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In a letter to Attorney-General Lincoln, January 1st, 1802, he hinted his reasons for omitting to proclaim fast and thanksgiving days, after the custom of his predecessors; and also his views on the expediency of the prevailing custom of sending addresses to the President:

"Averse to receive addresses, yet unable to prevent them, I have generally endeavored to turn them to some account, by making them the occasion, by way of answer, of sowing useful truths and principles among the people, which might germinate and become rooted among their political tenets. The Baptist address, now inclosed, admits of a condemnation of the alliance between Church and State, under the authority of the Constitution. It furnishes an occasion, too, which I have long wished to find, of saying why I do not proclaim fastings and thanksgivings, as my predecessors did. The address, to be sure, does not point at this, and its introduction is awkward. But I foresee no opportunity of doing it more pertinently. I know it will give great offence to the New England clergy; but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them. Will you be so good as to examine the answer, and suggest any alterations which might prevent an ill effect, or promote a good one, among the people? You understand the temper of those in the North, and can weaken it, therefore, to their stomachs: it is at present seasoned to the Southern taste only. I would ask the favor of you to return it, with the address, in the course of the day or evening. Health and affection."

The answer to the "Baptist Address," as it was afterwards published, contained a most emphatical "condemnation of the alliance between Church and State," but no direct allusion to his reasons for not proclaiming fast days. Whether Mr. Lincoln advised the suppression of the paragraph, or whether the "awkwardness" of its introduction induced the President, on second thought, to wait for a better "opportunity," we are not informed.

A delegation from various Indian tribes visited Washington during the winter, and were addressed by the President on the 7th of January. We transcribe his remarks as a specimen of his style on such occasions; and the reader will judge whether its plain, direct, and unpretending diction-giving these wanderers of the forest some downright good advice, in a manner only bearing sufficient resemblance to their own to avoid

1 "Southern taste" on this subject derives an illustration from the fact that Governor Johnson, of Virginia, as late as 1855, in proclaiming a thanksgiving for the cessation of the recent tremendous ravages of the yellow fever in that State, used this formula: "I, Joseph Johnson, Governor of Virginia, expressly disclaiming authority to require or control, do hereby, on behalf of the people, earnestly recommend that all, without distinction of creed or party, with one accord, unite in rendering homage and thanksgiving to God"-and to this end he "suggested" the 15th day of November be set apart for that purpose.

offending their untutored ears-is in better or worse taste than those sonorous imitations of Indian speeches, garnished profusely with buried and unburied hatchets, war-belts and peace-pipes, strings of white beads and black beads, and other metaphorical and allegorical accessories, by which "Indian" is so often overdone in official communications. The President said:

Brothers and friends of the Miamis, Pottawatomies, and Weeauks :

I receive with great satisfaction the visit you have been so kind as to make us at this place, and I thank the Great Spirit who has conducted you to us in health and safety. It is well that friends should sometimes meet, open their minds mutually, and renew the chain of affection. Made by the same Great Spirit, and living in the same land with our brothers, the red men, we consider ourselves as of the same family; we wish to live with them as one people, and to cherish their interests as our own. The evils which of necessity encompass the life of man are sufficiently numerous. Why should we add to them by voluntarily distressing and destroying one another? Peace, brothers, is better than war. In a long and bloody war, we lose many friends, and gain nothing. Let us then live in peace and friendship together, doing to each other all the good we can. The wise and good on both sides desire this, and we must take care that the foolish and wicked among us shall not prevent it. On our part, we shall endeavor in all things to be just and generous towards you, and to aid you in meeting those difficulties which a change of circumstances is bringing on. We shall, with great pleasure, see your people become disposed to cultivate the earth, to raise herds of the useful animals, and to spin and weave, for your food and clothing. These resources are certain; they will never disappoint you while those of hunting may fail, and expose your women and children to the miseries of hunger and cold. We will with pleasure furnish you with implements for the most necessary arts, and with persons who may instruct you how to make and use them.

I consider it as fortunate that you have made your visit at this time, when our wise men from the sixteen States are collected together in council, who being equally disposed to befriend you, can strengthen our hands in the good we all wish to render you.

The several matters you opened to us in your speech the other day, and those on which you have since conversed with the Secretary of War, have been duly considered by us. He will now deliver answers, and you are to consider what he says, as if said by myself, and that what we promise we shall faithfully perform.

TO MARIA JEFFERSON EPPES.

WASHINGTON, Mar. 8, 1802.

MY VERY DEAR MARIA:

I observed to you some time ago that, during the session of Congress, I should be able to write to you but seldom; and so it has turned out. Yours of Jan. 24 I received in due time, after which Mr. Eppes's letter of Feb. 1 and 2 confirmed to me the news, always welcome, of yours and Francis's health. Since this I have no news of you. I see with great concern that I am not to have the pleasure of meet

ing you in Albemarle in the spring. I had entertained the hope Mr. Eppes and yourself would have passed the summer there, and being there, that the two families could have come together on a visit here. I observe your reluctance at the idea of that visit, but for your own happiness must advise you to get the better of it. I think I discover in you a willingness to withdraw from society more than is prudent. I am convinced our own happiness requires that we should continue to mix with the world, and to keep pace with it as it goes; and that every person who retires from free communication with it is severely punished afterwards by the state of mind into which he gets, and which can only be prevented by feeding our sociable principles. I can speak from experience on this subject. From 1793 to 1797 I remained closely at home, saw none but those who came there, and at length became very sensible of the ill effect it had upon my own mind, and of its direct and irresistible tendency to render me unfit for society and uneasy when necessarily engaged in it. I felt enough of the effect of withdrawing from the world then, to see that it led to an anti-social and misanthropic state of mind, which severely punishes him who gives into it; and it will be a lesson I shall never forget as to myself. I am certain you would be pleased with the state of society here, and that after the first moments you would feel happy in having made the experiment. I take for granted your sister will come immediately after my spring visit to Monticello, and I should have thought it agreeable to both that your first visit should be made together. In that case, your best way would be to come direct from the Hundred, by New Castle and Todd's Bridge, to Port Royal, where I could send a light coachee to meet you, and crossing Potomac at Boyd's Hole, you would come up by Sam Carr's to this place. I suppose it 60 miles from Port Royal to this place by that route, whereas it would be 86 to come from Port Royal up the other side of the river by Fredericksburg and Alexandria. However, if the spring visit cannot be effected, then I shall not relinquish your promise to come in the fall; of course, at our meeting at Monticello in that season we can arrange it. In the meantime, should the settlement take place which I expect between Mr. Wayles's and Mr. Skelton's executors, and Eppington be the place, I shail rely on passing some time with you there. But in what month I know not; probably towards midsummer. I hardly think Congress will rise till late in April. My trip to Monticello will be about a fortnight after they rise, and I shall not be able to stay there more than a fortnight. I am anxious to hear from you, as during the period of your being a nurse I am always afraid of your continuing in health. I hope Mr. Eppes and yourself will so make your calculations as to leave the Hundred by the beginning of July at least. You should never trust yourselves in the lower country later than that. I shall pass the months of August and September at Monticello, where I hope we shall all be reunited. Continue to love me, my dear, as I do you, and be assured that my happiness depends on your affections and happiness. I embrace you with all my love.

TH. JEFFERSON.

TO MARIA JEFFERSON EPPES.

WASHINGTON, Mar. 29, 1802.

I wrote, my ever dear Maria, to Mr. Eppes and yourself on the 3d instant, since which I have received Mr. Eppes's letter of the 11th, informing me all were well. I

hope you continue so. A letter of the 20th from Mr. Randolph informed me all were well at Edgehill. Mr. Randolph, allured by the immensely profitable culture of cotton, had come to a resolution to go to the Mississippi territory, and there purchase lands and establish all his negroes in that culture. The distance, 1,500 miles, of which 600 are through an uninhabited country, the weakness of that settlement, not more than 800 men, with a population of blacks equal to their own, and surrounded by 8,000 Choctaw warriors, and the soil and commercial position, moreover, not equal to Georgia for the same culture, has at length balanced his determination in favor of Georgia, distant only about 470 or 480 miles from Edgehill. The plan is now arranged as follows: Congress will rise from the 15th to the 20th of April. I shall be at Monticello within a week or ten days after they rise. Mr. Randolph then goes to Georgia to make a purchase of lands, and Martha and the family come back with me and stay till his return, which probably will not be till the latter part of July, when I shall be going on to Monticello for the months of August and September. I cannot help hoping that while your sister is here you will take a run, if it be but for a short time, to come and see us. I have inquired further into the best route for you, and it is certainly by Port Royal, and to cross over from Boyd's Hole, or somewhere near it, to Nangenny. You by this means save 30 miles, and have, the whole of the way, the finest road imaginable, whereas that from Fredericksburg by Dumfries and Alexandria is the worst in the world. Will Mr. Eppes not have curiosity to go up to his plantation in Albemarle the first or second week of May? There we could settle everything, and he will hear more of the Georgia expedition. I inclose you two medals, one for yourself, the other, with my best affections, for Mrs. Eppes. They are taken from Houdon's bust. Present me affectionately to Mr. Eppes, and be assured of my tenderest love.

TH. JEFFERSON.

To MARIA JEFFERSON EPPES.

WASHINGTON, May 1, 1802.

MY DEAR MARIA:

I received yesterday yours of April 21, bringing me the welcome news that you are all well. I wrote two or three days ago to Mr. Eppes, to inform him that Congress would rise the day after to-morrow; that on the 6th I should set out for Monticello, where I should stay a fortnight, and had some hopes of meeting him there. It is even possible that Congress may rise to-day, which makes me so full of business that I have barely time to repeat to you the above information. I deem this necessary because I directed the other letter to City Point, whereas I find you are at Eppington. I send by Dr. Logan, to the care of Mr. Jefferson, Richmond, some books for you, which I imagine you will find means of getting from thence. Mrs. Eppes's spectacles I will carry with me to Monticello. Dr. Walker was here, but did not call on me, or I should have sent them to her by him. The want of horses shall not prevent your paying us a visit, long or short, while your sister is here, as I can hire a good coachee here to go for you to the Hundred, on any day that shall be agreed on. Your sister will come in the same way. Present my affections to Mr. Eppes, father and son, Mrs. Eppes and family, and accept my con. stant and tenderest love.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Intelligence of the cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France reached the United States. The important changes this event caused in our own foreign relations, and the new and decisive line of policy it at once suggested to the President, should be given in his own words. He wrote Mr. Livingston, the American Minister in France, April 18th, 1802:

"The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France, works most sorely on the United States. On this subject the Secretary of State has written to you fully, yet I cannot forbear recurring to it personally, so deep is the impression it makes on my mind. It completely reverses all the political relations of the United States, and will form a new epoch in our political course. Of all nations, of any consideration, France is the one which, hitherto, has offered the fewest points on which we could have any conflict of right, and the most points of a communion of interests. From these causes, we have ever looked to her as our natural friend, as one with which we never could have an occasion of difference. Her growth, therefore, we viewed as our own-her misfortunes ours. There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our whole produce, and contain more than half of our inhabitants. France, placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place would be hardly felt by us, and it would not, perhaps, be very long before some circumstance might arise, which might make the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth to her. Not so can it ever be in the hands of France: the impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in a point of eternal friction with us, and our character, which, though quiet and loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded, despising wealth in competition with insult or injury, enterprising and energetic as any nation on earth; these circumstances render it impossible that France and the United States can continue long friends, when they meet in so irritable a position. They, as well as we, must be blind if they do not see this; and we must be very improvident if we do not begin to make arrangements on that hypothesis. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans, fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. We must turn all our attentions to a maritime force, for which our resources place us on very high ground: and having formed and connected together a power which may render reinforcement of her settlements here impossible to France, make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the United British and American nations. This is not a state of things we seek or desire. It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us, as necessarily as any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect. It is not from a fear of France that we deprecate this measure proposed by her. For however greater her force is than ours, compared in

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