FOUNDED 1791.—BURNT BY A BRITISH ARMY 1814.—RESTORED BY CONGRESS 1817.
FOUNDED 1791.—BURNT BY A BRITISH ARMY 1814.—RESTORED BY CONGRESS 1817.
FOUNDED 1791.—BURNT BY A BRITISH ARMY 1814.—RESTORED BY CONGRESS 1817.
The reasons for this brevity are that the letters must be of extraordinary magnitude to be read from below; that little space is allowed them, being usually put into a pediment or in a frieze, or on a small tablet on the wall; and in our case, a third reason may be added, that no passion can be imputed to this inscription, every word being justifiable from the most classical examples.
But a question of more importance is whether there should be one at all? The barbarism of the conflagration will immortalize that of the nation. It will place them forever in degraded comparison with the execrated Bonaparte, who, in possession of almost every capitol in Europe, injured no one. Of this, history will take care, which all will read, while our inscription will be seen by few. Great Britain, in her pride and ascendency, has certainly hated and despised us beyond every earthly object. Her hatred may remain, but the hour of her contempt is passed and is succeeded by dread; not a present, but a distant and deepone. It is the greater as she feels herself plunged into an abyss of ruin from which no human means point out an issue. We also have more reason to hate her than any nation on earth. But she is not now an object for hatred. She is falling from her transcendent sphere, which all men ought to have wished, but not that she should lose all place among nations. It is for the interest of all that she should be maintained,nearlyon a par with other members of the republic of nations. Her power, absorbed into that of any other, would be an object of dread to all, and to us more than all, because we are accessible to her alone and through her alone. The armies of Bonaparte with the fleets of Britain, would change the aspect of our destinies. Under these prospects should we perpetuate hatred against her? Should we not, on the contrary, begin to open ourselves to other and more rational dispositions? It is not improbable that the circumstances of the war and her own circumstances may have brought her wise men to begin to view us with other and even with kindred eyes. Should not our wise men, then, lifted above the passions of the ordinary citizen, begin to contemplate whatwill bethe interests of our country on so important a change among the elements which influence it? I think it would be better to give her time to show her present temper, and to prepare the minds of our citizens for a corresponding change of disposition, by acts of comity towards England rather than by commemoration of hatred. These views might be greatly extended. Perhaps, however, they are premature, and that I may see the ruin of England nearer than it really is. This will be matter of consideration with those to whose councils we have committed ourselves, and whose wisdom, I am sure, will conclude on what is best. Perhaps they may let it go off on the single and short consideration that the thing can do no good, and may do harm. Ever and affectionately yours.
Poplar Forest, November 25, 1816.
I receive here, dear Sir, your favor of the 4th, just as I am preparing my return to Monticello for winter quarters, and I hasten to answer to some of your inquiries. The Tracy I mentioned to you is the one connected by marriage with Lafayette's family. The mail which brought your letter, brought one also from him. He writes me that he is become blind, and so infirm that he is no longer able to compose anything. So that we are to consider his works as now closed. They are three volumes of Ideology, one on Political Economy, one on Ethics, and one containing his Commentary on Montesquieu, and a little tract on Education. Although his commentary explains his principles of government, he had intended to have substituted for it an elementary and regular treatise on the subject, but he is prevented by his infirmities. HisAnalyse de Dupuyshe does not avow.
My books are all arrived, some at New York, some at Boston, and I am glad to hear that those for Harvard are safe also, and the Uranologia you mention without telling me what it is. It is something good, I am sure, from the name connected with it; and if you would add to it your fable of the bees, we should receive valuable instruction as to the Uranologia both of the father and son, more valuable than the Chinese will from our bible societies. These incendiaries, finding that the days of fire and fagot are over in the Atlantic hemisphere, are now preparing to put the torch to the Asiatic regions. What would they say were the Pope to send annually to this country, colonies of Jesuit priests with cargoes of their missal and translations of their Vulgate, to be put gratis into the hands of every one who would accept them? and to act thus nationally on us as a nation?
I proceed to the letter you were so good as to enclose me. It is an able letter, speaks volumes in few words, presents a profound view of awful truths, and lets us see truths more awful, which are still to follow. George the Third then, and his minister Pitt, and successors, have spent the fee simple of thekingdom, under pretence of governing it; their sinecures, salaries, pensions, priests, prelates, princes and eternal wars, have mortgaged to its full value the last foot of their soil. They are reduced to the dilemma of a bankrupt spendthrift, who, having run through his whole fortune, now asks himself what he is to do? It is in vain he dismisses his coaches and horses, his grooms, liveries, cooks and butlers. This done, he still finds he has nothing to eat. What was his property is now that of his creditors; if still in his hands, it is only as their trustee. To them it belongs, and to them every farthing of its profits must go. The reformation of extravagances comes too late. All is gone. Nothing left for retrenchment or frugality to go on. The debts of England, however, being due from the whole nation to one half of it, being as much the debt of the creditor as debtor, if it could be referred to a court of equity, principles might be devised to adjust it peaceably. Dismiss their parasites, ship off their paupers to this country, let the landholders give half their lands to the money lenders, and these last relinquish one half of their debts. They would still have a fertile island, a sound and effective population to labor it, and would hold that station among political powers, to which their natural resources and faculties entitle them. They would no longer, indeed, be the lords of the ocean and paymasters of all the princes of the earth. They would no longer enjoy the luxuries of pirating and plundering everything by sea, and of bribing and corrupting everything by land; but they might enjoy the more safe and lasting luxury of living on terms of equality, justice and good neighborhood with all nations. As it is, their first efforts will probably be to quiet things awhile by the palliatives of reformation; to nibble a little at pensions and sinecures, to bite off a bit here, and a bite there to amuse the people; and to keep the government a going by encroachments on the interest of the public debt, one per cent. of which, for instance, withheld, gives them a spare revenue of ten millions for present subsistence, and spunges, in fact, two hundred millions of the debt. This remedy they may endeavor to administer in broken doses of a small pill at a time. The firstmay not occasion more than a strong nausea in the money lenders; but the second will probably produce a revulsion of the stomach, borborisms, and spasmodic calls for fair settlement and compromise. But it is not in the character of man to come to any peaceable compromise of such a state of things. The princes and priests will hold to the flesh-pots, the empty bellies will seize on them, and these being the multitude, the issue is obvious, civil war, massacre, exile as in France, until the stage is cleaned of everything but the multitude, and the lands get into their hands by such processes as the revolution will engender. They will then want peace and a government, and what will it be? certainly not a renewal of that which has already ruined them. Their habits of law and order, their ideas almost innate of the vital elements of free government, of trial by jury,habeas corpus, freedom of the press, freedom of opinion, and representative government, make them, I think, capable of bearing a considerable portion of liberty. They will probably turn their eyes to us, and be disposed to tread in our footsteps, seeing how safely these have led us into port. There is no part of our model to which they seem unequal, unless perhaps the elective presidency; and even that might possibly be rescued from the tumult of elections, by subdividing the electoral assemblages into very small parts, such as of wards or townships, and making them simultaneous. But you know them so much better than I do, that it is presumption to offer my conjectures to you.
While it is much our interest to see this power reduced from its towering and borrowed height, to within the limits of its natural resources, it is by no means our interest that she should be brought below that, or lose her competent place among the nations of Europe. The present exhausted state of the continent will, I hope, permit them to go through their struggle without foreign interference, and to settle their new government according to their own will. I think it will be friendly to us, as the nation itself would be were it not artfully wrought up by the hatred their government bears us. And were they once undera government which should treat us with justice and equity I should myself feel with great strength the ties which bind us together, of origin, language, laws and manners; and I am persuaded the two people would become in future, as it was with the ancient Greeks, among whom it was reproachful for Greek to be found fighting against Greek in a foreign army. The individuals of the nation I have ever honored and esteemed, the basis of their character being essentially worthy; but I consider their government as the most flagitious which has existed since the days of Philip of Macedon, whom they make their model. It is not only founded in corruption itself, but insinuates the same poison into the bowels of every other, corrupts its councils, nourishes factions, stirs up revolutions, and places its own happiness in fomenting commotions and civil wars among others, thus rendering itself truly thehostis humani generis. The effect is now coming home to itself. Its first operation will fall on the individuals who have been the chief instruments in its corruptions, and will eradicate the families which have from generation to generation been fattening on the blood of their brethren; and this scoria once thrown off, I am in hopes a purer nation will result, and a purer government be instituted, one which, instead of endeavoring to make us their natural enemies, will see in us, what we really are, their natural friends and brethren, and more interested in a fraternal connection with them than with any other nation on earth. I look, therefore, to their revolution with great interest. I wish it to be as moderate and bloodless as will effect the desired object of an honest government, one which will permit the world to live in peace, and under the bonds of friendship and good neighborhood.
In this tremendous tempest, the distinctions of whig and tory will disappear like chaff on a troubled ocean. Indeed, they have been disappearing from the day Hume first began to publish his history. This single book has done more to sap the free principles of the English constitution than the largest standing army of which their patriots have been so jealous. It is like the portraits of our countryman Wright, whose eye was so unhappy asto seize all the ugly features of his subject, and to present them faithfully, while it was entirely insensible to every lineament of beauty. So Hume has concentrated, in his fascinating style, all the arbitrary proceedings of the English kings, as true evidences of the constitution, and glided over its whig principles as the unfounded pretensions of factious demagogues. He even boasts, in his life written by himself, that of the numerous alterations suggested by the readers of his work, he had never adopted one proposed by a whig.
But what, in this same tempest, will become of their colonies and their fleets? Will the former assume independence, and the latter resort to piracy for subsistence, taking possession of some island as apoint d'appui? A pursuit of these would add too much to the speculations on the situation and prospects of England, into which I have been led by the pithy text of the letter you so kindly sent me, and which I now return. It is worthy the pen of Tacitus. I add, therefore, only my affectionate and respectful souvenirs to Mrs. Adams and yourself.
Quincy, December 16, 1816.
Your letter, dear Sir, of November 25th, from Poplar Forest, was sent to me from the post-office the next day after I had sent "The Analysis," with my thanks to you.
"Three vols. of Idiology!" Pray explain to me this Neological title! What does it mean? When Bonaparte used it, I was delighted with it, upon the common principle of delight in everything we cannot understand. Does it mean Idiotism? The science ofnon compos mentuism? The science of Lunacy? The theory of delirium? or does it mean the science of self-love? Ofamour propre? or the elements of vanity?
Were I in France at this time, I could profess blindness and infirmity, and prove it too. I suppose he does not avow the analysis, as Hume did not avow his essay on human nature. Thatanalysis, however, does not show a man of excessive mediocrity. Had I known any of these things two years ago, I would have written him a letter. Of all things, I wish to see his Idiology upon Montesquieu. If you, with all your influence, have not been able to get your own translation of it, with your own notes upon it, published in four years, where and what is the freedom of the American press? Mr. Taylor of Hazelwood, Port Royal, can have his voluminous and luminous works published with ease and despatch.
The Uranologia, as I am told, is a collection of plates, stamps, charts of the Heavens upon a large scale, representing all the constellations. The work of some Professor in Sweden. It is said to be the most perfect that ever has appeared. I have not seen it. Why should I ride fifteen miles to see it, when I can see the original every clear evening; and especially as Dupuis has almost made me afraid to inquire after anything more of it than I can see with my naked eye in a star-light night?
That the Pope will send Jesuits to this country, I doubt not; and the church of England, missionaries too. And the Methodists, and the Quakers, and the Moravians, and the Swedenburgers, and the Menonists, and the Scottish Kirkers, and the Jacobites, and the Jacobins, and the Democrats, and the Aristocrats, and the Monarchists, and the Despotists of all denominations: and every emissary of every one of these sects will find a party here already formed, to give him a cordial reception. No power or intelligence less than Raphael's moderator, can reduce this chaos to order.
I am charmed with the fluency and rapidity of your reasoning on the state of Great Britain. I can deny none of your premises; but I doubt your conclusion. After all the convulsions that you foresee, they will return to that constitution which you say has ruined them, and I say has been the source of all their power and importance. They have, as you say, too much sense and knowledge of liberty, ever to submit to simple monarchy, or absolute despotism, on the one hand; and too much of the devil in them ever to be governed by popular elections of Presidents, Senators, and Representatives in Congress. Instead of "turning their eyesto us," their innate feelings will turn them from us. They have been taught from their cradles to despise, scorn, insult, and abuse us. They hate us more vigorously than they do the French. They would sooner adopt the simple monarchy of France, than our republican institutions. You compliment me with more knowledge of them than I can assume or pretend. If I should write you a volume of observations I made in England, you would pronounce it a satire. Suppose the "Refrain," as the French call it, or the Burthen of the Song, as the English express it, should be, the Religion, the Government, the Commerce, the Manufactures, the Army and Navy of Great Britain, are all reduced to the science of pounds, shillings and pence. Elections appeared to me a mere commercial traffic; mere bargain and sale. I have been told by sober, steady freeholders, that "they never had been, and never would go to the poll, without being paid for their time, travel and expenses." Now, suppose an election for a President of the British empire. There must be a nomination of candidates by a national convention, Congress, or caucus—in which would be two parties—Whigs and Tories. Of course two candidates at least would be nominated. The empire is instantly divided into two parties at least. Every man must be paid for his vote by the candidate of his party. The only question would be, which party has the deepest purse. The same reasoning will apply to elections of Senators and Representatives too. A revolution might destroy the Burroughs and the Inequalities of representation, and might produce more toleration; and these acquisitions might be worth all they would cost; but I dread the experiment.
Britain will never be our friend till we are her master.
This will happen in less time than you and I have been struggling with her power; provided we remain united. Aye! there's the rub! I fear there will be greater difficulties to preserve our Union, than you and I, our fathers, brothers, friends, disciples and sons have had, to form it. Towards Great Britain, I would adopt their own maxim. An English jockey says, "If I have a wild horse to break, I begin by convincing him I am his master;and then I will convince him that I am his friend." I am well assured that nothing will restrain Great Britain from injuring us, but fear.
You think that "in a revolution the distinction of Whig and Tory would disappear." I cannot believe this. That distinction arises from nature and society; is now, and ever will be, time without end, among Negroes, Indians, and Tartars, as well as federalists and republicans. Instead of "disappearing since Hume published his history," that history has only increased the Tories and diminished the Whigs. That history has been the bane of Great Britain. It has destroyed many of the best effects of the revolution of 1688. Style has governed the empire. Swift, Pope and Hume, have disgraced all the honest historians. Rapin and Burnet, Oldmixen and Coke, contain more honest truth than Hume and Clarendon, and all their disciples and imitators. But who reads any of them at this day? Every one of the fine arts from the earliest times has been enlisted in the service of superstition and despotism. The whole world at this day gazes with astonishment at the grossest fictions, because they have been immortalized by the most exquisite artists—Homer and Milton, Phideas and Raphael. The rabble of the classic skies, and the hosts of Roman Catholic saints and angels, are still adored in paint, and marble, and verse. Raphael has sketched the actors and scenes in all Apuleus's Amours of Psyche and Cupid. Nothing is too offensive to morals, delicacy, or decency, for this painter. Raphael has painted in one of the most ostentatious churches in Italy—the Creation—and with what genius? God Almighty is represented as leaping into chaos, and boxing it about with his fists, and kicking it about with his feet, till he tumbles it into order!
Nothing is too impious or profane for this great master, who has painted so many inimitable virgins and children.
To help me on in my career of improvement, I have now read four volumes of La Harpe's correspondence with Paul and a Russian minister. Philosophers! Never again think of annulling superstition per Saltum.Testine cente.
Monticello, December 31, 1816.
Sir,—Your favor of November 23d, after a very long passage, is received, and with it the map which you have been so kind as to send me, for which I return you many thanks. It is handsomely executed, and on a well-chosen scale; giving a luminous view of the comparative possessions of different powers in our America. It is on account of the value I set on it, that I will make some suggestions. By the charter of Louis XIV. all the country comprehending the waters which flow into the Mississippi, was made a part of Louisiana. Consequently its northern boundary was the summit of the highlands in which its northern waters rise. But by the Xth Art. of the Treaty of Utrecht, France and England agreed to appoint commissioners to settle the boundary between their possessions in that quarter, and those commissioners settled it at the 49th degree of latitude. See Hutchinson's Topographical Description of Louisiana, p. 7. This it was which induced the British Commissioners, in settling the boundary with us, to follow the northern water line to the Lake of the Woods, at the latitude of 49°, and then go off on that parallel. This, then, is the true northern boundary of Louisiana.
The western boundary of Louisiana is, rightfully, the Rio Bravo, (its main stream,) from its mouth to its source, and thence along the highlands and mountains dividing the waters of the Mississippi from those of the Pacific. The usurpations of Spain on the east side of that river, have induced geographers to suppose the Puerco or Salado to be the boundary. The line along the highlands stands on the charter of Louis XIV. that of the Rio Bravo, on the circumstance that, when La Salle took possession of the Bay of St. Bernard, Panuco was the nearest possession of Spain, and the Rio Bravo the natural half-way boundary between them.
On the waters of the Pacific, we can found no claim in right of Louisiana. If we claim that country at all, it must be on Astor's settlement near the mouth of the Columbia, and the principleof thejus gentiumof America, that when a civilized nation takes possession of the mouth of a river in a new country, that possession is considered as including all its waters.
The line of latitude of the southern source of the multnomat might be claimed as appurtenant to Astoria. For its northern boundary, I believe an understanding has been come to between our government and Russia, which might be known from some of its members. I do not know it.
Although the irksomeness of writing, which you may perceive from the present letter, and its labor, oblige me now to withdraw from letter writing, yet the wish that your map should set to rights the ideas of our own countrymen, as well as foreign nations, as to our correct boundaries, has induced me to make these suggestions, that you may bestow on them whatever inquiry they may merit. I salute you with esteem and respect.
Monticello, January 11, 1817.
I owe you, dear Madam, a thousand thanks for the letters communicated in your favor of December 15th, and now returned. They give me more information than I possessed before, of the family of Mr. Tracy. But what is infinitely interesting, is the scene of the exchange of Louis XVIII. for Bonaparte. What lessons of wisdom Mr. Adams must have read in that short space of time! More than fall to the lot of others in the course of a long life. Man, and the man of Paris, under those circumstances, must have been a subject of profound speculation! It would be a singular addition to that spectacle, to see the same beast in the cage of St. Helena, like a lion in the tower. That is probably the closing verse of the chapter of his crimes. But not so with Louis. He has other vicissitudes to go through.
I communicated the letters, according to your permission, to my grand-daughter, Ellen Randolph, who read them with pleasure and edification. She is justly sensible of, and flattered byyour kind notice of her; and additionally so, by the favorable recollections of our northern visiting friends. If Monticello has anything which has merited their remembrance, it gives it a value the more in our estimation; and could I, in the spirit of your wish, count backwards a score of years, it would not be long before Ellen and myself would pay our homage personally to Quincy. But those twenty years! Alas! where are they? With those beyond the flood. Our next meeting must then be in the country to which they have flown,—a country for us not now very distant. For this journey we shall need neither gold nor silver in our purse, nor scrip, nor coats, nor staves. Nor is the provision for it more easy than the preparation has been kind. Nothing proves more than this, that the Being who presides over the world is essentially benevolent. Stealing from us, one by one, the faculties of enjoyment, searing our sensibilities, leading us, like the horse in his mill, round and round the same beaten circle,
——To see what we have seen,To taste the tasted, and at each returnLess tasteful; o'er our palates to decantAnother vintage—
——To see what we have seen,To taste the tasted, and at each returnLess tasteful; o'er our palates to decantAnother vintage—
——To see what we have seen,
To taste the tasted, and at each return
Less tasteful; o'er our palates to decant
Another vintage—
Until satiated and fatigued with this leaden iteration, we ask our owncongé. I heard once a very old friend, who had troubled himself with neither poets nor philosophers, say the same thing in plain prose, that he was tired of pulling off his shoes and stockings at night, and putting them on again in the morning. The wish to stay here is thus gradually extinguished; but not so easily that of returning once, in awhile, to see how things have gone on. Perhaps, however, one of the elements of future felicity is to be a constant and unimpassioned view of what is passing here. If so, this may well supply the wish of occasional visits. Mercier has given us a vision of the year 2440; but prophecy is one thing, and history another. On the whole, however, perhaps it is wise and well to be contented with the good things which the master of the feast places before us, and to be thankful for what we have, rather than thoughtful about whatwe have not. You and I, dear Madam, have already had more than an ordinary portion of life, and more, too, of health than the general measure. On this score I owe boundless thankfulness. Your health was, some time ago, not so good as it has been; and I perceive in the letters communicated, some complaints still. I hope it is restored; and that life and health may be continued to you as many years as yourself shall wish, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate and respectful friend.
Monticello, January 11, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Forty-three volumes read in one year, and twelve of them quarto! Dear Sir, how I envy you! Half a dozen octavos in that space of time, are as much as I am allowed. I can read by candlelight only, and stealing long hours from my rest; nor would that time be indulged to me, could I by that light see to write. From sunrise to one or two o'clock, and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing table. And all this to answer letters into which neither interest nor inclination on my part enters; and often from persons whose names I have never before heard. Yet, writing civilly, it is hard to refuse them civil answers. This is the burthen of my life, a very grievous one indeed, and one which I must get rid of. Delaplaine lately requested me to give him a line on the subject of his book; meaning, as I well knew, to publish it. This I constantly refuse; but in this instance yielded, that in saying a word for him, I might say two for myself. I expressed in it freely my sufferings from this source; hoping it would have the effect of an indirect appeal to the discretion of those, strangers and others, who, in the most friendly dispositions, oppress me with their concerns, their pursuits, their projects, inventions and speculations, political, moral, religious, mechanical, mathematical, historical, &c., &c., &c. I hope the appeal will bring me relief, and that I shall be left to exercise and enjoy correspondence withthe friends I love, and on subjects which they, or my own inclinations present. In that case, your letters shall not be so long on my files unanswered, as sometimes they have been, to my great mortification.
To advert now to the subjects of those of December the 12th and 16th. Tracy's Commentaries on Montesquieu have never been published in the original. Duane printed a translation from the original manuscript a few years ago. It sold, I believe, readily, and whether a copy can now be had, I doubt. If it can, you will receive it from my bookseller in Philadelphia, to whom I now write for that purpose. Tracy comprehends, under the word "Ideology," all the subjects which the French termMorale, as the correlative toPhysique. His works on Logic, Government, Political Economy and Morality, he considers as making up the circle of ideological subjects, or of those which are within the scope of the understanding, and not of the senses. His Logic occupies exactly the ground of Locke's work on the Understanding. The translation of that on Political Economy is now printing; but it is no translation of mine. I have only had the correction of it, which was, indeed, very laborious.Le premier jethaving been by some one who understood neither French or English, it was impossible to make it more than faithful. But it is a valuable work.
The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the four words, "Be just and good," is that in which all our inquiries must end; as the riddles of all the priesthoods end in four more,"ubi panis, ibi deus."What all agree in, is probably right. What no two agree in, most probably wrong. One of our fan-coloring biographers, who paints small men as very great, inquired of me lately, with real affection too, whether he might consider as authentic, the change in my religion much spoken of in some circles. Now this supposed that they knew what had been my religion before, taking for it the word of their priests, whom I certainly never made the confidants of my creed. My answer was, "say nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is tobe sought in my life; if that has beenhonest and dutifulto society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one." Affectionately adieu.
Monticello, January 16, 1817.
Dear Sir,—I received, three days ago, a letter from M. Martin, 2d Vice President, and M. Parmantier, Secretary of "the French Agricultural and Manufacturing Society," dated at Philadelphia the 5th instant. It covered resolutions proposing to apply to Congress for a grant of two hundred and fifty thousand acres of land on the Tombigbee, and stating some of the general principles on which the society was to be founded; and their letter requested me to trace for them the basis of a social pact for the local regulations of their society, and to address the answer to yourself, their 1st Vice President at Washington. No one can be more sensible than I am of the honor of their confidence in me, so flatteringly manifested in this resolution; and certainly no one can feel stronger dispositions than myself to be useful to them, as well in return for this great mark of their respect, as from feelings for the situation of strangers, forced by the misfortunes of their native country to seek another by adoption, so distant and so different from that in all its circumstances. I commiserate the hardships they have to encounter, and equally applaud the resolution with which they meet them, as well as the principles proposed for their government. That their emigration may be for the happiness of their descendants, I can believe; but from the knowledge I have of the country they have left, and its state of social intercourse and comfort, their own personal happiness will undergo severe trial here. The laws, however, which must effect this must flow from their own habits, their own feelings, and the resources of their own minds. No stranger to these could possibly propose regulations adapted to them. Every people have their own particular habits, ways of thinking, manners, &c., which have grown up with them fromtheir infancy are become a part of their nature, and to which the regulations which are to make them happy must be accommodated. No member of a foreign country can have a sufficient sympathy with these. The institutions of Lycurgus, for example, would not have suited Athens, nor those of Solon, Lacedæmon. The organizations of Locke were impracticable for Carolina, and those of Rousseau and Mably for Poland. Turning inwardly on myself from these eminent illustrations of the truth of my observation, I feel all the presumption it would manifest, should I undertake to do what this respectable society is alone qualified to do suitably for itself. There are some preliminary questions, too, which are particularly for their own consideration. Is it proposed that this shall be a separate State? or a county of a State? or a mere voluntary association, as those of the Quakers, Dunkars, Menonists? A separate State it cannot be, because from the tract it asks it would not be more than twenty miles square; and in establishing new States, regard is had to a certain degree of equality in size. If it is to be a county of a State, it cannot be governed by its own laws, but must be subject to those of the State of which it is a part. If merely a voluntary association, the submission of its members will be merely voluntary also; as no act of coercion would be permitted by the general law. These considerations must control the society, and themselves alone can modify their own intentions and wishes to them. With this apology for declining a task to which I am so unequal, I pray them to be assured of my sincere wishes for their success and happiness, and yourself particularly of my high consideration and esteem.
Monticello, February 8, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of January 2d did not come to my hands until the 5th instant. I concur entirely in your leading principles of gradual emancipation, of establishment on the coastof Africa, and the patronage of our nation until the emigrants shall be able to protect themselves. The subordinate details might be easily arranged. But the bare proposition of purchase by the United States generally, would excite infinite indignation in all the States north of Maryland. The sacrifice must fall on the States alone which hold them; and the difficult question will be how to lessen this so as to reconcile our fellow citizens to it. Personally I am ready and desirous to make any sacrifice which shall ensure their gradual but complete retirement from the State, and effectually, at the same time, establish them elsewhere in freedom and safety. But I have not perceived the growth of this disposition in the rising generation, of which I once had sanguine hopes. No symptoms inform me that it will take place in my day. I leave it, therefore, to time, and not at all without hope that the day will come, equally desirable and welcome to us as to them. Perhaps the proposition now on the carpet at Washington to provide an establishment on the coast of Africa for voluntary emigrations of people of color, may be the corner stone of this future edifice. Praying for its completion as early as may most promote the good of all, I salute you with great esteem and respect.
Quincy, April 19, 1817.
Dear Sir,—My loving and beloved friend Pickering, has been pleased to inform the world that I have "few friends." I wanted to whip the rogue, and I had it in my power, if it had been in my will to do it, till the blood came. But all my real friends, as I thought then, with Dexter and Gray at their head, insisted "that I should not say a word; that nothing that such a person could write would do me the least injury; that it would betray the constitution and the government, if a President, out or in, should enter into a newspaper controversy with one of his ministers, whom he had removed from his office, in justification ofhimself for that removal, or anything else;" and they talked a great deal about theDignityof the office of President, which I do not find that any other person, public or private regards very much.
Nevertheless, I fear that Mr. Pickering's information is too true. It is impossible that any man should run such a gauntlet as I have been driven through, and have many friends at last. This "all who know me know," though I cannot say; who love me, tell.
I have, however, either friends who wish to amuse and solace my old age, or enemies who mean to heap coals of fire on my head, and kill me with kindness; for they overwhelm me with books from all quarters, enough to obfuscate all eyes, and smother and stifle all human understanding. Chateaubriand, Grimm, Tucker, Dupuis, La Harpe, Sismondi, Eustace, a new translation of Herodotus, by Bedloe, with more notes than text. What should I do with all this lumber? I make my "woman-kind," as the antiquary expresses it, read to me all the English, but as they will not read the French, I am obliged to excruciate my eyes to read it myself; and all to what purpose? I verily believe I was as wise and good, seventy years ago, as I am now. At that period Lemuel Bryant was my parish priest, and Joseph Cleverly my Latin schoolmaster. Lemuel was a jolly, jocular, and liberal scholar and divine. Joseph a scholar and a gentleman; but a bigoted Episcopalian, of the school of Bishop Saunders, and Dr. Hicks,—a downright conscientious, passive obedience man, in Church and State. The parson and the pedagogue lived much together, but were eternally disputing about government and religion. One day, when the schoolmaster had been more than commonly fanatical, and declared "if he were a monarch,he would have but one religion in his dominions;" the parson coolly replied, "Cleverly! you would be the best man in the world if you had no religion."
Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in thisexclamation I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite society, I mean hell. So far from believing in the total and universal depravity of human nature, I believe there is no individual totally depraved. The most abandoned scoundrel that ever existed, never yet wholly extinguished his conscience, and while conscience remains there is some religion. Popes, Jesuits, and Sorbonists, and Inquisitors, have some conscience and some religion. So had Marius and Sylla, Cæsar, Catiline and Antony; and Augustus had not much more, let Virgil and Horace say what they will.
What shall we think of Virgil and Horace, Sallust, Quintilian, Pliny, and even Tacitus? and even Cicero, Brutus and Seneca? Pompey I leave out of the question, as a mere politician and soldier. Every one of the great creatures has left indelible marks of conscience, and consequently of religion, though every one of them has left abundant proofs of profligate violations of their consciences by their little and great passions and paltry interests.
The vast prospect of mankind, which these books have passed in review before me, from the most ancient records, histories, traditions and fables, that remain to us to the present day, has sickened my very soul, and almost reconciled me to Swift's travels among the Yahoos; yet I never can be a misanthrope—Homo sum. I must hate myself before I can hate my fellow men; and that I cannot, and will not do. No! I will not hate any of them, base, brutal, and devilish as some of them have been to me.
From the bottom of my soul, I pity my fellow men. Fears and terrors appear to have produced an universal credulity. Fears of calamities in life, and punishments after death, seem to have possessed the souls of all men. But fear of pain and death, here, do not seem to have been so unconquerable, as fear of what is to come hereafter. Priests, Hierophants, Popes, Despots, Emperors, Kings, Princes, Nobles, have been as credulous as shoe-blacks, boots and kitchen scullions. The former seem to have believed in their divine rights as sincerely as the latter.
Auto de feés, in Spain and Portugal, have been celebrated with as good faith as excommunications have been practised in Connecticut, or as baptisms have been refused in Philadelphia.
How is it possible that mankind should submit to be governed, as they have been, is to me an inscrutable mystery. How they could bear to be taxed to build the temple of Diana at Ephesus, the pyramids of Egypt, Saint Peter's at Rome, Notre Dame at Paris, St. Paul's in London, with a million et ceteras, when my navy yards and my quasi army made such a popular clamor, I know not. Yet all my peccadillos never excited such a rage as the late compensation law!
I congratulate you on the late election in Connecticut. It is a kind of epocha. Several causes have conspired. One which you would not suspect. Some one, no doubt instigated by the devil, has taken it into his head to print a new edition of the "Independent Whig," even in Connecticut, and has scattered the volumes through the State. These volumes, it is said, have produced a burst of indignation against priestcraft, bigotry and intolerance, and in conjunction with other causes, have produced the late election.
When writing to you I never know when to subscribe,
J. A.
Monticello, May 5, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Absences and avocations had prevented my acknowledging your favor of February the 2d, when that of April the 19th arrived. I had not the pleasure of receiving the former by the hands of Mr. Lyman. His business probably carried him in another direction; for I am far inland, and distant from the great line of communication between the trading cities. Your recommendations are always welcome, for indeed, the subjects of them always merit that welcome, and some of them in an extraordinary degree. They make us acquainted with what there is excellent in our ancient sister State of Massachusetts, oncevenerated and beloved, and still hanging on our hopes, for what need we despair of after the resurrection of Connecticut to light and liberality. I had believed that the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. They seemed still to be exactly where their forefathers were when they schismatized from the covenant of works, and to consider as dangerous heresies all innovations good or bad. I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If byreligionwe are to understandsectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say, "something not fit to be named, even indeed, a hell."
You certainly acted wisely in taking no notice of what the malice of Pickering could say of you. Were such things to be answered, our lives would be wasted in the filth of fendings and provings, instead of being employed in promoting the happiness and prosperity of our fellow citizens. The tenor of your life is the proper and sufficient answer. It is fortunate for those in public trust, that posterity will judge them by their works, and not by the malignant vituperations and invectives of the Pickerings and Gardiners of their age. After all, men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect. Thus, in the revolution, Hancock and the Adamses were the raw-head and bloody bones of tories and traitors who yet knew nothing of you personally but what was good. I do not entertain your apprehensions for thehappiness of our brother Madison in a state of retirement. Such a mind as his, fraught with information and with matter for reflection, can never knowennui. Besides, there will always be work enough cut out for him to continue his active usefulness to his country. For example, he and Monroe (the President) are now here on the work of a collegiate institution to be established in our neighborhood, of which they and myself are three of six visitors. This, if it succeeds, will raise up children for Mr. Madison to employ his attention through life. I say if it succeeds; for we have two very essential wants in our way, first, means to compass our views; and, second, men qualified to fulfil them. And these, you will agree, are essential wants indeed.
I am glad to find you have a copy of Sismondi, because his is a field familiar to you, and on which you can judge him. His work is highly praised, but I have not yet read it. I have been occupied and delighted with reading another work, the title of which did not promise much useful information or amusement,"l'Italia avanti il dominio dei Romani dal Micali."It has often, you know, been a subject of regret, that Carthage had no writer to give her side of her own history, while her wealth, power and splendor, prove she must have had a very distinguished policy and government. Micali has given the counterpart of the Roman history, for the nations over which they extended their dominion. For this he has gleaned up matter from every quarter, and furnished materials for reflection and digestion to those who, thinking as they read, have perceived that there was a great deal of matter behind the curtain, could that be fully withdrawn. He certainly gives new views of a nation whose splendor has masked and palliated their barbarous ambition. I am now reading Botta's history of our own Revolution. Bating the ancient practice which he has adopted, of putting speeches into mouths which never made them, and fancying motives of action which we never felt, he has given that history with more detail, precision and candor, than any writer I have yet met with. It is, to be sure, compiled from those writers; but it is a good secretionof their matter, the pure from the impure, and presented in a just sense of right, in opposition to usurpation.
Accept assurances for Mrs. Adams and yourself of my affectionate esteem and respect.
Monticello, May 10, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of April 2d is duly received. I am very sensible of the partiality with which you are so good as to review the course I have held in public life, and I have also to be thankful to my fellow-citizens for a like indulgence generally shown to my endeavors to be useful to them. They give quite as much credit as is merited to the difficulties supposed to attend the public administration. There are no mysteries in it. Difficulties indeed sometimes arise; but common sense and honest intentions will generally steer through them, and, where they cannot be surmounted, I have ever seen the well-intentioned part of our fellow citizens sufficiently disposed not to look for impossibilities. We all know that a farm, however large, is not more difficult to direct than a garden, and does not call for more attention or skill.
I hope with you that the policy of our country will settle down with as much navigation and commerce only as our own exchanges will require, and that the disadvantage will be seen of our undertaking to carry on that of other nations. This, indeed, may bring gain to a few individuals, and enable them to call off from our farms more laborers to be converted into lackeys and grooms for them, but it will bring nothing to our country but wars, debt, and dilapidation. This has been the course of England, and her examples have fearful influence on us. In copying her we do not seem to consider that like premises induce like consequences. The bank mania is one of the most threatening of these imitations. It is raising up a monied aristocracy in our country which has already set the government at defiance, and although forced at length to yield a little on this first essay oftheir strength, their principles are unyielded and unyielding. These have taken deep root in the hearts of that class from which our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus from fable has become history. Their principles lay hold of the good, their pelf of the bad, and thus those whom the constitution had placed as guards to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their duties. That paper money has some advantages, is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable, and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied. Shall we ever be able to put a constitutional veto on it?
You say I must go to writing history. While in public life I had not time, and now that I am retired, I am past the time. To write history requires a whole life of observation, of inquiry, of labor and correction. Its materials are not to be found among the ruins of a decayed memory. At this day I should begin where I ought to have left off. The"solve senes centem equum,"is a precept we learn in youth but for the practice of age; and were I to disregard it, it would be but a proof the more of its soundness. If anything has ever merited to me the respect of my fellow citizens, themselves, I hope, would wish me not to lose it by exposing the decay of faculties of which it was the reward. I must then, dear Sir, leave to yourself and your brethren of the rising generation, to arraign at your tribunal the actions of your predecessors, and to pronounce the sentence they may have merited or incurred. If the sacrifices of that age have resulted in the good of this, then all is well, and we shall be rewarded by their approbation, and shall be authorized to say, "go ye and do likewise." To yourself I tender personally the assurance of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, May 14, 1817.
Although, dear Sir, much retired from the world, and meddling little in its concerns, yet I think it almost a religious duty tosalute at times my old friends, were it only to say and to know that "all's well." Our hobby has been politics; but all here is so quiet, and with you so desperate, that little matter is furnished us for active attention. With you too, it has long been forbidden ground, and therefore imprudent for a foreign friend to tread, in writing to you. But although our speculations might be intrusive, our prayers cannot but be acceptable, and mine are sincerely offered for the well-being of France. What government she can bear, depends not on the state of science, however exalted, in a select band of enlightened men, but on the condition of the general mind. That, I am sure, is advanced and will advance; and the last change of government was fortunate, inasmuch as the new will be less obstructive to the effects of that advancement. For I consider your foreign military oppressions as an ephemeral obstacle only.
Here all is quiet. The British war has left us in debt; but that is a cheap price for the good it has done us. The establishment of the necessary manufactures among ourselves, the proof that our government is solid, can stand the shock of war, and is superior even to civil schism, are precious facts for us; and of these the strongest proofs were furnished, when, with four eastern States tied to us, as dead to living bodies, all doubt was removed as to the achievements of the war, had it continued. But its best effect has been the complete suppression of party. The federalists who were truly American, and their great mass was so, have separated from their brethren who were mere Anglomen, and are received with cordiality into the republican ranks. Even Connecticut, as a State, and the last one expected to yield its steady habits (which were essentially bigoted in politics as well as religion), has chosen a republican governor, and republican legislature. Massachusetts indeed still lags; because most deeply involved in the parricide crimes and treasons of the war. But her gangrene is contracting, the sound flesh advancing on it, and all there will be well. I mentioned Connecticut as the most hopeless of our States. Little Delaware had escaped my attention. That is essentially a Quaker State, the fragment of a religioussect which, there, in the other States, in England, are a homogeneous mass, acting with one mind, and that directed by the mother society in England. Dispersed, as the Jews, they still form, as those do, one nation, foreign to the land they live in. They are Protestant Jesuits, implicitly devoted to the will of their superior, and forgetting all duties to their country in the execution of the policy of their order. When war is proposed with England, they have religious scruples; but when with France, these are laid by, and they become clamorous for it. They are, however, silent, passive, and give no other trouble than of whipping them along. Nor is the election of Monroe an inefficient circumstance in our felicities. Four and twenty years, which he will accomplish, of administration in republican forms and principles, will so consecrate them in the eyes of the people as to secure them against the danger of change. The evanition of party dissensions has harmonized intercourse, and sweetened society beyond imagination. The war then has done us all this good, and the further one of assuring the world, that although attached to peace from a sense of its blessings, we will meet war when it is made necessary.
I wish I could give better hopes of our southern brethren. The achievement of their independence of Spain is no longer a question. But it is a very serious one, what will then become of them? Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government. They will fall under military despotism, and become the murderous tools of the ambition of their respective Bonapartes; and whether this will be for their greater happiness, the rule of one only has taught you to judge. No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see them and all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable? As their sincere friend and brother then, I do believe the best thing for them, would be for themselves to come to an accord with Spain, under the guarantee of France, Russia, Holland, and the United States, allowing to Spain a nominal supremacy, with authority only to keep the peace among them, leaving them otherwise allthe powers of self-government, until their experience in them, their emancipation from their priests, and advancement in information, shall prepare them for complete independence. I exclude England from this confederacy, because her selfish principles render her incapable of honorable patronage or disinterested co-operation; unless, indeed, what seems now probable, a revolution should restore to her an honest government, one which will permit the world to live in peace. Portugal grasping at an extension of her dominion in the south, has lost her great northern province of Pernambuco, and I shall not wonder if Brazil should revolt in mass, and send their royal family back to Portugal. Brazil is more populous, more wealthy, more energetic, and as wise as Portugal. I have been insensibly led, my dear friend, while writing to you, to indulge in that line of sentiment in which we have been always associated, forgetting that these are matters not belonging to my time. Not so with you, who have still many years to be a spectator of these events. That these years may indeed be many and happy, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate friend.
Quincy, May 18, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Lyman was mortified that he could not visit Monticello. He is gone to Europe a second time. I regret that he did not see you, he would have executed any commission for you in the literary line, at any pain or any expense. I have many apprehensions for his health, which is very delicate and precarious, but he is seized with the mania of all our young clerical spirits for foreign travel; I fear they will lose more than they acquire, they will lose that unadulterated enthusiasm for their native country, which has produced the greatest characters among us.
Oh! Lord! Do you think that Protestant Popedom is annihilated in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attendedto the ecclesiastical strifes in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these people cannot whip, and crop, and pillory, and roast,as yetin the United States! If they could, they would. Do you know the General of the Jesuits, and consequently all his host, have their eyes on this country? Do you know that the Church of England is employing more means and more art, to propagate their demi-popery among us, than ever? Quakers, Anabaptists, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Methodists, Unitarians, Nothingarians in all Europe are employing underhand means to propagate their sectarian system in these States.
The multitude and diversity of them, you will say, is our security against them all. God grant it. But if we consider that the Presbyterians and Methodists are far the most numerous and the most likely to unite, let a George Whitefield arise, with a military cast, like Mahomet or Loyola, and what will become of all the other sects who can never unite?
My friends or enemies continue to overwhelm me with books. Whatever may be their intention, charitable or otherwise, they certainly contribute to continue me to vegetate, much as I have done for the sixteen years last past.
Sir John Malcolm's history of Persia, and Sir William Jones' works, are now poured out upon me, and a little cargo is coming from Europe. What can I do with all this learned lumber? Is it necessary to salvation to investigate all these Cosmogonies and Mythologies? Are Bryant, Gebelin, Dupuis, or Sir William Jones, right? What a frown upon mankind was the premature death of Sir William Jones! Why could not Jones and Dupuis have conversed or corresponded with each other? Had Jones read Dupuis, or Dupuis Jones, the works of both would be immensely improved, though each would probably have adhered to his system.
I should admire to see a counsel composed of Gebelin, Bryant, Jones and Dupuis. Let them live together and compare notes. The human race ought to contribute to furnish them with all the books in the Universe, and the means of subsistence.
I am not expert enough in Italian to read Botta, and I know not that he has been translated. Indeed, I have been so little satisfied with histories of the American revolution, that I have long since ceased to read them. The truth is lost, in adulatory panegyrics, and in vituperary insolence. I wish you, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, success in your collegiate institution. And I wish that superstition in religion, exciting superstition in politics, and both united in directing military force, alias glory, may never blow up all your benevolent and philanthropic lucubrations. But the history of all ages is against you.
It is said that no effort in favor of virtue is ever lost. I doubt whether it was ever true; whether it is now true; but hope it will be true. In the moral government of the world, no doubt it was, is, and ever will be true; but it has not yet appeared to be true on this earth.
I am, Sir, sincerely your friend.
P. S. Have you seen the Philosophy of Human Nature, and the History of the War in the western States, from Kentucky? How vigorously science and literature spring up, as well as patriotism and heroism, in transalleganian regions? Have you seen Wilkinson's history? &c., &c.
Quincy, May 26, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Mr. Leslie Combes of Kentucky has sent me a history of the late war, in the western country, by Mr. Robert B. M'Siffee, and the Philosophy of Human Nature, by Joseph Buchanan. The history I am glad to see, because it will preserve facts to the honor and immortal glory of the western people. Indeed, I am not sorry that the Philosophy has been published, because it has been a maxim with me for sixty years at least, never to be afraid of a book.
Nevertheless, I cannot foresee much utility in reviewing, inthis country, the controversy between the Spiritualists and the Materialists. Why should time be wasted in disputing about two substances, when both parties agree that neither knows anything about either.
If spirit is an abstraction, a conjecture, a chimera; matter is an abstraction, a conjecture, a chimera; for we know as much, or rather as little, about one as the other. We may read Cudworth, Le Clerc, Leibnitz, Berkley, Hume, Bolingbroke and Priestley, and a million other volumes in all ages, and be obliged at last to confess that we have learned nothing. Spirit and matter still remain riddles. Define the terms, however, and the controversy is soon settled. If spirit is an active something, and matter an inactive something, it is certain that one is not the other. We can no more conceive that extension, or solidity, can think, or feel, or see, or hear, or taste, or smell; than we can conceive that perception, memory, imagination, or reason, can remove a mountain, or blow a rock. This enigma has puzzled mankind from the beginning, and probably will to the end. Economy of time requires that we should waste no more in so idle an amusement.
In the eleventh discourse of Sir William Jones, before the Asiatic Society, vol. iii., page 229, of his works, we find that Materialists and Immaterialists existed in India, and that they accused each other of atheism, before Berkley, or Priestley, or Dupuis, or Plato, or Pythagoras, were born.
Indeed, Newton himself appears to have discovered nothing that was not known to the ancient Indians. He has only furnished more complete demonstrations of the doctrines they taught. Sir John Malcolm agrees with Jones and Dupuis, in the Astrological origin of heathen mythologies. Vain man! mind your own business! Do no wrong;—do all the good you can! Eat your canvas-back ducks! Drink your Burgundy! Sleep your siesta when necessary, andTRUST IN GOD!
What a mighty bubble, what a tremendous waterspout, has Napoleon been, according to his life, written by himself! He says he was the creature of the principles and manners of theage; by which, no doubt, he means the age of Reason; the progress of Manilius' Ratio, of Plato's Logos, &c. I believe him. A whirlwind raised him, and a whirlwind blowed him away to St. Helena. He is very confident that the age of Reason is not past, and so am I; but I hope that Reason will never again rashly and hastily create such creatures as him. Liberty, equality, fraternity, and humanity, will never again, I hope, blindly surrender themselves to an unbounded ambition for national conquests, nor implicitly commit themselves to the custody and guardianship of arms and heroes. If they do, they will again end in St. Helena, Inquisitions, Jesuits, andsacre liques.
Poor Laureate Southey is writhing in torments under the laugh of the three kingdoms, all Europe, and America, upon the publication of his "Wat Tyler." I wonder whether he or Bonaparte suffers most. I congratulate you, and Madison, and Monroe, on your noble employment in founding a university. From such a noble Triumvirate, the world will expect something very great and very new; but if it contains anything quite original, and very excellent, I fear the prejudices are too deeply rooted to suffer it to last long, though it may be accepted at first. It will not always have three such colossal reputations to support it.
The Pernambuco Ambassador, his Secretary of legation, and private Secretary, respectable people, have made me a visit. Having been some year or two in a similar situation, I could not but sympathize with him. As Bonaparte says, the age of Reason is not ended. Nothing can totally extinguish, or eclipse the light which has been shed abroad by the press.
I am, Sir, with hearty wishes for your health and happiness, your friend and humble servant.
Monticello, June 12, 1817.
Sir,—Your favor of May 20th has been received some time since, but the increasing inertness of age renders me slow inobeying the calls of the writing-table, and less equal than I have been to its labors.
My opinion on the right of Expatriation has been, so long ago as the year 1776, consigned to record in the act of the Virginia code, drawn by myself, recognizing the right expressly, and prescribing the mode of exercising it. The evidence of this natural right, like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of kings. If he has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, he has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode; and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which Nature has traced, for each individual, the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness. It certainly does not exist in his mind. Where, then, is it? I believe, too, I might safely affirm, that there is not another nation, civilized or savage, which has ever denied this natural right. I doubt if there is another which refuses its exercise. I know it is allowed in some of the most respectable countries of continental Europe, nor have I ever heard of one in which it was not. How it is among our savage neighbors, who have no law but that of Nature, we all know.
Though long estranged from legal reading and reasoning, and little familiar with the decisions of particular judges, I have considered that respecting the obligation of the common law in this country as a very plain one, and merely a question of document. If we are under that law, the document which made us so can surely be produced; and as far as this can be produced, so far we are subject to it, and farther we are not. Most of the States did, I believe, at an early period of their legislation, adopt the English law, common and statute, more or less in a body, as far as localities admitted of their application. In these States, then, the common law, so far as adopted, is thelex-loci. Then comes the law of Congress, declaring that what is law in any State, shallbe the rule of decision in their courts, as to matters arising within that State, except when controlled by their own statutes. But this law of Congress has been considered as extending to civil cases only; and that no such provision has been made for criminal ones. A similar provision, then, for criminal offences, would, in like manner, be an adoption of more or less of the common law, as part of thelex-loci, where the offence is committed; and would cover the whole field of legislation for the general government. I have turned to the passage you refer to in Judge Cooper's Justinian, and should suppose the general expressions there used would admit of modifications conformable to this doctrine. It would alarm me indeed, in any case, to find myself entertaining an opinion different from that of a judgment so accurately organized as his. But I am quite persuaded that, whenever Judge Cooper shall be led to consider that question simply and nakedly, it is so much within his course of thinking, as liberal as logical, that, rejecting all blind and undefined obligation, he will hold to the positive and explicit precepts of the law alone. Accept these hasty sentiments on the subjects you propose, as hazarded in proof of my great esteem and respect.