations from the legislative department, and, when once enacted, continuing in force from a presumption that their will so continues, that that presumption fails, and the laws of course fall, on the destruction of that legislative department. I do not think this is the true bottom on which laws and the administering them rest. The whole body of the nation is the sovereign legislative, judiciary, and executive power for itself. The inconvenience of meeting to exercise these powers in person, and their inaptitude to exercise them, induce them to appoint special organs to declare their legislative will, to judge, and to execute it. It is the will of the nation which makes the law obligatory; it is their will which creates or annihilates the organ which is to declare and announce it. They may do it by a single person, as an Emperor of Russia (constituting his declarations evidence of their will), or by a few persons, as the aristocracy of Venice, or by a complication of councils, as in our former regal government, or our present republican one. The law being law because it is the will of the nation, is not changed by their changing the organ through which they choose to announce their future will; no more than the acts I have done by one attorney lose their obligation by my changing or discontinuing that attorney. This doctrine has been, in a certain degree, sanctioned by the federal executive. For it is precisely that on which the continuance of obligation from our treaty with France was established, and the doctrine was particularly developed in a letter to Gouverneur Morris, written with the approbation of President Washington and his cabinet. Mercer once prevailed on the Virginia Assembly to declare a different doctrine in some resolutions. These met universal disapprobation in this, as well as the other States, and if I mistake not, a subsequent Assembly did something to do away the authority of their former unguarded resolutions. In this case, as in all others, the true principle will be quite as effectual to establish the just deductions. Before the revolution, the nation of Virginia had, by the organs they then thought proper to constitute, established a system of laws, which they divided into three denominations of, 1. common law; 2. statute law; 3. chancery: or if you please, into two only, of 1. common law; 2. chancery. When by the Declaration of Independence, they chose to abolish their former organs of declaring their will, the acts of will already formally and constitutionally declared, remained untouched. For the nation was not dissolved, was not annihilated; its will, therefore, remained in full vigor: and on the establishing the new organs, first of a convention, and afterwards a more complicated legislature, the old acts of national will continued in force, until the nation should, by its new organs, declare its will changed. The common law, therefore, which was not in force when we landed here, nor till we had formed ourselves into a nation, and had manifested by the organs we constituted that the common law was to be our law, continued to be our law; because the nation continued in being, and because, though it changed the organs for the future declarations of its will, yet it did not change its former declarations that the common law was its law. Apply these principles to the present case. Before the revolution there existed no such nation as the United States: they then first associated as a nation, but for special purposes only. They had all their laws to make, as Virginia had on her first establishment as a nation. But they did not, as Virginia had done, proceed to adopt a whole system of laws ready made to their hand. As their association as a nation was only for special purposes, to wit, for the management of their concerns with one another and with foreign nations, and the States composing the association chose to give it powers for those purposes and no others, they could not adopt any general system, because it would have embraced objects on which this association had no right to form or declare a will. It was not the organ for declaring a national will in these cases. In the cases confided to them, they were free to declare the will of the nation, the law, but till it was declared there could be no law. So that the common law did not become, ipso facto, law on the new association; it could only become so by a positive adoption, and so far only as they were authorized to adopt.
I think it will be of great importance, when you come to the proper part, to portray at full length the consequences of this new doctrine, that the common law is the law of the United States and that their courts have, of course, jurisdiction co-extensive with that law, that is to say, general over all cases and persons. But great heavens! Who could have conceived in 1789, that within ten years we should have to combat such windmills. Adieu. Yours affectionately.
Th: Jefferson.
CCLIV. TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS, September 5, 1799
TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS.
Monticello, September 5, 1799.
Dear Sir,
Yours of August the 30th came duly to hand. It was with great regret we gave up the hope of seeing you here, but, could not but consider the obstacle as legitimate. I had written to Mr. Madison, as I had before informed you, and had stated to him some general ideas for consideration and consultation when we should meet. I thought something essentially necessary to be said, in order to avoid the inference of acquiescence; that a resolution or declaration should be passed, 1. answering the reasonings of such of the States as have ventured into the field of reason, and that of the committee of Congress, taking some notice, too, of those States who have either not answered at all, or answered without reasoning. 2. Making firm protestation against the precedent and principle, and reserving the right to make this palpable violation of the federal compact the ground of doing in future whatever we might now rightfully do, should repetitions of these and other violations of the compact render it expedient. 3. Expressing in affectionate and conciliatory language our warm attachment to union with our sister States, and to the instrument and principles by which we are united; that we are willing to sacrifice to this every thing but the rights of self-government in those important points which we have never yielded, and in which alone we see liberty, safety, and happiness; that not at all disposed to make every measure of error or of wrong, a cause of scission, we are willing to look on with indulgence, and to wait with patience, till those passions and delusions shall have passed over, which the federal government have artfully excited to cover its own abuses and conceal its designs, fully confident that the good sense of the American people, and their attachment to those very rights which we are now vindicating, will, before it shall be too late, rally with us round the true principles of our federal compact. This was only meant to give a general idea of the complexion and topics of such an instrument. Mr. M. who came, as had been proposed, does not concur in the reservation proposed above; and from this I recede readily, not only in deference to his judgment, but because, as we should never think of separation but for repeated and enormous violations, so these, when they occur, will be cause enough of themselves.
To these topics, however, should be added animadversions on the new pretensions to a common law of the United States. I proposed to Mr. M. to write to you but he observed that you knew his sentiments so perfectly from a former conference, that it was unnecessary. As to the preparing any thing, I must decline it, to avoid suspicions (which were pretty strong in some quarters on the late occasion), and because there remains still (after their late loss) a mass of talents in Kentucky sufficient for every purpose. The only object of the present communication is to procure a concert in the general plan of action, as it is extremely desirable that Virginia and Kentucky should pursue the same track on this occasion. Besides, how could you better while away the road from hence to Kentucky, than in meditating this very subject and preparing something yourself, than whom nobody will do it better. The loss of your brother, and the visit of the apostle ------ to Kentucky, excite anxiety. However, we doubt not that his poisons will be effectually counterworked. Wishing you a pleasant journey and happy return, I am with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CCLV. TO JAMES MADISON, November 22, 1799
TO JAMES MADISON.
Monticello, November 22, 1799.
Dear Sir,
I have never answered your letter by Mr. Polk, because I expected to have paid you a visit. This has been prevented by various causes, till yesterday. That being the day fixed for the departure of my daughter Eppes, my horses were ready for me to have set out to see you: an accident postponed her departure to this day, and my visit also. But Colonel Monroe dined with me yesterday, and on my asking his commands for you, he entered into the subject of the visit and dissuaded it entirely, founding the motives on the espionage of the little ------in ------ who would make it a subject of some political slander, and perhaps of some political injury. I have yielded to his representations, and therefore shall not have the pleasure of seeing you till my return from Philadelphia. I regret it sincerely, not only on motives of attention but of affairs. Some late circumstances changing considerably the aspect of our situation, must affect the line of conduct to be observed. I regret it the more too, because from the commencement of the ensuing session, I shall trust the post-offices with nothing confidential, persuaded that during the ensuing twelve months they will lend their inquisitorial aid to furnish matter for newspapers. I shall send you as usual printed communications, without saying any thing confidential on them. You will of course understand the cause.
In your new station let me recommend to you the jury system: as also the restoration of juries in the court of chancery, which a law not long since repealed, because ‘the trial by jury is troublesome and expensive.’ If the reason be good, they should abolish it at common law also. If Peter Carr is elected in the room of ------ he will undertake the proposing this business, and only need your support. If he is not elected, I hope you will get it done otherwise. My best respects to Mrs. Madison, and affectionate salutations to yourself.
Th: Jefferson.
CCLVI. TO COLONEL MONROE, January 12, 1800
TO COLONEL MONROE.
Philadelphia, January 12, 1800.
Dear Sir,
Yours of January the 4th was received last night. I had then no opportunity of communicating to you confidentially information of the state of opinions here; but I learn to-night that two Mr. Randolphs will set out to-morrow morning for Richmond. If I can get this into their hands I shall send it; otherwise it may wait longer. On the subject of an election by a general ticket or by districts, most persons here seem to have made up their minds. All agree that an election by districts wrould be best, if it could be general: but while ten States choose either by their legislatures or by a general ticket, it is folly and worse than folly for the other six not to do it. In these ten States the minority is certainly unrepresented; and their majorities not only have the weight of their whole State in their scale, but have the benefit of so much of our minorities as can succeed at a district election. This is, in fact, insuring to our minorities the appointment of the government. To state it in another form; it is merely a question, whether we will divide the United States into sixteen or one hundred and thirty-seven districts. The latter being more chequered, and representing the people in smaller sections, would be more likely to be an exact representation of their diversified sentiments. But a representation of a part by great, and a part by small sections, would give a result very different from what would be the sentiment of the whole people of the United States, were they assembled together. I have to-day had a conversation with ------ who has taken a flying trip here from New York. He says, they have really now a majority of the House of Representatives, but, for want of some skilful person to rally round, they are disjointed, and will lose every question. In the senate there is a majority of eight or nine against us. But in the new election which is to come on in April, three or four in the Senate will be changed in our favor; and in the House of Representatives the county elections will still be better than the last: but still all will depend on the city election, which is of twelve members. At present there would be no doubt of our carrying our ticket there; nor does there seem to be time for any events arising to change that disposition. There is therefore the best prospect possible of a great and decided majority on a joint vote of the two Houses. They are so confident of this, that the republican party there will not consent to elect either by districts or a general ticket. They choose to do it by their legislature. I am told the republicans of New Jersey are equally confident, and equally anxious against an election either by districts or a general ticket. The contest in this State will end in a separation of the present legislature without passing any election law (and their former one has expired), and in depending on the new one, which will be elected October the 14th, in which the republican majority will be more decided in the Representatives, and instead of a majority of five against us in the Senate, will be of one for us. They will, from the necessity of the case, choose the electors themselves. Perhaps it will be thought I ought in delicacy to be silent on this subject. But you, who know me, know that my private gratifications would be most indulged by that issue, which should leave me most at home. If any thing supersedes this propensity, it is merely the desire to see this government brought back to its republican principles. Consider this as written to Mr. Madison as much as yourself and communicate it, if you think it will do any good to those possessing our joint confidence or any others where it may be useful and safe. Health and affectionate salutations.
Th: Jefferson.
CCLVII. TO SAMUEL ADAMS
TO SAMUEL ADAMS.
Philadelphia, February 26,1800.
Dear Sir,
Mr. Erving delivered me your favor of January the 31st, and I thank you for making me acquainted with him. You will always do me a favor in giving me an opportunity of knowing gentlemen as estimable in their principles and talents, as I find Mr. Erving to be. I have not yet seen Mr. Winthrop. A letter from you, my respectable friend, after three and twenty years of separation, has given me a pleasure I cannot express. It recalls to my mind the anxious days we then passed in struggling for the cause of mankind. Your principles have been tested in the crucible of time, and have come out pure. You have proved that it was monarchy, and not merely British monarchy, you opposed. A government by representees, elected by the people at short periods, was our object, and our maxim at that day was, ‘Where annual election ends, tyranny begins’; nor have our departures from it been sanctioned by the happiness of their effects. A debt of an hundred millions growing by usurious interest, and an artificial paper phalanx overruling the agricultural mass of our country, with other et ceteras, have a portentous aspect.
I fear our friends on the other side the water, laboring in the same cause, have yet a great deal of crime and of misery to wade through. My confidence had been placed in the head, not in the heart of Bonaparte. I hoped he would calculate truly the difference between the fame of a Washington and a Cromwell. Whatever his views may be, he has at least transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm. Some will use this as a lesson against the practicability of republican government. I read it as a lesson against the danger of standing armies. Adieu, my ever respected and venerable friend. May that kind overruling Providence which has so long spared you to our country, still foster your remaining years with whatever may make them comfortable to yourself and soothing to your friends. Accept the cordial salutations of your affectionate friend,
Th: Jefferson.
CCLVIII. TO JAMES MADISON, March 4, 1800
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, March 4, 1800.
Dear Sir,
I have never written to you since my arrival here, for reasons which were explained. Yours of December the 29th, January the 4th, 9th, 12th, 18th, and February the 14th, have therefore remained unacknowledged. I have at different times enclosed to you such papers as seemed interesting. To-day I forward Bingham’s amendment to the election bill formerly enclosed to you, Mr. Pinckney’s proposed amendment to the constitution, and the report of the Ways and Means. Bingham’s amendment was lost by the usual majority of two to one. A very different one will be proposed, containing the true sense of the minority, viz. that the two Houses, voting by heads, shall decide such questions as the constitution authorizes to be raised. This may probably be taken up in the other House under better auspices, for though the federalists have a great majority there, yet they are of a more moderate temper than for some time past. The Senate, however, seem determined to yield to nothing which shall give the other House greater weight in the decision on elections than they have.
Mr. Pinckney’s motion has been supported, and is likely to have some votes which were not expected. I rather believe he will withdraw it, and propose the same thing in the form of a bill; it being the opinion of some that such a regulation is not against the present constitution. In this form it will stand a better chance to pass, as a majority only in both Houses will be necessary. By putting off the building the seventy-fours and stopping enlistments, the loan will be reduced to three and a half millions. But I think it cannot be obtained. For though no new bankruptcies have happened here for some weeks, or in New York, yet they continue to happen in Baltimore, and the whole commercial race are lying on their oars, and gathering in their affairs, not knowing what new failures may put their resources to the proof. In this state of things they cannot lend money. Some foreigners have taken asylum among us, with a good deal of money, who may perhaps choose that deposite. Robbins’s affair has been under agitation for some days. Livingston made an able speech of two and a half hours yesterday. The advocates of the measure feel it pressure heavily; and though they may be able to repel Livingston’s motion of censure, I do not believe they can carry Bayard’s of approbation. The landing of our Envoys at Lisbon will risk a very dangerous consequence, insomuch as the news of Truxton’s aggression will perhaps arrive at Paris before our commissioners will. Had they gone directly there, they might have been two months ahead of that news. We are entirely without further information from Paris. By letters from Bordeaux, of December the 7th, tobacco was then from twenty-five to twenty-seven dollars per hundred. Yet did Marshall maintain on the non-intercourse bill, that its price at other markets had never been affected by that law. While the navigating and provision States, who are the majority, can keep open all the markets, or at least sufficient ones for their objects, the cries of the tobacco-makers, who are the minority, and not at all in favor, will hardly be listened to. It is truly the fable of the monkey pulling the nuts out of the fire with the cat’s paw; and it shows that G. Mason’s proposition in the convention was wise, that on laws regulating commerce, two thirds of the votes should be requisite to pass them. However, it would have been trampled under foot by a triumphant majority.
March 8. My letter has lain by me till now, waiting Mr. Trist’s departure. The question has been decided to-day on Livingston’s motion respecting Robbins; thirty-five for it, about sixty against it. Livingston, Nicholas, and Gallatin distinguished themselves on one side, and J. Marshall greatly on the other. Still it is believed they will not push Bayard’s motion of approbation. We have this day also decided in: Senate on the motion for overhauling the editor of the Aurora. It was carried, as usual, by about two to one; H. Marshall voting of course with them, as did, and frequently does ------: of ------ , who is perfectly at market. It happens that the other party are so strong, that they do not think either him or ------ worth buying. As the conveyance is confidential, I can say something on a subject which, to those who do not know my real dispositions respecting it, might seem indelicate. The federalists begin to be very seriously alarmed about their election next fall. Their speeches in private, as well as their public and private demeanor to me, indicate it strongly. This seems to be the prospect. Keep out Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York, and the rest of the States are about equally divided; and in this estimate it is supposed that North Carolina and Maryland added together are equally divided. Then the event depends on the three middle States before mentioned. As to them, Pennsylvania passes no law for an election at the present session. They confide that the next election gives a decided majority in the two houses when joined together.
McKean, therefore, intends to call the legislature to meet immediately after the new election, to appoint electors themselves. Still you will be sensible there may arise a difficulty between the two Houses about voting by heads or by Houses. The republican members here from Jersey are entirely confident that their two Houses, joined together, have a majority of republicans; their Council being republican by six or eight votes, and the lower House federal by only one or two; and they have no doubt the approaching election will be in favor of the republicans. They appoint electors by the two Houses voting together. In New York all depends on the success of the city election, which is of twelve members, and of course makes a difference of twenty-four, which is sufficient to make the two Houses, joined together, republican in their vote. Governor Clinton, General Gates, and some other old revolutionary characters, have been put on the republican ticket. Burr, Livingston, &c. entertain no doubt on the event of that election. Still these are the ideas of the republicans only in these three States, and we must make great allowance for their sanguine views. Upon the whole, I consider it as rather more doubtful than the last election, in which I was not deceived in more than a vote or two. If Pennsylvania votes, then either Jersey or New York giving a republican vote, decides the election. If Pennsylvania does not vote, then New York determines the election. In any event, we may say that if the city election of New York is in favor of the republican ticket, the issue will be republican; if the federal ticket for the city of New York prevails, the probabilities will be in favor of a federal issue, because it would then require a republican vote both from Jersey and Pennsylvania to preponderate against New York, on which we could not count with any confidence. The election of New York being in April, it becomes an early and interesting object. It is probable the landing of our Envoys in Lisbon will add a month to our session; because all that the eastern men are anxious about, is to get away before the possibility of a treaty’s coming in upon us.
Present my respectful salutations to Mrs. Madison, and be assured of my constant and affectionate esteem,
Th: Jefferson.
CCLIX. TO JAMES MADISON, May 12, 1800
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, May 12, 1800.
Dear Sir,
Congress will rise to-day or to-morrow. Mr. Nicholas proposing to call on you, you will get from him the Congressional news. On the whole, the federalists have not been able to carry a single strong measure in the lower House the whole session. When they met, it was believed they had a majority of twenty; but many of these were new and moderate men, and soon saw the true character of the party to which they had been well disposed while at a distance. The tide, too, of public opinion sets so strongly against the federal proceedings, that this melted off their majority, and dismayed the heroes of the party. The Senate alone remained undismayed to the last. Firm to their purposes, regardless of public opinion, and more disposed to coerce than to court it, not a man of their majority gave way in the least; and on the election bill they adhered to John Marshall’s amendment, by their whole number; and if there had been a full Senate, there would have been but eleven votes against it, which include H. Marshall, who has voted with the republicans this session.
*****
Accept assurances of constant and affectionate esteem to Mrs. Madison and yourself from, Dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.