Nor should we wonder at the pressure [for a fixed Constitution in France in 1788-9] , when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which this people were ground to powder, when we pass in review the weight of their taxes, and inequality of their distribution: the oppressions of the tithes, of the tailles,

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I have ever considered that establishment as of major importance to our country, and in whatever I could do for it, I viewed myself as performing a duty only. [* * *] The real debt of the institution is to its able and zealous professors. --

TITLE: To Jared Mansfield.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 203.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I think [* * *] that there should be a school of instruction for our Navy as well as artillery; and I do not see why the same establishment might not suffice for both. Both require the same basis of general mathematics, adding projectiles and fortifications for the artillery exclusively, and astronomy and theory of navigation exclusively for the naval students. Berout conducted both schools in France, and has left us the best book extant for their joint and separate instruction. It ought not to require a separate professor. ³ --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 218.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

How easily we prescribe for others a cure for their difficulties, while we cannot cure our own. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 201.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 187.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Man, like the fruit he eats, has his period of ripeness. Like that, too, if he continues longer hanging to the stem, it is but an useless and unsightly appendage. --

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 214.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 191.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

[The] encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid, I deem [one of the] essential principles of our government and, consequently [one] which ought to shape its administration. --

TITLE: First Inaugural Address.
EDITION: Washington ed. viii, 4.
EDITION: Ford ed., viii, 5.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

With respect to the plan of a Prison, requested [by the Virginia authorities] in 1785, (being then in Paris), I had heard of a benevolent society, in England, which had been indulged by the government, in an experiment of the effect of labor, in solitary confinement, on some of their criminals: which experiment had succeeded beyond expectation. The same idea had been suggested in France, and an architect of Lyons had proposed a plan of a well-contrived edifice, on the principle of solitary confinement. I procured a copy, and as it was too large for our purposes, I drew one on a scale less extensive, but susceptible of additions as they should be wanting. This I sent to the directors, instead of a plan of a common prison, in the hope that it would suggest the idea of labor in solitary confinement, instead of that on the public works, which we had adopted in our Revised Code. Its principle, accordingly, but not its exact form, was adopted by Latrobe in carrying the plan into execution, by the erection of what is now called the Penitentiary, built under his direction. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 46.
EDITION: Ford ed., 64.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I was written to in 1785 (being then in Paris) by directors appointed to superintend the building of a Capitol in Richmond, to advise them as to a plan, and to add to it one of a Prison. Thinking it a favorable opportunity of introducing into the State an example of architecture, in the classic style of antiquity, and the Maison quarrée of Nismes, an ancient Roman temple, being considered as the most perfect model existing of what may be called Cubic architecture, I applied to M. Clerissault, who had published drawings of the Antiquities of Nismes, to have me a model of the building made in stucco, only changing the order from Corinthinan to Ionic, on account of the difficulty of the Corinthian capitals. I yielded, with reluctance, to the taste of Clerissault, in his preference of the modern capital of Scamozzi to the more noble capital of antiquity. This was executed by the artist whom Choiseul Gouffier had carried with him to Constantinople, and employed, while ambassador there, in making those beautiful models of the remains of Grecian architecture which are to be seen at Paris. To adapt the exterior to our use, I drew a plan for the interior, with the apartments necessary for legislative, executive, and judiciary purposes; and accommodated in their size and distribution to the form and dimensions of the building. These were forwarded to the directors, in 1786, and were carried into execution, with some variations, not for the better, the most important of which, however, admit of future correction. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 45.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 63.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The [French] aristocracy [in 1788-9] was cemented by a common principle of preserving the ancient régime, or whatever should be nearest to it. Making this their Polar star, they moved in phalanx, gave preponderance on every question to the minorities of the Patriots, and always to those who advocated the least change. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 104.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 144.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I considered four of these bills [of the Revised Code of Virginia] [* * *] as forming a system by which every fibre would be eradicated of ancient or future aristocracy; and a foundation laid for a government truly republican. The repeal of the laws of entail would prevent the accumulation and perpetuation of wealth, in select families, and preserve the soil of the country from being daily more and more absorbed in mortmain. The abolition of primogeniture, and equal partition of inheritances removed the feudal and unnatural distinctions which made one member of every family rich, and all the rest poor, substituting equal partition, the best of all Agrarian laws. The restoration of the rights of conscience relieved the people from taxation for the support of a religion not theirs; for the Establishment was truly of the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being entirely composed of the less wealthy people; and these, by the bill for a general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government; and all this would be effected without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual citizen. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 68.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nature has wisely provided an aristocracy of virtue and talent for the direction of the interests of society, and scattered it with equal hand through all its conditions. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 36.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 49.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

An aristocracy of wealth [is] of more harm and danger than benefit to society. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 36.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 49.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

From a belief that, under the pressure of the [British] invasion under which we [Virginia] were then [1781] laboring, the public would have more confidence in a military chief, and that the military commander, being invested with the civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy, promptitude and effect for the defence of the State, I resigned the administration [the Governorship] at the end of my second year, [1781] and General Nelson was appointed to succeed me. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 50.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 70.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

All authority belongs to the people. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 213.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 190.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I find you are to be harassed again with a bankrupt law. Could you not compromise between agriculture and commerce by passing such a law which like the by-laws of incorporate towns, should be binding on the inhabitants of such towns only, being the residence of commerce, leaving the agriculturists, inhabitants of the country, in undisturbed possession of the rights and modes of proceedings to which their habits, their interests and their partialities attach them? This would be as uniform as other laws of local obligation. --

TITLE: To James Pleasants.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 198.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I was very unwilling that we should acquiesce in the European humiliation of paying a tribute to those [* * *] pirates, and endeavored to form an association of the powers subject to habitual depredations from them. I accordingly prepared, and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 65.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 91.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nothing was now wanting to bring it into direct and formal consideration but the assent of our government, and their authority to make the formal proposition. I communicated to them the favorable prospect of protecting our commerce from the Barbary depredations, and for such a continuance of time as, by an exclusion of them from the sea, to change their habits and characters from a predatory to an agricultural people: towards which however it was expected they [Col 2] would contribute a frigate, and its expenses to be in constant cruise. But they were in no condition to make any such engagement. Their recommendatory powers for obtaining contributions were so openly neglected by the several States that they declined an engagement which they were conscious they could not fulfil with punctuality; and so it fell through. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 67.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 93.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Spain had just concluded a treaty with Algiers, at the expense of three millions of dollars, and did not like to relinquish the benefit of that until the other party should fail in their observance of it. Portugal, Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark and Sweden were favorably disposed to such an association; but their representatives at Paris expressed apprehensions that France would interfere, and, either openly or secretly support the Barbary powers; and they required that I should ascertain the dispositions of the Count de Vergennes on the subject. I had before taken occasion to inform him of what we were proposing, and therefore did not think it proper to insinuate any doubt of the fair conduct of his government; but stating our propositions, I mentioned the apprehensions entertained by us that England would interfere in behalf of those piratical governments. “She dares not do it,” said he. I pressed it no further. The other Agents were satisfied with this indication of his sentiments. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 67.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 3.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Lord Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine were alike in making bitter enemies of the priests and pharisees of their day. Both were honest men; both advocates for human liberty. Paine wrote for a country which permitted him to push his reasoning to whatever length it would go. Lord Bolingbroke in one restrained by a constitution, and by public opinion. He was called indeed a tory; but his writings prove him a stronger advocate for liberty than any of his countrymen, the whigs of the present day. Irritated by his exile, he committed one act unworthy of him, in connecting himself momentarily with a prince rejected by his country. But he redeemed that single act by his establishment of the principles which proved it to be wrong. These two persons differed remarkably in the style of their writing, each leaving a model of what is most perfect in both extremes of the simple and sublime. No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language. In this he may be compared with Dr. Franklin; and indeed his Common Sense was, for awhile, believed to have been written by Dr. Franklin, and published under the borrowed name of Paine, who had come over with him from England. Lord Bolingbroke's, on the other hand, is a style of the highest order. The lofty, rythmical, fullflowing eloquence of Cicero; periods of just measure their members proportioned, their close full and round. His conceptions, too, are bold and strong, his diction copious, polished and commanding as his subject. His writings are certainly the finest samples in the English language of the eloquence proper for the senate. His political tracts are safe reading for the most timid religionist, his philosophical, for those who are not afraid to trust their reason with discussions of right and wrong. --

TITLE: To Francis Eppes.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 197.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 183.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Some few years ago when the tariff was before Congress, I engaged some of our members of Congress to endeavor to get the duty repealed, and wrote on the subject to some other acquaintances in Congress, and pressingly to the Secretary of the Treasury. The effort [* * *] failed. [* * *] There is a consideration going to the injustice of the tax [* * *] . Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital. Now there is no other form of capital which is first taxed 18 per cent. on the gross, and the proprietor then left to pay the same taces in detail with others whose capital has paid no tax on the gross. Nor is there a description of men less proper to be singled out for extra taxation. --

TITLE: To James Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 194.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Sep. 1821

To prohibit us from the benefit of foreign light, is to consign us to long darkness. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 221.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The government of the United States, at a very early period, when establishing its tariff on foreign importations, were very much guided in their selection of objects by a desire to encourage manufactures within ourselves. Among other articles then selected were books, on the importation of which a duty of fifteen per cent. was imposed, which, by ordinary custom house charges, amounts to about eighteen per cent., and adding the importing booksellers' profit on this, becomes about twenty-seven per cent. This was useful at first, perhaps, towards exciting our printers to make a beginning in that business here. But it is found in experience that the home demand is not sufficient to justify the reprinting any but the most popular English works, and cheap editions of a few of the classics for schools. For the editions of value, enriched by notes, commentaries, &c., and for books in foreign living languages, the demand here is too small and sparse to re-imburse the expense of reprinting them. None of these, therefore, are printed here, and the duty on them becomes consequently not a protecting, but really a prohibitory one. It makes a very serious addition to the price of the book and falls chiefly on a description of persons little able to meet it. Students who are destined for professional callings, as most of our scholars are, are barely able for the most part to meet the expenses of tuition. The addition of eighteen or twenty-seven per cent. on the books necessary for their instruction, amounts often to a prohibition as to them. For want of these aids, which are open to the students of all other nations but our own, they enter on their course on a very unqual footing with those of the same professions in foreign countries, and our citizens at large, too, who employ them, do not derive from that employment all the benefit which higher qualifications would give them. It is true that no duty is required on books imported for seminaries of learning, but these, locked up in libraries, can be of no avail to the practical man when he wishes a recurrence to them for the uses of life. Of many important books of reference there is not perhaps a single copy in the United States; of others but a few, and these too distant often to be accessible to scholars generally. It is believed, therefore, that if the attention of Congress could be drawn to this article, they would, in their wisdom, see its impolicy. Science is more important in a republican than in any other government. And in an infant country like ours, we must much depend for improvement [Col 2] on the science of other countries, longer established, possessing better means, and more advanced than we are. To prohibit us from the benefit of foreign light, is to consign us to long darkness. The northern seminaries following with parental solicitude the interest of their elevès in the course for which they have prepared them, propose to petition Congress on this subject, and wish for the cooperation of those of the south and west, and I have been requested, as more convenient in position than they are, to solicit that cooperation. Having no personal acquaintance with those who are charged with the direction of the college of -- -- , I do not know how more effectually to communicate these views to them, than by availing myself of the knowledge I have of your zeal for the happiness and improvement of our country. I take the liberty, therefore, of requesting you to place the subject before the proper authorities of that institution, and if they approve the measure, to solicit a concurreat proceeding on their part to carry it into effect. Besides petitioning Congress, I would propose that they address, in their corporate capacity, a letter to their delegates and senators in Congress, soliciting their best endeavors to obtain the repeal of the duty on imported books. I cannot but suppose that such an application will be respected by them, and will engage their votes and endeavors to effect an object so reasonable. A conviction that science is important to the preservation of our republican government, and that it is also essential to its protection against foreign power, induces me, on this occasion, to step beyond the limits of that retirement to which age and inclination equally dispose me.-

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 220.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

It is with extreme reluctance that I permit myself to usurp the office of an adviser of the public, what books they should read, and what not. I yield, however, on this occasion to your wish and that of Colonel Taylor, and do

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 189.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

This book [“ Constructions Construed”] is the most effectual retraction of our government to its original principles which has ever yet been sent by heaven to our aid. Every State in the Union should give a copy to every member they elect, as a standing instruction, and ours should set the example. --

TITLE: To Archibald Thweat.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 199.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 184.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The Legislature of Virginia happened to be in session, in Williamsburg, when news was received of the passage by the British Parliament of the Boston Port [Col 2] Bill, which was to take effect on the first day of June [1774] then ensuing. The House of Burgesses thereupon passed a resolution, recommending to their fellow citizens, that that day should be set apart for fasting and prayer to the Supreme Being, imploring Him to avert the calamities then threatening us, and to give us one heart and one mind to oppose every invasion of our liberties. The next day, May 20, 1774, the Governor dissolved us. --

TITLE: Jefferson Papers.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 122.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Fast Days.

Whatever may be the merit or demerit of the acquisition of Louisiana, I divide it with my colleagues, to whose counsels I was indebted for a course of administration which, notwithstanding this late coalition of clay and brass, will, I hope, continue to receive the approbation of our country. --

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 215.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 192.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1821

The seat of government [in Virginia] had been originally fixed in the peninsula of Jamestown, the first settlement of the colonists; and had been afterwards removed a few miles inland to Williamsburg. But this was at a time when our settlements had not extended beyond the tide waters. Now they had crossed the Alleghany; and the centre of population was very far removed from what it had been. Yet Williamsburg was still the depository of our archives, the habitual residence of the Governor and many other of the public functionaries, the established place for the sessions of the legislature, and the magazine of our military stores; and its situation was so exposed that it might be taken at any time in war, and, at this time particularly, an enemy might in the night run up either of the rivers, between which it lies, land a force above, and take possession of the place, without the possibility of saving either persons or things. I had proposed its removal so early as October, '76; but it did not prevail until the session of May, '79. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 40.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 55.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence. The engine of consolidation will be the Federal judiciary; the two other branches the corrupting and corrupted instruments. --

TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 223.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

States and. -- I' fear our eastern associates wish for consolidation, in which they would be joined by the smaller States generally. --

TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 223.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 194.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

It has long been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression (although I do not choose to put it into a newspaper, nor like a Priam in armor to offer myself as its champion), that the germ of dissolution of our Federal Government is in the constitution of the Federal Judiciary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow), working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidatee into one. To this I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. It will be, as in Europe, where every man must be either pike or gudgeon, hammer or anvil. Our functionaries and theirs are wares from the same workshop; made of the same materials and by the same hand. If the States look with apathy on this silent descent of their government into the gulf which is to swallow all, we have only to weep over the human character formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron, and the blasphemers of man, as incapable of self-government, become his true historians. --

TITLE: To C. Hammond.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 216.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected.

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 113.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I fear an explosion in our State Legislature. I wish they may restrain themselves to a strong but temperate protestation. Virginia is not at present in favor with her co-States. An opposition headed by her would determine all the anti-Missouri States to take the contrary side. She had better lie by, therefore, till the shoe shall pinch an eastern State. --

TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 223.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 194.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Oct. 1821

-- Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 113.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. --

TITLE: To C. Hammond.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 216.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

A Fourth of July oration, delivered in the town of Milford, in your State, gives to Samuel Chase the credit of having “first started the cry of Independence in the ears of his countrymen”. Do you remember anything of this? I do not. I have no doubt it was uttered in Massachusetts even before it was by Thomas Paine. But, certainly, I never considered Samuel Chase as foremost, or even forward in that hallowed cry. I know that Maryland hung heavily on our backs, and that Chase, although first named, was not most in unison with us of that delegation. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 218.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The first settlers of Virginia were Englishmen, loyal subjects to their king and church, and the grant to Sir Walter Raleigh contained an express proviso that their laws “should not be against the true Christian faith, now professed in the Church of England”. As soon as the state of the colony admitted, it was divided into parishes, in each of which was established a minister of the Anglican church, endowed with a fixed salary, in tobacco, a glebe house and land with the other necessary appendages. To meet these expenses, all the inhabitants of the parishes were assessed, whether they were or not, members of the established church. Towards Quakers who came here, they were most cruelly intolerant, driving them from the colony by the severest penalties. In process of time, however, other sectarisms were introduced, chiefly of the Presbyterian family; and the established clergy, secure for life in their glebes and salaries, adding to these, generally, the emoluments of a classical school, found employment enough, in their farms and school-rooms, for the rest of the week, and devoted Sunday only to the edification of their flock, by service, and a sermon at their parish church. Their other pastoral functions were little attended to. Against this inactivity, the zeal and industry of sectarian preachers had an open and undisputed field; and by the time of the Revolution, a majority of the inhabitants had become dissenters from the established church, but were still obliged to pay contributions to support the pastors of the minority. This unrighteous compulsion, to maintain teachers of what they deemed religious errors, was grievously felt during the regal government, and without a hope of relief. But the first republican legislature, which met in '76, was crowded with petitions to abolish this spiritual tyranny. [Col 2] These brought on the severest contests in which I have ever been engaged. Our great opponents were Mr. Pendleton and Robert Carter Nicholas; honest men, but zealous churchmen. The petitions were referred to the “committee of the Whole House on the State of the Country”; ⁷³ and, after desperate contests in that committee, almost daily from the 11th of October to the 5th of December, we prevailed so far only, as to repeal the laws which rendered criminal the maintenance of any religious opinions, the forbearance of repairing to church, or the exercise of any mode of worship; and further, to exempt dissenters from contributions to the support of the established church; and to suspend, only until the next session, levies on the members of that church for the salaries of their own incumbents. For although the majority of our citizens were dissenters, as has been observed, a majority of the legislature were churchmen. Among these, however, were some reasonable and liberal men, who enabled us, on some points, to obtain feeble majorities. But our opponents carried, in the general resolutions of the committee of Nov. 19, a declaration that religious assemblies ought to be regulated, and that provision ought to be made for continuing the succession of the clergy, and superintending their conduct. And, in the bill, now passed, ⁷⁴ was inserted an express reservation of the question, whether a general assessment should not be established by law, on every one, to the support of the pastor of his choice; or whether all should be left to voluntary contributions; and on this question, debated at every session, from '76 to '79 (some of our dissenting allies, having now secured their particular object, going over to the advocates of a general assessment), we could only obtain a suspension from session to session until '79, when the question against a general assessment was finally carried, and the establishment of the Anglican church entirely put down. In justice to the two honest but zealous opponents, who have been named, I must add, that although, from their natural temperaments, they were more disposed generally to acquiesce in things as they are, than to risk innovations, yet whenever the public will had once decided, none were more faithful or exact in their obedience to it. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 38.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 52.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The restoration of the rights of conscience relieved the people from taxation for the support of a religion not theirs; for the [Church of England] Estab

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In the ancient feudal times of our good old forefathers, when the seigneur married his daughter, or knighted his son, it was the usage for his vassals to give him a year's rent extra in the name of an aid. I think it as reasonable when our pastor builds a house, that each of his flock should give him an aid of a year's contribution. I enclose mine as a tribute of justice, which of itself indeed is nothing, but as an example, if followed, may become something. In any event, be pleased to accept it as an offering of duty. --

TITLE: To The Rev. Mr. Hatch.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 197.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Church, Church and State, Ministers, Religion.

Before the commencement of hostilities I never had heard a whisper of disposition to separate from Great Britain. And after that, its possibility was contemplated with affliction by all. --

TITLE: To George A. Otis.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

On Friday, July 12 [1776] , the committee appointed to draw the Articles of Confederation reported them, and, on the 22d, the House resolved themselves into a committee to take them into consideration. On the 30th and 31st of that month, and 1st of the ensuing,

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 26.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 38.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Our body [the Confederation Congress] was little numerous, but very contentious. Day after day was wasted on the most unimportant questions. My colleague [John F.] Mercer, was one of those afflicted with the morbid rage of debate, of an ardent mind, prompt imagination, and copious flow of words, who heard with impatience any logic which was not his own. Sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, [Col 2] he asked how I could sit in silence, hearing so much false reasoning, which a word should refute? I observed to him, that to refute was easy, but to silence was impossible; that in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general, I was willing to listen; that if every sound argument or objection was used by some one or other of the numerous debaters, it was enough; if not, I thought it sufficient to suggest the omission, without going into a repetition of what had been already said by others; that this was a waste and abuse of the time and patience of the House, which could not be justified. And I believe, that if the members of deliberative bodies were to observe this course generally, they would do in a day what takes them a week; and it is really more questionable, than may at first be thought, whether Bonaparte's dumb legislature which said nothing and did much, may not be preferable to one which talks much and does nothing. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 58.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 81.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Congress.

The fundamental defect of the Confederation was that Congress was not authorized to act immediately on the people, and by its own officers. Their power was only requisitory, and these requisitions were addressed to the several Legislatures, to be by them carried into execution, without other coercion than the moral principle of duty. This allowed in fact a negative to every Legislature, on every measure proposed by Congress; a negative so frequently exercised in practice as to benumb the action of the Federal Government, and to render it inefficient in its general objects, and more especially in pecuniary and foreign concerns. The want, too, of a separation of the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary functions, worked disadvantageously in practice. Yet this state of things afforded a happy augury of the future march of our confederacy, when it was seen that the good sense and good dispositions of the people, as soon as they perceived the incompetence of their first compact, instead of leaving its correction to insurrection and civil war, agreed with one voice to elect deputies to a general Convention, who should peaceably meet and agree on such a Constitution as “would ensure peace, justice, liberty, the common defence and general welfare.” --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 78.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 108.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Our first essay, in America, to establish a federative government had fallen, on trial, very short of its object. During the war of Independence, while the pressure of an external enemy hooped us together, and their enterprises kept us necessarily on the alert, the spirit of the people, excited by danger, was a supplement to the Confederation, and urged them to zealous exertions, whether claimed by that instrument, or not; but, when peace and safety were restored, and every man became engaged in useful and profitable occupation, less attention was paid to the calls of Congress. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 78.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 107.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Mr. Adams, while residing at the Hague, had a general authority to borrow what sums might be requisite for ordinary and necessary expenses. Interest on the public debt, and the maintenance of the diplomatic establishment in Europe, had been habitually provided in this way. He was now elected Vice-President of the United States, was soon to return to America, and had referred our bankers to me for future counsel on our affairs in their hands. But I had no powers, no instructions, no means, and no familiarity with the subject. It had always been exclusively under his management, except as to occasional and partial deposits in the hands of Mr. Grand, banker in Paris, for special and local purposes. These last had been exhausted for some time, and I had frequently pressed the Treasury Board to replenish this particular deposit, as Mr. Grand now refused to make further advances. They answered candidly that no funds could be obtained until the new government should get into action, and have time to make its arrangements. Mr. Adams had received his appointment to the court of London while engaged at Paris, with Dr. Franklin and myself, in the negotiations under our joint commissions. He had repaired thence to London, without returning to the Hague to take leave of that government. He thought it necessary, however, to do so now, before he should leave Europe, and accordingly went there. I learned of his departure from London by a letter from Mrs. Adams received on the very day on which he would arrive at the Hague. A consultation with him, and some provision for the future was indispensable, while we could yet avail ourselves of his powers; for when they would be gone, we should be without resource. I was daily dunned by a Company who had formerly made a small loan to the United States, the principal of which was now become due; and our bankers in Amsterdam had notified me that the interest on our general debt would be expected in June; that if we failed to pay it, it would be deemed an act of bankruptcy and would effectually destroy the credit of the United States and all future prospect of obtaining money there; that the loan they had been authorized to open, of which a third only was filled, had

I had prepared an estimate showing that:

There would be necessary for the year '88	531.937-10 Florins
There would be necessary for the year '89	538.540 Florins
There would be necessary for the year '90	473.540 Florins
Total	1.544.017-10 Florins
To meet this the bankers had in hand	79.268-2-8 florins
And the unsold bonds would yield	542.800 florins
	622.068-2-8 florins
Leaving a deficit of	921.949-7-4 florins
We proposed then to borrow a million, yielding	920.000 florins
Which would leave a small deficiency of	1.949-7-4 florins

Mr. Adams accordingly executed 1000 bonds, for 1000 florins each and deposited them in the hands of our bankers, with instructions, however, not to issue them until Congress should ratify the measure. [* * *] I had the satisfaction to reflect that by this journey our credit was secured, the new government was placed at ease for two years to come and that, as well as myself, relieved from the torment of incessant duns, whose just complaints could not be silenced by any means within our power. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 83.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 114.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Among the debilities of the government of the Confederation, no one was more distinguished or more distressing than the utter impossibility of obtaining, from the States, the moneys necessary for the payment of debts, or even for the ordinary expenses of the government. Some contributed a little, some less, and some nothing, and the last furnished at length an excuse for the first to do nothing also. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 114.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

As the Confederation had made no provision for a visible head of the government during the vacations of Congress, and such a one was necessary to superintend the executive business, to receive and communicate with foreign ministers and nations, and to assemble Congress on sudden and extraordinary emergencies, I proposed early in April [April 14, 1784] the appointment of a committee, to be called the Committee of the States, to consist of a member from each State, who should remain in session during the recess of Congress: that the functions of Congress should be divided into executive and legislative, the latter to be reserved, and the former by a general resolution to be delegated to that Committee. This proposition was afterwards agreed to. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 54.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 75.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

A Committee [of the States] was appointed who entered on duty on the subsequent adjournment of Congress [in 1784] , quarrelled very soon, split, into two parties, abandoned their post, and left the government without any visible head until the next meeting in Congress. ⁹² We have since seen the same thing take place in the Directory of France; and I believe it will forever take place in any Executive consisting of a plurality. Our plan best, I believe, combines wisdom and practicability, by providing a plurality of Counsellors, but a single Arbiter for ultimate decision. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 54.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 75.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which * * * the [French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review [* * *] the shackles on the freedom of conscience. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The restoration of the rights of conscience [in the Revised Code of Virginia] relieved the people from taxation for the support of a religion not theirs: for the [Church of England] Establishment was truly of the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being entirely composed of the less wealthy people. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

How the good [in the new Constitution] should be secured and the ill brought to right was the difficulty. To refer it back to a new Convention might endanger the loss of the whole. My first idea was that the nine States, first acting, should accept it unconditionally, and thus secure what in it was good and that the four last should accept on the previous condition, that certain amendments should be agreed to; but a better course was devised of accepting the whole and trusting that the good sense and honest intentions of our citizens would make the alterations which should be deemed necessary. Accordingly, all accepted, six without objection and seven with recommendations of specified amendments. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 79.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 109.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I received a copy [of the new Federal Constitution] early in November [1787] and read and contemplated its provisions with great satisfaction. As not a member of the Convention, however, nor probably a single citizen of the Union had approved it in all its parts, so I, too, found articles which I thought objectionable. The absence of express declarations ensuring freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of the person under the uninterrupted protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by jury in civil as well as in criminal cases excited my jealousy; and the re-eligibility of the President for life I quite disapproved. I expressed freely in letters to my friends and most particularly to Mr. Madison and General Washington my approbations and objections. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 79.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 108.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

May you and your cotemporaries meet them [attacks on the Constitution] with the same determination and effect, as your father and his did the Alien and Sedition laws, and preserve inviolate a constitution, which, cherished in all its chastity and purity, will prove in the end a blessing to all the nations of the earth. --

TITLE: To Mr. Nicholas.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 230.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The [National] Assembly [* * *] proceeded to arrange the order in which they would take up the heads of their constitution as follows: First, and as preliminary to the whole, a general Declaration of the Rights of Man. Then, specifically, the Principles of the Monarchy; Rights of the Nation; Rights of the King; Rights of the Citizens; organization and rights of the National Assembly; forms necessary for the enactment of Laws; organization and functions of the Provincial and Municipal Assemblies; duties and limits of the Judiciary power; functions and duties of the Military power. A Declaration of the Rights of Man, as the preliminary of their work, was accordingly prepared and proposed by the Marquis de Lafayette. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 96.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 132.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The Assembly appointed a committee for the “reduction of a projet” of a constitution, at the head of which was the Archbishop of Bordeaux. I received from him, as chairman of the committee, a letter of July 20th [1789] , requesting me to attend and assist at their deliberations; but I excused myself, on the obvious considerations that my mission was to the King as Chief Magistrate of the nation, that my duties were limited to the concerns of my own country, and forbade me to intermeddle with the internal transactions of that in which I had been received under a specific character only. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 103.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 143.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The plan of a constitution was discussed in sections, and so reported from time to time, as agreed to by the committee. The first respected the general frame of the government; and that this should be formed into three departments, Executive Legislative and Judiciary, was generally agreed. But when they proceeded to subordinate developments, many and various shades of opinion came into conflict, and schism, strongly marked, broke the Patriots into fragments of very discordant principles. The first question: Whether there should be a King? met with no open opposition; and it was readily agreed that the government of France should be monarchical and hereditary. Shall the King have a negative on the laws? Shall that negative be absolute or suspensive only? Shall there be two Chambers of Legislation, or one only? If two, shall one of them be hereditary? or for life? or for a fixed term? and named by the King? or elected by the people? These questions found strong differences of opinion, and produced repulsive combinations among the Patriots. The Aristocracy was cemented by a common principle of preserving the ancient régime, or whatever should be nearest to it. Making this their polar star, they moved in phalanx, gave preponderance on every question to the minorities of the Patriots, and always to those who advocated the least change. The features of the new constitution were thus assuming a fearful aspect, and great alarm was produced among the honest Patriots by these dissensions in their ranks. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 103.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 144.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

[Col 2] -- CONSTITUTION (French), Jefferson's Bill of Rights for. -- See Bill of Rights.

The features of the new Constitution were thus assuming a fearful aspect, and great alarm was produced among the honest Patriots in their ranks. In this uneasy state of things, I received one day a note from the Marquis de Lafayette, informing me that he should bring a party of six or eight friends to ask a dinner of me the next day. * * * When they arrived, they were Lafayette himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander La Meth, Blacon, Mounier, Maubourg and Dagout. These were leading Patriots, of honest but differing opinions, sensible of the necessity of effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices, knowing each other, and not afraid, therefore, to unbosom themselves mutually. This last was a material principle in the selection. With this view, the Marquis had invited the conference, and had fixed the time and place inadvertently as to the embarrassment under which it might place me. The cloth being removed, wine set on the table, after the American manner, the Marquis introduced the objects of the conference, by summarily reminding them of the state of things in the Assembly, the course which the principles of the Constitution were taking, and the inevitable result unless checked by more concord among the Patriots themselves. He observed, that although he also had his opinion, he was ready to sacrifice it to that of his brethren of the same cause; but that a common opinion must now be formed, or the Aristocracy would carry everything and that, whatever they should now agree on, he, at the head of the National force, would maintain. The discussions began at the hour of four and were continued till ten o'clock in the evening; during which time I was a silent witness to a coolness and candor of argument, unusual in the conflicts of political opinion; to a logical reasoning and chaste eloquence, disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by Xenophon, by Plato and Cicero. The result was an agreement that the King should have a suspensive veto on the laws, that the legislature should be composed of a single body only, and that to be chosen by the people. This Concordat decided the fate of the Constitution. The Patriots all rallied to the principles thus settled, carried every question agreeably to them, and reduced the Aristocracy to insignificance and impotence. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 104.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 144.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

But duties of exculpation were now incumbent on me. I waited on Count Montmorin the next morning, and explained to him with truth and candor how it had happened that my house had been made the scene of conferences of such a character. He told me he already knew everything which had passed, that so far from taking umbrage at the use of my house on that occasion, he earnestly wished I would habitually assist at such conferences, being sure that I should be useful in moderating the warmer spirits, and promoting a wholesome and practicable reformation only. I told him I knew too well the duties I owed to the King, to the nation and to my own country, to take any part in councils concerning their internal government, and that I should persevere, with care, in the character

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 105.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 146.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at the pressure, [for a fixed constitution] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] the [French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the weight of their taxes, and the inequality of their distribution; the oppressions of the tithes, the tailles, the corvées, the gabelles, the farms and barriers; the shackles on commerce by monopolies; on industry by guilds and corporations; on the freedom of conscience, of thought, and of speech; on the freedom of the press by the Censure; and of the person by Lettres de Cachet; the cruelty of the Criminal code generally; the atrocities of the Rack; the venality of the judges, and their partialities to the rich; the monopoly of Military honors by the Noblesse; the enormous expenses of the Queen, the Princes and the Court; the prodigalities of pensions; and the riches, luxury, indolence and immorality of the Clergy. Surely under such a mass of misrule and oppression, a people might justly press for a thorough reformation, and might even dismount their roughshod riders, and leave them to walk on their own legs. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

A consular convention had been agreed on in 1784, between Dr. Franklin and the French government, containing several articles, so entirely inconsistent with the laws of the several States, and the general spirit of our citizens, that Congress withheld their ratification, and sent it back to me with instructions to get those articles expunged, or modified, so as to render them compatible with our laws. The Minister unwillingly released us from these concessions, which, indeed, authorized the exercise of powers very offensive in a free State. After much discussion, the convention was reformed in a considerable degree, and was signed by the Count Montmorin and myself, on the 14th of November, 1788; not, indeed, such as I would have wished, but such as could be obtained with good humor and friendship. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 85.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 117.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I have been, above all things, solaced by the prospect which opened on us [in the Presidential contest in 1801] in the event of a non-election of a President;

TITLE: To Joseph Priestley.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 374.
EDITION: Ford ed., viii, 22.
PLACE: Washington
DATE: March 21, 1801

Consolidation first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence. --

TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 223.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 193.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 211.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Every State is divided into counties, each to take care of what lies within its local bounds; each county again into townships or wards, to manage minuter details. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 113.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In that one of the bills for organizing our [Va.] judiciary system, which proposed a court of Chancery, I had provided for a trial by jury of all matters of fact, in that as well as in the courts of law. Edmund Pendleton defeated it by the introduction of four words only, “if either party choose.” The consequence has been, that as no suitor will say to his judge, “Sir, I distrust you, give me a jury,” juries are rarely, I might say, perhaps, never seen in that court, but when called for by the Chancellor of his own accord. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 37.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 50.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

They [the members of the Revision Committee of the Virginia Code] were agreed [* * *] that for other felonies [than treason and murder] hard labor in the public works should be substituted, and in some cases, the lex talionis. How this last revolting principle came to obtain our ¹¹³ approbation, I do not remember. There remained, indeed, in our laws, a vestige of it in a single case of a slave; it was the English law, in the time of the Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the Hebrew Law of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” and it was the law of several ancient people; but the modern mind had left it far in the rear of its advances. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 43.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 60.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Beccaria, and other writers on crimes and punishments, had satisfied the reasonable world of the unrightfulness and inefficacy of the punishment of crimes by death; and hard labor on roads, canals and other public works, had been suggested as a proper substitute. The Revisors [of the Virginia laws] had adopted these opinions; but the general idea of our country had not yet advanced to that point. The bill, therefore, for proportioning crimes and punishments, was lost in the House of Delegates by a majority of a single vote. I learned afterwards, that the substitute of hard labor in public, was tried (I believe it was in Pennsylvania) without success. Exhibited as a public spectacle, with shaved heads and mean clothing. working on the high roads, produced in the criminals such a prostration of character, such an abandonment of self-respect, as instead of reforming, plunged them into the most desperate and hardened depravity of morals and character. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 45.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 62.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 58.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 82.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I served with General Washington in the Legislature of Virginia before the Revolution and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 58.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 82.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The growth and entailment of a public debt is an indication soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

There are two measures which if not taken we are undone. [* * *] [The second ¹²³ is] to cease borrowing money, and to pay off the national debt. If this cannot be done without dismissing the army, and putting the ships out of commission, haul them up high and dry, and reduce the army to the lowest point at which it was ever established. There does not exist an engine so corruptive of the government and so demoralizing of the nation as a public debt. It will bring on us more ruin at home than all the enemies from abroad against whom this army and navy are to protect us. What interest have we in keeping ships in service in the Pacific Ocean? To protect a few speculative adventurers in a commerce dealing in nothing in which we have an interest. As if the Atlantic and Mediterranean were not large enough for American capital! As if commerce and not agriculture was the principle of our association. --

TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 193.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1821

The divisions into dimes, cents and mills is now so well understood that it would be easy of introduction into the kindred branches of weights and measures. I use, when I travel, an odometer of Clarke's invention, which divides the mile into cents, and I find every one comprehends a distance readily, when stated to him in miles and cents; so he would in feet and cents, pounds and cents, &c. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 53.
EDITION: Ford ed., i. 75.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

On the 15th of May, 1776, the Convention of Virginia instructed their delegates in Congress, to propose to that body to declare the Colonies independent of Great Britain, and appointed a committee to prepare a declaration of rights, and plan of government.

“In Congress, Friday, June 7, 1776. The delegates ¹²⁹ from Virginia moved, in obedience to instructions from their constituents that the Congress should declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; that measures should be immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a Confederation be formed to bind the Colonies more closely together. The House being obliged to attend at that time to some other business, the proposition was referred to the next day, when the members were ordered to attend punctually at ten o'clock.

Saturday, June 8. They proceeded to take it into consideration, and referred it to a committee of the whole, into which they immediately resolved themselves, and passed that day and Monday, the 10th, in debating on the subject. ”* --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 12.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 18.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821 ¹³⁰

It appearing in the course of these debates [on Independence] , that the Colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina were not yet matured for falling from the parent stem, but that they were fast advancing to that state, it was thought most prudent to wait a while for them, and to postpone the final decision to July 1st; but, that this might occasion as little delay as possible, a committee was appointed to prepare a Declaration of Independence. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 17.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 24.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

On Monday, the 1st of July, the House resolved itself into a committee of the whole, and resumed the consideration of the original motion [to declare the Colonies independent States] made by the delegates of Virginia, which, being again debated through the day, was carried in the affirmative by the votes of New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland. Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. Delaware had but two members present and they were divided. The delegates from New York declared they were for it themselves, and were assured their constituents were for it; but that their instructions having been drawn near a twelvemonth before, when reconciliation was still the general object, they were enjoined by them to do nothing which should impede that object. They, therefore, thought themselves not justifiable in voting on either side, and asked leave to withdraw from the question, which was given them. The committee rose and reported their resolution to the House. Mr. Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, then requested the determination might be put off to the next day, as he believed his colleagues, though they disapproved of the resolution, would then join in it for the sake of unanimity. The ultimate question, whether the House would agree to the resolution of the committee, was accordingly postponed to the next day, when it was again moved, and South Carolina concurred in voting for it. In the meantime, a third member had come post from the Delaware counties, and turned the vote of that Colony in favor of the resolution. Members of a different sentiment attending that morning from Pennsylvania also, her vote was changed, so that the whole twelve Colonies, who were authorized to vote at all, gave their voices for it; and within a few days (July 9) the convention of New York approved of it, and thus supplied the void occasioned by the withdrawing of her delegates from the vote. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 18.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 24.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The committee were John Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and myself. [* * *] . The committee [* * *] desired me to do it. ¹³¹ It was accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 17.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 24.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See 2119.

Congress proceeded [* * *] on July 1st to consider the Declaration of Independence, which had been reported and laid on the table the Friday preceding, and on Monday referred to a committee of the whole. [* * *] The debates, having taken up the greater parts of the 2d, 3d and 4th days of July, were, on the evening of the last, closed; the Declaration was reported by the committee, agreed to by the House, and signed by every member present, except Mr. [John] Dickinson. ¹³² --

TITLE: Autiobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 19.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 28.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See 2122.

The pusillanimous idea that we had any friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censure on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. --

TITLE: Autopiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 19.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 28.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I think Mr. Adams will outlive us all, I mean the Declaration-men, although our senior since the death of Colonel Floyd. It is a race in which I have no ambition to win. --

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 214.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 191.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1821

The clause [in the draft] reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures, for though their people had very [Col 2] few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 19.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 28.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

He was so honest a man, and so able a one that he was greatly indulged even by those who could not feel his scruples. ¹⁴⁴ --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 11.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 17.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Congress gave a signal proof of their indulgence to Mr. Dickinson, and of their great desire not to go too fast for any respectable part of our body, in permitting him to draw their second petition to the King according to his own ideas, and passing it with scarcely any amendment. The disgust against this humility was general; and Mr. Dickinson's delight at its passage was the only circumstance which reconciled them to it. The vote being passed, although further observation on it was out of order, he could not refrain from rising and expressing his satisfaction, and concluded by saying, “there is but one word, Mr. President, in the paper which I disapprove, and that is the word Congress”; on which Ben. Harrison rose and said, “there is but one word in the paper, Mr. President, of which I approve, and that is the word Congress.” --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 11.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 17.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I should not shrink from the post of duty, had not the decays of nature withdrawn me from the list of combatants. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 211.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Nobody can doubt my zeal for the general instruction of the people. Who first started that idea? I may surely say, myself. Turn to the bill in the Revised Code, which I drew more than forty years ago, and before which the idea of a plan for the education of the people, generally, had never been suggested in this State. There you will see developed the first rudiments of the whole system of general education we are now urging and acting on: and it is well known to those with whom I have acted on this subject, that I never have proposed a sacrifice of the primary to the ultimate grade of instruction. Let us keep our eye steadily on the whole system. --

TITLE: To General Breckenridge.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 205.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See People.

The Legislative and executive branches may sometimes err, but elections and dependence will bring them to rights. --

TITLE: To Archibald Thweat.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 199.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 184.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

On the 12th of October, 1776, I obtained leave (in the Virginia Legislature) to bring in a bill declaring tenants in tail to hold their lands in fee-simple. In the earlier times of the colony, when lands were to be obtained for little or nothing, some provident individuals procured large grants; and, desirous of founding great families for themselves, settled them on their descendants in fee-tail. The transmission of this property from generation to generation, in the same name, raised up a distinct set of families, who, being privileged by law in the perpetuation of their wealth, were thus formed into a Patrician order, distinguished by the splendor and luxury of their establishments. From this order, too. the King habitually selected his Counsellors of State; the hope of which distinction devoted the whole corps to the interests and will of the crown. To annul this privilege, and instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger, than benefit, to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of Society, and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic. To effect it, no violence was necessary, no deprivation of natural right, but rather an enlarge [Col 2] ment of it by a repeal of the law. For this would authorize the present holder to divide the property among his children equally, as his affections were divided; and would place them, by natural generation on the level of their fellow citizens. But this repeal was strongly opposed by Mr. Pendleton, who was zealously attached to ancient establishments. [* * *] Finding that the general principle of entails could not be maintained, he took his stand on an amendment which he proposed, instead of an absolute abolition, to permit the tenant in tail to convey in fee-simple, if he chose it; and he was within a few votes of saving so much of the old law. But the bill passed finally for entire abolition. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 36.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 49.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The repeal of the laws of entail would prevent the accumulation and perpetuation of wealth, in select families, and preserve the soil of the country from being daily more and more absorbed in mortmain. ¹⁷¹ --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Even among our citizens who participate in the representative privilege, the equality of political rights is entirely prostrated by our [Virginia] Constitution. Upon which principle of right or reason can any one justify the giving to every citizen of Warwick as much weight in the government as to twenty-two equal citizens in London, and similar inequalities among the other counties? If these fundamental principles are of no importance in actual government, then no principles are important, and it is as well to rely on the dispositions of administration, good or evil, as on the provisions of a constitution. --

TITLE: To John Hambden Pleasants.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 344.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 303.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Rights.

I repeat that I do not charge the judges with wilful and ill-intentioned error, but honest error must be arrested where its toleration leads to public ruin. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 113.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Expatriation [is] a natural right, [* * *] acted on as such by all nations, in all ages. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 8.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 13.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Early in the session [of the Virginia Assembly] of May, 1799, I prepared and obtained leave to bring in a bill declaring who should be deemed citizens, asserting the natural right of expatriation, and prescribing the mode of exercising it. This, when I withdrew from the House, on the 1st of June following, I left in the hands of George Mason, and it was passed on the 26th of that month. ¹⁸⁴ --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 40.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 55.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The increase of expense beyond income is an indication soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The ablest man who had ever filled that office [Governor of Virginia] . ¹⁸⁷ --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 3.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 4.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I still believe that the Western extension of our confederacy will ensure its duration, by overruling local factions, which might shake a smaller association. --

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 215.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 192.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Territory.

It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our State governments are superior to the Federal, or the Federal to the States. The people, to whom all authority belongs, have divided the powers of government into two distinct departments, the leading characters of which are foreign and domestic; and they have appointed for each a distinct set of functionaries. These they have made coordinate, checking and balancing each other, like the three cardinal departments in the individual States; each equally supreme as to the powers delegated to itself, and neither authorized ultimately to decide what belongs to itself, or to its coparcener in government,

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 213.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 190.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The flames kindled on the Fourth of

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 218.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Sep. 1821

[In the negotiation of commercial treaties with France] I must say, in justice, that I found the government entirely disposed to befriend us on all occasions, and to yield us every indulgence not absolutely injurious to themselves. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 64.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 90.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Treaties.

The venerable and beloved Franklin.

TITLE: -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 108.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 150.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the shackles on [* * *] the freedom of thought and of speech. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

It is a law of nature that the generations of men should give way, one to another, and I hope that the one now on the stage will preserve for their sons the political blessings delivered into their hands by their fathers. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 211.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I yield the concerns of the world with cheerfulness to those who are appointed in the order of nature to succeed to them. --

TITLE: To General Breckendridge.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 206.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

A geographical division [* * *] is a most fatal of all divisions, as no authority will submit to be governed by a majority acting merely on a geographical principle. --

TITLE: To Samuel H. Smith.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 191.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Missouri.

It is a misnomer to call a government republican, in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation. --

TITLE: To James Pleasants.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 199.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I never suffered a political to become a personal difference. I have been left on this ground by some friends whom I dearly loved, but I was never the first to separate. With some others, of politics different from mine, I have continued in the warmest friendship to this day, and to all, and to yourself particularly, I have ever done moral justice. --

TITLE: To Timothy Pickering.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 210.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

When the famous resolutions of 1765, against the Stamp Act, were proposed, I was yet a student of law in Williamsburg. I attended the debate, however, at the door of the lobby of the House of Burgesses and heard the splendid display of Mr. Henry's talents as a popular orator. They were great, indeed; such as I

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 4.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 6.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

He was the laziest man in reading I ever knew. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 8.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 13.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The treasonable perfidy of the Prince of Orange, Stadtholder and Captain General of the United Netherlands, in the war which England waged against them, for entering into a treaty of commerce with the United States, is known to all. As their executive officer, charged with the conduct of the war, he contrived to baffle all the measures of the States General, to dislocate all their military plans, and played false into the hands of England against his own country on every possible occasion, confident in her protection, and in that of the King of Prussia, brother to his Princess. The States General, indignant at this patricidal conduct, applied to France for aid, according to the stipulations of the treaty concluded with her in 1785. It was assured to them readily and in cordial terms. [* * *] The object of the Patriots was to establish a representative and republican government. The majority of the States General were with them, but the majority of the populace of the towns was with the Prince of Orange; and that populace was played off with great effect by the triumvirate of [Sir James] Harris, the English ambassador, afterwards Lord Malmesbury, the Prince of Orange, a stupid man, and the Princess as much a man as either of her colleagues, in audaciousness, in enterprise and in the thirst of domination. By these the mobs of the Hague were excited against the members of the States General; their persons were insulted and endangered in the streets; the sanctuary of their houses was violated and the Prince, whose function and duty it was to repress and punish these violations of order, took no steps for that purpose. The States General for their own

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 73.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 101.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

What are we to think of this northern triumvirate, arming their nations to dictate despotisms to the rest of the world? --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 217.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Lord Howe seems to have been friendly to America, and exceedingly anxious to prevent a rupture. ²⁴² --

TITLE: [Autobiography] .
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 110.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow. --

TITLE: To C. Hammond.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 216.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Impeachment is a bugbear which they [Judiciary] fear not at all. --

TITLE: To James Pleasants.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 199.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

In the General Government in this instance, we have gone even beyond the English caution, by requiring a vote of two-thirds, in one of the Houses, for removing a Judge; a vote so impossible, where any defence is made, before men of ordinary prejudices and passions, that our Judges are effectually independent of the nation. But this ought not to be. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 81.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 112.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the [* * *] shackles on industry by guilds and corporations. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Equal partition of inheritances [ is] the best of all agrarian laws. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Time indeed changes manners and notions and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 211.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

It is not enough that honest men are appointed judges. All know the influence of interest on the mind of man, and how unconsciously his judgment is warped by that influence. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 81.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 112.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I meddled in no intrigues, pursued no concealed object. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 65.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 91.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

My father placed me at the English school at five years of age; and at the Latin at nine, where I continued until his death [in 1757] . My teacher, Mr. Douglas, a clergyman from Scotland, with the rudiments of the Latin and Greek languages, taught me the French; and on the death of my father, I went to the Reverend M. Maury, a correct classical scholar, with whom I continued two years; and then, to wit, in the spring of 1760, went to William and Mary College where I continued two years. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 2.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 3.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Conduct, Small (William), and Wythe (George).

My father's education had been quite neglected; but being of a strong mind, sound judgment, and eager after information, he read much and improved himself, insomuch that he was chosen, with Joshua Fry, Professor of Mathematics in William and Mary College, to continue the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina, which had been begun by Colonel Byrd; and was afterwards employed with the same Mr. Fry, to make the first map of Virginia which had ever been made, that of Captain Smith being merely a conjectured sketch. They possessed excellent materials for so much of the country as is below the Blue Ridge; little being then known beyond that ridge. He was the third or fourth, settler, about the year 1737, of the part of the country in which I live. He died, August 17, 1757, leaving my mother a widow, who lived till 1776, with six daughters and two sons, myself the elder. To my younger brother he left his estate on James River, called Snowdon, after the supposed birthplace of the family; to myself the lands on which I was born and live. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 2.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 2.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

-- In 1767, Mr. [George] Wythe led me into the practice of the law at the bar of the General Court, at which I continued until the Revolution shut up the courts of justice. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 3.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 4.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Wythe (George).

On the 1st of January, 1772, I was married to Martha Skelton, widow of Bathurst Skelton, and daughter of John Wayles, then twenty-three years old. Mr. Wayles was a lawyer of much practice, to which he was introduced more by his great industry, punctuality and practical readiness than by eminence in the science of his profession. He was a most agreeable companion, full of pleasantry and good humor, and welcomed in every society. He acquired a handsome fortune, and died in May, 1773, leaving three daughters: the portion which came on that event to Mrs. Jefferson, after the debts should be paid, which were very considerable, was about equal to my own patrimony, and consequently doubled the ease of our circumstances. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 4.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 5.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In 1769, I became a member of the [Virginia] Legislature by the choice of the county [Albemarle] in which I live, and continued in that until it was closed by the Revolution. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 3.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 5.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The Virginia Convention, at their [* * *] session of March, 1775, [* * *] added me [* * *] to the delegation [ to Congress] . [* * *] I took my seat with them [Congress] on the 21st of June. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 9.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 14.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

On the 1st of June, 1779, I was appointed Governor of the Commonwealth, and retired from the Legislature. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 50.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

On the 15th of June, ²⁵⁷ 1781, I had been appointed, with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, a Minister Plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then expected to be effected through the mediation of the Empress of Russia. The same reasons obliged me still to decline; and the negotiation was in fact never entered on. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 51.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 71.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In the autumn of [* * *] 1782, Congress receiving assurances that a general peace would be concluded in the winter and spring, they renewed my appointment on the 13th of November of that year. I had, two months before that, lost the cherished companion of my life, in whose affections, unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten years in unchequered happiness. With the public interests, the state of my mind concurred in recommending the change of scene proposed; and I accepted the appointment, and left Monticello on the 19th of December, 1782, for Philadelphia, where I arrived on the 27th. The Minister of France, Luzerne, offered me a passage in the Romulus frigate, which I accepted; but she was then a few miles below Baltimore, blocked up in the ice. I remained, therefore, a month in Philadelphia, looking over the papers in the office of State, in order to possess myself of the general state of our foreign relations, and then went to Baltimore, to await the liberation of the frigate from the ice. After waiting there nearly a month, we received information that a Provisional Treaty of Peace had been signed by our Commissioners on the 3d of September, 1782, to become absolute on the conclusion of peace between France and Great Britain. Considering my proceeding to Europe as now of no utility to the public, I returned immediately to Philadelphia, to take the orders of Congress, and was excused by them from further proceeding. I, therefore, returned home, where I arrived on the 15th of May, 1783. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 51.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 71.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

On the 6th of June, 1783, I was appointed by the [Virginia] Legislature a Delegate to Congress, the appointment to take place on the 1st of November ensuing, when that of the existing delegation would expire. I, accordingly, left home on the 16th of October, arrived at Trenton, where Congress was sitting, on the 3d of November, and took my seat on the 4th, on which day [Col 2] Congress adjourned, to meet at Annapolis on the 26th. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 52.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 72.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In July, 1785, Dr. Franklin returned to America, and I was appointed his successor at Paris. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 63.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 88.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I had been more than a year soliciting leave to go home, with a view to place my daughters in the society and care of their friends, and to return for a short time to my station in Paris. But the metamorphosis through which our government was then passing from its chrysalid to its organic form suspended its action in a great degree; and it was not till the last of August, 1789, that I received the permission I had asked. [* * *] On the 26th of September, I left Paris for Havre, where I was detained by contrary winds until the 8th of October. On that day, and the 9th, I crossed over to Cowes, where I had engaged the Clermont, Capt. Colley, to touch for me. She did so, but here again we were detained by contrary winds, until the 22nd, when we embarked, and landed at Norfolk on the 23rd of November. On my way home, I passed some days at Eppington, in Chesterfield, the residence of my friend and connection, Mr. Eppes, and while there, I received a letter from the President, General Washington, by express, covering an appointment to be Secretary of State. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 107.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 148.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I received it [appointment as Secretary of State] with real regret. My wish had been to return to Paris, where I had left my household establishment, as if there myself, and to see the end of the Revolution, which I then thought would be certainly and happily closed in less than a year. I then meant to return home, to withdraw from political life, into which I had been impressed by the circumstances of the times, to sink into the bosom of my family and friends, and devote myself to studies more congenial to my mind. In my answer of December 15th I expressed these dispositions candidly to the President, and my preference of a return to Paris; but assured him that if it was believed I could be more useful in the administration of the government, I would sacrifice my own inclinations, without hesitation and repair to that destination; this I left to his decision. I arrived at Monticello on the 23rd of December, where I received a second letter from the President, expressing his continued wish that I should take my station there, but leaving me still at liberty to continue in my former office, if I could not reconcile myself to that now proposed. This si

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 108.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 149.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I am duly sensible of the honor proposed of giving to my portrait a place among the benefactors of our nation, and of the establishment of West Point in particular. [* * *] Mr. Sully, I fear, however, will consider the trouble of the journey [to Monticello] , and the employment of his fine pencil, as illy bestowed on an atomy of 78. --

TITLE: To Jared Mansfield.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 203.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may, indeed, injure them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the Republic, which is the first and supreme law. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 114.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

It is not enough that honest men are appointed judges. All know the influence of interest on the mind of man, and how unconsciously his judgment is warped by that influence. To this bias add that of the esprit de corps, of their peculiar maxim and creed, that “it is the office of a good judge to enlarge his jurisdiction”; and the absence of responsibility, and how can we expect impartial decision between the General Government, of which they are themselves so eminent a part, and an individual State, from which they have nothing to hope or fear? --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 81.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 112.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

We have seen, too, that, contrary to all correct example, the judges are in the habit of going out of the question before them, to throw an anchor ahead, and grapple further hold for future advances of power. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 113.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review [* * *] the venality of the judges and their partialities to the rich. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

All know the influence of interest on the mind of man, and how unconsciously his judgment is warped by that influence. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 81.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 112.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

-- You will have a [* * *] difficult task in [Col 2] curbing the Judiciary in their enterprises on the Constitution. I doubt whether the erection of the Senate into an appellate court on constitutional questions would be deemed an unexceptionable reliance; because it would enable the Judiciary, with the representatives in Senate of one-third only of our citizens, and that in a single house, to make by construction what they should please of the Constitution. and thus bind in a double knot the other two-thirds; for I believe that one-third of our citizens choose a majority of the Senate, and these, too, of the smaller States whose interests lead to lessen State influence, and strengthen that of the General Government. A better remedy I think, and indeed the best I can devise would be to give future commissions to judges for six years (the senatorial term) with a reappointability by the President with the approbation of both houses. That of the House of Representatives imports a majority of citizens, that of the Senate a majority of States, and that of both a majority of the three sovereign departments of the existing government, to wit, of its Executive and Legislative branches. If this would not be independence enough, I know not what would be such, short of the total irresponsibility under which we are acting and sinning now. The independence of the judges in England on the King alone is good; but even there they are not independent on the Parliament, being removable on the joint address of both houses, by a vote of a majority of each, but we require a majority of one house and two-thirds of the other, a concurrence which, in practice, has been and ever will be found impossible; for the judiciary perversions of the Constitution will forever be protected under the pretext of errors of judgment, which by principle are exempt from punishment. Impeachment, therefore, is a bugbear which they fear not at all. But they would be under some awe of the canvass of their conduct which would be open to both houses regularly every sixth year. It is a misnomer to call a government republican, in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation. By this change of tenure a remedy would be held up to the States, which, although very distant, would probably keep them quiet. In aid of this a more immediate effect would be produced by a joint protestation of both houses of Congress, that the doctrines of the judges in the case of Cohens, adjudging a State amenable to their tribunal, and that Congress can authorize a corporation of the District of Columbia to pass any act which shall have the force of law within a State, are contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. This would be effectual; as with such an avowal of Congress, no State would permit such a sentence to be carried into execution within its limits. If, by the distribution of the sovereign powers among three branches, they were intended to be checks on one another, the present case calls loudly for the exercise of that duty, and such a counter declaration, while proper in form,

TITLE: To James Pleasants.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 198.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Dec. 1821

There was another amendment [to the Federal Constitution] of which none of us thought at the time [when the Constitution was framed] , and in the omission of which lurks the germ that is to destroy this happy combination of national powers in the General Government for matters of national concern, and independent powers in the States, for what concerns the States severally. In England, it was a great point gained at the Revolution, that the commissions of the judges, which had hitherto been during pleasure, should thenceforth be made during good behavior. A Judiciary, dependent on the will of the king, had proved itself the most oppressive of all tools in the hands of that magistrate. Nothing then could be more salutary than a change there to the tenure of good behavior; and the question of good behavior, left to the vote of a simple majority in the two Houses of Parliament. Before the Revolution we were all good English Whigs, cordial in their free principles, and in their jealousies of their Executive Magistrate. These jealousies are very apparent in all our State constitutions; and, in the General Government in this instance, we have gone even beyond the English caution, by requiring a vote of two-thirds in one of the houses, for removing a Judge; a vote so impossible, where ²⁶⁶ any defence is made, before men of ordinary prejudices and passions, that our judges are effectually independent of the nation. But this ought not to be. I would not, indeed, make them dependent on the Executive authority, as they formerly were in England; but I deem it indispensable to the continuance of this Government that they should be submitted to some practical and impartial control; and that this, to be impartial, must be compounded of a mixture of State and Federal authorities. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 80.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 111.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The judges are, in fact, the corps of sappers and miners, steadily working to undermine the independent rights of the States, and to consolidate all power in the hands of that government in which they have so important a freehold estate. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 113.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

At the time when the Republicans of our country were so much alarmed at the proceedings of the Federal ascendency in Congress, in the Executive and the Judiciary departments, it became a matter of serious consideration how head could be made against their enterprises on the Constitution. The leading Republicans in Congress found themselves of no use there, browbeaten, as they were, by a bold and overwhelming majority. They concluded to retire from that field, take a stand in the State Legislatures, and endeavor there to arrest their progress. The Alien and Sedition laws furnished the particular occasion. The sympathy between Virginia and Kentucky was more cordial, and more intimately confidential, than between any other two States of Republican policy. Mr. Madison came into the Virginia Legislature. I was then in the Vice-Presidency, and could not leave my station. But your father, Colonel W. C. Nicholas, and myself happening to be together, the engaging the cooperation of Kentucky in an energetic protestation against the constitutionality of those laws, became a subject of consultation. Those gentlemen pressed me strongly to sketch resolutions for that purpose, your father undertaking to introduce them to that Legislature, with a solemn assurance, which I strictly required, that it should not be known from what quarter they came. I drew and delivered them to him, and in keeping their origin secret, he fulfilled his pledge of honor. Some years after this, Colonel Nicholas asked me if I would have any objection to its being known that I had drawn them. I pointedly enjoined that it should not. Whether he had unguardedly intimated it before to any one, I know not; but I afterwards observed in the papers repeated imputations of them to me; on which, as has been my practice on all occasions of imputation, I have observed entire silence. The question, indeed, has never before been put to me, nor should I answer it to any other than yourself; seeing no good end to be proposed by it, and the desire of tranquillity inducing with me a wish to be withdrawn from public notice. ²⁷² --

TITLE: To -- Nicholas.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 229.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Dec. 1821

He was the head and Atlas of the Patriot party [of the French Revolution] . --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 106.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 147.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I was powerfully aided by all the influence and the energies of the Marquis de Lafayette [in the commercial negotiations with France] , who proved himself equally zealous for the friendship and welfare of both nations. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 64.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 90.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Vast grants of land are entirely against the policy of our government. They have ever set their faces most decidedly against such monopolies. --

TITLE: To T. M. Randolph.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 202.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

When we see inspired writings made to speak whatever opposite controversialists wish them to say, we cannot ourselves expect to find language incapable of similar distortion. My expressions were general; their perversion is in their misapplication to a particular case. --

TITLE: To C. Hammond.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 216.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

²⁸⁸. -- If two persons, at different points of the same hemisphere (as Greenwich and Washington, for example), observe the same celestial phenomenon, at the same instant of time, the difference of the times marked by their respective clocks is the difference of their longitudes, or the distance of their meridians.* To catch with precision the same instant of time for these simultaneous observations, the moon's motion in her orbit is the best element; her change of place (about a half second of space in a second of time) is rapid enough to be ascertained by a good instrument with sufficient precision for the object. But suppose the observer at Washington, or in a desert, to be without a timekeeper; the equatorial is the instrument to be used in that case. Again, we have supposed a contemporaneous observer at Greenwich. But his functions May be supplied by the nautical almanac, adapted to that place, and enabling us to calculate for any instant of time the meridian distances there of the heavenly bodies necessary to be observed for this purpose. The observer at Washington, choosing the time when their position is suitable, is to adjust his equatorial to his meridian, to his latitude, and to the plane of his horizon; or if he is in a desert where neither meridian nor latitude is yet ascertained, the advantages of this noble instrument are that it enables him to find both in the course of a few hours. Thus prepared, let him ascertain by observation the right ascension of the moon from that of a known star, or their horary distance; and, at the same instant, her horary distance from his meridian. Her right ascension at the instant thus ascertained, enter with that of the nautical almanac, and calculate, by its tables, what was her horary distance from the meridian of Greenwich at the instant she had attained that point of right ascension, or that horary distance from the same star. The addition of these meridian distances, if the moon was between the two meridians, or the subtraction of the lesser from the greater, if she was on the same side of both, is the difference of their longitudes. This general theory admits different cases, of which the observer may avail himself, according to the particular position of the heavenly bodies at the moment of observation. Case 1st. When the moon is on his meridian, or on that of Greenwich. Second. When the star is on either meridian. Third. When the moon and star are on the same side of his meridian. Fourth. When they are on different sides. For instantaneousness of observation, the equatorial has great advantage over the circle, or sextant; for being truly placed in the meridian beforehand, the telescope May be directed sufficiently in advance of the moon's motion, for time to note its place on the equatorial circle, before she attains that point. Then observe, until her limb touches the crosshairs; and in that instant direct the telescope to the star; that completes the observation, and the place of the star may be read at leisure. The apparatus for correcting the effects of refraction and parallax, which is fixed on the eye-tube of the telescope, saves time by rendering the notation of altitudes unnecessary, and dispenses with the use of either a time-keeper or portable pendulum. I have observed that, if placed in a desert where neither meridian nor latitude is yet ascertained the equatorial enables the observer to find both in a few hours. For the latitude, adjust by the cross-levels the azimuth plane of the instrument

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 226.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Equal partition of inheritances [is] the best of all agrarian laws. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which they [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the [* * *] cruelty of the criminal code. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In the execution of my part [of the revision of the Virginia laws] , I thought it material not to vary the diction of the ancient statutes by modernizing it, nor to give rise to new questions by new expressions. The text of these statutes had been so fully explained and defined by numerous adjudications, as scarcely ever now to produce a question in our courts. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 44.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 60.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

When I left Congress in 1776, it was in the persuasion that our whole code (of Virginia) must be reviewed, adapted to our republican form of government; and now that we had no negatives of Councils, Governors, and Kings to restrain us from doing right, that it should be corrected, in all its parts, with a single eye to reason, and the good of those for whose government it was framed. Early, therefore, in the session of '76, to which I returned, I moved and presented a bill for the revision of the laws which was passed on the 24th of October; and on the 5th of November, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee, and myself, were appointed a committee to execute the work. We agreed to meet at Fredericksburg to settle the plan of operation, and to distribute the work. We met there accordingly on the 13th of January, 1777. The first question was, whether we should propose to abolish the whole existing system of laws, and prepare a new and complete Institute, or preserve the general system, and only modify it to the present state of things. Mr. Pendleton, contrary to his usual disposition in favor of ancient things, was for the former proposition, in which he was joined by Mr. Lee. To this it was objected, that to abrogate our whole system would be a bold measure, and probably far beyond the views of the legislature; that they had been in the practice of revising from time to time the laws of the Colony, omitting the expired, the repealed, and the obsolete, amending only those retained, and probably meant we should now do the same, only including the British statutes as well as our own; that to compose a new Institute, like those of Justinian and Bracton, or that of Blackstone, which was the model proposed by Mr. Pendleton, would be an arduous undertaking, of vast research, of great consideration and judgment; and when reduced to a text, every word of that text, from the imperfections of human language, and its incompetence to express distinctly every shade of idea, would become a subject of question and chicanery, until settled by repeated adjudications; and this would involve us for ages in litigation, and render property uncertain until, like the statutes of old, every word had been tried and settled by numerous decisions, and by new volumes of reports and commentaries; and that no one of us, probably, would undertake such a work which, to be systematical, must be the work of one hand. This last was the opinion of Mr. Wythe, Mr. Mason, and myself. When we proceeded to the distribution of the work, Mr. Mason excused himself, as, being no lawyer, he felt himself unqualified for the work, and he resigned soon after. Mr. Lee excused himself on the same ground, and died, indeed, in a short time. The other two gentlemen, therefore, and myself divided the work among us. The common law and statutes to the 4 James I. (when our separate legislature was established) were assigned to me; the British statutes, from that period to the present day, to [Col 2] Mr. Wythe; and the Virginia laws to Mr. Pendleton. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 42.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 57.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In giving this account of the laws of which I was myself the mover and draughtsman, I, by no means, mean to claim to myself the merit of obtaining their passage. I had many occasional and strenuous coadjutors in debate, and one, most steadfast, able and zealous; who was himself a host. This was George Mason. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 40.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 56.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

We were employed in this work (revising Virginia laws) from January, 1777, to February, 1779, when we met at Williamsburg, that is to say, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe and myself; and meeting day by day, we examined critically our several parts, sentence by sentence, scrutinizing and amending, until we had agreed on the whole. We then returned home, had fair copies made of our several parts, which were reported to the General Assembly, June 18, 1779, by Mr. Wythe and myself, Mr. Pendleton's residence being distant, and he having authorized us by letter to declare his approbation. We had, in this work, brought so much of the Common Law as it was thought necessary to alter, all the British statutes from Magna Charta to the present day, and all the laws of Virginia, from the establishment of our Legislature, in the 4th Jac. 1. to the present time, which we thought should be retained, within the compass of one hundred and twenty-six bills, making a printed folio of ninety pages only. Some bills were taken out, occasionally, from time to time, and passed; but the main body of the work was not entered on by the Legislature until after the general peace, in 1785, when, by the unwearied exertions of Mr. Madison, in opposition to the endless quibbles, chicaneries, perversions, vexations and delays of lawyers and demi-lawyers, most of the bills were passed by the Legislature, with little alteration. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 44.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 61.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Begin with Coke's four Institutes. These give a complete body of the law as it stood in the reign of the First James, an epoch the more interesting to us, as we separated at that point from English legislation, and acknowledged no subsequent statu [Col 2] tory alternations. Then passing over (for occasional reading as hereafter proposed) all the reports and treatises to the time of Matthew Bacon, read his abridgment, compiled about one hundred years after Coke',s in which they are all embodied. This gives numerous applications of the old principles to new cases, and gives the general state of the English law at that period. Here, too, the student should take up the Chancery branch of the law, by reading the first and second abridgments of the cases in Equity. The second is by the same Matthew Bacon, the first having been published some time before. The alphabetical order adopted by Bacon, is certainly not as satisfactory as the systematic. But the arrangement is under very general and leading heads, and these, indeed, with very little difficulty, might be systematically instead of alphabetically arranged and read. Passing now in like manner over all intervening reports and tracts, the student may take up Blackstone's Commentaries, published about twenty-five years later than Bacon's abridgment, and giving the substance of these new reports and tracts. This review is not so full as that of Bacon, by any means, but better digested. Here, too, Wooddeson should be read as supplementary to Blackstone, under heads too shortly treated by him. Fonblanque's edition of Francis's Maxims of Equity, and Bridgman's Digested Index, into which the latter cases are incorporated, are also supplementary in the Chancery branch, in which Blackstone is very short. This course comprehends about twenty-six 8vo. volumes, and reading four or five hours a day would employ about two years. After these, the best of the reporters since Blackstone should be read for the new cases which have occurred since his time. [* * *] By way of change and relief for another hour or two in the day, should be read the law-tracts of merit which are many, and among them all those of Baron Gilbert are of the first order. In these hours, too, may be read Bracton and Justinian's Institutes. The method of these two last works is very much the same, and their language often quite so. Justinian is very illustrative of the doctrines of Equity, and is often appealed to, and Cooper's edition is the best on account of the analogies and contrasts he has given of the Roman and English law. After Bracton, Reeves's History of the English Law may be read to advantage. During this same hour or two of lighter law reading, select and leading cases of the reporters may be successively read, which the several digests will have pointed out and referred to. I have here sketched the reading in Common Law and Chancery which I suppose necessary for a reputable practitioner in those courts. But there are other branches of law in which, although it is not expected he should be an adept, yet when it occurs to speak of them, it should be understandingly to a decent degree. These are the Admiralty law, Ecclesiastical law, and the Law of Nations. I would name as elementary books in these branches, Molloy de Jure Maritimo; Brown's Compend of

TITLE: To Dabney Terrell.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 207.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Their trade is to question everything, yield nothing and talk by the hour. That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 58.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 82.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In 1786, while at Paris, I became acquainted with John Ledyard, of Connecticut, a man of genius, of some science, and of fearless courage and enterprise. He had accompanied Captain Cook in his voyage to the Pacific, had distinguished himself on several occasions by an unrivalled intrepidity, and published an account of that voyage, with details unfavorable to Cook's deportment towards the savages, and lessening our regrets at his fate. Ledyard had come to Paris in the hope of forming a company to engage in the fur trade of the Western coast of America. He was disappointed in this, and, being out of business, and of a roaming, restless character, I suggested to him the enterprise of exploring the western part of our continent, by passing through St. Petersburg to Kamschatka, and procuring a passage thence in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sound, whence he might make his way across the continent to the United States; and I undertook to have the permission of the Empress of Russia solicited. He eagerly embraced the proposition, and M. de Sémoulin, the Russian Ambassador, and more particularly Baron Grimm, the special correspondent of the Empress, solicited her permission for him to pass through her dominions, to the western coast of America. And here I must correct a material error which I have committed in another place, to the prejudice of the Empress. In writing some notes of the life of Captain Lewis, prefixed to his “ Expedition to the Pacific”, I stated that the Empress gave the permission asked, and afterwards retracted it. This idea, after a lapse of twenty-six years, had so insinuated itself into my mind, that I committed it to paper, without the least suspicion of error. Yet I find, on recurring to my letters of that date, that the Empress refused permission at once, considering the enterprise as entirely chimerical. But Ledyard would not relinquish it, persuading himself that, by proceeding to St. Petersburg, he could satisfy the Empress of its practicability, and obtain her permission. He went accordingly, but she was absent on a visit to some distant part of her dominions [the Crimea] , and [Col 2] he pursued his course to within two hundred miles of Kamschatka, where he was overtaken by an arrest from the Empress, brought back to Poland, and there dismissed. I must therefore, in justice, acquit the Empress of ever having for a moment countenanced, even by the indulgence of an innocent passage through her territories, this interesting enterprise. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 68.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 94.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The abuse of confidence by publishing my letters has cost me more than all other pains, and makes me afraid to put pen to paper in a letter of sentiment. --

TITLE: To C. Hammond.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 217.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I sometimes expressly desire that my letter may not be published; but this is so like requesting a man not to steal or cheat, that I am ashamed of it after I have done it. --

TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 223.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 193.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I had long deemed it incumbent on the authorities of our country to have the great western wilderness beyond the Mississippi explored, to make known its geography, its natural productions, its general character and inhabitants. Two attempts which I had myself made formerly, before the country was ours, the one from west to east, the other from east to west, had both proved abortive. When called to the administration of the general government, I made this an object of early attention, and proposed it to Congress. They voted a sum of five thousand dollars for its execution, and I placed Captain Lewis at the head of the enterprise. No man within the range of my acquaintance united so many of the qualifications necessary for its successful direction. But he had not received such an astronomical education as might enable him to give us the geography of the country with the precision desired. The Missouri and Columbia, which were to constitute the tract of his journey, were rivers which varied little in their progressive latitudes, but changed their longitudes rapidly and at every step. To qualify him for making these observations, so important to the value of the enterprise, I encouraged him to apply himself to this particular object, and gave him letters to Doctor Patterson and Mr. Ellicott, requesting them to instruct him in the necessary processes. Those for the longitude would, of course, be founded on the lunar distances. But as these require essentially the aid of a time-keeper, it occurred to me that during a journey of two, three, or four years, exposed to so many accidents as himself and the instrument would be, we might expect with certainty that it would become deranged, and in a desert country where it could not be repaired. I thought it then highly important that some means of observation should be furnished him which should be practicable and competent to ascertain his longitudes in that event. The equatorial occurred to myself as the most promising substitute. I observed only that Ramsden, in his explanation of its uses, and particularly that of finding the longitude at land, still required his observer to have the aid of a time-keeper. But this cannot be necessary, for the margin of the equatorial circle of this instrument being divided into time by hours, minutes and seconds, supplies the main functions of the time-keeper, and for measuring merely the interval of the observations, is such as not to be neglected. A portable pendulum for counting, by an assistant, would fully answer that purpose. I suggested my fears to several of our best astronomical friends, and my wishes that other processes should be furnished him, if any could be, which might guard us ultimately from disappointment. Several other methods were proposed, but all requiring the use of a time-keeper. That of the equatorial being recommended by none, and other duties refusing me time for protracted consultations, I relinquished the idea for that occasion. But if a sound one, it should not be neglected. Those deserts are yet to be [Col 2] explored, and their geography given to the world and ourselves with a correctness worthy of the science of the age. The acquisition of the country before Captain Lewis's departure facilitated our enterprise, but his time-keeper failed early in his journey. His dependence, then, was on the compass and log-line, with the correction of latitudes only; and the longitudes of the different points of the Missouri, of the Stony Mountains, the Columbia and Pacific, at its mouth, remain yet to be obtained by future enterprise. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 224.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Latitude and Longitude.

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 217.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Whatever may be the merit or demerit of that acquisition, I divide it with my colleagues, to whose councils I was indebted for a course of administration which, notwithstanding this late coalition of clay and brass, will, I hope, continue to receive the approbation of our country. --

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 215.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 192.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

He had not a wish but for the good of the nation; and for that object, no personal sacrifice would ever have cost him a moment's regret; but his mind was weakness itself, his constitution timid, his judgment null, and without sufficient firmness even to stand by the faith of his word. His Queen, too, haughty, and bearing no contradiction, had an absolute ascendency over him; and around her were rallied the King's brother, D'Artois, the court generally, and the aristocratic part of his ministers, particularly Breteuil, Broglio, Vauguyon, Foulon, Luzerne, men whose principles of government were those of the age of Louis XIV. Against this host, the good counsels of Necker, Montmorin, St. Priest, although in unison with the wishes of the King himself, were of little avail. The resolutions of the morning, formed under their advice, would be reversed in the evening, by the influence of the Queen and Court. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 88.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 121.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns [Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette] , I shall neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say that the first magistrate of a nation cannot commit treason against his country, or is unamenable to its punishment; nor yet, that where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts, and a power [Col 2] in our hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right and redressing wrong. Of those who judged the King, many thought him wilfully criminal; many that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of kings who would war against a regeneration which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the legislature. I should have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the King in his station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly exercised according to the measure of his understanding. In this way no void would have been created, courting the usurpation of a military adventurer, nor occasion given for those enormities which demoralized the nations of the world, and destroyed and are yet to destroy millions and millions of its inhabitants. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 101.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 141.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Mr. Madison came into the House [Legislature of Virginia] in 1776, a new member and young; which circumstances, concurring with his extreme modesty, prevented his venturing himself in debate before his removal to the Council of State, in November, '77. From thence he went to Congress, then consisting of few members. Trained in these successive schools, he acquired a habit of self-possession, which placed at ready command the rich resources of his luminous and discriminating mind, and of his extensive information, and rendered him the first of every assembly afterwards, of which he became a member. Never wandering from his subject into vain declamation, but pursuing it closely, in language pure, classical and copious, soothing always the feelings of his adversaries by civilities and softness of expression, he rose to the eminent station which he held in the great National Convention of 1787; and in that of Virginia which followed, he sustained the new Constitution in all its parts, bearing off the palm against the logic of George Mason, and the fervid declamation of Mr. [Patrick] Henry. With these consummate powers, were united a pure and spotless virtue, which no calumny has ever attempted to sully. Of the powers and polish of his pen, and of the wisdom of his administration in the highest office of the nation, I need say nothing. They have spoken, and will forever speak for themselves. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 41.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 56.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

What a Bedlamite is man! --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 200.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 186.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Time indeed changes manners and notions and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 211.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The government of the United States, at a very early period, when establishing its tariff on foreign importations, were very much guided in their selection of objects by a desire to encourage manufactures within themselves. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 220.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

This angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of the Rhetor Burke, with some smartness of fancy, but no good sense, was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 101.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 140.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review [* * *] the enormous expenses of the Queen, the princes and the Court. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., 1, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois and other of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 101.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 140.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The exhaustion of the treasury called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillotine, drew the King on with her, and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will forever stain the pages of modern history. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 101.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 140.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I have ever believed, that had there been no Queen, there would have been no Revolution. No force would have been provoked, nor exercised. The King would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only, with the [Col 2] same pace, to advance the principles of their social constitution. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 101.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 140.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

George Mason [was] a man of the first order of wisdom among those who acted on the theatre of the Revolution, of expansive mind, profound judgment, cogent in argument, learned in the lore of our former constitution, and earnest for the republican change on democratic principles. ³²⁰ His elocution was neither flowing or smooth; but his language was strong, his manner most impressive, and strengthened by a dash of biting cynicism when provocation made it seasonable. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 40.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 56.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] the

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I rejoice that [* * *] Missouri is at length a member of our Union. Whether the question it excited is dead, or only sleepeth, I do not know. I see only that it has given resurrection to the Hartford Convention men. They have had the address, by playing on the honest feelings of our former friends, to seduce them from their kindred spirits, and to borrow their weight into the Federal scale. Desperate of regaining power under political distinctions, they have adroitly wriggled into its seat under the auspices of morality, and are again in the ascendency from which their sins had hurled them. [* * *] I still believe that the Western extension of our Confederacy will insure its duration, by overruling local factions, which might shake a smaller association. --

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 215.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 191.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Last and most portentous of all is the Missouri question. It is smeared over for the present; but its geographical demarcation is indelible. What it is to become I see not. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 189.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Our anxieties in this quarter [the South] are all concentrated in the question, what does the Holy Alliance in and out of Congress mean to do with us on the Missouri question? And this, by-the-bye, is but the name of the case, it is only the John Doe or Richard Roe of the ejectment. The real question, as seen in the States afflicted with this unfortunate population, is, are our slaves to be presented with freedom and a dagger? For if Congress has the power to regulate the conditions of the inhabitants of the States, within the States, it will be but another exercise of that power, to declare that all shall be free. Are we then to see again Athenian and Lacedemonian confederacies? To wage another Peloponnesian war to settle the ascendency between them? Or is this the tocsin of merely a servile war? That remains to be seen; but not, I hope, by you or me. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 200.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 186.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the [* * *] shackles on commerce by monopolies. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at the pressure [for a fixed constitution in France in 1788-9] , when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which this people were ground to powder, [* * *] the shackles [* * *] ; on industry by guilds and corporations [* * *] . --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Incorporation.

Nor should we wonder at the pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] , when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] the [French] people were ground to powder, when we pass in review the [* * *] monopoly of military honors by the noblesse [* * *] . --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

There are three epochs in history, signalized by the total extinction of national morality. The first was of the successors of Alexander, not omitting himself. The next, the successors of the first Cæsar. The third, our own age. This was begun by the partition of Poland, followed by that of the treaty of Pilnitz; next the conflagration of Copenhagen; then the enormities of Bonaparte, partitioning the earth at his will, and devastating it with fire and sword; now the conspiracy of Kings, the successors of Bonaparte, blasphemously calling themselves the Holy Alliance, and treading in the footsteps of their incarcerated leader; not yet indeed usurping the government of other nations, avowedly and in detail, but controlling by their armies the forms in which they will permit them to be governed; and reserving, in petto, the order and extent of the usurpations further mediated. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 102.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 141.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In 1796, our Legislature passed the law for amending the penal laws of the Commonwealth. [Virginia.] [* * *] Instead of the settled distinctions of murder and manslaughter, preserved in my bill, they introduced the new terms of murder in the first and second degrees. ³⁴⁹ --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 47.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 65.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Before I had left America, that is to say, in the year 1781, I had received a letter from M. de Marbois, of the French legation in Philadelphia, informing me that he had been instructed by his government to obtain such statistical accounts of the different States of our Union, as might be useful for their information; and addressing to me a number of queries relative to the State of Virginia. I had always made it a practice, whenever an opportunity occurred, of obtaining any information of our country which might be of use to me in any station, public or private, to commit it to writing. These memoranda were on loose papers, bundled up without order, and difficult of recurrence, when I had occasion for a particular one. I thought this a good occasion to embody their substance, which I did in the order of M. Marbois's queries, so as to answer his wish, and to arrange them for my own use. Some friends, to whom they were occasionally communicated, wished for copies; but their volume rendering this too laborious by hand, I proposed to get a few printed for their gratification. I was asked such a price, however, as exceeded the importance of the object. On my arrival at Paris, I found it could be done for a fourth of what I had been asked here. I, therefore, corrected and enlarged them, and had two hundred copies printed, under the title of “Notes on Virginia”. I gave a very few copies to some particular persons in Europe, and sent the rest to my friends in America. An European copy, by the death of the owner, got into the hands of a bookseller, who engaged its translation, and, when ready for the press, communicated his intentions and manuscript to me, suggesting that I should correct it without asking any other permission for the publication. I never

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 61.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 85.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The amendments [to the constitution of Massachusetts] of which we have as yet heard, prove the advance of liberalism [* * *] and encourage the hope that the human mind will some day get back to the freedom it enjoyed two thousand years ago. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 199.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 185.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

This country, which has given to the world the example of physical liberty, owes to it that of moral emancipation also, for as yet it is but nominal with us. The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice the freedom asserted by the laws in theory. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 200.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 185.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 19.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 28.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Paine's Common Sense electrified us. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 91.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 127.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

It is indeed of little consequence who governs us, if they sincerely and zealously cherish the principles of union and republicanism. --

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 215.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 192.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Mr. Pendleton [* * *] was the ablest man in debate I have ever met with. He had not, indeed, the poetical fancy of Mr. Henry, his sublime imagination, his lofty and overwhelming diction; but he was cool, smooth and persuasive; his language flowing, chaste and embellished; his conceptions quick, acute and full of resource; never vanquished: for if he lost the main battle, he returned upon you, and regained so much of it as to make it a drawn one, by dexterous manœuvres, skirmishes in detail, and the recovery of small advantages which, little singly, were important altogether. You never knew when you were clear of him, but were harassed by his perseverance, until the patience was worn down of all who had less of it than himself. Add to this, that he was one of the most virtuous and benevolent of men, the kindest friend, the most amiable and pleasant of companions, which insured a favorable reception to whatever came from him. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 37.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 50.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review [* * *] the prodigalities of pensions. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

All authority belongs to the people. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 213.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 190.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I cannot leave this great and good country without expressing my sense of its preeminence of character among the nations of the earth. A more benevolent people I have never known, nor greater warmth and devotedness in their select friendships. Their kindness and accommodation to strangers is unparalleled, and the hospitality of Paris is beyond anything I had conceived to be practicable in a large city. Their eminence, too, in science, the communicative dispositions of their scientific men, the politeness of the general manners, the ease and vivacity of their conversation, give a charm to their society, to be found nowhere else. In a comparison of this with other countries, we have the proof of primacy, which was given to Themistocles after the battle of Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first reward of valor, and the second to Themistocles. So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 107.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 148.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the shackles [* * *] on the freedom [* * *] of the person by Lettres de Cachet. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add an useful plant to its culture; especially, a bread grain; next in value to bread is oil. --

TITLE: Jefferson's MSS.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 176.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I never suffered a political to become a personal difference. --

TITLE: To Timothy Pickering.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 210.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

While in London we entered into negotiations with the Chevalier Pinto, Ambassador of Portugal at that place. The only article of difficulty between us was a stipulation that our bread stuff should be received

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 64.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 90.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The peculiar happiness of our blessed system is, that in differences of opinion between these different sets of servants [in the three departments of the Federal Government] , the appeal is to neither, but to their employers, peaceably assembled by their representatives in convention. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 214.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 190.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the shackles [* * *] on the freedom of the press by the Censure.

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

As the law of Descents, and the Criminal law fell, of course, within my portion [in the revision of the Virginia Code] , I wished the Committee to settle the leading principles of these, as a guide for me in framing them; and, with respect to the first, I proposed to abolish the law of primogeniture, and to make real estate descendible in parcenary to the next of kin, as personal property is, by the statute of distribution. Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve the right of primogeniture, but seeing at once that that could not prevail, he proposed we should adopt the Hebrew principle, and give a double portion to the elder son. I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion; but, being on a par in his powers and wants with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony; and such was the decision of the other members. ³⁹⁹ --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 43.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 59.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The abolition of primogeniture, and equal partition of inheritances, removed the feudal and unnatural distinctions which made one member of every family rich, and all the rest poor, substituting equal partition, the best of all Agrarian laws. ⁴⁰⁰ --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Entails.

We have seen, indeed, once within the records of history, a complete eclipse of the human mind continuing for centuries. And this, too, by swarms of the same northern barbarians, conquering and taking possession of the countries and governments of the civilized world. Should this be again attempted, should the same northern hordes, allured again by the corn, wine, and oil of the south, be able again to settle their swarms in the countries of their growth, the art of printing alone, and the vast dissemination of books, will maintain the mind where it is, and raise the conquering ruffians to the level of the conquered, instead of degrading these to that of their conquerors. And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 218.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

During the negotiations for peace [in 1783] with the British Commissioner David Hartley, our Commissioners had proposed, on the suggestion of Dr. Franklin, to insert an article exempting from capture by the public or private armed ships of either belligerent, when at war, all merchant vessels and their cargoes, employed merely in carrying on the commerce between nations. It was refused by England, and unwisely in my opinion. For, in the case of a war with us, their superior commerce places infinitely more at hazard on the ocean than ours; and, as hawks abound in proportion to game, so our privateers would swarm in proportion to the wealth exposed to their prize, while theirs would be few for want of subjects of capture. We [Adams, Franklin and Jefferson] inserted this article in our form, with a provision against the molestation of fishermen, husbandmen, citizens unarmed and following their occupations in unfortified places, for the humane treatment of prisoners of war, the abolition of contraband of war, which exposes merchant vessels to such vexations and ruinous detentions and abuses; and for the principle of free bottoms, free goods. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 62.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 86.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 211.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

None of these [books in foreign living languages] are printed here, and the duty on them becomes consequently not a protecting, but really a prohibitory one. --

TITLE: To -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 220.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Books.

A gentleman of genius, science, and honorable mind. ⁴¹² He filled a dignified station in the General Government, and the most dignified in his own State. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 108.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 150.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Surely under such a mass of misrule and oppression [as existed in France in 1788] a people might justly press for a thorough reformation, and might even dismount their rough-shod riders and leave them to walk on their own legs. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 119.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I do not wish to trouble the world with my creed, nor to be troubled for them. These accounts are to be settled only with Him who made us; and to Him we leave it, with charity for all others, of whom, also, He is the only rightful and competent judge. --

TITLE: To Timothy Pickering.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 211.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

To save the Republic [* * *] is the first and supreme law. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 82.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 114.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

It is, indeed, of little consequence who govern us, if they sincerely and zealously cherish the principles of Union and republicanism. --

TITLE: To General Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 215.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 192.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

[The Missouri question] has given resurrection to the Hartford Convention men. They have had the address, by playing on the honest feelings of our former friends, to seduce them from their kindred spirits, and to borrow their weight into the federal scale. Desperate of regaining power under political distinctions, they have adroitly wriggled into its seat under the auspices of morality, and are again in the ascendency from which their sins had hurled them. It is, indeed, of little consequence who

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 215.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 191.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821
See Missouri Question and Parties.

The American Revolution seems first to have awakened the thinking part of the French nation in general from the sleep of despotism in which they were sunk. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 69.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 96.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Revolution, French.

Celebrated writers of France and England had already sketched good principles on the subject of government; yet the American Revolution seems first to have awakened the thinking part of the French nation in general from the sleep of despotism in which they were sunk. The officers, too, who had been to America, were mostly young men, less shackled by habit and prejudice, and more ready to assent to the suggestions of common sense, and feeling of common rights, than others. They came back with new ideas and impressions. The press, notwithstanding its shackles, began to disseminate them; conversation assumed new freedoms. Politics became the theme of all societies, male and female, and a very extensive and zealous party was formed, which acquired the appellation of the Patriotic Party, who, sensible of the abusive government under which they lived, sighed for occasions of reforming it. This party comprehended all the honesty of the kingdom, sufficiently at leisure to think, the men of letters, the easy Bourgeois, the young nobility, partly from reflection, partly from mode; for these sentiments became matter of mode, and as such, united most of the young women to the party. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 69.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 96.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The want of bread had been foreseen for some time past, and M. de Montmorin had desired me to notify it in America, and that, in addition to the market price, a premium should be given on what should be brought from the United States. Notice was accordingly given, and produced considerable supplies. Subsequent information made the importations from America, during the months of March, April and May, into the Atlantic ports of France, amount to about twenty-one thousand barrels of flour, besides what went to other ports, and in other months; while our supplies to their West Indian islands relieved them also from that drain. This distress for bread continued till July. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 89.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 123.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

As yet, we are but in the first chapter of its history. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 106.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 147.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I considered a successful reformation of government in France, as insuring a general reformation through Europe, and the resurrection, to a new life, of their people, now ground to dust by the abuses of the governing powers. I was much acquainted with the leading patriots of the Assembleé. Being from a country which had successfully passed through a similar reformation, they were disposed to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me. I urged, most strenuously, an immediate compromise; to secure what the government was now ready to yield, and trust to future occasions for what might still be wanting. It was well understood that the King would grant, at this time, 1. Freedom of the person by habeas corpus; 2. Freedom of conscience: 3. Freedom of the press: 4. Trial by jury: 5. A representative legislature: 6. Annual meetings: 7. The origination of laws: 8. The exclusive right of taxation and appropriation: and 9. The responsibility of ministers; and with the exercise of these powers they could obtain, in future, whatever might be further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They thought otherwise, however, and events have proved their lamentable error. For, after thirty years of war, foreign and domestic, the loss of millions of lives, the prostration of private happiness, and foreign subjugation of their own country for a time, they have obtained no more, [Col 2] nor even that securely. They were unconscious of (for who could foresee?) the melancholy sequel of their well-meant perseverance; that their physical force would be usurped by a first tyrant to trample on the independence, and even the existence, of other nations; that this would afford a fatal example for the atrocious conspiracy of kings against their people: would generate their unholy and homicide alliance to make common cause among themselves, and to crush, by the power of the whole, the efforts of any part, to moderate their abuses and oppressions. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 93.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 129.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Holy Alliance.

Calonné stated to [* * *] [the Assembly of Notables] that the annual excess of expenses beyond the revenue, when Louis XVI. came to the throne, was thirtyseven millions of livres; that four hundred and forty millions had been borrowed to reestablish the navy; that the American war had cost them fourteen hundred and forty millions (two hundred and fifty-six millions of dollars), and that the interest of these sums, with other increased expenses had added forty millions more to the annual deficit. (But a subsequent and more candid estimate made it fifty-six millions .) --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 70.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 97.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The establishment of the Provincial Assemblies was, in itself, a fundamental improvement. They would be of the choice of the people, one-third renewed every year, in those provinces where there are no States, that is to say, over about three-fourths of the kingdom. They would be partly an Executive themselves, and partly an executive council to the Intendant, to whom the executive power, in his province, had been, heretofore, entirely delegated. Chosen by the people, they would soften the execution of hard laws and, having a right of representation to the King, they would censure bad laws, suggest good ones, expose abuses, and their representations, when united, would command respect. To the other advantages might be added the precedent itself of calling the Assemblée des Notables, which would perhaps grow into habit. The hope was that the improvements thus promised would be carried into effect; that they would be maintained during the present [Louis XVI.] reign, and that that would be long enough for them to take some root in the constitution, so that they might come to be considered as a part of that, and be protected by time, and the attachment of the nation. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 71.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 98.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Hitherto no acts of popular violence had been produced by the struggle for political reformation. Little riots, on ordinary incidents, had taken place, as at other times, in different parts of the kingdom, in which some lives, perhaps a dozen or twenty, had been lost; but in the month of April, 1788, a more serious one occurred in Paris, unconnected, indeed, with the revolutionary principle, [Col 2] but making part of the history of the day. The Faubourg St. Antoiné is a quarter of the city inhabited entirely by the class of day laborers and journeymen in every line. A rumor was spread among them, that a great paper manufacturer, of the name of Reveillon, had proposed, on some occasion, that their wages should be lowered to fifteen sous a day. Inflamed at once into rage, and without inquiring into its truth, they flew to his house in vast numbers, destroyed everything in it, and in his magazines and workshops, without secreting, however, a pin's worth to themselves, and were continuing this work of devastation, when the regular troops were called in. Admonitions being disregarded, they were of necessity fired on, and a regular action ensued, in which about one hundred and twenty of them were killed, before the rest would disperse. There had rarely passed a year without such a riot, in some part or other of the Kingdom; and this is distinguished only as contemporary with the Revolution, although not produced by it. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 89.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 124.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The States General were opened on the 5th of May, 1789, by speeches from the King, the Gardé des Sceaux, Lamoignon, and M. Necker. The last was thought to trip too lightly over the constitutional reformations which were expected. His notices of them in this speech were not as full as in his previous “Rapport au Roi”. This was observed to his disadvantage; but much allowance should have been made for the situation in which he was placed, between his own counsels, and those of the ministers and party of the Court. Overruled in his own opinions, compelled to deliver, and to gloss over those of his opponents, and even to keep their secrets, he could not come forward in his own attitude. The composition of the Assemblée, although equivalent on the whole to what had been expected, was something different in its elements. It had been supposed, that a superior education would carry into the scale of the Commons a respectable portion of the Noblesse. It did so as to those of Paris, of its vicinity and of the other considerable cities, whose greater intercourse with enlightened society had liberalized their minds, and prepared them to advance up to the measure of the times. But the Noblesse of the country, which constituted two-thirds of that body, were far in their rear. Residing constantly on their patrimonial feuds, and familiarized, by daily habit, with seigneurial powers and practices, they had not yet learned to suspect their inconsistence with reason and right. They were willing to submit to equality of taxation, but not to descend from their rank and prerogatives to be incorporated in session with the Tiers Etat. Among the Clergy, on the other hand, it had

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 90.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 125.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In 1790, I got a cask of heavy upland rice, from the river Denbigh, in Africa, about lat. 9° 30′ North, which I sent to Charleston, in hopes it might supersede the culture of the wet rice, which renders South Carolina and Georgia so pestilential through the summer. --

TITLE: Jefferson's MSS.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 176.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The appeal to the rights of man, which had been made in the United States, was taken up by France, first of the European nations. From her, the spirit has spread over those of the South. The tyrants of the North have allied indeed against it; but it is irresistible. Their opposition will only multiply its millions of human victims; their own satellites will catch it, and the condition of man through the civilized world will be finally and greatly ameliorated. This is a wonderful instance of great events from small causes. So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a twopenny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 106.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 147.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Against this [consolidation] I know no one who, equally with Judge Roane himself, possesses the power and the courage to make resistance; and to him I look, and have long looked, as our strongest bulwark. --

TITLE: To Archibald Thweat.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 199.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 184.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

In the elementary bill they [the Legislature] inserted a provision which completely defeated it; for they left it to the court of each county to determine for itself when this act should be carried into execution within their county. One provision of the bill was that the expenses of these schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor; and the justices, being generally of the more wealthy class, were unwilling to incur that burden, and I believe it was not suffered to commence in a single county. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 48.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 67.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Academy, Education, Languages, and University.

Science is more important in a republican than in any other government. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 221.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Science is important to the preservation of our republican government and it is also essential to its protection against foreign power. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 222.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

All, I fear, do not see the speck in our horizon which is to burst on us as a tornado, sooner or later. The line [Col 2] of division lately marked out between different portions of our confederacy, is such as will never, I fear, be obliterated, and we are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth. --

TITLE: To General Breckenridge.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 204.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The Abbé Sieyés was the most logical head of the [French] nation. His pamphlet “Qu'est ce que le Tiers Etat”? electrified that country, as Paine's Common Sense did us. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 91.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 127.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The first establishment [of slavery] in Virginia which became permanent, was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the Colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade, and continued it until the Revolutionary war. That suspended, ipso facto, their further importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year '78, when I brought in a bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition, and stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 38.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 51.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live [Albemarle] , and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one ef

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 3.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 5.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small of Scotland, was then (1760) professor of mathematics [in William and Mary College] , a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind. He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation, I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 2.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 4.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

I feared from the beginning that these people were not yet sufficiently enlightened for self-government; and that after wading through blood and slaughter, they would end in military tyrannies, more or less numerous. Yet, as they wished to try the experiment, I wished them success in it; they have now tried it, and will possibly find that their safest road will be an accommodation with the mother country, which shall hold them together by the single link of the same chief magistrate, leaving to him power enough to keep them in peace with one another, and to themselves the essential power of self-government and self-improvement, until they shall be sufficiently trained by education and habits of freedom, to walk safely by themselves. Representative government, native functionaries, a qualified negative on their laws, with a previous security by compact for freedom of commerce, freedom of the press, habeas corpus and trial by jury, would make a good beginning. This last would be the school in which their people might begin to learn the exercise of civic duties as well as rights. For freedom of religion they are not yet prepared. The scales of bigotry have not sufficiently fallen from their eyes, to accept it for themselves individually, much less to trust others with it. But that will come in time, as well as a general ripeness to break entirely from the parent stem. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 200.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 186.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1821

By the bill [in the revision of the Virginia Code] for a general education, the people would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 189.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

A most condemnable practice of the Supreme Court to be corrected is that of cooking up a decision in caucus and delivering it by one of their members as the opinion of the Court, without the possibility of our knowing how many, who, and for what reasons each member concurred. This completely defeats the possibility of impeachment by smothering evidence. A regard for character in each being now the only hold we can have of them, we should hold fast to it. They would, were they to give their opinions seriatim and publicly, endeavor to justify themselves to the world by explaining the reasons which led to their opinion. --

TITLE: To James Pleasants.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 199.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Dec. 1821

There are two measures which if not taken, we are undone. First, ⁴⁷¹ to check these unconstitutional invasions of State rights by the Federal judiciary. How? Not by impeachment, in the first instance, but by a strong protestation of both houses of Congress that such and such doctrines, advanced by the Supreme Court, are contrary to the Constitution; and if afterwards they relapse into the same heresies, impeach and set the whole adrift. For what was the government divided into three branches, but that each should watch over the others and oppose their usurpations? --

TITLE: To Nathaniel Macon.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 192.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Aug. 1821

The Legislative and Executive branches may sometimes err, but elections and dependence will bring them to rights. The Judiciary branch is the instrument which, working like gravity, without intermission, is to press us at last into one consolidated mass. [* * *] If Congress fails to shield the States from dangers so palpable and so imminent, the States must shield themselves, and meet the invader foot to foot. --

TITLE: To Archibald Thweat.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 199.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 184.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review [* * *] the oppressions of the tithes, the tailles, the corvées, the gabelles, the farms and the barriers. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

[We] should not wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the weight of their taxes and the inequality of their distribution. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The restoration of the rights of conscience [in Virginia by the Revised Code] relieved the people from taxation for the support of a religion not theirs; for the [Church of England] Establishment was truly of the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being entirely composed of the less wealthy people. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 49.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 106.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 147.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Colonel Taylor's book of “Constructions Construed” [* * *] is the most logical retraction of our governments to the original and true principles of the Constitution creating them, which has appeared since the adoption of that instrument. I May not perhaps concur in all its opinions, great and small, for no two men ever thought alike on so many points. But on all important questions, it contains the true political faith, to which every catholic republican should steadfastly hold. It should be put into the hands of all our functionaries, authoritatively, as a standing instruction and true exposition of our Constitution, as understood at the time we agreed to it. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 213.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 189.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 106.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 147.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821
See Boston Port Bill.

I still believe that the western extension of our territory will ensure its duration, by overruling local factions, which might shake a smaller association. --

TITLE: To Henry Dearborn.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 215.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 192.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The reeligibility of the President for life [in the new Constitution] , I quite disapproved. [* * *] My fears of that feature were founded on the importance of the office, on the fierce contentions it might excite among ourselves, if continuable for life, and the dangers of interference, either with money or arms, by foreign nations, to whom the choice of an American President might become interesting. Examples of this abounded in history; in the case of the Roman Emperors, for instance; of the Popes, while of any significance; of the German Emperors; the Kings of Poland and the Deys of Barbary. I had observed, too, in the Feudal history, and in the recent instance, particularly, of the Stadtholder of Holland, how easily offices, or tenures for life, slide into inheritances. My wish, therefore, was, that the President should be elected for seven years, and be ineligible afterwards. This term I thought sufficient to enable him, with the concurrence of the Legislature, to carry through and establish any system of improvement he should propose for the general good. But the practice adopted, I think is better, allowing his continuance for eight years, with a liability to be dropped at half way of the term, making that a period of probation. That his continuance should be restrained to seven years, was the opinion of the Convention at an earlier stage of its session, when it voted that term, by a majority of eight against two, and by a simple majority that he should be ineligible a second time. This opinion was confirmed by the House so late as July 26, referred to the Committee of Detail, reported favorably by them, and changed to the present form by final vote, on the last day but one only of their session. ⁴⁷⁹ Of this

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 79.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 109.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Nor should we wonder at [* * *] [the] pressure [for a fixed constitution in 1788-9] when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which [* * *] [the French] people were [Col 2] ground to powder; when we pass in review [* * *] the atrocities of the rack. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 86.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 118.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

There is a time for things; for advancing and for retiring; for a Sabbath of rest as well as for days of labor, and surely that Sabbath has arrived for one near entering on his 80th year. Tranquillity is the summum bonum of that age. I wish now for quiet, to withdraw from the broils of the world, to soothe the enmities, and to die in the peace and good will of all mankind. --

TITLE: To Archibald Thweat.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 185.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Tranquillity is the last and sweetest asylum of age. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 211.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 188.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

In February, 1786, Mr. Adams wrote to me [at Paris] , pressingly to join him [Col 2] in London immediately, as he thought he discovered there some symptoms of better disposition towards us. Colonel [William Stephens] Smith, his Secretary of Legation, was the bearer of his urgencies for my immediate attendance. I, accordingly, left Paris on the 1st of March and, on my arrival in London, we agreed on a very summary form of treaty, proposing an exchange of citizenship for our citizens, our ships, and our productions generally, except as to office. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 63.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 88.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

On my presentation as usual to the King and Queen, at their levées, it was impossible for anything to be more ungracious than their notice of Mr. Adams and myself. I saw at once that the ulcerations in the narrow mind of that mulish being left nothing to be expected on the subject of my attendance; and on the first conference with the Marquis of Carmarthen, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, the distance and disinclination which he betrayed in his conversation, the vagueness and evasions of his answers to us, confirmed me in the belief of their aversion to have anything to do with us. We delivered him, however, our projét, Mr. Adams not despairing as much as I did of its effect. We afterwards, by one or more notes, requested his appointment of an interview and conference, which, without directly declining, he evaded by pretences of other pressing occupations for the moment. After staying there seven weeks, till within a few days of the expiration of our commission, I informed the minister by note that my duties at Paris required my return to that place, and that I should with pleasure be the bearer of any commands to his Ambassador there. He answered that he had none, and wishing me a pleasant journey, I left London the 26th, and arrived at Paris the 30th of April. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 64.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 89.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Without urging, we [Franklin, Adams and Jefferson] sounded the ministers of the several European nations at the Court of Versailles, on their dispositions towards mutual commerce, and the expediency of encouraging it by the protection of a treaty. Old Frederick of Prussia met us cordially and without hesitation, and appointing the Baron de Thulemeyer, his Minister at The Hague, to negotiate with us, we communicated to him our project, which, with little alteration by the King, was soon concluded. Denmark and Tuscany entered also into negotiations with us. Other powers appearing indifferent we did not think it proper to press them. [* * *] The negotiations, therefore, begun with Denmark and Tuscany we protracted designedly until our powers had expired; and abstained from making new propositions to others having no colonies; because our commerce being an exchange of raw for wrought materials, is a competent price for admission into the colonies of those possessing them: but were we to give it, without price, to others, all would claim it without price on the ordinary ground of gentis amicissimæ. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 62.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 87.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The European powers seemed in fact to know little about us but as rebels, who had been successful in throwing off the yoke of the mother country. They were ignorant of our commerce, which had been always monopolized by England, and of the exchange of articles it might offer advantageously to both parties. They were inclined, therefore, to stand aloof until they could see better what relations might be usefully instituted with us. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 62.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 88.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The definitive treaty of peace which had been signed at Paris on the 3rd of September, 1783, and received here, could not be ratified without a House of nine States. On the 23d of December, therefore, we [the Congress sitting at Annapolis] addressed letters to the several Governors, stating the receipt of the definitive treaty; that seven States only were in attendance, while nine were necessary to its ratification; and urging them to press on their delegates the necessity of their immediate attendance. And on the 26th, to save time, I moved that the Agent of Marine (Robert Morris ) should be instructed to have ready a vessel at this place, at New York, and at some Eastern port, to carry over the ratification of the treaty when agreed to. It met the general sense of the House, but was opposed by Dr. [Arthur] Lee, on the ground of expense, which it would authorize the Agent to incur for us; and, he said, it would be better to ratify at once, and send on the ratification. Some members had before suggested that seven States were competent to the ratification. My motion was therefore postponed, and another brought forward by Mr. Read, of South Carolina, for an immediate ratification. This was debated the 26th and 27th. [Jacob] Read [of South Carolina] , Lee, [Hugh] Williamson and Jeremiah Chase, urged that the ratification was a mere matter of form, that the treaty was conclusive from the moment it was signed by the ministers; that, although the Confederation requires the assent of nine States to enter into a treaty, yet, that its conclusion could not be called entrance into it; that supposing nine States requisite, it would be in the power of five States to keep us always at war; that nine States had virtually authorized the ratification, having ratified the provisional treaty, and instructed their ministers to agree to a definitive one in the same terms, and the present one was, in fact, substantially, and almost verbatim, the same; that there now remain but sixty-seven days for the ratification, for its passage across the Atlantic, and its exchange; that there was no hope of our soon having nine States present; in fact, that this was the ultimate point of time to which we could venture to wait; that if the ratification was not in Paris by the time stipulated, the treaty would become void; that if ratified by seven States, it would go under our [Col 2] seal, without its being known to Great Britain that only seven had concurred; that it was a question of which they had no right to take cognizance, and we were only answerable for it to our constituents; that it was like the ratification which Great Britain had received from the Dutch, by the negotiations of Sir William Temple. On the contrary, it was argued by Monroe, Gerry, Howel, Ellery and myself, that by the modern usage of Europe, the ratification was considered as the act which gave validity to a treaty, until which, it was not obligatory. ⁴⁸⁸ That the commission to the ministers reserved the ratification to Congress; that the treaty itself stipulated that it should be ratified; that it became a second question, who were competent to the ratification? That the confederation expressly required nine States to enter into any treaty; that, by this, that instrument must have intended, that the assent of nine States should be necessary, as well to the completion as to the commencement of the treaty, its object having been to guard the rights of the Union in all those important cases where nine States are called for; that, by the contrary construction, seven States, containing less than one-third of our whole citizens, might rivet on us a treaty, commenced indeed under commission and instructions from nine States, but formed by the minister in express contradiction to such instructions, and in direct sacrifice of the interests of so great a majority; that the definitive treaty was admitted not to be a verbal copy of the provisional one, and whether the departures from it were of substance or not, was a question on which nine States alone were competent to decide; that the circumstances of the ratification of the provisional articles by nine States, the instructions of our ministers to form a definitive one by them, and their actual agreement in substance, do not render us competent to ratify in the present instance; if these circumstances are in themselves a ratification, nothing further is requisite than to give attested copies of them in exchange for the British ratification; if they are not, we remain where we were, without a ratification by nine States, and incompetent ourselves to ratify; that it was but four days since the seven States, now present, unanimously concurred in a resolution, to be forwarded to the Governors of the absent States, in which they stated as a cause for urging on their delegates, that nine States were necessary to ratify the treaty; that in the case of the Dutch ratification, Great Britain had courted it, and therefore was glad to accept it as it was; that they knew our Constitution and would object to a ratification by seven; that, if that circumstance was kept back, it would be known hereafter, and would give them ground to deny the validity of a ratification into which they should have been surprised and cheated, and it would be a dishonorable prostitution of our seal; that there is a hope of nine States; that if the treaty would become null, if not ratified in time, it would not be saved by an imperfect ratification; but that, in fact, it would not be null, and would be placed on better ground, going in unexceptional form, though a few days too late, and rested on the small importance of this circumstance, and the physical impossibilities which had prevented a punctual compliance in point of time; that this would be approved by all nations, and by Great Britain herself, if not determined to renew the war, and if so determined, she would never want excuses, were this out of the way. Mr. Read gave notice, he should call for the yeas and nays; whereon

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 55.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 77.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

While I was in Paris, both my daughters were taken with what we formerly called a nervous fever, now a typhus. [* * *] Dr. Gem, [* * *] never gave them a single dose of physic. He told me it was a disease which tended with certainty to wear itself off, but so slowly that the strength of the patient might first fail if not kept up; that this alone was the object to be attended to by nourishment and stimulus. He forced them to eat a cup of rice, or panada, or gruel, or of some of the farinaceous substances of easy digestion every two hours, and to drink a glass of Madeira. [Col 2] The youngest took a pint of Madeira a day without feeling it, and that for many weeks. For costiveness, injections were used; and he observed that a single dose of medicine taken into the stomach and consuming any of the strength of the patient was often fatal. [* * *] I have had this fever in my family three or four times since, [* * *] and have carried between twenty and thirty patients through without losing a single one, by a rigorous observance of Dr. Gem's plan and principle. Instead of Madeira I have used toddy or French brandy. --

TITLE: To James Madison.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 181.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I had hoped that we should open with the next year an institution on which the fortunes of our country may de [Col 2] pend more than may meet the general eye. --

TITLE: To General Breckenridge.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 204.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

It is the last act of usefulness I can render, and could I see it open I would not ask an hour more of life. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 189.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

How many of our youths Harvard now has, learning the lessons of antiMissourianism, I know not; but a gentleman lately from Princeton, told me he saw there the list of the students at that place, and that more than half were Virginians. These will return home, no doubt, deeply impressed with the sacred principles of our Holy Alliance of restrictionists. --

TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 202.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The reflections that the boys of this age are to be the men of the next; that they should be prepared to receive the holy charge which we are cherishing to deliver over to them; that in establishing an institution of wisdom for them, we secure it to all our future generations; that in fulfilling this duty, we bring home to our own bosoms the sweet consolation of seeing our sons rising under a luminous tuition, to destinies of high promise; these are considerations which will occur to all; but all, I fear, do not see the speck in our horizon which is to burst on us as a tornado, sooner or later. The line of division lately marked out between different portions of our confederacy is such as will never, I fear, be obliterated, and we are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth. If, as has been estimated, we send three hundred thousand dollars a year to the northern seminaries, for the instruction of our own sons, then we must have there five hundred of our sons, imbibing opinions and principles in discord with those of their own country. This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy. We are now certainly furnishing recruits to their school. --

TITLE: To General Breckenridge.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 204.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

I know well your devotion to your country, and your foresight of the awful scenes coming on her, sooner or later. With this foresight, what service can we ever render her equal to this? [Support of the University of Virginia.] What object of our lives can we propose so important? What interest of our own which ought not to be postponed to this? Health, time, labor, on what in the single life which nature has given us, can these be better bestowed than on this immortal boon to our country? The exertions and the mortifications are temporary; the benefit eternal. If any member of our college of visitors could justifiably withdraw from this sacred duty, it would be myself, [* * *] but I will die in the last ditch, and so, I hope, you will, my friend, as well as our firm-breasted brothers and colleagues, Mr. Johnson and General Breckenridge. Nature will not give you a second life wherein to atone for the omissions of this. Pray then, dear and very dear Sir, do not think of deserting us, but view the sacrifices which seem to stand in your way, as the lesser duties, and such as ought to be postponed to this, the greatest of all. Continue with us in these holy labors, until having seen their accomplishment, we may say with old Simeon, “nunc dimittas, Domine”. --

TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 202.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The Count de Vergennes had the reputation with the diplomatic corps of being wary and slippery in his diplomatic intercourse; and so he might be with those whom he knew to be slippery and double-faced themselves. As he saw that I had no indirect views, practiced no subtleties, meddled in no intrigues, pursued no concealed object, I found him as frank, as honorable, as easy of access to reason, as any man with whom I had ever done business; and I must say the same for his successor, Montmorin, one of the most honest and worthy of human beings. --

TITLE: Autobiography,
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 64.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 90.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

The royal negative closed the last door [in the Virginia House of Burgesses] to every hope of amelioration. [Regarding Slavery.] --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 3.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 5.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Be not weary of well doing. Let the eye of vigilance never be closed. --

TITLE: To Spencer Roane.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 212.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 189.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Nature has wisely provided an aristocracy of virtue and talent for the direction of the interests of society, and scattered it with equal hand through all its conditions. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 36.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 49.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

An aristocracy of wealth [is] of more harm and danger than benefit to society. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 36.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 49.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Before the Revolution we were all good English Whigs, cordial in their free principles, and in their jealousies of their executive magistrate. These jealousies are very apparent in all our State constitutions. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 81.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 112.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Being elected, in 1779, one of the Visitors of William and Mary College, a self-electing body, I effected, during my residence in Williamsburg [as Governor of the State] that year, a change in the organization of that institution, by abolishing the Grammar school, and the two professorships of Divinity and Oriental languages, and substituting a professorship of Law and Police, one of Anatomy, Medicine and Chemistry, and one of Modern Languages; and the charter confining us to six professorships, we added the Law of Nature and Nations, and the Fine Arts to the duties of the Moral professor, and Natural History to those of the professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 50.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 69.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The College of William and Mary was an establishment purely of the Church of England; the Visitors were required to be all of that Church; the professors to subscribe its Thirty-nine Articles; its students to learn its catechism; and one of its fundamental objects was declared to be to raise up ministers for that Church. The religious jealousies, therefore, of all the dissenters took alarm lest this might give an ascendancy to the Anglican sect, and refused acting on that bill. Its local eccentricity, too, and unhealthy autumnal climate, lessened the general inclination towards it. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 48.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 67.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

A conviction that we are right accomplishes half the difficulty of correcting wrong. --

TITLE: To Archibald Thweat.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 199.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 184.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1821

Mr. Wythe continued to be my faithful and beloved mentor in youth, and my most affectionate friend through life. In 1767, he led me into the practice of the law at the bar of the General Court, at which I continued until the Revolution shut up the courts of justice. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 3.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 4.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

Mr. Wythe, while speaker [of the Virginia Legislature] in the two sessions of 1777, [* * *] was an able and constant associate [of mine] in whatever was before a committee of the whole. His pure integrity, judgment and reasoning powers, gave him great weight. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 41.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 56.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821

The [French] officers, who had been to America, were mostly young men, less shackled by habit and prejudice, and more ready to assent to the suggestions of common sense and feeling of common rights, than others. They come back [to France] with new ideas and impressions. --

TITLE: Autobiography.
EDITION: Washington ed. i, 69.
EDITION: Ford ed., i, 96.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1821