Thomas Jefferson was a delegate from Virginia in the
Confederation Congress from June 1782 to May 1784.
He had become acquainted with the Frenchman Chastellux
during his visit to America.
While serving in Congress at Annapolis, Jefferson wrote
this in a letter to Chastellux on 17 January 1784:
Dear Sir—Lt. Col. Franks being appointed to carry
to Paris one of the copies of our ratification of the
Definitive treaty, and being to depart in the instant
of his appointment furnishes me a hasty opportunity
of obtruding myself on your recollection.
Should this prove troublesome you must take the
blame as having exposed yourself to my esteem
by letting me become acquainted with your merit.
Our transactions on this side the water must now
have become uninteresting to the rest of the world.
We are busy however among ourselves endeavoring to get
our new governments into regular and concerted motion.
For this purpose I believe we shall find some
additions requisite to our Confederation.
As yet everything has gone smoothly since the war.
We are diverted with the European accounts of the
anarchy and opposition to government in America.
Nothing can be more untrue than these relations.
There was indeed some dissatisfaction in the army
at not being paid off before they were disbanded,
and a very trifling mutiny of 200 soldiers in Philadelphia.
On the latter occasion Congress left that place
disgusted with the pusillanimity of the government
and not from any want of security to their own persons.
The indignation which the other states felt at this
insult to their delegates has enlisted them more
warmly in support of Congress; and the people,
the legislature and the Executive themselves of
Pennsylvania have made the most satisfactory atonements.
Some people also of warm blood undertook to resolve
as committees for proscribing the refugees.
But they were few, scattered here and there
through the several states, were absolutely
unnoticed by those both in and out of power,
and never expressed an idea of not acquiescing
ultimately under the decisions of their governments.
The greatest difficulty we find is to get money from them.
The reason is not founded in their unwillingness,
but in their real inability.
You were a witness to the total destruction
of our commerce, devastation of our country,
and absence of the precious metals.
It cannot be expected that these should flow in
but through the channels of commerce, or that these
channels can be opened in the first instant of peace.
Time is requisite to avail ourselves of the
productions of the earth, and the first of these
will be applied to renew our stock of those
necessaries of which we had been totally exhausted.
But enough of America it’s politics and poverty.1
Jefferson on 1 February 1784 wrote this letter to the philosopher Richard Price,
who in England had supported the American Revolution by publishing in 1776 his book
Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government,
and the Justice and Policy of the War with America:
The copy of your Observations on the American Revolution
which you were so kind as to direct to me came
duly to hand, and I should sooner have acknowledged
the receipt of it but that I awaited a private convenience
for my letter, having experienced much delay and
uncertainty in the posts between this place and London.
I have read it with very great pleasure, as have
done many others to whom I have communicated it.
The spirit which it breathes is as affectionate
as the observations themselves are wise and just.
I have no doubt it will be reprinted in America
and produce much good there.
The want of power in the federal head was early perceived,
and foreseen to be the flaw in our constitution
which might endanger its destruction.
I have the pleasure to inform you that when
I left America in July the people were becoming
universally sensible of this, and a spirit to enlarge
the powers of Congress was becoming general.
Letters and other information recently received
show that this has continued to increase, and that
they are likely to remedy this evil effectually.
The happiness of governments like ours,
wherein the people are truly the mainspring,
is that they are never to be despaired of.
When an evil becomes so glaring as to strike them
generally, they arouse themselves, and it is redressed.
He only is then the popular man and can get into office
who shows the best dispositions to reform the evil.
This truth was obvious on several occasions during the
late war, and this character in our governments saved us.
Calamity was our best physician.
Since the peace it was observed that some nations of
Europe, counting on the weakness of Congress and the little
probability of a union in measure among the States, were
proposing to grasp at unequal advantages in our commerce.
The people are become sensible of this,
and you may be assured that this evil will be
immediately redressed, and redressed radically.
I doubt still whether in this moment they will
enlarge those powers in Congress which are
necessary to keep the peace among the States.
I think it possible that this may be suffered
to lie till some two States commit hostilities
on each other, but in that moment the hand of
the union will be lifted up and interposed, and the
people will themselves demand a general concession
to Congress of means to prevent similar mischiefs.
Our motto is truly “nil desperandum.”
The apprehensions you express of danger from the want
of powers in Congress, led me to note to you this
character in our governments, which, since the retreat
behind the Delaware, and the capture of Charlestown,
has kept my mind in perfect quiet as to the ultimate fate
of our union; and I am sure, from the spirit which
breathes through your book, that whatever promises
permanence to that will be a comfort to your mind.2
On 16 April 1784 Jefferson wrote to George Washington
about the institution of the Cincinnati for veteran officers,
and he described his concerns in this portion of the letter:
The objections of those opposed to the institution
shall be briefly sketched; you will readily fill them up.
They urge that it is against the Confederation;
against the letter of some of our constitutions;
against the spirit of them all, that the foundation,
on which all these are built, is the natural equality of man,
the denial of every preeminence but that annexed to legal
office, and particularly the denial of a preeminence by birth;
that however, in their present dispositions citizens might
decline accepting honorary instalments into the order,
a time may come when a change of dispositions would
render these flattering; when a well-directed distribution
of them might draw into the order all the men of talents,
of office and wealth; and in this case would probably
procure an engraftment into the government;
that in this they will be supported by their foreign members,
and the wishes and influence of foreign courts;
that experience has shown that the hereditary branches
of modern governments are the patrons of privilege and
prerogative, and not of the natural rights of the people,
whose oppressors they generally are; that besides these
evils which are remote, others may take place more
immediately; that a distinction is kept up between
the civil and military which it is for the happiness of both
to obliterate; that when the members assemble
they will be proposing to do something, and what that
something may be will depend on actual circumstances;
that being an organized body, under habits of subordination,
the first obstructions to enterprise will be already
surmounted; that the moderation and virtue of a single
character has probably prevented this revolution
from being closed as most others have been
by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish;
that he is not immortal, and his successor or some one
of his successors at the head of this institution
may adopt a more mistaken road to glory.3
On 1 March 1784 Thomas Jefferson submitted to the Confederate
Congress his “Report of a Plan of Government for the Western Territory,”
and they accepted that Virginia ceded the territory northwest of Ohio River.
On April 23 they passed Jefferson’s proposed Northwest Ordinance.
This is the report without the names and definitions
of the various portions of the Western Territory:
The Committee appointed to prepare a plan for the
temporary government of the Western territory
have agreed to the following resolutions:
Resolved that the territory ceded or to be ceded by
Individual states to the United States shall be formed into
distinct states, bounded in the following manner as nearly as
such cessions will admit, that is to say; Northwardly and
Southwardly by parallels of latitude so that each state shall
comprehend from South to North two degrees of latitude
beginning to count from the completion of thirty-one
degrees North of the Equator: but any territory Northwardly
of the 47th degree shall make part of the state next below.
And Eastwardly and Westwardly they shall be bounded,
those on the Mississippi by that river on one side and the
meridian of the lowest point of the rapids of Ohio on the
other; and those adjoining on the East by the same meridian
on their Western side, and on their Eastern by the meridian
of the Western cape of the mouth of the Great Kanhaway.
And the territory Eastward of this last meridian between the
Ohio, Lake Erie, and Pennsylvania shall be one state.
That the settlers within any of the said states shall, either
on their own petition, or on the order of Congress, receive
authority from them with appointments of time and place for
their free males of full age to meet together for the purpose
of establishing a temporary government, to adopt the
constitution and laws of any one of these states
so that such laws nevertheless shall be subject
to alteration by their ordinary legislature, and to erect,
subject to a like alteration, counties or townships
for the election of members for their legislature.
That such temporary government shall only continue
in force in any state until it shall have acquired
20,000 free inhabitants; when giving due proof
thereof to Congress, they shall receive from them
authority with appointments of time and place to call
a Convention of representatives to establish a
permanent constitution and government for themselves.
Provided that both the temporary
and permanent governments be established
on these principles as their basis.
1. That they shall forever remain a part of
the United states of America.
2. That in their persons, property and territory they shall be
subject to the government of the United States in Congress
assembled and to the Articles of Confederation in all those
cases in which the original states shall be so subject.
3. That they shall be subject to pay a part of the federal
debts contracted or to be contracted to be apportioned
on them by Congress according to the same common
rule and measure by which apportionments thereof
shall be made on the other states.
4. That their respective governments shall be
in republican forms and shall admit no person
to be a citizen who holds any hereditary title.
5. That after the year 1800 of the Christian era,
there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude
in any of the said states, otherwise than in punishment
of crimes, whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted to have been personally guilty.
That whensoever any of the said states shall have,
of free inhabitants, as many as shall then be in any
one the least numerous of the thirteen original states,
such state shall be admitted by its delegates
into the Congress of the United States on an
equal footing with the said original states:
after which the assent of two thirds of the
United States in Congress assembled shall be
requisite in all those cases wherein by the Confederation
the assent of nine states is now required.
Provided the consent of nine states to such admission
may be obtained according to the eleventh
of the articles of Confederation.
Until such admission by their delegates into Congress,
any of the said states after the establishment
of their temporary government shall have authority
to keep a sitting member in Congress,
with a right of debating, but not of voting….
That the preceding articles shall be formed into a
Charter of Compact shall be duly executed by the
President of the United States in Congress assembled
under his hand and the seal of the United States,
shall be promulgated and shall stand as fundamental
constitutions between the thirteen original states, and those
now newly described, unalterable but by the joint consent of
the U. S. in Congress assembled and of the particular state
within which such alteration is proposed to be made.4
Jefferson in a letter to George Washington on 15 March 1784
wrote about commerce in the western country:
Since my last, nothing new has occurred.
I suppose the crippled state of Congress is not new to you.
We have only 9 states present, 8 of whom are represented
by two members each, and of course, on all great questions
not only a unanimity of states but of members is necessary,
a unanimity which never can be obtained on a matter of any
importance, the consequence is that we are wasting our
time & labor in vain efforts to do business, nothing less than
the presence of 13 states represented by an odd number of
delegates will enable us to get forward a single capital point,
the deed for the cession of Western territory by Virginia was
executed & accepted on the 1st instant.
I hope our country will of herself determine to cede still
further to the meridian of the mouth of the Great Kanawha.
Further she cannot govern; so far is necessary for her own
well being, the reasons which call for this boundary
(which will retain all the waters of the Kanawha) are
1. that within that are our lead mines.
2. this river rising in North Carolina traverses our whole
latitude and offers to every part of it a channel for
navigation & commerce to the Western country:
but 3. it is a channel which can not be opened but at
immense expense and with every facility which
an absolute power over both shores will give.
4. this river & its waters forms a band of good land
passing along our whole frontier, and forming
on it a barrier which will be strongly seated.
5. for 180 miles beyond these waters is a mountainous
barren which can never be inhabited & will of course
form a safe separation between us & any other state.
6. this tract of country lies more convenient to receive its
government from Virginia than from any other state.
7. It will preserve to us all the upper parts of Yohoganey
& Cheat rivers within which much will be done to open
these which are the true doors to the Western commerce.
The union of this navigation with that of the Potomac
is a subject on which I mentioned that
I would take the liberty of writing to you.
I am sure its value and practicability
are both well known to you.
This is the moment however for seizing it
if ever we mean to have it.
All the world is becoming commercial; was it practicable
to keep our new empire separated from them we might
indulge ourselves in speculating whether commerce
contributes to the happiness of mankind, but we cannot
separate ourselves from them, our citizens have had too full
a taste of the comforts furnished by the arts & manufactures
to be debarred the use of them; we must then in our own
defense endeavor to share as large a portion as we can
of this modern source of wealth & power, that offered
to us from the Western country is under a competition
between the Hudson, the Potomac & the Mississippi itself,
down the last will pass all heavy commodities, but the
navigation through the gulf of Mexico is so dangerous,
& that up the Mississippi so difficult & tedious, that
it is not probable that European merchandize will return
through that channel; it is most likely that flour, lumber
& other heavy articles will be floated on rafts which will be
themselves an article of sale as well as their loading,
the navigators returning by land or in light batteaux.
There will therefore be a rivalship between the Hudson
& Potomac for the residue of the commerce of all the
country westward of Lake Erie, on the waters of the lakes,
of the Ohio & upper parts of the Mississippi.
To go to New York, that part of the trade which comes from
the lakes or their waters must first be brought into Lake
Erie, so also must that which comes from the waters of the
Mississippi, and of course must cross at some portage into
the waters of the lakes, when it shall have entered
Lake Erie, it must coast along its Southern shore on account
of the number & excellence of its harbors, the Northern,
though shortest, having few harbors, & these unsafe,
having reached Cayahoga to proceed on to New York
will be 970 miles from thence & five portages, whereas
it is but 430 miles to Alexandria, if it turns into the Cayahoga
& passes through that, Big beaver, Ohio, Yohoganey
(or Monongalia & Cheat) & Potomac, & there are but two
portages for the trade of the Ohio or that which shall come
into it from its own waters or the Mississippi;
it is nearer to Alexandria than to New York by 730 miles
and is interrupted by one portage only.
Nature then has declared in favor of the Potomac,
and through that channel offers to pour into our lap
the whole commerce of the Western world,
but unfortunately the channel by the Hudson is
already open & known in practice; ours is still
to be opened; this is the moment in which the trade
of the West will begin to get into motion and to take its
direction; it behooves us then to open our doors to it.
I have lately pressed this subject on my friends in the
General assembly, proposing to them to endeavor to have
a tax laid which shall bring into a separate chest from five
to ten thousand pounds a year, to be employed first
in opening the upper waters of the Ohio & Potomac,
where a little money & time will do a great deal,
leaving the great falls for the last part of the work.
To remove the idea of partiality I have suggested the
propriety & justice of continuing this fund till all the rivers
shall be cleared successively, but a most powerful objection
always arises to propositions of this kind;
it is that public undertakings are carelessly managed
and much money spent to little purpose, to obviate
this objection is the purpose of my giving you the
trouble of this discussion; you have retired from public life,
you have weighed this determination
& it would be impertinence in me to touch it.
But would the superintendence of this work break in
too much on the sweets of retirement & repose?
If they would, I stop here, your future time
& wishes are sacred in my eye.
If it would be only a dignified amusement to you,
what a monument of your retirement would it be!
It is one which would follow that of your public life
and bespeak it the work of the same great hand.
I am confident that would you either alone or jointly
with any persons you think proper be willing to direct
this business, it would remove the only objection
the weight of which I apprehend, though the tax
should not come in till the fall, its proceeds should be
anticipated by borrowing from some other fund to enable
the work to be begun this summer, when you view me
as not owning nor ever having a prospect of owning one
inch of land on any water either of the Potomac or Ohio, it
will tend to apologize for the trouble I have given you of this
long letter, by showing that my zeal in this business is public
& pure, the best atonement for the time I have occupied
you will be not to add to it longer than while I assure you of
the sincerity & esteem with which I have the honor to be
Dear Sir Your most obedient & most humble servant.
P. S. the hurry of time in my former letter
prevented my thanking you for your polite
& friendly invitation to Mount Vernon.
I shall certainly pay my respects there
to Mrs. Washington & yourself with great
pleasure whenever it shall be in my power.5
Between March and May in 1784 Jefferson worked on his
Notes on Coinage proposing the first decimal system of
currency based on tens and the dollar.
These would be a mill .001, a cent .01, a dime .1, a dollar 1., and an eagle 10.
The Confederation of the United States and its Congress on 7 May 1784
appointed Thomas Jefferson as a Minister Plenipotentiary to France
to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in negotiating at Paris.
On his way to Boston he planned to gain knowledge
from inspection and inquiries in the Eastern states.
He embarked with his daughter Martha from Boston on July 5.
They arrived in Paris on August 6, and he met with Franklin on the 10th.
Ben Franklin admired Jefferson and had requested him three times.
Jefferson was happy to meet his friend John Adams, his wife Abigail
their daughter Nabby, and their 17-year-old son
John Quincy Adams who also admired Jefferson.
Congress cut the salaries of the commissioners,
Franklin’s by $2,000, and Jefferson went $4,000 into debt.
Their first report to Congress was sent on November 11, and on that day
Jefferson wrote long letters to James Madison and to James Monroe.
Jefferson eventually succeeded Franklin
as the minister to France on 2 May 1785.
He met with the French Foreign Minister Vergennes on the 14th,
and on the 17th Jefferson presented his letter of credence
to King Louis XVI at a private audience.
On June 17 he wrote to John Jay about this and the situation in Europe:
We have reason to expect that Europe
will enjoy peace another year.
The negotiations between the Emperor and United
Netherlands have been spun out to an unexpected length,
but there seems little doubt but they will end in peace.
Whether the exchange projected between the Emperor
and Elector of Bavaria, or the pretensions of the
former in his line of demarcation with the Ottoman
port will produce war is yet uncertain.
If either of them does, this country will probably
take part in it, to prevent a dangerous accession
of power to the house of Austria.
The zeal with which they have appeared to negotiate
a peace between Holland and the empire seems to
prove that they do not apprehend being engaged
in war against the emperor for any other power;
because if they had such an apprehension they would not
wish to deprive themselves of the assistance of the Dutch:
and their opinion on this subject is better evidence than
the details we get from the newspapers, and must weigh
against the affected delays of the Porte as to the line
of demarcation, the change in their ministry, their
preparations for war and other symptoms of like aspect.
This question is not altogether uninteresting to us.
Should this country be involved in a continental war
while differences are existing between us and Great Britain,
the latter might carry less moderation
into the negotiations for settling them.6
On May 23 Adams and his family left Paris and
went to London for his work there as ambassador.
Franklin left Paris on July 15 and returned to America.
Jefferson lived in Paris until September 1789 except for
some European travels in the spring of 1787 and 1788.
His friend Lafayette introduced him to important people
such as
Duc de Rochefoucauld, Condorcet, Mirabeau, and many other aristocrats.
On 17 June 1785 Jefferson wrote a long letter to
Congressman James Monroe on treaties.
The following passage contained many words
that were printed in italics to be put into a code.
Then he explained how treaties can improve commerce.
I am sorry to see a possibility of Arthur Lee’s
being put into the Treasury.
He has no talents for the office and what he has
will be employed in rummaging old accounts to
involve you in eternal war with Robert Morris,
and he will in a short time introduce such
dissensions into the Commission as to break it up.
If he goes on the other appointment to Kaskaskia he will
produce a revolt of that settlement from the United States.
I thank you for your attention to my outfit for the
articles of household furniture, clothes and a carriage.
I have already paid 28,000 livres and have still more to pay.
For the greatest part of this I have been obliged
to anticipate my salary from which however
I shall never be able to repay it.
I find that by a rigid economy bordering
however on meanness I can save perhaps
$500 a month at least in the summer.
The residue goes for expenses so much of course
and of necessity that I cannot avoid them without
abandoning all respect to my public character.
Yet I will pray you to touch this string which I know
to be a tender one with Congress with the utmost delicacy.
I had rather be ruined in my fortune than in their esteem.
If they allow me half a year’s salary as an outfit
I can get through my debts in time.
If they raise the salary to what it was or even pay our
house rent and taxes I can live with more decency.
I trust that Mr. Adams’s house at the Hague and
Doctor Franklin’s at Passy the rent of which
had been always allowed him will give just
expectations of the same allowance to me.
Mr. Jay however did not charge it,
but he lived economically and laid up money.
I will take the liberty of hazarding to you some
thoughts on the policy of entering into treaties
with the European nations and the nature of them.
I am not wedded to these ideas, and therefore shall
relinquish them cheerfully when Congress shall adopt
others, and zealously endeavor to carry theirs into effect.
First as to the policy of making treaties.
Congress by the Confederation have no original and
inherent power over the commerce of the states.
But by the 9th article they are authorized
to enter into treaties of commerce.
The moment these treaties are concluded the
jurisdiction of Congress over the commerce of
the states springs into existence, and that of the
particular states is superseded so far as the articles
of the treaty may have taken up the subject.
There are two restrictions only on the
exercise of the powers of treaty by Congress.
1st. That they shall not by such treaty restrain the
legislatures of the state from imposing such duties
on foreigners as their own people are subjected to:
2dly. nor from prohibiting the exportation or
importation of any particular species of goods.
Leaving these two points free, Congress may by
treaty establish any system of commerce they please
But, as I before observed,
it is by treaty alone they can do it.
Though they may exercise their other powers by
resolution or ordinance, those over commerce can
only be exercised by forming a treaty and this probably
by an accidental wording of our confederation.
If therefore it is better for the states that Congress should
regulate their commerce, it is proper that they should form
treaties with all nations with whom we may possibly trade.
You see that my primary object in the formation of treaties
is to take the commerce of the states out of the hands
of the states, and to place it under the superintendence
of Congress, so far as the imperfect provisions of
our constitution will admit, and until the states shall
by new compact make them more perfect.
I would say then to every nation on earth,
by treaty your people shall trade freely with us
and ours with you, paying no more than the most
favored nation, in order to put an end to the right of
individual states acting by fits and starts to interrupt
our commerce or to embroil us with any nation.7
On 10 May 1785 Jefferson published in Paris anonymously
a private edition of 200 copies of his Notes on the State of Virginia.
In 1787 a French translation was published and a public edition in London.
His 18th Query was written on “Manners” to answer the question
about
“the particular customs and manners that may happen to be received in that state.”
In this he expressed his views on slavery.
It is difficult to determine on the standard
by which the manners of a nation may be tried,
whether catholic, or particular.
It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard
the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit.
There must doubtless be an unhappy influence
on the manners of our people produced
by the existence of slavery among us.
The whole commerce between master and slave is
a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions,
the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submissions on the other.
Our children see this, and learn to imitate it;
for man is an imitative animal.
This quality is the germ of all education in him.
From his cradle to his grave
he is learning to do what he sees others do.
If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy
or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion
towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one
that his child is present.
But generally it is not sufficient.
The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle
of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions,
and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny,
cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.
The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners
and morals undepraved by such circumstances.
And with what execration should the statesman be loaded,
who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on
the rights of the other, transforms those into despots,
and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part,
and the amor patriae of the other.
For if a slave can have a country in this world,
it must be any other in preference to that in which
he is born to live and labor for another:
in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature,
contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors
to the evanishment of the human race,
or entail his own miserable condition
on the endless generations proceeding from him.
With the morals of the people,
their industry also is destroyed.
For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself
who can make another labor for him.
This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves
a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor.
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure
when we have removed their only firm basis,
a conviction in the minds of the people
that these liberties are of the gift of God?
That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever:
that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only,
a revolution of the wheel of fortune,
an exchange of situation, is among possible events:
that it may become probable by supernatural interference!
The Almighty has no attribute which
can take side with us in such a contest.
But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue
this subject through the various considerations of policy,
of morals, of history natural and civil.
We must be contented to hope
they will force their way into everyone’s mind.
I think a change already perceptible,
since the origin of the present revolution.
The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave
rising from the dust, his condition mollifying,
the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven,
for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed,
in the order of events, to be with the consent
of the masters, rather than by their extirpation.8
Jefferson on August 6 wrote this short letter to John Adams:
I now enclose you a draught of a treaty for the Barbary
states, together with the notes Dr. Franklin left me.
I have retained a press copy of this draught, so that
by referring to any article, line & word in it you can
propose amendments & send them by the post without
any body’s being able to make much of the main subject.
I shall be glad to receive any alterations you
may think necessary as soon as convenient
that this matter may be in readiness.
I enclose also a letter containing intelligence from Algiers.
I know not how far it is to be relied on.
My anxiety is extreme indeed as to these treaties.
What are we to do?
We know that Congress have decided ultimately to treat.
We know how far they will go.
But unfortunately we know also that a particular person
has been charged with instructions for us,
these five months who neither comes nor writes to us.
What are we to do?
It is my opinion that if Mr. Lambe does not come
in either of the packets (English or French)
now expected, we ought to proceed.
I therefore propose to you this term, as the end of
our expectations of him, & that if he does not come,
we send some other person.
Dr. Bancroft or Captain Jones occur to me as the fittest.
If we consider the present object only, I think the former
would be most proper: but if we look forward to the
very probable event of war with those pirates,
an important object would be obtained by
Captain Jones’s becoming acquainted
with their ports, force, tactics &c.
Let me know your opinion on this.
I have never mentioned it to either,
but I suppose either might be induced to go.9
On 15 August 1785 Jefferson asked France’s
Foreign Minister Vergennes for a tobacco monopoly.
During his traveling Jefferson found King Frederick the Great of Prussia
to be the most helpful with credit, and the three American diplomats
negotiated a treaty with Prussia that was signed by Jefferson on July 28,
by
Adams on August 5, by Franklin on August 14,
and by Baron Thulemeier on September 10.
On August 23 Jefferson wrote to John Jay
about commerce and the need for a navy.
We have now lands enough to employ an
infinite number of people in their cultivation.
Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens.
They are the most vigorous, the most independent,
the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country
and wedded to its liberty and interests
by the most lasting bands.
As long therefore as they can find employment in this line,
I would not convert them into mariners,
artisans, or anything else.
But our citizens will find employment in this line till
their numbers, and of course their productions, become
too great for the demand both internal and foreign.
This is not the case as yet, and probably
will not be for a considerable time.
As soon as it is, the surplus of hands
must be turned to something else.
I should then perhaps wish to turn them to
the sea in preference to manufactures,
because comparing the characters of the two classes
I find the former the most valuable citizens.
I consider the class of artificers as the panders
of vice and the instruments by which the liberties
of a country are generally overturned.
However we are not free to decide this
question on principles of theory only.
Our people are decided in the opinion that it is necessary
for us to take a share in the occupation of the ocean,
and their established habits induce them to require
that the sea be kept open to them, and that
that line of policy be pursued which will render
the use of that element as great as possible to them.
I think it a duty in those entrusted with the administration
of their affairs to conform themselves to the decided
choice of their constituents: and that therefore
we should in every instance preserve an equality
of right to them in the transportation of commodities,
in the right of fishing, and in the other uses of the sea.
But what will be the consequence?
Frequent wars without a doubt.
Their property will be violated on the sea and in foreign
ports; their persons will be insulted, imprisoned &c. for
pretended debts, contracts, crimes, contraband &c. &c.
These insults must be resented, even if we had no feelings,
yet to prevent their eternal repetition,
or in other words, our commerce on the ocean &
in other countries must be paid for by frequent war.
The justest dispositions possible in ourselves
will not secure us against it.
It would be necessary that all other nations were just also.
Justice indeed on our part will save us from those wars
which would have been produced by a contrary disposition.
But how to prevent those produced
by the wrongs of other nations?
By putting ourselves in a condition to punish them.
Weakness provokes insult and injury,
while a condition to punish it often prevents it.
This reasoning leads to the necessity of some naval force,
that being the only weapon with which
we can reach an enemy.
I think it to our interest to punish the first insult:
because an insult unpunished is the parent of many others.
We are not at this moment in a condition to do it,
but we should put ourselves into it as soon as possible.
If a war with England should take place it seems to me
that the first thing necessary would be a resolution to
abandon the carrying trade because we cannot protect it.
Foreign nations must in that case be invited to bring us what
we want and to take our productions in their own bottoms.
This alone could prevent the loss of those productions
to us and the acquisition of them to our enemy.
Our seamen might be employed
in depredations on their trade.
But how dreadfully we shall suffer on our coasts, if we have
no force on the water, former experience has taught us.
Indeed I look forward with horror to the very possible
case of war with a European power and think
there is no protection against them but from
the possession of some force on the sea.
Our vicinity to their West India possessions
and to the fisheries is a bridle which a small
naval force on our part would hold in the mouths
of the most powerful of these countries.
I hope our land office will rid us of our debts
and that our first attention then will be to the
beginning a naval force of some sort.
This alone can countenance our people
as carriers on the water, and I suppose them
to be determined to continue such.10
On September 2 Jefferson in a letter to Chastelux described the
characters of the northern states as “cool, sober, laborious, persevering,
independent, jealous of their own liberties and just to those of others,
interested, chicaning, and superstitious and hypocritical in their religion,”
while in southern states they were “fiery, voluptuary, indolent, unsteady,
independent, zealous for their own liberties, but trampling on those of others,
generous, candid, and without attachment or pretensions
to any religion but that of the heart.”11
William Short became Jefferson’s private secretary
on September 24, and Jefferson treated him like a son.
Jefferson at Fontainebleau wrote to James Madison on
28 October 1785 on the natural right to property.
Seven o’clock and retired to my fireside,
I have determined to enter into conversation with you;
this is a village of about 5,000 inhabitants when the court
is not here and 20,000 when they are,
occupying a valley through which runs a brook,
and on each side of it a ridge of small mountains
most of which are naked rock.
The King comes here in the fall always to hunt.
His court attend him, as do also
the foreign diplomatic corps.
But as this is not indispensably required, and my finances
do not admit the expense of a continued residence here,
I propose to come occasionally to attend the king’s levees,
returning again to Paris, distant 40 miles.
This being the first trip, I set out yesterday morning
to take a view of the place.
For this purpose I shaped my course towards
the highest of the mountains in sight,
to the top of which was about a league.
As soon as I had got clear of the town I fell in
with a poor woman walking at the same rate
with myself and going the same course.
Wishing to know the condition of the laboring poor,
I entered into conversation with her, which I began
by enquiries for the path which would lead me
into the mountain: and thence proceeded to enquiries
into her vocation, condition and circumstance.
She told me she was a day laborer
at 8 sous or 4 d sterling the day, that she had two children
to maintain and to pay a rent of 30 livres for her house
(which would consume the hire of 75 days),
that often she could get no employment,
and of course was without bread.
As we had walked together near a mile and she had so far
served me as a guide, I gave her, on parting 24 sous.
She burst into tears of a gratitude which I could perceive
was unfeigned because she was unable to utter a word.
She had probably never before received so great an aid.
This little attendrissement with the solitude of my walk
led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division
of property which occasions the numberless instances
of wretchedness which I had observed in this country
and is to be observed all over Europe.
The property of this country is absolutely
concentered in a very few hands, having revenues
of from half a million of guineas a year downwards.
These employ the flower of the country as servants, some
of them having as many as 200 domestics, not laboring.
They employ also a great number of manufacturers, and
tradesmen, and lastly the class of laboring husbandmen.
But after all these comes the most numerous of all
the classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work.
I asked myself what could be the reason that so many
should be permitted to beg who are willing to work
in a country where there is a very considerable proportion
of uncultivated lands?
These lands are kept idle mostly for the sake of game.
It should seem then that it must be because of the
enormous wealth of the proprietors which places them
above attention to the increase of their revenues
by permitting these lands to be labored.
I am conscious that an equal division
of property is impracticable.
But the consequences of this enormous inequality
producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind,
legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing
property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand
in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.
The descent of property of every kind therefore
to all the children or to all the brothers and sisters
or other relations in equal degree is a politic measure,
and a practicable one.
Another means of silently lessening the inequality of
property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point,
and to tax the higher portions of property
in geometrical progression as they rise.
Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and
unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property
have been so far extended as to violate natural right.
The earth is given as a common stock
for man to labor and live on.
If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be
appropriated, we must take care that other employment
be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation.
If we do not, the fundamental right to labor
the earth returns to the unemployed.
It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who
cannot find employment but who can find uncultivated land,
shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent.
But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means
that as few as possible shall be
without a little portion of land.
The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.
The next object which struck my attention in my walk
was the deer with which the wood abounded.
They were of the kind called “Cerfs”
and are certainly of the same species with ours.
They are blackish indeed under the belly, and not white
as ours, and they are more of the chestnut red:
but these are such small differences as would be sure
to happen in two races from the same stock,
breeding separately a number of ages.
Their hares are totally different from the animal we call
by that name: but their rabbit is almost exactly like him.
The only difference is in their manners; the land on which
I walked for some time being absolutely
reduced to a honeycomb by their burrowing.
I think there is no instance of ours burrowing.
After descending the hill again I saw a man cutting fern.
I went to him under the pretense of asking
the shortest road to the town, and afterwards
asked for what use he was cutting fern.
He told me that this part of the country
furnished a great deal of fruit to Paris.
That when packed in straw it acquired an ill taste,
but that dry fern preserved it perfectly
without communicating any taste at all.
I treasured this observation for the preservation
of my apples on my return to my own country.
They have no apple here to compare
with our Redtown pippin.12
On 12 January 1786 Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Jay:
Everything in Europe is quiet and promises quiet
for at least a year to come.
We do not find it easy to make
commercial arrangements in Europe.
There is a want of confidence in us.
This country has lately reduced the duties on
American whale oil to about a guinea and a half the ton,
and I think they will take the greatest part
of what we can furnish.
I hope therefore that this branch of our commerce
will resume its activity.
Portugal shows a disposition to court our trade;
but this has for some time been discouraged
by the hostilities of the piratical states of Barbary.
The Emperor of Morocco who had taken one of our vessels,
immediately consented to suspend hostilities,
and ultimately gave up the vessel, cargo and crew.
I think we shall be able to settle matters with him.
But I am not sanguine as to the Algerines.
They have taken two of our vessels, and
I fear will ask such a tribute for a forbearance of
their piracies as the U.S. would be unwilling to pay.
When this idea comes across my mind, my faculties are
absolutely suspended between indignation and impotence.
I think whatever sums we are obliged to pay for
freedom of navigation in the European seas,
should be levied on the European commerce with us,
by a separate impost, that these powers may see
that they protect these enormities for their own loss.13
Jefferson was expected to negotiate with Morocco,
Algiers, Tunisia, and Tripoli to prevent piracy.
Adams had advised paying tribute, and he calculated that a
$200,000 payment could be repaid from $1 million in trade.
Estimated treaty bribes rose to over $300,000,
and Congress only appropriated $80,000.
Jefferson sent Thomas Barclay to purchase a peace treaty with Morocco,
and he got one for $30,000 with no annual tribute or ransom.
Adams opposed a navy to fight piracy, and Jefferson respected that position.
On February 8 Jefferson began meeting
with a French committee on American trade.
In March and April 1786 he spent a month and a half
visiting John Adams and his family in London.
On April 23 Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Jay:
With this country nothing is done;
and that nothing is intended to be done
on their part admits not the smallest doubt.
The nation is against any change of measures;
the ministers are against it, some from principle,
others from subserviency; and the king more
than all men is against it.
If we take a retrospect to the beginning of the present
reign we observe that amidst all the changes of ministry
no change of measures with respect to America ever took
place: excepting only at the moment of the peace, and
the minister of that moment was immediately removed.
Judging of the future by the past, I do not expect a
change of disposition during the present reign,
which bids fair to be a long one
as the king is healthy and temperate.
That he is persevering we know.
If he ever changes his plan it will be in consequence
of events which neither himself nor his ministers
at present place among those which are probable.
Even the opposition dares not open their lips in favor of
a connection with us, so unpopular would be the topic.
It is not that they think our commerce
unimportant to them.
I find that the merchants here set sufficient value on it.
But they are sure of keeping it on their own terms.
No better proof can be shown of the security in which
the ministers think themselves on this head,
than that they have not thought it worthwhile to
give us a conference on the subject, though on
my arrival we exhibited to them our commission,
observed to them that it would expire on the 12th of the
next month, and that I had come over on purpose to see
if any arrangements could be made before that time.
Of the two months which then remained,
6 weeks have elapsed without one scrip of a pen,
or one word from a minister except
a vague proposition at an accidental meeting.14
In June at Paris he started working on architecture for Virginia’s Capitol.
Jefferson in September sprained his wrist so badly that he learned to write
with his left hand, something Woodrow Wilson would learn how to do.
Barbary cruisers captured two of America’s ships and crews,
and in 1786 Jefferson offered “Proposals for concerted operation
among the powers at war with the Piratical States of Barbary.”
Several nations were interested, but Britain and Spain were opposed.
Jefferson on 11 July 1786 wrote in a letter to John Adams,
Our instructions relative to the Barbary states
having required us to proceed by way of
negotiation to obtain their peace, it became
our duty to do this to the best of our power.
Whatever might be our private opinions, they
were to be suppressed, and the line marked
out to us, was to be followed.
It has been so honestly and zealously.
It was therefore never material for us to consult
together on the best plan of conduct towards these states.
I acknowledge I very early thought it would be best
to effect a peace through the medium of war.
Though it is a question with which we have nothing to do,
yet as you propose some discussion of it,
I shall trouble you with my reasons.
Of the 4 positions laid down in your letter of the 3d instant,
I agree to the three first, which are in substance that
the good offices of our friends cannot procure us
a peace without paying its price, that they cannot
materially lessen that price, and that paying it, we
can have the peace in spite of the intrigues of our enemies.
As to the 4th that the longer the negotiation is delayed
the larger will be the demand, this will depend on the
intermediate captures: if they are many and rich the
price may be raised; if few and poor, it will be lessened.
However if it is decided that we shall buy a peace,
I know no reason for delaying the operation,
but should rather think it ought to be hastened.
But I should prefer the obtaining it by war.
1. Justice is in favor of this opinion.
2. Honor favors it.
3. It will procure us respect in Europe,
and respect is a safe-guard to interest.
4. It will arm the federal head with the safest of all the
instruments of coercion over their delinquent members
and prevent them from using what would be less safe.
I think that so far you go with me.
But in the next steps we shall differ.
5. I think it least expensive.
6. Equally effectual.
I ask a fleet of 150 guns, the one half
of which shall be in constant cruise.
This fleet built, manned and victualled for 6 months
will cost £450,000 sterling.
Its annual expense is £300 sterling a gun,
including everything: this will be £45,000 sterling a year.
I take British experience for the basis of my calculations,
though we know, from our own experience,
that we can do, in this way, for pounds lawful,
what costs them pounds sterling.
Were we to charge all this to the Algerine war, it would
amount to little more than we must pay if we buy peace.
But as it is proper and necessary that we should establish
a small marine force (even were we to buy a peace
from the Algerines,) and as that force laid up in our
dockyards would cost us half as much annually
as if kept in order for service, we have a right
to say that only £22,500 sterling per annum
should be charged to the Algerine war.
It will be as effectual.
To all the mismanagements of Spain and Portugal
urged to show that war against those people is ineffectual,
I urge a single fact to prove the contrary
where there is any management.
About 40 years ago the Algerines having broken
their treaty with France, this court sent Monsr. de Massac
with one large and two small frigates;
he blockaded the harbor of Algiers three months,
and they subscribed to the terms he dictated.
If it be admitted however that war on the fairest prospects
is still exposed to uncertainties, I weigh against this the
greater uncertainty of the duration of a peace bought with
money from such a people, from a Dey 80 years old, and
by a nation who on the hypothesis of buying peace, is to
have no power on the sea to enforce an observance of it.
So far I have gone on the supposition that
the whole weight of this war would rest on us.
But 1. Naples will join us.
The character of their naval minister (Acton), his known
sentiments with respect to the peace Spain is officiously
trying to make for them, and his dispositions against
the Algerines give the greatest reason to believe it.
2. Every principle of reason tells us Portugal will join us.
I state this as taking for granted, what all seem to believe,
that they will not be at peace with Algiers.
I suppose then that a Convention might be formed between
Portugal, Naples and the U.S. by which the burthen of the
war might be quotaed on them according to their respective
wealth, and the term of it should be when Algiers should
subscribe to a peace with all three on equal terms.
This might be left open for other nations to accede to,
and many, if not most of the powers of Europe (except
France, England, Holland and Spain if her peace be made)
would sooner or later enter into the confederacy,
for the sake of having their peace with the
Piratical states guaranteed by the whole.
I suppose that in this case our proportion of force
would not be the half of what I first calculated on.
These are the reasons which have influenced
my judgment on this question.
I give them to you to show you that I am imposed on
by a semblance of reason at least, and not with
an expectation of their changing your opinion.
You have viewed the subject, I am sure in all its bearings.
You have weighed both questions
with all their circumstances.
You make the result different from what I do.
The same facts impress us differently.
This is enough to make me suspect an error in my
process of reasoning though I am not able to detect it.
It is of no consequence; as I have nothing to say
in the decision and am ready to proceed heartily
on any other plan which may be adopted,
if my agency should be thought useful.
With respect to the dispositions of the states
I am utterly uninformed.
I cannot help thinking however that on a view
of all circumstances, they might be united
in either of the plans.15
On 26 July 1786 Jefferson in a letter to
Jean Nicolas Démeunier wrote this prophecy:
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible
machine is man!
Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment or death
itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment
be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him
through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage,
one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages
of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
But we must await with patience the workings of an
overruling providence, and hope that that is preparing
the deliverance of these our suffering brethren.
When the measure of their tears shall be full, when
their groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness,
doubtless a god of justice will awaken to their distress,
and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors,
or at length by his exterminating thunder,
manifest his attention to the things of this world, and that
they are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality.16
Jefferson on 12 October 1786 wrote in a letter to
Maria Cosway a long dialog on “My Head and My Heart.”
Jefferson fell in love with her and wrote for her
a dialog between his head and his heart.
Here is a sample of what the head said to the heart:
I reminded you of the follies of the first day, intending
to deduce from thence some useful lessons for you.
But instead of listening to them, you kindle at the
recollection, you retrace the whole series with
a fondness which shows you want nothing
but the opportunity to act it all over again.
I often told you during its course that you were
imprudently engaging your affections under
circumstances that have cost you a great deal of pain.17
In late 1786 Jefferson’s close circle of friends
included Lafayette, Condorcet, and Castellux.
Jefferson while he was in France learned how dumbwaiters were used,
and later at Monticello he designed a dumbwaiter elevator that could
transport dishes of food from one floor to another.
He also improved lamps by using olive oil.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the “Statute for Religious Freedom” in 1776,
and it was first introduced in the legislature in 1779.
Patrick Henry proposed a general assessment tax to support
“Teachers of the Christian Religion” in 1784.
The state of Virginia finally enacted Jefferson’s bill on 16 January 1786.
Here is the statute:
Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend
not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence
proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created
the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free
it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible
of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal
punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations,
tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness,
and are a departure from the plan of the holy author
of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind,
yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either,
as was in his Almighty power to do,
but to extend it by its influence on reason alone;
that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers,
civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves
but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion
over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions
and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible,
and as such endeavoring to impose them on others,
hath established and maintained false religions
over the greatest part of the world and through all time:
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money
for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves
and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical;
that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher
of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him
of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the
particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern,
and whose powers he feels most persuasive to
righteousness; and is withdrawing from the ministry
those temporary rewards, which proceeding
from an approbation of their personal conduct,
are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting
labors for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights
have no dependence on our religious opinions,
any more than our opinions in physics or geometry;
that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy
the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity
of being called to offices of trust and emolument,
unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion,
is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages
to which, in common with his fellow citizens,
he has a natural right; that it tends also
to corrupt the principles of that very religion
it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a
monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments,
those who will externally profess and conform to it;
that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand
such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay
the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not
the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction;
that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers
into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession
or propagation of principles on supposition of
their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once
destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course
judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule
of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of
others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;
that it is time enough for the rightful purposes
of civil government for its officers to interfere
when principles break out into overt acts against peace
and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will
prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient
antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict
unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural
weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be
dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that
no man shall be compelled to frequent or support
any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever,
nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened
in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer,
on account of his religious opinions or belief;
but that all men shall be free to profess,
and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters
of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish,
enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
And though we well know that this Assembly,
elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of
legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts
of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers equal
to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable
would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare,
and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are
of the natural rights of mankind,
and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal
the present or to narrow its operation,
such act will be an infringement of natural right.18
Jefferson received a copy of the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom
in Paris and quickly had it translated into French and Italian.
In a letter to Madison on 16 December 1786 he wrote,
The Virginia act for religious freedom has been received
with infinite approbation in Europe
and propagated with enthusiasm.
I do not mean by the governments,
but by the individuals which compose them.
It has been translated into French and Italian,
has been sent to most of the courts of Europe,
and has been the best evidence of the falsehood
of those reports which stated us to be in anarchy.
It is inserted in the new Encyclopedie, and is appearing
in most of the publications respecting America.
In fact it is comfortable to see the standard of reason
at length erected after so many ages during which
the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings,
priests and nobles; and it is honorable for us
to have produced the first legislature who has had
the courage to declare that the reason of man
may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions.
I shall be glad when the revisal shall be got through.
In the criminal law the principle of retaliation is
much criticized here, particularly in the case of Rape.
They think the punishment indecent and unjustifiable.
I should be for altering it, but for a different reason:
that is on account of the temptation women would be
under to make it the instrument of vengeance against
an inconstant lover and of disappointment to a rival.19
Jefferson in response to Shays’ Rebellion over taxes
in western Massachusetts wrote on 16 January 1787
in a letter to Edward Carrington:
The tumults in America, I expected would have produced
in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state.
But it has not.
On the contrary, the small effect of those tumults
seems to have given more confidence
in the firmness of our governments.
The interposition of the people themselves on the side of
government has had a great effect on the opinion here.
I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people
will always be found to be the best army.
They may be led astray for a moment,
but will soon correct themselves.
The people are the only censors of their governors:
and even their errors will tend to keep these
to the true principles of their institution.
To punish these errors too severely would be
to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty.
The way to prevent these irregular interpositions
of the people is to give them full information
of their affairs through the channel of the public papers,
and to contrive that those papers should
penetrate the whole mass of the people.
The basis of our governments being the opinion of the
people, the very first object should be to keep that right;
and were it left to me to decide whether we should have
a government without newspapers,
or newspapers without a government,
I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
But I should mean that every man should receive
those papers and be capable of reading them.
I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians)
which live without government enjoy in their general mass
an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those
who live under European governments.
Among the former public opinion is in the place of law and
restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere.
Among the latter under pretense of governing they have
divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep.
I do not exaggerate.
This is a true picture of Europe.
Cherish therefore the spirit of our people,
and keep alive their attention.
Do not be too severe upon their errors,
but reclaim them by enlightening them.
If once they become inattentive to the public affairs,
you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies,
judges and governors shall all become wolves.
It seems to be the law of our general nature,
in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares
that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for
I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe,
and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.20
Jefferson wrote in a long letter to Madison from Paris
on 30 January 1787 about politics and diplomacy.
My last to you was of the 16th of December since which
I have received yours of November 25 and December 4
which afforded me, as your letters always do,
a treat on matters public, individual and economical.
I am impatient to learn your sentiments on
the late troubles in the Eastern states.
So far as I have yet seen, they do not appear
to threaten serious consequences.
Those states have suffered by the stoppage of the channels
of their commerce, which have not yet found other issues.
This must render money scarce
and make the people uneasy.
This uneasiness has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable:
but I hope they will provoke no severities
from their governments.
A consciousness of those in power that their administration
of the public affairs has been honest, may perhaps
produce too great a degree of indignation: and those
characters wherein fear predominates over hope may
apprehend too much from these instances of irregularity.
They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man
insusceptible of any other government but that of force,
a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience.
Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable.
1. Without government, as among our Indians.
2. Under governments wherein the will of everyone
has a just influence, as is the case in England
in a slight degree, and in our states in a great one.
3. Under governments of force: as is the case in
all other monarchies and in most of the other republics.
To have an idea of the curse of existence
under these last, they must be seen.
It is a government of wolves over sheep.
It is a problem, not clear in my mind,
that the 1st condition is not the best.
But I believe it to be inconsistent with
any great degree of population.
The second state has a great deal of good in it.
The mass of mankind under that enjoys
a precious degree of liberty and happiness.
It has its evils too: the principal of which is
the turbulence to which it is subject.
But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy,
and it becomes nothing.
Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.
Even this evil is productive of good.
It prevents the degeneracy of government and
nourishes a general attention to the public affairs.
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing,
and as necessary in the political world
as storms in the physical.
Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally
establish the encroachments on the rights
of the people which have produced them.
An observation of this truth should render honest
republican governors so mild in their punishment
of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much.
It is a medicine necessary for
the sound health of government.
If these transactions give me no uneasiness,
I feel very differently at another piece of intelligence,
to wit, the possibility that the navigation
of the Mississippi may be abandoned to Spain.
I never had any interest Westward of the Allegheny;
and I never will have any.
But I have had great opportunities of knowing
the character of the people who inhabit that country.
And I will venture to say that the act which abandons
the navigation of the Mississippi is an act of
separation between the Eastern and Western country.
It is a relinquishment of five parts out of eight of the
territory of the United States, an abandonment of the fairest
subject for the payment of our public debts, and the
chaining those debts on our own necks in perpetuum.
I have the utmost confidence in the honest intentions
of those who concur in this measure;
but I lament their want of acquaintance with the character
and physical advantages of the people who,
right or wrong, will suppose their interests sacrificed
on this occasion to the contrary interests of that part
of the confederacy in possession of present power.
If they declare themselves a separate people,
we are incapable of a single effort to retain them.
Our citizens can never be induced, either as militia
or as soldiers, to go there to cut the throats of
their own brothers and sons, or rather to be themselves
the subjects instead of the perpetrators of the parricide.
Nor would that country quit the cost of being retained
against the will of its inhabitants, could it be done.
But it cannot be done.
They are able already to rescue the navigation
of the Mississippi out of the hands of Spain,
and to add New Orleans to their own territory.
They will be joined by the inhabitants of Louisiana.
This will bring on a war between them and Spain;
and that will produce the question with us whether it will not
be worth our while to become parties with them in the war,
in order to reunite them with us, and thus correct our error?
And were I to permit my forebodings to go one step further,
I should predict that the inhabitants of the U.S. would force
their rulers to take the affirmative of that question.
I wish I may be mistaken in all these opinions.
We have for some time expected that the
Chevalier de la Luzerne would obtain a promotion
in the diplomatic line by being appointed to some of
the courts where this country keeps an Ambassador.
But none of the vacancies taking place which had been
counted on, I think the present disposition is
to require his return to his station in America.
He told me himself lately that he should return in the spring.
I have never pressed this matter on the court,
though I knew it to be desirable and desired on our part:
because if the compulsion on him to return
had been the work of Congress, he would have returned
in such ill temper with them as to disappoint them
in the good they expected from it.
He would forever have laid at their door
his failure of promotion.
I did not press it for another reason, which is
that I have great reason to believe that the character
of the Count de Moutier, who would go were
the Chevalier to be otherwise provided for,
would give the most perfect satisfaction in America.
As you are now returned into Congress, it will become of
importance that you should form a just estimate of certain
public characters; on which therefore I will give you such
notes as my knowledge of them has furnished me with.
You will compare them with the materials you are
otherwise possessed of, and decide on a view of the whole.
You know the opinion I formerly entertained
of my friend Mr. Adams.
Yourself and the governor were the first
who shook that opinion.
I afterwards saw proofs which convicted him
of a degree of vanity, and of a blindness to it,
of which no germ had appeared in Congress.
A 7-months’ intimacy with him here and as many weeks in
London have given me opportunities of studying him closely.
He is vain, irritable and a bad calculator of the force
and probable effect of the motives which govern men.
This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him.
He is as disinterested as the being which made him:
he is profound in his views: and accurate
in his judgment except where knowledge of
the world is necessary to form a judgment.
He is so amiable, that I pronounce you will love him
if ever you become acquainted with him.
He would be, as he was, a great man in Congress.
Mr. Carmichael is, I think, very little known in America.
I never saw him, and while I was in Congress
I formed rather a disadvantageous idea of him.
His letters, received then, showed him vain
and more attentive to ceremony and etiquette
than we suppose men of sense should be.
I have now a constant correspondence with him
and find him a little hypochondriac and discontented.
He possesses very good understanding
though not of the first order.
I have had great opportunities of searching into
his character and have availed myself of it.
Many persons of different nations coming from Madrid
to Paris all speak of him as in high esteem, and I think it
certain that he has more of the Count de Florida Bianca’s
friendship than any diplomatic character at that court.
As long as this minister is in office, Carmichael can do
more than any other person who could be sent there.
You will see Franks, and doubtless
he will be asking some appointment.
I wish there may be any one for which he is fit.
He is light, indiscreet, active, honest, affectionate.
Though Bingham is not in diplomatic office yet
as he wishes to be; so I will mention such circumstances
of him as you might otherwise be deceived in.
He will make you believe he was on the most intimate
footing with the first characters in Europe and versed
in the secrets of every cabinet.
Not a word of this is true.
He had a rage for being presented to great men and had
no modesty in the methods by which he could effect it.
If he obtained access afterwards, it was with such as who
were susceptible of impression from the beauty of his wife.
I must except the Marquis de Bouilli
who had been an old acquaintance.
The Marquis de Lafayette is a most valuable auxiliary to me.
His zeal is unbounded, and his weight
with those in power great.
His education having been merely military,
commerce was an unknown field to him.
But his good sense enabling him to comprehend
perfectly whatever is explained to him,
his agency has been very efficacious.
He has a great deal of sound genius, is well remarked
by the king and rising in popularity.
He has nothing against him
but the suspicion of republican principles.
I think he will one day be of the ministry.
His foible is a canine appetite for popularity and fame.
But he will get above this.
The Count de Vergennes is ill.
The possibility of his recovery renders it dangerous
for us to express a doubt, but he is in danger.
He is a great Minister in European affairs but has very
imperfect ideas of ours and no confidence in them.
His devotion to the principles of pure despotism render him
unaffectionate to our governments, but his fear of England
makes him value us as a make weight.
He is cool, reserved in political conversation,
free and familiar on other subjects, and a very attentive,
agreeable person to do business with.
It is impossible to have a clearer, better organized head,
but age has chilled his heart.
Nothing should be spared on our part
to attach this country to us.
It is the only one on which we can rely
for support under every event.
Its inhabitants love us more, I think,
than they do any other nation on earth.
This is very much the effect of the good dispositions
with which the French officers returned.
In a former letter I mentioned to you
the dislocation of my wrist.
I can make not the least use of it, except
for the single article of writing, though it is going on
five months since the accident happened.
I have great anxieties lest I should never recover
any considerable use of it.
I shall by the advice of my Surgeons set out
in a fortnight for the waters of Aix in Provence.
I chose these out of several they proposed to me,
because if they fail to be effectual,
my journey will not be useless altogether.
It will give me an opportunity of examining the canal
of Languedoc and of acquiring knowledge of that
species of navigation which may be useful hereafter:
but more immediately it will enable me to take the tour
of the ports concerned in commerce with us,
to examine on the spot the defects of the late
regulations respecting our commerce, to learn
the further improvements which may be made on it,
and on my return to get this business finished.
I shall be absent between two and three months,
unless anything happens to recall me here sooner,
which may always be effected in ten days,
in whatever part of my route I may be.
In speaking of characters I omitted those of
Reyneval and Henin, the two eyes of M. de Vergennes.
The former is the most important character
because possessing the most of the confidence of the Count,
he is rather cunning than wise.
His views of things being neither great nor liberal,
he governs himself by principles which he has learned
by rote and is fit only for the details of execution.
His heart is susceptible of little passions
but not of good ones.
He is brother in law to M. Gerard from whom
he received disadvantageous impressions
of us which cannot be effaced.
He has much duplicity.
Henin is a philosopher sincere, friendly, liberal, learned,
beloved by everybody, the other by nobody.
I think it a great misfortune that the United States
are in the department of the former.
As particulars of this kind may be useful to you in your
present situation, I may hereafter continue the chapter.
I know it safely lodged in your discretion.
February 5. Since writing thus far,
Franks is returned from England.
I learn that Mr. Adams desires to be recalled and
that Smith should be appointed charge des affairs there.
It is not for me to decide whether any diplomatic character
should be kept at a court which keeps none with us.
You can judge of Smith’s abilities by his letters.
They are not of the first order, but they are good.
For his honesty he is like our friend Monroe.
Turn his soul wrong side outwards
and there is not a speck on it.
He has one foible, an excessive inflammability of temper;
but he feels it when it comes on and has resolution enough
to suppress it and to remain silent till it passes over.
I send you by Col. Franks your pocket telescope,
walking stick, and chemical box.
The two former could not be combined together.
The latter could not be had in the form you referred to.
Having a great desire to have a portable copying machine,
and being satisfied from some experiments that the principle
of the large machine might be applied in a small one,
I planned one when in England and had it made.
It answers perfectly.21
On 22 February 1787 Jefferson attended the
opening of the Assembly of Notables at Versailles.
Six days later he left Paris to tour southern France for three months.
Jefferson in June sent for his youngest child Polly who came with
the 14-year-old slave Sally Hemings to Paris on July 15.
Because slavery was illegal in France, he paid her a salary.
He began sexual relations with Sally, and
she would give birth to six of his children.
Her older brother James learned how to be a chef in Paris.
Jefferson on 10 August 1787 in a letter to Peter Carr
wrote this about moral philosophy:
I think it lost time to attend lectures in this branch.
He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler
if he had made the rules of our moral conduct
a matter of science.
For one man of science, there are thousands who are not.
What would have become of them?
Man was destined for society.
His morality therefore was to be formed to this object.
He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong
merely relative to this.
This sense is as much a part of his nature as the sense of
hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality,
and not the truth, &c., as fanciful writers have imagined.
The moral sense, or conscience,
is as much a part of man as his leg or arm.
It is given to all human beings in a stronger
or weaker degree, as force of members
is given them in a greater or less degree.
It may be strengthened by exercise,
as may any particular limb of the body.
This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the
guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required
for this: even a less one than what we call Common sense.
State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor.
The former will decide it as well, and often better than the
latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.
In this branch therefore read good books because
they will encourage as well as direct your feelings.
The writings of Sterne particularly form the best course
of morality that ever was written.
Besides these read the books
mentioned in the enclosed paper; and above all things
lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful,
to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane,
to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous &c.
Consider every act of this kind as an exercise which will
strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth.22
On 12 October 1787 the Confederation Congress unanimously
elected Jefferson for a second three-year term as Minister to France.
Jefferson on December 20 wrote Madison
on his response to the new Constitution.
The season admitting only of operations in the Cabinet,
and these being in a great measure secret,
I have little to fill a letter.
I will therefore make up the deficiency by adding a few
words on the Constitution proposed by our Convention.
I like much the general idea of framing a government
which should go on of itself peaceably without needing
continual recurrence to the state legislatures.
I like the organization of the government
into Legislative, Judiciary & Executive.
I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes,
and for that reason solely approve of the greater
house being chosen by the people directly.
For though I think a house chosen by them will be
very ill qualified to legislate for the Union,
for foreign nations &c.; yet this evil does not weigh
against the good of preserving inviolate the fundamental
principle that the people are not to be taxed but by
representatives chosen immediately by themselves.
I am captivated by the compromise of the opposite
claims of the great & little states, of the latter to equal,
and the former to proportional influence.
I am much pleased too with the substitution of the method
of voting by persons, instead of that of voting by states:
and I like the negative given to the Executive with a
third of either house, though I should have liked it better
had the Judiciary been associated for that purpose,
or invested with a similar and separate power.
There are other good things of less moment.
I will now add what I do not like.
First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly &
without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom
of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction
against monopolies, the eternal & unremitting force of the
habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact
triable by the laws of the land & not by the law of Nations.
To say, as Mr. Wilson does, that a bill of rights was
not necessary because all is reserved in the case of
the general government which is not given, while in
the particular ones all is given which is not reserved,
might do for the Audience to whom it was addressed,
but is surely a gratis dictum, opposed by strong
inferences from the body of the instrument, as well as
from the omission of the clause of our present
confederation which had declared that in express terms.
It was a hard conclusion to say because there has been no
uniformity among the states as to the cases triable by jury,
because some have been so incautious as to abandon
this mode of trial; therefore the more prudent states
shall be reduced to the same level of calamity.
It would have been much more just & wise to have
concluded the other way that as most of the states
had judiciously preserved this palladium, those who
had wandered should be brought back to it, and to have
established general right instead of general wrong.
Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people
are entitled to against every government on earth,
general or particular, & what no just government
should refuse or rest on inference.
The second feature I dislike, and greatly dislike, is the
abandonment in every instance of the necessity of rotation
in office, and most particularly in the case of the President.
Experience concurs with reason in concluding
that the first magistrate will always be re-elected
if the constitution permits it.
He is then an officer for life.
This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to
certain nations to have a friend or a foe at the head of our
affairs that they will interfere with money & with arms.
A Galloman or an Angloman will be
supported by the nation he befriends.
If once elected, and at a second or third election outvoted
by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play,
hold possession of the reins of government, be supported
by the states voting for him, especially if they are the
central ones lying in a compact body themselves &
separating their opponents: and they will be aided by one
nation of Europe, while the majority are aided by another.
The election of a President of America some years hence
will be much more interesting to certain nations of Europe
than ever the election of a king of Poland was.
Reflect on all the instances in history ancient & modern,
of elective monarchies, and say if they
do not give foundation for my fears.
The Roman emperors, the popes, while they were
of any importance, the German emperors till they
became hereditary in practice, the kings of Poland,
the Deys of the Ottoman dependencies.
It may be said that if elections are to be attended with
these disorders, the seldomer they are renewed the better.
But experience shows that the only way to prevent disorder
is to render them uninteresting by frequent changes.
An incapacity to be elected a second time would
have been the only effectual preventative.
The power of removing him every fourth year by the vote
of the people is a power which will not be exercised.
The king of Poland is removeable every day by the Diet,
yet he is never removed.
Smaller objections are the Appeal in fact as well as law
and the binding all persons Legislative, Executive
& Judiciary by oath to maintain that constitution.
I do not pretend to decide what would be the best method
of procuring the establishment of the manifold good things
in this constitution and of getting rid of the bad.
Whether by adopting it in hopes of future amendment,
or, after it has been duly weighed & canvassed
by the people, after seeing the parts they
generally dislike, & those they generally approve,
to say to them “We see now what you wish.
Send together your deputies again, let them frame
a constitution for you omitting what you have condemned,
& establishing the powers you approve.
Even these will be a great addition to
the energy of your government.”
At all events I hope you will not be discouraged from
other trials, if the present one should fail of its full effect.
I have thus told you freely what I like & dislike:
merely as a matter of curiosity, for I know your own
judgment has been formed on all these points after
having heard everything which could be urged on them.
I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government.
It is always oppressive.
The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given
more alarm than I think it should have done.
Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course of
11 years, is but one for each state in a century & a half.
No country should be so long without one.
Nor will any degree of power in the hands of
government prevent insurrections.
France with all its despotism and two or three hundred
thousand men always in arms has had three insurrections
in the three years I have been here; in every one
of which greater numbers were engaged than in
Massachusetts, & a great deal more blood was spilt.
In Turkey, which Montesquieu supposes more despotic,
insurrections are the events of every day.
In England, where the hand of power is lighter than here,
but heavier than with us they happen
every half dozen years.
Compare again the ferocious depredations of their
insurgents with the order, the moderation &
the almost self extinguishment of ours.
After all, it is my principle that the will
of the Majority should always prevail.
If they approve the proposed Convention in all its parts,
I shall concur in it cheerfully, in hopes that they will
amend it whenever they shall find it works wrong.
I think our governments will remain virtuous for
many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural;
and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands
in any part of America.
When they get piled upon one another in large cities,
as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.
Above all things I hope the education of the common
people will be attended to; convinced that on their
good sense we may rely with the most security
for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.23
In a letter to Alexander Donald on 2 February 1788
Jefferson expressed his ideas on the new Constitution.
I wish with all my soul that the nine first Conventions may
accept the new Constitution, because this will secure to us
the good it contains, which I think great and important.
But I equally wish that the four latest conventions,
whichever they be, may refuse to accede to it
till a declaration of rights be annexed.
This would probably command the offer of such a
declaration and thus give to the whole fabric perhaps
as much perfection as any one of that kind ever had.
By a declaration of rights I mean one which shall stipulate
freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of
commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases,
no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies.
These are fetters against doing evil
which no honest government should decline.
There is another strong feature in the new constitution
which I as strongly dislike.
That is the perpetual re-eligibility of the President.
Of this I expect no amendment at present because I do not
see that anybody has objected to it on your side the water.
But it will be productive of cruel distress
to our country even in your day and mine.
The importance to France and England to have our
government in the hands of a Friend or a foe, will
occasion their interference by money and even by arms.
Our President will be of much more consequence
to them than a king of Poland.
We must take care however that neither this nor any other
objection to the new form produce a schism in our union.
That would be an incurable evil, because near friends
falling out never reunite cordially; whereas all of us
going together, we shall be sure to cure the evils
of our new constitution before they do great harm.
The box of books I had taken the liberty to address to you
is but just gone from Havre for New York.
I do not see at present any symptoms
strongly indicating war.
It is true that the distrust existing between the
two courts of Versailles and London is so great
that they can scarcely do business together.
However, the difficulty and doubt of obtaining money
makes both afraid to enter into war.
The little preparations for war which we see are the effect
of distrust rather than of a design to commence hostilities.
However, in such a state of mind
you know small things may produce a rupture.
So that though peace is rather probable,
war is very possible.24
Also on February 2 Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Rutledge Jr.
about the religious persecution of Protestants in France:
I would recommend to you to consider
and decide for yourself these questions:
If his offense is to be decided by the law of the land,
why is he not tried in that court in which his
fellow citizens are tried, i.e. the King’s bench?
If he is cited before another court that he may be judged,
not according to the law of the land, but by the
discretion of his judges, is he not disfranchised
of his most precious right, the benefit of the laws of
his country in common with his other fellow citizens?
I think you will find on investigating this subject that
every solid argument is against the extraordinary
court and that everyone in its favor is specious only.
It is a transfer from a judicature of learning
and integrity to one, the great mass of which
is both illiterate and unprincipled.
Yet such is the force of prejudice with some, and of the
want of reflection in others, that many of our constitutions
have copied this absurdity without suspecting it to be one.
I am glad to hear that our new constitution is pretty sure
of being accepted by states enough to secure the good
it contains, and to meet such opposition in some others
as to give us hopes it will be accommodated to them
by the amendment of its most glaring faults,
particularly the want of a declaration of rights.
The long expected edict for the protestants
at length appears here.
Its analysis is this.
It is an acknowledgement (hitherto withheld by the laws)
that protestants can beget children and that
they can die and be offensive unless buried.
It does not give them permission
to think, to speak, nor to worship.
It enumerates the humiliations to which
they shall remain subject and the burthens
to which they shall continue to be unjustly exposed.
What are we to think of the condition of the human mind
in a country where such a wretched thing as this has thrown
the state into convulsions, and how must we bless our own
situation in a country the most illiterate peasant of which
is a Solon compared with the authors of this law.
There is a modesty often which does itself injury.
Our countrymen possess this.
They do not know their own superiority.
You see it; you are young,
you have time and talents to correct them.
Study the subject while in Europe in all the instances which
will present themselves to you, and profit your countrymen
of them by making them to know and value themselves.25
Jefferson wrote to George Washington on 2 May 1788
about canals he observed in southern France,
and he commented on the new United States Constitution.
I had intended to have written a word to your Excellency
on the subject of the new constitution, but I have already
spun out my letter to an immoderate length.
I will just observe therefore that according to my ideas
there is a great deal of good in it.
There are two things however which I dislike strongly.
1. The want of a declaration of rights.
I am in hopes the opposition of Virginia will
remedy this and produce such a declaration.
2. The perpetual re-eligibility of the President.
This I fear will make that an office for life first,
and then hereditary.
I was much an enemy to monarchy
before I came to Europe.
I am ten thousand times more so
since I have seen what they are.
There is scarcely an evil known in these countries
which may not be traced to their king as its source,
nor a good which is not derived from the small
fibers of republicanism existing among them.
I can further say with safety there is not a crowned head
in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be
elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.
However, I shall hope that before there is danger of
this change taking place in the office of President,
the good sense and free spirit of our countrymen
will make the changes necessary to prevent it.
Under this hope I look forward to the general
adoption of the new constitution with anxiety,
as necessary for us under our present circumstances.26
On 19 June 1788 Jefferson wrote in a letter to
Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Shippen about politics and courts:
7. Politics of each country, well worth studying
so far as respects internal affairs.
Examine every possible occasion for entering into the
houses of the laborers, and especially at the moments
of their repast; see what they eat, how they are clothed,
whether they are obliged to work too hard;
whether the government or their landlord takes
from them in an unjust proportion of their labor;
on what footing stands the property they call their own,
their personal property, &c., &c.
8. Courts.
To be seen as you would see the tower of London
or menagerie of Versailles with their lions, tigers,
hyenas, and other beast of prey,
standing in the same relation to their fellows.
A slight acquaintance with them will suffice to show you
that under the most imposing exterior
they are the weakest and worst part of mankind.
Their manners, could you ape them, would not make you
beloved in your own country nor would they improve it
could you introduce them there to the exclusion
of that honest simplicity now prevailing in America,
and worthy of being cherished.27
Jefferson in that letter to John Rutledge Jr.
also wrote notes on traveling:
I will at some future moment find time to write the letters
for Frankfort, Florence, Milan, Nice and Marseilles,
which those notes will point out and lodge them
on your route if you will be so good as to keep me always
informed how and where I must send letters to you.
I would suggest an alteration in the route I had proposed
to you: that is, to descend the Danube from Vienna
so as to go to Constantinople,
and from thence to Naples and up Italy.
This must depend on your time and the information
you may be able to get as to the safety with which
you may pass through the Ottoman territories.
It is believed the Emperor is making overtures for peace.
Should this take place, it would lessen
the difficulties of such a tour.
In the meantime this gleam of peace is counterbalanced
by the warlike preparations of Sweden and Denmark
known to be made under the suggestions
of the court of London.
In this country there is great internal ferment.
But I am of opinion the new regulations will be maintained.
Perhaps the Cour pleniere may be amended
in its composition, and the States general called
at an earlier period than was intended.
We have no accounts yet of the decision of
Maryland, South Carolina, or Virginia
on the subject of the new confederation.
Yet it seems probable they will accept it in the manner
Massachusetts has done: and I see nothing improbable
in the supposition that our new government may be
in motion by the beginning of November.28
On 9 August 1788 Jefferson wrote about
France in a letter to James Monroe,
This nation is at present under great internal agitation.
The authority of the crown on one part and that of
the parliaments on the other are fairly at issue.
Good men take part with neither but have raised
an opposition, the object of which is to obtain
a fixed and temperate constitution.
There was a moment when this opposition was so high
as to endanger an appeal to arms, in which case
perhaps it would have been crushed.
The moderation of government has avoided this, and they
are yielding daily one right after another to the nation.
They have given them provincial assemblies which will
be very perfect representations of the nation and
stand somewhat in the place of our state assemblies.
They have reformed the criminal law, acknowledged the
king cannot lay a new tax without the consent of the states
general, and they will call the states general the next year.
The object of this body when met will be a bill of rights,
a civil list, a national assembly meeting at certain epochs,
and some other matters of that kind.
So that I think it probable this country will
within two or three years be in the enjoyment
of a tolerably free constitution, and that without
its having cost them a drop of blood.
For none has yet been spilt, though the English papers
have set the whole nation to cutting throats.29
In November 1788 Jefferson’s friends Lafayette, Condorcet, La Rochefoucauld
and other nobles organized a political club called the “Society of Thirty.”
Lafayette led their effort to abolish slavery.
Early in January 1789 Jefferson obtained Condorcet’s
“Essais sur la constitution des assemblées provenciales”
which was banned by the French government.
On November 14 Jefferson sent to John Jay a signed copy
of the ratification by France’s government of the Convention
between the United States and France.
At the end of the Preamble are these words:
and the United States have nominated the Sieur Thomas
Jefferson, citizen of the United States of America and
their Minister Plenipotentiary near the King;
who, after having communicated to each other their
respective full powers, have agreed on what follows:30
Jefferson in his letter to Jay wrote:
The principal changes effected are the following:
The clauses of the Convention of 1784 clothing Consuls
with the privileges of the law of Nations are struck out,
and they are expressly subjected in their persons
and property to the laws of the land.
That giving the right of Sanctuary to their houses is reduced
to a protection of their Chancery room and its papers.
Their coercive powers over passengers are taken away:
and over those whom they might have termed deserters
of their nation are restrained to deserted seamen only.
The clause allowing them to arrest and send back vessels
is struck out, and instead of it they are allowed to exercise
a police over the ships of their nation generally.
So is that which declared the indelibility of the character
of subject, and the explanation and extension
of the 11th article of the treaty of Amity.
The innovations in the Laws of evidence are done away.
And the Convention is limited to 12 years duration.31
The United States would finally ratify that Convention on 29 July 1789.
Notes
1. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 785-786.
2. Ibid., p. 798-799.
3. Ibid., p. 791.
4. Ibid., p. 376-378.
5. Ibid., p. 786-789.
6. From Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 17 June 1785 (Online)
7. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 805-806.
8. Ibid., p. 288-289.
9. To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 6 August 1785 (Online)
10. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 818-820.
11. Ibid., p. 827.
12. Ibid., p. 840-842.
13. From Thomas Jefferson to Nathanael Greene, 12 January 178[6] (Online)
14. From Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 23 April 1786 (Online)
15. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 855-857.
16. V. To Jean Nicolas Démeunier, [26 June 1786] (Online)
17. Thomas Jefferson: A Life by Willard Sterne Randall, p. 440.
18. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 346-348.
19. The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison 1776-1826, Volume 1 1776-1790 ed. James Morton Smith, p. 458-459.
20. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 880-881.
21. Ibid., p. 881-887.
22. Ibid., p. 901-902.
23. Ibid., p. 914-918.
24. Ibid., p. 919-920.
25. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume V ed. Paul Leicester Ford, p. 385-387.
26. The Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson ed. Philip S. Foner, p. 567.
27. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 660.
28. From Thomas Jefferson to John Rutledge, Jr., 19 June 1788 (online)
29. From Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 9 August 1788 (Online)
30. Convention Defining and Establishing the Functions and Privileges of Consuls and
Vice Consuls, signed at Versailles November 14, 1788 (Online)
31. From Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 14 November 1788 (Online)
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