Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCII.—TO JAMES MADISON, March 27,1796

TO JAMES MADISON

Monticello, March 27,1796.

Dear Sir,

I am much pleased with Mr. Gallatin’s speech in Bache’s paper of March the 14th. It is worthy of being printed at the end of the Federalist, as the only rational commentary on the part of the constitution to which it relates. Not that there may not be objections, and difficult ones, to it, and which I shall be glad to see his answers to; but if they are never answered, they are more easily to be gulped down than those which lie to the doctrines of his opponents, which do in fact annihilate the whole of the powers given by the constitution to the legislature. According to the rule established by usage and common sense, of construing one part of the instrument by another, the objects on which the President and Senate may exclusively act by treaty are much reduced, but the field on which they may act with the sanction of the legislature, is large enough: and I see no harm in rendering their sanction necessary, and not much harm in annihilating the whole treaty-making power, except as to making peace. If you decide in favor of your right to refuse co-operation in any case of treaty, I should wonder on what occasion it is to be used, if not in one where the rights, the interest, the honor, and faith of our nation are so grossly sacrificed; where a faction has entered into a conspiracy with the enemies of their country to chain down the legislature at the feet of both; where the whole mass of your constituents have condemned this work in the most unequivocal manner, and are looking to you as their last hope to save them from the effects of the avarice and corruption of the first agent, the revolutionary machinations of others, and the incomprehensible acquiescence of the only honest man who has assented to it. I wish that his honesty and his political errors may not furnish a second occasion to exclaim, ‘Curse on his virtues, they have undone his country.’ Cold weather, mercury at twenty degrees in the morning. Corn fallen at Richmond to twenty shillings; stationary here. Nicholas sure of his election, R. Jouett and Jo. Monroe in competition for the other vote of the county. Affection to Mrs. M. and yourself. Adieu.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCIII.—TO JAMES MADISON, April 19, 1796

TO JAMES MADISON

Monticello, April 19, 1796.

Dear Sir,

Yours of the 4th instant came to hand the day before yesterday. I have turned to the Conventional history, and enclose you an exact copy of what is there on the subject you mentioned. I have also turned to my own papers, and send you some things extracted from them, which show that the recollection of the President has not been accurate, when he supposed his own opinion to have been uniformly that declared in his answer of March the 30th. The records of the Senate will vouch for this. My respects to Mrs. Madison. Adieu affectionately.

Th: Jefferson.

[The papers referred to in the preceding.]

Extract, verbatim, from last page but one and the last page.

‘Mr. King suggested that the journals of the Convention should be either destroyed, or deposited in the custody of the President. He thought, if suffered to be made public, a bad use would be made of them by those who would wish to prevent the adoption of the constitution.

‘Mr. Wilson preferred the second expedient. He had at one time liked the first best: but as false suggestions may be propagated, it should not be made impossible to contradict them.

‘A question was then put on depositing the journals and other papers of the Convention in the hands of the President, on which New Hampshire, aye, Massachusetts, aye, Connecticut, aye, New Jersey, aye, Pennsylvania, aye, Delaware, aye, Maryland, no, Virginia, aye, North Carolina, aye, South Carolina, aye, and Georgia, aye. This negative of Maryland was occasioned by the language of the instructions to the Deputies of that State, which required them to report to the State the proceedings of the Convention.

‘The President having asked what the Convention meant should be done with the journals, &c. whether copies were to be allowed to the members, if applied for, it was resolved nem. con., “that he retain the journals and other papers subject to the order of the Congress, if ever formed under the constitution.”

‘The members then proceeded to sign the instrument,’ &c.

‘In Senate, February 1, 1791.

‘The committee, to whom was referred that part of the speech of the President of the United States, at the opening of the session, which relates to the commerce of the Mediterranean, and also the letter from the Secretary of State, dated the 20th of January, 1791, with the papers accompanying the same, reported; whereupon,

‘Resolved, That the Senate do advise and consent, that the President of the United States take such measures as he may think necessary for the redemption of the citizens of the United States, now in captivity at Algiers, provided the expense shall not exceed forty thousand dollars, and also, that measures be taken to confirm the treaty now existing between the United States and the Emperor of Morocco.’

The above is a copy of a resolve of the Senate, referred to me by the President, to propose an answer to, and I find immediately following this, among my papers, a press copy, from an original written fairly in my own hand, ready for the President’s signature, and to be given in to the Senate, of the following answer.

‘Gentlemen of the Senate,

‘I will proceed to take measures for the ransom of our citizens in captivity at Algiers, in conformity with your resolution of advice of the 1st instant, so soon as the monies necessary shall be appropriated by the legislature, and shall be in readiness.

‘The recognition of our treaty with the new Emperor of Morocco requires also previous appropriation and provision. The importance of this last to the liberty and property of our citizens, induces me to urge it on your earliest attention.’

Though I have no memorandum of the delivery of this to the Senate, yet I have not the least doubt it was given in to them, and will be found among their records.

I find, among my press copies, the following in my hand-writing.

‘The committee to report, that the President does not think that circumstances will justify, in the present instance, his entering into absolute engagements for the ransom of our captives in Algiers, nor calling for money from the treasury, nor raising it by loan, without previous authority from both branches of the legislature.

‘April 9, 1792.’

I do not recollect the occasion of the above paper with certainty; but I think there was a committee appointed by the Senate to confer with the President on the subject of the ransom, and to advise what is there declined, and that a member of the committee advising privately with me as to the report they were to make to the House, I minuted down the above, as the substance of what he observed to be the proper report, after what had passed with the President, and gave the original to the member, preserving the press copy. I think the member was either Mr. Izard or Mr. Butler, and have no doubt such a report will be found on the files of the Senate.

On the 8th of May following, in consequence of questions proposed by the President to the Senate, they came to a resolution, on which a mission was founded.

LETTER CXCIV.6 —TO P. MAZZEI, April 24, 1796

TO P. MAZZEI.

Monticello, April 24, 1796.

Mr Dear Friend,

The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us. In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican monarchical and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British government. The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their republican principles: the whole landed interest is republican, and so is a great mass of talents. Against us are the executive, the judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants and Americans trading on British capitals, speculators and holders in the banks and public funds, a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption, and for assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever, were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England. In short, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils. But we shall preserve it; and our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great, as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors.

I will forward the testimonial of the death of Mrs. Mazzei, which I can do the more incontrovertibly as she is buried in my grave-yard, and I pass her gravel daily. The formalities of the proof you require, will occasion delay. I begin to feel the effects of age. My health has suddenly broken down, with symptoms which give me to believe I shall not have much to encounter of the tedium vita. While it remains, however, my heart will be warm in its friendships, and, among these, will always foster the affections with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCV.—TO COLONEL MONROE, June 12, 1796

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Monticello, June 12, 1796.

Dear Sir,

Congress have risen. You will have seen by their proceedings the truth of what I always observed to you, that one man outweighs them all in influence over the people, who have supported his judgment against their own and that of their representatives. Republicanism must lie on its oars, resign the vessel to its pilot, and themselves to the course he thinks best for them. I had always conjectured, from such facts as I could get hold of, that our public debt was increasing about a million of dollars a year. You will see by Gallatin’s speeches that the thing is proved. You will see farther, that we are completely saddled and bridled, and that the bank is so firmly mounted on us that we must go where they will guide. They openly publish a resolution, that the national property being increased in value, they must by an increase of circulating medium furnish an adequate representation of it, and by further additions of active capital promote the enterprises of our merchants. It is supposed that the paper in circulation in and around Philadelphia amounts to twenty millions of dollars, and that in the whole Union, to one hundred millions. I think the last too high. All the imported commodities are raised about fifty per cent. by the depreciation of the money. Tobacco shares the rise, because it has no competition abroad. Wheat has been extraordinarily high from other causes. When these cease, it must fall to its ancient nominal price, notwithstanding the depreciation of that, because it must contend in market with foreign wheats. Lands have risen within the vortex of the paper, and as far out as that can influence. They have not risen at all here. On the contrary, they are lower than they were twenty years ago. Those I had mentioned to you, to wit, Carter’s and Colle, were sold before your letter came. Colle at two dollars the acre. Carter’s had been offered me for two French crowns (13s. 2d.) Mechanics here get from a dollar to a dollar and a half a day, yet are much worse off than at the old prices.

Volney is with me at present. He is on his way to the Illinois. Some late appointments, judiciary and diplomatic, you will have heard, and stared at. The death of R. Jouett is the only small news in our neighborhood.

Our best affections attend Mrs. Monroe, Eliza, and yourself. Adieu affectionately.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVI.—TO THE PRESIDENT, June 19, 1796

TO THE PRESIDENT.

Monticello, June 19, 1796.

In Bache’s Aurora of the 9th instant, which came here by the last post, a paper appears, which having been confided, as I presume, to but few hands, makes it truly wonderful how it should have got there. I cannot be satisfied as to my own part, till I relieve my mind by declaring, and I attest every thing sacred and honorable to the declaration, that it has got there neither through me nor the paper confided to me. This has never been from under my own lock and key, or out of my own hands. No mortal ever knew from me, that these questions had been proposed. Perhaps I ought to except one person, who possesses all my confidence, as he has possessed yours. I do not remember, indeed, that I communicated it even to him. But as I was in the habit of unlimited trust and counsel with him, it is possible I may have read it to him; no more: for the quire of which it makes a part was never in any hand but my own, nor was a word ever copied or taken down from it, by any body. I take on myself, without fear, any divulgation on his part. We both know him incapable of it. From myself, then, or my paper, this publication has never been derived. I have formerly mentioned to you, that from a very early period of my life, I had laid it down as a rule of conduct never to write a word for the public papers. From this, I have never departed in a single instance; and on a late occasion, when all the world seemed to be writing, besides a rigid adherence to my own rule, I can say with truth, that not a line for the press was ever communicated to me, by any other, except a single petition referred for my correction; which I did not correct, however, though the contrary, as I have heard, was said in a public place, by one person through error, through malice by another. I learn that this last has thought it worth his while to try to sow tares between you and me, by representing me as still engaged in the bustle of politics, and in turbulence and intrigue against the government. I never believed for a moment that this could make any impression on you, or that your knowledge of me would not overweigh the slander of an intriguer, dirtily employed in sifting the conversations of my table, where alone he could hear of me; and seeking to atone for his sins against you by sins against another, who had never done him any other injury than that of declining his confidences. Political conversations I really dislike, and therefore avoid where I can without affectation. But when urged by others, I have never conceived that having been in public life requires me to belie my sentiments, or even to conceal them. When I am led by conversation to express them, I do it with the same independence here, which I have practised every where, and which is inseparable from my nature. But enough of this miserable tergiversator, who ought indeed either to have been of more truth, or less trusted by his country.7

While on the subject of papers, permit me to ask one from you. You remember the difference of opinion between Hamilton and Knox on the one part, and myself on the other, on the subject of firing on the Little Sarah, and that we had exchanged opinions and reasons in writing. On your arrival in Philadelphia I delivered you a copy of my reasons, in the presence of Colonel Hamilton. On our withdrawing, he told me he had been so much engaged that he had not been able to prepare a copy of his and General Knox’s for you, and that if I would send you the one he had given me, he would replace it in a few days. I immediately sent it to you, wishing you should see both sides of the subject together. I often after applied to both the gentlemen, but could never obtain another copy. I have often thought of asking this one, or a copy of it, back from you, but have not before written on subjects of this kind to you. Though I do not know that it will ever be of the least importance to me, yet one loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. They possess my paper in my own hand-writing. It is just I should possess theirs. The only thing amiss is, that they should have left me to seek a return of the paper, or a copy of it, from you.

I put away this disgusting dish of old fragments, and talk to you of my pease and clover. As to the latter article, I have great encouragement from the friendly nature of our soil. I think I have had, both the last and present year, as good clover from common grounds, which had brought several crops of wheat and corn without ever having been manured, as I ever saw on the lots around Philadelphia. I verily believe that a field of thirty-four acres, sowed on wheat April was twelvemonth, has given me a ton to the acre at its first cutting this spring. The stalks extended, measured three and a half feet long very commonly. Another field, a year older, and which yielded as well the last year, has sensibly fallen off this year. My exhausted fields bring a clover not high enough for hay, but I hope to make seed from it. Such as these, however, I shall hereafter put into pease in the broadcast, proposing that one of my sowings of wheat shall be after two years of clover, and the other after two years of pease. I am trying the white boiling pea of Europe (the Albany pea) this year, till I can get the hog-pea of England, which is the most productive of all. But the true winter-vetch is what we want extremely. I have tried this year the Caroline drill. It is absolutely perfect. Nothing can be more simple, nor perform its office more perfectly for a single row. I shall try to make one to sow four rows at a time of wheat or peas, at twelve inches distance. I have one of the Scotch threshing-machines nearly finished. It is copied exactly from a model of Mr. Pinckney sent me, only that I have put the whole works (except the horse-wheel) into a single frame, moveable from one field to another on the two axles of a wagon. It will be ready in time for the harvest which is coming on, which will give it a full trial. Our wheat and rye are generally fine, and the prices talked of bid fair to indemnify us for the poor crops of the two last years.

I take the liberty of putting under your cover a letter to the son of the Marquis de la Fayette, not exactly knowing where to direct to him.

With very affectionate compliments to Mrs. Washington, I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem and respect, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVII.—TO M. DE LA FAYETTE, June 19, 1796

TO M. DE LA FAYETTE

Monticello, June 19, 1796.

Dear Sir,

The inquiries of Congress were the first intimation which reached my retirement of your being in this country, and from M. Volney, now with me, I first learned where you are. I avail myself of the earliest moments of this information, to express to you the satisfaction with which I learn that you are in the land of safety, where you will meet in every person the friend of your worthy father and family. Among these I beg leave to mingle my own assurances of sincere attachment to him, and my desire to prove it by every service I can render you. I know, indeed, that you are already under too good a patronage to need any other, and that my distance and retirement render my affections unavailing to you. They exist, nevertheless, in all their purity and warmth towards your father and every one embraced by his love; and no one has wished with more anxiety to see him once more in the bosom of a nation, who, knowing his works and his worth, desire to make him and his family for ever their own. You were, perhaps, too young to remember me personally when in Paris. But I pray you to remember, that should any occasion offer wherein I can be useful to you, there is no one on whose friendship and zeal you may more confidently count. You will, some day perhaps, take a tour through these States. Should any thing in this part of them attract your curiosity, it would be a circumstance of great gratification to me to receive you here, and to assure you in person of those sentiments of esteem, and attachment with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVIII.—TO JONATHAN WILLIAMS, July 3,1796

TO JONATHAN WILLIAMS.

Monticello, July 3,1796.

Dear Sir,

I take shame to myself for having so long left unanswered your valuable favor on the subject of the mountains. But in truth, I am become lazy as to every thing except agriculture. The preparations for harvest, and the length of the harvest itself, which is not yet finished, would have excused the delay however, at all times and under all dispositions. I examined, with great satisfaction, your barometrical estimate of the heights of our mountains; and with the more, as they corroborated conjectures on this subject which I had made before. My estimates had made them a little higher than yours (I speak of the Blue Ridge.) Measuring with a very nice instrument the angle subtended vertically by the highest mountain of the Blue Ridge opposite to my own house, a distance of about eighteen miles south westward, I made the highest about two thousand feet, as well as I remember, for I can no longer find the notes I made. You make the south side of the mountain near Rockfish Gap, one thousand seven hundred and twenty-two feet above Woods. You make the other side of the mountain seven hundred and sixty-seven feet. Mr. Thomas Lewis, deceased, an accurate man, with a good quadrant, made the north side of the highest mountain opposite my house something more (I think) than one thousand feet; but the mountain estimated by him and myself is probably higher than that next Rockfish Gap. I do not remember from what principles I estimated the Peaks of Otter at four thousand feet; but some late observations of Judge Tucker’s coincided very nearly with my estimate. Your measures confirm another opinion of mine that the Blue Ridge, on its south side, is the highest ridge in our country compared with its base. I think your observations on these mountains well worthy of being published, and hope you will not scruple to let them be communicated to the world.

You wish me to present to the Philosophical Society the result of my philosophical researches since my retirement. But, my good Sir, I have made researches into nothing but what is connected with agriculture. In this way, I have a little matter to communicate, and will do it ere long. It is the form of a mould-board of least resistance. I had some years ago conceived the principles of it, and I explained them to Mr. Rittenhouse. I have since reduced the thing to practice, and have reason to believe the theory fully confirmed. I only wish for one of those instruments used in England for measuring the force exerted in the draughts of different ploughs, &c, that I might compare the resistance of my mould-board with that, of others. But these instruments are not to be had here. In a letter of this date to Mr. Rittenhouse, I mention a discovery in animal history very signal indeed, of which I shall lay before the Society the best account I can, as soon as I shall have received some other materials collecting for me.

I have seen, with extreme indignation, the blasphemies lately vended against the memory of the father of American philosophy. But his memory will be preserved and venerated as long as the thunder of heaven shall be heard or feared.

With good wishes to all of his family, and sentiments of great respect and esteem for yourself, I am, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCIX.—TO COLONEL MONROE, July 10, 1796

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Monticello, July 10, 1796.

Dear Sir,

The campaign of Congress has closed. Though the Anglomen have in the end got their treaty through, and so far have triumphed over the cause of republicanism, yet it has been to them a dear-bought victory. It has given the most radical shock to their party which it has ever received: and, there is no doubt, they would be glad to be replaced on the ground they possessed the instant before Jay’s nomination extraordinary. They see that nothing can support them but the colossus of the President’s merits with the people, and the moment he retires, that his successor, if a monocrat, will be overborne by the republican sense of his constituents; if a republican, he will of course give fair play to that sense, and lead things into the channel of harmony between the governors and governed. In the mean time, patience.