In the 1796 election John Adams was elected President,
and Jefferson coming in second became Vice President.
Jefferson then enclosed his previous letter to Adams and sent it
to James Madison on 1 January 1797 with this letter:
Yours of December 19 has come safely.
The event of the election has never been
a matter of doubt in my mind.
I knew that the Eastern states were disciplined in the
schools of their town meetings to sacrifice differences
of opinion to the great object of operating in phalanx,
and that the more free & moral agency practiced
in the other states would always make up
the supplement of their weight.
Indeed the vote comes much nearer
an equality than I had expected.
I know the difficulty of obtaining belief to one’s
declarations of a disinclination to honors, and that it is
greatest with those who still remain in the world.
But no arguments were wanting to reconcile
me to a relinquishment of the first office
or acquiescence under the second.
As to the first it was impossible that a more solid
unwillingness settled on full calculation, could have existed
in any man’s mind, short of the degree of absolute refusal.
The only view on which I would have gone into it for a while
was to put our vessel on her republican tack before she
should be thrown too much to leeward of her true principles.
As to the second, it is the only office in the world
about which I am unable to decide in my own mind
whether I had rather have it or not have it.
Pride does not enter into the estimate; for I think
with the Romans that the General of today
should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.
I can particularly have no feelings which
would revolt at a secondary position to Mr. Adams.
I am his junior in life, was his junior in Congress,
his junior in the diplomatic line,
his junior lately in our civil government.
Before the receipt of your letter
I had written the enclosed one to him.
I had intended it some time, but had deferred it
from time to time under the discouragement of a
despair of making him believe I could be sincere in it.
The papers by the last post not rendering it
necessary to change anything in the letter
I enclose it open for your perusal, not only that you may
possess the actual state of dispositions between us,
but that if anything should render the delivery of it
ineligible in your opinion, you may return it to me.
If Mr. Adams can be induced to administer the government
on its true principles and to relinquish his bias to an English
constitution, it is to be considered whether it would not be
on the whole for the public good to come to a good
understanding with him as to his future elections.
He is perhaps the only sure barrier
against Hamilton’s getting in.
Since my last I have received a packet of books
& pamphlets, the choiceness of which testifies
that they come from you.
The Incidents of Hamilton’s insurrection
is a curious work indeed.
The hero of it exhibits himself in all
the attitudes of a dexterous balance master.
The Political progress is a work of value
& of a singular complexion.
The eye of the author seems to be a natural achromatic,
which divests every object of the glare of color.
The preceding work under the same title
had the same merit.
One is disgusted indeed with the ulcerated state
which it presents of the human mind:
but to cure an ulcer we must go to its bottom: and
no writer has ever done this more radically than this one.
The reflections into which he leads one
are not flattering to our species.
In truth I do not recollect in all the Animal kingdom a
single species but man which is eternally & systematically
engaged in the destruction of its own species.
What is called civilization seems to have no other effect
on him than to teach him to pursue the principle of
bellum omnium in omnia on a larger scale, & in place
of the little contests of tribe against tribe, to engage all
the quarters of the earth in the same work of destruction.
When we add to this that as to the other species of animals,
the lions & tigers are mere lambs compared with man
as a destroyer, we must conclude that it is in man alone that
Nature has been able to find a sufficient barrier against the
too great multiplication of other animals & of man himself,
an equilibrating power against the fecundity of generation.
My situation points my views chiefly to his wars
in the physical world: yours perhaps exhibit him
as equally warring in the Moral one.
We both, I believe, join in wishing to see him softened.
Adieu.1
In regard to the last two months of the Washington presidency,
Jefferson advised Archibald Stuart in a letter on January 4.
In answer to your favor of December 31 and to the
question whether advisable to address the President on
the subject of war against France, I shall speak explicitly,
because I know I may do it safely to you.
Such is the popularity of the President that the people
will support him in whatever he will do, or will not do,
without appealing to their own reason or to anything
but their feelings towards him: his mind had been
so long used to unlimited applause that it could not
brook contradiction or even advice offered unasked.
To advice, when asked, he is very open.
I have long thought therefore it was best for the republican
interest to soothe him by flattery where they could approve
his measures and to be silent where they disapprove, that
they may not render him desperate as to their affections,
and entirely indifferent to their wishes; in short, to lie on
their oars while he remains at the helm, and let the bark
drift as his will and a superintending providence shall direct.
By his answer to the House of Representatives on the
subject of the French war, and also by private information,
it seems he is earnest that the war should be avoided,
and to have the credit of leaving us in full peace.
I think then it is best to leave him to his own movements,
and not to risk the ruffling them by what he might deem
an improper interference with the constituted authorities.
The rather too because we do not hear of any
movement in any other quarter concurrent with
what you suggest, and because it would scarcely
reach him before his departure from office.
As to the President elect, there is reason to believe
that he (Mr. Adams I mean) is detached from Hamilton,
and there is a possibility he may swerve
from his politics in a greater or less degree.
Should the British faction attempt to urge him to
the war by addresses of support with life and fortune,
as may happen, it would then be advisable to
counteract their endeavors by dissuasive addresses.
At this moment therefore, and at our distance
from the scene of information and influence,
I should think it most advisable to be silent
till we see what turn the new administration will take.2
Thomas Jefferson wrote at least eleven letters in January 1797
including five to James Madison.
On January 22 he wrote again to him,
As to duty, the Constitution will know me only
as the member of a legislative body: and its principle
is that of a separation of legislative, executive
and judiciary functions, except in cases specified.
If this principle be not expressed in direct terms,
yet it is clearly the spirit of the constitution,
and it ought to be so commented and acted on
by every friend to free government.
I sincerely deplore the situation of our affairs with France.
War with them and consequent alliance with Great Britain
will completely compass the object of the Executive
from the commencement of the war between France
and England, taken up by some of them
from that moment, by others more latterly.
I still however hope it will be avoided.
I do not believe Mr. Adams wishes war with France.
Nor do I believe he will truckle to England
as servilely as has been done.
If he assumes this front at once and shows that
he means to attend to self-respect & national dignity
with both the nations, perhaps the depredations of
both on our commerce may be amicably arrested.
I think he should begin first with those who first began with
us, and by an example on them acquire a right to redemand
the respect from which the other party has departed.3
Also on the 22nd Jefferson wrote to his mentor George Wythe.
It seems probable that I shall be called on
to preside in a legislative chamber.
It is now so long since I have acted in the
legislative line that I am entirely rusty
in the Parliamentary rules of procedure.
I know they have been more studied and
are better known by you than by any man
in America perhaps by any man living.
I am in hopes that while enquiring into
the subject you made notes on it.
If any such remain in your hands,
however informal, in books or in scraps of paper,
and you will be so good as to trust me with them
a little while, they shall be most faithfully returned.4
Jefferson would write A Manual of Parliamentary Practice
for the Use of the Senate of the United States that would be
published on 27 February 1801, and it is still being
partly used by the House of Representatives.
The US Senate published a special edition in 1993.
On 3 March 1797 Thomas Jefferson became the
president of the American Philosophical Society.
He met with President-elect John Adams in Philadelphia and then
was inaugurated as Vice President in the Senate on 4 March 1797
before the inauguration of John Adams as President.
Vice President Jefferson only had to fulfill two requirements.
He was to preside as President of the Senate during its sessions,
and he was to vote only when there was a tie.
On March 6 Adams asked Jefferson if he would
persuade James Madison to go to France.
Madison, who had not run for re-election in the House, declined to go,
and Jefferson reported later that Adams never
consulted him again on government measures.
Party conflicts were made worse by Alexander Hamilton.
Jefferson had been paid $3,500 a year as Secretary of State,
and as Vice President his salary was $5,000.
Jefferson went home to Monticello and then returned
for a special session of the Congress on May 11.
Vice President Jefferson wrote in this letter about neutrality and
independence on 13 May 1797 to Elbridge Gerry, a friend of John Adams:
Your favor of the 4th inst. came to hand yesterday.
That of the 4th of April with the one
for Monroe has never been received.
The first of the 27th of March did not reach me till April 21
when I was within a few days of setting out for this place,
and I put off acknowledging it till I should come here.
I entirely commend your dispositions towards Mr. Adams,
knowing his worth as intimately, and esteeming it as much,
as any one, and acknowledging the preference of his claims,
if any I could have had, to the high office conferred on him.
But in truth I had neither claims nor wishes on the subject,
though I know it will be difficult to obtain belief of this.
When I retired from this place and the office
of Secretary of state, it was in the firmest
contemplation of never more returning here.
There had indeed been suggestions
in the public papers that I was looking
towards a succession to the President’s chair.
But feeling a consciousness of their falsehood,
and observing that the suggestions came from hostile
quarters, I considered them as intended merely
to excite public odium against me.
I never in my life exchanged a word with any person
on the subject till I found my name brought forward
generally in competition with that of Mr. Adams.
Those with whom I then communicated could say,
if it were necessary, whether I met the call with desire or
even with a ready acquiescence, and whether from the
moment of my first acquiescence I did not devoutly pray
that the very thing might happen which has happened.
The second office of this government is honorable and easy.
The first is but a splendid misery.
You express apprehensions that stratagems
will be used to produce a misunderstanding
between the President and myself.
Though not a word having this tendency has ever been
hazarded to me by any one, yet I consider as a certainty
that nothing will be left untried to alienate him from me.
These machinations will proceed from the
Hamiltonians by whom he is surrounded, and
who are only a little less hostile to him than to me.
It cannot but damp the pleasure of cordiality
when we suspect that it is suspected.
I cannot help fearing that it is impossible for Mr. Adams
to believe that the state of my mind is what it really is;
that he may think I view him as an obstacle in my way.
I have no supernatural power to impress truth
on the mind of another, nor he any to discover
that the estimate which he may form on a just view
of the human mind as generally constituted, may not
be just in its application to a special Constitution.
This may be a source of private uneasiness to us.
I honestly confess that it is so to me at this time.
But neither of us are capable of letting it
have effect on our public duties.
Those who may endeavor to separate us,
are probably excited by the fear that
I might have influence on the executive councils.
But when they shall know that I consider my office as
constitutionally confined to legislative functions, and that I
could not take any part whatever in executive consultations,
even were it proposed, their fears may perhaps subside,
and their object be found not worth a machination.
I do sincerely wish with you that we could
take our stand on a ground perfectly neutral
and independent towards all nations.
It has been my constant object through public life;
and with respect to the English and French particularly,
I have too often expressed to the former my wishes, and
made to them propositions verbally and in writing, officially
and privately, to official and private characters, for them to
doubt of my views, if they would be content with equality.
Of this they are in possession of several written
and formal proofs in my own handwriting.
But they have wished a monopoly
of commerce and influence with us.
And they have in fact obtained it.
When we take notice that theirs is the workshop to which
we go for all we want, that with them center either
immediately or ultimately all the labors of our hands and
lands, that to them belongs either openly or secretly the
great mass of our navigation, that even the factorage of
their affairs here is kept to themselves by factitious
citizenships, that these foreign and false citizens now
constitute the great body of what are called our merchants,
fill our seaports, are planted in every little town and district
of the interior country, sway everything in the former place
by their own votes and those of their dependents, in the
latter by their insinuations and the influence of their ledgers,
that they are advancing fast to a monopoly of our banks and
public funds, and thereby placing our public finances under
their control, that they have in their alliance the most
influential characters in and out of office, when they have
shown that by all these bearings on the different branches
of the government they can force it to proceed in any
direction they dictate, and bend the interests of this country
entirely to the will of another, when all this I say is
attended to, it is impossible for us to say we stand
on independent ground, impossible for a free mind not to
see and to groan under the bondage in which it is bound.
If anything after this could excite surprise, it would be that
they have been able so far to throw dust into the eyes
of our own citizens as to fix on those who wish merely
to recover self-government the charge of sub-serving one
foreign influence, because they resist submission to another.
But they possess our printing presses,
a powerful engine in their government of us.
At this very moment they would have drawn
us into war on the side of England had it
not been for the failure of her bank.
Such was their open and loud cry and
that of their gazettes till this event.
After plunging us in all the broils of the European nations,
there would remain but one act to close our tragedy,
that is, to break up our union: and even this
they have ventured seriously and solemnly to propose
and maintain by argument, in a Connecticut paper.
I have been happy however in believing from the stifling of
this effort that that dose was found too strong, and excited
as much repugnance there as it did horror in other parts of
our country, and that whatever follies we may be led into as
to foreign nations, we shall never give up our union, the last
anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this
heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators.
Much as I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge
of mankind, and anxiously as I wish to keep out of the
broils of Europe, I would yet go with my brethren
into these rather than separate from them.
But I hope we may still keep clear of them,
notwithstanding our present thraldom, and that time may
be given us to reflect on the awful crisis we have passed
through, and to find some means of shielding ourselves
in future from foreign influence, commercial, political,
or in whatever other form it may be attempted.
I can scarcely withhold myself from joining
in the wish of Silas Deane that there were an
ocean of fire between us and the old world.
A perfect confidence that you are as much attached to
peace and union as myself, that you equally prize
independence of all nations and the blessings of self
government, has induced me freely to unbosom myself to
you, and let you see the light in which I have viewed what
has been passing among us from the beginning of this war.
And I shall be happy at all times in an intercommunication
of sentiments with you, believing that the dispositions
of the different parts of our country have been
considerably misrepresented and misunderstood
in each part as to the other, and that nothing but
good can result from an exchange of opinions and
information between those whose circumstances and
morals admit no doubt of the integrity of their views.5
The roles of Jefferson and Madison reversed as Madison withdrew
to Montpelier and was informed by Jefferson
who was presiding over the US Senate.
Jefferson wrote to Madison on May 18.
I was informed on my arrival here that General Pinckney’s
dispatches had on their first receipt excited in the
administration a great deal of passion: that councils were
held from day to day, and their ill temper fixed at length
in war; that under this impression Congress was called:
that the tone of the party in general became high, and so
continued till the news of the failure of the bank of England.
This first gave it a check & a great one,
& they have been cooling down ever since.
The most intemperate only still asking permission to arm
their vessels for their own defense, while the more prudent
disapprove of putting it in the power of their brethren
& leaving to their discretion to begin the war for us.
The impression was too that the executive
had for some time been repenting that they
had called us & wished the measure undone.
All the members from North as well as South
concurred in attesting that negotiation or anything
rather than war was the wish of their constituents.
What was our surprise then at receiving the speech
which will come to you by this post.
I need make no observations to you on it.
I believe there was not a member of either house,
out of the secret, who was not much disappointed.
However some had been prepared.
The spirit of supporting the Executive was immediately
given out in the lower house & is working there.
The Senate admits of no fermentation.
Tracy, Laurence & Livermore were appointed
to draw an answer for them, Venable, Freeman,
Rutledge, Griswald & 5 for the representatives.
The former will be reported today &
will be in time to be enclosed: the other
not till tomorrow when the post will be gone.
We hope this last will be in general terms,
but this is not certain, a majority as is believed
(of the committee) being for arming the merchantmen,
finishing the frigates, fortifying harbors, & making all
other military preparations as an aid to negotiation.
How the majority of the house will be is very doubtful.
If all were here, it is thought it would be decidedly pacific,
but all are not here & will not be here.
The division on the choice of a clerk
was 41 for Condy, 40 for Beckley.
Besides the loss of the ablest clerk in the US & the outrage
committed on the absent members, prevented by the
suddenness of the call & their distance from being here
on the 1st day of the session, it excites a fear that the
republican interest has lost by the new changes.
It is said that three from Virginia
separate from their brethren.
The hope however is that as the Antirepublicans
take the high ground of war, and their opponents are
for everything moderate, that the most moderate of those
who came under contrary dispositions will join them.
Langdon tells me there is a considerable change
working in the minds of the people to the Eastward:
that the idea that they have been deceived begins
to gain ground, and that were the elections to be now
made, their result would be considerably different.
This however is doubted & denied by others.
France has asked of Holland to send away
our minister from them & to treat our commerce
on the plan of their late decree.
The Batavian government answered after due consideration
that their commerce with us was now their chief commerce,
that their money was in our funds, that if they
broke off correspondence with us they should be
without resources for themselves, for their own public
& for France & therefore declined doing it.
France acquiesced.
I have this from the President who had it
from his son still at the Hague.
I presume that France has made
the same application to Spain.
For I know that Spain has memorialized our
Executive against the effect of the British treaty,
as to the articles concerning neutral bottoms,
contraband, & the Mississippi, has been pressing
for an answer & has not yet been able to obtain one.
It does not seem candid to have kept out of sight in the
speech this discontent of Spain which is strongly & seriously
pronounced & to have thereby left it to be imagined that
France is the only power of whom we are in danger.
The failure of the bank of England, & the fear of having a
paper tender there has stopped buying bills of exchange.
Specie is raked up from all quarters & remitted for payments
at a disadvantage from risks &c of 20 per cent.
The bankruptcies here have been immense.
I heard a sensible man well acquainted with them
conjecture that the aggregate of the clear losses
on all these added together in all the states
would be not less than 10 millions of Dollars.
A heavy tax indeed, to which are to be added
the maritime spoliations, and this tax falling
on only a particular description of citizens.
Bills of lading are arrived to a merchant for
goods shipped from Bordeaux for this place
in a vessel in which Monroe is coming passenger.
We hope hourly therefore to receive him.
Innes is arrived & that board going to work.6
On 29 May 1797 Jefferson wrote this letter about peace and trade
to the diplomat Thomas Pinckney, whom Jefferson
had defeated for the Vice Presidency.
I received from you, before you left England,
a letter enclosing one from the Prince of Parma.
As I learned soon after that you were shortly to return
to America, I concluded to join my acknowledgements
of it with my congratulations on your arrival; and both
have been delayed by a blamable spirit of procrastination
forever suggesting to our indolence that we need
not do today what may be done tomorrow.
Accept them now in the sincerity of my heart.
It is but lately I have answered the Prince’s letter.
It required some time to establish arrangements
which might affect his purpose; and I wished also
to forward a particular article or two of curiosity.
You have found on your return a higher style of
political difference than you had left here.
I fear this is inseparable from the different
constitutions of the human mind, and that degree of
freedom which permits unrestrained expression.
Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy
of despotism: but still it is a great evil, and it would be
as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher
to exclude its influence if possible from social life.
The good are rare enough at best.
There is no reason to subdivide them by artificial lines.
But whether we shall ever be able so far to perfect the
principles of society as that political opinions shall in its
intercourse be as inoffensive as those of philosophy;
mechanics or any others may well be doubted.
Foreign influence is the present and just object of
public hue and cry and, as often happens the
most guilty are foremost and loudest in the cry.
If those who are truly independent can so trim our vessel
as to beat through the waves now agitating us, they
will merit a glory the greater as it seems less possible.
When I contemplate the spirit which is driving us on here,
and that beyond the water which will view us but
as a mouthful the more, I have little hope of peace.
I anticipate the burning of our seaports,
havoc of our frontiers, household insurgency,
with a long train of etceteras which it is enough
for a man to have met once in his life.
The exchange which is to give us new neighbors
in Louisiana (probably the present French armies
when disbanded) has opened us to combinations
of enemies on that side where we are most vulnerable.
War is not the best engine for us to resort to.
Nature has given us one in our commerce which, if properly
managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the
interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice.
If the commercial regulations had been adopted which
our legislature were at one time proposing, we should
at this moment have been standing on such an eminence
of safety and respect as ages can never recover.
But having wandered from that, our object should
now be to get back with as little loss as possible;
and when peace shall be restored to the world,
endeavor so to form our commercial regulations, as that
justice from other nations shall be their mechanical result.
I am very happy to assure you that the conduct
of General Pinckney has met universal approbation.
It was marked with that coolness, dignity
and good sense which we expected from him.
I am told the French government had taken up
an unhappy idea that Monroe was recalled for
the candor of his conduct in what related to
the British treaty, and that General Pinckney was
sent as having other dispositions towards them.
I learn further that some of their well-informed citizens
here are setting them right as to General Pinckney’s
disposition, so well known to have been just towards them;
and I sincerely hope not only that he may be employed
as envoy extraordinary to them, but that their minds
will be better prepared to receive him.
I candidly acknowledge however that
I do not think the speech and addresses
of Congress as conciliatory as the preceding
irritations on both sides would have rendered wise.
I shall be happy to hear from you at all times,
to make myself useful to you whenever
opportunity offers, and to give every proof of
the sincerity of the sentiments of esteem & respect.7
On 1 June 1797 Jefferson sent Madison more political news.
I wrote you on the 18th of May.
The address of the Senate was soon after that.
The first draught was responsive
to the speech and higher toned.
Mr. Henry arrived the day it was reported.
The addressers had not as yet their strength around them.
They listened therefore to his objections, recommitted
the paper, added him and Tazewell to the committee,
and it was reported with considerable alterations.
But one great attack was made on it, which was
to strike out the clause approving everything
heretofore done by the Executive.
The clause was retained by a majority of four.
They received a new accession of members, held a Caucus,
took up all the points recommended in the speech
except the raising money, agreed the lists of every
committee, and on Monday passed the resolutions and
appointed the committees by a uniform vote of 17 to 11.
(Mr. Henry was accidentally absent, Ross not then come.)
Yesterday they took up the nomination of J. Q. Adams
to Berlin which had been objected to as extending
our diplomatic establishment.
It was approved by 18 to 11.
(Mr. Tatnall accidentally absent.)
From these proceedings we are able to see
that 18 on the one side and 10 on the other,
with two wavering votes will decide every question.
Schuyler is too ill to come this session,
and Gunn is not yet come.
Pinckney (the General), John Marshall and Dana
are nominated envoys extraordinary to France.
Charles Lee consulted a member from Virginia
to know whether Marshall would be agreeable.
He named you as more likely to give satisfaction.
The answer was “nobody of Mr. Madison’s
way of thinking will be appointed.”
The Representatives have not yet got through their address.
An amendment of Mr. Nicholas’s which you will have seen
in the papers was lost by a division of 46 to 52.
A clause by Mr. Dayton expressing a wish that
France might be put on an equal footing with
other nations was inserted by 52 against 47.
This vote is most worthy of notice, because the
moderation and justice of the proposition being
unquestionable, it shows that there are 47 decided
to go all lengths to prevent accommodation.
No other members are expected.
The absent are two from Massachusetts (not elected), one
from Tennessee (not elected), Benson from South Carolina
who never attends and Burgess of North Carolina.
They have received a new orator
from the district of Mr. Ames.
He is the son of the Secretary of the Senate.
They have an accession from South Carolina also, that state
being exactly divided in the House of Representatives.
I learned the following facts, which give me real concern.
When the British treaty arrived at Charleston, a meeting
as you know was called, a committee of 15 appointed
of whom General Pinckney was one.
He did not attend.
They waited for him, sent for him: he treated the mission
with great hauteur and disapproved of their meddling.
In the course of subsequent altercations he declared
that his brother T. Pinckney approved of every article
of the treaty under the existing circumstances.
And since that time the politics of Charleston
have been assuming a different hue.
Young Rutledge joining Smith and Harper is
an ominous fact as to that whole interest.8
On 4 June 1797 Jefferson in a letter to Peregrine Fitzhugh asked
for information about the murder of Logan’s family.
You have perhaps seen an attack made by a
Mr. Luther Martin on the facts stated in the Notes on Virginia
relative to Logan, his speech, the fate of his family,
and the share Col. Cresap had in their extermination.
I do not mean to enter the field
in the newspapers with Mr. Martin.
But if any injury has been done Col. Cresap in the statement
I have given, it shall certainly be corrected
whenever another edition of that work shall be published.9
Jefferson in a letter on June 15 to Madison described the current danger of war.
My last was of the 8th inst. I had enclosed you separately
a paper giving an account of Buonaparte’s last great victory.
Since that we receive information that the preliminaries
of peace were signed between France & Austria.
Mr. Hammond will have arrived at Vienna
too late to influence the terms.
The victories lately obtained by the French
on the Rhine were as splendid as Buonaparte’s.
The mutiny on board the English fleet, though allayed
for the present has impressed that country with terror.
King has written letters to his friends
recommending a pacific conduct towards France
“notwithstanding the continuance of her injustices.”
Volney is convinced France will not make peace
with England, because it is such an opportunity
for sinking her as she never had & may not have again.
Buonaparte’s army would have
to march 700 miles to Calais.
Therefore it is imagined the armies of the Rhine
will be destined for England.
The Senate yesterday rejected on its 2nd reading
their own bill for raising 4 more companies
of light dragoons by a vote of 15 to 13.
Their cost would have been about $120,000 a year.
Today the bill for manning the frigates & buying 9 vessels
@ about $60,000 each comes to its 3rd reading.
Some flatter us we may throw it out.
The trial will be in time to mention the issue herein.
The bills for preventing our citizens from engaging in
armed vessels of either party, & for prohibiting exportation
of arms & ammunition have passed both houses.
The fortification bill is before the Representatives still.
It is thought by many that with all the mollifying clauses
they can give it, it may perhaps be thrown out.
They have a separate bill for manning the 3 frigates.
But its fate is uncertain.
These are probably the ultimate measures
which will be adopted, if even these be adopted.
The folly of the convocation of Congress at so
inconvenient a season & an expense of $60,000
is now palpable to everybody: or rather it is
palpable that war was the object, since that being
out of the question, it is evident there is nothing else.
However nothing less than the miraculous string of events
which have taken place, to wit the victories of the Rhine &
Italy, peace with Austria, bankruptcy of England, mutiny
in her fleet, and King’s writing letters recommending peace,
could have cooled the fury of the British faction.
Even all that will not prevent considerable efforts still
in both houses to show our teeth to France.10
Jefferson on 17 June 1797 wrote to Aaron Burr asking
him to organize Republicans in New York.
I have been much pleased to see
a dawn of change in the spirit of your State.
The late elections have indicated something,
which at a distance we do not understand.
However, what with the English influence in the lower,
and the Patroon influence in the upper part of your State,
I presume little is to be hoped.
If a prospect could be once opened upon us of the
penetration of truth into the eastern States;
if the people there, who are unquestionably republicans,
could discover that they have been duped into
the support of measures calculated to sap the very
foundations of republicanism, we might still hope for
salvation, and that it would come, as of old from the east.
But will that region ever awake
to the true state of things?11
On June 21 Jefferson in a letter to Elbridge Gerry
urged him to accept a diplomatic post.
It was with infinite joy to me that you were yesterday
announced to the Senate as envoy extraordinary jointly with
General Pinckney and Mr. Marshall to the French republic.
It gave me certain assurance that there
would be a preponderance in the mission
sincerely disposed to be at peace with
the French government and nation.
Peace is undoubtedly at present
the first object of our nation.
Interest and honor are also national considerations.
But interest, duly weighed, is in favor of peace
even at the expense of spoliations past and future;
and honor cannot now be an object.
The insults and injuries committed on us by both
the belligerent parties from the beginning of 1793
to this day and still continuing by both, cannot now
be wiped off by engaging in war with one of them.
As there is great reason to expect this is the last campaign
in Europe, it would certainly be better for us to rub through
this year as we have done through the four preceding ones,
and hope that on the restoration of peace we may be able
to establish some plan for our foreign connections more
likely to secure our peace, interest and honor in future.
Our countrymen have divided themselves by such strong
affections to the French and the English, that nothing will
secure us internally but a divorce from both nations.
And this must be the object of every real American,
and its attainment is practicable without much self-denial.
But for this, peace is necessary.
Be assured of this, my dear Sir, that if we engage in a war
during our present passions and our present weakness in
some quarters, that our union runs the greatest risk of not
coming out of that war in the shape in which it enters it.
My reliance for our preservation is in
your acceptance of this mission.
I know the tender circumstances
which will oppose themselves to it.
But its duration will be short, and its reward long.
You have it in your power by accepting and
determining the character of the mission to secure
the present peace and eternal union of your country.
If you decline on motives of private pain, a substitute
may be named who has enlisted his passions in
the present contest and by the preponderance of
his vote in the mission may entail on us calamities, your
share in which and your feelings will outweigh whatever
pain a temporary absence from your family could give you.
The sacrifice will be short,
the remorse would be never-ending.
Let me then, my dear Sir, conjure your acceptance,
and that you will by this act, seal the mission
with the confidence of all parties.
Your nomination has given a spring to hope,
which was dead before.
I leave this place in three days and therefore shall not
here have the pleasure of learning your determination.
But it will reach me in my retirement
and enrich the tranquility of that scene.
It will add to the proofs which have convinced me
that the man who loves his country on its own account,
and not merely for its trappings of interest or power,
can never be divorced from it; can never refuse
to come forward when he finds that she is engaged
in dangers which he has the means of warding off.
Make then an effort, my friend, to renounce your
domestic comforts for a few months, and reflect
that to be a good husband and a good father
at this moment you must be also a good citizen.12
The next day on June 22 Jefferson wrote this short letter to James Madison:
The Senate have this day rejected their own bill
for raising a provisional army of 15,000 men.
I think they will reject that for permitting
private vessels to arm.
The Representatives have thrown out the bill
of the Senate for raising artillery.
They yesterday put off one, forbidding our citizens
to serve in foreign vessels of war,
till November by a vote of 52 to 44.
This day they came to a resolution proposing to the Senate
to adjourn on Wednesday the 28th by a majority of 4.
Thus it is now perfectly understood that the convocation
of Congress is substantially condemned by their
several decisions that nothing is to be done.
I may be with you somewhat later than I had expected.
Say from the 1st. to the 4th.
Preliminaries of peace between Austria
and France are signed.
Dana has declined the mission to France.
Gerry is appointed in his room, being supported
in Senate by the republican vote.
6 nays of the opposite description.
No news of Monroe or Paine. Adieu à revoir.13
Jefferson in a letter to Edward Rutledge on 24 June 1797
wrote about the danger of a European war.
When Congress first met, the assemblage of facts
presented in the President’s speech with the multiplied
accounts of spoliations by the French West Indians
appeared by sundry votes on the address to incline a
majority to put themselves into a posture of war.
Under this influence the address was formed
and its spirit would probably have been
pursued by corresponding measures, had the
events of Europe been of an ordinary train.
But this has been so extraordinary that numbers have gone
over to those who from the first, feeling with sensibility the
French insults, as they had felt those of England before,
thought now, as they thought then, that war measures
should be avoided and those of peace pursued.
Their favorite engine on the former occasion
was commercial regulations in preference to negotiation,
to war preparations and increase of debt.
On the latter, as we have no commerce with France,
the restriction of which could press on them,
they wished for negotiation.
Those of the opposite sentiment had on the former
occasion preferred negotiation; but at the same time voted
for great war-preparations and increase of debt: now also
they were for negotiation, war preparation and debt.
The parties have in debate mutually charged each other
with inconsistency and with being governed by an
attachment to this or that of the belligerent nations,
rather than the dictates of reason and pure Americanism.
But in truth both have been consistent: the same men
having voted for war measures now who did before,
and the same against them now who did before.
The events of Europe coming to us in astonishing and rapid
succession, to wit, the public bankruptcy of England,
Buonaparte’s successes, the successes in the Rhine, the
Austrian peace, mutiny of the British fleet, Irish insurrection,
a demand of 43 millions for the current services of the year,
and above all the warning voice, as is said,
of Mr. King to abandon all thought of connection with
Great Britain, that she is going down irrecoverably
and will sink us also if we do not clear ourselves,
have brought over several to the pacific party, so as at
present to give majorities against all threatening measures.
They go on with their frigates and fortifications,
because they were going on with them before.
They direct 80,000 of their militia to hold
themselves in readiness for service.
But they reject the propositions to raise cavalry,
artillery and a provisional army, and to trust private ships
with arms in the present combustible state of things.
They believe the present is the last campaign
of Europe and wish to rub through this fragment
of a year as they have through the four preceding ones,
opposing patience to insult and interest to honor.
They will therefore immediately adjourn.
This is indeed a most humiliating state of things.
But it commenced in 93.
Causes have been adding to causes and effects
accumulating on effects from that time to this.
We had in 93 the most respectable
character in the universe.
What the neutral nations think of us now I know not:
but we are low indeed with the belligerents.
Their kicks and cuffs prove their contempt.
If we weather the present storm I hope we shall avail
ourselves of the calm of peace to place our foreign
connections under a new and different arrangement.
We must make the interest of every nation stand surety
for its justice, and their own loss to follow injury to us,
as effect follows its cause.
As to everything except commerce,
we ought to divorce ourselves from them all.
But this system would require time, temper, wisdom
and occasional sacrifices of interest: and how far all of
these will be ours, our children may see, but we shall not.
The passions are too high at present
to be cooled in our day.
You and I have formerly seen warm debates
and high political passions.
But gentlemen of different politics would then
speak to each other and separate the business
of the senate from that of society.
It is not so now.
Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the
streets to avoid meeting and turn their heads another way
lest they should be obliged to touch their hat.
This may do for young men
with whom passion is enjoyment.
But it is afflicting to peaceable minds.
Tranquility is the old man’s milk.14
Jefferson on 6 July 1797 left Philadelphia and returned to cooler Monticello.
In August he presented a 10-page petition to the Virginia House of Delegates
protesting that the judiciary was interfering
between representatives and their constituents.
He would return on December 12 to Philadelphia to preside in the Senate.
Jefferson in a letter to James Madison on 15 February 1798 wrote,
We have still not a word from our envoys.
This long silence (if they have been silent)
proves things are not going on very roughly.
If they have not been silent, it proves their information,
if made public, would check the disposition to arm.
I had flattered myself from the progress of the public
sentiment against arming that the same progress
had taken place in the legislature.
But I am assured by those who have better opportunities
of forming a good judgment, that if the question
against arming is carried at all, it will not be by
more than a majority of two: & particularly that
there will not be more than 4 votes against it
from the 5 eastern states or 5 votes at the utmost.
You will have perceived that Dayton
is gone over completely.
He expects to be appointed Secretary of War
in the room of McHenry who it is said will retire.
He has been told, as report goes, that they would not
have confidence enough in him to appoint him.
The desire of inspiring them with more seems
the only way to account for the eclat which
he chooses to give to his conversion.
You will have seen the disgusting proceedings
in the case of Lyon.
If they would have accepted even of a commitment
to the Serjeant it might have been had.
But to get rid of his vote was the most material object.
These proceedings must degrade the General government
and lead the people to lean more on their state
governments, which have been sunk
under the early popularity of the former.
This day the question of the jury in cases
of impeachment comes on.
There is no doubt how it will go.
The general division in the Senate is 22 and 10.
And under the probable prospect of what they will
forever be, I see nothing in the mode of proceeding by
impeachment, but the most formidable weapon for the
purposes of a dominant faction that ever was contrived.
It would be the most effectual one for getting
rid of any man whom they consider as dangerous
to their views, and I do not know that
we could count on one third on an emergency.
It depends then on the House of Representatives,
who are the impeachers: & there the majorities are of
1, 2 or 3 only & these sometimes one way & sometimes
another: in a question of pure party they have the majority,
& we do not know what circumstances may turn up
to increase that majority temporarily if not permanently.
I know of no solid purpose of punishment
which the courts of law are not equal to,
and history shows that in England, Impeachment
has been an engine more of passion than justice.15
On March 2 Jefferson wrote to Madison about
the concerns of American merchant ships.
The French appear busy in their preparations
for the invasion of England: nor is there any
appearance of movements on the part of
Russia & Prussia which might divert them from it.
The late birth-night has certainly sown tares
among the exclusive federals.
It has winnowed the grain from the chaff.
The sincerely Adamites did not go.
The Washingtonians went religiously
& took the secession of the others in high dudgeon.
The one sex threaten to desert the levees,
the other the evening-parties.
The whigs went in number to encourage the
idea that the birth-nights hitherto kept had been
for the General & not the President, and of course
that time would bring an end to them.
Goodhue, Tracy, Sedgwick &c. did not attend:
but the three Secretaries & Attorney General did.
We were surprised at the close of the last week
with a symptom of a disposition to repeal the stamp act.
Petitions for that purpose had come from
Rhode island & Virginia & had been committed
to rest with the Ways & Means.
Mr. Harper, their chairman, in order to enter
on the law for amending it, observed it would be
necessary first to put the petitions for repeal out of the way,
and moved an immediate decision on them.
The Rhode Islanders begged & prayed for a postponement,
that not expecting that question to be called up,
they were not at all prepared;
but Harper would show no mercy.
Not a moment’s delay should be allowed.
It was taken up, and on a question without debate
determined in favor of the petitions by a majority of 10.
Astonished & confounded, when an order to bring in
a bill for repeal was moved, they began in turn to beg
for time 3 weeks, one week, 3 days, 1 day.
Not a moment would be yielded.
They made three attempts for adjournment.
But the majorities appeared to grow.
It was decided by a majority of 16
that the bill should be brought in.
It was brought in the next day, & on the day after passed,
sent up to the Senate, who instantly sent it back
rejected by a silent vote of 15 to 12.
Rhode Island & New Hampshire voted
for the repeal in Senate.
The act will therefore go into operation July 1
but probably without amendments.
However I am persuaded it will be short-lived.
It has already excited great commotion
in Vermont and grumblings in Connecticut.
But they are so priest-ridden that nothing is to be expected
from them but the most bigoted passive obedience.
No news yet from our commissioners.
But their silence is admitted to augur peace.16
Jefferson on 21 March 1798 reported to Madison on voting for war.
The merchants, as before, continue a respectable
part of them, to wish to avoid arming.
The French decree operated on them as a sedative,
producing more alarm than resentment;
on the Representatives differently.
It excited indignation highly in the war-party,
though I do not know that it had added
any new friends to that side of the question.
We still hoped a majority of about 4;
but the insane message which you will see
in the public papers has had great effect.
Exultation on the one side & a certainty of victory;
while the other is petrified with astonishment.
Our Evans, though his soul is wrapt up in the
sentiments of this message, yet afraid to give
a vote openly for it, is going off tomorrow, as is said.
Those who count, say there are still 2 members
of the other side who will come over to that of peace.
If so, the numbers will be for war measures 52,
against them 53 if all are present except Evans.
The question is what is to be attempted,
supposing we have a majority.
I suggest two things.
1. As the President declares he has withdrawn
the Executive prohibition to arm,
the Congress should pass a Legislative one.
If that should fail in the Senate,
it would heap coals of fire on their head.
2. As to do nothing & to gain time is everything with us,
I propose that they shall come to a resolution
of adjournment “in order to go home &
consult their constituents on the great
crisis of American affairs now existing.”
Besides gaining time enough by this to allow the descent
on England to have its effect here as well as there,
it will be a means of exciting the whole body of
the people from the state of inattention in which they are,
it will require every member to call for the sense of his
district by petition or instruction, it will show the people
with which side of the house their safety as well as their
rights rest, by showing them which is for war & which
for peace, & their Representatives will return here
invigorated by the avowed support of the American people.
I do not know however whether this will be approved,
as there has been little consultation on the subject.
We see a new instance of the inefficacy
of Constitutional guards.
We had relied with great security on that provision which
requires two thirds of the Legislature to declare war.
But this is completely eluded by a majority’s
taking such measures as will be sure to produce war.
I wrote you in my last that an attempt was
to be made on that day in Senate to declare
an inexpediency to renew our treaties.
But the measure is put off under a hope
of it’s being attempted under better auspices.
To return to the subject of war, it is quite impossible,
when we consider all its existing circumstances,
to find any reason in its favor, resulting from views
either of interest or honor, & plausible enough
to impose even on the weakest mind; and especially when
it would be undertaken by a majority of one or two only.
Whatever then be our stock of charity or liberality,
we must resort to other views.
And those so well known to have been
entertained at Annapolis & afterwards at
the grand convention by a particular set of men,
present themselves as those alone which can
account for so extraordinary a degree of impetuosity.
Perhaps instead of what was then in contemplation a
separation of the union, which has been so much the topic
to the Eastward of late, may be the thing aimed at.17
On March 29 Jefferson wrote in a letter to Madison:
The measure I suggested in mine of adjourning
for consultation with their constituents was not
brought forward; but on Tuesday 3 resolutions
were moved which you will see in the public papers.
They were offered in committee to prevent their
being suppressed by the previous question,
& in the committee on the state of the Union
to put it out of their power by the rising of the
committee & not sitting again to get rid of them.
They were taken by surprise, not expecting to
be called to vote on such a proposition as “that it is
inexpedient to resort to war against the French republic.”
After spending the first day in seeking on every side
some hole to get out at, like an animal first put into a cage,
they gave up that resource.
Yesterday they came forward boldly
and openly combated the proposition.
Mr. Harper & Mr. Pinckney pronounced bitter Philippics
against France, selecting such circumstances & aggravations
as to give the worst picture they could present.
The latter on this, as in the affair of Lyon & Griswold,
went far beyond that moderation he has
on other occasions recommended.
We know not how it will go.
Some think the resolution will be lost, some that
it will be carried; but neither way by a majority
of more than 1 or 2 the decision of the Executive,
of two-thirds of the Senate & half the house of
representatives is too much for the other half of that house.
We therefore fear it will be borne down
and are under the most gloomy apprehensions.
In fact the question of war & peace
depends now on a toss of cross & pile.
If we could but gain this season, we should be saved.
The affairs of Europe would of themselves relieve us.
Besides this, there can be no doubt that a revolution
of opinion in Massachusetts & Connecticut is working.
Two whig presses have been set up in each of those states.
There has been for some days a rumor that a treaty of
alliance offensive & defensive with Great Britain is arrived.
Some circumstances have occasioned it to be listened to;
to wit, the arrival of Mr. King’s Secretary, which is affirmed,
the departure of Mr. Liston’s secretary which I know is
to take place on Wednesday next, the high tone of the
executive measures at the last & present session,
calculated to raise things to the unison of such a compact,
and supported so desperately in both houses
in opposition to the pacific wishes of the people
& at the risk of their approbation at the ensuing election.
Langdon yesterday in debate mentioned this current report.
Tracy in reply declared he knew of no such thing,
did not believe it, nor would be its advocate.
The Senate are proceeding on the plan
communicated in mine of March 15.
They are now passing a bill to purchase 12.
Vessels of from 14 to 22 guns, which with our frigates
are to be employed as convoys & guarda costas.
They are estimated, when manned
& fitted for sea, at 2 millions.
They have passed a bill for buying one or more founderies.
They are about bringing in a bill for regulating private
arming, and the defensive works in our harbors
have been proceeded on some time since.
An attempt has been made to get the Quakers
to come forward with a petition to aid with the
weight of their body the feeble band of peace.
They have with some effort got a petition
signed by a few of their society.
The main body of their society refuse it,
Mclay’s peace motion in the assembly of Pennsylvania
was rejected with a unanimity of the Quaker vote, and
it seems to be well understood that their attachment to
England is stronger than to their principles or their country.
The revolution war was a first proof of this.18
On 2 April 2 Jefferson wrote to Virginia’s Chief Justice Edmund Pendleton.
Letters received from France by a vessel just arrived,
concur in assuring us that as all the French measures
bear equally on the Swedes & Danes as on us,
so they have no more purpose of declaring war
against us than against them.
Besides this a wonderful stir is
commencing in the Eastern states.
The dirty business of Lyon & Griswold was of a nature
to fly through the newspapers both whig & tory,
& to excite the attention of all classes.
It of course carried to their attention at the same time
the debates out of which that affair sprung.
The subject of these debates was whether the
representatives of the people were to have no
check on the expenditure of the public money,
& the Executive to squander it at their will, leaving to the
Legislature only the drudgery of furnishing the money.
They begin to open their eyes on this to the Eastward
& to suspect they have been hoodwinked.
Two or three whig presses have set up
in Massachusetts & as many more in Connecticut.
The late war-message of the president
has added new alarm.
Town meetings have begun in Massachusetts
and are sending in their petitions & remonstrances
by great majorities against war-measures,
and these meetings are likely to spread.
The present debate as it gets abroad, will further show
them that it is their members who are for war measures.
It happens fortunately that these gentlemen
are obliged to bring themselves forward exactly
in time for the Eastern elections to Congress which
come on in the course of the ensuing summer.
We have therefore great reason to expect some favorable
changes in the representation from that quarter.
The same is counted on with confidence from Jersey,
Pennsylvania & Maryland; perhaps one or two also
in Virginia; so that after the next election the whigs
think themselves certain of a very strong majority
in the House of Representatives and though
against the other branches they can do nothing good,
yet they can hinder them from doing ill.
The only source of anxiety therefore is
to avoid war for the present moment.
If we can defeat the measures leading to that
during this session, so as to gain this summer,
time will be given as well for the tide of the public mind
to make itself felt, as for the operations of France
to have their effect in England as well as here.
If on the contrary, war is forced on, the tory interest
continues dominant, and to them alone must be left,
as they alone desire to ride on the whirlwind & direct the storm.
The present period therefore of two or three weeks is the
most eventful ever known since that of 1775 and will decide
whether the principles established by that contest are
to prevail or give way to those they subverted.19Jefferson in a letter to Madison on April 5 wrote,
You will see in Fenno two numbers
of a paper signed Marcellus.
They promise much mischief, and are ascribed
without any difference of opinion to Hamilton.
You must, my dear Sir, take up your pen
against this champion.
You know the ingenuity of his talents,
& there is not a person but yourself who can foil him.
For heaven’s sake then, take up your pen
and do not desert the public cause altogether.20
The next day Jefferson wrote to Madison again and concluded,
It is evident however on reflection that these papers
do not offer one motive the more for our going to war.
Yet such is their effect on the minds of wavering characters,
that I fear that to wipe off the imputation of being
French partisans, they will go over to the war-measures
so furiously pushed by the other party.
It seems indeed as if they were afraid they should
not be able to get into war till Great Britain will be blown up,
and the prudence of our countrymen from that
circumstance have influence enough to prevent it.
The most artful misrepresentations of the contents
of these papers were published yesterday, &
produced such a shock on the republican mind
as has never been seen since our independence.
We are to dread the effects of this dismay
till their fuller information.21
On 26 April 1798 Jefferson in a letter to Madison described
how the alien and sedition bill came about.
The bill for establishing a department of Secretary
of the navy was tried yesterday on its passage
to the 3rd reading & prevailed by 47 against 41.
It will be read the 3rd time today.
The Provisional army of 20,000 men
will meet some difficulty.
It would surely be rejected if our members were all here.
Giles, Clopton, Cabell, & Nicholas are gone,
& Clay goes tomorrow.
He received here news of the death of his wife.
Parker is completely gone over to the war-party.
In this state of things they will carry what they please.
One of the war-party in a fit of unguarded passion
declared some time ago they would pass
a citizen bill, an alien bill, & a sedition bill.
Accordingly some days ago Coit laid a motion on the table of
the House of Representatives for modifying the citizen law.
Their threats point at Gallatin, & it is believed
they will endeavor to reach him by this bill.
Yesterday Mr. Hillhouse laid on the table of the Senate
a motion for giving power to send away suspected aliens.
This is understood to be meant for Volney & Collot.
But it will not stop there
when it gets into a course of execution.
There is now only wanting, to accomplish the whole
declaration beforementioned, a sedition bill which
we shall certainly soon see proposed.
The object of that is the suppression of the whig presses.
Bache’s has been particularly named.
That paper & also Cary’s totter for want of subscriptions.
We should really exert ourselves to procure them,
for if these papers fall, republicanism
will be entirely brow-beaten.
Cary’s paper comes out 3 times a week @ 5 D.
The meeting of the people which
was called at New York did nothing.
It was found that the majority
would be against the Address.
They therefore chose to circulate it individually.
The committee of ways & means have voted a land tax.
An additional tax on salt will certainly be proposed
in the House, and probably prevail to some degree.
The stoppage of interest on the public debt will
also perhaps be proposed, but not with effect.
In the meantime that paper cannot be sold.
Hamilton is coming on as Senator from New York.
There has been so much contrivance & combination
in that as to show there is some great object in hand
Troup, the district judge of New York, resigns
towards the close of the session of their assembly.
The appointment of Mr. Hobart, then Senator,
to succeed Troup, is not made by the President
till after the assembly had risen.
Otherwise they would have chosen
the Senator in place of Hobart.
Jay then names Hamilton Senator, but not till
a day or two before his own election as Governor
was to come on, lest the unpopularity of the
nomination should be in time to affect his own election.
We shall see in what all this is to end;
but surely in something.
The popular movement in the eastern states is checked,
as we expected: and war addresses are showering in
from New Jersey & the great trading towns.
However, we still trust that a nearer view of war & a
land tax will oblige the great mass of the people to attend.
At present the war hawks talk of septembrizing,
deportation, and the examples for quelling sedition
set by the French Executive.
All the firmness of the human mind
is now in a state of requisition.22
On May 10 Jefferson wrote to Madison about a riot in Philadelphia.
Some of the young men who addressed the President
on Monday mounted the Black (or English) cockade.
The next day numbers of the people appeared with
the tricolored (or French) cockade: yesterday,
being the fast day, the black cockade again appeared.
On which the tricolor also showed itself.
A fray ensued; the light horse were called in, &
the city was so filled with confusion from about 6 to 10
o’clock last night that it was dangerous going out.23
On June 1 Jefferson wrote to John Taylor about the
current crisis and warned against breaking the Union.
The crisis with England, the public and authentic avowal
of sentiments hostile to the leading principles of our
Constitution, the prospect of a war, in which we shall
stand alone, land tax, stamp tax, increase of public debt, &c.
Be this as it may, in every free and deliberating society,
there must from the nature of man be opposite parties,
and violent dissensions and discords;
and one of these, for the most part, must prevail
over the other for a longer or shorter time.
Perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to
watch and delate to the people the proceedings of the other.
But if on a temporary superiority of the one party,
the other is to resort to a scission of the Union,
no federal government can ever exist.24
Jefferson in a letter to John Taylor on 4 June 1798
urged patience until they could win back their principles.
A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass
over, their spells dissolve, and the people recovering their
true sight, restore their government to its true principles.
It is true that in the meantime we are suffering
deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war,
& long oppressions of enormous public debt.
But who can say what would be the evils of
a scission and when & where they would end?
Better keep together as we are, haul off from Europe as
soon as we can & from all attachments to any portions of it,
and if we feel their power just sufficiently
to hoop us together, it will be the happiest
situation in which we can exist.
If the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must
have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an
opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost.
For this is a game where principles are the stake.25
On June 7 Jefferson discussed the alien bill in a letter to Madison.
The alien bill, when we had nearly got through it,
on the 2nd reading, (on a report from the committee
of the whole) was referred to a special committee
by a vote of its friends (12) against 11, who thought
it could be rejected on the question for the 3rd reading.
It is reported again, very much softened, and if the
proviso can be added to it, saving treaties, it will be less
objectionable than I thought it possible to have obtained.
Still it would place aliens not protected by treaties
under absolute government.
They have brought into the lower house a sedition bill,
which among other enormities, undertakes to make
printing certain matters criminal, though one of the
amendments to the Constitution has so expressly taken
religion, printing presses &c. out of their coercion.
Indeed this bill and the Alien bill both are so
palpably in the teeth of the Constitution as to
show they mean to pay no respect to it.
The citizen bill passed by the lower house
sleeps in a committee of the Senate.
In the meantime Callendar, a principal object of it,
has eluded it by getting himself made a citizen.
Volney is gone.
So is Dupont, the rejected Consul.
The bill suspending intercourse with the French dominions
will pass the Senate today with a small amendment.
The real object of this bill is to evade the
counter-irritations of the English, who under
the late orders for taking all vessels from French ports,
are now taking as many of our vessels as the French.
By forbidding our vessels to go to or from
French ports we remove the pabulum for these
violations of our rights by the English, undertaking
to do the work for them ourselves in another way.26
On 22 August 1798 Jefferson asserted
his principles in a letter to Samuel Smith.
I know my own principles to be pure,
and therefore am not ashamed of them.
On the contrary I wish them known,
& therefore willingly express them to everyone.
They are the same I have acted on from the year 1775
to this day, and are the same, I am sure, with those
of the great body of the American people.
I only wish the real principles of those
who censure mine were also known.
But warring against those of the people, the delusion
of the people is necessary to the dominant party.
I see the extent to which that delusion has been already
carried, and I see there is no length to which it may not
be pushed by a party in possession of the revenues
& the legal authorities of the US, for a short time indeed,
but yet long enough to admit much particular mischief.
There is no event therefore, however atrocious,
which may not be expected.
I have contemplated every event which the Maratists
of the day can perpetrate, and am prepared to meet
every one in such a way as shall not be derogatory
either to the public liberty or my own personal honor.
The letter writer says I am “for peace;
but it is only with France.”
He has told half the truth.
He would have told the whole if he had added England.
I am for peace with both countries.
I know that both of them have given, & are daily giving,
sufficient cause of war: that in defiance of the laws
of nations, they are every day trampling on the
rights of all the neutral powers, whenever they can
thereby do the least injury either to the other.
But as I view a peace between France & England the
ensuing winter to be certain, I have thought it would
have been better for us to have continued to bear
from France through the present summer, what we have
been bearing both from her & England these four years
and still continue to bear from England, and to have
required indemnification in the hour of peace,
when I verily believe it would have been yielded by both.
This seems to be the plan of the other neutral nations;
and whether this, or the commencing war on one of them,
as we have done, would have been wisest,
time & events must decide.
But I am quite at a loss on what ground the letter writer
can question the opinion that France had no intention of
making war on us, & was willing to treat with Mr. Gerry,
when we have this from Talleyrand’s letters
& from the written and verbal information of our envoys.
It is true then that, as with England we might of right
have chosen either peace or war, & have chosen peace;
and prudently in my opinion; so with France we might
also of right have chosen either peace or war,
& we have chosen war.
Whether the choice may be a popular one
in the other States I know not.
Here it certainly is not; & I have no doubt the whole
American people will rally ere long to the same
sentiment & rejudge those who at present think
they have all judgment in their own hands.
These observations will show you how far the
imputations in the paragraph sent me approach the truth.
Yet they are not intended for a newspaper.
At a very early period of my life I determined
never to put a sentence into any newspaper.
I have religiously adhered to the resolution through my life
and have great reason to be contented with it.
Were I to undertake to answer the calumnies
of the newspapers, it would be more than
all my own time & that of 20 aids could effect.
For while I should be answering one,
twenty new ones would be invented.
I have thought it better to trust to the justice of my
countrymen, that they would judge me by what
they see of my conduct on the stage where they have
placed me, & what they knew of me before the epoch
since which a particular party has supposed it might
answer some view of theirs to vilify me in the public eye.
Some, I know, will not reflect how apocryphal is
the testimony of enemies so palpably betraying
the views with which they give it.
But this is an injury to which duty requires everyone to
submit whom the public think proper to call into its councils.
I thank you, my dear Sir, for the interest
you have taken for me on this occasion.
Though I have made up my mind not to suffer calumny
to disturb my tranquility, yet I retain all my sensibilities
for the approbation of the good & just.
That is indeed the chief consolation for the hatred
of so many who, without the least personal knowledge,
& on the sacred evidence of Porcupine & Fenno alone,
cover me with their implacable hatred.
The only return I will ever make them will be to
do them all the good I can in spite of their teeth.27
Jefferson in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts
wrote nine Resolutions in October, and the Kentucky
legislature adopted them on 10 November 1798.
1. Resolved, That the several States composing the
United States of America are not united on the principle
of unlimited submission to their General Government;
but that by a compact under the style and title of a
Constitution for the United States and of amendments
thereto, they constituted a general Government for special
purposes,—delegated to that government certain definite
powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass
of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever
the General Government assumes undelegated powers,
its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force;
that to this compact each State acceded as a State
and is an integral party, its co-States forming
as to itself the other party: that the government created
by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of
the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would
have made its discretion and not the Constitution the
measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of
compact among powers having no common judge,
each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of
infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
2. Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States,
having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason,
counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United
States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas,
and offenses against the law of nations and no other crimes
whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle,
and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also
declared that “the powers not delegated to the States
are reserved to the States respectively or to the people;”
therefore the act of Congress passed on the 14th day of
July 1798 and entitled “An Act in addition to the act entitled
An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the
United States,” as also the act passed by them on the day
of June 1798 entitled “An Act to punish frauds committed on
the bank of the United States,” (and all their other acts
which assume to create, define, or punish crimes,
other than those so enumerated in the Constitution),
are altogether void and of no force; and that the power
to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved
and of right appertains solely and exclusively to the
respective States, each within its own territory.
3. Resolved, That it is true as a general principle and is
also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the
Constitution, that “the powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States
are reserved to the States respectively or to the people;”
and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of
speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right
remain and were reserved to the States or the people:
that thus was manifested their determination to retain to
themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness
of speech and of the press may be abridged without
lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses
which cannot be separated from their use should be
tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed.
And thus also they guarded against all abridgment by the
United States of the freedom of religious opinions and
exercises, and retained to themselves the right of
protecting the same, as this State by a law passed on
the general demand of its citizens had already protected
them from all human restraint or interference.
And that in addition to this general principle and express
declaration, another and more special provision has been
made by one of the amendments to the Constitution,
which expressly declares that “Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the
freedom of speech or of the press:” thereby guarding
in the same sentence and under the same words the
freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press: insomuch
that whatever violated either throws down the sanctuary
which covers the others, and that libels, falsehood,
and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion,
are withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals.
That therefore the act of Congress of the United States,
passed on the 14th day of July 1798 entitled
“An Act in addition to the act entitled An Act for the
punishment of certain crimes against the United States,”
which does abridge the freedom of the press,
is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.
4. Resolved, That alien friends are under the jurisdiction
and protection of the laws of the State wherein they are:
that no power over them has been delegated to the
United States nor prohibited to the individual States
distinct from their power over citizens.
And it being true as a general principle and one of the
amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that
“the powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively or to the people;” the act of the
Congress of the United States passed on the — day of July
1798 entitled “An Act concerning aliens,” which assumes
powers over alien friends, not delegated by the Constitution,
is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.
5. Resolved, That in addition to the general principle, as
well as the express declaration, that powers not delegated
are reserved, another and more special provision, inserted
in the Constitution from abundant caution, has declared that
“the migration or importation of such persons as any of the
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808;” that this
commonwealth does admit the migration of alien friends,
described as the subject of the said act concerning aliens:
that a provision against prohibiting their migration, is a
provision against all acts equivalent thereto, or it would be
nugatory: that to remove them when migrated is equivalent
to a prohibition of their migration, and is therefore contrary
to the said provision of the Constitution and void.
6. Resolved, That the imprisonment of a person under the
protection of the laws of this commonwealth, on his failure
to obey the simple order of the President to depart out of the
United States, as is undertaken by said act entitled
“An Act concerning aliens,” is contrary to the Constitution,
one amendment to which has provided that “no person shall
be deprived of liberty without due process of law;”
and that another having provided that “in all criminal
prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to public trial
by an impartial jury, to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the
witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for
obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance
of counsel for his defense,” the same act, undertaking to
authorize the President to remove a person out of the
United States, who is under the protection of the law,
on his own suspicion without accusation, without jury,
without public trial, without confrontation of the witnesses
against him, without hearing witnesses in his favor,
without defense, without counsel, is contrary to the
provision also of the Constitution, is therefore not law,
but utterly void and of no force: that transferring the power
of judging any person, who is under the protection of the
laws from the courts to the President of the United States,
as is undertaken by the same act concerning aliens,
is against the article of the Constitution which provides
that “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested
in courts, the judges of which shall hold their offices during
good behavior;” and the said act is void for that reason also.
And it is further to be noted, that this transfer of judiciary
power is to that magistrate of the General Government
who already possesses all the Executive,
and a negative on all legislative powers.
7. Resolved, That the construction applied by the
General Government (as is evidenced by sundry of their
proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the
United States which delegate to Congress a power
“to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, to pay
the debts and provide for the common defense and
general welfare of the United States,” and “to make all laws
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution
the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of
the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,”
goes to the destruction of all limits prescribed to their
power by the Constitution: that words meant by the
instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited
powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give
unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy
the whole residue of that instrument: that the proceedings
of the General Government under color of these articles,
will be a fit and necessary subject of revisal and correction,
at a time of greater tranquility, while those specified in
the preceding resolutions call for immediate redress.
8th. Resolved, That a committee of conference and
correspondence be appointed, who shall have in charge to
communicate the preceding resolutions to the legislatures of
the several States; to assure them that this commonwealth
continues in the same esteem of their friendship and union
which it has manifested from that moment at which a
common danger first suggested a common union: that it
considers union for specified national purposes and
particularly to those specified in their late federal compact
to be friendly to the peace, happiness and prosperity of all
the States: that faithful to that compact, according to the
plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and
acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for
its preservation: that it does also believe, that to take from
the States all the powers of self-government and transfer
them to a general and consolidated government without
regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly
agreed to in that compact is not for the peace, happiness
or prosperity of these States; and that therefore this
commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States
are to submit to undelegated and consequently unlimited
powers in no man or body of men on earth: that in cases of
an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the
General Government, being chosen by the people, a change
by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but
where powers are assumed which have not been delegated,
a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every
State has a natural right in cases not within the compact,
(casus non foederis), to nullify of their own authority all
assumptions of power by others within their limits: that
without this right they would be under the dominion,
absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this
right of judgment for them: that nevertheless this
commonwealth from motives of regard and respect for its
co-States has wished to communicate with them on the
subject: that with them alone it is proper to communicate,
they alone being parties to the compact and solely
authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers
exercised under it, Congress being not a party, but merely
the creature of the compact, and subject as to its
assumptions of power to the final judgment of those by
whom and for whose use itself and its powers were all
created and modified: that if the acts before specified should
stand, these conclusions would flow from them; that the
General Government may place any act they think proper
on the list of crimes, punish it themselves whether
enumerated or not enumerated by the Constitution as
cognizable by them: that they may transfer its cognizance to
the President or any other person, who may himself be the
accuser, counsel, judge and jury, whose suspicions may
be the evidence, his order the sentence, his officer the
executioner, and his breast the sole record of the transaction:
that a very numerous and valuable description
of the inhabitants of these States being by this precedent
reduced as outlaws to the absolute dominion of one man,
and the barrier of the Constitution thus swept away from
us all, no rampart now remains against the passions and
the powers of a majority in Congress to protect from
a like exportation, or other more grievous punishment,
the minority of the same body, the legislatures, judges,
governors, and counsellors of the States, nor their other
peaceable inhabitants, who may venture to reclaim the
constitutional rights and liberties of the States and people, or
who for other causes good or bad may be obnoxious to the
views or marked by the suspicions of the President or be
thought dangerous to his or their election or other interests,
public or personal: that the friendless alien has indeed been
selected as the safest subject of a first experiment;
but the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already
followed, for already has a sedition act marked him as its
prey: that these and successive acts of the same character,
unless arrested at the threshold, necessarily drive these
States into revolution and blood, and will furnish new
calumnies against republican government and new pretexts
for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be
governed but by a rod of iron: that it would be a dangerous
delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to
silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence
is everywhere the parent of despotism—free government
is founded in jealousy and not in confidence; it is jealousy and
not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions to bind
down those whom we are obliged to trust with power:
that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to
which and no further our confidence may go;
and let the honest advocate of confidence read
the alien and sedition acts, and say if the Constitution has
not been wise in fixing limits to the government it created,
and whether we should be wise in destroying those limits.
Let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny,
which the men of our choice have conferred on our
President, and the President of our choice has assented
to and accepted over the friendly strangers to whom
the mild spirit of our country and its laws have pledged
hospitality and protection: that the men of our choice
have more respected the bare suspicions of the President,
than the solid right of innocence, the claims of justification,
the sacred force of truth, and the forms
and substance of law and justice.
In questions of power then, let no more be heard of
confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief
by the chains of the Constitution.
That this commonwealth does therefore call on its co-States
for an expression of their sentiments on the acts concerning
aliens, and for the punishment of certain crimes herein
before specified, plainly declaring whether these acts
are or are not authorized by the federal compact.
And it doubts not that their sense will be so announced
as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited
government, whether general or particular.
And that the rights and liberties of their co-States
will be exposed to no dangers by remaining
embarked in a common bottom with their own.
That they will concur with this commonwealth in
considering the said acts as so palpably against the
Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration
that compact is not meant to be the measure of the
powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed
in the exercise over these States, of all powers whatsoever:
that they will view this as seizing the rights of the States,
and consolidating them in the hands of the General
Government with a power assumed to bind the States,
not merely as the cases made federal (casus foederis),
but in all cases whatsoever by laws made, not with their
consent, but by others against their consent: that this would
be to surrender the form of government we have chosen,
and live under one deriving its powers from its own will,
and not from our authority; and that the co-States,
recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal,
will concur in declaring these acts void, and of no force, and
will each take measures of its own for providing that neither
these acts, nor any others of the General Government not
plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution,
shall be exercised within their respective territories.
9th Resolved, That the said committee be authorized to
communicate by writing or personal conferences at
any times or places whatever with any person or persons
who may be appointed by any one or more co-States to
correspond or confer with them; and that they lay their
proceedings before the next session of Assembly.28
Notes
1. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1038-1039.
2. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VIII ed. Paul Leicester Ford, p. 265-267.
3. Ibid., p. 272-273.
4. Ibid., p. 274.
5. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1041-1044.
6. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VIII, p. 288-291.
7. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1044-1046.
8. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VIII, p. 295-297.
9. Ibid., p. 301.
10. Ibid., p. 306-308.
11. Ibid., p. 311-312.
12. Ibid., p. 313-315.
13. Ibid., p. 315-316.
14. Ibid., p. 316-319.
15. Ibid., p. 368-370.
16. Ibid., p. 378-380.
17. Ibid., p. 386-388.
18. Ibid., p. 391-393.
19. Ibid., p. 395-397
20. Ibid., p. 398.
21. Ibid., p. 403.
22. Ibid., p. 411-413.
23. Ibid., p. 418-419.
24. Ibid., p. 431.
25. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1050.
26. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VIII, p. 433-434.
27. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1053-1054.
28. Ibid., p. 449-456.
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