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CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
- Introduction . . . . . . . . page ix
- Itinerary and Chronology . . . . xxxvii
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Autobiography
. . . . . . . .
3
Jefferson’s family—Education—Elected to legislature—Marriage—Political disputes with England—Origin of Committees of Correspondence—Rallying the people—Prepares Summary View —Elected to Congress—Drafts a Declaration on taking up arms—Congressional debates on Declaration of Independence—Text of the Declaration of Independence—Congressional debates on Confederation—Leaves Congress and attends Virginia legislature—Drafts bills—Aids in preparing a proposed code—Elected Governor—Elected to Congress—Plans money unit—Proposes Committee of Congress—Proceedings on English treaty—Appointed to negotiate European treaties—Sails for France—Prepares Notes on Virginia —Negotiates with European states—Proposes united action against Barbary states—Beginning of the French revolution—The federal constitution—Dangers from the judiciary—Bankruptcy of the union—Progress of the French revolution—Meeting of “Patriots” at Jefferson’s house—Jefferson sails for America—Accepts position of Secretary of State—Calls on Franklin—Conduct of W. T. Franklin—Jefferson arrives at New York.
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The Anas
. . . . . . . . .
163
Introduction—Writings of J. Adams—R. King’s inconsistencies—Diplomatic appointments—Interview with Beckwith—Dangers of treasury department—Public discontents—Indirect attack on Hamilton—Indian affairs—Algerine captives—European treaties of commerce—Hamilton’s intimacy with Hammond—French affairs—St. Clair expedition—Powers of Congress to call for papers—Algerine captives—Representation bill—Treaty disputes with England—Washington’s position—Formation of the constitution—Jefferson’s proposed resignation—Spanish affairs—St. Domingo—Circulating medium — Negotiations with Western Indians — Recalling of G. Morris—Levees—French news—Treaties with the Northwest Indians—Advances to France—Attack on Franklin—Ceremony for second term—Giles’ resolution—Congressional speculators—Genet’s reception—Bank action—Condition of U. S.—French treaty—Letter to collectors—Sinking fund—Proclamation of neutrality—French privateers—Militia—Monarchical circular—Inauguration ball—Fraunces’ certificate—Instructions to Michaux—The Little Sarah—Veritas —Influence of Robert Morris—French privateers—Case of Genet—Proposed appeal—Freneau’s paper—Rules governing ships—Proposition to convene Congress—Proposed resignation of Jefferson—His successor—Conduct of Genet—French treaty—Expedition against Creeks—Arrest of Galbaud—Northwest ports—Genet’s letters and recall—Proclamation of neutrality—President’s speech—Conversation with Adams—Jay’s treaty—Second presidential election—Opposition to republican government—The Senate—Threats in Senate—Power of Congress to create corporations—War with France—Impeachment of Blount—British Admiralty orders—Conduct of Gerry—British intrigues—Mission to France—Presidential electors—Policy of Federalists—Washington’s religion—Heretical doctrines maintained in Senate—Newspaper writings—Character of Ames—Juries—Marshall’s appointment—The civil service—British bribery—Election of Jefferson—Algerian war—Indian affairs—Removals from office—Navy—Mediterranean affairs—Questions arising from European war—Cession of Louisiana—Purchase of Florida—Burr’s presidential intrigues and office hunting—Boundaries of Louisiana—Treaty with Tripoli—Indian affairs—Spanish movements—Pirates—Negotiations with Spain—Tunis—Tripoli—Spain—England—Burr’s wishes—Morris’ offer—Louisiana affairs—Affair of the Leander —Gunboats—Spanish movements about New Orleans—Burr’s conspiracy—English treaty—Action occasioned by Chesapeake affair—Canadian points of attack—Defensive measures—Ways and means—Hall’s offer—Naval affairs—Armed ships—Embargo laws—Intruders on Indian lands—War with England—Interview with Erskine—Halifax expedition—Naval force—Regulations for New Orleans.
- 1760
- To John Harvey, January 14th . . . . 433
- Education.
- 1762
- To John Page, December 25th . . . . . 434
- Losses of keepsakes—Rebecca Burwell—Uselessness of learning.
- 1763
- To John Page, January 20th . . . . . 439
- Proposes to travel in Europe.
- To John Page, July 15th . . . . . . 441
- A rival—Necessity of postponing formal engagement—Religious views.
- To William Fleming . . . . . . . 444
- Discomforts—Nancy Wilton—Ups and downs of country life—Proposed life.
- To John Page, October 7th . . . . . 446
- Interview with Rebecca Burwell—Embarrassment—Affairs of the college.
- 1764
- To John Page, January 19th . . . . . 447
- Interview with Rebecca Burwell— Status quo.
- To John Page, January 23d . . . . . 449
- Possible miscarriage of letters—Secret means of letter-writing.
- To William Fleming, March 20th . . . . 450
- Rebecca Burwell’s marriage—Comforts of a single state—Suit of Mecklenburg silk.
- To John Page, April 9th . . . . . . 452
- Warner Lewis—Trip to Isle of Wight (Va.).
- Legal Argument. Is Christianity part of the Common Law ? . . . . . . . . 453
- 1768
- To William Preston, August 18th . . . . 464
- Application in behalf of Rev. James Fontaine.
- 1769
- Resolutions of the Virginia House of Burgesses . 465
- 1770
- To John Page, February 21st . . . . . 467
- Loss of pullet—Fire at Shadwell—Loss of books—Law cases—Memory of Rosewell—Matrimony—Fontaine—Carr’s happiness.
- Legal Argument. Howell vs. Netherland . . 470
- Status of bound negroes and their descendants.
- To Thomas Adams, July 11th . . . . . 481
- Asking aid for Ogilvie.
- To Peyton Randolph, July 23d . . . . 483
- Ogilvie’s case—Jefferson without influence at Episcopal “palace.”
INTRODUCTION
The political theories and usages originated or adopted by Thomas Jefferson have shown such persistence and permanence in their value to our people and government as to demonstrate a far deeper and broader principle underlying them than is always recognized. In popular estimation, Jefferson stands as the founder of the Democratic party, and the developer of the theory of State Rights; and on these foundations are based the so called “Jeffersonian principles,” and the respect and acceptance, as well as the criticism and contravention, accorded to them. That this basis was deemed sufficient during his life, is natural, for judgment of a living man must always be partial and superficial. That this limited view should during that time acquire prestige and momentum enough to project it into history, is not strange, the more that the logical conclusions of certain theories advanced by him suited the policy of one of our political parties. The acceptance of this limited view has enabled his antagonists and critics to charge him with hypocrisy, opportunism, and even lack of any political principles; and the contradictions and instability they have cited in his opinions and conduct have embarrassed even his most devoted adherents. If this limited view is still to be accepted as sufficient and final, these criticisms must stand:—His advocacy of a weak national government; with his complaints that it was “a rope of sand,” and his far-reaching augmentations to its power. His advocacy of a strict construing of our constitution; and yet his so exceeding the implied powers granted by it, as to make it, in his own words, “waste paper.” His support of the State governments as “sovereign”; and his dislike and attempted changes in and over-riding of their constitutions. His arguments in favor of an absolutely independent jury and judiciary; and his attacks on both. His desire for a national navy; and his later opposition. His demands that the executive and legislative departments should be beyond reciprocal influence; yet, when president, his interference in the latter to an extent which led to a stinging rebuke on the floor of Congress in open debate. His dread of a partizan civil service as a means of influencing and defeating free elections, and his oft repeated claim that public officers should be selected only on their merit; while himself inaugurating the spoils system, sending his political friends commissions in blank, and retaining a federalist official “because of his connections.” His disapproval of the re-eligibility of the president, and advocacy of rotation in office to prevent the creation of a bureaucracy; with his subsequent willingness that the former should serve more than two terms, and his writing to a superannuated appointee, “would it be a relief to transfer the office to your son, for your use, with the understanding that it should be afterwards continued with him for the benefit of the family?” His opposition to the alien act; and his framing of a bill directed against foreigners of far greater injustice than that enactment. His support of the passage of the funding and assumption act; and his unending opposition to its execution. His condemnation of the national bank, not merely on constitutional grounds, but because he believed it to be unduly influencing the national government; yet when himself at the head of that government advocating “a judicious distribution” of favors to that and other banks “to engage the individuals who belong to them in support” of his administration. His early opposition to national internal improvements, his later recommendation of this policy to Congress, and his final resolutions declaring it unconstitutional. His arguments and labors in opposition to slavery; while owning many negroes, and refusing to act as executor of a will because the testator freed his slaves—And many other actions apparently implying so little principle, or views so shifting, as superficially to reduce them to nothing else than a mass of inconsistencies, each one notable only for its immediate results. Judged by these standards, the marvel of the Federalists and his later critics, that he should have been the chosen instrument of American democracy, is proper. The scholarly and reclusive nature of his tastes and studies; the retiring and limited character of his intercourse with the world; the influence of his social equals; his dislike of party and personal antagonism; and his sensitiveness to abuse and criticism, make his acceptance of that leadership, as strange a problem, as that the people should have chosen for their representative a man lacking nearly all of the personal qualities which are presumed to win popularity with the masses. And only explicable from the narrow view of his critics as the success of an ambitious and unprincipled self-seeking man, attained by astuteness and chicane so great as to deceive the masses.
But if the people embody the total of human thought and experience, as our political theories maintain, there are better reasons than these for his elevation, and for the political influence his name has carried for over one hundred years—better reasons than the leadership of a party, or a fine-spun theory of the respective powers of the state and national governments. The explanation of these apparent anomalies lies deeper than any mere matter of individuality, party success, or rigid political platform. To understand why Jefferson became “a man of the people,” and for what reasons and purposes they made him their leader, we must study certain forces and tendencies then working in America.
In the never-ending struggle between the so called “classes” and “masses,” not the least interesting phase is that which occurred in the revolutionary period in this country. Although the colonies were nominally royal appendages, legislated for by King and Parliament, the difficulties of governing at such distance and other conditions, had compelled the granting to them, or an acquiescence in their exercising, a large degree of local self-government. In conceding this, the attempt had been made, and in most cases successfully, to place power in the hands of the classes; so as to build up a colonial aristocracy, subservient to the wishes of the mother country. And as the colonies grew and became objects of greater interest to Great Britain, this tendency became more and more marked. But the conditions of the country were not suited for class or centralized government. The wilderness made every man a land-holder, and the vast extent of territory and its sparse settlement rendered civil authority unable to exercise its force, and therefore hardly a factor in its influence on the people. Yet the lawlessness of the new settlements, and the Indians on the frontier, compelled the maintenance of some kind of authority, and so each settler, and each community, became largely the law-maker and administrator of their own affairs. Thus it was that local self-government, based solely on manhood, was tested and became the cardinal principle of American government.
Such was the trending development of the people, when the policy of England between 1764 and 1775, towards her American colonies, united them in opposition to her rule. That opposition, and the great movement towards democratic government, were by events so blended, that they have since stood as one in the public mind. Yet they were entirely different, most of our great revolutionary leaders deprecating the latter; and while events converted some few to the democratic theory of power, the majority never ceased to fear the people. Had it not been for the exigencies of the war, which compelled an appeal to the masses, to destroy the royal government, and to fight the mother country, it is probable that they would not have gained any political power from national independence. But in the interregnum between the destruction of the old and the creation of the new governments, much was gained, not merely in actual exercise of rights, but in experience; for the masses learned that self-organized bodies of men, acting under no legal authority, could rule a whole country by mere recommendations; that a dependent government is the strongest in the world, for it must accord with public opinion, and therefore meet with public support; that constitutions and laws are but ink and paper unless they approximate to that sole origin of force and authority; and that it is not the government which supports the people, but the people who support the government.
The masses are by their nature and condition, however, negative rather than positive, and when constructive, rather than destructive or obstructive force is required, they are compelled to delegate a portion of their powers. Thus, in the re-building of government, the classes secured an influence far out of proportion to their numbers. In the State constitutions, they succeeded in somewhat curtailing and limiting the popular control; and later, in the formation of our national constitution they sought still further to wrest powers from the people, both by grants, which interposed barriers to the direct delegation of power from the people to the executive, judiciary, and one of the legislative branches, and by clauses purposely worded so as to leave the question of the quantity of power granted to the decision of men who would almost certainly be drawn from the classes. And a resulting political party attempted to carry this policy still further. Had government been merely a matter of intellect and ability, the Federalists would have succeeded in controlling and fixing its character in this country. That when they had done their work of construction, they were excluded from office, without ever comprehending the reason, proves how little they understood the tendency, intelligence, and power of the forces they were attempting to circumscribe. Unlike the Federalists, Jefferson was willing to discard the tradition of ages—that the people must be protected against themselves by the brains, money, and better “elements” of the country—and for this reason American democracy made him its chosen agent and mouth-piece.
To understand why Jefferson was one of the few men of intellect of his time able to appreciate, sympathize with, and aid this popular movement, a retrospect of certain factors in his life and times is necessary. Inheriting unsettling tendencies of mind, he was from an early age a thorough skeptic of tradition and precedent. In his own words, he never “feared to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.” Almost alone of the revolutionary leaders, he was born on the frontier, which, as already stated, was the ultimate of local self-government. Among those conditions he passed the formative period of his life, and as representative of this district he made his first essay in politics, naturally as an advocate and defender of the democratic mountaineers. In the Virginia Assembly, in which his earliest battles were fought, the strongest line of party division was between the aristocratic “planter” interest—great landed and slave-holding proprietors, with the prestige and inertia of favorable laws and offices—and the “settler” interest—inhabiting the frontier, far from the law or protection of government, but strong in numbers, independence, and necessities;—and in these conflicts he learned how absolutely selfish and grasping all class legislation is. Then came the Revolution, and Jefferson saw governments, deriving their authority from laws innumerable, and their force from the strongest nation of Europe, utterly destroyed, with hardly a blow, merely through their non-recognition by the masses. With the Committees of Safety and the Congresses which succeeded, he saw the experiment of “a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” established and tested. Had he been in America between 1784 and 1788, he too might have become doubtful as to how far the masses could control themselves, for the reaction of the revolutionary struggle was severe, and strained democratic institutions almost to anarchy. But at this time he was in France, witnessing another great struggle between the privileged and unprivileged. So he returned to America, true to the influences and lessons of his life, to find his theories in disfavor with the conservative, and government slipping more and more from the control of the governed. And because he believed that only the people truly knew what the people needed; that those who could take care of themselves were wise and practical enough to help care for the nation; and that the only way of enforcing laws was that they should be made by those who are to obey them, he undertook, with reluctance and self-sacrifice, to be the instrument of popular action. That he was the founder of the Democratic party is a claim little less than absurd, for there always has been, and always will be, such a party. But he united the democratic elements on certain principles and objects, and proved himself such a leader as the party has seldom been able to obtain.
Recognition of what he endeavored to accomplish explains many of his apparent inconsistencies. The dominant principle of his creed was that all powers belonged to the people, and that governments, constitutions, laws, precedent, and all other artificial clogs and “protections,” are entitled to respect and obedience only as they fulfilled their limited function of aiding—not curtailing—the greatest freedom to the individual. For this reason, he held that no power existed to bind the people or posterity, except by their own acts. For this reason, he was the strict construer of the national constitution, where he believed it destructive of personal freedom; and construed it liberally where it threatened to limit the development of the people. He was the defender of the State governments; for he regarded them as a necessary division for local self-government and as natural checks on the national power, and so a safeguard to the people. That he appealed to them in his resolutions of 1798, was because he believed the people for once unable to act for their own interest, and the theories of that paper are a radical and short-lived contradiction of his true beliefs. Because he believed the national judiciary and the national bank to be opposed to the will of the people, he attacked them. Because he believed he was furthering the popular will, he interfered in the legislative department and changed office-holders. Because he wished them free to think and act, he favored separation from England, abolition of slavery, free lands, free education, freedom of religion, and the largest degree of local self-government. His methods and results were not always good. His character and conduct had many serious flaws. Yet in some subtle way the people understood him, and forgave in him weaknesses and defects they have seldom condoned. And eventually this judgment will universally obtain, as the fact becomes clearer and clearer, that neither national independence, nor state sovereignty, with the national and party rancors that attach to them, were the controlling aim and attempt of his life; that no party or temporary advantage was the object of his endeavors, but that he fought for the ever enduring privilege of personal freedom.
The proof for this view of Jefferson must be sought in such of his writings as are still preserved:
In the Journal of the House of Burgesses of Virginia for May 9, 1769, are a series of resolutions intended to serve as a basis for the reply of that body to the speech of their newly arrived governor. Remarkable here only for their intense obsequiousness and adulation, these resolutions merit notice as the first public paper drawn by Thomas Jefferson. As a lawyer, however, Jefferson was already known. Few of his arguments have been preserved, but these few give evidence that he was already out of spirit with his surroundings. The man who could argue that human servitude was “a violation of the law of nature”; that under those laws, “all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will”; and that “Christianity neither is nor ever was a part of the common law,” was clearly not in sympathy with a slave-holding community, living under an established church, and ruled by a royal governor.
His next public paper was of much the same form, though differing greatly in nature from his first. It was a series of resolutions intended for the guidance and adoption of the self-constituted convention which met in August, 1774, and the difference in tone almost tells the history of those intervening years. Then, the interests of England and America were “inseparably the same.” Now, only by accepting the advice of these resolutions could the “reciprocal advantages of their connection” be preserved. The power of Parliament over the colonies was denied; the King instructed that he was “no more than the chief officer of the people, appointed by the laws, and circumscribed with definite powers, to assist in working the great machine of government erected for their use, and consequently subject to their superintendence”; and the assertion made that the American people possessed the sole power of self-government and could “exercise it to an unlimited extent.” These opinions were too extreme for even a revolutionary convention, but they nevertheless formed one more stepping-stone in the direction of independence for the colonies.
A year later he wrote the reply of the Virginia House of Burgesses to the plan of reconciliation known as Lord North’s “Motion,” and was the bearer of it to the Continental Congress, of which he had been elected a member. For this body, he likewise wrote a second reply to the “Motion,” as well as a “Declaration” on the United Colonies taking up arms. But this latter did not meet with their approval, and one prepared by Dickinson was taken in its stead; and a comparison of the two certainly justifies the Congress. He also drafted a number of minor papers for that body, and prepared a plan for an executive government by a committee of Congress—an attempt not then realized, but which was later in an elaborated form to be again proposed by Jefferson, to be tried, and to result in failure.
In the Congress of 1776 he drafted, for the committee of which he was a member, three reports dealing with Canadian affairs, which are now of interest only from the light they throw on the attempt to conquer that country. While so occupied, he drafted a proposed constitution for his native state and forwarded it to the convention in hopes of their accepting it, which they failed to do. But it is for us a most interesting paper, as illustrating the development of his political theories, the most notable being his acquiescence in the limiting of the franchise to freeholders, well knowing as he did, the impossibility of gaining from the aristocratic party any extension of the ballot, but neutralizing this acquiescence by distributing the public lands so as to make a manhood suffrage; his far-seeing method for dealing with western colonization, his proposed ending of primogeniture, test oaths, and the slave trade; and his guarantees of freedom of religion and press. He prepared a number of other reports and resolutions for Congress, the most worthy of notice being his rules for the government of that body, which was probably the first step towards his parliamentary manual. His greatest work, however, was the writing of a vindication of the resolution of independence, since popularly known as the “Declaration of Independence.” Jefferson never forgave the alterations which the sectional interests, as also the better sense of the Congress, made in his draft, even though they were for the most part omissions of what lacked either truth or dignity. The fame of the paper, which is probably the best known that ever came from the pen of an individual, has led to much discussion as to its origin, and numerous charges of plagiarism have been made against the author. That the catalogue of wrongs and grievances which constitute the body of the declaration was hackneyed is beyond dispute, for these had formed the basis of nearly every address and petition put forth by the Continental Congress, or Provincial Assemblies, and had been as well the prevailing subject of written and verbal discussion. The preamble and exordium are however the important parts. A comparison of the former with the Virginia Declaration of Rights would seem to indicate the source from which Jefferson derived a most important and popular part. The latter was practically rewritten by Congress. But the unity and phrasing of such a paper constitute no small portion of its composition, and to embody the feelings and hopes of a new nation in a single paper, as Jefferson did with such marvellous success, makes it unique among the greatest writings of the world, and gives to him an honor that can never end. With the Declaration of Independence the Congress completed a change which had been slowly maturing. From being a scribe of petitions and declarations, it tended more and more to become a war executive, and Jefferson, who achieved reputation by his philosophic mind and pen, and who himself realized his lack of ability in administration, found himself of little use in such a body. Pleading family and other reasons, therefore, he retired from Congress and took his seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.
The great problem here was a rebuilding of civil government destroyed by the Revolution. A constitution had been adopted, and under this a legislature and executive had been elected, but courts and laws had fallen with the royal government, and to re-establish them in modified form was the task to which Jefferson set himself. With the permission of the legislature, and in conjunction with two collaborators, he worked for nearly three years upon a complete code, and reported it to that body; which from time to time adopted certain features from it, but neglected the larger part. In addition to this great work, he drafted, during his service in this body, many bills of immediate or temporary moment. This was done in a period almost without precedent, when it was necessary not merely to carry on the ordinary forms of government, but to conduct a war in distant states and territories, and repress disloyalty and lawlessness within the limits of the state. And he was thwarted by parties and cliques formed on geographical lines, religious beliefs, and class feeling, and rent by personal hatred and cabal. It is therefore small wonder that he aided in some unjust and even unconstitutional legislation, or that much of his that was good should fail. But his proposed bills for religious freedom, for the creation of public schools, and for the establishment of free libraries more than redeem his errors. His legislation contributed more than the work of any other man to free the aristocratic colony of Virginia from the “planter” interest and start it towards democratic statehood; and the Assembly proved that he had labored to their satisfaction by electing him Governor.
In an executive position, Jefferson was out of his element. Nothing was called for or came from his pen but official letters and proclamations. His administration produced open murmurs, and at the end of two years he sought relief in resignation, with the stigma of incompetence, if not of cowardice, the prevailing opinion concerning him. Impeachment was attempted without success; and later, when the evils begun in his term had been overcome, whitewashing resolutions were adopted by the legislature in his behalf; but they brought no relief to his own supersensitiveness, and he hid himself in an almost hermit-like seclusion from the world, determined never more to hold public office.
Here he prepared for the information of the French government his famous Notes on Virginia. Intended for confidential use only, and written during a period of personal bitterness, it is most interesting from its outspoken tone on many subjects. But even more notable is the remarkable mass of information he gives concerning the State; which after a lapse of more than one hundred years still makes it a valuable work of reference. During the same period he wrote an essay on the Art of Poesy, and prepared a second proposed constitution for Virginia, which illustrated the tendency of his mind since he had drafted his first in 1776, the most marked departure being his direct attempt to extend the franchise.
Drawn from his retirement by the hope of a foreign mission, the importunities of his friends induced him to accept an election to the Continental Congress. In his less than six months’ service in this body, the amount and importance of his work can hardly be overestimated. He was a member of almost every important committee appointed, and no less than thirty-one papers were drafted by him. He proposed and carried a plan for a committee of Congress which should sit during adjournments. He drew the report and instructions for negotiating commercial treaties with European states, in which he embodied his humane desires that fishermen, farmers, and artisans engaged in their vocations should not be subject to capture; that undefended towns should not be injured; that privateering should cease; and commerce, even between belligerents, should be free. His reports on the finances were most elaborate and careful, and in connection with these he prepared his Notes on a Money Unit, which led to the adoption of the dollar as our standard of value, and in which he was far-seeing enough to argue that “the true proportion of value between gold and silver was a mercantile problem altogether,” and that it was policy “to give a little more than the market price for gold because of its superior convenience in transportation.” But his greatest work was in reference to the western territories. His pen drafted the cession which Virginia made to the national government, and, conscious that this “was the time when our Confederation with the territory included within its limits should assume its ultimate form,” he framed a plan of government for all the territory outside the boundaries of the original states. The effect of the clauses making this territory forever part of the United States and ending slavery in it after the year 1800, would have solved our greatest political contest, but these are of small moment when compared with the system here for the first time established, that the inhabitants of the public domain were not to be held as subject colonies, but were to be given equal rights with the parent state. No one enactment has had so vital an influence on the American Union; and this principle was extended by another ordinance, proposing a land system, which must be considered as the first of the national acts towards distributing the public lands among the people.
Sent to Europe in 1784 to aid in negotiating treaties, and a year later made Minister to France, he wrote little in the few following years, other than official letters. He contributed a few anonymous articles to the Paris papers to counteract the published criticisms of America, and at the request of the authors carefully corrected certain historical works on the same subject which were then appearing. In his diplomatic function he proposed to the several European nations an agreement to restrain, by united action, the piratical states of North Africa; drafted a proposed Consular convention with France; and prepared a careful and minute mémoire on the American whale fisheries, with the purpose of obtaining from France special exemptions in favor of the oil sent from America. In addition, his deep interest in the French Revolution led him to overstep the proper limits of his office, and prepare a “Charter of Rights” which he desired should be adopted by the States-General.
Returning to America, he became Secretary of State in Washington’s administration. His position resulted in a diplomatic correspondence and a series of reports to Congress on subjects referred to him. But of more interest are his cabinet opinions and the messages he drafted for the President. Gradually growing out of sympathy with the acts of the Executive, he likewise recorded passing events and opinions in notes, which have since become famous under the name of “Anas.” Later in his life, he himself judged it expedient to revise and suppress portions of these notes, and his editors took further liberties with them. Yet even after this double revision, they were not printed without apologies and regrets that they had ever been written.
Retiring from the cabinet in 1794, he resumed a planter’s life, and during this period, his pen produced nothing, unless we except some curious “Notes for a Constitution” for Virginia. Having reference only to the legislative branch, they are too imperfect to be of value, except as a contrast to the methods suggested in his proposed constitutions of 1776 and 1783.
Elected Vice-President in 1796, and so made presiding officer of the Senate, he prepared his Manual of Parliamentary Practice, chiefly drawn from the rules of Parliament, as well “to have them at hand for my own government, as to deposit with the Senate the standard by which I judge and am willing to be judged.” In this same period, he wrote an essay on Anglo-Saxon; a memoir on the discovery of certain bones of an animal in the western parts of Virginia; and a description of a mould-board of the least resistance for ploughs. He also drew a protest for his district against the act of a grand jury, employing in it a train of argument, which, put in practice, would have ended the independence of juries; and prepared a series of resolutions for the Kentucky legislature, which mark the culminating point of certain political tendencies that had been developed by the administrations of Washington and Adams. The platform of a party for many years, they have become famous not merely for the theory, but for the logical results of the theory, which history has given us. The Kentucky Resolutions of ’98 were, however, prepared by Jefferson as a piece of party manœuvring, he himself acknowledging that the direct action of the people rather than the interference by the states, was “the constitutional method”; and he so thoroughly understood the destructive quality of his argument that he worded it “so as to hold that ground in future, and leave the matter in such train as that we may not be committed to push matters to extremities, and yet be free to push as far as events will render prudent.” In fact, nullification of Federal, not national acts, was his object in those resolutions.
Raised to the Presidency in 1801, he wrote many messages and other public papers; drew a number of bills and resolutions for Congress to pass; compiled an elaborate treatise on the boundaries of Louisiana; contributed a series of articles to a newspaper vindicating certain of his actions which had met with criticism; and partly drafted a curious monograph on the question: “Will the human race become more perfect?” The latter typical of his optimism, for when all Europe was in arms, and his own country suffering many evils, he could yet argue strongly in favor of a steady progress towards perfection.
After his retirement from office in 1809, he wrote a “plan of an agricultural society,” which is of little importance; sketched a paper on “objects of finance, intended for the guidance of the national government in the difficulties already felt, in which he argued strongly against all forms of fiat money; drew a brief for the government relative to certain riparian rights; prepared at various times biographical notes and sketches of Franklin, Wythe, Peyton Randolph, and Meriwether Lewis; planned and partially outlined a work to be entitled The Morals and Life of Jesus of Nazareth; prepared an Autobiography to the year 1790; framed another series of resolutions opposed to the action of the national government; and finally, owing to press of financial difficulties, and in behalf of a private scheme for his own advantage, wrote vigorously in favor of lotteries.
In addition to these, and a number of minor papers, Jefferson carried on between the years of 1760 and 1826 an enormous correspondence, both private and official, which practically constitutes the greater mass of his writings. A careful estimate of the letters still in existence gives not less than twenty-five thousand, yet portions only of certain years are still extant. Interesting not merely for the opinions expressed, but for the personal element they present, they are of equal, if not superior, importance to his other writings.
The first of these writings to appear in print was the resolutions prepared for the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769, which was printed in their Journal for that year. In 1774, without his knowledge, his friends caused the printing in pamphlet form of his proposed instructions to the Virginia delegates to the first Congress. His reply to Lord North’s “Motion” was printed in the Journal of Congress for 1775, and very generally in the newspaper press of that year. His Declaration of Independence ran through the colonies like wildfire, in many printed forms. Such bills as he drafted, which became laws, were printed in the session acts of Virginia during the years 1776 to 1779. Several of his reports in the Congress of 1783–4 were printed as broadsides, and he himself printed in the same form his Notes on a Money Unit. In 1784, the State of Virginia printed, in the Report of the Revisors, the laws he had prepared for the proposed code. And, in the same year, he himself privately printed his Notes on Virginia and his Draft of a Fundamental Constitution for Virginia. In 1788, his Observations on the Whale Fisheries, and the Consular Convention he had agreed upon with France, were printed. Most of his reports to Congress as Secretary of State, and a part of his correspondence with the foreign governments, were printed at various times between 1790 and 1794, by order of Congress. His Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 were, in their amended form, given print and general currency by that state. His Manual of Parliamentary Practice was originally printed by request in 1800, and has been many times reprinted. In 1800, he published his Appendix to the Notes on Virginia, which was later issued as a part of that work. His inaugural speeches and messages as President were published in various forms as they became public. The argument he prepared on the Batture case was issued in pamphlet form in 1812. His biographical sketch of Lewis was printed in 1814 in the History of the Expedition of Lewis and Clark. A volume of legal reports, containing three of his early law arguments, edited by him before his death, was issued in 1829. In the same year, his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, as his literary executor, edited a four-volume edition of his writings and correspondence, including his autobiography, a small portion of his private correspondence, a part of his Anas, and a few miscellaneous papers; which was several times reprinted. In 1851, his Essay on Anglo-Saxon was printed by the University of Virginia, and five years later, his correspondence relating to that institution was included in the History of the University of Virginia. In 1848, Congress purchased the larger part of his papers, and by their direction, H. A. Washington selected from them, with a few additions from other sources, enough to make a nine-volume edition of his writings, which naturally became the standard collection.
To meet the need of a new edition of the writings of Thomas Jefferson, this work has been undertaken. Not content with relying upon the Jefferson MSS. in the Department of State, from which, substantially, the former editions were compiled, the present editor, while making full use of the records of the Department, has obtained many interesting documents from the papers of Jefferson still in the hands of his descendants; the papers of the Continental Congress; the archives of the State of Virginia; the files of the French Foreign Office; the private papers of Washington, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Steuben, and Gates; as well as from many state archives, historical societies, and private collections throughout the country. Aid has generously been given him by many, which it will be his pleasure to gratefully acknowledge in the final volume, but he wishes here to express his especial thanks and obligations to his brother, Worthington Chauncey Ford, and to Mr. S. M. Hamilton, of the Department of State, for the constant assistance and favors rendered in the preparation of this edition.
The dedication of this work was prepared before the death of my father, Gordon Lester Ford, and I have preferred to leave it unchanged. His interest in and love for American history first directed my studies to that subject; to his devoted and unwearying gathering of books and manuscripts is due my ability to make this edition what it is; and the lack of his critical but kindly aid, will account for many of its shortcomings and errors.
ITINERARY AND CHRONOLOGY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 1743–1770. 1
| 1743.—Apr. 2 [or 13] | Born at Shadwell, Albemarle Co., Va. |
| 1745. | Removed to Tuckahoe. |
| 1748. | Attends English school at Tuckahoe. |
| 1752. | Attends Douglas’ Latin school. |
| Returns to Shadwell. | |
| 1757.—Aug. 17. | His father, Peter Jefferson, dies. |
| At Frederickville, attending Maury’s school. | |
| 1759.? | At Watauga. |
| Dec. 25. | “At Col. Danridge’s in Hanover.” |
| 1760.—Jan. 1. | At Col. Peter Randolph’s. |
| 14. | At Shadwell. |
| Mar. 25. | At Williamsburg. |
| Enters College of William and Mary. | |
| 1762.—April 25. | Graduates. |
| Enters law office of George Wythe. | |
| Forms attachment for Rebecca Burwell. | |
| Dec. 25. | At Fairfield. |
| 29? | At Shadwell. |
| 1763.—Jan. 30. | At Shadwell. |
| July 15. | At Shadwell. |
| Sept. 25? | At Richmond. |
| Oct. 7. | At Williamsburg. |
| Dec. 25. | At Fairfield. |
| 1764.—Jan. 19–24. | At Williamsburg. |
| Mar. 20. | At Williamsburg. |
| Apr. 9. | At Williamsburg. |
| 1765.—May 23–29. | At Williamsburg. |
| 1766.—Mar. 30. | At Shadwell. |
| May 11. | At Shadwell. |
| Journeys to Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York. | |
| 1767.—Jan.-Nov. | At Shadwell. |
| Admitted to the Bar. | |
| 1768.—Feb.-Mar. | At Shadwell. |
| Aug. 18. | At Staunton. |
| 1769.—Mar. 14. | At Shadwell. |
| Elected a Burgess. | |
| May 8. | At Williamsburg. |
| Attends House of Burgesses. | |
| 9. | Drafts resolutions in reply to Botetourt. |
| 17. | House of Burgesses dissolved. |
| Signs non-importation Association. | |
| July 27. | At Shadwell. |
| Nov. 16. | At Williamsburg. |
| Attends House of Burgesses. | |
| Dec. 21. | House of Burgesses adjourns. |
| 1770.—Feb. 1. | House and library at Shadwell burned. |
| 21. | At Charlottesville. |
| Apr. | At Williamsburg. |
| Argues case of Howell v. Netherland. | |
| May 11. | Attends House of Burgesses. |
| June 28. | House of Burgesses adjourns. |
| July 11. | At Charlottesville. |
| 23. | At Albermarle. |
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
1743–1790
At the age of 77, I begin to make some memoranda and state some recollections of dates facts concerning myself, for my own more ready reference for the information of my family.
The tradition in my father’s family was that their ancestor came to this country from Wales, and from near the mountain of Snowdon, the highest in Gr. Br. I noted once a case from Wales in the law reports where a person of our name was either pl. or def. and one of the same name was Secretary to the Virginia company. 1 These are the only instances in which I have met with the name in that country. I have found it in our early records, but the first particular information I have of any ancestor was my grandfather who lived at the place in Chesterfield called Ozborne’s and ownd. the lands afterwards the glebe of the parish. 1 He had three sons, Thomas who died young, Field who settled on the waters of Roanoke and left numerous descendants, and Peter my father, who settled on the lands I still own called Shadwell 2 adjoining my present residence. He was born Feb. 29, 1707/8, and intermarried 1739, with Jane Randolph, of the age of 19. daur of Isham Randolph one of the seven sons of that name family settled at Dungeoness in Goochld. They trace their pedigree far back in England Scotland, to which let every one ascribe the faith merit he chooses.
My father’s education had been quite neglected; but being of a strong mind, sound judgment and eager after information, he read much and improved himself insomuch that he was chosen with Joshua Fry, professor of Mathem. in W. M. college to continue the boundary line between Virginia N. Caroline which had been begun by Colo Byrd, and was afterwards employed with the same Mr. Fry to make the 1st map of Virginia 3 which had ever been made, that of Capt Smith being merely a conjectural sketch. They possessed excellent materials for so much of the country as is below the blue ridge; little being then known beyond that ridge. He was the 3d or 4th settler of the part of the country in which I live, which was about 1737. He died Aug. 17. 1757, leaving my mother a widow who lived till 1776, with 6 daurs 2. sons, myself the elder. 1 To my younger brother he left his estate on James river called Snowden after the supposed birth-place of the family. To myself the lands on which I was born live. He placed me at the English school at 5. years of age and at the Latin at 9. where I continued until his death. My teacher Mr. Douglas 2 a clergyman from Scotland was but a superficial Latinist, less instructed in Greek, but with the rudiments of these languages he taught me French, and on the death of my father I went to the revd. Mr. Maury 3 a correct classical scholar, with whom I continued two years, and then went to Wm. and Mary college, to wit in the spring of 1760, where I continued 2. years. It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life that Dr. Wm. Small of Scotland was then professor of Mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication correct and gentlemanly manners, an enlarged liberal mind. He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science of the system of things in which we are placed. Fortunately the Philosophical chair became vacant soon after my arrival at college, and he was appointed to fill it per interim: and he was the first who ever gave in that college regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric Belles lettres. He returned to Europe in 1762, having previously filled up the measure of his goodness to me, by procuring for me, from his most intimate friend G. Wythe, a reception as a student of law, under his direction, and introduced me to the acquaintance and familiar table of Governor Fauquier, the ablest man who had ever filled that office. With him, and at his table, Dr. Small Mr. Wythe, his amici omnium horarum, myself, formed a partie quarree, to the habitual conversations on these occasions I owed much instruction. Mr. Wythe continued to be my faithful and beloved Mentor in youth, and my most affectionate friend through life. In 1767, he led me into the practice of the law at the bar of the General court, at which I continued until the revolution shut up the courts of justice. [For a sketch of the life character of Mr. Wythe see my letter of Aug. 31. 20. to Mr. John Saunderson]
In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live, continued in that until it was closed by the revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, 1 which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal government, nothing liberal could expect success. Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country in all matters of government, to direct all our labors in subservience to her interests, and even to observe a bigoted intolerance for all religions but hers. The difficulties with our representatives were of habit and despair, not of reflection conviction. Experience soon proved that they could bring their minds to rights on the first summons of their attention. But the king’s council, which acted as another house of legislature, held their places at will were in most humble obedience to that will: the Governor too, who had a negative on our laws held by the same tenure, with still greater devotedness to it: and last of all the Royal negative closed the last door to every hope of amelioration.
On the 1st of January, 1772 I was married to Martha Skelton widow of Bathurst Skelton, daughter of John Wayles, then 23. years old. Mr. Wayles was a lawyer of much practice, to which he was introduced more by his great industry, punctuality practical readiness, than to eminence in the science of his profession. He was a most agreeable companion, full of pleasantry good humor, and welcomed in every society. He acquired a handsome fortune, died in May, 1773, leaving three daughters, and the portion which came on that event to Mrs. Jefferson, after the debts should be paid, which were very considerable, was about equal to my own patrimony, and consequently doubled the ease of our circumstances.
When the famous Resolutions of 1765, against the Stamp-act, were proposed, I was yet a student of law in Wmsbg. I attended the debate however at the door of the lobby of the H. of Burgesses, heard the splendid display of Mr. Henry’s talents as a popular orator. They were great indeed; such as I have never heard from any other man. He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote. Mr. Johnson, a lawyer member from the Northern Neck, seconded the resolns, by him the learning the logic of the case were chiefly maintained. My recollections of these transactions may be seen pa. 60, Wirt’s life of P. H., 1 to whom I furnished them.
In May, 2 1769, a meeting of the General Assembly was called by the Govr., Ld. Botetourt. I had then become a member; and to that meeting became known the joint resolutions address of the Lords Commons of 1768–9, on the proceedings in Massachusetts. Counter-resolutions, an address to the King, by the H. of Burgesses were agreed to with little opposition, a spirit manifestly displayed of considering the cause of Massachusetts as a common one. The Governor dissolved us 1 : but we met the next day in the Apollo 2 of the Raleigh tavern, formed ourselves into a voluntary convention, drew up articles of association against the use of any merchandise imported from Gr. Britain, signed and recommended them to the people, repaired to our several counties, were re elected without any other exception than of the very few who had declined assent to our proceedings.
Nothing of particular excitement occurring for a considerable time our countrymen seemed to fall into a state of insensibility to our situation. The duty on tea not yet repealed the Declaratory act of a right in the British parl to bind us by their laws in all cases whatsoever, still suspended over us. But a court of inquiry held in R. Island in 1762, with a power to send persons to England to be tried for offences committed here 3 was considered at our session of the spring of 1773. as demanding attention. Not thinking our old leading members up to the point of forwardness zeal which the times required, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Francis L. Lee, Mr. Carr myself agreed to meet in the evening in a private room of the Raleigh to consult on the state of things. There may have been a member or two more whom I do not recollect. We were all sensible that the most urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding with all the other colonies to consider the British claims as a common cause to all, to produce an unity of action: and for this purpose that a commee of correspondence in each colony would be the best instrument for intercommunication: and that their first measure would probably be to propose a meeting of deputies from every colony at some central place, who should be charged with the direction of the measures which should be taken by all. We therefore drew up the resolutions which may be seen in Wirt pa 87. The consulting members proposed to me to move them, but I urged that it should be done by Mr. Carr, 1 my friend brother in law, then a new member to whom I wished an opportunity should be given of making known to the house his great worth talents. It was so agreed; he moved them, they were agreed to nem. con. and a commee of correspondence appointed of whom Peyton Randolph, the Speaker, was chairman. The Govr. (then Ld. Dunmore) dissolved us, but the commee met the next day, prepared a circular letter to the Speakers of the other colonies, inclosing to each a copy of the resolns and left it in charge with their chairman to forward them by expresses.
The origination of these commees of correspondence between the colonies has been since claimed for Massachusetts, and Marshall II. 151, has given into this error, altho’ the very note of his appendix to which he refers, shows that their establmt was confined to their own towns. This matter will be seen clearly stated in a letter of Samuel Adams Wells to me of Apr. 2, 1819, and my answer of May 12. I was corrected by the letter of Mr. Wells in the information I had given Mr. Wirt, as stated in his note, pa. 87, that the messengers of Massach. Virga crossed each other on the way bearing similar propositions, for Mr. Wells shows that Mass. did not adopt the measure but on the receipt of our proposn delivered at their next session. Their message therefore which passed ours, must have related to something else, for I well remember P. Randolph’s informing me of the crossing of our messengers.
The next event which excited our sympathies for Massachusets was the Boston port bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the 1st of June, 1774. This arrived while we were in session in the spring of that year. The lead in the house on these subjects being no longer left to the old members, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee, 3. or 4. other members, whom I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that we must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with Massachusetts, determined to meet and consult on the proper measures in the council chamber, for the benefit of the library in that room. We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to passing events; and thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting prayer would be most likely to call up alarm their attention. 1 No example of such a solemnity had existed since the days of our distresses in the war of 55. since which a new generation had grown up. With the help therefore of Rushworth, whom we rummaged over for the revolutionary precedents forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on which the Port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation prayer, to implore heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King parliament to moderation justice. 1 To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas, 2 whose grave religious character was more in unison with the tone of our resolution and to solicit him to move it. We accordingly went to him in the morning. He moved it the same day; the 1st of June was proposed and it passed without opposition. 3 The Governor dissolved us as usual. We retired to the Apollo as before, agreed to an association, 1 and instructed the commee of correspdce to propose to the corresponding commees of the other colonies to appoint deputies to meet in Congress at such place, annually, as should be convenient to direct, from time to time, the measures required by the general interest: and we declared that an attack on any one colony should be considered as an attack on the whole. This was in May. 2 We further recommended to the several counties to elect deputies to meet at Wmsbg the 1st of Aug ensuing, to consider the state of the colony, particularly to appoint delegates to a general Congress, should that measure be acceded to by the commees of correspdce generally. 3 It was acceded to, Philadelphia was appointed for the place, and the 5th of Sep. for the time of meeting. We returned home, and in our several counties invited the clergy to meet assemblies of the people on the 1st of June, 4 to perform the ceremonies of the day, to address to them discourses suited to the occasion. The people met generally, with anxiety alarm in their countenances, and the effect of the day thro’ the whole colony was like a shock of electricity, arousing every man placing him erect solidly on his centre. They chose universally delegates for the convention. Being elected one for my own county I prepared a draught of instructions to be given to the delegates whom we should send to the Congress, and which I meant to propose at our meeting. In this I took the ground which, from the beginning I had thought the only one orthodox or tenable, which was that the relation between Gr. Br. and these colonies was exactly the same as that of England Scotland after the accession of James until the Union, and the same as her present relations with Hanover, having the same Executive chief but no other necessary political connection; and that our emigration from England to this country gave her no more rights over us, than the emigrations of the Danes and Saxons gave to the present authorities of the mother country over England. In this doctrine however I had never been able to get any one to agree with me but Mr. Wythe. He concurred in it from the first dawn of the question What was the political relation between us England? Our other patriots Randolph, the Lees, Nicholas, Pendleton stopped at the half-way house of John Dickinson who admitted that England had a right to regulate our commerce, and to lay duties on it for the purposes of regulation, but not of raising revenue. But for this ground there was no foundation in compact, in any acknowledged principles of colonization, nor in reason: expatriation being a natural right, and acted on as such, by all nations, in all ages. I set out for Wmsbg some days before that appointed for our meeting, but was taken ill of a dysentery on the road, unable to proceed. I sent on therefore to Wmsbg two copies of my draught, the one under cover to Peyton Randolph, who I knew would be in the chair of the convention, the other to Patrick Henry. Whether Mr. Henry disapproved the ground taken, or was too lazy to read it (for he was the laziest man in reading I ever knew) I never learned: but he communicated it to nobody. Peyton Randolph informed the convention he had received such a paper from a member prevented by sickness from offering it in his place, and he laid it on the table for perusal. It was read generally by the members, approved by many, but thought too bold for the present state of things; but they printed it in pamphlet form under the title of A Summary view of the rights of British America. It found its way to England, was taken up by the opposition, interpolated a little by Mr. Burke so as to make it answer opposition purposes, and in that form ran rapidly thro’ several editions. 1 This information I had from Parson Hurt, 2 who happened at the time to be in London, whither he had gone to receive clerical orders. And I was informed afterwards by Peyton Randolph that it had procured me the honor of having my name inserted in a long list of proscriptions enrolled in a bill of attainder commenced in one of the houses of parliament, but suppressed in embryo by the hasty step of events which warned them to be a little cautious. 3 Montague, agent of the H. of Burgesses in England made extracts from the bill, copied the names, and sent them to Peyton Randolph. The names I think were about 20 which he repeated to me, but I recollect those only of Hancock, the two Adamses, Peyton Randolph himself, Patrick Henry, myself. 1 The convention met on the 1st of Aug, renewed their association, appointed delegates to the Congress, gave them instructions very temperately properly expressed, both as to style matter; and they repaired to Philadelphia at the time appointed. The splendid proceedings of that Congress at their 1st session belong to general history, are known to every one, and need not therefore be noted here. They terminated their session on the 26th of Octob, to meet again on the 10th May ensuing. The convention at their ensuing session of Mar, ’75, 2 approved of the proceedings of Congress, thanked their delegates and reappointed the same persons to represent the colony at the meeting to be held in May: and foreseeing the probability that Peyton Randolph their president and Speaker also of the H. of B. might be called off, they added me, in that event to the delegation.
Mr. Randolph was according to expectation obliged to leave the chair of Congress to attend the Gen. Assembly summoned by Ld. Dunmore to meet on the 1st day of June 1775. Ld. North’s conciliatory propositions, as they were called, had been received by the Governor and furnished the subject for which this assembly was convened. Mr. Randolph accordingly attended, and the tenor of these propositions being generally known, as having been addressed to all the governors, he was anxious that the answer of our assembly, likely to be the first, 1 should harmonize with what he knew to be the sentiments and wishes of the body he had recently left. He feared that Mr. Nicholas, whose mind was not yet up to the mark of the times, would undertake the answer, therefore pressed me to prepare an answer. I did so, and with his aid carried it through the house with long and doubtful scruples from Mr. Nicholas and James Mercer, and a dash of cold water on it here there, enfeebling it somewhat, but finally with unanimity or a vote approaching it. 2 This being passed, I repaired immediately to Philadelphia, and conveyed to Congress the first notice they had of it. It was entirely approved there. I took my seat with them on the 21st of June. On the 24th, a commee which had been appointed to prepare a declaration of the causes of taking up arms, brought in their report (drawn I believe by J. Rutledge) which not being liked they recommitted it on the 26th, and added Mr. Dickinson and myself to the committee. On the rising of the house, the commee having not yet met, I happened to find myself near Govr W. Livingston, and proposed to him to draw the paper. He excused himself and proposed that I should draw it. On my pressing him with urgency, “we are as yet but new acquaintances, sir, said he, why are you so earnest for my doing it?” “Because, said I, I have been informed that you drew the Address to the people of Gr. Britain, a production certainly of the finest pen in America.” “On that, says he, perhaps sir you may not have been correctly informed.” I had received the information in Virginia from Colo Harrison on his return from that Congress. Lee, Livingston Jay had been the commee for that draught. The first, prepared by Lee, had been disapproved recommitted. The second was drawn by Jay, but being presented by Govr Livingston, had led Colo Harrison into the error. The next morning, walking in the hall of Congress, many members being assembled but the house not yet formed, I observed Mr. Jay, speaking to R. H. Lee, and leading him by the button of his coat, to me. “I understand, sir, said he to me, that this gentleman informed you that Govr Livingston drew the Address to the people of Gr Britain.” I assured him at once that I had not received that information from Mr. Lee that not a word had ever passed on the subject between Mr. Lee myself; and after some explanations the subject was dropt. These gentlemen had had some sparrings in debate before, and continued ever very hostile to each other.
I prepared a draught of the Declaration committed to us. 1 It was too strong for Mr. Dickinson. He still retained the hope of reconciliation with the mother country, and was unwilling it should be lessened by offensive statements. He was so honest a man, so able a one that he was greatly indulged even by those who could not feel his scruples. We therefore requested him to take the paper, and put it into a form he could approve. He did so, preparing an entire new statement, and preserving of the former only the last 4. paragraphs half of the preceding one. We approved reported it to Congress, who accepted it. Congress gave a signal proof of their indulgence to Mr. Dickinson, and of their great desire not to go too fast for any respectable part of our body, in permitting him to draw their second petition to the king according to his own ideas, 1 and passing it with scarcely any amendment. The disgust against this humility was general; and Mr. Dickinson’s delight at its passage was the only circumstance which reconciled them to it. The vote being passed, altho’ further observn on it was out of order, he could not refrain from rising and expressing his satisfaction and concluded by saying “there is but one word, Mr. President, in the paper which I disapprove, that is the word Congress, ” on which Ben Harrison rose and said “there is but one word in the paper, Mr. President, of which I approve, and that is the word Congress. ”
On the 22d of July Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, R. H. Lee, myself, were appointed a commee to consider and report on Ld. North’s conciliatory resolution. The answer of the Virginia assembly on that subject having been approved I was requested by the commee to prepare this report, which will account for the similarity of feature in the two instruments. 1
On the 15th of May, 1776, the convention of Virginia instructed their delegates in Congress to propose to that body to declare the colonies independent of G. Britain, and appointed a commee to prepare a declaration of rights and plan of government. 2
3 In Congress, Friday June 7. 1776. The delegates from Virginia moved 4 in obedience to instructions from their constituents that the Congress should declare that these United colonies are of right ought to be free independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them the state of Great Britain is ought to be, totally dissolved; that measures should be immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a Confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together. 5
The house being obliged to attend at that time to some other business, the proposition was referred to the next day, when the members were ordered to attend punctually at ten o’clock.
Saturday June 8. They proceeded to take it into consideration and referred it to a committee of the whole, into which they immediately resolved themselves, and passed that day Monday the 10th in debating on the subject.
It was argued by Wilson, Robert R. Livingston, E. Rutledge, Dickinson and others
That tho’ they were friends to the measures themselves, and saw the impossibility that we should ever again be united with Gr. Britain, yet they were against adopting them at this time:
That the conduct we had formerly observed was wise proper now, of deferring to take any capital step till the voice of the people drove us into it:
That they were our power, without them our declarations could not be carried into effect;
That the people of the middle colonies (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylva, the Jerseys N. York) were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British connection, but that they were fast ripening in a short time would join in the general voice of America:
That the resolution entered into by this house on the 15th of May 1 for suppressing the exercise of all powers derived from the crown, had shown, by the ferment into which it had thrown these middle colonies, that they had not yet accommodated their minds to a separation from the mother country:
That some of them had expressly forbidden their delegates to consent to such a declaration, and others had given no instructions, consequently no powers to give such consent:
That if the delegates of any particular colony had no power to declare such colony independant, certain they were the others could not declare it for them; the colonies being as yet perfectly independant of each other:
That the assembly of Pennsylvania was now sitting above stairs, their convention would sit within a few days, the convention of New York was now sitting, those of the Jerseys Delaware counties would meet on the Monday following, it was probable these bodies would take up the question of Independance would declare to their delegates the voice of their state:
That if such a declaration should now be agreed to, these delegates must retire possibly their colonies might secede from the Union:
That such a secession would weaken us more than could be compensated by any foreign alliance:
That in the event of such a division, foreign powers would either refuse to join themselves to our fortunes, or, having us so much in their power as that desperate declaration would place us, they would insist on terms proportionably more hard and prejudicial:
That we had little reason to expect an alliance with those to whom alone as yet we had cast our eyes:
That France Spain had reason to be jealous of that rising power which would one day certainly strip them of all their American possessions:
That it was more likely they should form a connection with the British court, who, if they should find themselves unable otherwise to extricate themselves from their difficulties, would agree to a partition of our territories, restoring Canada to France, the Floridas to Spain, to accomplish for themselves a recovery of these colonies:
That it would not be long before we should receive certain information of the disposition of the French court, from the agent whom we had sent to Paris for that purpose:
That if this disposition should be favorable, by waiting the event of the present campaign, which we all hoped would be successful, we should have reason to expect an alliance on better terms:
That this would in fact work no delay of any effectual aid from such ally, as, from the advance of the season distance of our situation, it was impossible we could receive any assistance during this campaign:
That it was prudent to fix among ourselves the terms on which we should form alliance, before we declared we would form one at all events:
And that if these were agreed on, our Declaration of Independance ready by the time our Ambassador should be prepared to sail, it would be as well as to go into that Declaration at this day.
On the other side it was urged by J. Adams, Lee, Wythe, and others
That no gentleman had argued against the policy or the right of separation from Britain, nor had supposed it possible we should ever renew our connection; that they had only opposed its being now declared:
That the question was not whether, by a declaration of independance, we should make ourselves what we are not; but whether we should declare a fact which already exists:
That as to the people or parliament of England, we had alwais been independent of them, their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy from our acquiescence only, not from any rights they possessed of imposing them, that so far our connection had been federal only was now dissolved by the commencement of hostilities:
That as to the King, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but that this bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late act of parliament, by which he declares us out of his protection, and by his levying war on us, a fact which had long ago proved us out of his protection; it being a certain position in law that allegiance protection are reciprocal, the one ceasing when the other is withdrawn:
That James the IId. never declared the people of England out of his protection yet his actions proved it the parliament declared it:
No delegates then can be denied, or ever want, a power of declaring an existing truth:
That the delegates from the Delaware counties having declared their constituents ready to join, there are only two colonies Pennsylvania Maryland whose delegates are absolutely tied up, and that these had by their instructions only reserved a right of confirming or rejecting the measure:
That the instructions from Pennsylvania might be accounted for from the times in which they were drawn, near a twelvemonth ago, since which the face of affairs has totally changed:
That within that time it had become apparent that Britain was determined to accept nothing less than a carte-blanche, and that the King’s answer to the Lord Mayor Aldermen common council of London, which had come to hand four days ago, must have satisfied every one of this point:
That the people wait for us to lead the way:
That they are in favour of the measure, tho’ the instructions given by some of their representatives are not:
That the voice of the representatives is not always consonant with the voice of the people, and that this is remarkably the case in these middle colonies:
That the effect of the resolution of the 15th of May has proved this, which, raising the murmurs of some in the colonies of Pennsylvania Maryland, called forth the opposing voice of the freer part of the people, proved them to be the majority, even in these colonies:
That the backwardness of these two colonies might be ascribed partly to the influence of proprietary power connections, partly to their having not yet been attacked by the enemy:
That these causes were not likely to be soon removed, as there seemed no probability that the enemy would make either of these the seat of this summer’s war:
That it would be vain to wait either weeks or months for perfect unanimity, since it was impossible that all men should ever become of one sentiment on any question:
That the conduct of some colonies from the beginning of this contest, had given reason to suspect it was their settled policy to keep in the rear of the confederacy, that their particular prospect might be better, even in the worst event:
That therefore it was necessary for those colonies who had thrown themselves forward hazarded all from the beginning, to come forward now also, and put all again to their own hazard:
That the history of the Dutch revolution, of whom three states only confederated at first proved that a secession of some colonies would not be so dangerous as some apprehended:
That a declaration of Independence alone could render it consistent with European delicacy for European powers to treat with us, or even to receive an Ambassador from us:
That till this they would not receive our vessels into their ports, nor acknowledge the adjudications of our courts of admiralty to be legitimate, in cases of capture of British vessels:
That though France Spain may be jealous of our rising power, they must think it will be much more formidable with the addition of Great Britain; and will therefore see it their interest to prevent a coalition; but should they refuse, we shall be but where we are; whereas without trying we shall never know whether they will aid us or not:
That the present campaign may be unsuccessful, therefore we had better propose an alliance while our affairs wear a hopeful aspect:
That to await the event of this campaign will certainly work delay, because during this summer France may assist us effectually by cutting off those supplies of provisions from England Ireland on which the enemy’s armies here are to depend; or by setting in motion the great power they have collected in the West Indies, calling our enemy to the defence of the possessions they have there:
That it would be idle to lose time in settling the terms of alliance, till we had first determined we would enter into alliance:
That it is necessary to lose no time in opening a trade for our people, who will want clothes, and will want money too for the paiment of taxes:
And that the only misfortune is that we did not enter into alliance with France six months sooner, as besides opening their ports for the vent of our last year’s produce, they might have marched an army into Germany and prevented the petty princes there from selling their unhappy subjects to subdue us.
It appearing in the course of these debates that the colonies of N. York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina 1 were not yet matured for falling from the parent stem, but that they were fast advancing to that state, it was thought most prudent to wait a while for them, and to postpone the final decision to July 1. but that this might occasion as little delay as possible a committee was appointed 2 to prepare a declaration of independence. The commee were J. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston myself. Committees were also appointed at the same time to prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to state the terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance. The committee for drawing the declaration of Independence desired me to do it. It was accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the house on Friday the 28th of June when it was read and ordered to lie on the table. 3 On Monday, the 1st of July the house resolved itself into a commee of the whole resumed the consideration of the original motion made by the delegates of Virginia, which being again debated through the day, was carried in the affirmative by the votes of N. Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, N. Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, N. Carolina, Georgia. S. Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. Delaware having but two members present, they were divided. 1 The delegates for New York declared they were for it themselves were assured their constituents were for it, but that their instructions having been drawn near a twelvemonth before, when reconciliation was still the general object, they were enjoined by them to do nothing which should impede that object. They therefore thought themselves not justifiable in voting on either side, and asked leave to withdraw from the question, which was given them. The commee rose reported their resolution to the house. Mr. Edward Rutledge of S. Carolina then requested the determination might be put off to the next day, as he believed his colleagues, tho’ they disapproved of the resolution, would then join in it for the sake of unanimity. The ultimate question whether the house would agree to the resolution of the committee was accordingly postponed to the next day, when it was again moved and S. Carolina concurred in voting for it. In the meantime a third member had come post from the Delaware counties 1 and turned the vote of that colony in favour of the resolution. Members 2 of a different sentiment attending that morning from Pennsylvania also, their vote was changed, so that the whole 12 colonies who were authorized to vote at all, gave their voices for it; and within a few days, 3 the convention of N. York approved of it and thus supplied the void occasioned by the withdrawing of her delegates from the vote.
Congress proceeded the same day 4 to consider the declaration of Independance which had been reported lain on the table the Friday preceding, and on Monday referred to a commee of the whole. The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others. The debates having taken up the greater parts of the 2d 3d 4th days of July were, 1 in the evening of the last, closed the declaration was reported by the commee, agreed to by the house and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson. 2 As the sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also, I will state the form of the declaration as originally reported. The parts struck out by Congress shall be distinguished by a black line drawn under them; those inserted by them shall be placed in the margin or in a concurrent column. 1
A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GENERAL CONGRESS ASSEMBLED
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with
inherent and
certain
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles, organizing it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses usurpations
begun at a distinguished period and
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; such is now the necessity which constrains them to
expunge
alter
their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of
unremitting
repeated
injuries usurpations,
among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest but all have
all having
in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this let facts be submitted to a candid world
for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly
continually
for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has
suffered
obstructed
the administration of justice
totally to cease in some of these
by
states
refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made
our
judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, the amount paiment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices
by a self assumed power
and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies
and ships of war
without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, superior to the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; for imposing taxes on us without our consent; for depriving us
[in many cases]
of the benefits of trial by jury; for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging it’s boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these
states
colonies
; for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments; for suspending our own legislatures, declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here
withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance protection.
by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy [scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, totally] unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has
[excited domestic insurrection among us, has]
endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, conditions
of existence.
He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture confiscation of our property.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of
infidel
powers, is the warfare of the
christian
king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where
men
should be bought sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the
liberties
of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the
lives
of another.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injuries.
A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a
[free]
people
who mean to be free. Future ages will scarcely believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short compass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad so undisguised for tyranny over a people fostered fixed in principles of freedom.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend
a
an unwarrantable
jurisdiction over
these our states.
us
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration settlement here,
no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that these were effected at the expense of our own blood treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league amity with them: but that submission to their parliament was no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited: and,
we
[have]
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity
as well as to
and we have conjured them by
the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which
were likely to
would inevitably
interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice of consanguinity,
and when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have, by their free election, re-established them in power. At this very time too they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch foreign mercenaries to invade destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We might have been a free and a great people together; but a communication of grandeur of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness to glory is open to us too. We will tread it apart from them, and
We must therefore
acquiesce in the necessity which denuonces our
eternal
separation
[and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.]
!
We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled do in the name by authority of the good people of these
states reject renounce all allegiance subjection to the kings of Great Britain all others who may hereafter claim by, through or under them: we utterly dissolve all political connection which may heretofore have subsisted between us the people or parliament of Great Britain: finally we do assert declare these colonies to be free independent states,
that as free independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, to do all other acts things which independent states may of right do.
And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.
We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name, by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish declare that these united colonies are of right ought to be free independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them the state of Great Britain is, ought to be, totally dissolved; that as free independent states they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce to do all other acts things which independant states may of right do.
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. 1
The Declaration thus signed on the 4th, on paper was engrossed on parchment, signed again on the 2d. of August. 1
On Friday July 12. the Committee appointed to draw the articles of confederation reported them, and on the 22d. the house resolved themselves into a committee to take them into consideration. On the 30th. 31st. of that month 1st. of the ensuing, those articles were debated which determined the proportion or quota of money which each state should furnish to the common treasury, and the manner of voting in Congress. The first of these articles was expressed in the original draught in these words. 2 “Art. XI. All charges of war all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence, or general welfare, and allowed by the United States assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex quality, except Indians not paying taxes, in each colony, a true account of which, distinguishing the white inhabitants, shall be triennially taken transmitted to the Assembly of the United States.”
Mr. [Samuel] Chase moved that the quotas should be fixed, not by the number of inhabitants of every condition, but by that of the “white inhabitants.” He admitted that taxation should be alwais in proportion to property, that this was in theory the true rule, but that from a variety of difficulties, it was a rule which could never be adopted in practice. The value of the property in every State could never be estimated justly equally. Some other measure for the wealth of the State must therefore be devised, some standard referred to which would be more simple. He considered the number of inhabitants as a tolerably good criterion of property, and that this might alwais be obtained. He therefore thought it the best mode which we could adopt, with one exception only. He observed that negroes are property, and as such cannot be distinguished from the lands or personalities held in those States where there are few slaves, that the surplus of profit which a Northern farmer is able to lay by, he invests in cattle, horses, c. whereas a Southern farmer lays out that same surplus in slaves. There is no more reason therefore for taxing the Southern states on the farmer’s head, on his slave’s head, than the Northern ones on their farmer’s heads the heads of their cattle, that the method proposed would therefore tax the Southern states according to their numbers their wealth conjunctly, while the Northern would be taxed on numbers only: that negroes in fact should not be considered as members of the state more than cattle that they have no more interest in it.
Mr. John Adams observed that the numbers of people were taken by this article as an index of the wealth of the state, not as subjects of taxation, that as to this matter it was of no consequence by what name you called your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves. That in some countries the labouring poor were called freemen, in others they were called slaves; but that the difference as to the state was imaginary only. What matters it whether a landlord employing ten labourers in his farm, gives them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of life, or gives them those necessaries at short hand. The ten labourers add as much wealth annually to the state increase it’s exports as much in the one case as the other. Certainly 500 freemen produce no more profits, no greater surplus for the paiment of taxes than 500 slaves. Therefore the state in which are the labourers called freemen should be taxed no more than that in which are those called slaves. Suppose by any extraordinary operation of nature or of law one half the labourers of a state could in the course of one night be transformed into slaves: would the state be made the poorer or the less able to pay taxes? That the condition of the laboring poor in most countries, that of the fishermen particularly of the Northern states, is as abject as that of slaves. It is the number of labourers which produce the surplus for taxation, and numbers therefore indiscriminately, are the fair index of wealth. That it is the use of the word “property” here, it’s application to some of the people of the state, which produces the fallacy. How does the Southern farmer procure slaves? Either by importation or by purchase from his neighbor. If he imports a slave, he adds one to the number of labourers in his country, and proportionably to it’s profits abilities to pay taxes. If he buys from his neighbor it is only a transfer of a labourer from one farm to another, which does not change the annual produce of the state, therefore should not change it’s tax. That if a Northern farmer works ten labourers on his farm, he can, it is true, invest the surplus of ten men’s labour in cattle: but so may the Southern farmer working ten slaves. That a state of one hundred thousand freemen can maintain no more cattle than one of one hundred thousand slaves. Therefore they have no more of that kind of property. That a slave may indeed from the custom of speech be more properly called the wealth of his master, than the free labourer might be called the wealth of his employer: but as to the state, both were equally it’s wealth, and should therefore equally add to the quota of it’s tax.
Mr. [Benjamin] Harrison proposed as a compromise, that two slaves should be counted as one freeman. He affirmed that slaves did not do so much work as freemen, and doubted if two effected more than one. That this was proved by the price of labor. The hire of a labourer in the Southern colonies being from 8 to £12. while in the Northern it was generally £24.
Mr. [James] Wilson said that if this amendment should take place the Southern colonies would have all the benefit of slaves, whilst the Northern ones would bear the burthen. That slaves increase the profits of a state, which the Southern states mean to take to themselves; that they also increase the burthen of defence, which would of course fall so much the heavier on the Northern. That slaves occupy the places of freemen and eat their food. Dismiss your slaves freemen will take their places. It is our duty to lay every discouragement on the importation of slaves; but this amendment would give the jus trium liberorum to him who would import slaves. That other kinds of property were pretty equally distributed thro’ all the colonies: there were as many cattle, horses, sheep, in the North as the South, South as the North; but not so as to slaves. That experience has shown that those colonies have been alwais able to pay most which have the most inhabitants, whether they be black or white, and the practice of the Southern colonies has alwais been to make every farmer pay poll taxes upon all his labourers whether they be black or white. He acknowledges indeed that freemen work the most; but they consume the most also. They do not produce a greater surplus for taxation. The slave is neither fed nor clothed so expensively as a freeman. Again white women are exempted from labor generally, but negro women are not. In this then the Southern states have an advantage as the article now stands. It has sometimes been said that slavery is necessary because the commodities they raise would be too dear for market if cultivated by freemen; but now it is said that the labor of the slave is the dearest.
Mr. Payne 1 urged the original resolution of Congress, to proportion the quotas of the states to the number of souls.
Dr. [John] Witherspoon was of opinion that the value of lands houses was the best estimate of the wealth of a nation, and that it was practicable to obtain such a valuation. This is the true barometer of wealth. The one now proposed is imperfect in itself, and unequal between the States. It has been objected that negroes eat the food of freemen therefore should be taxed. Horses also eat the food of freemen; therefore they also should be taxed. It has been said too that in carrying slaves into the estimate of the taxes the state is to pay, we do no more than those states themselves do, who alwais take slaves into the estimate of the taxes the individual is to pay. But the cases are not parallel. In the Southern colonies slaves pervade the whole colony; but they do not pervade the whole continent. That as to the original resolution of Congress to proportion the quotas according to the souls, it was temporary only, related to the monies heretofore emitted: whereas we are now entering into a new compact, and therefore stand on original ground.
Aug. 1. The question being put the amendment proposed was rejected by the votes of N. Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode island, Connecticut, N. York, N. Jersey, Pennsylvania, against those of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North South Carolina. Georgia was divided.
The other article was in these words. “Art. XVII. In determining questions each colony shall have one vote.”
July 30. 31. Aug. 1. Present 41. members. Mr. Chase observed that this article was the most likely to divide us of any one proposed in the draught then under consideration. That the larger colonies had threatened they would not confederate at all if their weight in congress should not be equal to the numbers of people they added to the confederacy; while the smaller ones declared against a union if they did not retain an equal vote for the protection of their rights. That it was of the utmost consequence to bring the parties together, as should we sever from each other, either no foreign power will ally with us at all, or the different states will form different alliances, and thus increase the horrors of those scenes of civil war and bloodshed which in such a state of separation independance would render us a miserable people. That our importance, our interests, our peace required that we should confederate, and that mutual sacrifices should be made to effect a compromise of this difficult question. He was of opinion the smaller colonies would lose their rights, if they were not in some instances allowed an equal vote; and therefore that a discrimination should take place among the questions which would come before Congress. 1 That the smaller states should be secured in all questions concerning life or liberty the greater ones in all respecting property. He therefore proposed that in votes relating to money, the voice of each colony should be proportioned to the number of its inhabitants.
Dr. Franklin 2 thought that the votes should be so proportioned in all cases. He took notice that the Delaware counties had bound up their Delegates to disagree to this article. He thought it a very extraordinary language to be held by any state, that they would not confederate with us unless we would let them dispose of our money. Certainly if we vote equally we ought to pay equally; but the smaller states will hardly purchase the privilege at this price. That had he lived in a state where the representation, originally equal, had become unequal by time accident he might have submitted rather than disturb government; but that we should be very wrong to set out in this practice when it is in our power to establish what is right. That at the time of the Union between England and Scotland the latter had made the objection which the smaller states now do. But experience had proved that no unfairness had ever been shown them. That their advocates had prognosticated that it would again happen as in times of old, that the whale would swallow Jonas, but he thought the prediction reversed in event and that Jonas had swallowed the whale, for the Scotch had in fact got possession of the government and gave laws to the English. He reprobated the original agreement of Congress to vote by colonies and therefore was for their voting in all cases according to the number of taxables. 1
Dr. Witherspoon opposed every alteration of the article. All men admit that a confederacy is necessary. Should the idea get abroad that there is likely to be no union among us, it will damp the minds of the people, diminish the glory of our struggle, lessen it’s importance; because it will open to our view future prospects of war dissension among ourselves. If an equal vote be refused, the smaller states will become vassals to the larger; all experience has shown that the vassals subjects of free states are the most enslaved. He instanced the Helots of Sparta the provinces of Rome. He observed that foreign powers discovering this blemish would make it a handle for disengaging the smaller states from so unequal a confederacy. That the colonies should in fact be considered as individuals; and that as such, in all disputes they should have an equal vote; that they are now collected as individuals making a bargain with each other, of course had a right to vote as individuals. That in the East India company they voted by persons, not by their proportion of stock. That the Belgic confederacy voted by provinces. That in questions of war the smaller states were as much interested as the larger, therefore should vote equally; and indeed that the larger states were more likely to bring war on the confederacy in proportion as their frontier was more extensive. He admitted that equality of representation was an excellent principle, but then it must be of things which are co-ordinate; that is, of things similar of the same nature: that nothing relating to individuals could ever come before Congress; nothing but what would respect colonies. He distinguished between an incorporating a federal union. The union of England was an incorporating one; yet Scotland had suffered by that union: for that it’s inhabitants were drawn from it by the hopes of places employments. Nor was it an instance of equality of representation; because while Scotland was allowed nearly a thirteenth of representation they were to pay only one fortieth of the land tax. He expressed his hopes that in the present enlightened state of men’s minds we might expect a lasting confederacy, if it was founded on fair principles.
John Adams advocated the voting in proportion to numbers. He said that we stand here as the representatives of the people. That in some states the people are many, in others they are few; that therefore their vote here should be proportioned to the numbers from whom it comes. Reason, justice, equity never had weight enough on the face of the earth to govern the councils of men. It is interest alone which does it, and it is interest alone which can be trusted. That therefore the interests within doors should be the mathematical representatives of the interests without doors. That the individuality of the colonies is a mere sound. Does the individuality of a colony increase it’s wealth or numbers. If it does, pay equally. If it does not add weight in the scale of the confederacy, it cannot add to their rights, nor weigh in argument. A. has £50. B. £500. C. £1000. in partnership. Is it just they should equally dispose of the monies of the partnership? It has been said we are independent individuals making a bargain together. The question is not what we are now, but what we ought to be when our bargain shall be made. The confederacy is to make us one individual only; it is to form us, like separate parcels of metal, into one common mass. We shall no longer retain our separate individuality, but become a single individual as to all questions submitted to the confederacy. Therefore all those reasons which prove the justice expediency of equal representation in other assemblies, hold good here. It has been objected that a proportional vote will endanger the smaller states. We answer that an equal vote will endanger the larger. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts are the three greater colonies. Consider their distance, their difference of produce, of interests of manners, it is apparent they can never have an interest or inclination to combine for the oppression of the smaller. That the smaller will naturally divide on all questions with the larger. Rhode isld, from it’s relation, similarity intercourse will generally pursue the same objects with Massachusetts; Jersey, Delaware Maryland, with Pennsylvania.
Dr. [Benjamin] Rush took notice that the decay of the liberties of the Dutch republic proceeded from three causes. 1. The perfect unanimity requisite on all occasions. 2. Their obligation to consult their constituents. 3. Their voting by provinces. This last destroyed the equality of representation, and the liberties of great Britain also are sinking from the same defect. That a part of our rights is deposited in the hands of our legislatures. There it was admitted there should be an equality of representation. Another part of our rights is deposited in the hands of Congress: why is it not equally necessary there should be an equal representation there? Were it possible to collect the whole body of the people together, they would determine the questions submitted to them by their majority. Why should not the same majority decide when voting here by their representatives? The larger colonies are so providentially divided in situation as to render every fear of their combining visionary. Their interests are different, their circumstances dissimilar. It is more probable they will become rivals leave it in the power of the smaller states to give preponderance to any scale they please. The voting by the number of free inhabitants will have one excellent effect, that of inducing the colonies to discourage slavery to encourage the increase of their free inhabitants.
Mr. [Stephen] Hopkins observed there were 4 larger, 4 smaller, 4 middle-sized colonies. That the 4 largest would contain more than half the inhabitants of the confederated states, therefore would govern the others as they should please. That history affords no instance of such a thing as equal representation. The Germanic body votes by states. The Helvetic body does the same; so does the Belgic confederacy. That too little is known of the ancient confederations to say what was their practice.
Mr. Wilson thought that taxation should be in proportion to wealth, but that representation should accord with the number of freemen. That government is a collection or result of the wills of all. That if any government could speak the will of all, it would be perfect; and that so far as it departs from this it becomes imperfect. It has been said that Congress is a representation of states; not of individuals. I say that the objects of its care are all the individuals of the states. It is strange that annexing the name of “State” to ten thousand men, should give them an equal right with forty thousand. This must be the effect of magic, not of reason. As to those matters which are referred to Congress, we are not so many states, we are one large state. We lay aside our individuality, whenever we come here. The Germanic body is a burlesque on government; and their practice on any point is a sufficient authority proof that it is wrong. The greatest imperfection in the constitution of the Belgic confederacy is their voting by provinces. The interest of the whole is constantly sacrificed to that of the small states. The history of the war in the reign of Q. Anne sufficiently proves this. It is asked shall nine colonies put it into the power of four to govern them as they please? I invert the question, and ask shall two millions of people put it in the power of one million to govern them as they please? It is pretended too that the smaller colonies will be in danger from the greater. Speak in honest language say the minority will be in danger from the majority. And is there an assembly on earth where this danger may not be equally pretended? The truth is that our proceedings will then be consentaneous with the interests of the majority, and so they ought to be. The probability is much greater that the larger states will disagree than that they will combine. I defy the wit of man to invent a possible case or to suggest any one thing on earth which shall be for the interests of Virginia, Pennsylvania Massachusetts, and which will not also be for the interest of the other states. 1
These articles reported July 12. 76 were debated from day to day, time to time for two years, were ratified July 9, ’78, by 10 states, by N. Jersey on the 26th. of Nov. of the same year, and by Delaware on the 23d. of Feb. following. Maryland alone held off 2 years more, acceding to them Mar 1, 81. and thus closing the obligation.
Our delegation had been renewed for the ensuing year commencing Aug. 11. but the new government was now organized, a meeting of the legislature was to be held in Oct. and I had been elected a member by my county. I knew that our legislation under the regal government had many very vicious points which urgently required reformation, and I thought I could be of more use in forwarding that work. I therefore retired from my seat in Congress on the 2d. of Sep. resigned it, and took my place in the legislature of my state, on the 7th. of October.
On the 11th. 1 I moved for leave to bring in a bill for the establishment of courts of justice, the organization of which was of importance; I drew the bill it was approved by the commee, reported and passed after going thro’ it’s due course. 2
On the 12th. I obtained leave to bring in a bill declaring tenants in tail to hold their lands in fee simple. 1 In the earlier times of the colony when lands were to be obtained for little or nothing, some provident individuals procured large grants, and, desirous of founding great families for themselves, settled them on their descendants in fee-tail. The transmission of this property from generation to generation in the same name raised up a distinct set of families who, being privileged by law in the perpetuation of their wealth were thus formed into a Patrician order, distinguished by the splendor and luxury of their establishments. From this order too the king habitually selected his Counsellors of State, the hope of which distinction devoted the whole corps to the interests will of the crown. To annul this privilege, and instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger, than benefit, to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society, scattered with equal hand through all it’s conditions, was deemed essential to a well ordered republic. To effect it no violence was necessary, no deprivation of natural right, but rather an enlargement of it by a repeal of the law. For this would authorize the present holder to divide the property among his children equally, as his affections were divided; and would place them, by natural generation on the level of their fellow citizens. But this repeal was strongly opposed by Mr. Pendleton, who was zealously attached to ancient establishments; and who, taken all in all, was the ablest man in debate I have ever met with. He had not indeed the poetical fancy of Mr. Henry, his sublime imagination, his lofty and overwhelming diction; but he was cool, smooth and persuasive; his language flowing, chaste embellished, his conceptions quick, acute and full of resource; never vanquished; for if he lost the main battle, he returned upon you, and regained so much of it as to make it a drawn one, by dexterous manœuvres, skirmishes in detail, and the recovery of small advantages which, little singly, were important altogether. You never knew when you were clear of him, but were harassed by his perseverance until the patience was worn down of all who had less of it than himself. Add to this that he was one of the most virtuous benevolent of men, the kindest friend, the most amiable pleasant of companions, which ensured a favorable reception to whatever came from him. Finding that the general principles of entails could not be maintained, he took his stand on an amendment which he proposed, instead of an absolute abolition, to permit the tenant in tail to convey in fee simple, if he chose it: and he was within a few votes of saving so much of the old law. But the bill passed finally for entire abolition.
In that one of the bills for organizing our judiciary system which proposed a court of chancery, I had provided for a trial by jury of all matters of fact in that as well as in the courts of law. He defeated it by the introduction of 4. words only, “ if either party chuse. ” 1 The consequence has been that as no suitor will say to his judge, “Sir, I distrust you, give me a jury” juries are rarely, I might say perhaps never seen in that court, but when called for by the Chancellor of his own accord.
The first establishment in Virginia which became permanent was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade and continued it until the revolutionary war. That suspended, ipso facto, their further importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year 78. when I brought in a bill to prevent their further importation. 2 This passed without opposition, and stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.
The first settlers of this colony were Englishmen, loyal subjects to their king and church, and the grant to Sr. Walter Raleigh contained an express Proviso that their laws “should not be against the true Christian faith, now professed in the church of England.” As soon as the state of the colony admitted, it was divided into parishes, in each of which was established a minister of the Anglican church, endowed with a fixed salary, in tobacco, a glebe house and land with the other necessary appendages. To meet these expenses all the inhabitants of the parishes were assessed, whether they were or not, members of the established church. Towards Quakers who came here they were most cruelly intolerant, driving them from the colony by the severest penalties. In process of time however, other sectarisms were introduced, chiefly of the Presbyterian family; and the established clergy, secure for life in their glebes and salaries, adding to these generally the emoluments of a classical school, found employment enough, in their farms and schoolrooms for the rest of the week, and devoted Sunday only to the edification of their flock, by service, and a sermon at their parish church. Their other pastoral functions were little attended to. Against this inactivity the zeal and industry of sectarian preachers had an open and undisputed field; and by the time of the revolution, a majority of the inhabitants had become dissenters from the established church, but were still obliged to pay contributions to support the Pastors of the minority. This unrighteous compulsion to maintain teachers of what they deemed religious errors was grievously felt during the regal government, and without a hope of relief. But the first republican legislature which met in 76. was crowded with petitions to abolish this spiritual tyranny. These brought on the severest contests in which I have ever been engaged. Our great opponents were Mr. Pendelton Robert Carter Nicholas, honest men, but zealous churchmen. The petitions were referred to the commee of the whole house on the state of the country; and after desperate contests in that committee, almost daily from the 11th of Octob. 1 to the 5th of December, we prevailed so far only as to repeal the laws which rendered criminal the maintenance of any religious opinions, the forbearance of repairing to church, or the exercise of any mode of worship: and further, to exempt dissenters from contributions to the support of the established church; and to suspend, only until the next session levies on the members of that church for the salaries of their own incumbents. For although the majority of our citizens were dissenters, as has been observed, a majority of the legislature were churchmen. Among these however were some reasonable and liberal men, who enabled us, on some points, to obtain feeble majorities. But our opponents carried in the general resolutions of the commee of Nov. 19. a declaration that religious assemblies ought to be regulated, and that provision ought to be made for continuing the succession of the clergy, and superintending their conduct. And in the bill now passed 1 was inserted an express reservation of the question Whether a general assessment should not be established by law, on every one, to the support of the pastor of his choice; or whether all should be left to voluntary contributions; and on this question, debated at every session from 76 to 79 (some of our dissenting allies, having now secured their particular object, going over to the advocates of a general assessment) we could only obtain a suspension from session to session until 79. when the question against a general assessment was finally carried, and the establishment of the Anglican church entirely put down. In justice to the two honest but zealous opponents, who have been named I must add that altho’, from their natural temperaments, they were more disposed generally to acquiesce in things as they are, then to risk innovations, yet whenever the public will had once decided, none were more faithful or exact in their obedience to it.
The seat of our government had been originally fixed in the peninsula of Jamestown, the first settlement of the colonists; and had been afterwards removed a few miles inland to Williamsburg. But this was at a time when our settlements had not extended beyond the tide water. Now they had crossed the Alleghany; and the center of population was very far removed from what it had been. Yet Williamsburg was still the depository of our archives, the habitual residence of the Governor many other of the public functionaries, the established place for the sessions of the legislature, and the magazine of our military stores: and it’s situation was so exposed that it might be taken at any time in war, and, at this time particularly, an enemy might in the night run up either of the rivers between which it lies, land a force above, and take possession of the place, without the possibility of saving either persons or things. I had proposed it’s removal so early as Octob. 76. 1 but it did not prevail until the session of May. ’79.
Early in the session of May 79. I prepared, and obtained leave to bring in a bill declaring who should be deemed citizens, asserting the natural right of expatriation, and prescribing the mode of exercising it. This, when I withdrew from the house on the 1st of June following, I left in the hands of George Mason and it was passed on the 26th of that month. 1
In giving this account of the laws of which I was myself the mover draughtsman, I by no means mean to claim to myself the merit of obtaining their passage. I had many occasional and strenuous coadjutors in debate, and one most steadfast, able, and zealous; who was himself a host. This was George Mason, a man of the first order of wisdom among those who acted on the theatre of the revolution, of expansive mind, profound judgment, cogent in argument, learned in the lore of our former constitution, and earnest for the republican change on democratic principles. His elocution was neither flowing nor smooth, but his language was strong, his manner most impressive, and strengthened by a dash of biting cynicism when provocation made it seasonable.
Mr. Wythe, while speaker in the two sessions of 1777. between his return from Congress and his appointment to the Chancery, was an able and constant associate in whatever was before a committee of the whole. His pure integrity, judgment and reasoning powers gave him great weight. Of him see more in some notes inclosed in my letter of August 31, 1821, to Mr. John Saunderson.
Mr. Madison came into the House in 1776. a new member and young; which circumstances, concurring with his extreme modesty, prevented his venturing himself in debate before his removal to the Council of State in Nov. 77. From thence he went to Congress, then consisting of few members. Trained in these successive schools, he acquired a habit of self-possession which placed at ready command the rich resources of his luminous and discriminating mind, of his extensive information, and rendered him the first of every assembly afterwards of which he became a member. Never wandering from his subject into vain declamation, but pursuing it closely in language pure, classical, and copious, soothing always the feelings of his adversaries by civilities and softness of expression, he rose to the eminent station which he held in the great National convention of 1787. and in that of Virginia which followed, he sustained the new constitution in all its parts, bearing off the palm against the logic of George Mason, and the fervid declamation of Mr. Henry. With these consummate powers were united a pure and spotless virtue which no calumny has ever attempted to sully. Of the powers and polish of his pen, and of the wisdom of his administration in the highest office of the nation, I need say nothing. They have spoken, and will forever speak for themselves.
So far we were proceeding in the details of reformation only; selecting points of legislation prominent in character principle, urgent, and indicative of the strength of the general pulse of reformation. When I left Congress, in 76. it was in the persuasion that our whole code must be reviewed, adapted to our republican form of government, and, now that we had no negatives of Councils, Governors Kings to restrain us from doing right, that it should be corrected, in all it’s parts, with a single eye to reason, the good of those for whose government it was framed. Early therefore 1 in the session of 76. to which I returned, I moved and presented a bill for the revision of the laws; which was passed on the 24th. of October, and on the 5th. of November Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee and myself were appointed a committee to execute the work. We agreed to meet at Fredericksburg to settle the plan of operation and to distribute the work. We met there accordingly, on the 13th. of January 1777. The first question was whether we should propose to abolish the whole existing system of laws, and prepare a new and complete Institute, or preserve the general system, and only modify it to the present state of things. Mr. Pendleton, contrary to his usual disposition in favor of antient things, was for the former proposition, in which he was joined by Mr. Lee. To this it was objected that to abrogate our whole system would be a bold measure, and probably far beyond the views of the legislature; that they had been in the practice of revising from time to time the laws of the colony, omitting the expired, the repealed and the obsolete, amending only those retained, and probably meant we should now do the same, only including the British statutes as well as our own: that to compose a new Institute like those of Justinian and Bracton, or that of Blackstone, which was the model proposed by Mr. Pendleton, would be an arduous undertaking, of vast research, of great consideration judgment; and when reduced to a text, every word of that text, from the imperfection of human language, and it’s incompetence to express distinctly every shade of idea, would become a subject of question chicanery until settled by repeated adjudications; that this would involve us for ages in litigation, and render property uncertain until, like the statutes of old, every word had been tried, and settled by numerous decisions, and by new volumes of reports commentaries; and that no one of us probably would undertake such a work, which, to be systematical, must be the work of one hand. This last was the opinion of Mr. Wythe, Mr. Mason myself. When we proceeded to the distribution of the work, Mr. Mason excused himself as, being no lawyer, he felt himself unqualified for the work, and he resigned soon after. Mr. Lee excused himself on the same ground, and died indeed in a short time. The other two gentlemen therefore and myself divided the work among us. The common law and statutes to the 4. James I. (when our separate legislature was established) were assigned to me; the British statutes from that period to the present day to Mr. Wythe, and the Virginia laws to Mr. Pendleton. As the law of Descents, the criminal law fell of course within my portion, I wished the commee to settle the leading principles of these, as a guide for me in framing them. And with respect to the first, I proposed to abolish the law of primogeniture, and to make real estate descendible in parcenary to the next of kin, as personal property is by the statute of distribution. Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve the right of primogeniture, but seeing at once that that could not prevail, he proposed we should adopt the Hebrew principle, and give a double portion to the elder son. I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion; but being on a par in his powers wants, with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the decision of the other members.
On the subject of the Criminal law, all were agreed that the punishment of death should be abolished, except for treason and murder; and that, for other felonies should be substituted hard labor in the public works, and in some cases, the Lex talionis. How this last revolting principle came to obtain our approbation, I do not remember. There remained indeed in our laws a vestige of it in a single case of a slave. it was the English law in the time of the Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the Hebrew law of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” and it was the law of several antient people. But the modern mind had left it far in the rear of it’s advances. These points however being settled, we repaired to our respective homes for the preparation of the work.
Feb. 6. In the execution of my part I thought it material not to vary the diction of the antient statutes by modernizing it, nor to give rise to new questions by new expressions. The text of these statutes had been so fully explained and defined by numerous adjudications, as scarcely ever now to produce a question in our courts. I thought it would be useful also, in all new draughts, to reform the style of the later British statutes, and of our own acts of assembly, which from their verbosity, their endless tautologies, their involutions of case within case, and parenthesis within parenthesis, and their multiplied efforts at certainty by saids and aforesaids, by ors and by ands, to make them more plain, do really render them more perplexed and incomprehensible, not only to common readers, but to the lawyers themselves. We were employed in this work from that time to Feb. 1779, when we met at Williamsburg, that is to say, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe myself, and meeting day by day, we examined critically our several parts, sentence by sentence, scrutinizing and amending until we had agreed on the whole. We then returned home, had fair copies made of our several parts, which were reported to the General Assembly June 18. 1779. by Mr. Wythe and myself, Mr. Pendleton’s residence being distant, and he having authorized us by letter to declare his approbation. We had in this work brought so much of the Common law as it was thought necessary to alter, all the British statutes from Magna Charta to the present day, and all the laws of Virginia, from the establishment of our legislature, in the 4th. Jac. 1. to the present time, which we thought should be retained, within the compass of 126 bills, making a printed folio of 90 pages only. Some bills were taken out occasionally, from time to time, and passed; but the main body of the work was not entered on by the legislature until after the general peace, in 1785. when by the unwearied exertions of Mr. Madison, in opposition to the endless quibbles, chicaneries, perversions, vexations and delays of lawyers and demi-lawyers, most of the bills were passed by the legislature, with little alteration. 1
The bill for establishing religious freedom, 2 the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.
Beccaria and other writers on crimes and punishments had satisfied the reasonable world of the unrightfulness and inefficacy of the punishment of crimes by death; and hard labor on roads, canals and other public works, had been suggested as a proper substitute. The Revisors had adopted these opinions; but the general idea of our country had not yet advanced to that point. The bill therefore for proportioning crimes and punishments was lost in the House of Delegates by a majority of a single vote. 1 I learnt afterwards that the substitute of hard labor in public was tried (I believe it was in Pennsylvania) without success. Exhibited as a public spectacle, with shaved heads and mean clothing, working on the high roads produced in the criminals such a prostration of character, such an abandonment of self-respect, as, instead of reforming, plunged them into the most desperate hardened depravity of morals and character.—To pursue the subject of this law.—I was written to in 1785 (being then in Paris) by Directors appointed to superintend the building of a Capitol in Richmond, to advise them as to a plan, and to add to it one of a prison. Thinking it a favorable opportunity of introducing into the state an example of architecture in the classic style of antiquity, and the Maison quarrée of Nismes, an antient Roman temple, being considered as the most perfect model existing of what may be called Cubic architecture, I applied to M. Clerissault, who had published drawings of the Antiquities of Nismes, to have me a model of the building made in stucco, only changing the order from Corinthian to Ionic, on account of the difficulty of the Corinthian capitals. I yielded with reluctance to the taste of Clerissault, in his preference of the modern capital of Scamozzi to the more noble capital of antiquity. This was executed by the artist whom Choiseul Gouffier had carried with him to Constantinople, and employed while Ambassador there, in making those beautiful models of the remains of Grecian architecture which are to be seen at Paris. To adapt the exterior to our use, I drew a plan for the interior, with the apartments necessary for legislative, executive judiciary purposes, and accommodated in their size and distribution to the form and dimensions of the building. These were forwarded to the Directors in 1786. and were carried into execution, with some variations not for the better, the most important of which however admit of future correction. With respect to the plan of a Prison, requested at the same time, I had heard of a benevolent society in England which had been indulged by the government in an experiment of the effect of labor in solitary confinement on some of their criminals, which experiment had succeeded beyond expectation. The same idea had been suggested in France, and an Architect of Lyons had proposed a plan of a well contrived edifice on the principle of solitary confinement. I procured a copy, and as it was too large for our purposes, I drew one on a scale, less extensive, but susceptible of additions as they should be wanting. This I sent to the Directors instead of a plan of a common prison, in the hope that it would suggest the idea of labor in solitary confinement instead of that on the public works, which we had adopted in our Revised Code. It’s principle accordingly, but not it’s exact form, was adopted by Latrobe in carrying the plan into execution, by the erection of what is now called the Penitentiary, built under his direction. In the meanwhile the public opinion was ripening by time, by reflection, and by the example of Pensylva, where labor on the highways had been tried without approbation from 1786 to 89. had been followed by their Penitentiary system on the principle of confinement and labor, which was proceeding auspiciously. In 1796. our legislature resumed the subject and passed the law for amending the Penal laws of the commonwealth. They adopted solitary, instead of public labor, established a gradation in the duration of the confinement, approximated the style of the law more to the modern usage, and instead of the settled distinctions of murder manslaughter, preserved in my bill, they introduced the new terms of murder in the 1st 2d degree. Whether these have produced more or fewer questions of definition I am not sufficiently informed of our judiciary transactions to say. I will here however insert the text of my bill, with the notes I made in the course of my researches into the subject. 1
Feb. 7. The acts of assembly concerning the College of Wm. Mary, were properly within Mr. Pendleton’s portion of our work. But these related chiefly to it’s revenue, while it’s constitution, organization and scope of science were derived from it’s charter. We thought, that on this subject a systematical plan of general education should be proposed, and I was requested to undertake it. I accordingly prepared three bills for the Revisal, proposing three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes. 1 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life, and such as would be desirable for all who were in easy circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences generally, in their highest degree. The first bill proposed to lay off every county into Hundreds or Wards, of a proper size and population for a school, in which reading, writing, and common arithmetic should be taught; and that the whole state should be divided into 24 districts, in each of which should be a school for classical learning, grammar, geography, and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic. The second bill proposed to amend the constitution of Wm. Mary College, to enlarge it’s sphere of science, and to make it in fact an University. The third was for the establishment of a library. These bills were not acted on until the same year ’96. and then only so much of the first as provided for elementary schools. The College of Wm. Mary was an establishment purely of the Church of England, the Visitors were required to be all of that Church; the Professors to subscribe it’s 39 Articles, it’s Students to learn it’s Catechism, and one of its fundamental objects was declared to be to raise up Ministers for that church. The religious jealousies therefore of all the dissenters took alarm lest this might give an ascendancy to the Anglican sect and refused acting on that bill. Its local eccentricity too and unhealthy autumnal climate lessened the general inclination towards it. And in the Elementary bill they inserted a provision which completely defeated it, for they left it to the court of each county to determine for itself when this act should be carried into execution, within their county. One provision of the bill was that the expenses of these schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor; and the justices, being generally of the more wealthy class, were unwilling to incur that burthen, and I believe it was not suffered to commence in a single county. I shall recur again to this subject towards the close of my story, if I should have life and resolution enough to reach that term; for I am already tired of talking about myself.
The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future general emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amendment whenever the bill should be brought on. 1 The principles of the amendment however were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a proper age. But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be pari passu filled up by free white laborers. If on the contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall far short of our case.
I considered 4 of these bills, passed or reported, as forming a system by which every fibre would be eradicated of antient or future aristocracy; and a foundation laid for a government truly republican. The repeal of the laws of entail would prevent the accumulation and perpetuation of wealth in select families, and preserve the soil of the country from being daily more more absorbed in Mortmain. The abolition of primogeniture, and equal partition of inheritances removed the feudal and unnatural distinctions which made one member of every family rich, and all the rest poor, substituting equal partition, the best of all Agrarian laws. The restoration of the rights of conscience relieved the people from taxation for the support of a religion not theirs; for the establishment was truly of the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being entirely composed of the less wealthy people; and these, by the bill for a general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government: and all this would be effected without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual citizen. To these too might be added, as a further security, the introduction of the trial by jury, into the Chancery courts, which have already ingulfed and continue to ingulf, so great a proportion of the jurisdiction over our property.
On the 1st of June 1779. I was appointed Governor of the Commonwealth and retired from the legislature. Being elected also one of the Visitors of Wm. Mary college, a self-electing body, I effected, during my residence in Williamsburg that year, a change in the organization of that institution by abolishing the Grammar school, and the two professorships of Divinity Oriental languages, and substituting a professorship of Law Police, one of Anatomy Medicine and Chemistry, and one of Modern languages; and the charter confining us to six professorships, 1 we added the law of Nature Nations, the Fine Arts to the duties of the Moral professor, and Natural history to those of the professor of Mathematics and Natural philosophy.
Being now, as it were, identified with the Commonwealth itself, to write my own history during the two years of my administration, would be to write the public history of that portion of the revolution within this state. This has been done by others, and particularly by Mr. Girardin, who wrote his Continuation of Burke’s history of Virginia while at Milton, in this neighborhood, had free access to all my papers while composing it, and has given as faithful an account as I could myself. For this portion therefore of my own life, I refer altogether to his history. From a belief that under the pressure of the invasion under which we were then laboring the public would have more confidence in a Military chief, and that the Military commander, being invested with the Civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy promptitude and effect for the defence of the state, I resigned the administration at the end of my 2d. year, and General Nelson was appointed to succeed me.
Soon after my leaving Congress in Sep. ’76, to wit on the last day of that month, 1 I had been appointed, with Dr. Franklin, to go to France, as a Commissioner to negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce with that government. Silas Deane, then in France, acting as agent 2 for procuring military stores, was joined with us in commission. But such was the state of my family that I could not leave it, nor could I expose it to the dangers of the sea, and of capture by the British ships, then covering the ocean. I saw too that the laboring oar was really at home, where much was to be done of the most permanent interest in new modelling our governments, and much to defend our fanes and fire-sides from the desolations of an invading enemy pressing on our country in every point. I declined therefore and Dr. Lee was appointed in my place. On the 15th. of June 1 1781. I had been appointed with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens a Minister plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then expected to be effected thro’ the mediation of the Empress of Russia. The same reasons obliged me still to decline; and the negotiation was in fact never entered on. But, in the autumn of the next year 1782 Congress receiving assurances that a general peace would be concluded in the winter and spring, they renewed my appointment on the 13th. of Nov. of that year. I had two months before that lost the cherished companion of my life, in whose affections, unabated on both sides I had lived the last ten years in unchequered happiness. With the public interests, the state of my mind concurred in recommending the change of scene proposed; and I accepted the appointment, and left Monticello on the 19th. of Dec. 1782. for Philadelphia, where I arrived on the 27th. The Minister of France, Luzerne, offered me a passage in the Romulus frigate, which I accepting. But she was then lying a few miles below Baltimore blocked up in the ice. I remained therefore a month in Philadelphia, looking over the papers in the office of State in order to possess myself of the general state of our foreign relations, and then went to Baltimore to await the liberation of the frigate from the ice. After waiting there nearly a month, we received information that a Provisional treaty of peace had been signed by our Commissioners on the 3d. of Sep. 1782. to become absolute on the conclusion of peace between France and Great Britain. Considering my proceeding to Europe as now of no utility to the public, I returned immediately to Philadelphia to take the orders of Congress, and was excused by them from further proceeding. I therefore returned home, where I arrived on the 15th. of May, 1783.
On the 6th. of the following month I was appointed by the legislature a delegate to Congress, the appointment to take place on the 1st. of Nov. ensuing, when that of the existing delegation would expire. I accordingly left home on the 16th. of Oct. arrived at Trenton, where Congress was sitting, on the 3d. of Nov. and took my seat on the 4th., on which day Congress adjourned to meet at Annapolis on the 26th.
Congress had now become a very small body, and the members very remiss in their attendance on it’s duties insomuch that a majority of the states, necessary by the Confederation to constitute a house even for minor business did not assemble until the 13th. of December.
They as early as Jan. 7. 1782. had turned their attention to the monies current in the several states, and had directed the Financier, Robert Morris, to report to them a table of rates at which the foreign coins should be received at the treasury. That officer, or rather his assistant, Gouverneur Morris, answered them on the 15th 1 in an able and elaborate statement of the denominations of money current in the several states, and of the comparative value of the foreign coins chiefly in circulation with us. He went into the consideration of the necessity of establishing a standard of value with us, and of the adoption of a money-Unit. He proposed for the Unit such a fraction of pure silver as would be a common measure of the penny of every state, without leaving a fraction. This common divisor he found to be 1–1440 of a dollar, or 1–1600 of the crown sterling. The value of a dollar was therefore to be expressed by 1440 units, and of a crown by 1600. Each unit containing a quarter of a grain of fine silver. Congress turning again their attention to this subject the following year, the financier, by a letter of Apr. 30, 1783. further explained and urged the Unit he had proposed; but nothing more was done on it until the ensuing year, when it was again taken up, and referred to a commee of which I was a member. The general views of the financier were sound, and the principle was ingenious on which he proposed to found his Unit. But it was too minute for ordinary use, too laborious for computation either by the head or in figures. The price of a loaf of bread 1–20 of a dollar would be 72. units.
A pound of butter 1–5 of a dollar 288. units.
A horse or bullock of 80. D value would require a notation of 6. figures, to wit 115,200, and the public debt, suppose of 80. millions, would require 12. figures, to wit 115,200,000,000 units. Such a system of money-arithmetic would be entirely unmanageable for the common purposes of society. I proposed therefore, instead of this, to adopt the Dollar as our Unit of account and payment, and that it’s divisions and sub-divisions should be in the decimal ratio. I wrote some Notes 1 on the subject, which I submitted to the consideration of the financier. I received his answer and adherence to his general system, only agreeing to take for his Unit 100. of those he first proposed, so that a Dollar should be 14 40–100 and a crown 16. units. I replied to this and printed my notes and reply on a flying sheet, which I put into the hands of the members of Congress for consideration, and the Committee agreed to report on my principle. This was adopted the ensuing year and is the system which now prevails. I insert here the Notes and Reply, as shewing the different views on which the adoption of our money system hung. The division into dimes, cents mills is now so well understood, that it would be easy of introduction into the kindred branches of weights measures. I use, when I travel, an Odometer of Clarke’s invention which divides the mile into cents, and I find every one comprehend a distance readily when stated to them in miles cents; so they would in feet and cents, pounds cents, c.
The remissness of Congress, and their permanent session, began to be a subject of uneasiness and even some of the legislatures had recommended to them intermissions, and periodical sessions. As the Confederation had made no provision for a visible head of the government during vacations of Congress, and such a one was necessary to superintend the executive business, to receive and communicate with foreign ministers nations, and to assemble Congress on sudden and extraordinary emergencies, I proposed early in April 1 the appointment of a commee to be called the Committee of the states, to consist of a member from each state, who should remain in session during the recess of Congress: that the functions of Congress should be divided into Executive and Legislative, the latter to be reserved, and the former, by a general resolution to be delegated to that Committee. This proposition was afterwards agreed to; a Committee appointed, who entered on duty on the subsequent adjournment of Congress, quarrelled very soon, split into two parties, abandoned their post and left the government without any visible head until the next meeting in Congress. We have since seen the same thing take place in the Directory of France; and I believe it will forever take place in any Executive consisting of a plurality. Our plan, best I believe, combines wisdom and practicability, by providing a plurality of Counsellors, but a single Arbiter for ultimate decision. I was in France when we heard of this schism, and separation of our Committee, and, speaking with Dr. Franklin of this singular disposition of men to quarrel and divide into parties, he gave his sentiments as usual by way of Apologue. He mentioned the Eddystone lighthouse in the British channel as being built on a rock in the mid-channel, totally inaccessible in winter, from the boisterous character of that sea, in that season. That therefore, for the two keepers employed to keep up the lights, all provisions for the winter were necessarily carried to them in autumn, as they could never be visited again till the return of the milder season. That on the first practicable day in the spring a boat put off to them with fresh supplies. The boatmen met at the door one of the keepers and accosted him with a How goes it friend? Very well. How is your companion? I do not know. Don’t know? Is not he here? I can’t tell. Have not you seen him to-day? No. When did you see him? Not since last fall. You have killed him? Not I, indeed. They were about to lay hold of him, as having certainly murdered his companion; but he desired them to go up stairs examine for themselves. They went up, and there found the other keeper. They had quarrelled it seems soon after being left there, had divided into two parties, assigned the cares below to one, and those above to the other, and had never spoken to or seen one another since.
But to return to our Congress at Annapolis, the definitive treaty of peace which had been signed at Paris on the 3d. of Sep. 1783. and received here, could not be ratified without a House of 9. states. 1 On the 23d. of Dec. 1 therefore we addressed letters to the several governors, stating the receipt of the definitive treaty, that 7 states only were in attendance, while 9. were necessary to its ratification, and urging them to press on their delegates the necessity of their immediate attendance. And on the 26th. to save time I moved that the Agent of Marine (Robert Morris) should be instructed to have ready a vessel at this place, at N. York, at some Eastern port, to carry over the ratification of the treaty when agreed to. It met the general sense of the house, but was opposed by Dr. Lee 2 on the ground of expense which it would authorize the agent to incur for us; and he said it would be better to ratify at once send on the ratification. Some members had before suggested that 7 states were competent to the ratification. My motion was therefore postponed and another brought forward by Mr. Read 3 of S. C. for an immediate ratification. This was debated the 26th. and 27th. Reed, Lee, [Hugh] Williamson Jeremiah Chace urged that ratification was a mere matter of form, that the treaty was conclusive from the moment it was signed by the ministers; that although the Confederation requires the assent of 9. states to enter into a treaty, yet that it’s conclusion could not be called entrance into it; that supposing 9. states requisite, it would be in the power of 5. states to keep us always at war; that 9. states had virtually authorized the ratifion having ratified the provisional treaty, and instructed their ministers to agree to a definitive one in the same terms, and the present one was in fact substantially and almost verbatim the same; that there now remain but 67. days for the ratification, for it’s passage across the Atlantic, and it’s exchange; that there was no hope of our soon having 9. states present; in fact that this was the ultimate point of time to which we could venture to wait; that if the ratification was not in Paris by the time stipulated, the treaty would become void; that if ratified by 7 states, it would go under our seal without it’s being known to Gr. Britain that only 7. had concurred; that it was a question of which they had no right to take cognizance, and we were only answerable for it to our constituents; that it was like the ratification which Gr. Britain had received from the Dutch by the negotiations of Sr. Wm. Temple.
On the contrary, it was argued by Monroe, Gerry, Howel, Ellery myself that by the modern usage of Europe the ratification was considered as the act which gave validity to a treaty, until which it was not obligatory. 1 That the commission to the ministers reserved the ratification to Congress; that the treaty itself stipulated that it should be ratified; that it became a 2d. question who were competent to the ratification? That the Confederation expressly required 9 states to enter into any treaty; that, by this, that instrument must have intended that the assent of 9. states should be necessary as well to the completion as to the commencement of the treaty, it’s object having been to guard the rights of the Union in all those important cases where 9. states are called for; that, by the contrary construction, 7 states, containing less than one third of our whole citizens, might rivet on us a treaty, commenced indeed under commission and instructions from 9. states, but formed by the minister in express contradiction to such instructions, and in direct sacrifice of the interests of so great a majority; that the definitive treaty was admitted not to be a verbal copy of the provisional one, and whether the departures from it were of substance or not, was a question on which 9. states alone were competent to decide; that the circumstances of the ratification of the provisional articles by 9. states the instructions to our ministers to form a definitive one by them, and their actual agreement in substance, do not render us competent to ratify in the present instance; if these circumstances are in themselves a ratification, nothing further is requisite than to give attested copies of them, in exchange for the British ratification; if they are not, we remain where we were, without a ratification by 9. states, and incompetent ourselves to ratify; that it was but 4. days since the seven states now present unanimously concurred in a resolution to be forwarded to the governors of the absent states, in which they stated as a cause for urging on their delegates, that 9. states were necessary to ratify the treaty; that in the case of the Dutch ratification, Gr. Britain had courted it, and therefore was glad to accept it as it was; that they knew our constitution, and would object to a ratification by 7. that if that circumstance was kept back, it would be known hereafter, would give them ground to deny the validity of a ratification into which they should have been surprised and cheated, and it would be a dishonorable prostitution of our seal; that there is a hope of 9. states; that if the treaty would become null if not ratified in time, it would not be saved by an imperfect ratification; but that in fact it would not be null, and would be placed on better ground, going in unexceptionable form, tho’ a few days too late, and rested on the small importance of this circumstance, and the physical impossibilities which had prevented a punctual compliance in point of time; that this would be approved by all nations, by Great Britain herself, if not determined to renew the war, and if determined, she would never want excuses, were this out of the way. Mr. Reade gave notice he should call for the yeas nays; whereon those in opposition prepared a resolution expressing pointedly the reasons of the dissent from his motion. It appearing however that his proposition could not be carried, it was thought better to make no entry at all. Massachusetts alone would have been for it; Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Virginia against it, Delaware, Maryland N. Carolina, would have been divided.
Our body was little numerous, but very contentious. Day after day was wasted on the most unimportant questions. My colleague Mercer 1 was one of those afflicted with the morbid rage of debate, of an ardent mind, prompt imagination, and copious flow of words, he heard with impatience any logic which was not his own. Sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, he asked how I could sit in silence hearing so much false reasoning which a word should refute? I observed to him that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence impossible. That in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general I was willing to listen. If every sound argument or objection was used by some one or other of the numerous debaters, it was enough: if not, I thought it sufficient to suggest the omission, without going into a repetition of what had been already said by others. That this was a waste and abuse of the time and patience of the house which could not be justified. And I believe that if the members of deliberative bodies were to observe this course generally, they would do in a day what takes them a week, and it is really more questionable, than may at first be thought, whether Bonaparte’s dumb legislature which said nothing and did much, may not be preferable to one which talks much and does nothing. I served with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia before the revolution, and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150. lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, talk by the hour? That 150. lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected. But to return again to our subject.
Those who thought 7. states competent to the ratification being very restless under the loss of their motion, I proposed, on the 3d. of January to meet them on middle ground, and therefore moved a resolution 1 which premising that there were but 7. states present, who were unanimous for the ratification, but, that they differed in opinion on the question of competency. That those however in the negative were unwilling that any powers which it might be supposed they possessed should remain unexercised for the restoration of peace, provided it could be done saving their good faith, and without importing any opinion of Congress that 7. states were competent, and resolving that treaty be ratified so far as they had power; that it should be transmitted to our ministers with instructions to keep it uncommunicated; to endeavor to obtain 3. months longer for exchange of ratifications; that they should be informed that so soon as 9. states shall be present a ratification by 9. shall be sent them; if this should get to them before the ultimate point of time for exchange, they were to use it, and not the other; if not, they were to offer the act of the 7. states in exchange, informing them the treaty had come to hand while Congress was not in session, that but 7. states were as yet assembled, and these had unanimously concurred in the ratification. This was debated on the 3d. and 4th. 1 and on the 5th. a vessel being to sail for England from this port (Annapolis) the House directed the President to write to our ministers accordingly.
Jan. 14. Delegates from Connecticut having attended yesterday, and another from S. Carolina coming in this day, the treaty was ratified without a dissenting voice, and three instruments of ratification were ordered to be made out, one of which was sent by Colo. Harmer, another by Colo. Franks, and the 3d. transmitted to the agent of Marine to be forwarded by any good opportunity.
Congress soon took up the consideration of their foreign relations. They deemed it necessary to get their commerce placed with every nation on a footing as favorable as that of other nations; and for this purpose to propose to each a distinct treaty of commerce. This act too would amount to an acknowledgment by each of our independance and of our reception into the fraternity of nations; which altho’, as possessing our station of right and in fact, we would not condescend to ask, we were not unwilling to furnish opportunities for receiving their friendly salutations welcome. With France the United Netherlands and Sweden we had already treaties of commerce, but commissions were given for those countries also, should any amendments be thought necessary. The other states to which treaties were to be proposed were England, Hamburg, Saxony, Prussia, Denmark, Russia, Austria, Venice, Rome, Naples, Tuscany, Sardinia, Genoa, Spain, Portugal, the Porte, Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis Morocco. 1
Mar. 16. On the 7th. of May Congress resolved that a Minister Plenipotentiary should be appointed in addition to Mr. Adams Dr. Franklin for negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign nations, and I was elected to that duty. I accordingly left Annapolis on the 11th. Took with me my elder daughter 2 then at Philadelphia (the two others being too young for the voyage) proceeded to Boston in quest of a passage. While passing thro’ the different states, I made a point of informing myself of the state of the commerce of each, went on to New Hampshire with the same view and returned to Boston. From thence I sailed on the 5th. of July in the Ceres a merchant ship of Mr. Nathaniel Tracey, bound to Cowes. He was himself a passenger, and, after a pleasant voyage of 19. days from land to land, we arrived at Cowes on the 26th. I was detained there a few days by the indisposition of my daughter. On the 30th. we embarked for Havre, arrived there on the 31st. left it on the 3d. of August, and arrived at Paris on the 6th. I called immediately on Doctr. Franklin at Passy, communicated to him our charge, and we wrote to Mr. Adams, then at the Hague to join us at Paris.
Before I had left America, that is to say in the year 1781. I had received a letter from M. de Marbois, of the French legation in Philadelphia, informing me he had been instructed by his government to obtain such statistical accounts of the different states of our Union, as might be useful for their information; and addressing to me a number of queries relative to the state of Virginia. I had always made it a practice whenever an opportunity occurred of obtaining any information of our country, which might be of use to me in any station public or private, to commit it to writing. These memoranda were on loose papers, bundled up without order, and difficult of recurrence when I had occasion for a particular one. I thought this a good occasion to embody their substance, which I did in the order of Mr. Marbois’ queries, so as to answer his wish and to arrange them for my own use. Some friends to whom they were occasionally communicated wished for copies; but their volume rendering this too laborious by hand, I proposed to get a few printed for their gratification. I was asked such a price however as exceeded the importance of the object. On my arrival at Paris I found it could be done for a fourth of what I had been asked here. I therefore corrected and enlarged them, and had 200. copies printed, under the title of Notes on Virginia. I gave a very few copies to some particular persons in Europe, and sent the rest to my friends in America. An European copy, by the death of the owner, got into the hands of a bookseller, who engaged it’s translation, when ready for the press, communicated his intentions manuscript to me, without any other permission than that of suggesting corrections. I never had seen so wretched an attempt at translation. Interverted, abridged, mutilated, and often reversing the sense of the original, I found it a blotch of errors from beginning to end. I corrected some of the most material, and in that form it was printed in French. 1 A London bookseller, on seeing the translation, requested me to permit him to print the English original. I thought it best to do so to let the world see that it was not really so bad as the French translation had made it appear. And this is the true history of that publication.
Mr. Adams soon joined us at Paris, our first employment was to prepare a general form to be proposed to such nations as were disposed to treat with us. During the negotiations for peace with the British Commissioner David Hartley, our Commissioners had proposed, on the suggestion of Doctr. Franklin, to insert an article exempting from capture by the public or private armed ships of either belligerent, when at war, all merchant vessels and their cargoes, employed merely in carrying on the commerce between nations. It was refused by England, and unwisely, in my opinion. For in the case of a war with us, their superior commerce places infinitely more at hazard on the ocean than ours; and as hawks abound in proportion to game, so our privateers would swarm in proportion to the wealth exposed to their prize, while theirs would be few for want of subjects of capture. We inserted this article in our form, with a provision against the molestation of fishermen, husbandmen, citizens unarmed and following their occupations in unfortified places, for the humane treatment of prisoners of war, the abolition of contraband of war, which exposes merchant vessels to such vexatious ruinous detentions and abuses; and for the principle of free bottoms, free goods.
In a conference with the Count de Vergennes, it was thought better to leave to legislative regulation on both sides such modifications of our commercial intercourse as would voluntarily flow from amicable dispositions. Without urging, we sounded the ministers of the several European nations at the court of Versailles, on their dispositions towards mutual commerce, and the expediency of encouraging it by the protection of a treaty. Old Frederic of Prussia met us cordially and without hesitation, and appointing the Baron de Thulemeyer, his minister at the Hague, to negotiate with us, we communicated to him our Project, which with little alteration by the King, was soon concluded. Denmark and Tuscany entered also into negotiations with us. Other powers appearing indifferent we did not think it proper to press them. They seemed in fact to know little about us, but as rebels who had been successful in throwing off the yoke of the mother country. They were ignorant of our commerce, which had been always monopolized by England, and of the exchange of articles it might offer advantageously to both parties. They were inclined therefore to stand aloof until they could see better what relations might be usefully instituted with us. The negotiations therefore begun with Denmark Tuscany we protracted designedly until our powers had expired; and abstained from making new propositions to others having no colonies; because our commerce being an exchange of raw for wrought materials, is a competent price for admission into the colonies of those possessing them: but were we to give it, without price, to others, all would claim it without price on the ordinary ground of gentis amicissimæ.
Mr. Adams being appointed Min. Pleny. of the U S. to London, left us in June, and in July 1785. Dr. Franklin returned to America, and I was appointed his successor at Paris. In Feb. 1786. Mr. Adams wrote to me pressingly to join him in London immediately, as he thought he discovered there some symptoms of better disposition towards us. Colo. Smith, 1 his Secretary of legation, was the bearer of his urgencies for my immediate attendance. I accordingly left Paris on the 1st. of March, and on my arrival in London we agreed on a very summary form of treaty, proposing an exchange of citizenship for our citizens, our ships, and our productions generally, except as to office. On my presentation as usual to the King and Queen at their levées, it was impossible for anything to be more ungracious than their notice of Mr. Adams myself. I saw at once that the ulcerations in the narrow mind of that mulish being left nothing to be expected on the subject of my attendance; and on the first conference with the Marquis of Caermarthen, his Minister of foreign affairs, the distance and disinclination which he betrayed in his conversation, the vagueness evasions of his answers to us, confirmed me in the belief of their aversion to have anything to do with us. We delivered him however our Projét, Mr. Adams not despairing as much as I did of it’s effect. We afterwards, by one or more notes, requested his appointment of an interview and conference, which, without directly declining, he evaded by pretences of other pressing occupations for the moment. After staying there seven weeks, till within a few days of the expiration of our commission, I informed the minister by note that my duties at Paris required my return to that place, and that I should with pleasure be the bearer of any commands to his Ambassador there. He answered that he had none, and wishing me a pleasant journey, I left London the 26th. arrived at Paris on the 30th. of April.
While in London we entered into negotiations with the Chevalier Pinto, Ambassador of Portugal at that place. The only article of difficulty between us was a stipulation that our bread stuff should be received in Portugal in the form of flour as well as of grain. He approved of it himself, but observed that several Nobles, of great influence at their court, were the owners of wind mills in the neighborhood of Lisbon which depended much for their profits on manufacturing our wheat, and that this stipulation would endanger the whole treaty. He signed it however, it’s fate was what he had candidly portended.