-- There was but a single act of my whole administration of which the federal party approved. That was the proclamation on the attack of the Chesapeake. And when I found they approved of it, I confess I began strongly to apprehend I had done wrong, and to exclaim with the Psalmist, “Lord, what have I done that the wicked should praise me.” --
TITLE: To Elbridge Gerry.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,63.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 359.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The hand of age is upon me. All my old friends are nearly gone. Of those in my neighborhood, Mr. Divers and Mr. Lindsay alone remain. If you could make it a partie quarree, it would be a comfort indeed. We would beguile our lingering hours with talking over our youthful exploits, our hunts on Peter's mountain, with a long train of et cetera, in addition, and feel, by recollection at least, a momentary flash of youth. Reviewing the course of a long and sufficiently successful life, I find in no portion of it happier moments than those were. --
TITLE: To James Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,54.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 351.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The hand of age is upon me. The decay of bodily faculties apprizes me that those of the mind cannot be unimpaired, had I not still better proofs. Every year counts my increased debility, and departing faculties keep the score. The last year it was the sight, this it is the hearing, the next something else will be going, until all is gone. Of all this I was sensible before I left Washington, and probably my fellow laborers saw it before I did. The decay of [Col 2] memory was obvious; it is now become distressing. But the mind, too, is weakened. When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me, but with unequal powers. Processes which I then read off with the facility of common discourse, now cost me labor, and time, and slow investigation. When I offered this, therefore, as one of the reasons deciding my retirement from office, it was offered in sincerity and a consciousness of truth. And I think it a great blessing that I retain understanding enough to be sensible how much of it I have lost, and to avoid exposing myself as a spectacle for the pity of my friends; that I have surmounted the difficult point of knowing when to retire. As a compensation for faculties departed, nature gives me good health, and a perfect resignation to the laws of decay which she has prescribed to all the forms and combinations of matter. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,80.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 367.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
The eradication of English partialities is one of the most consoling expectations from the war. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,76.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 366.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
The Representative's chamber will remain a durable monument of your talents as an architect. [* * *] The Senate room I have never seen. --
TITLE: To Mr. Latrobe.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,75.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I shall live in the hope that the day will come when an opportunity will be given you of finishing the middle building in a style worthy of the two wings, and worthy of the first temple dedicated to the sovereignty of the people, embellishing with Athenian taste the course of a nation looking far beyond the range of Athenian destinies. --
TITLE: To Mr. Latrobe.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,75.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
See Capitol (U. S.) and Washington City.
I thank you for the military manuals. [* * *] This is the sort of book most needed in our country, where even the elements of tactics are unknown. The young have never seen service, the old are past it, and of those among them who are not superannuated themselves, their
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,75.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 365.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I am very justly sensible of the honor the Society of Artists of the United States has done me in making me an honorary member of their Society. [* * *] I fear that I can be but a very useless associate. Time which withers the fancy, as the other faculties of the mind and body presses on me with a heavy hand, and distance intercepts all personal intercourse. I can offer, therefore, but my zealous good wishes for the success of the institution, and that, embellishing with taste a country already overflowing with the useful productions, it May be able to give an innocent and pleasing direction to accumulations of wealth, which would otherwise be employed in the nourishment of coarse and vicious habits. --
TITLE: To Thomas Sully.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,34.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1812
If human reason is not mere illusion, and law a
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,604.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
The exclusion from the courts of the malign influence of all authorities after the Georgium Sidus became ascendant, would uncanonize Blackstone, whose book, although the most elegant and best digested of our law catalogue, has been perverted, more than all others, to the degeneracy of legal science. A student finds there a smattering of everything, and his indolence easily persuades him that if he understands that book, he is master of the whole body of the law. The distinction between these, and those who have drawn their stores from the deep and rich mines of Coke on Littleton, seems well understood even by the unlettered common people, who apply the appellation of Blackstone lawyers to these ephemeral insects of the law. --
TITLE: To Judge Tyler.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,66.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Of the principles and advantages of commerce, Bonaparte appears to be ignorant. --
TITLE: To Joel Barlow.
EDITION: Washington ed.v ,601.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,75.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 366.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
Our present enemy will have the sea to herself, while we shall be equally predominant at land, and shall strip her of all her possessions on this continent. --
TITLE: To General Kosciusko.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,68.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 361.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1812
To continue the war popular, [* * *] it is necessary to stop Indian barbarities. The conquest of Canada will do this. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,70.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 364.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1812
The declaration of war is entirely popular here [Virginia] , the only opinion being that it should have been issued the moment the season admitted the militia to enter Canada. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,70.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 364.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1812
I know your feelings on the present state of the world, and hope they will be cheered by the successful course of our war, and the addition of Canada to our confederacy. The infamous intrigues of Great Britain to destroy our government (of which Henry's is but one sample), and with the Indians to tomahawk our women and children, prove that the cession of Canada, their fulcrum for these Machiavelian levers, must be a sine qua non at a treaty of peace. --
TITLE: To General Kosciusko.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,70.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 363.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1812
-- With Canada in hand we can go to treaty with an off-set for spoliation before the war. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,78.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
For one thousand ships taken, and six thousand seamen impressed, give us Canada for indemnification, and the only security they can give us against their Henrys and the savages. --
TITLE: To Mr. Wright.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,78.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
If we could but get Canada to Trois Rivièrés in our hands we should have a set-off against spoliations to be treated of, and in the meantime separate the Indians from them, and set the friendly to attack the hostile part with our aid. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 370.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Nov. 1812
Private charities, as well as contributions to public purposes in proportion to every one's circumstances, are certainly among the duties we owe to society. --
TITLE: To Charles Christian.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,44.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The general relation in which I, some time since, stood to the citizens of all our States, drew on me such multitudes of applications as exceeded all resource. Nor have they abated since my retirement to the limited duties of a private citizen, and the more limited resources of a private fortune. They have obliged me to lay down as a law of conduct for myself, to restrain my contributions for public institutions to the circle of my own State, and for private charities to that which is under my own observation; and these calls I find more than sufficient for everything I can spare. --
TITLE: To Charles Christian.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,44.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I have wished to see chemistry applied to domestic objects, to malting, for instance, brewing, making cider, to fermentation and distillation generally, to the making of bread, butter, cheese, soap, to the incubation of eggs, &c. --
TITLE: To Thomas Cooper.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,73.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The first foundations of the social compact would be broken up, were we definitely to refuse to its members the protection of their persons and property, while in their lawful pursuits. --
TITLE: To James Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,52.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 348.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
-- Whether we should undertake to reduce the common law, our own, and so much of the English statutes as we have adopted, to a text, is a question of transcendent difficulty. It was discussed at the first meeting of the committee of the Revised Code [of Virginia] in 1776, and decided in the negative, by the opinions of Wythe, Mason and myself, against Pendleton and Thomas Lee. Pendleton proposed to take Blackstone for that text, only purging him of what was inapplicable or unsuitable to us. In that case, the meaning of every word of Blackstone would have become a source of litigation, until it had been settled by repeated legal decisions. And to come at that meaning, we should have had produced, on all occasions, that very pile of authorities from which it would be said he drew his conclusion, and which, of course, would explain it, and the terms in which it is couched. Thus we should have retained the same chaos of law lore from which we wished to be emancipated, added to the evils of the uncertainty which a new text and new phrases would have generated. An example of this may be found in the old statutes, and commentaries on them, in Coke's Second Institute, but more remarkably in the Institute of Justinian, and the vast masses explanatory or supplementary of that which fill the libraries of the civilians. We were deterred from the attempt by these considerations, added to which, the bustle of the times did not admit leisure for such an undertaking. --
TITLE: To John Tyler.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,66.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I deride with you the ordinary doctrine, that we brought with us from England the common law rights. This narrow notion was a favorite in the first moment of rallying to our rights against Great Britain. But it was that of men who felt their rights before they had thought of their explanation. The truth is, that we brought with us the right of men; of expatriated men. On our arrival here, the question would at once arise, by what law will we govern ourselves? The resolution seems to have been, by that system with which we are familiar, to be altered by ourselves occasionally, and adapted to our new situation. The proofs of this resolution [Col 2] are to be found in the form of the oaths of the judges, 1. Henings Stat. 169. 187: of the Governor, ib. 504; in the act for a provisional government, ib, 372; in the preamble to the laws of 1661-2; the uniform current of opinions and decisions, and in the general recognition of all our statutes, framed on that basis. But the state of the English law at the date of our emigration, constituted the system adopted here. We may doubt, therefore, the propriety of quoting in our courts English authorities subsequent to that adoption; still more the admission of authorities posterior to the Declaration of Independence, or rather to the accession of that King, whose reign, ab initio, was the very tissue of wrongs which rendered the Declaration at length necessary. The reason for it had inception at least as far back as the commencement of his reign. This relation to the beginning of his reign, would add the advantage of getting us rid of all Mansfield's innovations, or civilizations of the Common Law. For, however, I admit the superiority of the civil over the common law code, as a system of perfect justice, yet an incorporation of the two would be like Nebuchadnezzar's image of metals and clay, a thing without cohesion of parts. The only natural improvement of the common law, is through its homogeneous ally, the Chancery, in which new principles are to be examined, concocted and digested. But when, by repeated decisions and modifications, they are rendered pure and certain, they should be transferred by statute to the courts of common law and placed within the pale of juries. The exclusion from the courts of the malign influence of all authorities after the Georgium Sidus became ascendant, would uncanonize Blackstone, whose book, although the most elegant and best digested of our law catalogue, has been perverted more than all others, to the degeneracy of legal science. A student finds there a smattering of everything, and his indolence easily persuades him that if he understands that book, he is master of the whole body of the law. The distinction between these, and those who have drawn their stores from the deep and rich mines of Coke on Littleton, seems well understood even by the unlettered common people who apply the appellation of Blackstone lawyers to these ephemeral insects of the law. 89 --
TITLE: To John Tyler.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,65.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
-- On the settlement of the colonies now composing the United States, and the settlement of a legislature in each of them, that legislature, in some cases, finding that the enacting a complete code of laws which should reach every transaction needing legislation, would be far beyond their time and abilities, adopted, by an express act of their own, the laws of England as they stood at that date, comprehending the common law, statutes to that period, and the chancery law. In other cases, instead of adopting them by an express statute of their own, they considered themselves as having brought with them, and been, even on their passage, under the constant obligation of the laws of the mother country, and on their arrival they continued to practice them without any act of adoption, which practice or usage is evidence that there was an adoption by general consent. In the case of Connecticut, they did not adopt the common law of England at all as their basis, but declared by an act of their own, that the law of God, as it stood revealed in the Old and New Testaments, should be the basis of their laws, to be subject to such alterations as they should make. In all the cases where the common law, or laws of England, were adopted either expressly or tacitly, the legislatures held of course, and exercised the power of making additions and alterations. As the different States were settled at very different periods, and the adoption for each State was the laws of England as they stood at the moment of the adoption by the State, it is evident that
TITLE: Observations on Hardin's Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.ix ,485.
DATE: Nov. 1812
Having settled by way of preliminary, to what extent, and by what authority, the common law of England is the law of each of the States, we will proceed to consider how far, and by what authority, it is the law of the United States as a national government. By the Constitution, the General Government has jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution, under the ( constitutional ) laws of the United States, and under treaties; in all cases, too, of ambassadors, of admiralty jurisdiction, where the United States is a party, between a State or its citizens, or another State or its citizens, or foreign State or its citizens. The General Government, then, had a right to take under their cognizance all these cases, and no others. This might have been done by Congress, by passing a complete code, assuming the whole field of their jurisdiction, and by applying uniformly to every State, without any respect to the laws of that State. But, like the State legislatures, who had been placed before in a similar situation, they felt that it was a work of too much time and difficulty to be undertaken. Observing, therefore, that ( except cases of piracy and murder on the high seas) all the cases within the jurisdiction must arise in some of the States, they declared by the act of September, 24, 1789. C. 20 § 34, “that the laws of the several States, except where the Constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States shall otherwise provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common law in the courts of the United States in cases where they apply.” Here, then, Congress adopted for each State the laws of that State; and among the laws so adopted were portions of the common law, greater or less in different States, and in force, not by any innate authority of its own, but by the adoption or enacting of it by the State authority. Now what was the opinion to which this was opposed? Several judges of the General Government declared that “the common law of England is the unwritten law of the United States in their national and federal capacity.” A State judge, in a printed work, lays it down as “certainly wrong to say that the judiciary power of the nation can [Col 2] exercise no authority but what depends for its principle on acts of the national legislature. ” And then, quoting the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, which says that its object is, “to insure domestic tranquillity, promote the general welfare” &c., he adds, that “what is here expressed is the common law of the whole country,” and that “whatever is in opposition to it, whether treason, insurrection, sedition, murder, riot, assaults, batteries, thefts or robberies, may be punished as crimes, independent of any act of Congress.” And opinions equivalent to these were declared by one party on the floor of Congress. This is the doctrine which the republicans declared heretical. They deny that Congress can pass any law not authorized by the Constitution, and that the judges can act on any law not authorized by Congress, or by the Constitution in very direct terms. If the true doctrine then be, that certain portions of the common and statute law of England be in force in the different States by virtue of the adoption in that State, and in the Federal courts of the same State by virtue of the adoption by Congress of the laws of that State within its limits, then whenever a case is presented to a Federal court, they are to ask themselves the following questions: 1. Is this case within any of the definitions of jurisdiction given by the Constitution to the General Government? If it be decided that it is, then, 2. Has Congress by any positive statute assumed cognizance of this case as permitted them by the Constitution? To determine this question, the judge must first look into the statutes of Congress generally; if he finds it not there, he must look into the laws of the State, as well as that portion of the English code which the State may have adopted, as the acts passed specially by the legislature. If the case be actually found provided for in these laws, another question still remains, viz.: 3. Is the law of the State applicable to the analogous case of the General Government? for it may happen that a law of the State, adapted perfectly to its own organization and local circumstances, may not tally with the different organizations or circumstances of the Federal government. If the difference be such as to defeat the application, it must be considered as a case unprovided for by Congress, and not cognizable in their courts. Just so parts of the common or statute law of England are found by the State judges inapplicable to their State from a difference of circumstances. These differences of circumstances will be shaded off from nothing to direct inconsistence, and it will be only by many decisions on a great variety of cases that the line will at length be drawn. Let us apply these questions to Hardin's case, which is simply this: Congress by an express statute, 1802, c. 13, § 6, have made the murder of an Indian within the territory of the United States, punishable by death. A murder is committed on an Indian in that territory. The murderers fly to Kentucky. They are demanded by the Governor of Indiana of the Governor of Kentucky; under whose
TITLE: Observations on Hardin's Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.ix ,486.
DATE: Nov. 1812
Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,575.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
I have much doubted whether, in case of a war, Congress would find it practicable to do their part of the business. That a body containing one hundred lawyers in it, should direct the measures of a war, is, I fear, impossible; and that thus that member of our Constitution, which is its bulwark, will prove to be an impracticable one from its cacoethes loquendi. It may be doubted how far it has the power, but I am sure it has not the resolution to reduce the right of talking to practicable limits. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 337.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Feb. 1812
Recurring to the tenor of a long life of public service, against the charge of malice and corruption (in the New Orleans Batture case) I stand conscious and erect. --
TITLE: The Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,604.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
In answer to your inquiry whether, in the early times of our [Virginia] goyernment, where the Council was divided, the practice was for the Governor to give the deciding vote? I must observe that,
TITLE: To James Barbour.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,38.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 335.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The Cherokee nation, consisting now of about 2,000 warriors, and the Creeks of about 3,000 are far advanced in civilization. They have good cabins, enclosed fields, large herds of cattle and hogs, spin and weave their own clothes of cotton, have smiths and other of the most necessary tradesmen, write and read, are on the increase in numbers, and a branch of Cherokees is now instituting a regular representative government. Some other tribes are advancing in the same line. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,62.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 358.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
See Indians.
Of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, I see now living not more than half a dozen on your side of the Potomac, and on this side, myself alone. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,37.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 334.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1812
An instant of delay in executive proceedings may be fatal to the whole nation. --
TITLE: To James Barbour.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,40.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 337.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
With respect to the unfortunate loss of Detroit and our army, I with pleasure see the animation it has inspired through our whole country, but especially through the Western States, and the determination to retrieve our loss and our honor by increased exertions. --
TITLE: To Thomas C. F. Tournoy.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,83.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
He who has done his duty honestly, and according to his best skill and judgment, stands acquitted before God and man. --
TITLE: The Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,602.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
The approach of this crisis is, I think, visible, in the departure of her precious metals, and depreciation of her paper medium. We, who have gone through that operation, know its symptoms, its course, and consequences. In England, they will be more serious than elsewhere, because half the wealth of her people is now in that medium, the private revenue of her money-holders, or rather of her paper-holders, being, I believe, greater than that of her land-holders. Such a proportion of property, imaginary and baseless as it is, cannot be reduced to vapor but with great explosion. She will rise out of its ruins. however, because her lands, her houses, her arts will remain, and the greater part of her men. And these will give her again that place among nations which is proportioned to her natural means, and which we all wish her to hold. --
TITLE: To James Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,52.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 349.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: April. 1812
The regeneration of the British government will take a longer time than I have to live. [* * *] I shall make my exit with a bow to it, as the most flagitious of governments I leave among men. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,77.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 367.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
The English newspapers suppose me the personal enemy of their nation. I am not so. I am the enemy to its injuries, as I am to those of France. If I could permit myself to have national partialities, and if the conduct of England would have permitted them to be directed towards her, they would have been so. [* * *] Had I been personally hostile to England, and biased in favor of either the character or views of her great antagonist, the affair of the Chesapeake put war into my hand. I had only to open it and let havoc loose. But if ever I was gratified with the possession of power, and of the confidence of those who had entrusted me with it, it was on that occasion when I was enabled to use both for the pre
TITLE: To James Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,53.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 349.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: April. 1812
As for France and England, with all their preëminence in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,37.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 333.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Probably the old hive will be broken up by a revolution, and a regeneration of its principles render intercourse with it no longer contaminating. A republic there like ours, and a reduction of their naval power within the limits of their annual facilities of payment, might render their existence even interesting to us. It is the construction of their government, and its principles and means of corruption, which make its continuance inconsistent with the safety of other nations. A change in its form might make it an honest one, and justify a confidence in its faith and friendship. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,76.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 366.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
There is more honor and magnanimity in correcting than perserving in an error. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,598.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
I have no pretensions to exemption from error. In a long course of public duties, I must have committed many. And I have reason to be thankful that, passing over these, an act of duty has been selected as a subject of complaint, which the delusions of self interest alone could have classed among them, and in which, were there error, it has been hallowed by the benedictions of an entire province, an interesting member of our national family, threatened with destruction by the bold enterprise of one individual. 174 --
TITLE: The Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,601.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
If, indeed, a judge goes against law so grossly, so palpably, as no imputable degree of folly can account for, and nothing but corruption, malice or wilful wrong can explain, and especially if circumstances prove such motives, he may be punished for the corruption, the malice. the wilful wrong; but not for the error. --
TITLE: The Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,602.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
Our Constitution has wisely distributed the administration of the Government into three distinct and independent departments. To each of these it Belongs to administer law within its separate jurisdiction. The judiciary in cases of meum and tuum, and of public crimes; the Executive, as to laws executive in their nature; the Legislature in various cases which belong to itself, and in the important function of amending and adding to the system. Perfection in wisdom, as well as in integrity, is neither required, nor expected in these agents. It belongs not to man. Were the judge who, deluded by sophistry, takes the life of an innocent man, to repay it with his own; were he to replace, with his own fortune, that which his judgment has taken from another, under the beguilement of false deductions; were the Executive, in the vast mass of concerns of first magnitude, which he must direct, to place his whole fortune on the hazard of every opinion; were the members of the Legislature to make good from their private substance every law productive of public or private injury; in short, were every man engaged in rendering service to the public bound in his body and goods to indemnification for all his errors, we must commit our public affairs to the paupers of the nation, to the sweepings of hospitals and poor houses, who, having nothing to lose, would have nothing to risk. The wise know their weakness too well to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows how little he knows. The vine and the fig tree must withdraw, and the brier and bramble assume their places. But this is not the spirit of our law. It expects not impossibilities. It has consecrated the principle that its servants are not answerable for honest error of judgment. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,602.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
If a functionary of the highest trust, acting under every sanction which the Constitution has provided for his aid and guide, and with the approbation, expressed or implied, of its highest councils, still acts on his own peril, the honors and offices of his country would be but snares to ruin him. 176 --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,603.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
We especially ought to pray that the powers of Europe may be so poised and counterpoised among themselves, that their own safety may require the presence of all their force at home, leaving the other quarters of the globe in undisturbed tranquillity. --
TITLE: To Dr. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,33.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1812
Whether the head of the War Department is equal to his charge, I am not qualified to decide. I knew him only as a pleasant gentlemanly man in Society; and the indecision of his character added to the amenity of his conversation. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,81.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 368.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
Our farmers are cheerful in the expectation of a good price for wheat in autumn. Their pulse will be regulated by this, and not by the successes or disasters of the war. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,78.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
As for France and England, with all their preeminence in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,37.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 333.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I thought that in the administration of Mr. Addington, I discovered some dispositions towards justice, and even friendship and respect for us, and began to pave the way for cherishing these dispositions and improving them into ties of mutual good-will. But we had then a Federal minister there, whose dispositions to believe himself, and to inspire others with a belief in our sincerity, his subsequent conduct has brought into doubt; and poor Merry, the English minister here, had learned nothing of diplomacy but its suspicions, without head enough to distinguish when they were misplaced. Mr. Addington and Mr. Fox passed away too soon to avail the two countries of their dispositions. --
TITLE: To James Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,53.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 350.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: April. 1812
I am sorry your enterprise for establishing a factory on the Columbia river, and a commerce through the line of that river and the Missouri, should meet with the difficulties stated in your letter. I remember well having invited your proposition on that subject, and encouraged it with the assurance of every facility and protection which the government could properly afford. I considered as a great public acquisition the commencement of a settlement on that point of the Western coast of America, and looked forward with gratification to the time when its descendants should have spread themselves through the whole length of that coast, covering it with free and independent Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and interest, and employing like us the rights of self-government. I hope the obstacles you state are not insurmountable; that they will not endanger, or even delay the accomplishment of so great a public purpose. --
TITLE: To John Jacob Astor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,55.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 351.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: May. 1812
In the present state of affairs between Great Britain and us, the government is justly jealous of the contraventions of those commercial restrictions which have been deemed necessary to exclude the use of British manufactures in these States, and to promote the establishment of similar ones among ourselves. The interests, too, of the revenue require particular watchfulness. But in the non-importation of British manufactures, and the revenue raised on foreign goods, the Legislature could only have in view the consumption of our own citizens, and the revenue to be levied on that. We certainly did not mean to interfere with the consumption of nations foreign to us, as the Indians of the Columbia and Missouri are, or to assume a right of levying an impost on that consumption; and if the words of the laws take in their supplies in either view, it was probably unintentional, and because their case not being under the contemplation of the Legislature, has been inadvertently embraced by it. The question with them would be not what manufactures these nations should use, or what taxes they should pay us on them, but whether we would give a transit for them through our country. We have a right to say we will not let the British exercise that transit. But it is our interest, as well as a neighborly duty, to allow it when exercised by our own citizens only. To guard against any surreptitious introduction of British influence among those nations, we May justifiably require that no Englishman be permitted to go with the trading parties, and necessary precautions should also be taken to prevent this covering the contravention of our own laws and views. But these once securely guarded, our interest would permit the transit free of duty. --
TITLE: To John Jacob Astor.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,55.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 351.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: May. 1812
The seeing whether our untried generals will stand proof is a very dear operation. Two of them have cost us a great many men. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 370.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Nov. 1812
Will not [General] Van Rensselaer be broke for cowardice and incapacity? To advance such a body of men across a river without securing boats to bring them off in case of disaster, has cost 700 men; and to have taken no part himself in such an action, and against such a general would be nothing but cowardice. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 370.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Nov. 1812
We can tell by his plumage whether a cock is dunghill or game. But with us cowardice and courage wear the same plume. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 370.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Nov. 1812
It is a subject of deep regret to see a great nation reduced from an unexampled height of prosperity to an abyss of ruin, by the long-continued rule of a single chief. --
TITLE: To Mr. Rodman.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,54.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: April. 1812
The resolution of the republicans of Connecticut to propose you as Vice-President, [* * *] is a stamp of double proof. It is an indication to the factionaries that their nay is the yea of truth and its best test. --
TITLE: To Elbridge Gerry.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,64.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 361.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust. Whether our Constitution has hit on the exact degree of control necessary, is yet under experiment; and it is a most encouraging reflection that distance and other difficulties securing us against the brigand governments of Europe, in the safe enjoyment of our farms and firesides, the experiment stands a better chance of being satisfactorily made here than on any occasion yet presented by history. --
TITLE: To M. Van Der Kemp.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it. --
TITLE: To M. Van Der Kemp.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it. --
TITLE: To M. Van Der Kemp.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Mr. Henry's ravenous avarice was the only passion paramount to his love of popularity. --
TITLE: To William Wirt.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 339.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
In ordinary business [in the House of Burgesses] he was a very inefficient member. He could not draw a bill on the most simple subject which would bear legal criticism, or even the ordinary criticism which looks to correctness of style and ideas, for indeed there was no accuracy of idea in his head. His imagination was copious, poetical, sublime, but vague also. He said the strongest things in the finest language, but without logic, without arrangement, desultorily. --
TITLE: To William Wirt.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 341.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The detestable treason of Hull, has excited a deep anxiety in all breasts. [* * *] His treachery, like that of Arnold, cannot be a matter of blame on our government. His character, as an officer of skill and bravery, was established on the trials of the last war, and no previous act of his life had led to doubt his fidelity. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,80.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 368.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
Hull will of course be shot for cowardice and treachery. 243 --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 370.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Nov. 1812
If science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable, as our neighboring savages are. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,37.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 334.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
One thousand ships taken, six thousand seamen impressed, savage butcheries of our citizens, and incendiary machinations against our Union, declare that they and their allies, the Spaniards, must retire from the Atlantic side of our continent as the only security or indemnification which will be effectual. --
TITLE: To Thomas Letre.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,79.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
The sword once drawn, full justice must be done. “Indemnification for the past and security for the future” should be painted on our banners. --
TITLE: To Mr. Wright.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,78.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
In the early part of my life, I was very familiar with the Indians, and acquired impressions of attachment and commiseration for them which have never been obliterated. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,61.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 358.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The Indians backward [in civilization] will yield, and be thrown further back. They will relapse into barbarism and misery, lose numbers by war and want, and we shall be obliged to drive them with the beasts of the forest into the stony mountains. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,62.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 358.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Before the Revolution, the Indians were in the habit of coming often and in great numbers to the seat of government [in Virginia] , where I was very much with them. I knew much the great Outacité, the warrior and orator of the Cherokees; he was always the guest of my father, on his journeys to and from Williamsburg. I was in his camp when he made his great farewell oration to his people the evening before his departure for England. The moon was in full splendor, and to her he seemed to address himself in his prayers for his own safety on the voyage, and that of his people during his absence; his sounding voice, distinct articulation, animated action, and the solemn silence of his people at their several fires, filled me with awe and veneration, although I did not understand a word he uttered. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,61.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 358.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
You ask if the Indians have any order of priesthood among them, like the Druids, Bards or Minstrels of the Celtic nations? Adair alone, determined to see what he wished to see in every object, metamorphoses their conjurers into an [Col 2] order of priests, and describes their sorceries as if they were the great religious ceremonies of the nation. Lafitau called them by their proper names, Jongleurs, Devins, Sortileges; De Bry, præstigiatores; Adair himself sometimes Magi, Archimagi, cunning men, Seers, rain-makers; and the modern Indian interpreters call them conjurers and witches. They are persons pretending to have communications with the devil and other evil spirits, to foretell future events, bring down rain, find stolen goods, raise the dead, destroy some and heal others by enchantment, lay spells, &c. And Adair, without departing from his parallel of the Jews and Indians, might have found their counterpart much more aptly among the soothsayers, sorcerers and wizards of the Jews, their Gannes and Gambres, their Simon Magus, Witch of Endor, and the young damsel whose sorceries disturbed Paul so much; instead of placing them in a line with their high-priest, their chief-priests, and their magnificent hierarchy generally. In the solemn ceremonies of the Indians, the persons who direct or officiate, are their chiefs, elders and warriors, in civil ceremonies or in those of war; it is the head of the cabin in their private or particular feasts or ceremonies; and sometimes the matrons, as in their corn feasts. And even here, Adair might have kept up his parallel, without ennobling his conjurers. For the ancient patriarchs, the Noahs, the Abrahams, Isaacs and Jacobs, and even after the consecration of Aaron, the Samuels and Elijahs, and we may say further, every one for himself offered sacrifices on the altars. The true line of distinction seems to be, that solemn ceremonies, whether public or private, addressed to the Great Spirit, are conducted by the worthies of the nation, men or matrons, while conjurers are resorted to only for the invocation of evil spirits. The present state of the Indian tribes, without any public order of priests, is proof sufficient that they never had such an order. Their steady habits permit no innovations, not even those which the progress of science offers to increase the comforts, enlarge the understanding, and improve the morality of mankind. Indeed, so little idea have they of a regular order of priests, that they mistake ours for their conjurers, and call them by that name. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,60.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 357.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Some scanty accounts of the traditions of the Indians, but fuller of their customs and characters, are given us by most of the early travelers among them, these you know were mostly French. Lafitau, among them, and Adair an Englishman, have written on this subject. [* * *] But unluckily Lafitau had in his head a preconceived theory on the mythology, manners, institutions, and government of the ancient nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and seems to have entered on those of America only to fit them into the same frame, and to draw from them a confirmation of his general theory. He keeps up a perpetual parallel, in all those articles, between the Indians of America and the ancients of the other quarters of the globe. He selects, therefore, all the facts and adopts all the falsehoods which favor his theory, and very gravely retails such absurdities as zeal for a theory could alone swallow. He was a man of much classical and scriptural reading, and has rendered his book not unentertaining. He resided five years among the northern Indians as a missionary, but collects his matter much more from the writings of others, than from his own observation. Adair, too, had his kink. He believed all the Indians of America to be descended from the Jews; the same laws, usages, rites and ceremonies, the same sacrifices, priests, prophets, fasts and festivals, almost the same religion, and that they all spoke Hebrew. For, although he writes particularly of the southern Indians only, the Catawbas, Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Choctaws, with whom alone he was personally acquainted, yet he generalizes whatever he found among them, and brings himself to believe that the hundred languages of America, differing fundamentally every one from every other, as much as Greek from Gothic, yet have all one common prototype. He was a trader, a man of learning, a self-taught Hebraist, a strong religionist, and of as sound a mind as Don Quixote in whatever did not touch his religious chivalry. His book contains a great deal of real instruction on its subject, only requiring the reader to be constantly on his guard against the wonderful obliquities of his theory. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,59.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 355.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Soon after my leaving Congress, in September, '76, to wit, on the last day of that month 256, I had been appointed, with Dr. Franklin, to go to France, as a Commissioner, to negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce with that government. Silas Deane, then in France, acting as agent for procuring military stores, was joined with us in commission. But such was the state of my family that I could not leave it, nor could I expose it to the dangers of the sea, and of capture by the British ships, then covering the ocean. I saw, too, that the laboring oar was really at home, where much was to be done of the most permanent interest, in new moodelling our governments, and much to defend our fanes and firesides
TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed.i ,51.
EDITION: Ford ed.,i, 70.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
The assurance [* * *] that my aid in the councils of our government would increase the public confidence in them; because it admits an inference that they have approved of the course pursued, when I heretofore bore a part in those councils. [* * *] But I am past service. The hand of age is upon me. The debility of bodily faculties apprizes me that those of the mind cannot be unimpaired, had I not still better proofs. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,79.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 367.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
That the lands within the limits assumed by a nation belong to the nation as a body, has probably been the law of every people on earth at some period of their history. A right of property in movable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands not till after that establishment. The right to movables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the grant. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,539.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
It seems [* * *] to be a principle of universal law that the lands of a country belong to its sovereign as trustee for the nation. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,541.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
I have long considered the filiation of languages as the best proof we can ever obtain of the filiation of nations. --
TITLE: To John S. Vater.
EDITION: Washington ed.v ,599.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Sound reason should constitute the law of every country. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,531.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
The French code, like all those of middle and southern Europe, was originally Feudal, with some variations in the different provinces, formerly independent, of which the kingdom of France had been made up. But as circumstances changed, and civilization and commerce advanced, abundance of new cases and questions arose, for which the simple and unwritten laws of Feudalism had made no provision. At the same time, they had at hand the legal system of a nation highly civilized, a system carried to a degree of conformity with natural reason attained by no other. The study of this system, too, was become the favorite of the age, and offering ready and reasonable solutions of all the new cases presenting themselves, was recurred to by a common consent and practice; not, indeed, as laws, formally established by the legislator of the country, but as a Ratio Scripta, the dictate, in all cases, of that sound reason which should constitute the law of every country. Over both of these systems, however, the occasional edicts of the monarch are paramount, and amend and control their provisions whenever he deems amendment necessary; on the gen [Col 2] eral principle that
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,530.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
The following instances will give some idea of the steps by which the Roman gained on the Feudal laws. A law of Burgundy provided
TITLE: Note in Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,531.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
I am on horseback three or four hours of every day; visit three or four times a year a possession I have ninety miles distant, performing the winter journey on horseback. I walk little, however, a single mile being too much for me, and I live in the midst of my grandchildren, one of whom has lately promoted me to be a great grandfather. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,37.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 334.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
She [England] may burn New York [* * *] by her ships and congreve rockets, in which case we must burn the city of London by hired incendiaries, of which her starving manufacturers will furnish abundance. A people in such desperation as to demand of their government aut panem, aut furcam, either bread or the gallows, will not reject the same alternative when offered by a foreign hand. Hunger will make them brave every risk for bread. --
TITLE: To General Kosciusko.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,68.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 362.
DATE: June. 1812
I have known Mr. Madison from 1779, when he first came into the public councils, and from three and thirty years' trial, I can say conscientiously that I do not know in the world a man of purer integrity, more dispassionate, disinterested, and devoted to genuine republicanism; nor could I, in the whole scope of America and Europe, point out an abler head. He may be illy seconded by others, betrayed by the Hulls and Arnolds of our country, for such there are in every country, and with sorrow and suffering we know it. But what man can do will be done by Mr. Madison. I hope, therefore, there will be no difference among republicans as to his reelection; we shall know his [Col 2] value when we have to give him up, and to look at large for his successor. --
TITLE: To Thomas C. Flourney.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,82.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
If our operations have suffered or languished from any want of injury in the present head [of the War Department] which directs them, I have so much confidence in the wisdom and conscientious integrity of Mr. Madison, as to be satisfied, that however torturing to his feelings, he will fulfil his duty to the public and to his own reputation, by making the necessary change. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,81.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 369.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
Although a soldier yourself, I am sure you contemplate the peaceable [Col 2] employment of man in the improvement of his condition, with more pleasure than his murders, raperies and devastations. --
TITLE: To General Kosciusko.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,69.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 363.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1812
Nothing more salutary for us has ever happened than the British obstructions to our demands for their manufactures. Restore free intercourse when they will, their commerce with us will have totally changed its form, and the articles we shall in future want from them will not exceed their own consumption of our produce. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,36.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 333.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1812
The economy and thriftiness resulting from our household manufactures are such that they will never again be laid aside. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,36.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 333.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1812
Our manufacturers are now very nearly on a footing with those of [Col 2] England. She has not a single improvement which we do not possess, and many of them better adapted by ourselves to our ordinary use. We have reduced the large and expensive machinery for most things to the compass of a private family, and every family of any size is now getting machines on a small scale for their household purposes. Quoting myself as an example, and I am much behind many others in this business, my household manufactures are just getting into operation on the scale of a carding machine costing $60 only, which may be worked by a girl of twelve years old, a spinning machine, which may be had for $10, carrying six spindles for wool, to be worked by a girl also, another which can be made for $25, carrying twelve spindles for cotton, and a loom, with a flying shuttle, weaving its twenty yards a day. I need 2,000 yards of linen, cotton, and woollen yearly, to clothe my family, which this machinery, costing $150 only, and worked by two women and two girls, will more than furnish. --
TITLE: To General Kosciusko.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,68.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 362.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1812
In Virginia we do little in the fine way, but in coarse and middling goods a great deal. Every family in the country is a manufactory within itself, and is very generally able to make within itself all the stouter and middling stuffs for its own clothing and household use. We consider a sheep for every person in the family as sufficient to clothe it, in addition to the cotton, hemp and flax which we raise ourselves. For fine stuff we shall depend on your northern manufactories. Of these, that is to say, of company establishments we have none. We use little machinery. The spinning jenny, and loom with the flying shuttle, can be managed in a family; but nothing more complicated. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,36.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 332.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1812
For fine goods there are numerous establishments at work in the large cities, and many more daily growing up; and of merinos we have some thousands, and these multiplying fast. We consider a sheep for every person as sufficient for their woollen clothing, and this State and all to the north have fully that, and those to the south and west will soon be up to it. In other articles, we are equally advanced, so that nothing is more certain than that, come peace when it will, we shall never again go to England for a shilling where we have gone for a dollar's worth. Instead of applying to her manufacturers there, they must starve or come here to be employed. --
TITLE: To General Kosciusko.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,69.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 363.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1812
While surgery is seated in the temple of the exact sciences, medicine has scarcely entered its threshold. Her theories have passed in such rapid succession as to prove the insufficiency of all, and their fatal errors are recorded in the necrology of man. --
TITLE: To Dr. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,32.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Of all the faculties of the human mind, that of memory is the first which suffers decay from age. [* * *] It was my earliest monition to retire from public business. --
TITLE: To Mr. Latrobe,
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,74.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I clearly think with you on the competence of Monroe to embrace great views of action. The decision of his character, his enterprise, firmness, industry, and unceasing vigilance, would, I believe, secure, as I am sure they would merit, the public confidence, and give us all the success which our means can accomplish. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,81.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 368.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
In no case are the laws of a nation changed, of natural right, by their passage from one to another domination. The soil, the inhabitants, their property, and the laws by which they are protected go together. Their laws are subject to be changed only in the ease, and extent which their new legislature shall will. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,528.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
In reading the travels of a Frenchman through the United States what he remarks as peculiarities in us, prove to us the contrary peculiarities of the French. We have the accounts of Barbary from European and American travellers. It would be more amusing if Melli Melli would give us his observations on the United States. If, with the fables and follies of the Hindoos, so justly pointed out to us by yourself and other travellers, we could compare the contrast of those which an Hindoo traveller would imagine he found among us, it might enlarge our instruction. It would be curious to see what parallel among us he would select for his Veeshni. --
TITLE: To Nathaniel Greene.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,72.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The just standing of all nations is the health and security of all. --
TITLE: To James Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,52.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 349.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus, and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid, and I find myself much the happier. --
TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,37.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 334.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I profess so much of the Roman principle, as to deem it honorable for the general of yesterday to act as a corporal to-day, if his services can be useful to his country; holding that to be false pride, which postpones the public good to any private or personal considerations. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,80.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 367.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812
Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those intrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust. Whether our Constitution has hit on the exact degree of control necessary, is yet under experiment; and it is a most encouraging reflection that distance and other difficulties securing us against the brigand governments of Europe, in the safe enjoyment of our farms and firesides, the experiment stands a better chance of being satisfactorily made here than on any occasion yet presented by history. --
TITLE: To Mr. Vander Kemp.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I am glad of the reestablishment of a Perceval ministry. 385 The opposition would have recruited our minority by half-way offers. --
TITLE: To President Madison.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,77.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
I am very thankful to you for the description of Redhefer's machine. I had never been able to form an idea of what his principle of deception was. He is the first of the inventors of perpetual motion within my knowledge, who has had the cunning to put his visitors on a false pursuit, by amusing them with a sham machinery whose loose and vibratory motion might impose on them the belief that it is the real source of the motion they see. To this device he is indebted for a more extensive delusion than I have before witnessed on this point. We are full of it as far as this State, and I know not how much farther. In Richmond, they have done me the honor to quote me as having said that it was a possible thing. A poor Frenchman who called on me the other day, with another invention of perpetual motion, assured me that Dr. Franklin, many years ago, expressed his opinion to him that it was not impossible. Without entering into contest on this abuse of the Doctor's name, I gave him the answer I had given to others before,
TITLE: To Dr. Robert Patterson.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,83.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
We especially ought to pray that the powers of Europe may be so poised and counterpoised among themselves, that their own safety may require the presence of all their force at home, leaving the other quarters of the globe in undisturbed tranquility. --
TITLE: To Dr. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,33.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
When our strength will
TITLE: To Dr. Crawford.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,33.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1812
We believe that the just standing of all nations is the health and security of all. We consider the overwhelming power of England on the ocean, and of France on the land, as destructive of the prosperity and happiness of the world, and wish both to be reduced only to the necessity of observing moral duties. We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting for the liberty of the seas, than in Great Britain fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object of both is the same to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations. We resist the enterprises of England first, because they first come vitally home to us. And our feelings repel the logic of bearing the lash of George III. for fear of that of Bonaparte at some future day. When the wrongs of France shall reach us with equal effect, we shall resist them also. But one at a time is enough; and having offered a choice to the champions, England first takes up the gauntlet. --
TITLE: To James Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,52.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 349.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: April. 1812
Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those intrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust. --
TITLE: To Mr. Van der Kemp.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,45.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I hope we shall confine ourselves to the conquest of their possessions, and defence of our harbors, leaving the war on the ocean to our privateers. These will immediately swarm in every sea, and do more injury to British commerce than the regular fleets of all Europe would do. --
TITLE: To General Kosciusko.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,68.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 362.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: June. 1812
Our privateers will eat out the vitals of British commerce. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,76.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 366.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
Every sea on the globe where England has any commerce, and where any port can be found to sell prizes, will be filled with our privateers. --
TITLE: To General Kosciusko.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,77.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
The property of the United States can never be questioned in any court, but in special cases in which, by some particular law, they delegate a special power, as to the boards of commissioners, and in some small fiscal cases. But a general jurisdiction over the national demesnes, being more than half the territory of the United States, has never been by them, and never ought to be, subjected to any tribunal. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,521.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
The first foundations of the social compact would be broken up, were we definitely to refuse to its members the protection of their persons and property, while in their lawful pursuits. --
TITLE: To James Maury.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,52.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 348.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
By nature's law, every man has a right to seize and retake by force, his own property. taken from him by another, by force or fraud. Nor is this natural right among the first which is taken into the hands of regular government, after it is instituted. It was long retained by our ancestors. It was a part of their common law, laid down in their books, recognized by all the authorities, and regulated as to circumstances of practice. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,584.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
The schism in Massachusetts, when brought to the crisis of principle, will be found to be exactly the same as in the Revolutionary war. The monarchists will be left alone, and will appear to be exactly the tories of the last war. --
TITLE: To Thomas Letre.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,79.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
Perhaps the British fleet will burn New York or Boston. If they do, we must burn the city of London, not by expensive fleets or Congreve rockets, but by employing an hundred or two Jack-the-painters, whom nakedness, famine, desperation, and hardened vice, will abundantly furnish from among themselves. --
TITLE: To William Duane.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,76.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 366.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1812
I hope and firmly believe that the whole world will, sooner or later, feel benefit from the issue of our assertion of the rights of man. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Galloway.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
Although the horrors of the French Revolution have damped for awhile the ardor of the patriots in every country, yet it is not extinguished -- it will never die. The sense of right has been excited in every breast, and the spark will be rekindled by the very oppressions of that detestable tyranny employed to quench it. The errors of the honest patriots of France, and the crimes of her Dantons and Robespierres, will be forgotten in the more encouraging contemplation of our sober example, and steady march to our object. --
TITLE: To Benjamin Galloway.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,41.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
In granting appropriations [of lands] , some sovereigns have given away the increments of rivers to a greater, some to a lesser extent, and some not at all. Rome, which was not feudal, and Spain and England which were, have granted them largely; France, a feudal country,
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,541.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
What does this English faction with you [in New England] mean? Their newspapers say rebellion, and that they will not remain united with us unless we will permit them to govern the majority. If this be their purpose, their anti-republican spirit, it ought to be met at once. But a government like ours should be slow in believing this, should put forth its whole might, when necessary, to suppress it, and promptly return to the paths of reconciliation. The extent of our country secures it, I hope, from the vindictive passions of the petty incorporations of Greece. I rather suspect that the principal office of the other seventeen States will be to moderate and restrain the excitement of our friends with you, when they (with the aid of their brothers of the other States, if they need it), shall have brought the rebellious to their feet. They count on British aid. But what can that avail them by land? They would separate from their friends, who alone furnish employment for their navigation, to unite with their only rival for that employment. When interdicted the harbors of their quondam brethren, they will go, I suppose, to ask and share in the carrying trade of their rivals, and a dispensation with their navigation act. They think they will be happier in an association under
TITLE: To Elbridge Gerry.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,63.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 359.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
The General Government have never hesitated to remove by force the squatters and intruders on the public lands. Indeed, if the nation were put to action against every squatter, for the recovery of their lands, we should have only lawsuits, not lands for sale. --
TITLE: Batture Case.
EDITION: Washington ed.viii ,588.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1812
If the excise tax could be collected from those who buy to sell again, so as to prevent domiciliary visits by the officers, I think it would be acceptable, and, I am sure, a wholesome tax. --
TITLE: To Mr. Nelson.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,47.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: April. 1812
To the stamp tax I have not seen a man who is not totally irreconcilable. [* * *] Yet, although a very disgusting pill, I think there can be no question the people will swallow it, if their representatives determine on it. --
TITLE: To Mr. Nelson.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,47.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: April. 1812
The extent of our territory secures it, I hope, from the vindictive passions of the petty incorporations of Greece. --
TITLE: To Elbridge Gerry.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,63.
EDITION: Ford ed.,ix, 360.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1812
I owe you much thankfulness for the favorable opinion you entertain of my services, and the assurance expressed that they would again be acceptable in the Executive chair. But I was sincere in stating age as one of the reasons of my retirement from office, beginning then to be conscious of its effects, and now much more sensible of them. Senile inertness is not what is to save our country; the conduct of a war requires the vigor and enterprise of younger heads. All such undertakings, therefore, are out of the question with me, and I say so with the greater satisfaction when I contemplate the person to whom the Executive powers were handed over. --
TITLE: To Thomas C. Flournoy.
EDITION: Washington ed.vi ,82.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1812