 |
Accept assurances of the great respect of, Dear Sir, your most obedient servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXVI.—TO JAMES MADISON, December 19,1800
TO JAMES MADISON.
Washington, December 19,1800.
Dear Sir,
Mrs. Brown's departure for Virginia enables me to write confidentially what I could not have ventured by the post at this prying season. The election in South Carolina has in some measure decided the great contest. Though as yet we do not know the actual votes of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Vermont, yet we believe the votes to be on the whole, J. seventy-three, B. seventy-three, A. sixty-five, P. sixty-four. Rhode Island withdrew one from P. There is a possibility that Tennessee may withdraw one from B., and Burr writes that there may be one vote in Vermont for J. But I hold the latter impossible, and the former not probable; and that there will be an absolute parity between the two republican candidates. This has produced great dismay and gloom on the republican gentlemen here, and exultation in the federalists, who openly declare they will prevent an election, and will name a President of the Senate, pro tem, by what they say would only be a stretch of the constitution. The prospect of preventing this, is as follows. Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New York, can be counted on for their vote in the, House of Representatives, and it is thought by some, that Baer of Maryland, and Linn of New Jersey will come over. Some even count on Morris of Vermont. But you must know the uncertainty of such a dependence under the operation of caucuses and other federal engines. The month of February, therefore, will present us storms of a new character. Should they have a particular issue, I hope you will be here a day or two, at least, before the 4th of March. I know that your appearance on the scene before the departure of Congress, would assuage the minority, and inspire in the majority confidence and joy unbounded, which they would spread far and wide on their journey home. Let me beseech you then to come with a view of staying perhaps a couple of weeks, within which time things might be put into such a train, as would permit us both to go home for a short time, for removal. I wrote to R. R. L. by a confidential hand three days ago. The person proposed for the Treasury has not come yet.
Davie is here with the convention, as it is called; but it is a real treaty, and without limitation of time. It has some disagreeable features, and will endanger the compromitting us with Great Britain. I am not at liberty to mention its contents, but I believe it will meet with opposition from both sides of the House. It has been a bungling negotiation. Ellsworth remains in France for his health. He has resigned his office of Chief Justice. Putting these two things together, we cannot misconstrue his views. He must have had great confidence in Mr. Adams's continuance to risk such a certainty as he held. Jay was yesterday nominated Chief Justice. We were afraid of something worse. A scheme of government for the territory is cooking by a committee of each House, under separate authorities, but probably a voluntary harmony. They let out no hints. It is believed that the judiciary system will not be pushed, as the appointments, if made by the present administration, could not fall on those who create them. But I very much fear the road system will be urged. The mines of Peru would not supply the monies which would be wasted on this object, nor the patience of any people stand the abuses which would be incontrollably committed under it. I propose, as soon as the state of the election is perfectly ascertained, to aim at a candid understanding with Mr. Adams. I do not expect that either his feelings or his views of interest will oppose it. I hope to induce in him dispositions liberal and accommodating. Accept my affectionate salutations.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXVII.—TO JAMES MADISON, December 26, 1800
TO JAMES MADISON.
Washington, December 26, 1800.
Dear Sir,
All the votes have now come in, except of Vermont and Kentucky, and there is no doubt that the result is a perfect parity between the two republican characters. The federalists appear determined to prevent an election, and to pass a bill giving the government to Mr. Jay, appointed Chief Justice, or to Marshall as Secretary of State. Yet I am rather of opinion that Maryland and Jersey will give the seven republican majorities. The French treaty will be violently opposed by the federalists; the giving up the vessels is the article they cannot swallow. They have got their judiciary bill forwarded to commitment. I dread this above all the measures meditated, because appointments in the nature of free-hold render it difficult to undo what is done. We expect a report for a territorial government which is to pay little respect to the rights of man.
****
Cordial and affectionate salutations. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXVIII.—TO COLONEL BURR, February 1, 1801
TO COLONEL BURR.
Washington, February 1, 1801.
Dear Sir,
It was to be expected that the enemy would endeavor to sow tares between us, that they might divide us and our friends. Every consideration satisfies me you will be on your guard against this, as I assure you I am strongly. I hear of one stratagem so imposing and so base, that it is proper I should notice it to you. Mr. Munford, who is here, says he saw at New York before he left it, an original letter of mine to Judge Breckenridge, in which are sentiments highly injurious to you. He knows my hand-writing, and did not doubt that to be genuine. I enclose you a copy taken from the press copy of the only letter I ever wrote to Judge Breckenridge in my life: the press copy itself has been shown to several of our mutual friends here. Of consequence the letter seen by Mr. Munford must be a forgery, and if it contains a sentiment unfriendly or disrespectful to you, I affirm it solemnly to be a forgery; as also if it varies, from the copy enclosed. With the common trash of slander I should not think of troubling you; but the forgery of one's hand-writing is too imposing to be neglected. A mutual knowledge of each other furnishes us with the best test of the contrivances which will be practised by the enemies of both.
Accept assurances of my high respect and esteem.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXIX.—TO GOVERNOR M'KEAN, February 2, 1801
TO GOVERNOR M'KEAN.
Washington, February 2, 1801.
Dear Sir,
I have long waited for an opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of December the 15th, as well as that by Dr. Mendenhall. None occurring, I shall either deliver the present to General Muhlenburg or put it under cover to Dr. Wistar, to whom I happen to be writing, to be sent to your house in Philadelphia, or forwarded confidentially to Lancaster.
The event of the election is still in dubio. A strong portion in the House of Representatives will prevent an election if they can. I rather believe they will not be able to do it, as there are six individuals of moderate character, any one of whom coming over to the republican vote will make a ninth state. Till this is known, it is too soon for me to say what should be done in such atrocious cases as those you mention of federal officers obstructing the operation of the State governments. One thing I will say, that as to the future, interferences with elections, whether of the State or General Government, by officers of the latter, should be deemed cause of removal; because the constitutional remedy by the elective principle becomes nothing, if it may be smothered by the enormous patronage of the General Government. How far it may be practicable, prudent, or proper, to look back, is too great a question to be decided but by the united wisdom of the whole administration when formed. Our situation is so different from yours, that it may render proper some differences in the practice. Your State is a single body, the majority clearly one way. Ours is of sixteen integral parts, some of them all one way, some all the other, some divided. Whatever my be decided as to the past, they shall give no trouble to the State governments in future, if it shall depend on me; and be assured, particularly as to yourself, that I should consider the most perfect harmony and interchange of accommodations and good offices with those governments as among the first objects.
Accept assurances of my high consideration, respect, and esteem.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXX.—TO TENCH COXE, February 11,1801
TO TENCH COXE.
Washington, February 11,1801.
Dear Sir,
Your favor of January the 25th came to hand some days ago, and yesterday a gentleman put into my hand, at the door of the Senate chamber, the volume of the American Museum for 1798. As no letter accompanied it, I took it for granted it was to bring under my eye some of its contents. I have gone over it with satisfaction.
This is the morning of the election by the House of Representatives. For some time past a single individual had declared he would by his vote make up the ninth State. On Saturday last he changed, and it stands at present eight one way, six the other, and two divided. Which of the two will be elected, and whether either, I deem perfectly problematical: and my mind has long been equally made up for either of the three events. If I can find out the person who brought me the volume for you, I shall return it by him, because I presume it makes one of a set. If not by him, I will find some other person who may convey it to Philadelphia if not to Lancaster. Very possibly it may go by a different conveyance from this letter. Very probably you will learn before the receipt of either, the result, or progress at least, of the election. We see already at the threshold, that if it falls on me, I shall be embarrassed by finding the offices vacant, which cannot be even temporarily filled but with advice of Senate, and that body is called on the fourth of March, when it is impossible for the new members of Kentucky, Georgia, and South Carolina to receive notice in time to be here. The summons for Kentucky, dated, as all were, January the 31st, could not go hence till the 5th, and that for Georgia did not go till the 6th. If the difficulties of the election, therefore, are got over, there are more and more behind, until new elections shall have regenerated the constituted authorities. The defects of our constitution under circumstances like the present, appear very great. Accept assurances of the esteem and respect of, Dear Sir, your most obedient servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXI.—TO JAMES MONROE, February 15, 1801
TO JAMES MONROE.
Washington, February 15, 1801.
Dear Sir,
I have received several letters from you which have not been acknowledged. By the post I dare not, and one or two confidential opportunities have passed me by surprise. I have regretted it the less, because I know you could be more safely and fully informed by others. Mr. Tyler, the bearer of this, will give you a great deal more information personally than can be done by letter. Four days of balloting have produced not a single change of a vote. Yet it is confidently believed by most that to-morrow there is to be a coalition. I know of no foundation for this belief. However, as Mr. Tyler waits the event of it, he will communicate it to you. If they could have been permitted to pass a law for putting the government into the hands of an officer, they would certainly have prevented an election. But we thought it best to declare openly and firmly, one and all, that the day such an act passed, the middle States would arm, and that no such usurpation, even for a single day, should be submitted to. This first shook them; and they were completely alarmed at the resource for which we declared, to wit, a convention to re-organize the government, and to amend it. The very word convention gives them the horrors, as in the present democratical spirit of America, they fear they should lose some of the favorite morsels of the constitution. Many attempts have been made to obtain terms and promises from me. I have declared to them unequivocally, that I would not receive the government on capitulation, that I would not go into it with my hands tied. Should they yield the election, I have reason to expect in the outset the greatest difficulties as to nominations. The late incumbents running away from their offices and leaving them vacant, will prevent my filling them without the previous advice of Senate. How this difficulty is to be got over I know not. Accept for Mrs. Monroe and yourself my affectionate salutations. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXII.—TO JAMES MADISON, February 18,1801
TO JAMES MADISON.
Washington, February 18,1801.
Dear Sir,
Notwithstanding the suspected infidelity of the post, I must hazard this communication. The minority of the House of Representatives, after seeing the impossibility of electing Burr, the certainty that a legislative usurpation would be resisted by arms, and a recourse to a convention to re-organize and amend the government, held a consultation on this dilemma, whether it would be better for them to come over in a body and go with the tide of the times, or by a negative conduct suffer the election to be made by a bare majority, keeping their body entire and unbroken, to act in phalanx on such ground of opposition as circumstances shall offer: and I know their determination on this question only by their vote of yesterday. Morris of Vermont withdrew, which made Lyon's vote that of his State. The Maryland federalists put in four blanks, which made the positive ticket of their colleagues the vote of the State. South Carolina and Delaware put in six blanks. So there were ten states for one candidate, four for another, and two blanks. We consider this, therefore, as a declaration of war, on the part of this band. But their conduct appears to have brought over to us the whole body of federalists, who, being alarmed with the danger of a dissolution of the government, had been made most anxiously to wish the very administration they had opposed, and to view it when obtained, as a child of their own.
*****
Mr. A. embarrasses us. He keeps the offices of State and War vacant, but has named Bayard Minister Plenipotentiary to France, and has called an unorganized Senate to meet the fourth of March. As you do not like to be here on that day, I wish you would come within a day or two after. I think that between that and the middle of the month we can so far put things under way, as that we may go home to make arrangements for our final removal. Come to Conrad's, where I will bespeak lodgings for you. Yesterday Mr. A. nominated Baynard to be Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to the French republic; to-day, Theophilus Parsons, Attorney General of the United States in the room of C. Lee, who, with Keith Taylor cum multis aliis, are appointed judges under the new system. H. G. Otis is nominated a District Attorney. A vessel has been waiting for some time in readiness to carry the new Minister to France. My affectionate salutations to Mrs. Madison.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXIII.—TO JOHN DICKINSON, March 6, 1801
TO JOHN DICKINSON.
Washington, March 6, 1801.
Dear Sir,
No pleasure can exceed that which I received from reading your letter of the 21st ultimo. It was like the joy we expect in the mansions of the blessed, when received with the embraces of our forefathers, we shall be welcomed with their blessing as having done our part not unworthily of them. The storm through which we have passed, has been tremendous indeed. The tough sides of our Argosie have been thoroughly tried. Her strength has stood the waves into which she was steered, with a view to sink her. We shall put her on her republican tack, and she will now show by the beauty of her motion the skill of her builders. Figure apart, our fellow-citizens have been led hood-winked from their principles by a most extraordinary combination of circumstances. But the band is removed, and they now see for themselves. I hope to see shortly a perfect consolidation, to effect which, nothing shall be spared on my part, short of the abandonment of the principles of our revolution. A just and solid republican government maintained here, will be a standing monument and example for the aim and imitation of the people of other countries; and I join with you in the hope and belief that they will see, from our example, that a free government is of all others the most energetic; that the inquiry which has been excited among the mass of mankind by our revolution and its consequences, will ameliorate the condition of man over a great portion of the globe. What a satisfaction have we in the contemplation of the benevolent effects of our efforts, compared with those of the leaders on the other side, who have discountenanced all advances in science as dangerous innovations, have endeavored to render philosophy and republicanism terms of reproach, to persuade us that man cannot be governed but by the rod, &c. I shall have the happiness of living and dying in the contrary hope. Accept assurances of my constant and sincere respect and attachment, and my affectionate salutations.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXIV.—TO COLONEL MONROE, March 7, 1801
TO COLONEL MONROE.
Washington, March 7, 1801.
Dear Sir,
I had written the enclosed letter to Mrs. Trist, and was just proceeding to begin one to you, when your favor of the 6th was put into my hands. I thank you sincerely for it, and consider the views of it so sound, that I have communicated it to my coadjutors as one of our important evidences of the public sentiment, according to which we must shape our course. I suspect, partly from this, but more from a letter of J. Taylor's which has been put into my hands, that an incorrect idea of my views has got abroad. I am in hopes my inaugural address will in some measure set this to rights, as it will present the leading objects to be conciliation and adherence to sound principle. This I know is impracticable with the leaders of the late faction, whom I abandon as incurables, and will never turn an inch out of my way to reconcile them. But with the main body of the federalists, I believe it very practicable. You know that the manoeuvres of the year X. Y. Z. carried over from us a great body of the people, real republicans, and honest men under virtuous motives. The delusion lasted a while. At length the poor arts of tub-plots, &c. were repeated till the designs of the party became suspected. From that moment those who had left us began to come back. It was by their return to us that we gained the victory in November, 1800, which we should not have gained in November, 1799. But during the suspension of the public mind from the 11th to the 17th of February, and the anxiety and alarm lest there should be no election, and anarchy ensue, a wonderful effect was produced on the mass of federalists who had not before come over. Those who had before become sensible of their error in the former change, and only wanted a decent excuse for coming back, seized that occasion for doing so. Another body, and a large one it is, who from timidity of constitution had gone with those who wished for a strong executive, were induced by the same timidity to come over to us rather than risk anarchy: so that, according to the evidence we receive from every direction, we may say that the whole of that portion of the people which were called federalists, were made to desire anxiously the very event they had just before opposed with all their energies, and to receive the election which was made, as an object of their earnest wishes, a child of their own. These people (I always exclude their leaders) are now aggregated with us, they look with a certain degree of affection and confidence to the administration, ready to become attached to it, if it avoids in the outset acts which might revolt and throw them off. To give time for a perfect consolidation seems prudent. I have firmly refused to follow the counsels of those who have desired the giving offices to some of their leaders, in order to reconcile. I have given, and will give, only to republicans, under existing circumstances. But I believe with others, that deprivations of office, if made on the ground of political principles alone, would revolt our new converts, and give a body to leaders who now stand alone. Some, I know, must be made. They must be as few as possible, done gradually, and bottomed on some malversation or inherent disqualification. Where we shall draw the line between retaining all and none, is not yet settled, and will not be till we get our administration together; and perhaps even then, we shall proceed a tatons, balancing our measures according to the impression we perceive them to make.
This may give you a general view of our plan. Should you be in Albemarle the first week in April, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you there, and of developing things more particularly, and of profiting by an intercommunication of views. Dawson sails for France about the 15th, as the bearer only of the treaty to Ellsworth and Murray. He has probably asked your commands, and your introductory letters.
Present my respects to Mrs. Monroe, and accept assurances of my high and affectionate consideration and attachment.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXV.—TO GOVERNOR M'KEAN, March 9, 1801
TO GOVERNOR M'KEAN.
Washington, March 9, 1801.
Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of February the 20th, and to thank you for your congratulations on the event of the election. Had it terminated in the elevation of Mr. Burr every republican would, I am sure, have acquiesced in a moment; because, however it might have been variant from the intentions of the voters, yet it would have been agreeable to the constitution. No man would more cheerfully have submitted than myself, because I am sure the administration would have been republican, and the chair of the Senate permitting me to be at home eight months in the year, would, on that account, have been much more consonant to my real satisfaction. But in the event of an usurpation, I was decidedly with those who were determined not to permit it. Because that precedent, once set, would be artificially reproduced, and end soon in a dictator. Virginia was bristling up, I believe. I shall know the particulars from Governor Monroe, whom I expect to meet in a short visit I must make home, to select some books, &c. necessary here, and make other domestic arrangements.
Accept assurances of my high esteem and regard.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXVI.—TO JOEL BARLOW, March 14, 1801
TO JOEL BARLOW.
Washington, March 14, 1801.
Dear Sir,
Not having my papers here, it is not in my power to acknowledge the receipt of your letters by their dates, but T am pretty certain I have received two in the course of the last twelve months, one of them covering your excellent second letter. Nothing can be sounder than the principles it inculcates, and I am not without hopes they will make their way. You have understood that the revolutionary movements in Europe had, by industry and artifice, been wrought into objects of terror even to this country, and had really involved a great portion of our well-meaning citizens in a panic which was perfectly unaccountable, and during the prevalence of which they were led to support measures the most insane. They are now pretty thoroughly recovered from it, and sensible of the mischief which was done, and preparing to be done, had their minds continued a little longer under that derangement. The recovery bids fair to be complete, and to obliterate entirely the line of party division which had been so strongly drawn. Not that their late leaders have come over, or ever can come over. But they stand, at present, almost without followers. The principal of them have retreated into the judiciary, as a strong hold, the tenure of which renders it difficult to dislodge them. For all the particulars I must refer you to Mr. Dawson, a member of Congress, fully informed and worthy of entire confidence. Give me leave to ask for him your attentions and civilities, and a verbal communication of such things on your side the water as you know I feel a great interest in, and as may not with safety be committed to paper. I am entirely unable to conjecture the issue of things with you.
Accept assurances of my constant esteem and high consideration.
Th: Jefferson
LETTER CCLXXVII.—TO THOMAS PAINE, March 18, 1801
TO THOMAS PAINE.
Washington, March 18, 1801,
Dear Sir,
Your letters of October the 1st, 4th, 6th, and 16th, came duly to hand, and the papers which they covered were, according to your permission, published in the newspapers and in a pamphlet, and under your own name. These papers contain precisely our principles, and I hope they will be generally recognised here. Determined as we are to avoid, if possible, wasting the energies of our people in war and destruction, we shall avoid implicating ourselves with the powers of Europe, even in support of principles which we mean to pursue. They have so many other interests different from ours, that we must avoid being entangled in them. We believe we can enforce those principles, as to ourselves, by peaceable means, now that we are likely to have our public councils detached from foreign views. The return, of our citizens from the phrenzy into which they had been wrought, partly by ill conduct in France, partly by artifices practised on them, is almost entire, and will, I believe, become quite so. But these details, too minute and long for a letter, will be better developed by Mr. Dawson, the bearer of this, a member of the late Congress, to whom I refer you for them. He goes in the Maryland, a sloop of war, which will wait a few days at Havre to receive his letters, to be written on his arrival at Paris. You expressed a wish to get a passage to this country in a public vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with orders to the captain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you with a passage back, if you can be ready to depart at such short warning. Robert R. Livingston is appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the republic of France, but will not leave this till we receive the ratification of the convention by Mr. Dawson. I am in hopes you will find us returned generally to sentiments worthy of former times. In these it will be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living. That you may long live to continue your useful labors, and to reap their reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer.
Accept assurances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXVIII.—TO M. DE REYNEVAL, March 20, 1801
TO M. DE REYNEVAL.
Washington, March 20, 1801.
Dear Sir,
Mr. Pichon, who arrived two days ago, delivered me your favor of January the 1st, and I had before received one by Mr. Dupont, dated August the 24th, 1799, both on the subject of lands, claimed on behalf of your brother, Mr. Girard, and that of August the 24th containing a statement of the case. I had verbally explained to Mr. Dupont at the time, what I presumed to have been the case, which must, I believe, be very much mistaken in the statement sent with that letter; and I expected he had communicated it to you.
During the regal government, two companies called the Loyal, and the Ohio companies had obtained grants from the crown for eight hundred thousand, or one million of acres of land, each, on the Ohio, on condition of settling them in a given number of years. They surveyed some and settled them; but the war of 1755 came on and broke up the settlements. After it was over they petitioned for a renewal. Four other large companies then formed themselves, called the Mississippi, the Illinois, the Wabash, and the Indiana companies, each praying for immense quantities of land, some amounting to two hundred miles square, so that they proposed to cover the whole country north between the Ohio and Mississippi, and a great portion of what is south. All these petitions were depending, without any answer whatever from the crown, when the revolution war broke out. The petitioners had associated to themselves some of the nobility of England, and most of the characters in America of great influence. When Congress assumed the government, they took some of their body in as partners, to obtain their influence; and I remember to have heard at the time, that one of them took Mr. Girard as a partner, expecting by that to obtain the influence of the French court; to obtain grants of those lands which they had not been able to obtain from the British government. All these lands were within the limits of Virginia, and that State determined peremptorily, that they never should be granted to large companies, but left open equally to all: and when they passed their land law (which I think was in 1778) they confirmed only so much of the lands of the Loyal company as they had actually surveyed, which was a very small proportion, and annulled every other pretension. And when that State conveyed the lands to Congress (which was not till 1784), so determined were they to prevent their being granted to these or any other large companies, that they made it an express condition of the cession, that they should be applied first towards the soldiers' bounties, and the residue sold for the payment of the national debt, and for no other purpose. This disposition has been, accordingly, rigorously made, and is still going on, and Congress considers itself as having no authority to dispose of them otherwise.
*****
I sincerely wish, Sir, it had been in my power to have given you a more agreeable account of this claim. But as the case actually is, the most substantial service is to state it exactly, and not to foster false expectations. I remember with great sensibility all the attentions you were so good as to render me while I resided in Paris, and shall be made happy by every occasion which can be given me of acknowledging them, and the expressions of your friendly recollection are particularly soothing to me.
Accept, I pray you, the assurances of my high consideration and constant esteem.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXIX.—TO DOCTOR JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, March 21, 1801
TO DOCTOR JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.
Washington, March 21, 1801.
Dear Sir,
I learned some time ago that you were in Philadelphia, but that it was only for a fortnight; and I supposed you were gone. It was not till yesterday I received information that you were still there, had been very ill, but were on the recovery. I sincerely rejoice that you are so. Yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind, and for the continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous. Bigots may be an exception. What an effort, my dear Sir, of bigotry in politics and religion have we gone through. The barbarians really flattered themselves they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put every thing into the hands of power and priestcraft. All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended to praise and encourage education, but it was to be the education of our ancestors. We were to look backwards not forwards for improvement: the President himself declaring in one of his answers to addresses, that we were never to expect to go beyond them in real science. This was the real ground of all the attacks on you: those who live by mystery and charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, the most sublime and benevolent but most perverted system that ever shone on man, endeavored to crush your well-earned and well-deserved fame. But it was the Lilliputians upon Gulliver. Our countrymen have recovered from the alarm into which art and industry had thrown them; science and honesty are replaced on their high ground; and you, my dear Sir, as their great apostle, are on its pinnacle. It is with heartfelt satisfaction that, in the first moments of my public action, I can hail you with welcome to our land, tender to you the homage of its respect and esteem, cover you under the protection of those laws which were made for the wise and good like you, and disclaim the legitimacy of that libel on legislation, which under the form of a law was for some time placed among them.*
[* In the margin, is written by the author, 'Alien law.']
As the storm is now subsiding and the horizon becoming serene, it is pleasant to consider the phenomenon with attention. We can no longer say there is nothing new under the sun. For this whole chapter in the history of man is new. The great extent of our republic is new. Its sparse habitation is new. The mighty wave of public opinion which has rolled over it is new. But the most pleasing novelty is, its so quietly subsiding over such an extent of surface to its true level again. The order and good sense displayed in this recovery from delusion, and in the momentous crisis which lately arose, really bespeak a strength of character in our nation which augurs well for the duration of our republic: and I am much better satisfied now of its stability, than I was before it was tried, I have been above all things solaced by the prospect which opened on us, in the event of a non-election of a President; in which case, the federal government would have been in the situation of a clock or watch run down. There was no idea of force, nor of any occasion for it. A convention, invited by the republican members of Congress with the virtual President and Vice-President, would have been on the ground in eight weeks, would have repaired the constitution where it was defective, and wound it up again. This peaceable and legitimate resource, to which we are in the habit of implicit obedience, superseding all appeal to force, and being always within our reach, shows a precious principle of self-preservation in our composition, till a change of circumstances shall take place, which is not within prospect at any definite period.
But I have got into a long disquisition on politics when I only meant to express my sympathy in the state of your health, and to tender you all the affections of public and private hospitality. I should be very happy indeed to see you here. I leave this about the 30th instant, to return about the 25th of April. If you do not leave Philadelphia before that, a little excursion hither would help your health. I should be much gratified with the possession of a guest I so much esteem, and should claim a right to lodge you, should you make such an excursion.
Accept the homage of my high consideration and respect, and assurances of affectionate attachment.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXX.—TO MOSES ROBINSON, March 23,1801
TO MOSES ROBINSON.
Washington, March 23,1801.
Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 3rd instant, and to thank you for the friendly expressions it contains. I entertain real hope that the whole body of your fellow-citizens (many of whom had been carried away by the X. Y. Z. business) will shortly be consolidated in the same sentiments. When they examine the real principles of both parties, I think they will find little to differ about. I know, indeed, that there are some of their leaders who have so committed themselves, that pride, if no other passion, will prevent their coalescing. We must be easy with them. The eastern States will be the last to come over on account of the dominion of the clergy, who had got a smell of union between Church and State, and began to indulge reveries which can never be realized in the present state of science. If, indeed, they could have prevailed on us to view all advances in science as dangerous innovations, and to look back to the opinions and practices of our forefathers, instead of looking forward, for improvement, a promising groundwork would have been laid. But I am in hopes their good sense will dictate to them, that since the mountain will not come to them, they had better go to the mountain: that they will find their interest in acquiescing in the liberty and science of their country, and that the Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of its benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind.
I sincerely wish with you, we could see our government so secured as to depend less on the character of the person in whose hands it is trusted. Bad men will sometimes get in, and, with such an immense patronage, may make great progress in corrupting the public mind and principles. This is a subject with which wisdom and patriotism should be occupied.
I pray you to accept assurances of my high respect and esteem.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXXI.—TO WILLIAM B. GILES, March 23, 1801
TO WILLIAM B. GILES.
Washington, March 23, 1801.
Dear Sir,
I received two days ago your favor of the 16th, and thank you for your kind felicitations on my election: but whether it will be a subject of felicitation permanently, will be for chapters of future history to say. The important subjects of the government I meet with some degree of courage and confidence, because I do believe the talents to be associated with me, the honest line of conduct we will religiously pursue at home and abroad, and the confidence of my fellow-citizens dawning on us, will be equal to these objects.
But there is another branch of duty which I must meet with courage too, though I cannot without pain; that is, the appointments and disappointments as to offices. Madison and Gallatin being still absent, we have not yet decided on our rules of conduct as to these. That some ought to be removed from office, and that all ought not, all mankind will agree. But where to draw the line, perhaps no two will agree. Consequently, nothing like a general approbation on this subject can be looked for. Some principles have been the subject of conversation, but not of determination; e.g. all appointments to civil offices during pleasure, made after the event of the election was certainly known to Mr. Adams, are considered as nullities. I do not view the persons appointed as even candidates for the office, but make others without noticing or notifying them. Mr. Adams's best friends have agreed this is right. 2. Officers who have been guilty of official mal-conduct are proper subjects of removal. 3. Good men, to whom there is no objection but a difference of political principle, practised on only as far as the right of a private citizen will justify, are not proper subjects of removal, except in the case of attorneys and marshals. The courts being so decidedly federal and irremovable, it is believed that republican attorneys and marshals, being the doors of entrance into the courts, are indispensably necessary as a shield to the republican part of our fellow-citizens, which, I believe, is the main body of the people.
These principles are yet to be considered of, and I sketch them to you in confidence. Not that there is objection to your mooting them as subjects of conversation, and as proceeding from yourself, but not as matters of executive determination. Nay, farther, I will thank you for your own sentiments and those of others on them. If received before the 20th of April, they will be in time for our deliberation on the subject. You know that it was in the year X. Y. Z. that so great a transition from us to the other side took place, and with as real republicans as we were ourselves; that these, after getting over that delusion, have been returning to us, and that it is to that return we owe a triumph in 1800, which in 1799 would have been the other way. The week's suspension of the election before Congress, seems almost to have completed that business, and to have brought over nearly the whole remaining mass. They now find themselves with us, and separated from their quondam leaders. If we can but avoid shocking their feelings by unnecessary acts of severity against their late friends, they will in a little time cement and from one mass with us, and by these means harmony and union be restored to our country, which would be the greatest good we could effect. It was a conviction that these people did not differ from us in principle, which induced me to define the principles which I deemed orthodox, and to urge a re-union on these principles; and I am induced to hope it has conciliated many. I do not speak of the desperadoes of the quondam faction in and out of Congress. These I consider as incurables, on whom all attentions would be lost, and therefore will not be wasted. But my wish is, to keep their flock from returning to them.
On the subject of the marshal of Virginia, I refer you confidentially to Major Egglestone for information. I leave this about this day se'nnight, to make some arrangements at home preparatory to my final removal to this place, from which I shall be absent about three weeks.
Accept assurances of my constant esteem and high consideration and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXXII.—TO SAMUEL ADAMS, March 29, 1801
TO SAMUEL ADAMS.
Washington, March 29, 1801.
I addressed a letter to you, my very dear and ancient friend, on the 4th of March: not indeed to you by name, but through the medium of some of my fellow-citizens, whom occasion called on me to address. In meditating the matter of that address, I often asked myself, Is this exactly in the spirit of the patriarch, Samuel Adams? Is it as he would express it? Will he approve of it? I have felt a great deal for our country in the times we have seen. But individually for no one so much as yourself. When I have been told that you were avoided, insulted, frowned on, I could but ejaculate, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' I confess I felt an indignation for you, which for myself I have been able, under every trial, to keep entirely passive. However, the storm is over, and we are in port. The ship was not rigged for the service she was put on. We will show the smoothness of her motions on her republican tack. I hope we shall once more see harmony restored among our citizens, and an entire oblivion of past feuds. Some of the leaders, who have most committed themselves, cannot come into this. But I hope the great body of our fellow-citizens will do it. I will sacrifice every thing but principle to procure it. A few examples of justice on officers who have perverted their functions to the oppression of their fellow-citizens, must, in justice to those citizens, be made. But opinion, and the just maintenance of it, shall never be a crime in my view; nor bring injury on the individual. Those whose misconduct in office ought to have produced their removal even by my predecessor, must not be protected by the delicacy due only to honest men. How much I lament that time has deprived me of your aid. It would have been a day of glory which should have called you to the first office of the administration. But give us your counsel, my friend, and give us your blessing: and be assured that there exists not in the heart of man a more faithful esteem than mine to you, and that I shall ever bear you the most affectionate veneration and respect.
Th: Jefferson*
LETTER CCLXXXIII..—TO ELBRIDGE GERRY, March 29, 1801
TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.
Washington, March 29, 1801,
My Dear Sir,
Your two letters of January the 5th and February the 24th came safely to hand, and I thank you for the history of a transaction which will ever be interesting in our affairs. It has been very precisely as I had imagined. I thought, on your return, that if you had come forward boldly, and appealed to the public by a full statement, it would have had a great effect in your favor personally, and that of the republican cause then oppressed almost unto death. But I judged from a tact of the southern pulse. I suspect that of the north was different, and decided your conduct: and perhaps it has been as well. If the revolution of sentiment has been later, it has perhaps been not less sure. At length it has arrived. What with the natural current of opinion which has been setting over to us for eighteen months, and the immense impetus which was given it from the 11th to the 17th of February, we may now say that the United States, from New York southwardly, are as unanimous in the principles of '76, as they were in '76. The only difference is, that the leaders who remain behind are more numerous and colder than the apostles of toryism in '76. The reason is, that we are now justly more tolerant than we could safely have been then, circumstanced as we were. Your part of the Union, though as absolutely republican as ours, had drunk deeper of the delusion, and is therefore slower in recovering from it. The aegis of government, and the temples of religion and of justice, have all been prostituted there to toll us back to the times when we burnt witches. But your people will rise again. They will awake like Samson from his sleep, and carry away the gates and the posts of the city. You, my friend, are destined to rally them again under their former banners, and when called to the post, exercise it with firmness and with inflexible adherence to your own principles. The people will support you, notwithstanding the howlings of the ravenous crew from whose jaws they are escaping. It will be a great blessing to our country if we can once more restore harmony and social love among its citizens. I confess, as to myself, it is almost the first object of my heart, and one to which I would sacrifice every thing but principle. With the people I have hopes of effecting it. But their Coryphaei are incurables. I expect little from them.
I was not deluded by the eulogiums of the public papers in the first moments of change. If they could have continued to get all the loaves and fishes, that is, if I would have gone over to them, they would continue to eulogize. But I well knew that the moment that such removals should take place, as the justice of the preceding administration ought to have executed, their hue and cry would be set up, and they would take their old stand. I shall disregard that also. Mr. Adams's last appointments, when he knew he was naming counsellors and aids for me and not for himself, I set aside as far as depends on me. Officers who have been guilty of gross abuses of office, such as marshals packing juries, &c, I shall now remove, as my predecessor ought in justice to have done. The instances will be few, and governed by strict rule, and not party passion. The right of opinion shall suffer no invasion from me. Those who have acted well, have nothing to fear, however they may have differed from me in opinion: those who have done ill, however, have nothing to hope; nor shall I fail to do justice lest it should be ascribed to that difference of opinion. A coalition of sentiments is not for the interest of the printers. They, like the clergy, live by the zeal they can kindle, and the schisms they can create. It is contest of opinion in politics as well as religion which makes us take great interest in them, and bestow our money liberally on those who furnish aliment to our appetite. The mild and simple principles of the Christian philosophy would produce too much calm, too much regularity of good, to extract from its disciples a support for a numerous priesthood, were they not to sophisticate it, ramify it, split it into hairs, and twist its texts till they cover the divine morality of its author with mysteries, and require a priesthood to explain them. The Quakers seem to have discovered this. They have no priests, therefore no schisms. They judge of the text by the dictates of common sense and common morality. So the printers can never leave us in a state of perfect rest and union of opinion. They would be no longer useful, and would have to go to the plough. In the first moments of quietude which have succeeded the election, they seem to have aroused their lying faculties beyond their ordinary state, to re-agitate the public mind. What appointments to office have they detailed which had never been thought of, merely to found a text for their calumniating commentaries. However, the steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor: and notwithstanding the efforts of the papers to disseminate early discontents, I expect that a just, dispassionate, and steady conduct will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country. Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able, I hope, to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom and harmony. I shall be happy to hear from you often, to know your own sentiments and those of others on the course of things, and to concur with you in efforts for the common good. Your letters through the post will now come safely. Present my best respects to Mrs. Gerry, and accept yourself assurances of my constant esteem and high consideration.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXXIV.—TO GIDEON GRANGER, May 3, 1801
TO GIDEON GRANGER.
Washington, May 3, 1801.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you on the 29th of March. Yours of the 25th of that month, with the address it covered, had not reached this place on the 1st of April, when I set out on a short visit to my residence in Virginia, where some arrangements were necessary previous to my settlement here. In fact, your letter came to me at Monticello only the 24th of April, two days before my departure from thence. This, I hope, will sufficiently apologize for the delay of the answer, which those unapprized of these circumstances will have thought extraordinary.
A new subject of congratulation has arisen. I mean the regeneration of Rhode Island. I hope it is the beginning of that resurrection of the genuine spirit of New England which rises for life eternal. According to natural order, Vermont will emerge next, because least, after Rhode Island, under the yoke of hierocracy. I have never dreamed that all opposition was to cease. The clergy, who have missed their union with the State, the Anglomen, who have missed their union with England, and the political adventurers, who have lost the chance of swindling and plunder in the waste of public money, will never cease to bawl, on the breaking up of their sanctuary. But among the people, the schism is healed, and with tender treatment the wound will not re-open. Their quondam leaders have been astounded with the suddenness of the desertion: and their silence and appearance of acquiescence have proceeded not from a thought of joining us, but the uncertainty what ground to take. The very first acts of the administration, the nominations, have accordingly furnished something to yelp on; and all our subsequent acts will furnish them fresh matter, because there is nothing against which human ingenuity will not be able to find something to say.
Accept assurances of my sincere attachment and high respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXXV.—TO NATHANIEL MACON, May 14, 1801
TO NATHANIEL MACON.
Washington, May 14, 1801.
Dear Sir,
Your favors of April the 20th and 23rd had been received, and the commission made out for Mr. Potts, before I received the letter of the 1st instant. I have still thought it better to forward the commission, in the hope that reconsideration, or the influence of yourself and friends, might induce an acceptance of it. Should it be otherwise, you must recommend some other good person, as I had rather be guided by your opinion than that of the person you refer me to. Perhaps Mr. Potts may be willing to stop the gap till you meet and repeal the law. If he does not, let me receive a recommendation from you as quickly as possible. And in all cases, when an office becomes vacant in your State, as the distance would occasion a great delay, were you to wait to be regularly consulted, I shall be much obliged to you to recommend the best characters. There is nothing I am so anxious about as making the best possible appointments, and no case in which the best men are more liable to mislead us, by yielding to the solicitations of applicants. For this reason your own spontaneous recommendation would be desirable. Now to answer your particulars, seriatim.
Levees are done away.
The first communication to the nest Congress will be, like all subsequent ones, by message, to which no answer will be expected.
The diplomatic establishment in Europe will be reduced to three ministers.
The compensations to collectors depend on you, and not on me.
The army is undergoing a chaste reformation.
The navy will be reduced to the legal establishment by the last of this month.
Agencies in every department will be revised.
We shall push you to the uttermost in economizing.
A very early recommendation had been given to the Postmaster-General to employ no printer, foreigner, or revolutionary tory in any of his offices. This department is still untouched.
The arrival of Mr. Gallatin, yesterday, completed the organization of our administration.
Accept assurances of my sincere esteem and high respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXXVI.—TO LEVI LINCOLN, July 11, 1801
TO LEVI LINCOLN.
Washington, July 11, 1801,
Dear Sir,
Your favor of the 15th came to hand on the 25th of June, and conveyed a great deal of that information which I am anxious to receive. The consolidation of our fellow-citizens in general is the great object we ought to keep in view; and that being once obtained, while we associate with us in affairs, to a certain degree, the federal sect of republicans, we must strip of all the means of influence the Essex junto, and their associate monocrats in every part of the Union. The former differ from us only in the shades of power to be given to the executive, being, with us, attached to republican government. The latter wish to sap the republic by fraud, if they cannot destroy it by force, and to erect an English monarchy in its place; some of them (as Mr. Adams) thinking its corrupt parts should be cleansed away, others (as Hamilton) thinking that would make it an impracticable machine. We are proceeding gradually in the regeneration of offices, and introducing republicans to some share in them. I do not know that it will be pushed further than was settled before you went away, except as to Essex men. I must ask you to make out a list of those in office in yours and the neighboring States, and to furnish me with it. There is little of this spirit south of the Hudson. I understand that Jackson is a very determined one, though in private life amiable and honorable. But amiable monarchists are not safe subjects of republican confidence. What will be the effect of his removal? How should it be timed? Who his successor? What place can General Lyman properly occupy? Our gradual reformations seem to produce good effects every where except in Connecticut. Their late session of legislature has been more intolerant than all others. We must meet them with equal intolerance. When they will give a share in the State offices, they shall be replaced in a share of the General offices. Till then we must follow their example. Mr. Goodrich's removal has produced a bitter remonstrance, with much personality against the two Bishops. I am sincerely sorry to see the inflexibility of the federal spirit there, for I cannot believe they are all monarchists.
I observe your tory papers make much of the Berceau. As that is one of the subjects to be laid before Congress, it is material to commit to writing, while fresh in memory, the important circumstances. You possess more of these than any other person. I pray you, therefore, immediately to state to me all the circumstances you recollect. I will aid you with the following hints, which you can correct and incorporate. Pichon, I think, arrived about the 12th of March. I do not remember when he first proposed the question about the Insurgente and Berceau. On the 20th of March, Mr. Stoddart wrote to his agent at Boston to put the Berceau into handsome order to be restored, but whether he did that of his own accord, or after previous consultation with you or myself, I do not recollect. I set out for Monticello April the 1st. About that time General Smith sent new directions to put her precisely into the state in which she was before the capture. Do you recollect from what fund it was contemplated to do this? I had trusted for this to Stoddart who was familiar with all the funds, being myself entirely new in office at that time. What will those repairs have cost? Did we not leave to Le Tombe to make what allowance he thought proper to the officers, we only advancing money on his undertaking repayment? I shall hope to receive from you as full a statement as you can make. It may be useful to inquire into the time and circumstances of her being dismantled. When you shall have retraced the whole matter in your memory, would it not be well to make a summary statement of the important circumstances for insertion in the Chronicle in order to set the minds of the candid part of the public to rights? Mr. Madison has had a slight bilious attack. I am advising him to get off by the middle of this month. We who have stronger constitutions shall stay to the end of it. But during August and September, we also must take refuge in climates rendered safer by our habits and confidence. The post will be so arranged as that letters will go hence to Monticello, and the answer return here in a week. I hope I shall continue to hear from you there.
Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and high respect.
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. The French convention was laid before the Senate December the 16th. I think the Berceau arrived afterwards. If so, she was dismantled when it was known she was to be restored. When did she arrive? By whose orders was she dismantled? T.J.
LETTER CCLXXXVII.—TO GOVERNOR MONROE, July 11, 1801
TO GOVERNOR MONROE.
Washington, July 11, 1801.
Dear Sir,
As to the mode of correspondence between the general and particular executives, I do not think myself a good judge. Not because my position gives me any prejudice on the occasion; for if it be possible to be certainly conscious of any thing, I am conscious of feeling no difference between writing to the highest and lowest being on earth; but because I have ever thought that forms should yield to whatever should facilitate business. Comparing the two governments together, it is observable that in all those cases where the independent or reserved rights of the States are in question, the two executives, if they are to act together, must be exactly co-ordinate; they are, in these cases, each the supreme head of an independent government. In other cases, to wit, those transferred by the constitution to the General Government, the general executive is certainly pre-ordinate; e.g. in a question respecting the militia, and others easily to be recollected. Were there, therefore, to be a stiff adherence to etiquette, I should say that in the former cases the correspondence should be between the two heads, and that in the latter, the Governor must be subject to receive orders from the war department as any other subordinate officer would. And were it observed that either party set up unjustifiable pretensions, perhaps the other might be right in opposing them by a tenaciousness of his own rigorous rights. But I think the practice in General Washington's administration was most friendly to business, and was absolutely equal; sometimes he wrote to the Governors, and sometimes the heads of departments wrote. If a letter is to be on a general subject, I see no reason why the President should not write; but if it is to go into details, these being known only to the head of the department, it is better he should write directly. Otherwise, the correspondence must involve circuities. If this be practised promiscuously in both classes of cases, each party setting examples of neglecting etiquette, both will stand on equal ground, and convenience alone will dictate through whom any particular communication is to be made. On the whole, I think a free correspondence best, and shall never hesitate to write myself to the Governors, in every federal case, where the occasion presents itself to me particularly. Accept assurances of my sincere and constant affection and respect.
Th: Jefferson,
LETTER CCLXXXVIII.—TO A COMMITTEE OF MERCHANTS, July 12, 1801
To Elias Shipman and Others, a Committee of the Merchants of New Haven.
Washington, July 12, 1801.
Gentlemen,
I have received the remonstrance you were pleased to address to me, on the appointment of Samuel Bishop to the office of Collector of New Haven, lately vacated by the death of David Austin. The right of our fellow-citizens to represent to the public functionaries their opinion on proceedings interesting to them, is unquestionably a constitutional right, often useful, sometimes necessary, and will always be respectfully acknowledged by me.
Of the various executive duties, no one excites more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understandings sufficient for their stations. No duty, at the same time, is more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of characters possessed by a single individual is, of necessity, limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to other information, which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect. In the case of Samuel Bishop, however, the subject of your remonstrance, time was taken, information was sought, and such obtained as could leave no room for doubt of his fitness. From private sources it was learned that his understanding was sound, his integrity pure, his character unstained. And the offices, confided to him within his own State, are public evidences of the estimation in which he is held by the State in general, and the city and township particularly in which he lives. He is said to be the town clerk, a justice of the peace, mayor of the city of New Haven, an office held at the will of the legislature, chief judge of the court of common pleas for New Haven county, a court of high criminal and civil jurisdiction, wherein most causes are decided without the right of appeal or review, and sole judge of the court of probate, wherein he singly decides all questions of wills, settlement of estates, testate and intestate, appoints guardians, settles their accounts, and in fact has under his jurisdiction and care all the property, real and personal, of persons dying. The two last offices, in the annual gift of the legislature, were given to him in May last. Is it possible that the man to whom the legislature of Connecticut has so recently committed trusts of such difficulty and magnitude, is 'unfit to be the collector of the district of New Haven,' though acknowledged in the same writing, to have obtained all this confidence 'by a long life of usefulness?' It is objected, indeed, in the remonstrance, that he is seventy-seven years of age; but at a much more advanced age, our Franklin was the ornament of human nature. He may not be able to perform in person, all the details of his office; but if he gives us the benefit of his understanding, his integrity, his watchfulness, and takes care that all the details are well performed by himself or his necessary assistants, all public purposes will be answered. The remonstrance, indeed, does not allege that the office has been illy conducted, but only apprehends that it will be so. Should this happen in event, be assured I will do in it what shall be just and necessary for the public service. In the mean time, he should be tried without being prejudged.
The removal, as it is called, of Mr. Goodrich, forms another subject of complaint. Declarations by myself in favor of political tolerance, exhortations to harmony and affection in social intercourse, and to respect for the equal rights of the minority, have, on certain occasions, been quoted and misconstrued into assurances that the tenure of offices was to be undisturbed. But could candor apply such a construction? It is not indeed in the remonstrance that we find it; but it leads to the explanations which that calls for. When it is considered, that during the late administration, those who were not of a particular sect of politics were excluded from all office; when, by a steady pursuit of this measure, nearly the whole offices of the United States were monopolized by that sect; when the public sentiment at length declared itself, and burst open the doors of honor and confidence to those whose opinions they more approved; was it to be imagined that this monopoly of office was still to be continued in the hands of the minority? Does it violate their equal rights, to assert some rights in the majority also? Is it political intolerance to claim a proportionate share in the direction of the public affairs? Can they not harmonize in society unless they have every thing in their own hands? If the will of the nation, manifested by their various elections, calls for an administration of government according with the opinions of those elected; if, for the fulfilment of that will, displacements are necessary, with whom can they so justly begin as with persons appointed in the last moments of an administration, not for its own aid, but to begin a career at the same time with their successors, by whom they had never been approved, and who could scarcely expect from them a cordial co-operation? Mr Goodrich was one of these. Was it proper for him to place himself in office, without knowing whether those whose agent he was to be, would have confidence in his agency? Can the preference of another as the successor to Mr. Austin, be candidly called a removal of Mr. Goodrich? If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation none. Can any other mode than that of removal be proposed? This is a painful office. But it is made my duty, and I meet it as such. I proceed in the operation with deliberation and inquiry, that it may injure the best men least, and effect the purposes of justice and public utility with the least private distress; that it may be thrown, as much as possible, on delinquency, on oppression, on intolerance, on anti-revolutionary adherence to our enemies.
The remonstrance laments 'that a change in the administration must produce a change in the subordinate officers;' in other words, that it should be deemed necessary for all officers to think with their principal? But on whom does this imputation bear? On those who have excluded from office every shade of opinion which was not theirs? Or on those who have been so excluded? I lament sincerely that unessential differences of opinion should ever have been deemed sufficient to interdict half the society from, the rights and the blessings of self-government, to proscribe them as unworthy of every trust. It would have been to me a circumstance of great relief, had I found a moderate participation of office in the hands of the majority. I would gladly have left to time and accident to raise them to their just share. But their total exclusion calls for prompter corrections. I shall correct the procedure: but that done, return with joy to that state of things, when the only questions concerning a candidate shall be, Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the constitution?
I tender you the homage of my high respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCLXXXIX.—TO LEVI LINCOLN, August 26, 1801
TO LEVI LINCOLN.
Monticello, August 26, 1801.
Dear Sir,
Your favor of July the 28th was received here on the 20th instant. The superscription of my letter of July the 11th, by another hand, was to prevent danger to it from the curious. Your statement respecting the Berceau coincided with my own recollection, in the circumstances recollected by me, and I concur with you in supposing it may not now be necessary to give any explanations on the subject in the papers. The purchase was made by our predecessors, and the repairs begun by them. Had she been to continue ours, we were authorized to put and keep her in good order out of the fund of the naval contingencies, and when in good order, we obeyed a law of the land, the treaty, in giving her up. It is true the treaty was not ratified; but when ratified it is validated retrospectively. We took on ourselves this risk, but France had put more into our hands on the same risk. I do not know whether the clamor, as to the allowance to the French officers of their regular pay, has been rectified by a statement that it was on the request of the French Consul, and his promise to repay it. So that they cost the United States, on this arrangement, nothing.
I am glad to learn from you that the answer to New Haven had a good effect in Massachusetts on the republicans, and no ill effects on the sincere federalists. I had foreseen, years ago, that the first republican President who should come into office after all the places in the government had become exclusively occupied by federalists, would have a dreadful operation to perform. That the republicans would consent to a continuation of every thing in federal hands, was not to be expected, because neither just nor politic. On him then was to devolve the office of an executioner, that of lopping off. I cannot say that it has worked harder than I expected. You know the moderation of our views in this business, and that we all concurred in them. We determined to proceed with deliberation. This produced impatience in the republicans, and a belief we meant to do nothing. Some occasion of public explanation was eagerly desired, when the New Haven remonstrance offered us that occasion. The answer was meant as an explanation to our friends. It has had on them, everywhere, the most wholesome effect. Appearances of schismatizing from us have been entirely done away. I own I expected it would check the current, with which the republican federalists were returning to their brethren, the republicans. I extremely lamented this effect. For the moment which should convince me that a healing of the nation into one, is impracticable, would be the last moment of my wishing to remain where I am. (Of the monarchical federalists, I have no expectations. They are incurables, to be taken care of in a mad-house if necessary, and on motives of charity.) I am much pleased, therefore, with your information that the republican federalists are still coming in to the desired union. The eastern newspapers had given me a different impression, because I supposed the printers knew the taste of their customers, and cooked their dishes to their palates. The Palladium is understood to be the clerical paper, and from the clergy I expect no mercy. They crucified their Savior who preached that their kingdom was not of this world, and all who practise on that precept must expect the extreme of their wrath. The laws of the present day withhold their hands from blood. But lies and slander still remain to them.
I am satisfied that the heaping of abuse on me personally, has been with the design and the hope of provoking me to make a general sweep of all federalists out of office. But as I have carried no passion into the execution of this disagreeable duty, I shall suffer none to be excited. The clamor which has been raised will not provoke me to remove one more, nor deter me from removing one less, than if not a word had been said on the subject. In Massachusetts you may be assured, great moderation will be used. Indeed, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware are the only States where any thing considerable is desired. In the course of the summer all which is necessary will be done; and we may hope that this cause of offence being at an end, the measures we shall pursue and propose for the amelioration of the public affairs, will be so confessedly salutary as to unite all men not monarchists in principle.
We have considerable hopes of republican Senators from South Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware, and some as to Vermont. In any event we are secure of a majority in the Senate; and consequently that there will be a concert of action between the legislature and executive. The removal of excrescences from the judiciary, is the universal demand. We propose to re-assemble at Washington on the last day of September. Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and high respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCXC.—TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, September 9, 1801
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
Monticello, September 9, 1801.
Dear Sir,
You will receive, probably by this post, from the Secretary of State, his final instructions for your mission to France. We have not thought it necessary to say any thing in them on the great question of the maritime law of nations, which at present agitates Europe, that is to say, whether free ships shall make free goods; because we do not mean to take any side in it during the war. But as I had before communicated to you some loose thoughts on that subject, and have since considered it with somewhat more attention, I have thought it might be useful that you should possess my ideas in a more matured form than that in which they were before given. Unforeseen circumstances may perhaps oblige you to hazard an opinion on some occasion or other, on this subject, and it is better that it should not be at variance with Ours. I write this too, myself, that it may not be considered as official, but merely my individual opinion, unadvised by those official counsellors whose opinions I deem my safest guide, and should unquestionably take in form were circumstances to call for a solemn decision of the question.
When Europe assumed the general form in which it is occupied by the nations now composing it, and turned its attention to maritime commerce, we find among its earliest practices, that of taking the goods of an enemy from the ship of a friend; and that into this practice every maritime State went sooner or later, as it appeared on the theatre of the ocean. If, therefore, we are to consider the practice of nations as the sole and sufficient evidence of the law of nature among nations, we should unquestionably place this principle among those of the natural laws. But its inconveniences, as they affected neutral nations peaceably pursuing their commerce, and its tendency to embroil them with the powers happening to be at war, and thus to extend the flames of war, induced nations to introduce by special compacts, from time to time, a more convenient rule; that 'free ships should make free goods': and this latter principle has by every maritime nation of Europe been established, to a greater or less degree, in its treaties with other nations; insomuch, that all of them have, more or less frequently, assented to it, as a rule of action in particular cases. Indeed, it is now urged, and I think with great appearance of reason, that this is the genuine principle dictated by national morality; and that the first practice arose from accident, and the particular convenience of the States [* Venice and Genoa] which first figured on the water, rather than from well digested reflections on the relations of friend and enemy, on the rights of territorial jurisdiction, and on the dictates of moral law applied to these. Thus it had never been supposed lawful, in the territory of a friend to seize the goods of an enemy. On an element which nature has not subjected to the jurisdiction of any particular nation, but has made common to all for the purposes to which it is fitted, it would seem that the particular portion of it which happens to be occupied by the vessel of any nation, in the course of its voyage, is, for the moment, the exclusive property of that nation, and, with the vessel, is exempt from intrusion by any other, and from its jurisdiction, as much as if it were lying in the harbor of its sovereign. In no country, we believe, is the rule otherwise, as to the subjects of property common to all. Thus the place occupied by an individual in a highway, a church, a theatre, or other public assembly, cannot be intruded on, while its occupant holds it for the purposes of its institution. The persons on board a vessel traversing the ocean, carrying with them the laws of their nation, have among themselves a jurisdiction, a police, not established by their individual will, but by the authority of their nation, of whose territory their vessel still seems to compose a part, so long as it does not enter the exclusive territory of another. No nation ever pretended a right to govern by their laws the ships of another nation navigating the ocean. By what law then can it enter that ship while in peaceable and orderly use of the common element? We recognise no natural precept for submission to such a right; and perceive no distinction between the movable and immovable jurisdiction of a friend, which would authorize the entering the one and not the other, to seize the property of an enemy.
It may be objected that this proves too much, as it proves you cannot enter the ship of a friend to search for contraband of war. But this is not proving too much. We believe the practice of seizing what is called contraband of war, is an abusive practice, not founded in natural right. War between two nations cannot diminish the rights of the rest of the world remaining at peace. The doctrine that the rights of nations remaining quietly in the exercise of moral and social duties, are to give way to the convenience of those who prefer plundering and murdering one another, is a monstrous doctrine; and ought to yield to the more rational law, that 'the wrong which two nations endeavor to inflict on each other, must not infringe on the rights or conveniences of those remaining at peace.' And what is contraband, by the law of nature? Either every thing which may aid or comfort an enemy, or nothing. Either all commerce which would accommodate him is unlawful, or none is. The difference between articles of one or another description, is a difference in degree only. No line between them can be drawn. Either all intercourse must cease between neutrals and belligerents, or all be permitted. Can the world hesitate to say which shall be the rule? Shall two nations turning tigers, break up in one instant the peaceable relations of the whole world? Reason and nature clearly pronounce that the neutral is to go on in the enjoyment of all its rights, that its commerce remains free, not subject to the jurisdiction of another, nor consequently its vessels to search, or to inquiries whether their contents are the property of an enemy, or are of those which have been called contraband of war.
Nor does this doctrine contravene the right of preventing vessels from entering a blockaded port. This right stands on other ground. When the fleet of any nation actually beleaguers the port of its enemy, no other has a right to enter their line, any more than their line of battle in the open sea, or their lines of circumvallation, or of encampment, or of battle-array on land. The space included within their lines in any of those cases, is either the property of their enemy, or it is common property assumed and possessed for the moment, which cannot be intruded on, even by a neutral, without committing the very trespass we are now considering, that of intruding into the lawful possession of a friend.
Although I consider the observance of these principles as of great importance to the interests of peaceable nations, among whom I hope the United States will ever place themselves, yet in the present state of things they are not worth a war. Nor do I believe war the most certain means of enforcing them. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.
The opinions I have here given, are those which have generally been sanctioned by our government. In our treaties with France, the United Netherlands, Sweden, and Prussia, the principle of free bottom, free goods, was uniformly maintained. In the instructions of 1784, given by Congress to their Ministers appointed to treat with the nations of Europe generally, the same principle, and the doing away contraband of war, were enjoined, and were acceded to in the treaty signed with Portugal. In the late treaty with England, indeed, that power perseveringly refused the principle of free bottoms, free goods; and it was avoided in the late treaty with Prussia, at the instance of our then administration, lest it should seem to take side in a question then threatening decision by the sword. At the commencement of the war between France and England, the representative of the French republic then residing in the United States, complaining that the British armed ships captured French property in American bottoms, insisted that the principle of 'free bottoms, free goods,' was of the acknowledged law of nations; that the violation of that principle by the British was a wrong committed on us, and such an one as we ought to repel by joining in the war against that country. We denied his position, and appealed to the universal practice of Europe, in proof that the principle of 'free bottoms, free goods,' was not acknowledged as of the natural law of nations, but only of its conventional law. And I believe we may safely affirm, that not a single instance can be produced where any nation of Europe, acting professedly under the law of nations alone, unrestrained by treaty, has, either by its executive or judiciary organs, decided on the principle of 'free bottoms, free goods.' Judging of the law of nations by what has been practised among nations, we were authorized to say that the contrary principle was their rule, and this but an exception to it, introduced by special treaties in special cases only; that having no treaty with England substituting this instead of the ordinary rule, we had neither the right nor the disposition to go to war for its establishment. But though we would not then, nor will we now, engage in war to establish this principle, we are nevertheless sincerely friendly to it. We think that the nations of Europe have originally set out in error; that experience has proved the error oppressive to the rights and interests of the peaceable part of mankind; that every nation but one has acknowledged this, by consenting to the change, and that one has consented in particular cases; that nations have a right to correct an erroneous principle, and to establish that which is right as their rule of action; and if they should adopt measures for effecting this in a peaceable way, we shall wish them success, and not stand in their way to it. But should it become, at any time, expedient for us to co-operate in the establishment of this principle, the opinion of the executive, on the advice of its constitutional counsellors, must then be given; and that of the legislature, an independent and essential organ in the operation, must also be expressed; in forming which, they will be governed, every man by his own judgment, and may, very possibly, judge differently from the executive. With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions. As far, however, as we can judge, the principle of 'free bottoms, free goods,' is that which would carry the wishes of our nation.
Wishing you smooth seas and prosperous gales, with the enjoyment of good health, I tender you the assurances of my constant friendship and high consideration and respect.
Th: Jefferson
LETTER CCXCI.—TO WILLIAM SHORT, October 3, 1801
TO WILLIAM SHORT.
Washington, October 3, 1801.
Dear Sir,
I trusted to Mr. Dawson to give you a full explanation, verbally, on a subject which I find he has but slightly mentioned to you. I shall therefore now do it. When I returned from France, after an absence of six or seven years, I was astonished at the change which I found had taken place in the United States in that time. No more like the same people; their notions, their habits and manners, the course of their commerce, so totally changed, that I, who stood in those of 1784, found myself not at all qualified to speak their sentiments, or forward their views in 1790. Very soon, therefore, after entering on the office of Secretary of State, I recommended to General Washington to establish as a rule of practice, that no person should be continued on foreign mission beyond an absence of six, seven, or eight years. He approved it. On the only subsequent Missions which took place in my time, the persons appointed were notified that they could not be continued beyond that period. All returned within it except Humphreys. His term was not quite out when General Washington went out of office. The succeeding administration had no rule for any thing: so he continued. Immediately on my coming to the administration, I wrote to him myself, reminded him of the rule I had communicated to him on his departure; that he had then been absent about eleven years, and consequently must return. On this ground solely he was superseded. Under these circumstances, your appointment was impossible after an absence of seventeen years. Under any others, I should never fail to give to yourself and the world proofs of my friendship for you, and of my confidence in you. Whenever you shall return, you will be sensible in a greater, of what I was in a smaller degree, of the change in this nation from what it was when we both left it in 1784. We return like foreigners, and, like them, require a considerable residence here to become Americanized.
The state of political opinion continues to return steadily towards republicanism. To judge from the opposition papers, a stranger would suppose that a considerable check to it had been produced by certain removals of public officers. But this is not the case. All offices were in the hands of the federalists. The injustice of having totally excluded republicans was acknowledged by every man. To have removed one half, and to have placed republicans in their stead, would have been rigorously just, when it was known that these composed a very great majority of the nation. Yet such was their moderation in most of the States that they did not desire it. In these, therefore, no removals took place but for malversation. In the middle States the contention had been higher, spirits were more sharpened and less accommodating. It was necessary in these to practise a different treatment, and to make a few changes to tranquillize the injured party. A few have been made there, a very few still remain to be made. When this painful operation shall be over, I see nothing else ahead of us which can give uneasiness to any of our citizens, or retard that consolidation of sentiment so essential to our happiness and our strength. The tory papers will still find fault with every thing. But these papers are sinking daily, from their dissonance with the sentiments of their subscribers, and very few will shortly remain to keep up a solitary and ineffectual barking.
There is no point in which an American, long absent from his country, wanders so widely from its sentiments as on the subject of its foreign affairs. We have a perfect horror at every thing like connecting ourselves with the politics of Europe. It would indeed be advantageous to us to have neutral rights established on a broad ground; but no dependence can be placed in any European coalition for that. They have so many other by-interests of greater weight, that some one or other will always be bought off. To be entangled with them would be a much greater evil than a temporary acquiescence in the false principles which have prevailed. Peace is our most important interest, and a recovery from debt. We feel ourselves strong, and daily growing stronger. The census just now concluded, shows we have added to our population a third of what it was ten years ago. This will be a duplication in twenty three or twenty-four years. If we can delay but for a few years the necessity of vindicating the laws of nature on the ocean, we shall be the more sure of doing it with effect. The day is within my time as well as yours, when we may say by what laws other nations shall treat us on the sea. And we will say it. In the meantime, we wish to let every treaty we have drop off without renewal. We call in our diplomatic missions, barely keeping up those to the most important nations. There is a strong disposition in our countrymen to discontinue even these; and very possibly it may be done. Consuls will be continued as usual. The interest which European nations feel, as well as ourselves, in the mutual patronage of commercial intercourse, is a sufficient stimulus on both sides to insure that patronage. A treaty, contrary to that interest, renders war necessary to get rid of it.
I send this by Chancellor Livingston, named to the Senate the day after I came into office, as our Minister Plenipotentiary to France. I have taken care to impress him with the value of your society. You will find him an able and honorable man; unfortunately, so deaf that he will have to transact all his business by writing. You will have known long ago, that Mr. Skipwith is reinstated in his consulship, as well as some others who had been set aside. I recollect no domestic news interesting to you. Your letters to your brother have been regularly transmitted, and I lately forwarded one from him, to be carried you by Mr. Livingston.
Present my best respects to our amiable and mutual friend, and accept yourself assurances of my sincere and constant affection.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCXCII.—TO THE HEADS OF THE DEPARTMENTS, November 6, 1801
Circular to the Heads of the Departments, and private.
Washington, November 6, 1801.
Dear Sir,
Coming all of us into executive office, new, and unfamiliar with the course of business previously practised, it was not to be expected, we should, in the first outset, adopt in every part a line of proceeding so perfect as to admit no amendment. The mode and degrees of communication, particularly between the President and heads of departments, have not been practised exactly on the same scale in all of them. Yet it would certainly be more safe and satisfactory for ourselves as well as the public, that not only the best, but also an uniform course of proceeding as to manner and degree, should be observed. Having been a member of the first administration under General Washington, I can state with exactness what our course then was. Letters of business came addressed sometimes to the President, but most frequently to the heads of departments. If addressed to himself, he referred them to the proper department to be acted on: if to one of the secretaries, the letter, if it required no answer, was communicated to the President, simply for his information. If an answer was requisite, the secretary of the department communicated the letter and his proposed answer to the President. Generally they were simply sent back after perusal; which signified his approbation. Sometimes he returned them with an informal note, suggesting an alteration or a query. If a doubt of any importance arose, he reserved it for conference. By this means, he was always in accurate possession of all facts and proceedings in every part of the Union, and to whatsoever department they related; he formed a central point for the different branches; preserved an unity of object and action among them; exercised that participation in the gestion of affairs which his office made incumbent on him; and met himself the due responsibility for whatever was done. During Mr. Adams's administration, his long and habitual absences from the seat of government, rendered this kind of communication impracticable, removed him from any share in the transaction of affairs, and parcelled out the government, in fact, among four independent heads, drawing sometimes in opposite directions. That the former is preferable to the latter course, cannot be doubted. It gave, indeed, to the heads of departments the trouble of making up, once a day, a packet of all their communications for the perusal of the President; it commonly also retarded one day their despatches by mail. But in pressing cases, this injury was prevented by presenting that case singly for immediate attention; and it produced us in return the benefit of his sanction for every act we did. Whether any change of circumstances may render a change in this procedure necessary, a little experience will show us. But I cannot withhold recommending to the heads of departments, that we should adopt this course for the present, leaving any necessary modifications of it to time and trial. I am sure my conduct must have proved, better than a thousand declarations would, that my confidence in those whom I am so happy as to have associated with me, is unlimited, unqualified, and unabated. I am well satisfied that every thing goes on with a wisdom and rectitude which I could not improve. If I had the universe to choose from, I could not change one of my associates to my better satisfaction. My sole motives are those before expressed, as governing the first administration in chalking out the rules of their proceeding; adding to them only a sense of obligation imposed on me by the public will, to meet personally the duties to which they have appointed me. If this mode of proceeding shall meet the approbation of the heads of departments, it may go into execution without giving them the trouble of an answer: if any other can be suggested which would answer our views and add less to their labors, that will be a sufficient reason for my preferring it to my own proposition, to the substance of which only, and not the form, I attach any importance. |
|
