The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9)

TO THOMAS W. MAURY

Monticello, February 3, 1816.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 24th ultimo was a week on its way to me, and this is our first subsequent mail day. Mr. Cabell had written to me also on the want of the deeds in Captain Miller's case; and as the bill was in that house, I enclosed them immediately to him. I forgot, however, to desire that they might be returned when done with, and must, therefore, ask this friendly attention of you.

You ask me for observations on the memorandum you transcribe, relating to a map of the States, a mineralogical survey and statistical tables. The field is very broad, and new to me. I have never turned my mind to this combination of objects, nor am I at all prepared to give an opinion on it. On what principles the association of objects may go that far and not farther, whether we could find a character who would undertake the mineralogical survey, and who is qualified for it, whether there would be room for its designations on a well-filled geographical map, and also for the statistical details, I cannot say. The best mineralogical charts I have seen, have had nothing geographical but the water courses, ranges of hills, and most remarkable places, and have been colored, so as to present to the eye the mineralogical ranges. For the articles of a statistical table, I think the last census of Congress presented what was proper, as far as it went, but did not go far enough. It required detailed accounts of our manufactures, and an enumeration of our people, according to ages, sexes, and colors. But to this should be added an enumeration according to their occupations. We should know what proportion of our people are employed in agriculture, what proportion are carpenters, smiths, shoemakers, tailors, bricklayers, merchants, seamen, &c. No question is more curious than that of the distribution of society into occupations, and none more wanting. I have never heard of such tables being effected but in the instance of Spain, where it was first done under the administration, I believe, of Count D'Aranda, and a second time under the Count de Florida Blanca, and these have been considered as the most curious and valuable tables in the world. The combination of callings with us would occasion some difficulty, many of our tradesmen being, for instance, agriculturalists also; but they might be classed under their principal occupation. On the geographical branch I have reflected occasionally. I suppose a person would be employed in every county to put together the private surveys, either taken from the surveyors' books or borrowed from the proprietors, to connect them by supplementary surveys, and to survey the public roads, noting towns, habitations, and remarkable places, by which means a special delineation of watercourses, roads, &c., will be obtained. But it will be further indispensable to obtain the latitudes and longitudes of principal points in every county, in order to correct the errors of the topographical surveys, to bring them together, and to assign to each county its exact space on the map. These observations of latitude and longitude might be taken for the whole State, by a single person well qualified, in the course of a couple of years. I could offer some ideas on that subject to abridge and facilitate the operations, and as to the instruments to be used; but such details are probably not within the scope of your inquiries,—they would be in time if communicated to those who will have the direction of the work. I am sorry I am so little prepared to offer anything more satisfactory to your inquiries than these extempore hints. But I have no doubt that what is best will occur to those gentlemen of the legislature who have had the subject under their contemplation, and who, impressed with its importance, are exerting themselves to procure its execution. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO JAMES MONROE

Monticello, February 4, 1816

Dear Sir,—Your letter concerning that of General Scott is received, and his is now returned. I am very thankful for these communications. From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice. A ray, therefore, now and then, from the fountain of light, is like sight restored to the blind. It tells me where I am; and that to a mariner who has long been without sight of land or sun, is a rallying of reckoning which places him at ease. The ground you have taken with Spain is sound in every part. It is the true ground, especially, as to the South Americans. When subjects are able to maintain themselves in the field, they are then an independent power as to all neutral nations, are entitled to their commerce, and to protection within their limits. Every kindness which can be shown the South Americans, every friendly office and aid within the limits of the law of nations, I would extend to them, without fearing Spain or her Swiss auxiliaries. For this is but an assertion of our own independence. But to join in their war, as General Scott proposes, and to which even some members of Congress seem to squint, is what we ought not to do as yet. On the question of our interest in their independence, were that alone a sufficient motive of action, much may be said on both sides. When they are free, they will drive every article of our produce from every market, by underselling it, and change the condition of our existence, forcing us into other habits and pursuits. We shall, indeed, have in exchange some commerce with them, but in what I know not, for we shall have nothing to offer which they cannot raise cheaper; and their separation from Spain seals our everlasting peace with her. On the other hand, so long as they are dependent, Spain, from her jealousy, is our natural enemy, and always in either open or secret hostility with us. These countries, too, in war, will be a powerful weight in her scale, and, in peace, totally shut to us. Interest then, on the whole, would wish their independence, and justice makes the wish a duty. They have a right to be free, and we a right to aid them, as a strong man has a right to assist a weak one assailed by a robber or murderer. That a war is brewing between us and Spain cannot be doubted. When that disposition is matured on both sides, and open rupture can no longer be deferred, then will be the time for our joining the South Americans, and entering into treaties of alliance with them. There will then be but one opinion, at home or abroad, that we shall be justifiable in choosing to have them with us, rather than against us. In the meantime, they will have organized regular governments, and perhaps have formed themselves into one or more confederacies; more than one I hope, as in single mass they would be a very formidable neighbor. The geography of their country seems to indicate three: 1. What is north of the Isthmus. 2. What is south of it on the Atlantic; and 3. The southern part on the Pacific. In this form, we might be the balancing power. À propos of the dispute with Spain, as to the boundary of Louisiana. On our acquisition of that country, there was found in possession of the family of the late Governor Messier, a most valuable and original MS. history of the settlement of Louisiana by the French, written by Bernard de la Harpe, a principal agent through the whole of it. It commences with the first permanent settlement of 1699, (that by de la Salle in 1684, having been broken up,) and continues to 1723, and shows clearly the continual claim of France to the Province of Texas, as far as the Rio Bravo, and to all the waters running into the Mississippi, and how, by the roguery of St. Denis, an agent of Crozat the merchant, to whom the colony was granted for ten years, the settlements of the Spaniards at Nacadoches, Adais, Assinays, and Natchitoches, were fraudulently invited and connived at. Crozat's object was commerce, and especially contraband, with the Spaniards, and these posts were settled as convenient smuggling stages on the way to Mexico. The history bears such marks of authenticity as place it beyond question. Governor Claiborne obtained the MS. for us, and thinking it too hazardous to risk its loss by the way, unless a copy were retained, he had a copy taken. The original having arrived safe at Washington, he sent me the copy, which I now have. Is the original still in your office? or was it among the papers burnt by the British? If lost, I will send you my copy; if preserved, it is my wish to deposit the copy for safe keeping with the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, where it will be safer than on my shelves. I do not mean that any part of this letter shall give to yourself the trouble of an answer; only desire Mr. Graham to see if the original still exists in your office, and to drop me a line saying yea or nay; and I shall know what to do. Indeed the MS. ought to be printed, and I see a note to my copy which shows it has been in contemplation, and that it was computed to be of twenty sheets at sixteen dollars a sheet, for three hundred and twenty copies, which would sell at one dollar apiece, and reimburse the expense.

On the question of giving to La Motte the consulship of Havre, I know the obstacle of the Senate. Their determination to appoint natives only is generally proper, but not always. These places are for the most part of little consequence to the public; and if they can be made resources of profit to our ex-military worthies, they are so far advantageous. You and I, however, know that one of these new novices, knowing nothing of the laws or authorities of his port, nor speaking a word of its language, is of no more account than the fifth wheel of a coach. Had the Senate a power of removing as well as of rejecting, I should have fears, from their foreign antipathies, for my old friend Cathalan, Consul at Marseilles. His father was appointed by Dr. Franklin, early in the revolutionary war, but being old, the business was done by the son. On the establishment of our present government, the commission was given by General Washington to the son, at the request of the father. He has been the consul now twenty-six years, and has done its duties nearly forty years. He is a man of understanding, integrity and zeal, of high mercantile standing, an early citizen of the United States, and speaks and writes our language as fluently as French. His conduct in office has been without a fault. I have known him personally and intimately for thirty years, have a great and affectionate esteem for him, and should feel as much hurt were he to be removed as if removed myself from an office. But I trust he is out of the reach of the Senate, and secure under the wings of the executive government. Let me recommend him to your particular care and patronage, as well deserving it, and end the trouble of reading a long letter with assurances of my constant and affectionate friendship.

TO BENJAMIN AUSTIN, ESQ

Monticello, February 9, 1816.

Sir,—Your favor of January 25th is just now received. I am in general extremely unwilling to be carried into the newspapers, no matter what the subject; the whole pack of the Essex kennel would open upon me. With respect, however, to so much of my letter of January 9th as relates to manufactures, I have less repugnance, because there is perhaps a degree of duty to avow a change of opinion called for by a change of circumstances, and especially on a point now become peculiarly interesting.

What relates to Bonaparte stands on different ground. You think it will silence the misrepresentations of my enemies as to my opinions of him. No, Sir; it will not silence them. They had no ground either in my words or actions for these misrepresentations before, and cannot have less afterwards; nor will they calumniate less. There is, however, a consideration respecting our own friends, which may merit attention. I have grieved to see even good republicans so infatuated as to this man, as to consider his downfall as calamitous to the cause of liberty. In their indignation against England which is just, they seem to consider all her enemies as our friends, when it is well known there was not a being on earth who bore us so deadly a hatred. In fact, he saw nothing in this world but himself, and looked on the people under him as his cattle, beasts for burthen and slaughter. Promises cost him nothing when they could serve his purpose. On his return from Elba, what did he not promise? But those who had credited them a little, soon saw their total insignificance, and, satisfied they could not fall under worse hands, refused every effort after the defeat of Waterloo. Their present sufferings will have a term; his iron despotism would have had none. France has now a family of fools at its head, from whom, whenever it can shake off its foreign riders, it will extort a free constitution, or dismount them and establish some other on the solid basis of national right. To whine after this exorcised demon is a disgrace to republicans, and must have arisen either from want of reflection, or the indulgence of passion against principle. If anything I have said could lead them to take correcter views, to rally to the polar principles of genuine republicanism, I could consent that that part of my letter also should go into a newspaper. This I leave to yourself and such candid friends as you may consult. There is one word in the letter, however, which decency towards the allied sovereigns requires should be softened. Instead of despots, call them rulers. The first paragraph, too, of seven or eight lines, must be wholly omitted. Trusting all the rest to your discretion, I salute you with great esteem and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON

Quincy, March 2, 1816.

Dear Sir,—I cannot be serious! I am about to write you the most frivolous letter you ever read.

Would you go back to your cradle and live over again your seventy years? I believe you would return me a New England answer, by asking me another question. Would you live your eighty years over again?

I am prepared to give you an explicit answer, the question involves so many considerations of metaphysics and physics, of theology and ethics, of philosophy and history, of experience and romance, of tragedy, comedy and farce, that I would not give my opinion without writing a volume to justify it.

I have lately lived over again, in part, from 1753, when I was junior sophister at college, till 1769, when I was digging in the mines as a barrister at law, for silver and gold, in the town of Boston; and got as much of the shining dross for my labor as my utmost avarice at that time craved.

At the hazard of all the little vision that is left me, I have read the history of that period of sixteen years, in the volumes of the Baron de Grimm. In a late letter to you, I expressed a wish to see a history of quarrels and calamities of authors in France, like that of D'Israeli in England. I did not expect it so soon; but now I have it in a manner more masterly than I ever hoped to see it. It is not only a narration of the incessant great wars between the ecclesiastics and the philosophers, but of the little skirmishes and squabbles of Poets, Musicians, Sculptors, Painters, Architects, Tragedians, Comedians, Opera-Singers and Dancers, Chansons, Vaudevilles, Epigrams, Madrigals, Epitaphs, Anagrams, Sonnets, &c. No man is more sensible than I am of the service to science and letters, Humanity, Fraternity and Liberty, that would have been rendered by the Encyclopedists and Economists, by Voltaire, D'Alembert, Buffon, Diderot, Rousseau La Lande, Frederick and Catherine, if they had possessed common sense. But they were all totally destitute of it. They all seemed to think that all christendom was convinced as they were, that all religion was "visions Judaicques," and that their effulgent lights had illuminated all the world. They seemed to believe, that whole nations and continents had been changed in their principles, opinions, habits and feelings, by the sovereign grace of their Almighty philosophy, almost as suddenly as Catholics and Calvinists believe in instantaneous conversion. They had not considered the force of early education on the millions of minds who had never heard of their philosophy. And what was their philosophy? Atheism; pure, unadulterated Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, Frederick, De La Lande and Grimm, were indubitable Atheists. The universe was matter only, and eternal; spirit was a word without a meaning; liberty was a word without a meaning. There was no liberty in the Universe; liberty was a word void of sense. Every thought, word, passion, sentiment, feeling, all motion and action was necessary. All beings and attributes were of eternal necessity; conscience, morality, were all nothing but fate.

This was their creed, and this was to perfect human nature, and convert the earth into a paradise of pleasure.

Who, and what is this fate? He must be a sensible fellow. He must be a master of science. He must be a master of spherical Trigonometry and great circle sailing. He must calculate eclipses in his head by intuition. He must be master of the science of infinitesimal—"Le science des infinimens petits." He must involve and extract all the roots by intuition, and be familiar with all possible or imaginable sections of the cone. He must be a master of arts, mechanical and imitative. He must have more eloquence than Demosthenes, more wit than Swift or Voltaire, more humor than Butler or Trumbull, and what is more comfortable than all the rest, he must be good natured; for this is upon the whole a good world. There is ten times as much pleasure as pain in it.

Why then should we abhor the word God, and fall in love with the word Fate? We know there exists energy and intellect enough to produce such a world as this, which is a sublime and beautiful one, and a very benevolent one, notwithstanding all our snarling; and a happy one, if it is not made otherwise by our own fault. Ask a mite, in the centre of your mammoth cheese, what he thinks of the "το παν."

I should prefer the philosophy of Timæus, of Locris, before that of Grimm and Diderot, Frederick and D'Alembert. I should even prefer the Shasta of Hindostan, or the Chaldean, Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Christian, Mahometan, Tubonic, or Celtic Theology. Timæus and Picellus taught that three principles were eternal, God, Matter and Form. God was good, and had ideas. Matter was necessity. Fate dead—without ideas—without form, without feeling—perverse, untractable; capable, however, of being cut into forms, spheres, circles, triangles, squares, cubes, cones, &c. The ideas of the good God labored upon matter to bring it into form; but matter was fate, necessity, dulness, obstinacy—and would not always conform to the ideas of the good God who desired to make the best of all possible worlds; but Matter, Fate, Necessity, resisted, and would not let him complete his idea. Hence all the evil and disorder, pain, misery and imperfection of the Universe.

We all curse Robespierre and Bonaparte, but were they not both such restless, vain, extravagant animals as Diderot and Voltaire? Voltaire was the greatest literary character, and Bonaparte the greatest military character of the eighteenth century. There is all the difference between them. Both equally heroes and equally cowards.

When you ask my opinion of a University—it would have been easy to advise Mathematics, experimental Philosophy, Natural History, Chemistry and Astronomy, Geography and the Fine Arts; to the exclusion of Metaphysics and Theology. But knowing the eager impatience of the human mind to search into eternity and infinity, the first cause and last end of all things—I thought best to leave it its liberty to inquire till it is convinced, as I have been these fifty years, that there is but one Being in the Universe who comprehends it; and our last resource is resignation.

This Grimm must have been in Paris when you were there. Did you know him, or hear of him?

I have this moment received two volumes more, but these are from 1777 to 1782,—leaving the chain broken from 1769 to 1777. I hope hereafter to get the two intervening volumes. I am your old friend.

March 13, 1816.

A writer in the National Intelligencer of February 24th, who signs himself B., is endeavoring to shelter under the cloak of General Washington, the present enterprise of the Senate to wrest from the House of Representatives the power, given them by the constitution, of participating with the Senate in the establishment and continuance of laws on specified subjects. Their aim is, by associating an Indian chief, or foreign government, in form of a treaty, to possess themselves of the power of repealing laws become obnoxious to them, without the assent of the third branch, although that assent was necessary to make it a law. We are then to depend for the secure possession of our laws, not on our immediate representatives chosen by ourselves, and amenable to ourselves every other year, but on Senators chosen by the legislatures, amenable to them only, and that but at intervals of six years, which is nearly the common estimate for a term for life. But no act of that sainted worthy, no thought of General Washington, ever countenanced a change of our constitution so vital as would be the rendering insignificant the popular, and giving to the aristocratical branch of our government, the power of depriving us of our laws.

The case for which General Washington is quoted is that of his treaty with the Creeks, wherein was a stipulation that their supplies of goods should continue to be imported duty free. The writer of this article was then a member of the legislature, as he was of that which afterwards discussed the British treaty, and recollects the facts of the day, and the ideas which were afloat. The goods for the supplies of the Creeks were always imported into the Spanish ports of St. Augustine, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, &c., (the United States not owning then one foot of coast on the gulf of Mexico, or south of St. Mary's,) and from these ports they were carried directly into the Creek country, without ever entering the jurisdiction of the United States. In that country their laws pretended to no more force than in Florida or Canada. No officer of their customs could go to levy duties in the Spanish or Creek countries, out of which these goods never came. General Washington's stipulation in that treaty therefore, was nothing more than that our laws should not levy duties where we have no right to levy them, that is, in foreign ports, or foreign countries. These transactions took place while the Creek deputation was in New York, in the month of July 1790, and in March preceding we had passed a law delineating specially the line between their country and ours. The only subject of curiosity is how so nugatory a stipulation should have been placed in a treaty? It was from the fears of Mr. Gillevray, who was the head of the deputation, who possessed from the Creeks themselves the exclusive right to supply them with goods, and to whom this monopoly was the principle source of income.

The same writer quotes from a note in Marshal's history, an opinion of Mr. Jefferson, given to General Washington on the same occasion of the Creek treaty. Two or three little lines only of that opinion are given us, which do indeed express the doctrine in broad and general terms. Yet we know how often a few words withdrawn from their place may seem to bear a general meaning, when their context would show that their meaning must have been limited to the subject with respect to which they were used. If we could see the whole opinion, it might probably appear that its foundation was the peculiar circumstances of the Creek nation. We may say too, on this opinion, as on that of a judge whose positions beyond the limits of the case before him are considered as obiter sayings, never to be relied on as authority.

In July '90, moreover, the government was but just getting under way. The duty law was not passed until the succeeding month of August. This question of the effect of a treaty was then of the first impression; and none of us, I suppose, will pretend that on our first reading of the constitution we saw at once all its intentions, all the bearings of every word of it, as fully and as correctly as we have since understood them, after they have become subjects of public investigation and discussion; and I well remember the fact that, although Mr. Jefferson had retired from office before Mr. Jay's mission, and the question on the British treaty, yet during its discussion we were well assured of his entire concurrence in opinion with Mr. Madison and others who maintained the rights of the House of Representatives, so that, if on a primâ facie view of the question, his opinion had been too general, on stricter investigation, and more mature consideration, his ultimate opinion was with those who thought that the subjects which were confided to the House of Representatives in conjunction with the President and Senate, were exceptions to the general treaty power given to the President and Senate alone; (according to the general rule that an instrument is to be so construed as to reconcile and give meaning and effect to all its parts;) that whenever a treaty stipulation interferes with a law of the three branches, the consent of the third branch is necessary to give it effect; and that there is to this but the single exception of the question of war and peace. There the constitution expressly requires the concurrence of the three branches to commit us to the state of war, but permits two of them, the President and Senate, to change it to that of peace, for reasons as obvious as they are wise. I think then I may affirm, in contradiction to B., that the present attempt of the Senate is not sanctioned by the opinion either of General Washington or of Mr. Jefferson.

I meant to confine myself to the case of the Creek treaty, and not to go into the general reasoning, for after the logical and demonstrative arguments of Mr. Wilde of Georgia, and others on the floor of Congress, if any man remains unconvinced I pretend not the powers of convincing him.