Can anyone read Mr. Adams's “Defence of the American Constitutions, ” without seeing that he was a monarchist? And J. Q. Adams, the son, was more explicit than the father in his answer to Paine's “Rights of Man.” --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 390.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 332.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life: --

1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.

2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.

3. Never spend your money before you have it.

4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.

5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.

6. We never repent of having eaten too little.

7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.

8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.

9. Take things always by their smooth handle.

10. When angry, count ten, before you speak: if very angry, an hundred. --

TITLE: To Thomas Jefferson Smith.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 401.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 341.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The solitude in which we are left by the death of our friends is one of the great evils of protracted life. When I look back to the days of my youth, it is like looking over a field of battle. All, all dead! and ourselves left alone midst a new generation whom we know not, and who know not us. --

TITLE: To Francis A. Van Der Kemp.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 337.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred. --

TITLE: To Thomas Jefferson Smith.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 402.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 341.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I have ever found in my progress through life, [Col 2] that, acting for the public, if we do always what is right, the approbation denied in the beginning will surely follow us in the end. It is from posterity we are to expect remuneration for the sacrifices we are making for their service, of time, quiet and good will. --

TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 394.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 391.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 335.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I see with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the Federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together the decisions of the Federal Court, the doctrines of the President [John Quincy Adams] , and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the Federal branch, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic. Under the power to regulate commerce, they assume indefinitely that also over agriculture and manufactures, and call it regulation to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry, and that, too, the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the other, the most flourishing of all. Under the authority to establish post roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains for the construction of roads, of digging canals, and aided by a little sophistry on the words “general welfare,” a right to do, not only the acts to effect that, which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think, or pretend will be for the general welfare. And what is our resource for the preservation of the Constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combination, some from incorrect views of government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient voting together to outnumber the sound parts; and with majorities only of one, two, or three, bold enough to go forward in defiance. Are we then to stand to our arms, with the hot-headed Georgian? No. That must be the last resource, not to be thought of until

TITLE: To William B. Giles.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 426.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 354.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Dec. 1825

The States in North America which confederated to establish their independence of the Government of Great Britain, of which Virginia was one, became, on that acquisition free and independent States, and as such, authorized to constitute governments, each for itself, in such form as it thought best. They entered into a compact (which is called the Constitution of the United States of America), by which they agreed to unite in a single government as to their relations with each other and with foreign nations, and as to certain other articles particularly specified. They retained at the same time, each to itself the other rights of independent government, comprehending mainly their domestic interests. For the administration of their Federal branch, they agreed to appoint, in conjunction, a distinct set of functionaries, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the manner settled in that compact: while to each, severally, and of course remained its original right of appointing, each for itself, a separate set of functionaries, legislative, executive and judiciary, also for administering the domestic branch of their respective governments. These two sets of officers, each independent of the other, constitute thus a whole of government, for each State separately; the powers ascribed to the one, as specifically made federal, exercisable over the whole, the residuary powers, retained to the other, exercisable exclusively over its particular State, foreign herein, each to the others, as they were before the original compact. --

TITLE: Declaration and Protest of Virginia.
EDITION: Washington ed. ix, 496.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 349.

DATE: Dec. 1825

However strong the cord of compact may be, there is a point of tension at which it will break. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 404.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825
See Treaties.

And what is our resource for the preservation of the Constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combination, some from incorrect views of government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient voting together to outnumber the sound parts; and with majorities only of one, two, or three, bold enough to go forward in defiance. --

TITLE: To W. B. Giles.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 427.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 355.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The government of a nation may be usurped by the forcible intrusion of an individual into the throne. But to conquer its will, so as to rest the right on that, the only legitimate basis, requires long acquiescence and cessation of all opposition. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 413.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The judges are practicing on the Constitution by inferences, analogies, and sophisms, as they would on an ordinary law. They do not seem aware that it is not even a constitution, formed by a single authority, and subject to a single superintendence and control; but that it is a compact of many independent powers, every single one of which claims an equal right to understand it, and to require its observance. However strong the cord of compact may be, there is a point of tension at which it will break. A few such doctrinal decisions, as barefaced as that of the Cohens, happening to bear immediately on two or three of the large States, may induce them to join in arresting the march of government, and in arousing the co-States to pay some attention to what is passing, to bring back the compact to its original principles, or to modify it legitimately by the express consent of the parties themselves, and not by the usurpation of their created agents. They imagine they can lead us into a consolidate government, while their road leads directly to its dissolution. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 403.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825
See 1684.

The Constitution is a compact of many independent powers, every single one of which claims an equal right to understand it, and to requre its observance. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 404.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I am not able to give you any particular account of the paper handed you by Mr. Lee, as being either the original or a copy of the Declaration of Independence, sent by myself to his grandfather. The draft, when completed by myself, with a few verbal amendments by Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, two members of the Committee, in their own handwriting, is now in my possession, and a fair copy of this was reported to the Committee, passed by them without amendment, and then reported to Congress. This latter should be among the records of the old Congress; and whether this or the one from which it was copied and now in my hands, is to be called the original, is a question of definition. To that in my hands, if worth preserving, my relations with our University [of Virginia] give irresistible claims. Whenever, in the course of the composition, a copy became overcharged, and difficult to be read with amendments, I copied it fair, and when that also was crowded with other amendments, another fair copy was made, &c. These rough drafts I sent to distant friends who were anxious to know what was passing. But how many and to whom I do not recollect. One sent to Mazzei was given by him to the Countess de Tesse (aunt of Madame de Lafayette) as the original and is probably now in the hands of her family. Whether the paper sent to R. H. Lee was one of these, or whether, after the passage of the instrument. I made a copy for him, with the amendments of Congress, may, I think, be known from the face of the paper. --

TITLE: To John Vaughan.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 409.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 345.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

With respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American whigs thought alike on these subjects. When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we were compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests, then, on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c. --

TITLE: To Henry Lee.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 407.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 343.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The genuine effusion of the soul of our country at that time. ¹³⁴ --

TITLE: To Dr. James Mease.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 410.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 346.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825
See Fourth of July.

This holy bond of our Union. --

TITLE: To Dr. James Mease.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 410.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 346.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

-- The [Virginia] Constitution, with the Preamble, was passed on the 29th of June [1776] , and the Committee of Congress had only the day before that reported to that body the draft of the Declaration of Independence. The fact is, that that Preamble was prior in composition to the Declaration; and both having the same object, of justifying our separation from Great Britain, they used necessarily the same materials of justification, and hence their similitude. ¹³⁵ --

TITLE: To Augustus B. Woodward.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 406.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 342.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

At the time of writing the Declaration, I lodged in the house of a Mr. Graaf, a new brick house, three stories high, of which I rented the second floor, consisting of a parlor and bedroom, ready furnished. In that parlor I wrote habitually, and in it wrote this paper, particularly. So far I state from written proofs in my possession. The proprietor, Graaf, was a young man, son of a German, and then newly married. I think he was a bricklayer, and that his house was on the south side of Market street, probably between Seventh and Eighth streets, and if not the only house on that part of the street, I am sure there were few others near it. I have some idea that it was a corner house, but no other recollections throwing light on the question, or worth communication. ¹³⁶ --

TITLE: To Dr. James Mease.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 410.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 346.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Democrats consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them, therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 391.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 335.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Among the [Federalist] writers, Dennie, the editor of the Portfolio, who was a kind of oracle with them, and styled “the Addison of America,” openly avowed his preference of monarchy over all other forms of government, prided himself on the avowal, and maintained it by argument freely and without reserve in his publications. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 390.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 334.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

There are several things wanting to promote this improvement. [The recovery of the lost Anglo-Saxon and other words.] To reprint the Saxon books in modern type; reform their orthography; publish in the same way the treasures still existing in manuscript. And more than all things we want a dictionary on the plan of Stephens or Scapula, in which the Saxon root, placed alphabetically, shall be followed by all its cognate modifications of nouns, verbs, &c., whether Anglo-Saxon, or found in the dialects of subsequent ages. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 418.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825
See Languages.

This Presidential election has given me few anxieties. With you this [Col 2] must have been impossible, independently of the question, whether we are at last to end our days under a civil or a military government. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 387.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Mr. John Quincy Adams called on me pending the Embargo, and while endeavors were making to obtain its repeal. He made some apologies for the call, on the ground of our not being then in the habit of confidential communications, but that that which he had then to make, involved too seriously the interest of our country not to overrule all other considerations with him, and make it his duty to reveal it to myself particularly. I assured him there was no occasion for any apology for his visit; that, on the contrary, his communications would be thankfully received, and would add a confirmation the more to my entire confidence in the rectitude and patriotism of his conduct and principles. He spoke then of the dissatisfaction of the Eastern portion of our confederacy with the restraints of the Embargo then existing, and their restlessness under it; that there was nothing which might not be attempted, to rid themselves of it. That he had information of the most unquestionable certainty, that certain citizens of the Eastern States (I think he named Massachusetts particularly) were in negotiation with agents of the British government, the object of which was an agreement that the New England States should take no further part in the war then going on; that, without formally declaring their separation from the Union of the States, they should withdraw from all aid and obedience to them; that their navigation and commerce should be free from restraint and interruption by the British; that they should be considered and treated by them as neutrals, and as such might conduct themselves towards both parties; and,

TITLE: To William B. Giles.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 424.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 353.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Dec. 1825

Far advanced in my eightythird year, worn down with infirmities which have confined me almost entirely to the house for seven or eight months past, it afflicts me much to receive appeals to my memory for transactions so far back as that which is the subject of your letter. My memory is, indeed, become almost a blank, of which no better proof can probably be given you than by my solemn protestation, that I have not the least recollection of your intervention between Mr. John Q. Adams and myself, in what passed on the subject of the Embargo. Not the slightest trace of it remains in my mind. Yet I have no doubt of the exactitude of the statement in your letter. And the less, as I recollect the interview with Mr. Adams, to which the previous communications which had passed between him and yourself were probably and naturally the preliminary. That interview I remember well; not, indeed, in the very words which passed between us, but in their substance, which was of a character too awful, too deeply engraved, in my mind, and influencing too materially the course I had to pursue, ever to be forgotten. [* * *] I cannot too often repeat that this statement is not pretended to be in the very words which passed; that it only gives faithfully the impression remaining on my mind. The very words of a conversation are too transient and fugitive to be so long retained in remembrance. But the substance was too important to be forgotten, not only from the revolution of measures it obliged me to adopt, but also from the renewals of it in my memory on the frequent occasions I have had of doing justice to Mr. Adams, by repeating this proof of his fidelity to his country, and of his superiority over all ordinary considerations when the safety of that was brought into question. --

TITLE: To William B. Giles.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 424.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 351.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

You ask my opinion of the propriety of giving publicity to what is stated in your letter, as having passed between Mr. John Quincy Adams and yourself. Of this no one can judge but yourself. It is one of those questions which belong to the forum of feeling. This alone can decide on the degree of confidence implied in the disclosure; whether under no circumstances it was to be communicated to others? It does not seem to be of that character, or at all to wear that aspect. They are historical facts which belong [Col 2] to the present, as well as future times. I doubt whether a single fact, known to the world, will carry as clear conviction to it, of the correctness of our knowledge of the treasonable views of the federal party of that day, as that disclosed by this, the most nefarious and daring attempt to dissever the Union, of which the Hartford Convention was a subsequent chapter; and both of these having failed, consolidation becomes the fourth chapter of the next book of their history. But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry. This will be to them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest stepping-stone to it. --

TITLE: To William B. Giles.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 428.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 356.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

These two nations [the United States and Great Britain] , holding cordially together, have nothing to fear from the united world. They will be the models for regenerating the condition of man, the sources from which representative government is to flow over the whole earth. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 415.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Consolidation becomes the fourth chapter of the next book of their history. But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry. This will be to them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest stepping stone to it. --

TITLE: To William B. Giles.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 428.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 356.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Dec. 1825
See Centralization.

I willingly leave to the present generation to conduct their affairs as they please. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 392.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 335.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The will [of the nation is] the only legitimate basis [of government] . --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 414.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The government of a nation may be usurped by the forcible intrusion of an individual into

TITLE: To -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 413.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

In all cases, I prefer original authors to compilers. For a course of ancient history, therefore [in the University of Virginia] , of Greece and Rome especially, I should advise the usual suite of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Diodorus, Livy, Cæsar, Suetonius, Tacitus and Dion, in their originals if understood, and in translations, if not. For its continuation to the final destruction of the Empire we must then be content with Gibbon, a compiler, and with Segur, for a judicious recapitulation of the whole. After this general course, there are a number of particular histories filling up the chasms, which may be read at leisure in the progress of life. Such is Arrian, Q. Curtius, Polybius, Sallust, Plutarch, Dionysius, Halicarnassus, Micasi, &c. The ancient Universal History should be on our shelves as a book of general reference, the most learned and most faithful perhaps that ever was written. Its style is very plain but perspicuous. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 411.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

It is impossible to read thoroughly such writings as those of Harper and Otis, who take a page to say what requires but a sentence, or rather, who give you whole pages of what is nothing to the purpose. A cursory race over the ground is as much as they can claim. It is easy for them, at this day, to endeavour to whitewash their party, when the greater part are dead of those who witnessed what passed, others old and become indifferent to the subject, and others indisposed to take the trouble of answering them. As to Otis, his attempt is to prove that the sun does not shine at midday; that that is not a fact which every one saw. He merits no notice. It is well known that Harper had little scruple about facts where detection was not obvious. By placing in false lights whatever admits it, and passing over in silence what does not, a plausible aspect may be presented of anything. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 389.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 328.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Hume's [History] , were it faithful, would be the finest piece of history which has ever been written by man. Its unfortunate bias may be partly ascribed to the accident of his having written it backwards. His maiden work was the History of the Stuarts. It was a first essay to try his strength before the public. And whether as a Scotchman he had really a partiality for that family, or thought that the lower their degradation, the more fame he should acquire by raising them up to some favor, the object of his work was an apology for them. He spared nothing, therefore, to wash them white, and to palliate their misgovernment. For this purpose he suppressed truths, advanced falsehoods, forged authorities and falsified records. All this is proved on him unanswerably by Brodie. But so bewitching was his style and manner, that his readers were un-willing to doubt anything, swallowed everything, and all England became tories by the magic of his art. His pen revolutionized the public sentiment of that country more completely than [Col 2] the standing armies could ever have done, which were so much dreaded and deprecated by the patriots of that day. Having succeeded so eminently in the acquisition of fortune and fame by this work, he undertook the history of the two preceding dynasties, the Plantagenets and Tudors. It was all important in this second work, to maintain the thesis of the first, that “it was the people who encroached on the sovereign, not the sovereign who usurped on the rights of the people”. And, again, chapter 53d, “the grievances under which the English labored [ to wit: whipping, pillorying, cropping, imprisoning, fining, &c.] , when considered in themselves, without regard to the constitution, scarcely deserve the name, nor were they either burthensome on the people's properties, or anywise shocking to the natural humanity of mankind ”. During the constant wars, civil and foreign, which prevailed while those two families occupied the throne, it was not difficult to find abundant instances of practices the most despotic, as are wont to occur in times of violence. To make this second epoch support the third, therefore, required but a little garbling of authorities. And it then remained, by a third work, to make of the whole a complete history of England on the principles on which he had advocated that of the Stuarts. This would comprehend the Saxon and Norman Conquests, the former exhibiting the genuine form and political principles of the people constituting the nation, and founded in the rights of man; the latter built on conquest and physical force, not at all affecting moral rights, nor even assented to by the free will of the vanquished. The battle of Hastings, indeed, was lost, but the natural rights of the nation were not staked on the event of a single battle. Their will to recover the Saxon constitution continued unabated, and was at the bottom of all the unsuccessful insurrections which succeeded in subsequent times. The victors and vanquished continued in a state of living hostility, and the nation may still say, after losing the battle of Hastings,

“What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will And study of revenge, immortal hate And courage never to submit or yield.”

The government of a nation may be usurped by the forcible intrusion of an individual into the throne. But to conquer its will, so as to rest the right on that, the only legitimate basis, requires long acquiescence and cessation of all opposition. The whig historians of England, therefore, have always gone back to the Saxon period for the true principles of their constitution, while the tories and Hume, their Coryph æus, date it from the Norman Conquest, and hence conclude that the continual claim by the nation of the good old Saxon laws, and the struggles to recover them, were “ encroachments of the people on the crown, and not usurpations of the crown on the people”. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 412.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Of England there is as yet no general history so faithful as Rapin's. He may be followed by Ludlow, Fox, Belsham, Hume and Brodie. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 412.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Experience has proved that impeachment in our forms is completely inefficient. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 404.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Supposing that it might be for the good of the whole, as some of its co-States seem to think, that this power of making roads and canals should be added to those directly given to the Federal branch, as more likely to be systematically and bene-ficially directed, than by the independent action of the several States, this Commonwealth [ Virginia] , from respect to these opinions, and a desire of conciliation with its co-States, will consent, in concurrence with them, to make this addition, provided it be done regularly by an amendment of the compact, in the way established by that instrument, and provided, also, it be sufficiently guarded against abuses, compromises, and corrupt practices, not only of possible, but of probable occurrence. --

TITLE: Virginia Protest.
EDITION: Washington ed. ix, 499.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 352.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1825

I have for some time considered the question of internal improvement as desperate. The torrent of general opinion sets so strongly in favor of it as to be irresistible. --

TITLE: To James Madison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 422.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 348.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

[The Federal authorties] claim and have commencel the exercise of the right to construct roads, open canals, and effect other internal improvements within the territories and jurisdictions exclusively belonging to the several States, which this Assembly [ Virginia] does declare has not been given to that branch by the constitutional compact, but remains to each State among its

TITLE: Virginia Protest.
EDITION: Washington ed. ix, 497.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 350.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1825

One single object, if your provision [in the Louisiana Code] attains it, will entitle you to the endless gratitude of society; that of restraining judges from unurping legislation. And with no body of men is this restraint more wanting than with the judges of what is commonly called our General Government, but what I call our Foreign Department. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 403.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining, slyly, and without alarm, the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 404.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I learn from you with great pleasure that a taste is reviving in England for the recovery of the Anglo-Saxon dialect of our language; for a mere dialect it is, as much as those of Piers Plowman, Gower, Douglas, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, for even much of Milton is already antiquated. The Anglo-Saxon is only the earliest we possess of the many shades of mutation by which the language has tapered down to its modern form. Vocabularies we need for each of these stages from Somner to Bailey, but not grammars for each or any of them. The grammar has changed so little, in the descent from the earliest to the present form, that a little observation suffices to understand its variations. We are greatly indebted to the worthies who have preserved the Anglo-Saxon form, from Dr. Hickes down to Mr. Bosworth. Had they not given to the public what we possess through the press, that dialect would by this time have been irrecoverably lost. I think it, however, a misfortune that they have endeavored to give it too much of a learned form, to mount it on all the scaffolding of the Greek and Latin, to load it with their genders, numbers, cases, declensions, conjugations, &c. Strip it of these embarrassments, vest it in the Roman type which we have adopted instead of our English black letter, reform its uncouth orthography, and assimilate its pronunciation, as much as may be, to the present English, just as we do in reading Piers Plowman or Chaucer, and with the contemporary vocabulary for the few lost words, we understand it as we do them. For example, the Anglo-Saxon text of the Lord's Prayer, as given to us 6th Matthew, ix., is spelt and written thus, in the equivalent Roman type: Faeder ure thec the eart in heafenum, si thin nama ychalgod. To becume thin rice. Gerrurthe thin willa on eartham, swa swa on heafenum. Ume doeghw amti can hlaf syle us to dœg. And forgyfus ure gyltas, swa swa we forgifath urum gyltendum. And ne ge-lœdde thu us on costmunge, ae alys us of yfele.” I should spell and pronounce thus: “Father our, thou tha art in heavenum, si thine name y-hallowed. Come thin ric-y-wurth thine will on eartham, so so on heavenum: ourn daynhamlican loaf sell us to-day, and forgive us our guilts so so we forgiveth ourum guiltendum. And no y-lead thou us on costnunge, ac a-lease us of evil”. And here, it is to observed by-the-bye, that there is but the single word “temptation” in our present version of this prayer that is not Anglo- [Col 2] Saxon; for the word “trespasses” taken from the French ([&ogr;&phgr;&egr;&igr;&lgr;&eegr;&mgr;&agr;&tgr;&agr;] in the original), might as well have been translated by the Anglo-Saxon “guilts”.

The learned apparatus in which Dr. Hickes and his successors have muffled our Anglo-Saxon, is what has frightened us from encountering it. The simplification I propose may, on the contrary, make it a regular part of our common English education. So little reading and writing was there among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors of that day, that they had no fixed orthography. To produce a given sound, every one jumbled the letters together, according to his unlettered notion of their power, and all jumbled them differently, just as would be done at this day, were a dozen peasants, who have learnt the alphabet, but have never read, desired to write the Lord's Prayer. Hence the varied modes of spelling by which the Anglo-Saxons meant to express the same sound. The word many, for example, was spelt in twenty different ways; yet we cannot suppose they were twenty different words, or that they had twenty different ways of pronouncing the same word. The Anglo-Saxon orthography, then, is not an exact representation of the sounds meant to be conveyed. We must drop in pronunciation the superfluous consonants, and give to the remaining letters their present English sound; because, not knowing the true one, the present enunciation is as likely to be right as any other, and indeed more so, and facilitates the acquisition of the language. ²⁸⁴ --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 415.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

[The cultivation of the Anglo-Saxon] is a hobby which too often runs away with me where I meant not to give up the rein. Our youth seem disposed to mount it with me, and to begin their course where mine is ending. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 418.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

It is much to be wished that the publication of the present county dialects of England should go on. It will restore to us our language in all its shades of variation. It will incorporate into the present one all the riches of our ancient dialects; and what a store this will be, may be seen by running the eye over the county glossaries, and observing the words we have lost by abandonment and disuse, which in sound and sense are inferior to nothing we have retained. When these local vocabularies are published and digested together into a single one, it is probable we shall find that there is not a word in Shakspeare which is not now in use in some of the counties in England, and from whence we may obtain its true sense. And what an exchange will their recovery be for the volumes of idle commentaries and conjectures with which that divine poet has been masked and metamorphosed. We shall find in him new sublimities which we had never tasted before, and find beauties in our

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 417.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

We want an elaborate history of the English language. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 418.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

We [University of Virginia] must get rid of this Connecticut Latin, of this barbarous confusion of long and short syllables, which renders doubtful whether we are listening to a reader of Cherokee, Shawnee, Iroquois, or what. --

TITLE: To Wm. B. Giles.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 429.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 357.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

-- Your Cherokee grammar [* * *] I have gone over with attention and satisfaction. We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them. But here our reward must be the addition made to the philosophy of language. In this point of view your analysis of the Cherokee adds valuable matter for reflection and strengthens our desire to see more of these languages as scientifically elucidated. Their grammatical devices for the modification of their words by a syllable prefixed to, or inserted in the middle, or added to its end, and by other combinations so different from ours, prove that if man came from one stock, his languages did not. A late grammarian has said that all words were originally monosyllables. The Indian languages disprove this. I should conjecture that the Cherokees, for example, have formed their language not by single words, but by phrases. I have known some children learn to speak, not by a word at a time, but by whole phrases. Thus the Cherokee has no name for “father” in the abstract, but only as combined with some one of his relations. A complex idea being a fasciculus of simple ideas bundled together, it is rare that different languages make up their bundles alike, and hence the difficulty of translating from one language to another. European nations have so long had intercourse with one another, as to have approximated their complex expressions much towards one another. But I believe we shall find it impossible to translate our language into any of the Indian, or any of theirs into ours. I hope you will pursue your undertaking, and that others will follow your example with other of their languages. It will open a wide field for reflection on the grammatical organization of languages, their structure and character. I am persuaded that among the tribes on our two continents a great number of languages, radically different, will be found. It will be curious to consider how so many, so radically different, have been preserved by such small tribes in coterminous settlements of moderate extent. I had once collected about thirty vocabularies formed of the same English words, expressive of such simple objects only as must be present and familiar to every one under these circumstances. They were unfortunately lost. But I remember that on a trial to arrange them into families or dialects, I found in one instance that about half a dozen might be so classed, in another perhaps three or four. But I am sure that a third, at least, if not more, were perfectly insulated from each other. Yet this is the only index by which we can trace their filiation. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 399.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I am pleased with the style and diction of your laws [in Louisiana Code] . Plain and intelligible as the ordinary writings of common sense, I hope it will produce imitation. Of all the countries on earth of which I have any knowledge, the style of the acts of the British parliament is the most barbarous, uncouth and unintelligible. It can be understood by those alone who are in the daily habit of studying such tautologous, involved and parenthetical jargon. Where they found their model, I know not. Neither ancient nor modern codes, nor even their own early statutes, furnish any such example. And, like faithful apes, we copy it faithfully. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 404.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I presume you have received a copy of the Life of Richard H. Lee, from his

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 422.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 347.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The most undesirable of all things is long life; and there is nothing I have ever so much dreaded. --

TITLE: To Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 336.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

You tell me my granddaughter repeated to you an expression of mine, that I should be willing to go again over the scenes of past life. I should not be unwilling, without, however wishing it; and why not? I have enjoyed a greater share of health than falls to the lot of most men; my spirits have never failed me except under those paroxysms of grief which you, as well as myself, have experienced in every form, and with good health and good spirits, the pleasures surely outweigh the pains of life. Why not, then, taste them again, fat and lean together? Were I indeed permitted to cut off from the train the last seven years, the balance would be much in favor of treading the ground over again. Being at that period in the neighborhood of our warm springs and well in health, I wished to be better, and tried them. They destroyed, in a great measure, my internal organism, and I have never since had a moment of perfect health. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 421.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 347.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Literature is not yet a distinct profession with us. Now and then a strong mind arises, and at its intervals of leisure from business, emits a flash of light. But the first object of young societies is bread and covering; science is but secondary and subsequent. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 418.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Your work [Louisiana Code] will certainly arrange your name with the sages of antiquity. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 403.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

That George Mason was the author of the Bill of Rights and of the Constitution founded on it, the evidence of the day established fully in my mind. --

TITLE: To Henry Lee.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 407.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 342.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The fact is unquestionable, that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of Virginia were drawn originally by George Mason, one of our really great men, and of the first order of greatness. --

TITLE: To A. B. Woodward.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 405.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 341.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

We [in Virginia] have taken too little pains to ascertain the properties of our different

TITLE: To Miss Wright.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 408.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Harper takes great pains to prove that Hamilton was no monarchist, by exaggerating his own intimacy with him, and the impossibility, if he was so, that he should not at some time have betrayed it to him. This may pass with uninformed readers, but not with those who have had it from Hamilton's own mouth. I am one of those, and but one of many. At my own table, in presence of Mr. Adams, Knox, Randolph and myself, in a dispute between Mr. Adams and himself, he avowed his preference of monarchy over every other government, and his opinion that the English was the most perfect model of government ever devised by the wit of man, Mr. Adams agreeing, “if its corruptions were done away”; while Hamilton insisted that “with these corruptions it was perfect, and without them it would be an impracticable government”. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 389.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 330.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

When I arrived at New York in 1790, to take a part in the administration, being fresh from the French Revolution, while in its first and pure stage, and consequently somewhat whetted up in my own republican principles, I found a state of things, in the general society of the place, which I could not have supposed possible. Being a stranger there, I was feasted from table to table, at large set dinners, the parties generally from twenty to thirty. The revolution I had left, and that we had just gone through in the recent change of our own government, being the common topics of conversation, I was astonished to find the general prevalence of monarchical sentiments, insomuch that in maintaining those of republicanism, I had always the whole company on my hands, never scarcely finding among them a single coadvocate in that argument, unless some old member of Congress happened to be present. The furthest that any one would go, in support of the republican features of our new government, would be to say, “the present Constitution is well as a beginning and may be allowed a fair trial; but it is, in fact, only a stepping stone to something better”. Among their writers, [Joseph] Dennie, the editor of the “ Portfolio ”, who was a kind of oracle with them, and styled “the Addison of America”, openly avowed his preference of monarchy over all other forms of government, prided himself on the avowal, and maintained it by argument freely and without reserve in his publications. I do not myself know that the Essex Junta, of Boston, were monarchists, but I have always heard it so said, and never doubted. These are but detached items from a great mass of proofs then fully before the public. [* * *] They are now disavowed by the party. But, had it not been for the firm and determined stand then made by a counter party, no man can say what our government would have been at this day. Monarchy, to be sure, is now defeated, and they wish it should be forgotten that it was ever advocated. They see that it is desperate, and treat its imputation to them as a calumny; and I verily believe that none of them have it now in direct aim. Yet the spirit is not done away. The same party takes now what they deem the next best ground, the consolidation of the government; the giving to the Federal member of the Government, by unlimited constructions of the Constitution, a control over all the functions of the States, and the concentration of all power ultimately at Washington. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 390.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 332.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The first object of young societies is bread and covering; science is but secondary and subsequent. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 418.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

While I was at Washington, in the administration of the government, Congress was much divided in opinion on the subject of a navy, a part of them wishing to go extensively into the preparation of a fleet, another part opposed to it, on the objection that the repairs and preservation of a ship, even idle in harbor, in ten or twelve years, amount to her original cost. It has been estimated in England, that if they could be sure of peace a dozen years it would be cheaper for them to burn their fleet, and build a new one when wanting, than to keep the old one in repair during that term. I learnt that, in Venice, there were then ships, lying on their original stocks, ready for launching at any moment, which had been so for eighty years, and were still in a state of perfect preservation; and that this was effected by disposing of them in docks pumped dry, and kept so by constant pumping. It occurred to me that this expense of constant pumping might be saved by combining a lock with the common wet dock, wherever there was a running stream of water, the bed of which, within a reasonable distance, was of sufficient height above the high-water level of the harbor. This was the case at the navy yard, on the Eastern Branch at Washington, the high-water line of which was seventy-eight feet lower than the ground on which the Capitol stands, and to which it was found that the water of the Tiber Creek could be brought for watering the city. My proposition then was as follows: Let a b be the high-water level of the harbor, and the vessel to be laid up draw eighteen feet of water. Make a chamber A twenty feet deep below [Col 2] high-water and twenty feet high above it as c d e f, and at the upper end make another chamber, B, the bottom of which should be in the high-water level, and the tops twenty feet above that. g h is the water of the Tiber. When the vessel is to be introduced, open the gate at c b a. The tide water rises in the chamber A to the level b i, and floats the vessel in with it. Shut the gate c b d and open that of f i. The water of the Tiber fills both chambers to the level c f g, and the vessel floats into the chamber B; then opening both gates c b d and f i, the water flows out, and the vessel settles down on the stays previously prepared at the bottom i h to receive her. The gate at g h must of course be closed, and the water of the feeding stream be diverted elsewhere. The chamber B is to have a roof over it of the construction of that over the meal market at Paris, except that that is hemispherical, this semi-cylindrical. For this construction see Delenne's Architecture, whose invention it was. The diameter of the dome of the meal market is considerably over one hundred feet. It will be seen at once that instead of making the chamber B of sufficient width and length for a single vessel only, it may be widened to whatever span the semi-circular framing of the roof can be trusted, and to whatever length you please, so as to admit two or more vessels in breadth, and as many in length as the localities render expedient. I had a model of this lock-dock made and exhibited in the President's house during the session of Congress at which it was proposed. But the advocates for a navy did not fancy it, and those opposed to the building of ships altogether, were equally indisposed to provide protection for them. Ridicule was also resorted to, the ordinary substitute for reason, when that fails, and the proposition was passed over. I then thought and still think the measure wise, to have a proper number of vessels always ready to be launched, with nothing unfinished about them except the planting their masts, which must of necessity be omitted, to be brought under a roof. Having no view in this proposition but to combine for the public a provision for defence, with economy in its preservation, I have thought no more of it since. And if any of my ideas anticipated yours, you are welcome to appropriate them to yourself, without objection on my part. --

TITLE: To Lewis M. Wiss.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 419.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

An opinion is hazarded by some, but proved by none, that moral urgencies are not sufficient to induce the negro to labor; that nothing can do this but physical coercion. But this is a problem which the present age alone is prepared to solve by experiment. It would be a solecism to suppose a race of animals created, without sufficient foresight and energy to preserve their own existence. It is disproved, too, by the fact that they exist, and have existed through all the ages of history. We are not sufficiently acquainted with all the nations of Africa, to say that there may not be some in which habits of industry are established, and the arts practiced which are necessary to render life comfortable. The experiment now in progress in St. Domingo, those of Sierra Leone and Cape Mesurado, are but beginning. Your proposition has its aspects of promise also; and should it not fully answer to calculations in figures, it may yet, in its developments, lead to happy results. --

TITLE: To Miss Fanny Wright.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 408.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 344.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Men, according to their constitutions and the circumstances in which they are placed, differ honestly in opinion. Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, &c. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 391.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 334.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

A regard for reputation, and the judgment of the world, may sometimes be felt where conscience is dormant. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 404.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

There is really no amalgamation [of parties] . The parties exist now as heretofore. The one, indeed, has thrown off its old name, and has not yet assumed a new one, although obviously consolidationists. And among those in the offices of every denomination I believe it to be a bare minority. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 392.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 335.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: Jan. 1825

The division of whig and tory, or, according to our denominations, of republican and federal, is the most salutary of all divisions, and ought, therefore, to be fostered, instead of being amalgamated; for, take away this, and some more dangerous principle of division will take its place. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 392.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 335.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I do not recall these recollections [of conflicts with the federal monarchists] with pleasure, but rather wish to forget them, nor did I ever permit them to affect social intercourse. And now, least of all, am I disposed to do so. Peace and good will with all mankind is my sincere wish. --

TITLE: To William Short.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 392.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 335.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

It is from posterity we are to expect remuneration for the sacrifices we are making for their service, of time, quiet and good will. --

TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 394.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

A regard for reputation and the judgment of the world may sometimes be felt where conscience is dormant, or indolence inexcitable. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 404.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

We owe every other sacrifice ⁴⁴⁷ to ourselves, to our federal brethren, and to the world at large, to pursue with temper and perseverance the great experiment which shall prove that man is capable of living in society, governing itself by laws self-imposed, and securing to its members the enjoyment of life, liberty, property and peace; and further to show, that even when the government of its choice shall manifest a tendency to degeneracy, we are not at once to despair but that the will and the watchfulness of its sounder parts will reform its aberrations, recall it to original and legitimate principles and restrain it within the rightful limits of self-government. --

TITLE: Virginia Protest.
EDITION: Washington ed. ix, 498.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 351.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The misfortune of a weakened mind is an insensibility of its weakness. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 405.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The abolition of the evil is not impossible; it ought never, therefore, to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do something towards the ultimate object. That which you propose is well worthy of trial. It has succeeded with certain portions of our white brethren, under the care of a Rapp and an Owen; and why may it not succeed with the man of color? --

TITLE: To Miss Fanny Wright.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 408.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 344.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

An opinion is hazarded by some, but proved by none, that moral urgencies are not sufficient to induce [the negro] to labor; that nothing can do this but physical coercion. But this is a problem which the present age alone is prepared to solve by experiment. It would be a solecism to suppose a race of animals created without sufficient foresight and energy to preserve their own existence. It is disproved, too, by the fact that they exist and have existed through all the ages of history. We are not sufficiently acquainted with all the nations of Africa to say that there may not be some in which habits of industry are established, and the arts practiced which are necessary to render life comfortable. The experiment now in progress in Santo Domingo, those of Sierra Leone and Cape Mesurado, are but beginning. Your proposition has its aspects of promise also; and should it not answer fully to calculations in figures, it May yet, in its developments, lead to happy results. --

TITLE: To Miss Fanny Wright.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 408.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 344.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

At the age of eighty-two, with one foot in the grave and the other uplifted to follow it, I do not permit myself to take part in any new enterprises, even for bettering the condition of man, not even in the great one which is the subject of your letter, and which has been through life that of my greatest anxieties. The march of events has not been such as to render its completion practicable within the limits of time allotted to me; and I leave its accomplishment as the work

TITLE: To Miss Fanny Wright.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 408.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 344.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Whilst the General Assembly [of Virginia]

TITLE: Virginia Protest.
EDITION: Washington ed. ix, 498.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 351.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1825

This Assembly [of Virginia] does disavow and declare to be most false and unfounded, the doctrine that the compact, in authorizing its Federal branch to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, has given them thereby a power to do whatever they may think, or pretend, would promote the general welfare, which construction would make that, of itself, a complete government, [Col 2] without limitation of powers; but that the plain sense and obvious meaning were, that they might levy the taxes necessary to provide for the general welfare, by the various acts of power therein specified and delegated to them, and by no others. --

TITLE: Virginia Protest.
EDITION: Washington ed. ix, 497.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 350.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1825
See General Welfare Clause.

Nor is it admitted [* * *] that the people of these States, by not investing their Federal branch with all the means of bettering their condition, have denied to themselves any which may effect that purpose; since in the distribution of those means they have given to that branch those which belong to its department, and to the States have reserved separately the residue which belong to them separately. And thus by the organization of the two branches taken together, they have completely secured the first object of human association, the full improvement of their condition, and reserved to themselves all the faculties of multiplying their own blessings. --

TITLE: Virginia Protest.
EDITION: Washington ed. ix, 497.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 351.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1825

Hume spared nothing to wash the Stuarts white, and to palliate their misgovernment. For this purpose he suppressed truths, advanced falsehoods, forged authorities, and falsified records. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 412.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

-- These two nations [the United States and England] , holding cordially together, have nothing to fear from the united world. They will be the models for regenerating the condition of man, the sources from which representative government is to flow over the whole earth. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 415.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I hope the University of Virginia will prove a blessing to my own State, and not unuseful perhaps to some others. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 405.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I fear not to say that within twelve or fifteen years from this time, a majority of the rulers of our State will have been educated here. They shall carry hence the correct principles of our day, and you May count assuredly that they will exhibit their country in a degree of sound respectability it has never known, either in our days, or those of our forefathers. --

TITLE: To W. B. Giles.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 429.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 357.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

In modern history, there are but two nations with whose course it is interesting to us to be intimately acquainted, to wit: France and England. For the former, Millot's General History of France may be sufficient to the period when I Davila commences. He should be followed by Perefixe, Sully, Voltaire's Louis XIV. and XV., Lacretelles XVIIIme. Siècle, Marmontel's Regence, Foulongion's French Revolution, and Madame de Stael's, making up by a succession of particular history, the general one which they want. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 412.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

Hume, with Brodie, should be the last histories of England to be read [in the University of Virginia course] . If first read, Hume makes [his reader] an English tory, whence it is an easy step to American toryism. But there is a history by Baxter, in which, abridging somewhat by leaving out some entire incidents as less interesting now than when Hume wrote, he has given the rest in the identical words of Hume, except that when he comes to a fact falsified, he states it truly, and when to a suppression of truth, he supplies it, never otherwise changing a word. It is, in fact, an editic expurgation of Hume. Those who shrink from the volume of Rapin, may read this first, and from this lay a first foundation in a basis of truth. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 414.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The University of Virginia is the last object for which I shall obtrude myself on the public observation. --

TITLE: To Edward Livingston.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 405.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I am closing the last scenes of my life by fashioning and fostering an establishment for the instruction of those who are to come after us. I hope its influence on their virtue, freedom, fame, and happiness will be salutary and permanent. --

TITLE: To A. B. Woodward.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 406.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 342.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

You say my “ handwriting and my letters have great effect at Richmond ”. I am sensible of the kindness with which this encouragement is held up to me. But my views of their effect are very different. When I retired from the administration of public affairs, I thought I saw some evidence that I retired with a good degree of public favor, and that my conduct in office had been considered by one party at least with approbation and with acquiescence by the other. But the attempt [University of Virginia] , in which I have embarked so earnestly to procure an improvement in the moral condition of my native State, although, perhaps, in other States in may have strengthened good dispositions, it has assuredly weakened them within our own. The attempt ran foul of so many local interests, of so many personal views, and so much ignorance, and I have been considered as so particularly its promoter, that I see evidently a great change of sentiment towards myself. I cannot doubt its having dissatisfied with myself a respectable minority, if not a majority of the House of Delegates. I feel it deeply and very discouragingly. Yet I shall not give way. I have ever found in my progress through life that, acting for the public, if we do always what is right, the approbation denied in the beginning will surely follow us in the end. It is from posterity we are to expect remuneration for the sacrifices we are making for their service, of time, quiet and good will. And I fear not the appeal. The multitude of fine young men whom we shall redeem from ignorance, who will feel that they own to us the elevation of mind, of character and station they will be able to attain from the result of our efforts, will insure their remembering us with gratitude. --

TITLE: To Joseph C. Cabell.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 394.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

In some departments of science we believe Europe to be in advance before us, and that it would advance ourselves were we to draw from thence instructors in these branches, and thus to improve our science, as we have done our manufactures, by borrowed skill. I have been much squibbed for this, perhaps by disappointed applicants for professorships, to which they were deemed incompetent. --

TITLE: To John Adams.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 388.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

I have no reason to regret the measure taken of procuring professors from abroad where science is so much ahead of us. You witnessed some of the puny squibs of which I was the butt on that account. They were probably from disappointed candidates, whose unworthiness had occasioned their applications to be passed over. The measure has been generally approved in the South and West; and by all liberal minds in the North. It has been peculiarly fortunate, too, that the professors brought from abroad were as happy selections as could have been hoped, as well for their qualifications in science as correctness and amiableness of character. I think the example will be followed, and that it cannot fail to be one of the efficacious means of promoting that cordial good will, which it is so much the interest of both nations to cherish. These teachers can never utter an unfriendly sentiment towards their native country; and those into whom their instructions will be infused, are not of ordinary significance only; they are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes. As it is our interest to receive instruction through this channel, so I think it is yours to furnish it; for these two nations holding cordially together, have nothing to fear from the united world. They will be the models for regenerating the condition of man, the sources from which representative government is to flow over the whole earth. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 415.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

In most public seminaries textbooks are prescribed to each of the several schools, as the norma docendi in that school; and this is generally done by authority of the trustees. I should not propose this generally in our University, because I believe none of us are so much at the heights of science in the several branches, as to undertake this, and therefore that it will be better left to the professors until occasion of interference shall be given. But there is one branch in which we are the best judges, in which heresies may be taught, of so interesting a character to our own State and to the United States, as to make it a duty in us to lay down the principles which are to be taught. It is that of government. Mr. Gilmer being withdrawn, we know not who his successor may be. He may be a Richmond lawyer, or one of that school of quondam federalism, now consolidation. It is our duty to guard against such principles being disseminated among our youth, and the diffusion of that poison, by a previous prescription of the texts to be followed in their discourses. --

TITLE: To -- -- .
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 397.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The fact is unquestionable that the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of Virginia, were originally drawn by George Mason, one of our really great men, and of the first order of greatness. --

TITLE: To Augustus B. Woodward.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 405.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 341.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

The history of the Preamble to the [first] Constitution of Virginia is this: I was then at Philadelphia with Congress; and knowing that the convention of Virginia was engaged in forming a plan of government, I turned my mind to the same subject, and drew a sketch or outline of a Constitution, with a preamble, which I sent to Mr. Pendleton, president of the convention, on the mere possibility that it might suggest something worth incorporation into that before the convention. He informed me afterwards by letter, that he received it on the day on which the committee of the whole had reported to the house the plan they had agreed to; that that had been so long in hand, so disputed inch by inch, and the subject of so much altercation and debate; that they were worried with the contention it had produced, and could not from mere lassitude, have been [Col 2] induced to open the instrument again; but that, being pleased with the preamble to mine, they adopted it in the house, by way of amendment to the report of the committee; and thus my preamble became tacked to the work of George Mason. The Constitution, with the preamble, was passed on the 29th of June, and the Committee of Congress had only the day before that reported to that body the draught of the Declaration of Independence. The fact is, that that preamble was prior in composition to the Declaration; and both having the same object, of justifying our separation from Great Britain, they used necessarily the same materials of justification, and hence their similitude. --

TITLE: To A. B. Woodward.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 405.
EDITION: Ford ed., x, 341.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825

They [the students of the University of Virginia] are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes. --

TITLE: To J. Evelyn Denison.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 415.
PLACE: Monticello
DATE: 1825