No More Learning

All men achieving
political prominence are the object of attack, necessarily involving
not merely criticism of their measures, but also of their character.
Washington was accused of murder, treachery, corruption, hypocrisy,
ingratitude, moral cowardice, and private immorality; Franklin was
charged with theft, debauchery, intrigue, slander, and irreligion; while
the manifold charges against Lincoln remain within the memory of
many now living: and so there is nothing strange in the fact that
Jefferson was accused of dishonesty, craftiness, slander, irreligion, im-
morality, cowardice, and incompetence. The contrast consists in the
fact that while the failings of Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln have
long since been forgotten, and their characters absolutely established
in universal estimation, yet towards Jefferson there is still manifested
by many a distinct partisan dislike; and as a natural corollary, by
another class a distinct partisan affection. Our newspapers, our public
orators, and even our histories, to this day give criticism or praise
to him that rings so strongly as to suggest a conflict with the living,
rather than judgment of the dead. No particular act of Jefferson
excited any greater political opposition than did some advocated or
enforced by Washington, Franklin, or Lincoln; and it is therefore
necessary to seek some deeper reason for this difference than mere
personality or policy. Without for a moment belittling the work of
these others, the conclusion is forced that they worked for what was
temporary, in the sense that when done it passed from the category
of what is debatable to that which is decided; while what Jefferson
worked for were issues of permanent importance,- in other words,
that he was, and therefore still is, merely an expression of forces
permanent in man; and to that fact is due the controversy which
still centres about his name.
This is in effect to maintain that the political theories and usages
originated or adopted by the great democrat have a far deeper and
broader principle underlying them than is always recognized. In
popular estimation, Jefferson stands as the founder of the Democratic
party, and the developer of the theory of States-Rights; and on these
foundations are based the so-called "Jeffersonian principles, and the


## p. 8231 (#431) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8231
respect and acceptance, as well as the criticism and contravention,
accorded to them. That this basis was deemed sufficient during his
life, is natural; for judgment of a living man must always be partial
and superficial. That this limited view should during that time ac-
quire prestige and momentum enough to project it into history, is
not strange; the more that the logical conclusions of certain theories
advanced by him suited the policy of one of our political parties.
The acceptance of this narrow view has enabled his antagonists and
critics to charge him with hypocrisy, opportunism, and even lack of
any political principles; and the contradictions and instability they
have cited in his opinions and conduct have embarrassed even his
most devoted adherents. If this view is still to be accepted, these
criticisms must stand; and judged by them, the marvel of the Fed-
eralists and his later critics, that he should have been the chosen
instrument of American democracy, is proper. The scholarly and
recluse nature of his tastes and studies; the retiring and limited
character of his intercourse with the world; the influence of his social
equals; his dislike of party and personal antagonism; and his sensi-
tiveness to abuse and criticism,— make his acceptance of that leader-
ship as strange a problem as that the people should have chosen for
their representative a man lacking nearly all of the personal qualities
which are presumed to win popularity with the masses. And it is
only explicable from the standpoint of his critics as the success of
an ambitious and unprincipled self-seeking man, attained by astute-
ness and chicane so great as to deceive the people.
But if the people embody the total of human thought and experi-
ence, as our political theories maintain, there are better reasons than
these for his elevation, and for the political influence his name has
carried for over one hundred years; better reasons than the leader-
ship of a party, or a fine-spun theory of the respective powers of the
State and national governments. The explanation of these anomalies
lies deeper than any mere matter of individuality, party success, or
rigid political platform. Thus an understanding of what he endeav-
ored to accomplish, explains or softens many of his apparent contra-
dictions and questionable acts. The dominant principle of his creed
was, that all powers belonged to the people; and that governments,
constitutions, laws, precedents, and all other artificial clogs and
<protections,” are entitled to respect and obedience only as they
fulfill their limited function of aiding — not curtailing — the greatest
freedom to the individual. For this reason he held that no power
existed to bind the people or posterity, except in their own acts.
For this reason he was a strict construer of the national Constitution
where he believed it destructive of personal freedom; and he con-
strued it liberally where it threatened to limit the development of


## p. 8232 (#432) ###########################################

8232
THOMAS JEFFERSON
the people. He was the defender of the State governments; for he
regarded them as a necessary division for local self-government and
as natural checks on the national power, and so a safeguard to the
people. That he appealed to them in his Resolutions of 1798 was
because he believed the people for once unable to act for their own
interest; and the theories of that paper are a radical and short-lived
contradiction of his true beliefs. Because he believed the national
judiciary and the national bank to be opposed to the will of the
people, he attacked them. Because he believed he was furthering
the popular will, he interfered in the legislative department and
changed office-holders. Because he wished the people free to think
and act, he favored separation from England, abolition of religion, and
the largest degree of local self-government. As already suggested,
his methods and results were not always good, and his character and
conduct had many serious flaws. Yet in some subtle way the people
understood him, and forgave in him weaknesses and defects they
have seldom condoned. And eventually this judgment will universally
obtain, as the fact becomes clearer and clearer that neither national
independence nor State sovereignty, with the national and party
rancors that attach to them, were the controlling aim and attempt
of his life; that no party or temporary advantage was the object of
his endeavors, but that he fought for the ever enduring privilege of
personal freedom.
Recognition of the principles for which he fought does not, how-
ever, imply indorsement of his methods and instruments. Many of
his failings can be traced to cowardice; the physical side of which
was well known to his age, and the moral side of which is visible in
nearly erything he did wrote. Yet even with this allowance, it
is difficult to reconcile such a faith as his in the people, with his
constant panics over the smallest events. Indeed, it is hard to believe
it possible that a man so instinct with the popular mood could shy
wildly at the levees of Washington, and the birth-night balls, as evi-
dences of a monarchical tendency; or conceive that his walking to
his inauguration, and his reception of a foreign minister in soiled
linen and slippers down at the heel,” were serious political maneu-
If he truly believed this «the strongest government on earth,”
it seems little less than fatuous in him to declare that the scribbling
of one abusive editor had “saved our Constitution,” and to refer the
success of the Democratic party in 1800 to the influence of another.
Still more of his defects can be accounted for by the influence of
those with whom he labored: Demos being seldom scrupulous in its
ways, and fighting without the feelings or code that go to make war-
fare a duel of equal conditions. His patronage of such hack libelers
as Freneau, Bache, Duane, Paine, and Callender, to say nothing of
vres.


## p. 8233 (#433) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8233
the half rebellious democratic societies made up chiefly of the mobs
of the large cities and the moonshiners” of the mountains, is well-
nigh impossible to account for without a confession of the lack of
certain moral qualities innate in most men, and of the noblesse oblige
of his class.
Not less extraordinary is the freedom and sweepingness of his
criticism of the financial plans of Hamilton,-certainly the ablest
financier ever in charge of our national treasury,— when Jefferson
himself was seldom able to add up a column of figures correctly, for
over fifty years of his life was hopelessly insolvent, almost brought
about the national mortification of the public arrest for debt of the
President of the United States, was the recipient of several public
subscriptions that he might live, and in his last years even urged
the Legislature of Virginia to allow a lottery in his behalf. As he
was blind morally in many respects, so too he seemed blind to the
greatest truth of our governing principle,- the rights of the minority,
as compared with those of the majority. «The will of the majority
is the natural law of society," he wrote; and except for the moment-
ary attitude taken in the Resolutions of 1798, he never urged what
is so obvious to any but partisans. On the contrary, his course in
Virginia in the destruction of the old aristocracy, and his attack on
the Supreme Court, show how absolutely he was lacking in the spirit
of majority and minority compromise which is really the basis of
republican government. It is true that in his inaugural address he
said, “We are all Republicans: we are all Federalists;» but this
only referred to the Federalists who were already coalescing with the
Republicans, and towards the leaders of the opposing party he ever
held an intolerant and unforgiving course.
A study of his life goes far to explain these facts. From his
father, Peter Jefferson, an uneducated Indian-fighter, pioneer, and
surveyor, he received an inheritance both of common-sense and of
sympathy with the masses. From his mother, Jane Randolph, came
a strain of the best gentry blood of Virginia; a line at once famous
for its lawyers and statesmen, and shadowed by hereditary insanity.
These dual heritages from his parents were both of vital influence
in his career. Born on April 2d, 1743, at Shadwell, Virginia, on the
foot-hills of the Blue Ridge, then one of the most western of settle-
ments, the frontier life unquestionably developed the qualities he had
received from his father; and bred in this cradle of democracy, he was
ever after able to appreciate and to sympathize with the spirit. Nor
was his mother's influence less potent; for, carefully educated at Will-
iam and Mary College, and with an entrée to the best society of the
colony, he became the cultivated gentleman that he was. From this
double or complex nature flowed curious results. During his whole


## p. 8234 (#434) ###########################################

8234
THOMAS JEFFERSON
life he was fighting the battle of the masses, yet at no period did he
ever associate with them save in his own county, and then only as a
great planter, or county squire; nor is there discernible in anything
he did or wrote, the feeling of personal as opposed to theoretical lik-
ing for mankind. Humane, sympathetic, broad-minded, he always was
in his views and actions; but in relations to his fellow-kind he seems
to have had a distinct repugnance to association with hoi polloi. On
the contrary, the chief happiness of his life was found in his inter-
course with his social equals; and when his adoption of the people's
cause had produced social ostracism by the society of Philadelphia, so
that old friends of his crossed the street merely to avoid touching
their hats to him," and in his own words, “many declined visiting
me with whom I had been on terms of the greatest friendship and
intimacy,” he ever after, when alluding to the period, used expres-
sions implying that he had endured the keenest suffering. With
scarcely an exception, democracy the world over has fought its bat-
tles with self-made men as leaders; men near enough the soil not to
feel, or at least able to resist, the pressure of higher social forces:
but Jefferson was otherwise, and the suffering this alienation and dis-
crimination caused him is over and over again shown by his reiter-
ated expressions of hatred of the very politics to which he gave the
larger part of his life.
Nor was it merely by heritage that Jefferson took rank with
the «classes ); for intellectually as well, he belonged among them.
From his youth he was a close and hard student: he stated himself
that he studied over ten hours a day; and James Duane asserted in
1775 that Jefferson was the greatest rubber-off of dust that he had
met with; that he has learned French, Spanish, and wants to learn
German. ” He believed in the study of original sources; and in his
desire to study these, even taught himself Anglo-Saxon that he might
investigate the development of English law. Only when theorizing
on the great principles controlling society does he seem to have
taken distinct enjoyment in the political side of his career; and this
distinction no doubt accounts for his great reputation as a theoret-
ical statesman, and his almost absolute failure in every executive
office he held. Not the least influence in his life was his intense
interest in everything scientific. An eclipse, a new animal or plant,
the meteorology or the longitude of a place, or any other scientific
datum, was eagerly sought for. Mathematics was another youthful
passion, and to this late in life he returned. In his early days he
took great pleasure in music, fiction, and poetry; but with advancing
years he lost this liking to such a degree that he himself said of
the last, “So much has my relish for poetry deserted me that at
present I cannot read even Virgil with pleasure. ” In the words of a


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THOMAS JEFFERSON
8235
»
biographer, “His instincts were those of a liberal European noble-
man, like the Duc de Liancourt; and he built himself at Monticello
a chateau above contact with man. ” Here the management of his
farm was his constant delight, but chiefly on its experimental or sci-
entific side, and it is to be noted that practically it never yielded
him a profit; here he gathered an unusually fine library of standard
books (for the time); and here, except for his few intimates, he shut
out the world.
The result of these influences was that from his early manhood
he became a thorough skeptic of tradition and precedent; and in his
own words, he never feared to follow truth and reason, to whatever
results they led, and bearding every authority which' stood in their
way. ” In fact, all through his life there was a certain affectation of
original thinking; and a contemporary who knew him well declared
that “it constituted a part of Mr. Jefferson's pride to run before the
times in which he lived. ” This foible made him dreaded by the
conservatives, and the Federalists were never tired of charging him
with being a radical and a man of sublimated theories; but in the
main his imagination was balanced by an almost equally strong logical
quality of mind.
Almost alone of the Revolutionary leaders, Jefferson was born on
the frontier. Among those conditions he passed the formative period
of his life; and as representative of this region he made his first
essay in politics in 1765, and naturally as an advocate and defender
of the democratic mountaineers. In the Virginia Assembly, in which
his earliest battles were fought, the strongest line of party division
was between the aristocratic “planter” interest - great landed and
slaveholding proprietors, with the prestige and inertia of favorable
laws and offices - and the “settler” interest inhabiting the frontier,
far from the law or protection of government, but strong in numbers,
independence, and necessities; and in these conflicts he learned how
absolutely selfish and grasping all class legislation is. Then came the
Revolution; and Jefferson saw governments deriving their authority
from laws innumerable, and their force from the strongest nation of
Europe, utterly destroyed, with hardly a blow, merely through their
non-recognition by the masses. With the Committees of Safety and
the Congresses that succeeded, and in which he took a prominent
part, he saw the experiment of “a government of the people, by the
people, for the people, established and tested. Even more: he was
the leader in Virginia from whom the great democratic movement
received its greatest impulse; and chiefly by his measures were the
State church swept away, and the laws of entail and primogeniture
abolished, — reforms which, in his own words, inaugurated “a sys-
tem by which every fibre would be eradicated of ancient or future


## p. 8236 (#436) ###########################################

8236
THOMAS JEFFERSON
aristocracy, and a foundation laid for a government truly republican. "
Had he been in America between 1784 and 1788, he too might have
become doubtful as to how far the masses could control themselves;
for the reaction of the Revolutionary struggle was severe, and strained
democratic institutions almost to anarchy. He would have seen, too,
his bills for the establishment of a vast system of public schools and
libraries but dead letters, and his act for religious freedom result in
the closing of many churches. But in these years he was serving as
our minister to France, and witnessing there another great struggle
between the privileged and unprivileged. So he returned to America
in 1789 true to the influences and lessons of his life, which had
taught him to believe that only the people truly knew what the
people needed; that those who could take care of themselves were
wise and practical enough to help care for the nation; and that the
only way of enforcing laws was that they should be made by those
who were to obey them. In this country, then in a state of reaction
from the anarchy of the last few years, he found his theories in
disfavor with the conservative, and government slipping more and
more from the control of the governed. Though he reluctantly
accepted the appointment of Secretary of State under the new gov-
ernment, to oblige Washington, he disapproved very quickly the
Federalist concept of national powers; and after vainly opposing the
policy of the administration in which he had taken office, both openly
and by stealth, he finally sought voluntary retirement as the great-
est protest he could make. Even in this, however, his opposition
was maintained; and when finally the Federalist party, misled by
its leaders, revolted the nation by its actions, Jefferson was swept
into power as the representative of the other extreme. Twice he
was chosen President, and nearly every Legislature in the Union
petitioned him to serve a third term; but he declined, and passed
into retirement, from which he never was tempted, and in which he
died on July 4th, 1826, — exactly fifty years after the adoption of his
Declaration of Independence.
Parl
benester ford


## p. 8237 (#437) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8237
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 1776
Copy prepared by Jefferson to show his draft and the wording adopted by
Congress
ONGRESS proceeded the same day* to consider the declaration of
Friday preceding, and on Monday referred to a conıme of the
whole. The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth
keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this rea-
son those passages which conveyed censures on the people of Eng-
land were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause
too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck
out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never
attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the con-
trary still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also I believe
felt a little tender under those censures; for tho' their people have
very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable
carriers of them to others. The debates having taken up the greater
parts of the 2d, 3d & 4th days of July were,t in the evening of the
last, closed; the declaration was reported by the commce , agreed
to by the house, and signed by every member present except Mr.
Dickinson. As the sentiments of men are known not only by what
*Monday, July 1. No sitting was held on Saturday.
+ The Resolution for independence was under discussion on the ist of
July; the Declaration on July 2d, 3d, and 4th.
| The question whether the Declaration was signed on the 4th of July, as
well as on the 2d of August, has been a much vexed one; but a careful study
of it must make almost certain that it was not. The MS. Journal of Con-
gress) (that printed by order of Congress being fabricated and altered) merely
required its «authentication, which we know from other cases was by the
signatures of the president and secretary; who accordingly signed it by order
and in behalf of the Congress,) and the printed copies at once sent out had only
these signatures. It is also certain that several of the members then in Con-
gress would have refused to sign it on that day, and that the Congress there-
fore had good cause to postpone the signing till certain of the delegations
should receive new instructions, or be changed; and also till its first effect
on the people might be seen. For these reasons the Declaration was not
even entered in the journal, though a blank was left for it; and when it was
inserted at a later period, the list of signers was taken from the engrossed
copy,— though had there been one signed on the 4th of July, it would certainly
have been the one printed from, as including the men who were in Congress
on that day and who voted on the question, instead of one signed by a num-
ber of men who were neither present nor members when the Declaration was
adopted. Moreover, though the printed journal afterwards led John Adams to
believe and state that the Declaration was signed on the 4th, we have his
contemporary statement, on July 9th, that «as soon as an American seal is


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8238
THOMAS JEFFERSON
1
they receive, but what they reject also, I will state the form of the
declaration as originally reported. The parts struck out by Congress
shall be distinguished by a black line drawn under them; & those
inserted by them shall be placed in the margin or in a concurrent
column.
A Declaration by the representatives of the United States of
America, in General Congress assembled
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for
one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected
them with another, and to assume among the powers of the
earth the separate & equal station to which the laws of nature
and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions
of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, &
the pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of
government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right
of the people to alter or abolish it, & to institute new govern-
ment, laying it's foundation on such principles, & organizing it's
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their safety & happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that gov-
ernments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that
certain
prepared, I conjecture the Declaration will be subscribed by all the members. ”
And we have the positive assertion of McKean that no person signed it on
that day); and this statement is substantiated by the later action of Congress
in specially permitting him to sign what he certainly would have already done
on the 4th, had there been the opportunity. Opposed to these direct state-
ments and probabilities, we have Jefferson's positive statement, three times
repeated, that such a signing took place; but as he follows his nearly contem-
porary one with the statements that it was «signed by every member present
except Mr. Dickinson, when we have proof positive that all the New York
delegates refused to even vote, much less sign, and that Dickinson was not
even present in Congress on that day, it is evident that this narrative is not
wholly trustworthy.


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THOMAS JEFFERSON
8239
alter
To prove
mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses & usurpations
begun at a distinguished period and pursuing invariably the same
object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, &
to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been
the patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the neces.
sity which constrains them to expunge their former sys-
tems of government. The history of the present king of Great
repeated Britain is a history of unremitting injuries & usurpations,
among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform
all having tenor of the rest but all have in direct object the estab-
lishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.
this, let facts be submitted to a candid world for the truth of
which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome &
necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate &
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his
assent should be obtained; & when so suspended, he has utterly
neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of
large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the
right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to
them, & formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public
records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance
with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, & con-
tinually for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the
rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause
others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable
of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their


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8240
THOMAS JEFFERSON
obstruct-
ed
exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the
dangers of invasion from without & convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states;
for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of for-
eigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations
hither, & raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has suffered the administration of justice totally to
cease in some of these states refusing his assent to laws by
for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made our judges dependant on his will alone, for the
tenure of their offices, & the amount & pament of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices by a self-assumed
power and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people
and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies and
ships of war without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independant of, &
superior to the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitutions & unacknowledged by our laws, giv-
ing his assent to their acts of pretended legislation for quartering
large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them by
a mock-trial from punishment for any murders which they should
commit on the inhabitants of these states; for cutting off our
trade with all parts of the world; for imposing taxes on us
without our consent; for depriving us [] of the benefits
in many
of trial by jury; for transporting us beyond seas to be cases
tried for pretended offences; for abolishing the free system of
English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an
arbitrary government, and enlarging it's boundaries, so as to ren-
der it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the
same absolute rule into these states; for taking away our
charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering
fundamentally the forms of our governments; for suspending our
own legislatures, & declaring themselves invested with power to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
colonies


## p. 8241 (#441) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8241
his pro-
He has abdicated government here withdrawing his by de-
claring
governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance and pro- us out of
tection.
tection,
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt and
waging
our towns, & destroyed the lives of our people.
against
war
us.
leled in
barbar-
insurrec-
tion
among
us, & has
2
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mer-
cenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation & tyranny
already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy
scarcely
[ ] unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
paral-
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive the most
on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to ous ages,
become the executioners of their friends & brethren, or
& totally
to fall themselves by their hands.
He has [ ] endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of excited
domestic
our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known
rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes, & conditions of existence.
He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens,
with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating
it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a dis-
tant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them
into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death
in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the oppro-
brium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of
Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN
should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for sup-
pressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might
want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very
people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of
which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom
he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed
against the LibERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges
them to commit against the lives of another.
XIV-516


## p. 8242 (#442) ###########################################

8242
THOMAS JEFFERSON
free
ren.
warrant-
able
tis
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for
redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have
been answered only by repeated injuries.
A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which
may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a [] people
who mean to be free. Future ages will scarcely believe
that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short com-
pass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad & so
undisguised for tyranny over a people fostered & fixed in princi-
ples of freedom.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British breth-
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by
their legislature to extend a jurisdiction over these our an un-
states. We have reminded them of the circumstances of
our emigration & settlement here, no one of which could
warrant so strange a pretension: that these were effected at the
expense of our own blood & treasure, unassisted by the wealth
or the strength of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our
several forms of government, we had adopted one common king,
thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league & amity with
them: but that submission to their parliament was no part of
our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited:
and, we [] appealed to their native justice and magna- have
nimity as well as to the ties of our common kindred to and we
disavow these usurpations which were likely to interrupt conjured
them by
our connection and correspondence. They too have been
would in
deaf to the voice of justice & of consanguinity, and when evitably
occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their
laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our har-
mony, they have, by their free election, re-established them in
power. At this very time too they are permitting their chief
magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood,
but Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & destroy us. These
facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly
spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We
must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold
have


## p. 8243 (#443) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8243
them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace
friends. We might have been a free and a great people together;
but a communication of grandeur & of freedom it seems is below
their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to
happiness & to glory is open to us too. We will tread
it apart from them, and acquiesce in the necessity which therefore
and hold
denounces our eternal separation [ ]!
We must
them as
we hold
the rest
of man-
kind,
enemies
in war,
in peace
friends.
We therefore the represent-
We therefore the represent-
atives of the United States of atives of the United States of
America in General Congress America in General Congress
assembled do in the name & assembled, appealing to the su-
by authority of the good people preme judge of the world for
of these states reject & renounce the rectitude of our intentions,
all allegiance & subjection to do in the name, & by the au-
the kings of Great Britain & thority of the good people of
all others who may hereafter these colonies, solemnly publish
claim by, through or under & declare that these united col-
them: we utterly dissolve all onies are & of right ought to
political connection which may be free & independent states;
heretofore have subsisted be- that they are absolved from all
tween us & the people or par- allegiance to the British crown,
liament of Great Britain: & and that all political connection
finally we do assert & declare between them & the state of
these colonies to be free & in- Great Britain is, & ought to be,
dependent states, & that as free totally dissolved; & that as free
& independent states, they have & independent states they have
full power to levy war, conclude full power to levy war, conclude
peace, contract alliances, estab- peace, contract alliances, estab-
lish commerce, & to do all other lish commerce & to do all other
acts & things which independent acts & things which independant
states may of right do.
states may of right do.


## p. 8244 (#444) ###########################################

8244
THOMAS JEFFERSON
And for the support of this And for the support of this
declaration we mutually pledge declaration, with a firm reliance
to each other our lives, our for- on the protection of divine prov.
tunes, & our sacred honor. idence we mutually pledge to
each other our lives, our for-
tunes, & our sacred honor. *
*
ex-
The Declaration thus signed on the 4th on paper, was engrossed
on parchment, & signed again on the 2d. of August.
On Friday July 12. the Committee appointed to draw the articles
of confederation reported them, and on the 22d. the house resolved
themselves into a committee to take them into consideration. On the
30th. & 31st. of that month and ist. of the ensuing, those articles
were debated which determined the proportion or quota of money
which each state should furnish to the common treasury, and the
manner of voting in Congress. The first of these articles was
pressed in the original draught in these words. « Art. XI. All
charges of war & all other expenses that shall be incurred for the
common defence, or general welfare, and allowed by the United
States assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which
shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number
of inhabitants of every age, sex & quality, except Indians not paying
taxes, in each colony, a true account of which, distinguishing the
white inhabitants, shall be triennially taken & transmitted to the
Assembly of the United States. "
* This is printed just as Jefferson prepared it for the press, the reproduction
being from his first draft, now in the Department of State. In addition, they
have a fair copy, made by Jefferson for Madison, which was reproduced in the
(Madison Papers. ) The “fair copy » laid before Congress has disappeared, if
ever preserved. A copy given to Mazzei was given by him to the Countess
de Tessie in France, and has been lost sight of, as well as a copy sent to
Edmund Pendleton. But in the possession of the Hon. Elliot Danforth of
Albany is a copy which may possibly be the latter. In the American Philo-
sophical Society is the copy he sent to R. H. Lee, which is printed in Lee's
(Life of R. H. Lee. )
+ This is an interlineation made at a later period — apparently after the
question as to the signing of the Declaration was raised. Jefferson has also
written the following on a slip and pasted it on the sheet:-
“Some erroneous statements of the proceedings on the declaration of inde-
pendence having got before the public in latter times, Mr. Samuel A. Wells
asked explanations of me, which are given in my letter to him of May 12, 19.
before and now again referred to. I took notes in my place while these
things were going on, and at their close wrote them out in form and with cor-
rectness, and from 1 to 7 of the two preceding sheets are the originals then
written; as the two following are of the earlier debates on the Confederation,
which I took in like manner. ”


## p. 8245 (#445) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8245
ON FICTION
From a letter to Robert Skipwith, August 3d, 1771
I
SAT down with the design of executing your request to form
a catalogue of books to the amount of about £50 sterl. , but
could by no means satisfy myself with any partial choice I
could make. Thinking therefore it might be agreeable to you,
I have framed such a general collection as I think you would
wish and might in time find convenient to procure.
Out of this
you will choose for yourself to the amount you mentioned for
the present year, and may hereafter proceed in completing the
whole. A view of the second column in this catalogue would, I
suppose, extort a smile from the face of gravity. Peace to its
wisdom! Let me not awaken it. A little attention, however, to
the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments
of fiction are useful as well as pleasant. That they are pleasant
when well written, every person feels who reads. But wherein
is its utility ? asks the reverend sage, big with the notion that
nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of Greek and
Roman reading with which his head is stored.
I answer, everything is useful which contributes to fix in
the principles and practice of virtue. When any original act of
charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our
sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty,
and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and
grateful acts also. On the contrary, when we see or read of any
atrocious deed, we are disgusted with its deformity and conceive
an abhorrence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an
exercise of our virtuous dispositions; and dispositions of the mind,
like limbs of the body, acquire strength in exercise. But exer-
cise produces habit; and in the instance of which we speak,
the exercise, being of the moral feelings, produces a habit of
thinking and acting virtuously. We never reflect whether the
story we read be truth or fiction. I appeal to every reader of
feeling and sentiment, whether the fictitious murder of Duncan
by Macbeth in Shakespeare does not excite in him as great a
horror of villainy as the real one of Henry IV. by Ravaillac, as
related by Davila ? And whether the fidelity of Nelson and gen-
erosity of Blandford in Marmontel do not dilate his breast and
elevate his sentiments as much as any similar incident which real


## p. 8246 (#446) ###########################################

8246
THOMAS JEFFERSON
history can furnish? We are therefore wisely framed to be as
warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. The
field of imagination is thus laid open to our use, and lessons
may be formed to illustrate and carry home to the heart every
moral rule of life. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty
is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter
by reading King Lear' than by all the dry volumes of ethics
and divinity that ever were written. This is my idea of well-
written romance, or tragedy, comedy, and epic poetry.
THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY
From Notes on Virginia,' 1782
It
T is difficult to determine on the standard by which the man-
ners of a nation may be tried, whether catholic or particular.
It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the
manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There
must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our
people produced by the existence of slavery among us.
The
whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exer-
cise of the most boisterous passions, - the most unremitting des-
potism on the one part and degrading submissions on the other.
Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an
imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in
him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what
he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in
his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance
of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one
that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The
parent storms; the child looks on, catches the lineaments of
wrath, puts on the same airs, in the circle of smaller slaves gives
a lcose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and
daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with
odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain
his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And
with what execrations should the statesman be loaded who, per-
mitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of
the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies,
destroys the morals of the one part and the amor patria of the
other! For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must


## p. 8247 (#447) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
82 47
be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live
and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of
his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeav-
ors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own
miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from
him. With the morals of the people, their industry is destroyed.
For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can
make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the propri.
.
etors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to
labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when
we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds
of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God ? that
they are not to be violated but with his wrath ? Indeed I trem-
ble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his
justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature,
and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune,
an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may
become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty
has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.
But it is impossible to be temperate, and to pursue this subject
through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history
natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force
their way into every one's mind. I think a change already per-
ceptible, since the origin of the present revolution.
The spirit
of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust,
his condition mollifying; the way, I hope, preparing under the
auspices of heaven for a total emancipation, and that this is dis-
posed in the order of events to be with the consent of the mas-
ters, rather than by their extirpation.
LETTER TO MR. HOPKINSON
M'
Paris, December 23d, 1786.
Dear Sir:
Y LAST letter to you was dated August 14th. Yours of May
27th and June 28th were not then received, but have
been since. I take the liberty of putting under your cover
another letter to Mrs. Champis, as also an inquiry after a Dr.
Griffiths. A letter to M. Le Vieillard, from the person he had con-
sulted about the essence L'Orient, will convey to you the result of


## p. 8248 (#448) ###########################################

8248
THOMAS JEFFERSON
my researches into that article. Your spring-block for assisting a
vessel in sailing cannot be tried here; because the Seine being not
more than about forty toises wide, and running swiftly, there is no
such thing on it as a vessel with sails. I thank you for the volume
of the Philadelphia transactions, which came safely to hand, and
is in my opinion a very valuable volume, and contains many
precious papers. The paccan-nut is, as you conjecture, the Illi-
nois nut.
The former is the vulgar name south of the Potomac,
as also with the Indians and Spaniards, and enters also into the
botanical name, which is Juglano Paccan. I have many volumes
of the Encyclopédie for yourself and Dr. Franklin; but as a
winter passage is bad for books, and before the spring the pack-
ets will begin to sail from Havre to New York, I shall detain
them till then. You must not presume too strongly that your
comb-footed bird is known to M. De Buffon. He did not know
our panther. I gave him the stripped skin of one I bought in
.
Philadelphia, and it presents him a new species, which will appear
in his next volumes. I have convinced him that our deer is not
a Chevreuil; and would you believe that many letters to differ-
ent acquaintances in Virginia, where this animal is so common,
have never enabled me to present him with a large pair of their
horns, a blue and red skin stuffed, to show him their colors, at
different seasons. He has never seen the horns of what we call
the elk. This would decide whether it be an elk or a deer.
I am very much pleased with your project on the harmonica,
and the prospect of your succeeding in the application of keys to
it. It will be the greatest present which has been made to the
musical world this century, not excepting the piano-forte. If its
tone approaches that given by the finger as nearly only as the
harpsichord does that of the harp, it will be very valuable. I
have lately examined a foot-bass newly invented here by the
celebrated Krumfoltz. It is precisely a piano-forte, about ten
feet long, eighteen inches broad, and nine inches deep. It is of
one octave only, from fa to fa. The part where the keys are, pro-
jects at the side in order to lengthen the levers of the keys. It
is placed on the floor, and the harpsichord or other piano-forte is
set over it, the foot acting in concert on that, while the fingers
play on this. There are three unison chords to every note, of
strong brass wire, and the lowest have wire wrapped on them as
the lowest in the piano-forte. The chords give a fine, clear, deep
tone, almost like the pipe of an organ. Have they connected


## p. 8249 (#449) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8249
you with our mint? My friend Monroe promised me he would
take care for you in that, or perhaps the establishment of that at
New York may have been incompatible with your residence in
Philadelphia. A person here has invented a method of coining
the French écu of six livres, so as to strike both faces and the
edge at one stroke, and makes a coin as beautiful as a medal.
No country has ever yet produced such a coin. They are made
cheaper too. As yet, he has only made a few to show the per-
fection of his manner. I am endeavoring to procure one to send
to Congress as a model for their coinage. They will consider
whether, on establishing a new mint, it will be worth while to
buy his machines if he will furnish them. A dislocation of my
right wrist, which happened to me about a month after the date
of my last letter to you, has disabled me from writing three
months. I do it now in pain, and only in cases of necessity or
of strong inclination, having as yet no other use of my hand. I
put under your cover a letter from my daughter to her friend.
She joins me in respects to your good mother, to Mrs. Hopkin-
son and yourself, to whom I proffer assurances of the esteem
with which I am, dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant.
LETTER TO DR. STYLES
I
PARIS, July 17th, 1785.
Sir:
HAVE long deferred doing myself the honor of writing to you,
wishing for an opportunity to accompany my letter with a
copy of the Bibliothèque Physico-ceconomique'; a book pub-
lished here lately in four small volumes, and which gives an ac-
count of all the improvements in the arts which have been made
for some years past. I flatter myself you will find in it many
things agreeable and useful. I accompany it with the volumes
of the Connoissance des Tems for the years 1781, 1784, 1785, 1786,
1787. But why, you will ask, do I send you old almanacs, which
are proverbially useless ? Because in these publications have
appeared, from time to time, some of the most precious things
in astronomy. I have searched out those particular volumes
which might be valuable to you on this account. That of 1781
contains De la Caille's catalogue of fixed stars reduced to the
commencement of that year, and a table of the aberrations and


## p. 8250 (#450) ###########################################

8250
THOMAS JEFFERSON
nutations of the principal stars. 1784 contains the same cata-
logue with the nebuleuses of Messier. 1785 contains the famous
catalogue of Flamsteed, with the positions of the stars reduced to
the beginning of the year 1784, and which supersedes the use of
that immense book. 1786 gives you Euler's lunar tables cor-
rected; and 1787, the tables for the planet Herschel. The two
last needed not an apology, as not being within the description
of old almanacs, It is fixed on grounds which scarcely admit a
doubt that the planet Herschel was seen by Mayer in the year
1756, and was considered by him as one of the zodiacal stars,
and as such, arranged in his catalogue, being the 964th which
he describes. This 964th of Mayer has been since missing, and
the calculations for the planet Herschel show that it should have
been, at the time of Mayer's observation, where he places his
964th star. The volume of 1787 gives you Mayer's catalogue of
the zodiacal stars. The researches of the natural philosophers of
Europe seem mostly in the field of chemistry, and here prin-
cipally on the subjects of air and fire. The analysis of these
two subjects presents to us very new ideas. When speaking of
the Bibliothèque Physico-ceconomique,' I should have observed
that since its publication, a man in this city has invented a
method of moving a vessel on the water by a machine worked
within the vessel. I went to see it. He did not know himself
the principle of his own invention. It is a screw with a very
broad thin worm, or rather it is a thin plate with its edge ap-
plied spirally round an axis. This being turned, operates on the
air as a screw does, and may be literally said to screw the vessel
along; the thinness of the medium, and its want of resistance,
occasion a loss of much of the force. The screw, I think, would
be more effectual if placed below the surface of the water. I
very much suspect that a countryman of ours, Mr. Bushnel of
Connecticut, is entitled to the merit of a prior discovery of this
use of the screw. I remember to have heard of his submarine
navigation during the war; and from what Colonel Humphreys
now tells me, I conjecture that the screw was the power he used.
He joined to this a machine for exploding under water at a
given moment. If it were not too great a liberty for a stranger
to take, I would ask from him a narration of his actual experi-
ments, with or without a communication of his principle, as he
should choose. If he thought proper to communicate it, I would
I
engage never to disclose it, unless I could find an opportunity


## p. 8251 (#451) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8251
of doing it for his benefit. I thank you for your information as
to the great bones found on the Hudson River. I suspect that
they must have been of the same animal with those found on the
Ohio; and if so, they could not have belonged to any human
figure, because they are accompanied with tusks of the size, form,
and substance of those of the elephant. I have seen a part of
I
the ivory, which was very good. The animal itself must have
been much larger than an elephant. Mrs. Adams gives me an
account of a flower found in Connecticut, which vegetates when
suspended in the air. She brought one to Europe. What can be
this Aower? It would be a curious present to this continent.
The accommodation likely to take place between the Dutch
and the Emperor, leaves us without that unfortunate resource for
news which wars give us. The Emperor has certainly had in
view the Bavarian exchange of which you have heard; but so
formidable an opposition presented itself, that he has thought
proper to disavow it. The Turks show a disposition to go to war
with him; but if this country can prevail on them to remain in
peace, they will do so.
It has been thought that the two Im-
perial courts have a plan of expelling the Turks from Europe.
It is really a pity so charming a country should remain in the
hands of a people whose religion forbids the admission of science
and the arts among them. We should wish success to the object
of the two empires, if they meant to leave the country in pos-
session of the Greek inhabitants. We might then expect, once
more, to see the language of Homer and Demosthenes a living
language. For I am persuaded the modern Greek would easily
.
get back to its classical models. But this is not intended. They
only propose to put the Greeks under other masters; to substi-
tute one set of barbarians for another.
Colonel Humphreys having satisfied you that all attempts
would be fruitless here to obtain money or other advantages for
your college, I need add nothing on that head. It is a method
of supporting colleges of which they have no idea, though they
practice it for the support of their lazy monkish institutions.
I have the honor to be, with the highest respect and esteem,
Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.


## p. 8252 (#452) ###########################################

8252
THOMAS JEFFERSON
LETTER TO JAMES MADISON
Y
M
PARIS, December 20th, 1787.
Dear Sir:
LAST to you was of October the 8th, by the Count de
Moustier. Yours of July the 18th, September the 6th, and
October the 24th were successively received yesterday, the
day before, and three or four days before that. I have only had
time to read the letters; the printed papers communicated with
them, however interesting, being obliged to lie over till I finish
my dispatches for the packet, which dispatches must go from
hence the day after to-morrow. I have much to thank you for;
first and most for the cyphered paragraph respecting myself.
These little informations are very material towards forming my
own decisions. I would be glad even to know when any indi-
vidual member thinks I have gone wrong in any instance. If I
know myself, it would not excite ill blood in me; while it would
assist to guide my conduct, perhaps to justify it, and to keep me
to my duty, alert. I must thank you, too, for the information in
Thomas Burke's case; though you will have found by a subse-
quent letter that I have asked of you a further investigation of
that matter. It is to gratify the lady who is at the head of the
convent wherein my daughters are, and who, by her attachment
and attention to them, lays me under great obligations. I shall
hope, therefore, still to receive from you the result of all the
further inquiries my second letter had asked. The parcel of rice
which you informed me had miscarried, accompanied my letter
to the Delegates of South Carolina. Mr. Bourgoin was to be the
bearer of both; and both were delivered into the hands of his
relation here, who introduced him to me, and who, at a subse-
quent moment, undertook to convey them to Mr. Bourgoin. This
person was an engraver, particularly recommended to Dr. Frank-
lin and Mr. Hopkinson. Perhaps he may have mislaid the little
parcel of rice among his baggage. I am much pleased that the
sale of western lands is so successful. I hope they will absorb
all the certificates of our domestic debt speedily, in the first
place; and that then, offered for cash, they will do the same by
our foreign ones.
The seasons admitting only of operations in the cabinet,
and these being in a great measure secret, I have little to fill a


## p. 8253 (#453) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8253
letter. I will therefore make up the deficiency by adding a few
words on the constitution proposed by our convention.
I like much the general idea of framing a government which
should go on of itself, peaceably, without needing continual recur-
rence to the State legislatures. I like the organization of the
government into legislative, judiciary, and executive. I like the
power given the legislature to levy taxes; and for that reason
solely, I approve of the greater House being chosen by the
people directly. For though I think a House so chosen will be
very far inferior to the present Congress, will be very illy quali-
fied to legislate for the Union, for foreign nations, &c. , yet this
evil does not weigh against the good, of preserving inviolate the
fundamental principle that the people are not to be taxed but
by representatives chosen immediately by themselves.
tivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great
and little States, of the latter to equal, and the former to pro-
portional influence. I am much pleased, too, with the substitution
of voting by person, instead of that of voting by States; and I
like the negative given to the Executive, conjointly with a third
of either House; though I should have liked it better, had the
judiciary been associated for that purpose, or vested separately
with a similar power. There are other good things of less mo-
ment.
I will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omis-
sion of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of
sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection
against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and
unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury
in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by
the laws of nations. To say, as Mr. Wilson does, that a bill of
rights was not necessary, because all is reserved in the case of
the general government which is not given, while in the particu-
lar ones all is given which is not reserved, might do for the
audience to which it was addressed: but it is surely a gratis dic-
tum, the reverse of which might just as well be said; and it is
opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as
well as from the omission of the clause of our present Confedera-
tion which has made the reservation in express terms.
It was
hard to conclude, because there has been a want of uniformity
among the States as to the cases of trial by jury, because some
have been so incautious as to dispense with this mode of trial in


## p. 8254 (#454) ###########################################

8254
THOMAS JEFFERSON
certain cases, therefore the more prudent States shall be reduced
to the same level of calamity. It would have been much more
just and wise to have concluded the other way; that as most of
the States' had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of
liberty, those who had wandered should be brought back to it:
and to have established general right rather than general wrong.
For I consider all the ill as established which may be established.
I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take
away; and Congress will have a right to take away trials by jury
in all civil cases. Let me add, that a bill of rights is what the
people are entitled to against every government on earth, general
or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest
on inference.
The second feature I dislike, and strongly dislike, is the aban-
donment in every instance of the principle of rotation in office,
and most particularly in the case of the President. Reason and
experience tell us that the first magistrate will always be re-
elected if he may be re-elected. He is then an officer for life.
This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to cer-
tain nations to have a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs,
that they will interfere with money and with arms. A Galloman
or an Angloman will be supported by the nation he befriends.
If once elected, and at a second or third election outvoted by
one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold pos-
session of the reins of government, be supported by the States
voting for him, - especially if they be the central ones, lying
in a compact body themselves and separating their opponents;
and they will be aided by one nation in Europe while the
majority are aided by another. The election of a President of
America, some years hence, will be much more interesting to
certain nations of Europe than ever the election of a king of
Poland was.