Thomas Jefferson after he returned from France wrote this letter
to President George Washington on 15 December 1789:
I have received at this place the honor of your
letters of October 13 and November 30 and am
truly flattered by your nomination of me to the
very dignified office of Secretary of State:
for which permit me here to return you my humble thanks.
Could any circumstance seduce me to overlook
the disproportion between its duties & my talents,
it would be the encouragement of your choice.
But when I contemplate the extent of that office,
embracing as it does the principal mass of domestic
administration, together with the foreign,
I cannot be insensible of my inequality to it:
and I should enter on it with gloomy forebodings
from the criticisms & censures of a public just indeed
in their intentions, but sometimes misinformed & misled,
& always too respectable to be neglected.
I cannot but foresee the possibility that this may end
disagreeably for one, who having no motive to public
service but the public satisfaction, would certainly retire
the moment that satisfaction should appear to languish.
On the other hand I feel a degree of familiarity
with the duties of my present office, as far at least
as I am capable of understanding its duties.
The ground I have already passed over enables me
to see my way into that which is before me.
The change of government too, taking place in the country
where it is exercised, seems to open a possibility of
procuring from the new rulers some new advantages in
commerce which may be agreeable to our countrymen.
So that as far as my fears, my hopes, or my inclination
might enter into this question, I confess they would
not lead me to prefer a change.
But it is not for an individual to choose his post.
You are to marshal us as may best be for the public good:
and it is only in the case of its being indifferent to you
that I would avail myself of the option
you have so kindly offered in your letter.
If you think it better to transfer me to another post,
my inclination must be no obstacle: nor shall it be,
if there is any desire to suppress the office I now hold,
or to reduce its grade.
In either of these cases, be so good only as
to signify to me by another line your ultimate wish,
& I shall conform to it cordially.
If it should be to remain at New York, my chief comfort
will be to work under your eye, my only shelter
the authority of your name, & the wisdom of measures
to be dictated by you & implicitly executed by me.
Whatever you may be pleased to decide, I do not see
that the matters which have called me hither will permit me
to shorten the stay I originally asked; that is to say,
to set out on my journey Northward till the month of March.
As early as possible in that month I shall have the honor
of paying my respects to you in New York.1
On 12 February 1790 Thomas Jefferson spoke
to the citizens of Albemarle and said,
My feeble and obscure exertions in their service
and in the holy cause of freedom have had
no other merit than that they were my best.
We have all the same.
We have been fellow-laborers and fellow-sufferers,
and heaven has rewarded us
with a happy issue from our struggles.
It rests now with ourselves alone to enjoy in peace
and concord the blessings of self-government,
so long denied to mankind: to show by example the
sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs
and that the will of the majority, the Natural law of every
society is the only sure guardian of the rights of man.
Perhaps even this may sometimes err.
But its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived.
Let us then, my dear friends, forever bow down
to the general reason of the society.
We are safe with that, even in its deviations,
for it soon returns again to the right way.
These are lessons we have learnt together.
We have prospered in their practice, and the liberality
with which you are pleased to approve my attachment
to the general rights of mankind assures me
we are still together in these its kindred sentiments.
Wherever I may be stationed by the will of my country,
it will be my delight to see in the general tide of happiness
that yours too flows on in just place and measure.
That it may flow through all times gathering strength
as it goes, and spreading the happy influence of reason
and liberty over the face of the earth
is my fervent prayer to heaven.2
Jefferson served under President Washington as
Secretary of State from 22 March 1790 to the end of 1793.
Washington often had him debate the views of Treasury Secretary
Alexander Hamilton, and they became the
leaders of the Republican and Federalist parties.
Jefferson arrived at New York on 21 March 1790
and met with President Washington on a Sunday.
On April 2 Jefferson wrote this letter to the Marquis de Lafayette:
Behold me, my dear friend, dubbed Secretary of state,
instead of returning to the far more agreeable position
which placed me in the daily participation of your friendship.
I found the appointment in the newspapers
the day of my arrival in Virginia.
I had indeed been asked while in France whether
I would accept of any appointment at home, and
I had answered that without meaning to remain long where
I was, I meant it to be the last office I should ever act in.
Unfortunately this letter had not arrived
at the time of arranging the new government.
I expressed freely to the President my desire to return.
He left me free, but still showing his own desire.
This and the concern of others more general than
I had a right to expect, induced me after 3 months
parleying to sacrifice my own inclinations.
I have been here then ten days harnessed in new gear.
Wherever I am, or ever shall be, I shall be sincere
in my friendship to you and to your nation.
I think with others that nations are to be governed
according to their own interest: but I am convinced
that it is their interest in the long run to be grateful,
faithful to their engagements even in the worst of
circumstances and honorable and generous always.
If I had not known that the head of our government
was in these sentiments, and that his national
and private ethics were the same,
I would never have been where I am.
I am sorry to tell you his health
is less firm than it used to be.
However there is nothing in it to give alarm.
The opposition to our new Constitution
has almost totally disappeared.
Some few indeed had gone such lengths in their declarations
of hostility that they feel it awkward perhaps to come over,
but the amendments proposed by Congress,
have brought over almost all their followers.
If the President can be preserved a few years
till habits of authority and obedience can be established,
generally we have nothing to fear.
The little vaut-rien, Rhode-island
will come over with a little more time.
Our last news from Paris is of the 8th of January.
So far it seemed that your revolution had got along
with a steady pace: meeting indeed occasional
difficulties and dangers, but we are not to expect to be
translated from despotism to liberty in a feather-bed.
I have never feared for the ultimate result,
though I have feared for you personally.
Indeed I hope you will never see
such another 5th and 6th of October.
Take care of yourself, my dear friend.
For though I think your nation would in any event
work out her salvation, I am persuaded were
she to lose you, it would cost her oceans of blood
and years of confusion and anarchy.
Kiss and bless your dear children for me.
Learn them to be as you are
a cement between our two nations.3
Jefferson at the State Department found that John Jay had selected
two chief clerks, Henry Remsen Jr. for the foreign office, and Roger Alden
was in charge of the domestic office; Jefferson kept both of them.
On March 10 the first Patent Act was approved as
“An Act to Promote the Progress of the Useful Arts.”
On April 10 the House of Representatives led by James Madison
voted 31 to 29 against Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton’s Assumption Bill
that would have the federal government take on the states’ debts.
On April 15 Secretary of State Jefferson
reported to the House on copper coinage.
On April 24 he argued against the US Senate blocking persons
appointed by the President for foreign missions.
Concerned about Treasury Secretary Hamilton’s plan
to assume the states’ debts, Jefferson on 27 April 1790
wrote this letter to Dr. George Gilmer:
Dear Doctor,
I have duly received your favor of May 21
and thank you for the details it contains.
Congressional proceedings go on rather heavily.
The question for assuming the state debt
has created greater animosities than I
ever yet saw take place on any occasion.
There are three ways in which it may yet terminate.
1. A rejection of the measure which will prevent
their funding any part of the public debt, and will be
something very like a dissolution of the government.
2. A bargain between the Eastern members who
have it so much at heart, and the middle members who
are indifferent about it, to adopt those debts without
any modification on condition of removing the seat
of government to Philadelphia or Baltimore.
3. An adoption of them with this modification that
the whole sum to be assumed shall be divided
among the states in proportion to their census;
so that each shall receive as much as they are to pay;
and perhaps this might bring about so much good humor
as to induce them to give the temporary seat of government
to Philadelphia, and then to Georgetown permanently.
It is evident that this last is the least bad
of all the turns the thing can take.
The only objection to it will be that Congress will then
have to lay and collect taxes to pay these debts,
which could much better have been laid
and collected by the state governments.
This, though an evil, is a less one than any of the others
in which it may issue, and will probably give us the seat of
government at a day not very distant, which will vivify our
agriculture and commerce by circulating through our state
an additional sum every year of half a million of dollars.
When the last packet left England, there was
great appearance of an immediate rupture with Spain.
Should that take place, France will become a party.
I hope peace and profit will be our share.4
On May 3 Jefferson and the Cabinet opposed individuals getting
state grants of Indian lands because only the federal government
should have the right to acquire Indian property.
Jefferson during most of the month of May suffered
from a terrible headache and did little work.
Jefferson on June 3 announced that the Cabinet approved the
resolutions by Congress on May 21 for paying debts to soldiers.
He wrote to James Mason on 13 June 1790:
I have deferred acknowledging the receipt of your
favor of March 16 expecting daily that the business
of the consulships would have been finished:
but this was delayed by the President’s illness
and a very long one of my own, so that it is not till
within these two or three days that it has been settled.
That of Bordeaux is given to Mr. Fenwick
according to your desire.
The commission is making out and
will be signed tomorrow or next day.
I intended fully to have had the pleasure of
seeing you at Gunston hall on my way here.
But the roads being so bad that I was obliged
to leave my own carriage to get along as it could,
and to take my passage in the stage,
I could not deviate from the stage road.
I should have been happy in a conversation with you
on the subject of our new government, of which though
I approve of the mass; yet I would wish to see some
amendments, further than those which have been proposed,
and fixing it more surely on a republican basis.
I have great hopes that pressing forward with
constancy these amendments; they will be obtained
before the want of them will do any harm.
To secure the ground we gain, and gain
what more we can, is I think the wisest course.
I think much has been gained by the late Constitution;
for the former one was terminating in anarchy,
as necessarily consequent to inefficiency.
The House of Representatives have voted to remove
to Baltimore by a majority of 53 against 6.
This was not the effect of choice, but of the
confusion into which they had been brought
by the event of other questions
and their being hampered with the rules of the house.
It is not certain what will be the vote of the Senate.
Some hope an opening will be given to convert it
into a vote of the temporary seat at Philadelphia
and the permanent one at Georgetown.
The question of the assumption will be brought on again,
and its event is doubtful.
Perhaps its opponents would be wiser to be less confident
in their success, and to compromise by agreeing to assume
the state debts still due to individuals, on condition
of assuming to the states at the same time what they have
paid to individuals, so as to put the states in the shoes of
those of their creditors whom they have paid off.
Great objections lie to this, but not so great
as to an assumption of the unpaid debts only.
My duties preventing me from mingling in these questions,
I do not pretend to be very competent to their decision.
In general I think it necessary to give as well as take
in a government like ours.5
On 20 June 1790 Jefferson wrote this letter to James Monroe:
Congress has been long embarrassed by two of the most
irritating questions that ever can be raised among them,
1. the funding the public debt, and
2. the fixing on a more central residence.
After exhausting their arguments and patience on these
subjects, they have for some time been resting on their
oars, unable to get along as to these businesses, and
indisposed to attend to anything else till they are settled.
And in fine it has become probable that unless they can
be reconciled by some plan of compromise,
there will be no funding bill agreed to, our credit, (raised by
late prospects to be the first on the exchange at Amsterdam,
where our paper is above par) will burst and vanish,
and the states separate to take care everyone of itself.
This prospect appears probable to some
well informed and well-disposed minds.
Endeavors are therefore using to bring about
a disposition to some mutual sacrifices.
The assumption of the state debts has appeared as revolting
to several states as their non-assumption to others.
It is proposed to strip the proposition of the injustice
it would have done by leaving the states who have
redeemed much of their debts on no better footing
than those who have redeemed none; on the contrary
it is recommended to assume a fixed sum allotting a
portion of it to every state in proportion to its census.
Consequently everyone will receive exactly what they
will have to pay, or they will be exonerated so far by the
general government’s taking their creditors off their hands.
There will be no injustice then.
But there will be the objection still that Congress must
then lay taxes for these debts which could have been
much better laid and collected by the state governments.
And this is the objection on which the accommodation
now hangs with the Non-assumptioners, many of whom
committed themselves in their advocation of the new
Constitution by arguments drawn from the improbability
that Congress would ever lay taxes
where the states could do it separately.
These gentlemen feel the reproaches
which will be levelled at them personally.
I have been and still am of their opinion that
Congress should always prefer letting the states
raise money in their own way where it can be done.
But in the present instance I see the necessity
of yielding for this time to the cries of the creditors
in certain parts of the union, for the sake of union,
and to save us from the greatest of all calamities,
the total extinction of our credit in Europe.
On the other subject it is proposed to pass an act fixing
the temporary residence for 12 or 15 years at Philadelphia,
and that at the end of that time it shall stand ipso facto
and without further declaration transferred to Georgetown.
In this way there will be something to displease and
something to soothe every part of the Union but New York,
which must be contented with what she has had.
If this plan of compromise does not take place,
I fear one infinitely worse, an unqualified assumption
and the perpetual residence on the Delaware.
The Pennsylvania and Virginia delegations have
conducted themselves honorably and unexceptionably
on the question of residence.
Without descending to talk about bargains they have
seen that their true interests lay in not listening to
insidious propositions made to divide and defeat them,
and we have seen them at times voting against
their respective wishes rather than separate.6
Jefferson wrote two letters on July 4.
To Frances Eppes he wrote:
The business of Congress has proceeded
very slowly lately.
Two interesting questions have so chafed the members
that they can scarcely go on with one another.
One of these is happily getting over.
The Senate has passed the bill for transferring
the temporary residence of Congress to
Philadelphia for 10 years and the permanent
one to Georgetown thenceforward.
The other question relative to the assumption
of the state debts is still undecided.
In the form in which it has been proposed,
it can never be admitted.
But neither can the proposition be totally rejected without
preventing the funding the public debt altogether which
would be tantamount to a dissolution of the government.
I am in hopes it will be put into a just form by assuming
to the creditors of each state in proportion to the census
of each state, so that the state will be exonerated towards
its creditors just as much as it will have to contribute
to the assumption & consequently no injustice done.
The only objection then would be that the states could
more conveniently levy taxes themselves to pay these debts.
I am clearly of this opinion, but I see the necessity
of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions
of others for the sake of harmony.
There is some prospect of a war
between Spain and England.
Should this take place, France will certainly be involved in it,
& it will be as general a war as has ever been seen
in Europe: consequently it will be long patching up
a peace which may adjust so many interests.
In the meantime I hope peace & profit will be our lot.
I think there is every prospect of a good price for our
produce & particularly our wheat for years to come.
The revolution in France goes on
with a slow but steady step.
Their West India islands are all in combustion.
There is no government in them.
Consequently their trade is entirely open to us.7
Also on July 4 Jefferson wrote this to John Rutledge:
In Your’s of April 28 you mention Dr. Turnbull’s opinion
that force alone can do our business with the Algerines.
I am glad to have the concurrence of
so good an authority on that point.
I am clear myself that nothing but a perpetual cruise
against them, or at least for 8 months of the year and
for several years, can put an end to their piracies:
and I believe that a confederacy of the nations not
in treaty with them can be effected so as to make that
perpetual cruise, or our share of it, a very light thing, as
soon as we shall have money to answer even a light thing:
and I am in hopes this may shortly be the case.
I participate fully of your indignation at the trammels
imposed on our commerce with Great Britain.
Some attempts have been made in Congress,
and others are still making to meet their
restrictions by effectual restriction on our part.
It was proposed to double the foreign tonnage for a certain
time and after that to prohibit the exportation of our
commodities in the vessels of nations not in treaty with us.
This has been rejected.
It is now proposed to prohibit any nation from bringing
or carrying in their vessels what may not be brought
or carried in ours from or to the same ports:
also to prohibit those from bringing to us
anything not of their own produce, who prohibit us
from carrying to them anything but our own produce.
It is thought however that this cannot be carried.
The fear is that it would irritate Great Britain
were we to feel any irritation ourselves.
You will see by the debates of Congress that
there are good men and bold men and sensible men
who publicly avow these sentiments.
Your observations on the expediency
of making short treaties are most sound.
Our situation is too changing and too improving
to render an unchangeable treaty expedient for us.
But what are these enquiries in the part of the British
minister which lead you to think he means to treat?
May they not look to some other object?
I suspect they do: and can no otherwise
reconcile all circumstances.
I would thank you for a communication
of any facts on this subject.
Some questions have lately agitated the mind
of Congress more than the friends of union
on catholic principles would have wished.
The general assumption of state debts has been as warmly
demanded by some states, as warmly rejected by others.
I hope still that this question may be so divested
of the injustice imputed to it as to be compromised.
The question of residence you know
was always a heating one.
A bill has passed the Senate for fixing this
at Philadelphia ten years, and then at Georgetown:
and it is rather probable it will pass the lower house.
That question then will be put to sleep for ten years; and
this and the funding business being once out of the way,
I hope nothing else may be able to call up local principles.
If the war between Spain and England takes place,
I think France will inevitably be involved in it.
In that case I hope the new world will fatten
on the follies of the old.
If we can but establish the principles
of the armed neutrality for ourselves, we must become
the carriers for all parties as far as we can raise vessels.
The President had a hair breadth escape:
but he is now perfectly reestablished
and looks much better than before he was sick.8
Jefferson in June invited James Madison and Alexander Hamilton to a dinner,
and they worked out a compromise to accept the assumption of debts that
Hamilton wanted and that the new capital would be by the Potomac River
which is what Jefferson and Madison expected.
On 11 July 1790 Jefferson wrote to James Monroe:
The bill for removing the federal government
to Philadelphia for 10 years & then to Georgetown
has at length passed both houses.
The offices are to be removed before the 1st of December.
I presume it will be done during the President’s trip
to Virginia, which will be in September & October.
I hope to set out for Virginia about the 1st of September
and to pass three or four weeks at Monticello.
Congress will now probably proceed in better humor
to funding the public debt.
This measure will secure to us the credit we now hold
at Amsterdam, where our European paper is above par,
which is the case of no other nation.
Our business is to have great credit and to use it little.
Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace.
At present it is essential to let both Spain & England
see that we are in a condition for war,
for a number of collateral circumstances now
render it probable that they will be in that condition.
Our object is to feed & theirs to fight.
If we are not forced by England,
we shall have a gainful time of it.
A vessel from Gibraltar of the 10th of June tells us
O’Hara was busily fortifying and providing there,
& that the English Consuls in the Spanish ports
on the Mediterranean had received orders to dispatch
all their vessels from those ports immediately.
The Captain saw 15 Spanish ships of war going to Cadiz.
It is said that Arnold is at Detroit reviewing the militia there.
Other symptoms indicate a general design
on all Louisiana and the two Floridas.
What a tremendous position would success
in these objects place us in!
Embraced from the St. Croix to the St. Mary’s
on one side by their possessions, on the other by their fleet,
we need not hesitate to say that they would
soon find means to unite to them all the territory
covered by the ramifications of the Mississippi.9
Jefferson on July 12 wrote his “Opinion on War
Between
Great Britain and Spain” and sent it to President Washington.
Heads of consideration on the conduct we are
to observe in the war between Spain and Great Britain
and particularly should the latter attempt the
conquest of Louisiana & the Floridas.
The dangers to us, should Great Britain
possess herself of those countries.
She will possess a territory equal to half ours,
beyond the Mississippi.
She will reduce that half of ours which is on this side
the Mississippi by her language, laws, religion, manners,
government, commerce, capital by the possession
of New Orleans, which draws to it ye dependence
of all ye waters of Mississippi by the markets
she can offer them in the gulf of Mexico & elsewhere.
She will take from the remaining part of our States
the markets they now have for their produce
by furnishing those markets cheaper with the same articles,
tobacco, rice, indigo, bread, lumber, naval stores, furs.
She will have then possessions double the size of ours,
as good in soil & climate.
She will encircle us completely by these possessions
on our land board and her fleets on our sea-board.
Instead of two neighbors balancing each other,
we shall have one with more than the strength of both.
Would the prevention of this be worth a War?
Consider our abilities to take part in a war.
Our operations would be by land only.
How many men should we need to employ? their cost?
Our resources of taxation & credit equal to this.
Weigh the evil of this new accumulation of debt
against the loss of markets & external expense
& danger from so overgrown a neighbor.
But this is on supposition that France
as well as Spain shall be engaged in the war;
for with Spain alone the war would be unsuccessful,
& our situation rendered worse.
No need to take a part in the war as yet—
we may choose our own time.
Delay gives us many chances to avoid it altogether.
In such a choice of objects Great Britain
may not single out Louisiana & the Floridas.
She may fail in her attempt on them.
France and Spain may recover them.
If all chances fail, we should have to re-take them.
The difference between retaking & preventing,
overbalanced by the benefits of delay.
Delay enables us to be better prepared
to obtain from the allies a price for our assistance.
Suppose these our ultimate views,
What is to be done at this time?
- as to Spain?
if she be sensible as we are, that she cannot save
Louisiana and the Floridas, might she not prefer their
Independence to their Subjection of Great Britain?
Does not the proposition of the Count d’Estaing furnish us
an opening to communicate our ideas on this subject to
the court of France and through them to that of Madrid?
And our readiness to join them in guaranteeing
the independence of those countries?
This might save us from a war
if Great Britain respects our weight in a war;
and if she does not, the object would place
the war on popular ground with us.
- As to England?
Say to Beckwith that as to a Treaty of commerce,
we would prefer amicable to adversary arrangements,
though the latter would be infallible and in our power:
that our ideas are that such a treaty should be founded in
perfect reciprocity: and would therefore be its own price:
that as to an Alliance, we can say nothing
till its object be shown, & that it is not to be
inconsistent with existing engagements:
that in the event of a war between Great Britain & Spain
we are disposed to be strictly neutral:
that however we should view with extreme uneasiness
any attempt of either power to seize the possessions
of the other on our frontier, as we consider our own safety
interested in a due balance between our neighbors’
it might be advantageous to express this latter sentiment,
because if there be any difference of opinion
in their councils, whether to bend their force
against North or South America, or the islands
(and certainly there is room for difference)
and if these opinions be nearly balanced, that balance might
be determined by the prospect of having an enemy, the
more or less according to the object they should select.10
On July 13 the House of Representatives approved publishing the
Report of the Secretary of State on the Subject of Establishing a
Uniformity in the Weights, Measures and Coins of the U. S. which
modified the British systems by adding decimal relations such as dividing
the foot into ten inches and have ten ounces equal to a pound.
The Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton approved the plan for the coins.
On 10 August 1790 Jefferson sent a confidential package of letters
to the US Chargé d’Affaires William Short in France and wrote,
This letter with the very confidential papers it encloses
will be delivered you by Mr. Barrett with his own hands.
If there be no war between Spain and England,
they need be known to yourself alone.
But if that war be begun, or whenever it shall begin,
we wish you to communicate them to the Marquis
de la Fayette, on whose assistance we know we can
count in matters which interest both our countries.
He and you will consider how far the contents of these
papers may be communicated to the Count de Montmorin,
and his influence be asked with the court of Madrid.
France will be called into the war as an ally and not on
any pretense of the quarrel being in any degree her own.
She may reasonably require then that Spain
should do everything which depends on her
to lessen the number of her enemies.
She cannot doubt that we shall be of that number
if she does not yield our right to the common use of
the Mississippi and the means of using and securing it.
You will observe we state in general the necessity,
not only of our having a port near the mouth of the river
(without which we could make no use of the navigation
at all) but of its being so well separated from
the territories of Spain and her jurisdiction,
as not to engender daily disputes and broils between us.
It is certain that if Spain were to retain any jurisdiction
over our entrepot, her officers would abuse that jurisdiction,
and our people would abuse their privileges in it.
Both parties must foresee this and that it will end in war.
Hence the necessity of a well defined separation.
Nature has decided what shall be the geography of that
in the end, whatever it might be in the beginning,
by cutting off from the adjacent countries of Florida and
Louisiana and enclosing between two of its channels a long
and narrow slip of land called the island of New Orleans.
The idea of ceding this could not be hazarded to Spain
in the first step; it would be too disagreeable at first view:
because this island with its town constitutes at present
their principal settlement in that part of their dominions,
containing about 10,000 white inhabitants
of every age and sex.
Reason and events however, may by little,
and little familiarize them to it.
That we have a right to some spot as an entrepot
for our commerce may be at once affirmed.
The expediency too may be expressed of so locating it
as to cut off the source of future quarrels and wars.
A disinterested eye, looking on a map, will remark how
conveniently this tongue of land is formed for the purpose;
the Ibberville and Amit channel offering a good boundary
and convenient outlet on the one side for Florida,
and the main channel an equally good boundary
and outlet on the other side for Louisiana; while the slip
of land between is almost entirely morass or sand-bank;
the whole of it lower than the water of the river
in its highest floods, and only its Western margin (which
is the highest ground) secured by banks and inhabited.
I suppose this idea too much even for the Count de
Montmorin at first, and that therefore you will find it
prudent to urge and get him to recommend to the
Spanish court only in general terms “a port near
the mouth of the river with a circumjacent territory
sufficient for its support well defined and extraterritorial
to Spain,” leaving the idea to future growth.
I enclose you the copy of a paper distributed by the
Spanish commandant on the West side of the Mississippi,
which may justify us to M. de Montmorin for pushing
this matter to an immediate conclusion.
It cannot be expected we shall give Spain time
to be used by her for dismembering us.
It is proper to apprise you of a circumstance which may
show the expediency of being in some degree on your guard
even in your communications to the court of France.
It is believed here that the Count de Moustier
during his residence with us conceived a project
of again engaging France in a colony upon our continent,
and that he directed his views to some of the country
on the Mississippi and obtained and communicated
a good deal of matter on the subject to his court.
He saw the immediate advantage of selling some yards of
French cloths and silks to the inhabitants of New Orleans.
But he did not take into account what it would cost France
to nurse and protect a colony there till it should be able
to join its neighbors or to stand by itself;
and then what it would cost her to get rid of it.
I hardly suspect that the court of France could be
seduced by so partial a view of the subject as was
presented to them; and I suspect it the less since
the National assembly has constitutionally excluded
conquest from the objects of their government.
It may be added too that the place being ours, their yards
of cloth and silk would be as freely sold as if it were theirs.
You will perceive by this letter and the papers it encloses,
what part of the ideas of the Count d’Estaing
coincide with our views.
The answer to him must be a compound of civility and
reserve, expressing our thankfulness for his attentions;
that we consider them as proofs of the continuance
of his friendly dispositions, and that though it might be
out of our system to implicate ourselves in trans-Atlantic
guarantees; yet other parts of his plans are capable of
being improved to the common benefit of the parties.
Be so good as to say to him something of this kind verbally,
and so as that the matter
may be ended as between him and us.
On the whole, in the event of war it is left to the judgment
of the Marquis de la Fayette and yourself how far
you will develop the ideas now communicated to
the Count de Montmorin and how far you will suffer
them to be developed to the Spanish court.11
Col. David Humphreys had worked closely with George Washington
for many years, and he was the secretary for the peace commissioners in Paris.
Jefferson sent Humphreys as a secret agent and
wrote to him on 11 August 1790 this letter:
The President having thought proper to confide
several special matters in Europe to your care,
it will be expedient that you take your passage in
the first convenient vessel bound to the port of London.
When there you will be pleased to deliver to Mr. G. Morris
and to Mr. Johnson the letters and papers you will have in
charge for them, to communicate to us from thence any
interesting public intelligence you may be able to obtain,
and then take as early a passage as possible to Lisbon.
At Lisbon you will deliver the letter with which
you are charged for the Chevalier Pinto, putting
on it the address proper to his present situation.
You know the contents of this letter and will make it the
subject of such conferences with him as may be necessary
to obtain our point of establishing there the diplomatic grade
which alone coincides with our system and of ensuring its
reception and treatment with the requisite respect.
Communicate to us the result of your conferences
and then proceed to Madrid.
There you will deliver the letters and papers
which you have in charge for Mr. Carmichael,
the contents of all which are known to you.
Be so good as to multiply as much as possible
your conferences with him in order to possess him
fully of the special matters sketched out in those papers
and of the state of our affairs in general.
Your stay there will be as long as its objects may require,
only taking care to be returned to Lisbon by the time
you may reasonably expect that our answers to your
letters to be written from Lisbon may reach that place.
This cannot be earlier than
the first or second week of January.
These answers will convey to you
the President’s further pleasure.
Through the whole of this business it will be best that
you avoid all suspicion of being on any public business.
This need be known only to the
Chevalier Pinto and Mr. Carmichael.
The former need not know of your journey to Madrid;
or if it be necessary, he may be made to understand
that it is a journey of curiosity to fill up the interval
between writing your letters and receiving the answers.
To every other person it will be best that
you appear as a private traveler.
The President of the United States allows you
from this date at the rate of two thousand two hundred
and fifty dollars a year for your services and expenses
and moreover what you may incur for the postage
of letters until he shall otherwise order.12
In a letter to Gouverneur Morris on August 12 Jefferson wrote,
You have placed their proposition
of exchanging a Minister on proper ground.
It must certainly come from them, and come in
unequivocal form; with those who respect their
own dignity so much, ours must not be counted at naught.
On their own proposal formerly to exchange a Minister,
we sent them one; they have taken no notice of that
and talk of agreeing to exchange one now,
as if the idea were new.
Besides what they are saying to you, they are talking
to us through Quebec; but so informally that they
may disavow it when they please; it would only
oblige them to make the fortune of the poor Major
whom they would pretend to sacrifice; through him
they talk of a Minister, a treaty of commerce and alliance.
If the object of the latter be honorable, it is useless;
if dishonorable, inadmissible.
These tamperings prove they view a war as very possible;
and some symptoms indicate designs
against the Spanish possessions adjoining us.
The consequences of their acquiring all the country
on our frontier from the St. Croix to the St. Mary’s
are too obvious to you to need development.
You will readily see the dangers which
would then environ us.
We wish you therefore to intimate to them that we
cannot be indifferent to enterprises of this kind,
that we should contemplate a change of neighbors
with extreme uneasiness; and that a due balance
on our borders is not less desirable to us than a
balance of power in Europe has always appeared to them.
We wish to be neutral, and we will be so
if they will execute the treaty fairly
and attempt no conquests adjoining us.
The first condition is just; the second imposes
no hardship on them; they cannot complain that
the other dominions of Spain would be so narrow
as not to leave them room enough for conquest.
If the war takes place, we would really wish to be quieted
on these two points, offering in return an honorable
neutrality; more than this they are not to expect.
It will be proper that these ideas be conveyed in delicate
and friendly terms; but that they be conveyed
if the war takes place; for it is in that case alone,
and not till it be begun, that we would wish our dispositions
to be known; but in no case need they think of
our accepting any equivalent for the posts.13
On 26 November 1790 Jefferson wrote in a letter
to the South Carolina lawyer Francis Kinloch:
I am certainly flattered by the approbation you are
so good as to express of the Notes on Virginia.
The passage relative to the English, which has excited
disagreeable sensations in your mind is accounted for by
observing that it was written during the war, while they
were committing depredations in my own country and on
my own property never practiced by a civilized nation.
Perhaps their conduct and dispositions towards us since the
war have not been as well calculated as they might have
been to excite more favorable dispositions on our part.
Still as a political man they shall never find
any passion in me either for or against them.
Whenever their avarice of commerce will let them meet us
fairly halfway, I should meet them with satisfaction,
because it would be for our benefit:
but I mistake their character if they
do this under present circumstances.
The rumors of war seem to pass away.
Such an event might have produced to us some advantages:
but it might also have exposed us to dangers: and
on the whole I think a general peace more desirable.14
On December 6 the United States Capital was
moved from New York City to Philadelphia.
On 15 December 1790 Jefferson issued his report
on the diplomacy of Gouverneur Morris in England.
On 15 February 1791 Jefferson put forth this
Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank:
The bill for establishing a National Bank undertakes,
among other things
1. To form the subscribers into a Corporation.
2. To enable them in their corporate capacities to receive
grants of land, and so far is against the laws of Mortmain.
3. To make alien subscribers capable of holding lands,
and so far is against the laws of Alienage.
4. To transmit these lands on the death of a proprietor
to a certain line of successors,
and so far changes the course of Descents.
5. To put the lands out of the reach of forfeiture or escheat,
and so far is against the laws of Forfeiture and Escheat.
6. To transmit personal chattels to successors in a certain
line, and so far is against the laws of Distribution.
7. To give them the sole and exclusive right of banking
under the national authority,
and so far is against the laws of Monopoly.
8. To communicate to them a power to make laws
paramount to the laws of the states; so they must be
construed to protect the institution from the control of the
state legislatures, and so probably they will be construed.
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on
this ground that “all powers not delegated to the U.S.
by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the states,
are reserved to the states or to the people.”
(XIIth Amendment).
To take a single step beyond the boundaries
thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress
is to take possession of a boundless field of power,
no longer susceptible of any definition.
The incorporation of a bank and other powers
assumed by this bill have not in my opinion
been delegated to the U.S. by the Constitution.
I. They are not among the powers specially enumerated,
for these are:
1st. A power to lay taxes for the purpose
of paying the debts of the U.S.
But no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid.
Were it a bill to raise money, its origination
in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.
2d. “To borrow money.”
But this bill neither borrows money
nor ensures the borrowing it.
The proprietors of the bank will be just as free
as any other money holders to lend
or not to lend their money to the public.
The operation proposed in the bill, first to lend them
two millions, and then borrow them back again, cannot
change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a
payment and not a loan, call it by what name you please.
3. To “regulate commerce with foreign nations
and among the states and with the Indian tribes.”
To erect a bank and to regulate commerce
are very different acts.
He who erects a bank creates a subject of commerce
in its bills: so does he who makes a bushel of wheat
or digs a dollar out of the mines.
Yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby.
To erect a thing which may be bought and sold
is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling.
Besides, if this was an exercise of the power of regulating
commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to
the internal commerce of every state as to its external.
For the power given to Congress by the Constitution
does not extend to the internal regulation of the
commerce of a state (that is to say of the commerce
between citizen and citizen) which remains exclusively
with its own legislature; but to its external commerce
only, that is to say, its commerce with another state,
or with foreign nations or with the Indian tribes.
Accordingly the bill does not propose the measure
as a “regulation of trade,” but as
“productive of considerable advantage to trade.
Still less are these powers covered by
any other of the special enumerations.
II. Nor are they within either of the general phrases,
which are the two following:
1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare
of the U.S. that is to say “to lay taxes for the
purpose of providing for the general welfare.”
For the laying of taxes is the power and the general welfare
the purpose for which the power is to be exercised.
They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any
purpose they please; but only to pay the debts
or provide for the welfare of the Union.
In like manner they are not to do anything they please
to provide for the general welfare,
but only to lay taxes for that purpose.
To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose
of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent
power to do any act they please, which might be for the
good of the Union, would render all the preceding and
subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.
It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase,
that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever
would be for the good of the U.S. and as they would
be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be
also a power to do whatever evil they pleased.
It is an established rule of construction, where a phrase
will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will
allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument,
and not that which would render all the others useless.
Certainly no such universal power
was meant to be given them.
It was intended to lace them up straitly within the
enumerated powers, and those without which, as means,
these powers could not be carried into effect.
It is known that the very power now proposed
as a means was rejected as an end by the
Convention which formed the constitution.
A proposition was made to them to authorize
Congress to open canals and an amendatory
one to empower them to incorporate.
But the whole was rejected, and one of the reasons
of rejection urged in debate was that then they would have
a power to erect a bank, which would render the great
cities, where there were prejudices and jealousies on
that subject adverse to the reception of the Constitution.
2. The second general phrase is “to make all laws
necessary and proper for carrying into
execution the enumerated powers.”
But they can all be carried into execution without a bank.
A bank therefore is not necessary,
and consequently not authorized by this phrase.
It has been much urged that a bank will give great
facility or convenience in the collection of taxes.
Suppose this were true: yet the constitution allows only the
means which are “necessary,” not those which are merely
“convenient” for effecting the enumerated powers.
If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase
as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to
everyone; for there is not one which ingenuity may not
torture into a convenience in some way or other
to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers.
It would swallow up all the delegated powers and
reduce the whole to one phrase as before observed.
Therefore it was that the Constitution restrained them to the
necessary means, that is to say, to those means without
which the grant of the power would be nugatory.
But let us examine this convenience and see what it is.
The report on this subject page 3 states the only
general convenience to be the preventing the
transportation and re-transportation of money
between the states and the treasury.
(For I pass over the increase of circulating medium
ascribed to it as a merit, and which according to
my ideas of paper money is clearly a demerit.)
Every state will have to pay a sum of tax-money into the
treasury: and the treasury will have to pay in every
state a part of the interest on the public debt and
salaries to the officers of government resident in that state.
In most of the states there will still be a surplus
of tax-money to come up to the seat of government
for the officers residing there.
The payments of interest and salary in each state
may be made by treasury-orders on the state collector.
This will take up the greater part of the money he has
collected in his state and consequently prevent the
great mass of it from being drawn out of the state.
If there be a balance of commerce in favor of that state
against the one in which the government resides,
the surplus of taxes will be remitted by the bills
of exchange drawn for that commercial balance.
And so it must be if there was a bank.
But if there be no balance of commerce, either direct
or circuitous, all the banks in the world could not
bring up the surplus of taxes but in the form of money.
Treasury orders then and bills of exchange may prevent
the displacement of the main mass of the money collected
without the aid of any bank: and where these fail,
it cannot be prevented even with that aid.
Perhaps indeed bank bills may be a
more convenient vehicle than treasury orders.
But a little difference in the degree of convenience
cannot constitute the necessity which the constitution
makes the ground for assuming any non-enumerated power.
Besides, the existing banks will without a doubt
enter into arrangements for lending their agency:
and the more favorable, as there will be a competition
among them for it: whereas the bill delivers us up bound
to the national bank who are free to refuse all
arrangement but on their own terms, and the public not
free on such refusal to employ any other bank.
That of Philadelphia, I believe, now does this business,
by their post-notes, which by an arrangement
with the treasury are paid by any state collector
to whom they are presented.
This expedient alone suffices to prevent the existence
of that necessity which may justify the assumption
of a non-enumerated power as a means
for carrying into effect an enumerated one.
The thing may be done and has been done and well done
without this assumption; therefore it does not stand on
that degree of necessity which can honestly justify it.
It may be said that a bank, whose bills would have a
currency all over the states, would be more convenient
than one whose currency is limited to a single state.
So it would be still more convenient that there should be a
bank whose bills should have a currency all over the world.
But it does not follow from this superior convenience that
there exists anywhere a power to establish such a bank;
or that the world may not go on very well without it.
Can it be thought that the Constitution intended that
for a shade or two of convenience, more or less,
Congress should be authorized to break down the
most ancient and fundamental laws of the several states,
such as those against Mortmain, the laws of alienage,
the rules of descent, the acts of distribution, the laws
of escheat and forfeiture, the laws of monopoly?
Nothing but a necessity invincible by any other means
can justify such a prostration of laws which constitute
the pillars of our whole system of jurisprudence.
Will Congress be too strait-laced to carry the
Constitution into honest effect, unless they may
pass over the foundation-laws of the state-governments
for the slightest convenience to theirs?
The Negative of the President is the shiel
provided by the Constitution to protect against
the invasions of the legislature:
1. the rights of the Executive
2. of the Judiciary
3. of the states and state legislatures.
The present is the case of a right remaining exclusively
with the states and is consequently one of those intended
by the Constitution to be placed under his protection.
It must be added however, that unless the President’s
mind on a view of everything which is urged for
and against this bill, is tolerably clear that it is
unauthorized by the Constitution, if the pro and the
con hang so even as to balance his judgment,
a just respect for the wisdom of the legislature would
naturally decide the balance in favor of their opinion.
It is chiefly for cases where they are clearly misled
by error, ambition, or interest, that the Constitution
has placed a check in the negative of the President.15
On 18 January 1791 Jefferson wrote in a letter to James Monroe:
I have been constantly afflicted at my inability to
acknowledge the receipt of Dr. Mortimer’s letters
and of those of my friends Mr. Fitzhugh and Mr. Page:
but I have for some weeks past been forced
by other business to suspend answering any letters
whatever, unless indeed of indispensable magnitude, and
even now I must beg you to make the answer for me.
When I came into office, I found the clerkships all filled by
gentlemen who had been in them several years and who to
the title of possession added that of irreproachable conduct.
I have therefore not had a single appointment to make.
This answer has been given to near a hundred letters which
I have had to write in reply to applications of this nature.
I wish with all my soul I could have obliged
my friends on this occasion.16
Also on January 18 Jefferson completed his Report to
President Washington on the tonnage paid by French ships
that Congress had increased on 20 July 1789 and in 1790.
On February 1 Jefferson sent this draft resolution for the Senate:
The Committee to whom was referred that part
of the Speech of the President of the U. S. at the
opening of the session which relates to the commerce
of the Mediterranean & also the letter from the Secretary
of State dated 20th January 1791 with the papers
accompanying the same reported, whereupon
Resolved that the Senate do advise & consent that
the President of the U. S. take such measures as he
may think necessary for the redemption of the citizens
of the U. S. now in captivity at Algiers, provided the
expense shall not exceed 40,000 dollars, & also that
measures be taken to confirm the treaty now existing
between the U. S. & the emperor of Morocco.17
On 2 February 1791 Jefferson wrote to the Princeton
graduate, writer and editor Philip Freneau:
The clerkship for foreign languages in my office is vacant.
The salary indeed is very low, being but two hundred and
fifty dollars a year: but also it gives so little to do as not to
interfere with any other calling the person may choose,
which would not absent him from the seat of government.
I was told a few days ago that it might perhaps
be convenient to you to accept it.
If so, it is at your service.
It requires no other qualification than
a moderate knowledge of the French.
Should anything better turn up within my department,
that might suit you, I should be very happy
to be able to bestow it so well.
Should you conclude to accept the present, you may
consider it as engaged to you, only be so good as
to drop me a line informing me of your resolution.18
Jefferson appointed Freneau a clerk of foreign languages on August 16.
On October 31 Freneau began publishing the National Gazette
to promote the republican and democratic ideas of Jefferson and Madison.
On February 7 Jefferson drafted a Bill to
Promote Progress of the Useful Arts
that was introduced into the House on that day.
That Congress did not act on it, though the next
Congress did pass an amended version.
President Washington on February 25 signed the bill that established
the Bank of the United States that was championed by Secretary of the
Treasury Alexander Hamilton, and on March 3 the Congress approved
an internal revenue law that included a tax on alcohol.
On March 4 the state of Vermont was admitted into the Union,
and Jefferson wrote the draft for the President’s message
to suggest nominations for several officers.
Jefferson on 22 March 1791 sent to George Nicholas,
Attorney of the District of Kentucky, this letter:
Sir, —A certain James O’Fallon is, as we are informed,
undertaking to raise, organize & commission an army,
of his own authority, & independent of that of the
government, the object of which is to go and possess
themselves of lands which have never yet been granted
by any authority which the government admits to be legal,
and with an avowed design to hold them by force
against any power, foreign or domestic.
As this will inevitably commit our whole nation in war
with the Indian nations and perhaps others, it cannot
be permitted that all the inhabitants of the U. S. shall
be involved in the calamities of war, and the blood
of thousands of them be poured out, merely that
a few adventurers may possess themselves of lands:
nor can a well ordered government tolerate such an
assumption of its sovereignty by unauthorized individuals.
I send you herein the attorney general’s opinion
of what may legally be done, with a desire that
you proceed against the said O’Fallon according to law.
It is not the wish to extend the prosecution
to other individuals who may have given
thoughtlessly into this unlawful proceeding.
I enclose you a proclamation to this effect.
But they may be assured, that if this undertaking
be prosecuted, the whole force of the U. S.
will be displayed to punish the transgression.
I enclose you one of O’Fallon's commissions,
signed, as is said, by himself.19
On 2 April 1791 Jefferson wrote to President Washington:
Governor Quesada, by order of his court,
is inviting foreigners to go and settle in Florida.
This is meant for our people.
Debtors take advantage of it and go off with their property.
Our citizens have a right to go where they please.
It is the business of the states to take measures
to stop them till their debts are paid.
This done, I wish a hundred thousand
of our inhabitants would accept the invitation.
It will be the means of delivering to us peaceably,
what may otherwise cost us a war.20
In a letter to James Monroe on April 17 Jefferson wrote,
We hear of continual murders in the Westward.
I hope we shall drub the Indians well this summer
and then change our plan from war to bribery.
We must do as the Spaniards and English do,
keep them in peace by liberal and constant presents.
They find it the cheapest plan, and so shall we.
The expense of this summer’s expedition
would have served for presents for half a century.
In this way hostilities being suspended for some
length of time, a real affection may succeed
on our frontiers to that hatred now existing there.
Another powerful motive is that in this way we may
leave no pretext for raising or continuing an army.
Every rag of an Indian depredation will otherwise serve as
a ground to raise troops with those who think a standing
army and a public debt necessary for the happiness of the
U.S., and we shall never be permitted to get rid of either.
Our treasury still thinks that these new encroachments
of Great Britain on our carrying trade must be
met by passive obedience and nonresistance,
lest any misunderstanding with them should affect
our credit or the prices of our public paper.
New schemes are on foot for bringing more paper
to market by encouraging great manufacturing
companies to form, and their actions or paper-shares
to be transferrable as bank-stock.21
Jefferson on July 28 wrote to the US Chargé d’Affaires
William Short in France, and this is the portion that was in cipher:
Whenever jealousies are expressed as to any supposed
views of ours on the dominion of the West Indies, you
cannot go farther than the truth in asserting we have none.
If there be one principle more deeply rooted than
any other in the mind of every American,
it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
As to commerce indeed we have strong sensations.
In casting our eyes over the earth, we see no instance
of a nation forbidden, as we are, by foreign powers
to deal with neighbors, and obliged with them
to carry into another hemisphere the mutual supplies
necessary to relieve mutual wants.
This is not merely a question between
the foreign power and our neighbor.
We are interested in it equally with the latter,
and nothing but moderation, at least with respect to us,
can render us indifferent to its continuance.
An exchange of surpluses and wants between
neighbor nations is both a right and a duty
under the moral law, and measures against right
should be mollified in their exercise, if it be wished
to lengthen them to the greatest term possible.
Circumstances sometimes require that rights the most
unquestionable should be advanced with delicacy.
It would seem that the one now spoken of would need
only a mention to be assented to by an unprejudiced mind.
But with respect to America, Europeans in general have
been too long in the habit of confounding force with right.
The Marquis de la Fayette stands in such a relation
between the two countries, that I think him
perfectly capable of seizing what is just as to both.
Perhaps on some occasion of free conversation you might
find an opportunity of impressing these truths on his mind,
and that from him they might be let out at a proper
moment, as meriting consideration and weight,
when they shall be engaged in the work
of forming a Constitution for our neighbors.
In policy, if not in justice, they should be disposed
to avoid oppression, which falling on us, as well as
on their Colonies, might tempt us to act together.22
Two days later on July 30 Jefferson included a copy of
that letter with this short letter to Washington:
I have the honor to enclose for your perusal a letter
which I have prepared for Mr. Short.
The ill humor into which the French colonies are getting,
and the little dependence on the troops sent thither,
may produce a hesitation in the National assembly
as to the conditions they will impose in their constitution.
In a moment of hesitation small matters
may influence their decision.
They may see the impolicy of insisting on particular
conditions which operating as grievances on us, as well
as on their colonists, might produce a concert of action.
I have thought it would not be amiss to trust to Mr. Short
the sentiments in the cyphered part of the letter, leaving
him to govern himself by circumstances whether to let them
leak out at all or not, and whether so as that it may be
known, or remain unknown, that they come from us.
A perfect knowledge of his judgment and discretion
leave me entirely satisfied that they will be not used
or so used, as events shall render proper.
But if you think that the possibility that harm may be done,
overweighs the chance of good, I would expunge them,
as in cases of doubt it is better
to say too little than too much.23
Jefferson on August 10 wrote to Secretary of War Henry Knox this letter:
I have now the honor to return you the Petition of Mr.
Moultrie on behalf of the South Carolina Yazoo Company.
Without noticing that some of the highest functions of
sovereignty are assumed in the very papers which
he annexes as his justification, I am of opinion that
Government should firmly maintain this ground, that
the Indians have a right to the occupation of their Lands
independent of the States within whose chartered lines
they happen to be; that until they cede them by Treaty
or other transaction equivalent to a Treaty, no act of a
State can give a right to such Lands; that neither under
the present Constitution nor the ancient Confederation
had any State or person a right to Treat with the Indians
without the consent of the General Government; that
that consent has never been given to any Treaty
for the cession of the Lands in question; that the
Government is determined to exert all its energy for the
patronage and protection of the rights of the Indians,
and the preservation of peace between the United States
and them; and that if any settlements are made on Lands
not ceded by them without the previous consent of the
United States, the Government will think itself bound,
not only to declare to the Indians that such settlements
are without the authority or protection of the United States,
but to remove them also by the public force.
It is in compliance with your request, my dear Sir,
that I submit these ideas to you, to whom it belongs
to give place to them or such others as your better
judgement shall prefer in answer to Mr. Moultrie.24
On August 30 Jefferson wrote this reply to a letter from Benjamin Banneker:
I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant
and for the Almanac it contained.
No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs
as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren,
talents equal to those of the other colors of men,
and that the appearance of a want of them is
owing merely to the degraded condition
of their existence both in Africa and America.
I can add with truth that no body wishes more ardently
to see a good system commenced for raising the condition
both of their body and mind to what it ought to be,
as fast as the imbecility of their present existence and
other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit.
I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to
Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of
Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society
because I considered it as a document to which your whole
color had a right for their justification against the doubts
which have been entertained of them.25
The Bill of Rights became law when the first ten amendments
to the Constitution were ratified on December 15.
Jefferson on December 23 wrote to Archibald Stuart to encourage
the strengthening of state governments with these suggestions:
To obtain a wise and an able government,
I consider the following changes as important.
Render the legislature a desirable station by
lessening the number of representatives (say to 100)
and lengthening somewhat their term, and
proportion them equally among the electors:
adopt also a better mode of appointing Senators.
Render the Executive a more desirable post to men of
abilities by making it more independent of the legislature.
To wit, let him be chosen by other electors,
for a longer time, and ineligible for ever after.
Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government.
Let him feel the whole weight of it then
by taking away the shelter of his executive council.
Experience both ways has already established
the superiority of this measure.
Render the Judiciary respectable by every possible means,
to wit, firm tenure in office, competent salaries,
and reduction of their numbers.
Men of high learning and abilities are few in every country;
and by taking in those who are not so, the able part
of the body have their hands tied by the unable.
This branch of government will have the weight
of the conflict on their hands, because they will be
the last appeal of reason.26
Notes
1. The Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson ed. Philip S. Foner, p. 592-593.
2. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 491.
3. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VI ed. Paul Leicester Ford, p. 39-41.
4. Ibid., p. 83-84.
5. Ibid., p. 74-75.
6. From Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 20 June 1790 (Online)
7. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VI, p. 84-86.
8. Ibid., p. 86-88.
9. Ibid., p. 88-90.
10. Ibid., p. 90-95.
11. Ibid., p. 114-118.
12. Ibid., p. 118-120.
13. Secretary of State to Gouverneur Morris, 12 August 1790 (Online)
14. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VI, p. 152-153.
15. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 416-421.
16. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VI, p. 174.
17. Ibid., p. 185.
18. From Thomas Jefferson to Philip Freneau, 28 February 1791 (Online)
19. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VI, p. 239.
20. Ibid., p. 242-243.
21. Ibid., p. 293-294.
22. Ibid., p. 299-300.
23. Ibid., p. 301-302.
24. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 982-983.
25. Ibid., p. 984.
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