[Previous page]...ign powers,
it is still doubted by some whether a majority of the people of the
U.S. were not against adopting it. However it was carried through
all the assemblies of the states, tho' by very small majorities in
the largest states. The inconveniences of an inefficient government,
driving the people as is usual, into the opposite extreme, the
elections to the first Congress run very much in favor of those who
were known to favor a very strong government. Hence the
anti-republicans appeared a considerable majority in both houses of
Congress. They pressed forward the plan therefore of strengthening
all the features of the government which gave it resemblance to an
English constitution, of adopting the English forms & principles of
administration, and of forming like them a monied interest, by means
of a funding system, not calculated to pay the public debt, but to
render it perpetual, and to make it an engine in the hands of the
executive branch of government which, added to the great patronage it
possessed in the disposal of public offices, might enable it to
assume by degrees a kingly authority. The biennial period of
Congress being too short to betray to the people, spread over this
great continent, this train of things during the first Congress,
little change was made in the members to the second. But in the mean
time two very distinct parties had formed in Congress; and before the
third election, the people in general became apprised of the game
which was playing for drawing over them a kind of government which
they never had in contemplation. At the 3d. election therefore a
decided majority of Republicans were sent to the lower house of
Congress; and as information spread still farther among the people
after the 4th. election the anti-republicans have become a weak
minority. But the members of the Senate being changed but once in 6.
years, the completion of that body will be much slower in it's
assimilation to that of the people. This will account for the
differences which may appear in the proceedings & spirit of the two
houses. Still however it is inevitable that the Senate will at
length be formed to the republican model of the people, & the two
houses of the legislature, once brought to act on the true principles
of the Constitution, backed by the people, will be able to defeat the
plan of sliding us into monarchy, & to keep the Executive within
Republican bounds, notwithstanding the immense patronage it possesses
in the disposal of public offices, notwithstanding it has been able
to draw into this vortex the judiciary branch of the government & by
their expectancy of sharing the other offices in the Executive gift
to make them auxiliary to the Executive in all it's views instead of
forming a balance between that & the legislature as it was originally
intended and notwithstanding the funding phalanx which a respect for
public faith must protect, tho it was engaged by false brethren. Two
parties then do exist within the U.S. They embrace respectively the
following descriptions of persons.
The Anti-republicans consist of
1. The old refugees & tories.
2. British merchants residing among us, & composing the main
body of our merchants.
3. American merchants trading on British capital. Another
great portion.
4. Speculators & Holders in the banks & public funds.
5. Officers of the federal government with some exceptions.
6. Office-hunters, willing to give up principles for places. A
numerous & noisy tribe.
7. Nervous persons, whose languid fibres have more analogy with
a passive than active state of things.
The Republican part of our Union comprehends
1. The entire body of landholders throughout the United States.
2. The body of labourers, not being landholders, whether in
husbanding or the arts.
The latter is to the aggregate of the former party probably as
500 to one; but their wealth is not as disproportionate, tho' it is
also greatly superior, and is in truth the foundation of that of
their antagonists. Trifling as are the numbers of the
Anti-republican party, there are circumstances which give them an
appearance of strength & numbers. They all live in cities, together,
& can act in a body readily & at all times; they give chief
employment to the newspapers, & therefore have most of them under
their command. The Agricultural interest is dispersed over a great
extent of country, have little means of inter-communication with each
other, and feeling their own strength & will, are conscious that a
single exertion of these will at any time crush the machinations
against their government. As in the commerce of human life, there
are commodities adapted to every demand, so there are newspapers
adapted to the Antirepublican palate, and others to the Republican.
Of the former class are the Columbian Centinel, the Hartford
newspaper, Webster's Minerva, Fenno's Gazette of the U.S., Davies's
Richmond paper &c. Of the latter are Adams's Boston paper,
Greenleaf's of New York, Freneau's of New Jersey, Bache's of
Philadelphia, Pleasant's of Virginia &c. Pleasant's paper comes out
twice a week, Greenleaf's & Freneau's once a week, Bache's daily. I
do not know how often Adams's. I shall according to your desire
endeavor to get Pleasant's for you for 1794, & 95. and will have it
forwarded through 96 from time to time to your correspondent at
Baltimore.
While on the subject of authorities and information, the
following works are recommended to Professor Ebeling.
Minot's history of the insurrection in Massachusetts in 1786.
8'vo.
Mazzei. Recherches historiques et politiques sur les E. U. de
l'Amerique. 4 vol. 8'vo. This is to be had from Paris. The author
is an exact man.
The article `Etats Unis de l'Amerique' in the Dictionnaire
d'Economie politique et diplomatique, de l'Encyclopedie methodique.
This article occupies about 90. pages, is by De Meusnier, and his
materials were worthy of confidence, except so far as they were taken
from the Abbe Raynal. Against these effusions of an imagination in
delirio it is presumed Professor Ebeling needs not be put on his
guard. The earlier editions of the Abbe Raynal's work were equally
bad as to both South & North America. A gentleman however of perfect
information as to South America, undertook to reform that part of the
work, and his changes & additions were for the most part adopted by
the Abbe in his latter editions. But the North-American part remains
in it's original state of worthlessness.
A Memorandum (Services to My Country)
[_c. 1800]
I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better
for my having lived at all? I dot know that it is. I have been the
instrument of doing the following things; but they would have been
done by others; some of them, perhaps, a little better.
The Rivanna had never been used for navigation; scarcely an
empty canoe had ever passed down it. Soon after I came of age, I
examined its obstructions, set on foot a subscription for removing
them, got an Act of Assembly passed, and the thing effected, so as to
be used completely and fully for carrying down all our produce.
The Declaration of Independence.
I proposed the demolition of the church establishment, and the
freedom of religion. It could only be done by degrees; to wit, the
Act of 1776, c. 2, exempted dissenters from contributions to the
church, and left the church clergy to be supported by voluntary
contributions of their own sect; was continued from year to year, and
made perpetual 1779, c. 36. I prepared the act for religious freedom
in 1777, as part of the revisal, which was not reported to the
Assembly till 1779, and that particular law not passed till 1785, and
then by the efforts of Mr. Madison.
The act putting an end to entails.
The act prohibiting the importation of slaves.
The act concerning citizens, and establishing the natural right
of man to expatriate himself, at will.
The act changing the course of descents, and giving the
inheritance to all the children, &c., equally, I drew as part of the
revisal.
The act for apportioning crimes and punishments, part of the
same work, I drew. When proposed to the legislature, by Mr. Madison,
in 1785, it failed by a single vote. G. K. Taylor afterwards, in
1796, proposed the same subject; avoiding the adoption of any part of
the diction of mine, the text of which had been studiously drawn in
the technical terms of the law, so as to give no occasion for new
questions by new expressions. When I drew mine, public labor was
thought the best punishment to be substituted for death. But, while
I was in France, I heard of a society in England, who had
successfully introduced solitary confinement, and saw the drawing of
a prison at Lyons, in France, formed on the idea of solitary
confinement. And, being applied to by the Governor of Virginia for
the plan of a Capitol and Prison, I sent him the Lyons plan,
accompanying it with a drawing on a smaller scale, better adapted to
our use. This was in June, 1786. Mr. Taylor very judiciously
adopted this idea, (which had now been acted on in Philadelphia,
probably from the English model) and substituted labor in
confinement, to the public labor proposed by the Committee of
revisal; which themselves would have done, had they been to act on
the subject again. The public mind was ripe for this in 1796, when
Mr. Taylor proposed it, and ripened chiefly by the experiment in
Philadelphia; whereas, in 1785, when it had been proposed to our
assembly, they were not quite ripe for it.
In 1789 and 1790, I had a great number of olive plants, of the
best kind, sent from Marseilles to Charleston, for South Carolina and
Georgia. They were planted, and are flourishing; and, though not yet
multiplied, they will be the germ of that cultivation in those
States.
In 1790, I got a cask of heavy upland rice, from the river
Denbigh, in Africa, about lat. 9 degrees 30' North, which I sent to
Charleston, in hopes it might supersede the culture of the wet rice,
which renders South Carolina and Georgia so pestilential through the
summer. It was divided, and a part sent to Georgia. I know not
whether it has been attended to in South Carolina; but it has spread
in the upper parts of Georgia, so as to have become almost general,
and is highly prized. Perhaps it may answer in Tennessee and
Kentucky. The greatest service which can be rendered any country is,
to add an useful plant to its culture; especially, a bread grain;
next in value to bread is oil.
Whether the act for the more general diffusion of knowledge
will ever be carried into complete effect, I know not. It was
received by the legislature with great enthusiasm at first; and a
small effort was made in 1796, by the act to establish public
schools, to carry a part of it into effect, viz., that for the
establishment of free English schools; but the option given to the
courts has defeated the intention of the act.
A Memorandum (Rules of Etiquette)
[_c. November, 18031]
I. In order to bring the members of society together in the
first instance, the custom of the country has established that
residents shall pay the first visit to strangers, and, among
strangers, first comers to later comers, foreign and domestic; the
character of stranger ceasing after the first visits. To this rule
there is a single exception. Foreign ministers, from the necessity
of making themselves known, pay the first visit to the ministers of
the nation, which is returned.
II. When brought together in society, all are perfectly equal,
whether foreign or domestic, titled or untitled, in or out of office.
All other observances are but exemplifications of these two
principles.
I. 1st. The families of fore...
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