TO M. DUFIEF
Monticello, April 19, 1814.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 6th instant is just received, and I shall with equal willingness and truth, state the degree of agency you had, respecting the copy of M. de Becourt's book, which came to my hands. That gentleman informed me, by letter, that he was about to publish a volume in French, "Sur la Création du Monde, un Systême d'Organisation Primitive," which, its title promised to be, either a geological or astronomical work. I subscribed; and, when published, he sent me a copy; and as you were my correspondent in the book line in Philadelphia, I took the liberty of desiring him to call on you for the price, which, he afterwards informed me, you were so kind as to pay him for me, being, I believe, two dollars. But the sole copy which came to me was from himself directly, and, as far as I know, was never seen by you.
I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If M. de Becourt's book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose. I know little of its contents, having barely glanced over here and there a passage, and over the table of contents. From this, the Newtonian philosophy seemed the chief object of attack, the issue of which might be trusted to the strength of the two combatants; Newton certainly not needing the auxiliary arm of the government, and still less the holy author of our religion, as to what in it concerns him. I thought the work would be very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but, if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy, and to read what he pleases. I have been just reading the new constitution of Spain. One of its fundamental basis is expressed in these words: "The Roman Catholic religion, the only true one, is, and always shall be, that of the Spanish nation. The government protects it by wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other whatever." Now I wish this presented to those who question what you may sell, or we may buy, with a request to strike out the words, "Roman Catholic," and to insert the denomination of their own religion. This would ascertain the code of dogmas which each wishes should domineer over the opinions of all others, and be taken, like the Spanish religion, under the "protection of wise and just laws." It would shew to what they wish to reduce the liberty for which one generation has sacrificed life and happiness. It would present our boasted freedom of religion as a thing of theory only, and not of practice, as what would be a poor exchange for the theoretic thraldom, but practical freedom of Europe. But it is impossible that the laws of Pennsylvania, which set us the first example of the wholesome and happy effects of religious freedom, can permit the inquisitorial functions to be proposed to their courts. Under them you are surely safe.
At the date of yours of the 6th, you had not received mine of the 3d inst., asking a copy of an edition of Newton's Principia, which I had seen advertised. When the cost of that shall be known, it shall be added to the balance of $4.93, and incorporated with a larger remittance I have to make to Philadelphia. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.
TO LE CHEVALIER DE ONIS
Monticello, April 28, 1814.
I thank you, Sir, for the copy of the new constitution of Spain which you have been so kind as to send me; and I sincerely congratulate yourself and the Spanish nation on this great stride towards political happiness. The invasion of Spain has been the most unprecedented and unprincipled of the transactions of modern times. The crimes of its enemies, the licentiousness of its associates in defence, the exertions and sufferings of its inhabitants under slaughter and famine, and its consequent depopulation, will mark indelibly the baneful ascendancy of the tyrants of the sea and continent, and characterize with blood and wretchedness the age in which they have lived. Yet these sufferings of Spain will be remunerated, her population restored and increased, under the auspices and protection of this new constitution; and the miseries of the present generation will be the price, and even the cheap price of the prosperity of endless generations to come.
There are parts of this constitution, however, in which you would expect of course that we should not concur. One of these is the intolerance of all but the Catholic religion; and no security provided against the re-establishment of an Inquisition, the exclusive judge of Catholic opinions, and authorized to proscribe and punish those it shall deem anti-Catholic. Secondly, the aristocracy, quater sublimata, of her legislators; for the ultimate electors of these will themselves have been three times sifted from the mass of the people, and may choose from the nation at large persons never named by any of the electoral bodies. But there is one provision which will immortalize its inventors. It is that which, after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen who cannot read and write. This is new, and is the fruitful germ of the improvement of everything good, and the correction of everything imperfect in the present constitution. This will give you an enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government. On the whole I hail your country as now likely to resume and surpass its ancient splendor among nations. This might perhaps have been better secured by a just confidence in the self-sufficient strength of the peninsula itself; everything without its limits being its weakness not its force. If the mother country has not the magnanimity to part with the colonies in friendship, thereby making them, what they would certainly be, her natural and firmest allies, these will emancipate themselves, after exhausting her strength and resources in ineffectual efforts to hold them in subjection. They will be rendered enemies of the mother country, as England has rendered us by an unremitting course of insulting injuries and silly provocations. I do not say this from the impulse of national interest, for I do not know that the United States would find an interest in the independence of neighbor nations, whose produce and commerce would rivalize ours. It could only be that kind of interest which every human being has in the happiness and prosperity of every other. But putting right and reason out of the question, I have no doubt that on calculations of interest alone, it is that of Spain to anticipate voluntarily, and as a matter of grace, the independence of her colonies, which otherwise necessity will enforce.
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TO MR. DELAPLAINE
Monticello, May 3, 1814.
Sir,—Your favors of April 16 and 19, on the subject of the portraits of Columbus and Americus Vespucius were received on the 30th. While I resided at Paris, knowing that these portraits and those of some other of the early American worthies were in the gallery of Medicis at Florence, I took measures for engaging a good artist to take and send me copies of them. I considered it as even of some public concern that our country should not be without the portraits of its first discoverers. These copies have already run the risks of transportations from Florence to Paris, to Philadelphia, to Washington, and lastly to this place, where they are at length safely deposited. You request me "to forward them to you at Philadelphia for the purpose of having engravings taken from them for a work you propose to publish, and you pledge your honor that they shall be restored to me in perfect safety." I have no doubt of the sincerity of your intentions in this pledge; and that it would be complied with as far as it would be in your power. But the injuries and accidents of their transportation to Philadelphia and back again are not within your control. Besides the rubbing through a land carriage of six hundred miles, a carriage may overset in a river or creek, or be crashed with everything in it. The frequency of such accidents to the stages renders all insurance against them impossible. And were they to escape the perils of this journey I should be liable to the same calls, and they to the same or greater hazards from all those in other parts of the continent who should propose to publish any work in which they might wish to employ engravings of the same characters. From public, therefore, as well as private considerations, I think that these portraits ought not to be hazarded from their present deposit. Like public records, I make them free to be copied, but, being as originals in this country, they should not be exposed to the accidents or injuries of travelling post. While I regret, therefore, the necessity of declining to comply with your request, I freely and with pleasure offer to receive as a guest any artist whom you shall think proper to engage, and will make them welcome to take copies at their leisure for your use. I wish them to be multiplied for safe preservation, and consider them as worthy a place in every collection. Indeed I do not know how it happened that Mr. Peale did not think of copying them while they were in Philadelphia; and I think it not impossible that either the father or the son might now undertake the journey for the use of their museum. On the ground of our personal esteem for them, they would be at home in my family.
When I received these portraits at Paris, Mr. Daniel Parker of Massachusetts happened to be there, and determined to procure for himself copies from the same originals at Florence; and I think he did obtain them, and that I have heard of their being in the hands of some one in Boston. If so, it might perhaps be easier to get some artist there to take and send you copies. But be this as it may, you are perfectly welcome to the benefit of mine in the way I have mentioned.
The two original portraits of myself taken by Mr. Stewart, after which you enquire, are both in his possession at Boston. One of them only is my property. The President has a copy from that which Stewart considered as the best of the two; but I believe it is at his seat in his State.
I thank you for the print of Dr. Rush. He was one of my early and intimate friends, and among the best of men. The engraving is excellent as is everything from the hand of Mr. Edwin. Accept the assurance of my respect, and good wishes for the success of your work.
TO MR. JOHN F. WATSON
Monticello, May 17, 1814.
Sir,—I have long been a subscriber to the edition of the Edinburgh Review first published by Mr. Sargeant, and latterly by Eastburn, Kirk & Co., and already possess from No. 30 to 42 inclusive; except that Nos. 31 and 37 never came to hand. These two and No. 29, I should be glad to receive, with all subsequently published, through the channel of Messrs. Fitzwhylson & Potter of Richmond, with whom I originally subscribed, and to whom it is more convenient to make payment by a standing order on my correspondent at Richmond. I willingly also subscribe for the republication of the first twenty-eight numbers to be furnished me through the same channel, for the convenience of payment. This work is certainly unrivalled in merit, and if continued by the same talents, information and principles which distinguish it in every department of science which it reviews, it will become a real Encyclopedia, justly taking its station in our libraries with the most valuable depositories of human knowledge. Of the Quarterly Review I have not seen many numbers. As the antagonist of the other it appears to me a pigmy against a giant. The precept "audi alteram partem," on which it is republished here, should be sacred with the judge who is to decide between the contending claims of individual and individual. It is well enough for the young who have yet opinions to make up in questions of principle in ethics or politics. But to those who have gone through this process with industry, reflection, and singleness of heart, who have formed their conclusions and acted on them through life, to be reading over and over again what they have already read, considered and condemned, is an idle waste of time. It is not in the history of modern England or among the advocates of the principles or practices of her government, that the friend of freedom, or of political morality, is to seek instruction. There has indeed been a period, during which both were to be found, not in her government, but in the band of worthies who so boldly and ably reclaimed the rights of the people, and wrested from their government theoretic acknowledgments of them. This period began with the Stuarts, and continued but one reign after them. Since that, the vital principle of the English constitution is corruption, its practices the natural results of that principle, and their consequences a pampered aristocracy, annihilation of the substantial middle class, a degraded populace, oppressive taxes, general pauperism, and national bankruptcy. Those who long for these blessings here will find their generating principles well developed and advocated by the antagonist of the Edinburgh Review. Still those who doubt should read them; every man's reason being his own rightful umpire. This principle, with that of acquiescence in the will of the majority will preserve us free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly observed. Accept the assurances of my respect.
TO MR. ABRAHAM SMALL
Monticello, May 20, 1814.
Sir,—I thank you for the copy of the American Speaker which you have been so kind as to send me. It is a judicious selection of what has been excellently spoken on both sides of the Atlantic; and according to your request, I willingly add some suggestions, should another edition be called for. To the speeches of Lord Chatham might be added his reply to Horace Walpole, on the Seamen's bill, in the House of Commons, in 1740, one of the severest which history has recorded. Indeed, the subsequent speeches in order, to which that reply gave rise being few, short and pithy, well merit insertion in such a collection as this. They are in the twelfth volume of Chandler's Debates of the House of Commons. But the finest thing, in my opinion, which the English language has produced, is the defence of Eugene Aram, spoken by himself at the bar of the York assizes, in 1759, on a charge of murder, and to be found in the Annual Register of that date, or a little after. It had been upwards of fifty years since I had read it, when the receipt of your letter induced me to look up a MS. copy I had preserved, and on re-perusal at this age and distance of time, it loses nothing of its high station in my mind for classical style, close logic, and strong representation. I send you this copy which was taken for me by a school-boy, replete with errors of punctuation, of orthography, and sometimes substitutions of one word for another. It would be better to recur to the Annual Register itself for correctness, where also I think are stated the circumstances and issue of the case. To these I would add the short, the nervous, the unanswerable speech of Carnot, in 1803, on the proposition to declare Bonaparte consul for life. This creed of republicanism should be well translated, and placed in the hands and heart of every friend to the rights of self-government. I consider these speeches of Aram and Carnot, and that of Logan, inserted in your collection, as worthily standing in a line with those of Scipio and Hannibal in Livy, and of Cato and Cæsar in Sallust. On examining the Indian speeches in my possession, I find none which are not already in your collection, except that my copy of the corn-planter's has much in it which yours has not. But observing that the omissions relate to special subjects only, I presume they are made purposely and indeed properly.
I must add more particular thanks for the kind expressions of your letter towards myself. These testimonies of approbation from my fellow-citizens, offered too when the lapse of time may have cooled and matured their opinions, are an ample reward for such services as I have been able to render them, and are peculiarly gratifying in a state of retirement and reflection. I pray you to accept the assurance of my respect.
TO THOMAS LAW, ESQ
Poplar Forest, June 13, 1814.
Dear Sir,—The copy of your Second Thoughts on Instinctive Impulses, with the letter accompanying it, was received just as I was setting out on a journey to this place, two or three days' distant from Monticello. I brought it with me and read it with great satisfaction, and with the more as it contained exactly my own creed on the foundation of morality in man. It is really curious that on a question so fundamental, such a variety of opinions should have prevailed among men, and those, too, of the most exemplary virtue and first order of understanding. It shows how necessary was the care of the Creator in making the moral principle so much a part of our constitution as that no errors of reasoning or of speculation might lead us astray from its observance in practice. Of all the theories on this question, the most whimsical seems to have been that of Wollaston, who considers truth as the foundation of morality. The thief who steals your guinea does wrong only inasmuch as he acts a lie in using your guinea as if it were his own. Truth is certainly a branch of morality, and a very important one to society. But presented as its foundation, it is as if a tree taken up by the roots, had its stem reversed in the air, and one of its branches planted in the ground. Some have made the love of God the foundation of morality. This, too, is but a branch of our moral duties, which are generally divided into duties to God and duties to man. If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to-wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
The Το καλον of others is founded in a different faculty, that of taste, which is not even a branch of morality. We have indeed an innate sense of what we call beautiful, but that is exercised chiefly on subjects addressed to the fancy, whether through the eye in visible forms, as landscape, animal figure, dress, drapery, architecture, the composition of colors, &c., or to the imagination directly, as imagery, style, or measure in prose or poetry, or whatever else constitutes the domain of criticism or taste, a faculty entirely distinct from the moral one. Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality. But I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality. With ourselves we stand on the ground of identity, not of relation, which last, requiring two subjects, excludes self-love confined to a single one. To ourselves, in strict language, we can owe no duties, obligation requiring also two parties. Self-love, therefore, is no part of morality. Indeed it is exactly its counterpart. It is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others. Accordingly, it is against this enemy that are erected the batteries of moralists and religionists, as the only obstacle to the practice of morality. Take from man his selfish propensities, and he can have nothing to seduce him from the practice of virtue. Or subdue those propensities by education, instruction or restraint, and virtue remains without a competitor. Egoism, in a broader sense, has been thus presented as the source of moral action. It has been said that we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bind up the wounds of the man beaten by thieves, pour oil and wine into them, set him on our own beast and bring him to the inn, because we receive ourselves pleasure from these acts. So Helvetius, one of the best men on earth, and the most ingenious advocate of this principle, after defining "interest" to mean not merely that which is pecuniary, but whatever may procure us pleasure or withdraw us from pain, [de l'esprit 2, 1,] says, [ib. 2, 2,] "the humane man is he to whom the sight of misfortune is insupportable, and who to rescue himself from this spectacle, is forced to succor the unfortunate object." This indeed is true. But it is one step short of the ultimate question. These good acts give us pleasure, but how happens it that they give us pleasure? Because nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses, and protests against the language of Helvetius, [ib. 2, 5,] "what other motive than self-interest could determine a man to generous actions? It is as impossible for him to love what is good for the sake of good, as to love evil for the sake of evil." The Creator would indeed have been a bungling artist, had he intended man for a social animal, without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they are not planted in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule. Some men are born without the organs of sight, or of hearing, or without hands. Yet it would be wrong to say that man is born without these faculties, and sight, hearing, and hands may with truth enter into the general definition of man. The want or imperfection of the moral sense in some men, like the want or imperfection of the senses of sight and hearing in others, is no proof that it is a general characteristic of the species. When it is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or rejection of those among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence; demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes interest in the long run; the rewards and penalties established by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the correctives which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of the moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all those whose disparity is not too profound to be eradicated. Some have argued against the existence of a moral sense, by saying that if nature had given us such a sense, impelling us to virtuous actions, and warning us against those which are vicious, then nature would also have designated, by some particular ear-marks, the two sets of actions which are, in themselves, the one virtuous and the other vicious. Whereas, we find, in fact, that the same actions are deemed virtuous in one country and vicious in another. The answer is that nature has constituted utility to man the standard and best of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful, and consequently virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced. I sincerely, then, believe with you in the general existence of a moral instinct. I think it the brightest gem with which the human character is studded, and the want of it as more degrading than the most hideous of the bodily deformities. I am happy in reviewing the roll of associates in this principle which you present in your second letter, some of which I had not before met with. To these might be added Lord Kaims, one of the ablest of our advocates, who goes so far as to say, in his Principles of Natural Religion, that a man owes no duty to which he is not urged by some impulsive feeling. This is correct, if referred to the standard of general feeling in the given case, and not to the feeling of a single individual. Perhaps I may misquote him, it being fifty years since I read his book.
The leisure and solitude of my situation here has led me to the indiscretion of taxing you with a long letter on a subject whereon nothing new can be offered you. I will indulge myself no farther than to repeat the assurances of my continued esteem and respect.