What ratio shall we adopt for the parts and multiples of this unit? The decimal without a doubt. Our arithmetic being founded in a decimal numeration, the same numeration in a systemof measures, weights and coins, tallies at once with that. On this question, I believe, there has been no difference of opinion.
In measures of length, then, the pendulum is our unit. It is a little more than our yard, and less than the ell. Its tenth or dime, will not be quite 4 inches. Its hundredth, or cent, not quite .4 of an inch; its thousandth, or mill, not quite .04 of an inch, and so on. The traveller will count his road by a longer measure. 1,000 units, or a kiliad, will not be quite two-thirds of our present mile, and more nearly a thousand paces than that.
For measures of surface, the square unit, equal to about ten square feet, or one-ninth more than a square yard, will be generally convenient. But for those of lands a larger measure will be wanted. A kiliad would be not quite a rood, or quarter of an acre; a myriad not quite 2½ acres.
For measures of capacity, wet and dry,
To incorporate into the same system our weights and coins, we must recur to some natural substance, to be found everywhere, and of a composition sufficiently uniform. Water has been considered as the most eligible substance, and rain-water more nearly uniform than any other kind found in nature. That circumstance renders it preferable to distilled water, and its variations in weight may be called insensible.
The cubic unit of this = .1 would weigh about 2,165 lbs. or a ton between the long and short.
With respect to our coins, the pure silver in a dollar being fixed by law at 347¼ grains, and all debts and contracts being bottomed on that value, we can only state the pure silver in the dollar, which would be very nearly 23 millionths.
I have used loose and round numbers (the exact unit being yet undetermined) merely to give a general idea of the measures and weights proposed, when compared with those we now use. And in the names of the subdivisions I have followed the metrology of the ordinance of Congress of 1786, which for their series below unit adopted the Roman numerals. For that above unit the Grecian is convenient, and has been adopted in the new French system.
We come now to our last question, in what form shall we offer this metrical system to the world? In some one which shall be altogether unassuming; which shall not have the appearance of taking the lead among our sister institutions in making a general proposition. So jealous is the spirit of equality in the republic of letters, that the smallest excitement of that would mar our views, however salutary for all. We are in habits of correspondence with some of these institutions, and identity of character and of object, authorize our entering into correspondence with all. Let us then mature our system as far as can be done at present, by ascertaining the length of the second pendulum of 45° by forming two tables, one of which shall give the equivalent of every different denomination of measures, weights and coins in these States, in the unit of that pendulum, its decimals and multiples; and the other stating the equivalent of all the decimal parts and multiples of that pendulum, in the several denominations of measures, weights and coins of our existing system. This done, we might communicate to one or more of these institutions in every civilized country a copy of those tables, stating as our motive, the difficulty we had experienced,and often the impossibility of ascertaining the value of the measures, weights and coins of other countries, expressed in any standard which we possess; that desirous of being relieved from this, and of obtaining information which could be relied on for the purposes of science, as well as of business, we had concluded to ask it from the learned societies of other nations, who are especially qualified to give it with the requisite accuracy; that in making this request we had thought it our duty first to do ourselves, and to offer to others, what we meant to ask from them, by stating the value of our own measures, weights and coins, in some unit of measure already possessed, or easily obtainable, by all nations; that the pendulum vibrating seconds of mean time, presents itself as such an unit; its length being determined by the laws of nature, and easily ascertainable at all times and places; that we have thought that of 45° would be the most unexceptionable, as being a mean of all other parallels, and open to actual trial in both hemispheres. In this, therefore, as an unit, and in its parts and multiples in the decimal ratio, we have expressed, in the tables communicated, the value of all the measures, weights and coins used in the United States, and we ask in return from their body a table of the weights, measures and coins in use within their country, expressed in the parts and multiples of the same unit. Having requested the same favor from the learned societies of other nations, our object is, with their assistance, to place within the reach of our fellow citizens at large a perfect knowledge of the measures, weights and coins of the countries with which they have commercial or friendly intercourse; and should the societies of other countries interchange their respective tables, the learned will be in possession of an uniform language in measures, weights and coins, which may with time become useful to other descriptions of their citizens, and even to their governments. This, however, will rest with their pleasure, not presuming, in the present proposition, to extend our views beyond the limits of our own nation. I offer this sketch merely as the outline of the kind of communication which I should hope would excite no jealousy or repugnance.
Peculiar circumstances, however, would require letters of a more special character to the Institute of France, and the Royal Society of England. The magnificent work which France has executed in the admeasurement of so large a portion of the meridian, has a claim to great respect in our reference to it. We should only ask a communication of their metrical system, expressed in equivalent values of the second pendulum of 45° as ascertained by Messrs. Borda, Coulomb and Cassini, adding, perhaps, the request of an actual rod of the length of that pendulum.
With England, our explanations will be much more delicate. They are the older country, the mother country, more advanced in the arts and sciences, possessing more wealth and leisure for their improvement, and animated by a pride more than laudable.[1]It is their measures, too, which we undertake to ascertain and communicate to themselves. The subject should therefore be opened to them with infinite tenderness and respect, and in some way which might give them due place in its agency. The parallel of 45° being within our latitude and not within theirs, the actual experiments under that would be of course assignable to us. But as a corrective, I would propose that they should ascertain the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds in the city of London, or at the observatory of Greenwich, while we should do the same in an equidistant parallel to the south of 45°, suppose in 38° 29´. We might ask of them, too, as they are in possession of the standards of Guildhall, of which we can have but an unauthentic account, to make the actual application of those standards to the pendulum when ascertained. The operation we should undertake under the 45th parallel, (about Passamaquoddy,) would give us a happy occasion, too, of engaging our sister society of Boston in our views, by referring to them the executionof that part of the work. For that of 38° 29´ we should be at a loss. It crosses the tide waters of the Potomac, about Dumfries, and I do not know what our resources there would be unless we borrow them from Washington, where there are competent persons.
Although I have not mentioned Philadelphia in these operations, I by no means propose to relinquish the benefit of observations to be made there. Her science and perfection in the arts would be a valuable corrective to the less perfect state of them in the other places of observation. Indeed, it is to be wished that Philadelphia could be made the point of observation south of 45°, and that the Royal Society would undertake the counterpoint on the north, which would be somewhere between the Lizard and Falmouth. The actual pendulums from both of our points of observation, and not merely the measures of them, should be delivered to the Philosophical Society, to be measured under their eye and direction.
As this is really a work of common and equal interest to England and the United States, perhaps it would be still more respectful to make our proposition to her Royal Society in the outset, and to agree with them on a partition of the work. In this case, any commencement of actual experiments on our part should be provisional only, and preparatory to the ultimate results. We might, in the meantime, provisionally also, form a table adapted to the length of the pendulum of 45°, according to the most approved estimates, including those of the French commissioners. This would serve to introduce the subject to the foreign societies, in the way before proposed, reserving to ourselves the charge of communicating to them a more perfect one, when that shall have been completed.
We may even go a step further, and make a general table of the measures, weights and coins of all nations, taking their value hypothetically for the present, from the tables in the commercial dictionary of the encyclopedia methodique, which are very extensive, and have the appearance of being made with great labor and exactness. To these I expect we must in the end recur, asa supplement for the measures which we may fail to obtain from other countries directly. Their reference is to the foot or inch of Paris, as a standard, which we may convert into parts of the second pendulum of 45°.
I have thus, my dear sir, committed to writing my general ideas on this subject, the more freely as they are intended merely as suggestions for consideration. It is not probable they offer anything which would not have occurred to the committee itself. My apology on offering them must be found in your request. My confidence in the committee, of which I take for granted you are one, is too entire to have intruded a single idea but on that ground.
Be assured of my affectionate and high esteem and respect.
Monticello, November 10, 1811.
Dear Sir,—I write this letter separate, because you may perhaps think something in the other of the same date, worth communicating to the committee.
I accept, willingly, Mr. Voigt's offer to make me a time-piece, and with the kind of pendulum he proposes. I wish it to be as good as hands can make it, in everything useful, but no unnecessary labor to be spent on mere ornament. A plain but neat mahogany case will be preferred.
I have a curiosity to try the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds here, and would wish Mr. Voigt to prepare one which could be substituted for that of the clock occasionally, without requiring anything more than unhanging the one and hanging the other in its place. The bob should be spherical, of lead, and its radius, I presume, about one inch. As I should not have the convenience of a room of uniform temperature, the suspending rod should be such as not to be affected by heat or cold, nor yet so heavy as to effect too sensibly the centre of oscillation. Would not a rod of wood not larger than a large wire, answer this doubleview? I remember Mr. Rittenhouse told me he had made experiments on some occasion, on the expansibility of wood lengthwise by heat, which satisfied him it was as good as the gridiron for a suspender of the bob. By the experiments on the strength of wood and iron in supporting weights appended to them, iron has been found but about six times as strong as wood, while its specific gravity is eight times as great. Consequently, a rod of it of equal strength, will weigh but three-fourths of one of iron, and disturb the centre of oscillation less in proportion. A rod of wood of white oak, e. g. not larger than a seine twine, would probably support a spherical bob of lead of one inch radius. It might be worked down to that size I suppose, by the cabinet-makers, who are in the practice of preparing smaller threads of wood for inlaying. The difficulty would be in making it fast to the bob at one end, and scapement at the other, so as to regulate the length with ease and accuracy. This Mr. Voigt's ingenuity can supply, and in all things I would submit the whole matter to your direction to him, and be thankful to you to give it. Yours affectionately.
Monticello, November 15, 1811.
Sir,—Your favor of October 14 was duly received, and with it Mr. Bowditch's observations on the comet, for which I pray you to accept my thanks, and be so good as to present them to Mr. Bowditch also. I am much pleased to find that we have so able a person engaged in observing the path of this great phenomenon; and hope that from his observations and those of others of our philosophical citizens, on its orbit, we shall have ascertained, on this side of the Atlantic, whether it be one of those which have heretofore visited us. On the other side of the water they have great advantages in their well-established observatories, the magnificent instruments provided for them, and the leisure and information of their scientific men. The acquirementsof Mr. Bowditch in solitude and unaided by these advantages, do him great honor.
With respect to the eclipse of September 17. I know of no observations made in this State but my own, although I had no doubt that others had observed it. I used myself an equatorial telescope, and was aided by a friend who happened to be with me, and observed through an achromatic telescope of Dollard's. Two others attended the time-pieces. I had a perfect observation of the passage of the sun over the meridian, and the eclipse commencing but a few minutes after, left little room for error in our time. This little was corrected by the known rate of going of the clock. But we as good as lost the first appulse by a want of sufficiently early attention to be at our places, and composed. I have no confidence, therefore, by several seconds, in the time noted. The last oscillation of the two luminaries was better observed. Yet even there was a certain term of uncertainty as to the precise moment at which the indenture on the limb of the sun entirely vanished. It is therefore the forming of the annulus, and its breaking, which alone possess my entire and complete confidence. I am certain there was not an error of an instant of time in the observation of either of them. Their result therefore should not be suffered to be affected by either of the others. The four observations were as follows:
I have thus given you, Sir, my observations, with a candid statement of their imperfections. If they can be of any use to Mr. Bowditch, it will be more than was in view when they were made; and should I hear of any other observations made in this State, I shall not fail to procure and send him a copy of them. Be so good as to present me affectionately to your much-esteemed father, and to accept the tender of my respect.
Monticello, November 15, 1811.
Sir,—I duly received your letter of October 24 on the publication of an Ephemeris. I have long thought it desirable that something of that kind should be published in the United States, holding a middle station between the nautical and the common popular almanacs. It would certainly be acceptable to a numerous and respectable description of our fellow citizens, who, without undertaking the higher astronomical operations, for which the former is calculated, yet occasionally wish for information beyond the scope of the common almanacs. What you propose to insert in your Ephemeris is very well so far. But I think you might give it more of the character desired by the addition of some other articles, which would not enlarge it more than a leaf or two. For instance, the equation of time is essential to the regulation of our clocks and watches, and would only add a narrow column to your 2d page. The sun's declination is often desirable, and would add but another narrow column to the same page. This last would be the more useful as an element for obtaining the rising and setting of the sun, in every part of the United States; for your Ephemeris will, I suppose, give it only for a particular parallel, as of New York, which would in a great measure restrain its circulation to that parallel. But the sun's declination would enable every one to calculate sunrise for himself, with scarcely more trouble than taking it from an Almanac. If you would add at the end of the work a formula for that calculation, as, for example, that for Delalande, § 1026, a little altered. Thus, to the Logarithmic tangent of the latitude (a constant number) add the Log. tangent of the sun's declination; taking 10 from the Index, the remainder is the line of an arch which, turned into time and added to 6 hours, gives sunrise for the winter half and sunset for the summer half of the year, to which may be added 3 lines only from the table of refractions, § 1028, or, to save even this trouble, and give the calculation ready made for every parallel, print a table of semi-diurnalarches, ranging the latitudes from 35° to 45° in a line at top and the degrees of declination in a vertical line on the left, and stating, in the line of the declination, the semi-diurnal arch for each degree of latitude, so that every one knowing the latitude of his place and the declination of the day, would find his sunrise or his sunset where their horizontal and vertical lines meet. This table is to be found in many astronomical books, as, for instance, in Wakeley's Mariner's Compass Rectified, and more accurately in theConnoissance des tems, for 1788. It would not occupy more than two pages at the end of the work, and would render it an almanac for every part of the United States.
To give novelty, and increase the appetite for continuing to buy your Ephemeris annually, you might every year select some one or two useful tables which many would wish to possess and preserve. These are to be found in the requisite tables, theConnoissance des temsfor different years, and many in Pike's arithmetic.
I have given these hints because you requested my opinion. They may extend the plan of your Ephemeris beyond your view, which will be sufficient reason for not regarding them. In any event I shall willingly become a subscriber to it, if you should have any place of deposit for them in Virginia where the price can be paid. Accept the tender of my respects.
Poplar Forest, December 5, 1811.
Dear Sir,—While at Monticello I am so much engrossed by business or society, that I can only write on matters of strong urgency. Here I have leisure, as I have everywhere the disposition to think of my friends. I recur, therefore, to the subject of your kind letters relating to Mr. Adams and myself, which a late occurrence has again presented to me. I communicated to you the correspondence which had parted Mrs. Adams and myself, in proof that I could not give friendship in exchange for such sentimentsas she had recently taken up towards myself, and avowed and maintained in her letters to me. Nothing but a total renunciation of these could admit a reconciliation, and that could be cordial only in proportion as the return to ancient opinions was believed sincere. In these jaundiced sentiments of hers I had associated Mr. Adams, knowing the weight which her opinions had with him, and notwithstanding she declared in her letters that they were not communicated to him. A late incident has satisfied me that I wronged him as well as her, in not yielding entire confidence to this assurance on her part. Two of the Mr. * * * * *, my neighbors and friends, took a tour to the northward during the last summer. In Boston they fell into company with Mr. Adams, and by his invitation passed a day with him at Braintree. He spoke out to them everything which came uppermost, and as it occurred to his mind, without any reserve; and seemed most disposed to dwell on those things which happened during his own administration. He spoke of hismasters, as he called his Heads of departments, as acting above his control, and often against his opinions. Among many other topics, he adverted to the unprincipled licentiousness of the press against myself, adding, "I always loved Jefferson, and still love him."
This is enough for me. I only needed this knowledge to revive towards him all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives. Changing a single word only in Dr. Franklin's character of him, I knew him to be always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes incorrect and precipitate in his judgments; and it is known to those who have ever heard me speak of Mr. Adams, that I have ever done him justice myself, and defended him when assailed by others, with the single exception as to political opinions. But with a man possessing so many other estimable qualities, why should we be dissocialized by mere differences of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, or anything else. His opinions are as honestly formed as my own. Our different views of the same subject are the result of a difference in our organization and experience. I never withdrew from the society of any man on this account, although many have done itfrom me; much less should I do it from one with whom I had gone through, with hand and heart, so many trying scenes. I wish, therefore, but for an apposite occasion to express to Mr. Adams my unchanged affections for him. There is an awkwardness which hangs over the resuming a correspondence so long discontinued, unless something could arise which should call for a letter. Time and chance may perhaps generate such an occasion, of which I shall not be wanting in promptitude to avail myself. From this fusion of mutual affections, Mrs. Adams is of course separated. It will only be necessary that I never name her. In your letters to Mr. Adams, you can, perhaps, suggest my continued cordiality towards him, and knowing this, should an occasion of writing first present itself to him, he will perhaps avail himself of it, as I certainly will, should it first occur to me. No ground for jealousy now existing, he will certainly give fair play to the natural warmth of his heart. Perhaps I may open the way in some letter to my old friend Gerry, who I know is in habits of the greatest intimacy with him.
I have thus, my friend, laid open my heart to you, because you were so kind as to take an interest in healing again revolutionary affections, which have ceased in expression only, but not in their existence. God ever bless you, and preserve you in life and health.
Monticello, January 2, 1812.
Sir,—Your favor of December 17th, has been duly received, and with it the pamphlet on the cause, seat and cure of diseases, for which be pleased to accept my thanks. The commencement which you propose by the natural history of the diseases of the human body, is a very interesting one, and will certainly be the best foundation for whatever relates to their cure. While surgery is seated in the temple of the exact sciences, medicine has scarcely entered its threshold. Her theories have passed in suchrapid succession as to prove the insufficiency of all, and their fatal errors are recorded in the necrology of man. For some forms of disease, well known and well defined, she has found substances which will restore order to the human system, and it is to be hoped that observation and experience will add to their number. But a great mass of diseases remain undistinguished and unknown, exposed to the random shot of the theory of the day. If on this chaos you can throw such a beam of light as your celebrated brother has done on the sources of animal heat, you will, like him, render great service to mankind.
The fate of England, I think with you, is nearly decided, and the present form of her existence is drawing to a close. The ground, the houses, the men will remain; but in what new form they will revive and stand among nations, is beyond the reach of human foresight. We hope it may be one of which the predatory principle may not be the essential characteristic. If her transformation shall replace her under the laws of moral order, it is for the general interest that she should still be a sensible and independent weight in the scale of nations, and be able to contribute, when a favorable moment presents itself, to reduce under the same order, her great rival in flagitiousness. We especially ought to pray that the powers of Europe may be so poised and counterpoised among themselves, that their own safety may require the presence of all their force at home, leaving the other quarters of the globe in undisturbed tranquillity. When our strength will permit us to give the law of our hemisphere, it should be that the meridian of the mid-Atlantic should be the line of demarkation between war and peace, on this side of which no act of hostility should be committed, and the lion and the lamb lie down in peace together.
I am particularly thankful for the kind expressions of your letter towards myself, and tender you in return my best wishes and the assurances of my great respect and esteem.
Monticello, January 8, 1812.
Sir,—I have duly received your favor of December 22d, informing me that the society of artists of the United States had made me an honorary member of their society. I am very justly sensible of the honor they have done me, and I pray you to return them my thanks for this mark of their distinction. I fear that I can be but a very useless associate. Time, which withers the fancy, as the other faculties of the mind and body, presses on me with a heavy hand, and distance intercepts all personal intercourse. I can offer, therefore, but my zealous good wishes for the success of the institution, and that, embellishing with taste a country already overflowing with the useful productions, it may be able to give an innocent and pleasing direction to accumulations of wealth, which would otherwise be employed in the nourishment of coarse and vicious habits. With these I tender to the society and to yourself the assurances of my high respect and consideration.
Monticello, January 11, 1812.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for your letter of the 6th. It is a proof of your friendship, and of the sincere interest you take in whatever concerns me. Of this I have never had a moment's doubt, and have ever valued it as a precious treasure. The question indeed whether I knew or approved of General Wilkinson's endeavors to prevent the restoration of the right of deposit at New Orleans, could never require a second of time to answer. But it requires some time for the mind to recover from the astonishment excited by the boldness of the suggestion. Indeed, it is with difficulty I can believe he has really made such an appeal; and the rather as the expression in your letter is that you have "casually heard it," without stating the degree of reliance which you have in thesource of information. I think his understanding is above an expedient so momentary and so finally overwhelming. Were Dearborne and myself dead, it might find credit with some. But the world at large, even then, would weigh for themselves the dilemma, whether it was more probable that, in the situation I then was, clothed with the confidence and power of my country, I should descend to so unmeaning an act of treason, or that he, in the wreck now threatening him, should wildly lay hold of any plank. They would weigh his motives and views against those of Dearborne and myself, the tenor of his life against that of ours, his Spanish mysteries against my open cherishment of the Western interests; and, living as we are, and ready to purge ourselves by any ordeal, they must now weigh, in addition, our testimony against his. All this makes me believe he will never seek this refuge. I have ever and carefully restrained myself from the expression of any opinion respecting General Wilkinson, except in the case of Burr's conspiracy, wherein, after he had got over his first agitations, we believed his decision firm, and his conduct zealous for the defeat of the conspiracy, and although injudicious, yet meriting, from sound intentions, the support of the nation. As to the rest of his life, I have left it to his friends and his enemies, to whom it furnishes matter enough for disputation. I classed myself with neither, and least of all in this time of his distresses, should I be disposed to add to their pressure. I hope, therefore, he has not been so imprudent as to write our names in the pannel of his witnesses.
Accept the assurances of my constant affections.
Monticello, January 21, 1812.
Dear Sir,—I thank you before hand (for they are not yet arrived) for the specimens of homespun you have been so kind as to forward me by post. I doubt not their excellence, knowinghow far you are advanced in these things in your quarter. Here we do little in the fine way, but in coarse and middling goods a great deal. Every family in the country is a manufactory within itself, and is very generally able to make within itself all the stouter and middling stuffs for its own clothing and household use. We consider a sheep for every person in the family as sufficient to clothe it, in addition to the cotton, hemp and flax which we raise ourselves. For fine stuff we shall depend on your northern manufactories. Of these, that is to say, of company establishments, we have none. We use little machinery. The spinning jenny, and loom with the flying shuttle, can be managed in a family; but nothing more complicated. The economy and thriftiness resulting from our household manufactures are such that they will never again be laid aside; and nothing more salutary for us has ever happened than the British obstructions to our demands for their manufactures. Restore free intercourse when they will, their commerce with us will have totally changed its form, and the articles we shall in future want from them will not exceed their own consumption of our produce.
A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow-laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right of self-government. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead, threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing harmless under our bark, we knew not how we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port. Still we did not expect to be without rubs and difficulties; and we have had them. First, the detention of the western posts, then the coalition of Pilnitz, outlawing our commerce with France, and the British enforcement of the outlawry. In your day, French depredations; in mine, English, and the Berlin and Milan decrees; now, the English orders of council, and the piracies they authorize. When these shall be over, it will be the impressment of our seamen or something else; and so we have gone on, and so we shall go on, puzzledand prospering beyond example in the history of man. And I do believe we shall continue to growl, to multiply and prosper until we exhibit an association, powerful, wise and happy, beyond what has yet been seen by men. As for France and England, with all their preëminence in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates. And if science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable, as our neighboring savages are. But whither is senile garrulity leading me? Into politics, of which I have taken final leave. I think little of them and say less. I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid, and I find myself much the happier. Sometimes, indeed, I look back to former occurrences, in remembrance of our old friends and fellow-laborers, who have fallen before us. Of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, I see now living not more than half a dozen on your side of the Potomac, and on this side, myself alone. You and I have been wonderfully spared, and myself with remarkable health, and a considerable activity of body and mind. I am on horseback three or four hours of every day; visit three or four times a year a possession I have ninety miles distant, performing the winter journey on horseback. I walk little, however, a single mile being too much for me, and I live in the midst of my grand children, one of whom has lately promoted me to be a great grandfather. I have heard with pleasure that you also retain good health, and a greater power of exercise in walking than I do. But I would rather have heard this from yourself, and that, writing a letter like mine, full of egotisms, and of details of your health, your habits, occupations and enjoyments, I should have the pleasure of knowing that in the race of life, you do not keep, in its physical decline, the same distance ahead of me which you have done in political honors and achievements. No circumstances have lessened the interest I feel in these particulars respecting yourself; none have suspended for one moment my sincere esteem for you, and I now salute you with unchanged affection and respect.
Monticello, January 22, 1812.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 14th has been duly received, and I sincerely congratulate you, or rather my country, on the just testimony of confidence which it has lately manifested to you. In your hands I know that its affairs will be ably and honestly administered.
In answer to your inquiry whether, in the early times of our government, where the council was divided, the practice was for the Governor to give the deciding vote? I must observe that, correctly speaking, the Governor not being a counsellor, his vote could make no part of an advice of council. That would be to place an advice on their journals which they did not give, and could not give because of their equal division. But he did what was equivalent in effect. While I was in the administration, no doubt was ever suggested that where the council, divided in opinion, could give no advice, the Governor was free and bound to act on his own opinion and his own responsibility. Had this been a change of the practice of my predecessor, Mr. Henry, the first governor, it would have produced some discussion, which it never did. Hence, I conclude it was the opinion and practice from the first institution of the government. During Arnold's and Cornwallis' invasion, the council dispersed to their several homes, to take care of their families. Before their separation, I obtained from them a capitulary of standing advices for my government in such cases as ordinarily occur: such as the appointment of militia officers, justices, inspectors, &c., on the recommendations of the courts; but in the numerous and extraordinary occurrences of an invasion, which could not be foreseen, I had to act on my own judgment and my own responsibility. The vote of general approbation, at the session of the succeeding winter, manifested the opinion of the Legislature, that my proceedings had been correct. General Nelson, my successor, staid mostly, I think, with the army; and I do not believe his council followed the camp, although my memory does not enable me to affirm thefact. Some petitions against him for impressment of property without authority of law, brought his proceedings before the next Legislature; the questions necessarily involved were whether necessity, without express law, could justify the impressment, and if it could, whether he could order it without the advice of council. The approbation of the Legislature amounted to a decision of both questions. I remember this case the more especially, because I was then a member of the Legislature, and was one of those who supported the Governor's proceedings, and I think there was no division of the House on the question. I believe the doubt was first suggested in Governor Harrison's time, by some member of the council, on an equal division. Harrison, in his dry way, observed that instead of one governor and eight counsellors, there would then be eight governors and one counsellor, and continued, as I understood, the practice of his predecessors. Indeed, it is difficult to suppose it could be the intention of those who framed the constitution, that when the council should be divided the government should stand still; and the more difficult as to a constitution formed during a war, and for the purpose of carrying on that war, that so high an officer as their Governor should be created and salaried, merely to act as the clerk and authenticator of the votes of the council. No doubt it was intended that the advice of the council should control the governor. But the action of the controlling power being withdrawn, his would be left free to proceed on its own responsibility. Where from division, absence, sickness or other obstacle, no advice could be given, they could not mean that their Governor, the person of their peculiar choice and confidence, should stand by, an inactive spectator, and let their government tumble to pieces for want of a will to direct it. In executive cases, where promptitude and decision are all important, an adherence to the letter of a law against its probable intentions, (for every law must intend that itself shall be executed,) would be fraught with incalculable danger. Judges may await further legislative explanations, but a delay of executive action might produce irretrievable ruin. The State is invaded, militia to be called out, an armymarched, arms and provisions to be issued from the public magazines, the Legislature to be convened, and the council is divided. Can it be believed to have been the intention of the framers of the constitution, that the constitution itself and their constituents with it should be destroyed for want of a will to direct the resources they had provided for its preservation? Before such possible consequences all verbal scruples must vanish; construction must be madesecundum arbitrium boni viri, and the constitution be rendered a practicable thing. That exposition of it must be vicious, which would leave the nation under the most dangerous emergencies without a directing will. The cautious maxims of the bench, to seek the will of the legislator and his words only, are proper and safer for judicial government. They act ever on an individual case only, the evil of which is partial, and gives time for correction. But an instant of delay in executive proceedings may be fatal to the whole nation. They must not, therefore, be laced up in the rules of the judiciary department. They must seek the intention of the legislator in all the circumstances which may indicate it in the history of the day, in the public discussions, in the general opinion and understanding, in reason and in practice. The three great departments having distinct functions to perform, must have distinct rules adapted to them. Each must act under its own rules, those of no one having any obligation on either of the others. When the opinion first begun that a governor could not act when his council could not or would not advise, I am uninformed. Probably not till after the war; for, had it prevailed then, no militia could have been opposed to Cornwallis, nor necessaries furnished to the opposing army of Lafayette. These, Sir, are my recollections and thoughts on the subject of your inquiry, to which I will only add the assurances of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, February 2, 1812.
Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 1st inst., together with the volume accompanying it, for which I pray you to accept my thanks, and to be so kind as to convey them to Mrs. Debutts also, to whose obliging care I am indebted for its transmission. But especially my thanks are due to the author himself for the honorable mention he has made of me. With the exception of two or three characters of greater eminence in the revolution, we formed a group of fellow laborers in the common cause, animated by a common zeal, and claiming no distinction of one over another.
The spirit of freedom, breathed through the whole of Mr. Northmore's composition, is really worthy of the purest times of Greece and Rome. It would have been received in England, in the days of Hampden and Sidney, with more favor than at this time. It marks a high and independent mind in the author, one capable of rising above the partialities of country, to have seen in the adversary cause that of justice and freedom, and to have estimated fairly the motives and actions of those engaged in its support. I hope and firmly believe that the whole world will, sooner later, feel benefit from the issue of our assertion of the rights of man. Although the horrors of the French revolution have damped for awhile the ardor of the patriots in every country, yet it is not extinguished—it will never die. The sense of right has been excited in every breast, and the spark will be rekindled by the very oppressions of that detestable tyranny employed to quench it. The errors of the honest patriots of France, and the crimes of her Dantons and Robespierres, will be forgotten in the more encouraging contemplation of our sober example, and steady march to our object. Hope will strengthen the presumption that what has been done once may be done again. As you have been the channel of my receiving this mark of attention from Mr. Northmore, I must pray you to be that of conveying to him my thanks, and an assurance of thehigh sense I have of the merit of his work, and of its tendency to cherish the noblest virtues of the human character.
On the political events of the day I have nothing to communicate. I have retired from them, and given up newspapers for more classical reading. I add, therefore, only the assurances of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, February 3, 1812.
Sir,—Observing that you edit the Edinburgh Review, reprinted in New York, and presuming that your occupations in that line are not confined to that single work, I take the liberty of addressing the present letter to you. If I am mistaken, the obviousness of the inference will be my apology. Mr. Edward Livingston brought an action against me for having removed his intrusion on the beach of the river Mississippi opposite to New Orleans. At the request of my counsel I made a statement of the facts of the case, and of the law applicable to them, so as to form a full argument of justification. The case has been dismissed from court for want of jurisdiction, and the public remain uninformed whether I had really abused the powers entrusted to me, as he alleged. I wish to convey to them this information by publishing the justification. The questions arising in the case are mostly under the civil law, the laws of Spain and of France, which are of course couched in French, in Spanish, in Latin, and some in Greek; and the books being in few hands in this country, I was obliged to make very long extracts from them. The correctness with which your edition of the Edinburgh Review is printed, and of the passages quoted in those languages, induces me to propose to you the publication of the case I speak of. It will fill about 65 or 70 pages of the type and size of paper of the Edinburgh Review. The MS. is in the handwriting of this letter, entirely fair and correct. It will take between four and five sheets of paper, of sixteen pages each. I shouldwant 250 copies struck off for myself, intended principally for the members of Congress, and the printer would be at liberty to print as many more as he pleased for sale, but without any copyright, which I should not propose to have taken out. It is right that I should add, that the work is not at all for popular reading. It is merely a law argument, and a very dry one; having been intended merely for the eye of my counsel. It may be in some demand perhaps with lawyers, and persons engaged in the public affairs, but very little beyond that. Will you be so good as to inform me if you will undertake to edit this, and what would be the terms on which you can furnish me with 250 copies? I should want it to be done with as little delay as possible, so that Congress might receive it before they separate; and I should add as a condition, that not a copy should be sold until I could receive my number, and have time to lay them on the desks of the members. This would require a month from the time they should leave New York by the stage. In hopes of an early answer I tender you the assurances of my respect.
Monticello, February 14, 1812.
Thomas Jefferson presents his compliments to Dr. Wheaton, and his thanks for the address he was so kind as to enclose him on the advancement in Medicine. Having little confidence in the theories of that art, which change in their fashion with the ladies' caps and gowns, he has much in the facts it has established by observation. The experience of physicians has proved that in certain forms of disease, certain substances will restore order to the human system; and he doubts not that continued observation will enlarge the catalogue, and give relief to our posterity in cases wherein we are without it. The extirpation of the small pox by vaccination, is an encouraging proof that the condition of man is susceptible of amelioration, although we are not able to fix its extent. He salutes Dr. Wheaton with esteem and respect.
Monticello, March 21, 1812.
Sir,—I have duly received your favor of the 10th inst. proposing to me to join in a contribution for the support of the family of the late Mr. Cheetham of New York. Private charities, as well as contributions to public purposes in proportion to every one's circumstances, are certainly among the duties we owe to society, and I have never felt a wish to withdraw from my portion of them. The general relation in which I, some time since, stood to the citizens of all our States, drew on me such multitudes of these applications as exceeded all resource. Nor have they much abated since my retirement to the limited duties of a private citizen, and the more limited resources of a private fortune. They have obliged me to lay down as a law of conduct for myself, to restrain my contributions for public institutions to the circle of my own State, and for private charities to that which is under my own observation; and these calls I find more than sufficient for everything I can spare. Nor was there anything in the case of the late Mr. Cheetham, which could claim with me to be taken out of a general rule. On these considerations I must decline the contribution you propose, not doubting that the efforts of the family, aided by those who stand in the relation to them of neighbors and friends, in so great a mart for industry as they are placed in, will save them from all danger of want or suffering. With this apology for returning the paper sent me, unsubscribed, be pleased to accept the tender of my respect.
Monticello, March 22, 1812.
Sir,—I am indebted to you for the communication of the prospectus of a work embracing the history of civilized man, political and moral, from the great change produced in his conditionby the extension of the feudal system over Europe through all the successive effects of the revival of letters, the invention of printing, that of the compass, the enlargement of science, and the revolutionary spirit, religious and civil, generated by that. It presents a vast anatomy of fact and reflection, which if duly filled up would offer to the human mind a wonderful mass for contemplation.
Your letter does not ascertain whether this work is already executed, or only meditated; but it excites a great desire to see it completed, and a confidence that the author of the analysis is best able to develop the profound views there only sketched. It would be a library in itself, and to our country particularly desirable and valuable, if executed in the genuine republican principles of our constitution. The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it. The events which this work proposes to embrace will establish the fact that unless the mass retains sufficient control over those intrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust. Whether our constitution has hit on the exact degree of control necessary, is yet under experiment; and it is a most encouraging reflection that distance and other difficulties securing us against the brigand governments of Europe, in the safe enjoyment of our farms and firesides, the experiment stands a better chance of being satisfactorily made here than on any occasion yet presented by history. To promote, therefore, unanimity and perseverance in this great enterprise, to disdain despair, encourage trial, and nourish hope, are the worthiest objects of every political and philanthropic work; and that this would be the necessary result of that which you have delineated, the facts it will review, and the just reflections arising out of them, will sufficiently answer. I hope, therefore, that it is notin pettomerely, but already completed; and that my fellow citizens, warned in it of the rocks and shoals on which other political associationshave been wrecked, will be able to direct theirs with a better knowledge of the dangers in its way.
The enlargement of your observations on the subjects of natural history, alluded to in your letter, cannot fail to add to our lights respecting them, and will therefore ever be a welcome present to every friend of science. Accept, I pray you, the assurance of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, April 2d, 1812.
Dear Sir,—Your letter of March 22d has been duly received. By this time a printed copy of my MS. respecting the Batture has I hope been laid on your desk, by which you will perceive that the MS. itself has been received long enough to have been sent to New York, printed and returned to Washington.
On the subject of the omission of the officers of the Virginia State line, in the provisions and reservations of the cession of Congress, my memory enables me to say nothing more than that it was not through inattention, as I believe, but the result of compromise. But of this the President, who was in Congress when the arrangement was settled, can give the best account. I had nothing to do but execute a deed according to that arrangement, made previous to my being a member. Colonel Monroe being a member with me, is more likely to remember what passed at that time; but the best resource for explanation of everything we did, is in our weekly correspondence with the Governor of Virginia, which I suppose is still among the Executive records. We made it a point to write a letter to him every week, either jointly, or individually by turns.
You request me to state the public sentiment of our part of the country as to war and the taxes. You know I do not go out much. My own house and our court yard are the only places where I see my fellow citizens. As far as I can judge in this limited sphere, I think all regret that there is cause for war,but all consider it as now necessary, and would, I think, disapprove of a much longer delay of the declaration of it. As to the taxes, they expect to meet them, would be unwilling to have them postponed, and are only dissatisfied with some of the subjects of taxation; that is to say the stamp tax and excise. To the former I have not seen a man who is not totally irreconcilable. If the latter could be collected from those who buy to sell again, so as to prevent domiciliary visits by the officers, I think it would be acceptable, and I am sure a wholesome tax. I am persuaded the Secretary of the Treasury is mistaken in supposing so immense a deduction from the duties on imports. We shall make little less to sell than we do now, for no one will let his hands be idle; and consequently we shall export not much less, and expect returns. Some part will be taken on the export and some on the import. But taking into account the advance of prices, that revenue will not fall so far short as he thinks; and I have no doubt might be counted on to make good the entire suppression of the stamp tax. Yet, although a very disgusting pill, I think there can be no question the people will swallow it, if their representatives determine on it. I get their sentiments mostly from those who are most in the habit of intercourse with the people than I am myself. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, April 17, 1812.
Dear Sir,—The enclosed papers will explain themselves. Their coming to me is the only thing not sufficiently explained.
Your favor of the 3d came duly to hand. Although something of the kind had been apprehended, the embargo found the farmers and planters only getting their produce to market, and selling as fast as they could get it there. I think it caught them in this part of the State with one-third of their flour or wheat and three-quarters of their tobacco undisposed of. If we maysuppose the rest of the middle country in the same situation, and that the upper and lower country may be judged by that as a mean, these will perhaps be the proportions of produce remaining in the hands of the producers. Supposing the objects of the government were merely to keep our vessels and men out of harm's way, and that there is no idea that the want of our flour will starve Great Britain, the sale of the remaining produce will be rather desirable, and what would be desired even in war, and even to our enemies. For I am favorable to the opinion which has been urged by others, sometimes acted on, and now partly so by France and Great Britain, that commerce, under certain restrictions and licenses, may be indulged between enemies mutually advantageous to the individuals, and not to their injury as belligerents. The capitulation of Amelia Island, if confirmed, might favor this object, and at any rate get off our produce now on hand. I think a people would go through a war with much less impatience if they could dispose of their produce, and that unless a vent can be provided for them, they will soon become querulous and clamor for peace. They appear at present to receive the embargo with perfect acquiescence and without a murmur, seeing the necessity of taking care of our vessels and seamen. Yet they would be glad to dispose of their produce in any way not endangering them, as by letting it go from a neutral place in British vessels. In this way we lose the carriage only; but better that than both carriage and cargo. The rising of the price of flour, since the first panic is passed away, indicates some prospects in the merchants of disposing of it. Our wheat had greatly suffered by the winter, but is as remarkably recovered by the favorable weather of the spring. Ever affectionately yours.
Monticello, April 20, 1812.
Dear Sir,—I have it now in my power to send you a piece of homespun in return for that I received from you. Not of thefine texture, or delicate character of yours, or, to drop our metaphor, not filled as that was with that display of imagination which constitutes excellence in Belles Lettres, but a mere sober, dry and formal piece of logic.Ornari res ipsa negat.Yet you may have enough left of your old taste for law reading, to cast an eye over some of the questions it discusses. At any rate, accept it as the offering of esteem and friendship.
You wish to know something of the Richmond and Wabash prophets. Of Nimrod Hews I never heard before. Christopher Macpherson I have known for twenty years. He is a man of color, brought up as a book-keeper by a merchant, his master, and afterwards enfranchized. He had understanding enough to post up his ledger from his journal, but not enough to bear up against hypochondriac affections, and the gloomy forebodings they inspire. He became crazy, foggy, his head always in the clouds, and rhapsodizing what neither himself nor any one else could understand. I think he told me he had visited you personally while you were in the administration, and wrote you letters, which you have probably forgotten in the mass of the correspondences of that crazy class, of whose complaints, and terrors, and mysticisms, the several Presidents have been the regular depositories. Macpherson was too honest to be molested by anybody, and too inoffensive to be a subject for the mad-house; although, I believe, we are told in the old book, that "every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet, thou shouldst put him in prison and in the stocks."
The Wabash prophet is a very different character, more rogue than fool, if to be a rogue is not the greatest of all follies. He arose to notice while I was in the administration, and became, of course, a proper subject of inquiry for me. The inquiry was made with diligence. His declared object was the reformation of his red brethren, and their return to their pristine manner of living. He pretended to be in constant communication with the Great Spirit; that he was instructed by him to make known to the Indians that they were created by him distinct from the whites, of different natures, for different purposes, and placed underdifferent circumstances, adapted to their nature and destinies; that they must return from all the ways of the whites to the habits and opinions of their forefathers; they must not eat the flesh of hogs, of bullocks, of sheep, &c., the deer and buffalo having been created for their food; they must not make bread of wheat but of Indian corn; they must not wear linen nor woollen, but dress like their fathers in the skins and furs of animals; they must not drink ardent spirits, and I do not remember whether he extended his inhibitions to the gun and gunpowder, in favor of the bow and arrow. I concluded from all this, that he was a visionary, enveloped in the clouds of their antiquities, and vainly endeavoring to lead back his brethren to the fancied beatitudes of their golden age. I thought there was little danger of his making many proselytes from the habits and comfort they had learned from the whites, to the hardships and privations of savagism, and no great harm if he did. We let him go on, therefore, unmolested. But his followers increased till the English thought him worth corruption and found him corruptible. I suppose his views were then changed; but his proceedings in consequence of them were after I left the administration, and are, therefore, unknown to me; nor have I ever been informed what were the particular acts on his part, which produced an actual commencement of hostilities on ours. I have no doubt, however, that his subsequent proceedings are but a chapter apart, like that of Henry and Lord Liverpool, in the book of the kings of England.
Of this mission of Henry, your son had got wind in the time of the embargo, and communicated it to me. But he had learned nothing of the particular agent, although, of his workings, the information he had obtained appears now to have been correct. He stated a particular which Henry has not distinctly brought forward, which was that the Eastern States were not to be required to make a formal act of separation from the Union, and to take a part in the war against it; a measure deemed much too strong for their people; but to declare themselves in a state of neutrality, in consideration of which they were to have peace and free commerce, the lure most likely to insure popular acquiescence.Having no indications of Henry as the intermediate in this negotiation of the Essex junto, suspicions fell on Pickering, and his nephew Williams, in London. If he was wronged in this, the ground of the suspicion is to be found in his known practices and avowed opinions, as that of his accomplices in the sameness of sentiment and of language with Henry, and subsequently by the fluttering of the wounded pigeons.
This letter, with what it encloses, has given you enough, I presume, of law and the prophets. I will only add to it, therefore, the homage of my respects to Mrs. Adams, and to yourself the assurances of affectionate esteem and respect.
Monticello, April 25, 1812.
My Dear and ancient Friend and Classmate,—Often has my heart smote me for delaying acknowledgments to you, receiving, as I do, such frequent proofs of your kind recollection in the transmission of papers to me. But instead of acting on the good old maxim of not putting off to to-morrow what we can do to-day, we are too apt to reverse it, and not to do to-day what we can put off to-morrow. But this duty can be no longer put off. To-day we are at peace; to-morrow, war. The curtain of separation is drawing between us, and probably will not be withdrawn till one, if not both of us, will be at rest with our fathers. Let me now, then, while I may, renew to you the declarations of my warm attachment, which in no period of life has ever been weakened, and seems to become stronger as the remaining objects of our youthful affections are fewer.
Our two countries are to be at war, but not you and I. And why should our two countries be at war, when by peace we can be so much more useful to one another? Surely the world will acquit our government from having sought it. Never before has there been an instance of a nation's bearing so much as we have borne. Two items alone in our catalogue of wrongs will foreveracquit us of being the aggressors: the impressment of our seamen, and the excluding us from the ocean. The first foundations of the social compact would be broken up, were we definitively to refuse to its members the protection of their persons and property, while in their lawful pursuits. I think the war will not be short, because the object of England, long obvious, is to claim the ocean as her domain, and to exact transit duties from every vessel traversing it. This is the sum of her orders of council, which were only a step in this bold experiment, never meant to be retracted if it could be permanently maintained. And this object must continue her in war with all the world. To this I see no termination, until her exaggerated efforts, so much beyond her natural strength and resources, shall have exhausted her to bankruptcy. The approach of this crisis is, I think, visible in the departure of her precious metals, and depreciation of her paper medium. We, who have gone through that operation, know its symptoms, its course, and consequences. In England they will be more serious than elsewhere, because half the wealth of her people is now in that medium, the private revenue of her money-holders, or rather of her paper-holders, being, I believe, greater than that of her land-holders. Such a proportion of property, imaginary and baseless as it is, cannot be reduced to vapor but with great explosion. She will rise out of its ruins, however, because her lands, her houses, her arts will remain, and the greater part of her men. And these will give her again that place among nations which is proportioned to her natural means, and which we all wish her to hold. We believe that the just standing of all nations is the health and security of all. We consider the overwhelming power of England on the ocean, and of France on the land, as destructive of the prosperity and happiness of the world, and wish both to be reduced only to the necessity of observing moral duties. We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberty of the seas, than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object of both is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations. We resist the enterprises of Englandfirst, because they first come vitally home to us. And our feelings repel the logic of bearing the lash of George the III. for fear of that of Bonaparte at some future day. When the wrongs of France shall reach us with equal effect, we shall resist them also. But one at a time is enough; and having offered a choice to the champions, England first takes up the gauntlet.
The English newspapers suppose me the personal enemy of their nation. I am not so. I am an enemy to its injuries, as I am to those of France. If I could permit myself to have national partialities, and if the conduct of England would have permitted them to be directed towards her, they would have been so. I thought that in the administration of Mr. Addington, I discovered some dispositions toward justice, and even friendship and respect for us, and began to pave the way for cherishing these dispositions, and improving them into ties of mutual good will. But we had then a federal minister there, whose dispositions to believe himself, and to inspire others with a belief in our sincerity, his subsequent conduct has brought into doubt; and poor Merry, the English minister here, had learned nothing of diplomacy but its suspicions, without head enough to distinguish when they were misplaced. Mr. Addington and Mr. Fox passed away too soon to avail the two countries of their dispositions. Had I been personally hostile to England, and biased in favor of either the character or views of her great antagonist, the affair of the Chesapeake put war into my hand. I had only to open it and let havoc loose. But if ever I was gratified with the possession of power, and of the confidence of those who had entrusted me with it, it was on that occasion when I was enabled to use both for the prevention of war, towards which the torrent of passion here was directed almost irresistibly, and when not another person in the United States, less supported by authority and favor, could have resisted it. And now that a definitive adherence to her impressments and orders of council renders war no longer avoidable, my earnest prayer is that our government may enter into no compact of common cause with the other belligerent, but keep us free to make a separate peace, whenever Englandwill separately give us peace and future security. But Lord Liverpool is our witness that this can never be but by her removal from our neighborhood.
I have thus, for a moment, taken a range into the field of politics, to possess you with the view we take of things here. But in the scenes which are to ensue, I am to be but a spectator. I have withdrawn myself from all political intermeddlings, to indulge the evening of my life with what have been the passions of every portion of it, books, science, my farms, my family and friends. To these every hour of the day is now devoted. I retain a good activity of mind, not quite as much of body, but uninterrupted health. Still the hand of age is upon me. All my old friends are nearly gone. Of those in my neighborhood, Mr. Divers and Mr. Lindsay alone remain. If you could make it apartie quarrée, it would be a comfort indeed. We would beguile our lingering hours with talking over our youthful exploits, our hunts on Peter's mountain, with a long train ofet cetera, in addition, and feel, by recollection at least, a momentary flash of youth. Reviewing the course of a long and sufficiently successful life, I find in no portion of it happier moments than those were. I think the old hulk in which you are, is near her wreck, and that like a prudent rat, you should escape in time. However, here, there, and everywhere, in peace or in war, you will have my sincere affections and prayers for your life, health and happiness.