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CHAPTER XVI.

Mr. Jefferson addresses a long letter to the President. His views of the state of parties. His various arguments why the President should serve a second term. Conversation between them on the subject of this letter. Their respective opinions on the Assumption, Bank, and Excise. Further conversation—the supposed predilections for Monarchy— influence of the Treasury Department. Commissioners from Spain. Discussion in the Cabinet. Disagreement as to Foreign Connexions. Relations with France. Party Dissentions. References to the Secretary of the Treasury—his plan of reducing the Public Debt-proposes to pay the debt to the Bank in advance. Further Assumption of State Debts. Mr. Giles's Resolutions against the Secretary of the Treasury. Proceedings thereon. Views of the two Parties. Conversation with the President on his Levees. Right of the United States to cede Territory, discussed in the Cabinet.

1792-1793.

CONGRESS had adjourned on the 8th of May, and the president having soon after left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon, Mr. Jefferson addressed to him a long letter, in which his consent to a re-election was strongly urged. As this letter, never before published, is a refutation of the charge so often reiterated by his enemies, of comprehending General Washington in his suspicions and criminations of the federalists, is highly honourable both to his frankness and patriotism, and breathes an eloquent earnestness, which only strong feeling could have inspired, it is here given entire.

Dear Sir,

Philadelphia, May 23, 1792.

"I have determined to make the subject of a letter what has

for some time past been a subject of inquietude to my mind, without having found a good occasion of disburthening itself to you in conversation, during the busy scenes which occupied you here. Perhaps, too, you may be able, in your present situation, or on the road, to give it more time and reflection than you could do here at any moment.

"When you first mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government, though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was, in a considerable degree, silent. I knew, that to such a mind as yours, persuasion was idle and impertinent; that, before forming your decision, you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure; had made up your mind on a full view of them, and that there could be little hope of changing the result. Pursuing my reflections, too, I knew we were some day to try to walk alone, and if the essay should be made while you should be alive and looking on, we should derive confidence from that circumstance, and resource if it failed. The public mind, too, was then calm and content, and, therefore, in a favourable state for making the experiment. Had no change of circumstances supervened, I should not, with any hope of success, have now ventured to propose to you a change of purpose. But the public mind is no longer so confident and serene; and that from causes in which you are no ways personally mixed. Though these causes have been hackneyed in the public papers in detail, it may not be amiss, in order to elucidate the effect they are capable of producing, to take a view of them in the mass; giving to each the form, real or imaginary, under which they have presented it.

"It has been urged then, that a public debt, greater than we can possibly pay before other causes of adding new debt to it will occur, has been artificially created, by adding together the whole amount of the debtor and creditor sides of the accounts, instead of taking only their balances, which could have been paid off in a short time. That this accumulation of debt has taken for ever out of our power those easy sources of revenue, which, applied to the ordinary necessities and exigencies of government, would have answered them habitually, and

covered us from habitual murmurings against taxes and taxgatherers, reserving extraordinary calls for those extraordinary occasions which would animate the people to meet them: that though the calls for money have been no greater than we must generally expect for the same, or equivalent exigencies, yet we are already obliged to strain the impost till it produces clamour, and will produce evasion and war on our cities to collect it; and even to resort to an excise law, of odious character with the people, partial in its operation, unproductive, unless enforced by arbitrary and vexatious means, and committing the authority of the government in parts where resistance is most probable, and coercion least practicable. They cite propositions in Congress, and suspect other projects on foot, still to increase the mass of debt. They say that by borrowing, at two-thirds of the interest, we might have paid off the principal in two-thirds of the time; but that from this we are precluded by its being made irredeemable but in small portions and long terms; that this irredeemable quality was given it for the avowed purpose of inviting its transfer to foreign countries. They predict that this transfer of the principal, when completed, will occasion an exportation of three millions of dollars annually for the interesta drain of coin, of which, as there has been no example, no calculation can be made of its consequences; that the banishment of our coin will be completed by the creation of ten millions of paper money, in the form of bank bills, now issuing into circulation. They think the ten or twelve per cent. annual profit, paid to the lenders of this paper medium, taken out of the pockets of the people, who would have had, without interest, the coin it is banishing; that all the capital employed in paper speculation, is barren and useless; producing, like that on a gaming table, no accession to itself; and is withdrawn from commerce and agriculture, where it would have produced addition to the common mass; that it nourishes in our citizens habits of vice and idleness, instead of industry and morality; that it has furnished effectual means of corrupting such portion of the legislature as turns the balance between the honest voters, which ever way it is directed; that the corrupt squadron, de

ciding the voice of the legislature, have manifested their dispositions to get rid of the limitations imposed by the constitution on the general legislature; limitations, on the faith of which, the states acceded to the instrument; that the ultimate object of all this is to prepare the way for a change from the present republican form of government to that of a monarchy, of which the English constitution is to be the model: that this was contemplated in the convention, is no secret, because its partisans made none of it. To effect it then was impracticable, but they are still eager after their object, and are predisposing every thing for its ultimate attainment. So many of them have got into the legislature, that, aided by the corrupt squadron of paper-dealers, who are at their devotion, they make a majority in both houses. The republican party, who wish to preserve the government in its present form, are fewer in number-they are fewer even when joined by the two or three, or half dozen anti-federalists, who, though they dare not avow it, are still opposed to any general government, but being less so to a republican than to a monarchical one, they naturally join those whom they think pursuing the lesser evil.

"Of all the mischiefs objected to the system of measures before mentioned, none is so affecting and fatal to every honest hope, as the corruption of the legislature: as it was the earliest of these measures, it became the instrument for producing the rest, and will be the instrument for producing in future a king, lords, and commons, or whatever else those who direct it may choose. Withdrawn such a distance from the eye of their constituents, and those so dispersed as to be inaccessible to public information, and particularly to that of the conduct of their own representatives, they will form the most corrupt government on earth, if the means of the corruption be not prevented. The only hope of safety hangs now on the numerous representation which is to come forward the ensuing year. Some of the new members will probably be, in principle or interest, with the present majority; but it is expected that the great mass will form an accession to the republican party. They will not be able to undo all which the two preceding legislatures, and

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especially the first, have done. Public faith and right will oppose this. But some parts of the system may be rightfully reformed; a liberation from the rest unremittingly pursued, as fast as right will permit, and the door shut in future against similar commitments of the nation. Should the next legislature take this course, it will draw upon them the whole monarchical and paper interest. But the latter, I think, will not go all lengths with the former; because creditors will never, of their own accord, fly off entirely from their debtors. Therefore, this is the alternative least likely to produce convulsion. But, should the majority of the new members be still in the same principles with the present, and show that we have nothing to expect but a continuance of the same practices, it is not easy to conjecture what would be the result, nor what means would be resorted to, for correction of the evils. True wisdom would direct that they should be temperate and peaceable; but the division. of sentiment and interest happens unfortunately to be so geographical, that no mortal can say that what is most wise and temperate would prevail against what is more easy and obvious.

"I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts; yet, when we view the mass which opposed the original coalescence; when we consider that it lay chiefly in the Southern quarter; that the legislature have availed themselves of no occasion of allaying it, but, on the contrary, whenever Northern and Southern prejudices have come into conflict, the latter have been sacrificed, and the former soothed; that the owners of the debt are in the Southern, and the holders of it in the Northern division; that the anti-federal champions are now strengthened in argument by the fulfilment of their predictions; that this has been brought about by the monarchical federalists themselves, who, having been for the new government merely as a stepping stone to monarchy, have themselves adopted the very construction of the constitution, of which, when advocating its acceptance before the tribunal of the people, they declared it unsusceptible; that the republican federalists, who espoused the same VOL. I.-49