Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson
Chapter 189 : Th: Jefferson.LETTER CCLx.x.xI.--TO WILLIAM B. GILES, March 23, 1801 TO WILLIAM B. GIL

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCLx.x.xI.--TO WILLIAM B. GILES, March 23, 1801

TO WILLIAM B. GILES.

Was.h.i.+ngton, March 23, 1801.

Dear Sir,

I received two days ago your favor of the 16th, and thank you for your kind felicitations on my election: but whether it will be a subject of felicitation permanently, will be for chapters of future history to say. The important subjects of the government I meet with some degree of courage and confidence, because I do believe the talents to be a.s.sociated with me, the honest line of conduct we will religiously pursue at home and abroad, and the confidence of my fellow-citizens dawning on us, will be equal to these objects.

But there is another branch of duty which I must meet with courage too, though I cannot without pain; that is, the appointments and disappointments as to offices. Madison and Gallatin being still absent, we have not yet decided on our rules of conduct as to these. That some ought to be removed from office, and that all ought not, all mankind will agree. But where to draw the line, perhaps no two will agree.

Consequently, nothing like a general approbation on this subject can be looked for. Some principles have been the subject of conversation, but not of determination; e.g. all appointments to civil offices during pleasure, made after the event of the election was certainly known to Mr. Adams, are considered as nullities. I do not view the persons appointed as even candidates for the office, but make others without noticing or notifying them. Mr. Adams's best friends have agreed this is right. 2. Officers who have been guilty of official mal-conduct are proper subjects of removal. 3. Good men, to whom there is no objection but a difference of political principle, practised on only as far as the right of a private citizen will justify, are not proper subjects of removal, except in the case of attorneys and marshals. The courts being so decidedly federal and irremovable, it is believed that republican attorneys and marshals, being the doors of entrance into the courts, are indispensably necessary as a s.h.i.+eld to the republican part of our fellow-citizens, which, I believe, is the main body of the people.

These principles are yet to be considered of, and I sketch them to you in confidence. Not that there is objection to your mooting them as subjects of conversation, and as proceeding from yourself, but not as matters of executive determination. Nay, farther, I will thank you for your own sentiments and those of others on them. If received before the 20th of April, they will be in time for our deliberation on the subject.

You know that it was in the year X. Y. Z. that so great a transition from us to the other side took place, and with as real republicans as we were ourselves; that these, after getting over that delusion, have been returning to us, and that it is to that return we owe a triumph in 1800, which in 1799 would have been the other way. The week's suspension of the election before Congress, seems almost to have completed that business, and to have brought over nearly the whole remaining ma.s.s. They now find themselves with us, and separated from their quondam leaders.

If we can but avoid shocking their feelings by unnecessary acts of severity against their late friends, they will in a little time cement and from one ma.s.s with us, and by these means harmony and union be restored to our country, which would be the greatest good we could effect. It was a conviction that these people did not differ from us in principle, which induced me to define the principles which I deemed orthodox, and to urge a re-union on these principles; and I am induced to hope it has conciliated many. I do not speak of the desperadoes of the quondam faction in and out of Congress. These I consider as incurables, on whom all attentions would be lost, and therefore will not be wasted. But my wish is, to keep their flock from returning to them.

On the subject of the marshal of Virginia, I refer you confidentially to Major Egglestone for information. I leave this about this day se'nnight, to make some arrangements at home preparatory to my final removal to this place, from which I shall be absent about three weeks.

Accept a.s.surances of my constant esteem and high consideration and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCLx.x.xII.--TO SAMUEL ADAMS, March 29, 1801

TO SAMUEL ADAMS.

Was.h.i.+ngton, March 29, 1801.

I addressed a letter to you, my very dear and ancient friend, on the 4th of March: not indeed to you by name, but through the medium of some of my fellow-citizens, whom occasion called on me to address. In meditating the matter of that address, I often asked myself, Is this exactly in the spirit of the patriarch, Samuel Adams? Is it as he would express it?

Will he approve of it? I have felt a great deal for our country in the times we have seen. But individually for no one so much as yourself.

When I have been told that you were avoided, insulted, frowned on, I could but e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' I confess I felt an indignation for you, which for myself I have been able, under every trial, to keep entirely pa.s.sive. However, the storm is over, and we are in port. The s.h.i.+p was not rigged for the service she was put on. We will show the smoothness of her motions on her republican tack. I hope we shall once more see harmony restored among our citizens, and an entire oblivion of past feuds. Some of the leaders, who have most committed themselves, cannot come into this.

But I hope the great body of our fellow-citizens will do it. I will sacrifice every thing but principle to procure it. A few examples of justice on officers who have perverted their functions to the oppression of their fellow-citizens, must, in justice to those citizens, be made.

But opinion, and the just maintenance of it, shall never be a crime in my view; nor bring injury on the individual. Those whose misconduct in office ought to have produced their removal even by my predecessor, must not be protected by the delicacy due only to honest men. How much I lament that time has deprived me of your aid. It would have been a day of glory which should have called you to the first office of the administration. But give us your counsel, my friend, and give us your blessing: and be a.s.sured that there exists not in the heart of man a more faithful esteem than mine to you, and that I shall ever bear you the most affectionate veneration and respect.

Th: Jefferson*

LETTER CCLx.x.xIII..--TO ELBRIDGE GERRY, March 29, 1801

TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.

Was.h.i.+ngton, March 29, 1801,

My Dear Sir,

Your two letters of January the 5th and February the 24th came safely to hand, and I thank you for the history of a transaction which will ever be interesting in our affairs. It has been very precisely as I had imagined. I thought, on your return, that if you had come forward boldly, and appealed to the public by a full statement, it would have had a great effect in your favor personally, and that of the republican cause then oppressed almost unto death. But I judged from a tact of the southern pulse. I suspect that of the north was different, and decided your conduct: and perhaps it has been as well. If the revolution of sentiment has been later, it has perhaps been not less sure. At length it has arrived. What with the natural current of opinion which has been setting over to us for eighteen months, and the immense impetus which was given it from the 11th to the 17th of February, we may now say that the United States, from New York southwardly, are as unanimous in the principles of '76, as they were in '76. The only difference is, that the leaders who remain behind are more numerous and colder than the apostles of toryism in '76. The reason is, that we are now justly more tolerant than we could safely have been then, circ.u.mstanced as we were. Your part of the Union, though as absolutely republican as ours, had drunk deeper of the delusion, and is therefore slower in recovering from it. The aegis of government, and the temples of religion and of justice, have all been prost.i.tuted there to toll us back to the times when we burnt witches. But your people will rise again. They will awake like Samson from his sleep, and carry away the gates and the posts of the city. You, my friend, are destined to rally them again under their former banners, and when called to the post, exercise it with firmness and with inflexible adherence to your own principles. The people will support you, notwithstanding the howlings of the ravenous crew from whose jaws they are escaping. It will be a great blessing to our country if we can once more restore harmony and social love among its citizens. I confess, as to myself, it is almost the first object of my heart, and one to which I would sacrifice every thing but principle. With the people I have hopes of effecting it. But their Coryphaei are incurables. I expect little from them.

I was not deluded by the eulogiums of the public papers in the first moments of change. If they could have continued to get all the loaves and fishes, that is, if I would have gone over to them, they would continue to eulogize. But I well knew that the moment that such removals should take place, as the justice of the preceding administration ought to have executed, their hue and cry would be set up, and they would take their old stand. I shall disregard that also. Mr. Adams's last appointments, when he knew he was naming counsellors and aids for me and not for himself, I set aside as far as depends on me. Officers who have been guilty of gross abuses of office, such as marshals packing juries, &c, I shall now remove, as my predecessor ought in justice to have done.

The instances will be few, and governed by strict rule, and not party pa.s.sion. The right of opinion shall suffer no invasion from me. Those who have acted well, have nothing to fear, however they may have differed from me in opinion: those who have done ill, however, have nothing to hope; nor shall I fail to do justice lest it should be ascribed to that difference of opinion. A coalition of sentiments is not for the interest of the printers. They, like the clergy, live by the zeal they can kindle, and the schisms they can create. It is contest of opinion in politics as well as religion which makes us take great interest in them, and bestow our money liberally on those who furnish aliment to our appet.i.te. The mild and simple principles of the Christian philosophy would produce too much calm, too much regularity of good, to extract from its disciples a support for a numerous priesthood, were they not to sophisticate it, ramify it, split it into hairs, and twist its texts till they cover the divine morality of its author with mysteries, and require a priesthood to explain them. The Quakers seem to have discovered this. They have no priests, therefore no schisms. They judge of the text by the dictates of common sense and common morality.

So the printers can never leave us in a state of perfect rest and union of opinion. They would be no longer useful, and would have to go to the plough. In the first moments of quietude which have succeeded the election, they seem to have aroused their lying faculties beyond their ordinary state, to re-agitate the public mind. What appointments to office have they detailed which had never been thought of, merely to found a text for their calumniating commentaries. However, the steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor: and notwithstanding the efforts of the papers to disseminate early discontents, I expect that a just, dispa.s.sionate, and steady conduct will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country.

Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able, I hope, to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom and harmony. I shall be happy to hear from you often, to know your own sentiments and those of others on the course of things, and to concur with you in efforts for the common good. Your letters through the post will now come safely. Present my best respects to Mrs. Gerry, and accept yourself a.s.surances of my constant esteem and high consideration.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCLx.x.xIV.--TO GIDEON GRANGER, May 3, 1801

TO GIDEON GRANGER.

Was.h.i.+ngton, May 3, 1801.

Dear Sir,

I wrote you on the 29th of March. Yours of the 25th of that month, with the address it covered, had not reached this place on the 1st of April, when I set out on a short visit to my residence in Virginia, where some arrangements were necessary previous to my settlement here. In fact, your letter came to me at Monticello only the 24th of April, two days before my departure from thence. This, I hope, will sufficiently apologize for the delay of the answer, which those unapprized of these circ.u.mstances will have thought extraordinary.

A new subject of congratulation has arisen. I mean the regeneration of Rhode Island. I hope it is the beginning of that resurrection of the genuine spirit of New England which rises for life eternal. According to natural order, Vermont will emerge next, because least, after Rhode Island, under the yoke of hierocracy. I have never dreamed that all opposition was to cease. The clergy, who have missed their union with the State, the Anglomen, who have missed their union with England, and the political adventurers, who have lost the chance of swindling and plunder in the waste of public money, will never cease to bawl, on the breaking up of their sanctuary. But among the people, the schism is healed, and with tender treatment the wound will not re-open. Their quondam leaders have been astounded with the suddenness of the desertion: and their silence and appearance of acquiescence have proceeded not from a thought of joining us, but the uncertainty what ground to take. The very first acts of the administration, the nominations, have accordingly furnished something to yelp on; and all our subsequent acts will furnish them fresh matter, because there is nothing against which human ingenuity will not be able to find something to say.

Accept a.s.surances of my sincere attachment and high respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCLx.x.xV.--TO NATHANIEL MACON, May 14, 1801

TO NATHANIEL MACON.

Was.h.i.+ngton, May 14, 1801.

Dear Sir,