on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.
Were we to break to pieces, it would damp the hopes and the
efforts of the good, and give triumph to those of the bad,
through the whole enslaved world. (To Richard Rush, 1820.
C. VII., 182.)
Secrecy. ā No ground of support of the Executive will ever
be so sure as a complete knowledge of their proceedings by the
people; and it is only in cases where the public good would be
injured, and because it would be injured that proceedings should
be secret. (From a communication to the President, 1793. F.
VI., 46.)
Sedition Law. ā I considered, and now consider, that law to
be a nullity, as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had or-
dered us to fall down and worship a golden image; and that
it was as much my duty to arrest its execution in every stage,
as it would have been to have rescued from the fiery furnace
those who should have been cast into it for refusing to wor-
3/8 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
ship their image. It was accordingly done, in every instance,
without asking what the offenders had done, or against whom
they had offended, but whether the pains they were suffering
were inflicted under the pretended sedition law. (To Mrs. John
Adams, 1804. F. VIII., 308.)
Sedition Law. ā You seem to think it developed on the judge
to decide on the validity of the sedition law. But nothing in
the Constitution has given them a right to decide for the Execu-
tive, more than to the Executive to decide for them. Both
magistracies are equally independent in the sphere of action
assigned to them. The judges, beheving the law constitutional,
had a right to pass a sentence of fine and imprisonment; be-
cause the power was placed in their hands by the Constitution.
But the Executive believing the law to be unconstitutional was
bound to remit the execution of it; because that power has
been confined to him by the Constitution. That instrument
meant that its co-ordinate branches should be checks on each
other. But the opinion which gives the judges the right to
decide what laws are constitutional, and what not, not only for
themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the Legisla-
ture and Executive also, in their spheres, would make the
Judiciary a despotic branch. Nor does the opinion of the un-
constitutionality, and consequent nullity of that law, which is
confounding all vice and virtue, all truth and falsehood in the
United States. The power to do that is fully possessed by the
several State Legislatures. It was reserved to them, and was
denied to the general government, by the Constitution, ac-
cording to our construction of it. While we deny that Con-
gress has a right to control the freedom of the press, we have
ever asserted the right of the States, and their exclusive right,
to do so. (To Mrs. John Adams, 1804. F. VIII. , 311.)
Seizure. ā Property wrongfully taken from a friend on a high
sea is not thereby transferred to the captor. In whatever hands
it is found it remains the property of those from whom it was
taken; and any person possessed of it, private or public, has a
right to restore it. If it comes to the hands of the Executive they
may restore it. If into those of the Legislature (as by formal
OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 379
payment into the Treasury) they may restore it. Whoever,
private or pubHc, undertakes to restore it, takes on themselves
the risk of proving that the goods were taken without authority
of the law, and consequently that the captor had no right to
them. The Executive, charged with our exterior relations,
seems bound, if satisfied of the fact, to do right to the foreign
nation, and take on itself the risk of justification. (To Secre-
tary of State, James Madison, 1801. F. VIII., 73.)
Self-Government. ā Every man and every body of men on
earth possess the right of self-government. They receive it
with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise
it by their single will; collections of men by that of their
majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every
society of men. When a certain description of men are to
transact together a particular business, the times and places
of their meeting and separating depend on their own will; they
make a part of the natural right of self-government. This, like
all other natural rights, may be abridged or modified in its ex-
ercise by their own consent, or by the law of those who depute
them, and if they meet in the rights of others; but as far as it
is not abridged or modified, they retain it as a natural right, and
may exercise it in what form they please, either exclusively
by themselves or in association with others, or by others alto-
gether, as they shall agree. (From an opinion upon the ques-
tion whether the President should veto the bill providing that
the seat of government be removed to the Potomac, 1790. F.
v., 205.)
Self-Government. ā We have the same object, the success of
representative government. Nor are we acting for ourselves
alone, but for the whole human race. The event of our experi-
ment is to show whether man can be trusted with self-govern-
ment. The eyes of suffering humanity are fixed on us with
anxiety as their only hope, and on such a theatre for such a
cause we must suppress all smaller passions and local considera-
tions. The leaders of Federalism say that man cannot be trusted
with his ovv'n government. We must do no act which shall
replace them in the direction of the experiment. We must not
380 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
by any departure from principle, disgust the mass of our fellow
citizens who have confided to us this interesting cause. (To
Governor Hall. F. VIII., 156.)
Self-Government. ā In the great work which has been effected
in America, no individual has a right to take any great share
to himself. Our people in a body are wise, because they are
under the unrestrained and unperverted operation of their own
understandings. Those whom they have assigned to the direc-
tion of their affairs have stood with pretty even front. If any
one of them was withdrawn, many others entirely equal, have
been ready to fill his place with as good abilities. A nation,
composed of such materials, and free in all its members from
distressing wants, furnishes hopeful implements for the inter-
esting experiment of self-government; and we feel that we are
acting under obligations not confined to the limits of our own
society. It is impossible not to be sensible that we are acting
for all mankind; that circumstances denied to others, but in-
dulged to us, have imposed on us the duty of proving what is
the degree of freedom and self-government in which a society
may venture to have its individual members. (To Joseph
Priestly, 1802. F. VIII., 158.)
Senate. ā I think the Senate has nO' right to negative the
grade. * * * ^1-,^ transaction of business with foreign
nations is executive altogether. The Senate is not supposed by
the Constitution to be acquainted with the concerns of the
executive department. It was intended that these should be
communicated to them; nor can they, therefore, be qualified
to judge of the necessity which calls for a mission to any par-
ticular place, or of the particular grade, more or less marked,
which special and secret circumstances may call for. All this
is left to the President; they are only to see that no unfit person
be employed. * * * jf ^-^g Constitution had meant to give
the Senate a negative on the grade or destination, as well as in
the person, it would have said so in direct terms. (From an
opinion on the question whether the Senate has the right tO"
negative the grade of persons appointed by the President to
fill foreign missions, 1790. F. V.. 162.)
OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 381
Service. ā Nothing could so completely divest us of liberty
as the establishment of the opinion that the State has a per-
petual right to the services of all its members. This to men of
certain ways of thinking would be to annihilate the blessings
of existence; to contradict the giver of life who gave it for
happiness, not for wretchedness; and certainly to such it were
better that they had never been born. (To James Monroe,
1782. F. III., 59.)
Services of Jefferson. ā I have sometimes asked myself
whether my country is the better for my having lived at all. I
do not 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:
(i) The Rivanna had never been used for navigation; scarce-
ly 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 efifected so as to be used completely and fully for carry-
ing down all our produce.
(2) The Declaration of Independence.
(3) I proposed the demolition of the church establishment
and the freedom of religion. * * * j prepared the act for
religious freedom in 1777, which was not reported to the As-
sembly till 1779, and that particular law not passed till 1785,
and then by the efforts of Mr. Madison.
(4) The Act putting an end to entails.
(5) The Act prohibiting the importation of slaves.
(6) The Act concerning citizens and establishing the natural
right of man to expatriate himself at will.
(7) The Act changing the course of descents and giving the
inheritance to all the children, etc., equally, I drew.
(8) The Act for apportioning crimes and punishments, I
drew.
(9) In 1789 alnd 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 though not yet
flourishing, will be the germ of that cultivation in those states.
382 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
(10) In 1790 I got a cask of heavy upland rice from the
River Denbigh in Africa, about lat. 90Ā° 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 pesti-
lential through the summer. * * * 'pj^g 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
oil.
(11) 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 estab-
lish 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.
(Written in 1800 (?). F. VII., 476.)
Slavery. ā The abolition of domestic slavery is the great ob-
ject of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily intro-
duced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement
of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further
importation from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to effect
this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might
amount to a prohibition, have hitherto been defeated by his
majesty's negative; thus preferring the immediate advantages
of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American
States, and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by
this infamous practice. (From ''A Summary View," 1774. F.
I., 440.)
Slavery. ā No person hereafter coming into this country shall
be held within the same under any pretext whatever. (From a
proposed Constitution for Virginia, 1776. F. II., 26.)
Slavery. ā No persons shall, henceforth, be slaves within this
commonwealth, except such as were so on the first day of this
present session of Assembly, and the descendants of the families
of them. Negroes and mulattoes which shall hereafter be
brought into this commonwealth and kept therein one whole
year, together, or so long at different times as shall amount to
OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 383
one year, shall be free. But if they shall not depart the com-
monwealth within one year they shall be out of the protection
of the laws. (From a bill concerning slaves, rejected by the
Assembly, 1779. F. II., 201.)
Slavery, ā This unfortunate difYerence of colour, and perhaps
of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these
people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate
the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its
dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the ques-
tion, ''What further is to be done with them?" join themselves
in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice
only. Among the Romans emancipation required but one
effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without
staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is neces-
sary, unknown to history. When freed he is to be removed
beyond the reach of mixture, (From "Notes on Virginia,"
1782, F, III., 250.)
Slavery. ā It is impossible to be temperate and pursue this
subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals,
or history, natural and civil. We must be contented to hope
they will force their way into everyone's mind, I think a change
already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution.
The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from
the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing
under the auspices of heaven, for a total emanicipation, and that
this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consents
of the masters, rather than by their extirpation, (From "Notes
on Virginia," 1782, F, III,, 26^?)
Slavery, ā Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that con-
sidering members, nature, and natural means only, a revolution
of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among
possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural
interference. The Almighty has no attribute which can take
side with us in such a contest (with slaves), (From "Notes on
Virginia," 1782. F. III., 267.)
Slavery. ā With what execrations should the statesman be
384 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
loaded, who, permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on
the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these
into enemies, destroys the morals of one part, and the amor
patriae of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this
world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he
is born to live and labour for another: in which he must lock
up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends upon
his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race,
or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations
proceeding from him. (From "Notes on Virginia," 1782. F.
III., 267.)
Slavery. ā With the morals of a people, their industry also
is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for
himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true,
that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed
are ever seen to labour. (From "Notes on Virginia," 1782.
F. III., 267.)
Slavery. ā There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on
the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery
among us. The whole commerce between master and slave
is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most
unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submis-
sion on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate
it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of
all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learn-
ing to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no
other motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for
restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it
should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But
generally, it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks
on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the
circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst of passions,
and thus nursed, educated and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot
but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. (From "Notes
on Virginia," 1782. F. III., 26y.)
Slavery. ā The General Assembly shall not have power to per-
mit the introduction of any more slaves to reside in this State,
/
OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 385
or the continuance of slavery beyond the generations which
shall be living on the thirty-first day of December, one thou-
sand, eight hundred; all persons born after that day being
hereby declared free. (From a proposed Constitution for Vir-
ginia, 1783. F. III., 324.)
Slavery. ā After the year 1800 of the Christian era, there
should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of
the said states, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof
the party shall have been convicted to have been personally
guilty. (From a clause in a report to Congress for a plan of
government for western territory, 1784. F. III., 432.)*
Slavery. ā In Maryland, I do not find such a disposition to
begin a redress of this enormity (slavery) as in Virginia. This
is the next State to which we may turn our eyes for the interest-
ing spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression;
a conflict wherein the sacred side is gaining daily recruits, from
the influx into office of young men grown and growing up.
These have sucked in the principles of liberty as it were with
their mothers' milk; and it is to them I look with anxiety to
tturn the fate of this question. (Written from Paris to Dr.
Richard Price, 1785. F. IV., 83.)
Slavery. ā What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible
machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, im-
prisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty,
and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power
supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men
a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than
ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must
wait with patience the workings of an overruling providence
and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of these our
suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be
full, when their groans shall have involved heaven itself in dark-
ness, doubtless a god of justice will awaken to their distress,
and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or
*If this clause had been adopted, slavery would have been excluded from
all the admitted States of the Union. It failed by one vote.
386 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention
to the things of this world and that they are not left to the
guidance of a blind fatality. (Written in Paris to M. de Meus-
nier, 1786. F. IV., 181.)
Slavery. ā Sir : I am very sensible of the honor you propose
to me of becoming a member of the society for the abolition
of the slave trade. You know that nobody wishes more
ardently to see an abolition not only of the trade but of the
conditions of slavery; and certainly nobody will be more willing
to encounter every sacrifice for that object. But the influence
and information of the friends to this proposition in France will
be far above the needs of my association. I am here as a public
sen^ant; and those whom I serve never having yet been able
to give their voice against this practice, it is decent for me to
avoid too public a demonstration of my wishes to see it abol-
ished. Without serving the cause here, it might render me less
able to serve it beyond the water. (To Jean Pierre Bussot,
Paris, 1788. F. v., 6.)
Slavery. ā I have long since given up the expectation of any
early provision for the extinguishment of slavery among us.
There are many virtuous men who would make any sacrifices
to effect it, many equally virtuous who persuade themselves
either that the thing is not wrong, or that it cannot be remedied,
and very many with whom interest is morality. The older we
grow, the larger we are disposed to believe the last party to be.
But interest is really going over to the side of morality. The
value of the slave is every day lessening; his burden on his
master daily increasing. Interest is therefore preparing the
disposition to be just; and this will be goaded from time to time
by the insurrectionary spirit of the slaves. This is easily
quelled in its first efforts; but from being local it will become
general, and whenever it does it will rise more formidable after
every defeat, until we shall be forced, after dreadful scenes and
sufferings to release them in their own way, which, without
such sufferings we might now model after our own conven-
ience. (To W. A. Burwell, 1805. F. VIII., 340.)
Slavery. ā I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach
OF -THOMAS JEFFERSON 387
of the period at which you may interpose your authority con-
stitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United States from
all further participation in those violations of human rights
which have been so long continued on the unoffending in-
habitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and
the best interests of our country have long been eager to pro-
scribe, (Sixth Annual Message, 1806. F. VIIL, 492.)
Slavery. ā My sentiments on the subject of slavery of negroes
have long since been in the possession of the public, and time
has only served to give them strong root. The love of justice
and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people,
and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded
it so long in vain, and should have produced not a single effort,
nay, I fear not much serious willingness to relieve them and
ourselves from our present condition of moral and political
reprobation. From those of the former generations who were
in the fullness of age when I came into public life, which was
while our controversy with England was on paper only, I soon
saw that nothing was to be hoped. Nursed and educated in the
daily habit of seeing the degraded condition, both bodily and
mentally, of those unfortunate beings, not reflecting that that
degradation was very much the work of themselves and their
fathers, few minds have yet doubted but that they were as
legitimate subjects of property as their horses and cattle. The
quiet and monotonous course of colonial life has been disturbed
by no alarm and Httle reflection on the value of liberty. And
alarm was taken at an enterprise on their own, it was not easy
to carry them to the whole length of the principles which they
invoked for themselves. In the first or second session of the
legislature after I became a member, I drew on this subject the
attention of Col. Bland, one of the oldest, ablest and most re-
spected members, and he undertook to move for certain moder-
ate extensions of protections of the laws of these people. I
seconded his motion, and as a younger member was more spared
in the debate; but he was denounced as an enemy of his coun-
try and was treated with the grossest indecorum. From an
early stage of our revolution other and more distant duties were
388 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
assigned to me, so that from that time till my return from
Europe in 1789, and I may say till I returned to reside at
home in 1809, I had little opportunity of knowing the progress
of public sentiment here on this subject. I had always hoped
that the younger generation receiving their early impressions
after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast, and
become as it were the vital spirit of every American, that the
generous temperament of youth, analogous to the motion of
their blood, and above the suggestions of avarice would have
sympathized with oppression wherever found and proved their
love for liberty beyond their ow'n share of it. But my inter-
course with them since my return has not been sufficient to
ascertain that they had made toward this point the progress I
had hoped. Your soHtary but welcome voice is the first which
has brought this to my ear; and I have considered the general
silence which prevails on this subject as indicating an apathy
unfavorable to every hope. Yet the hour of emancipation is
advancing in the march of time. It will come; and whether
brought on by the generous energy of our ow^n minds, or by
the bloody process of St. Domingo, excited and conducted
by the pow-er of our present enemy, if one stationed permanently
within our countr}^ and ofifering asylums and arms to the op-
pressed, is a leaf of history not yet turned over. As to the
method by which this difficult work is to be effected if per-