another race treading on their heels, preparing to take their places, and as well and sometimes better qualified to fill them. These while unsettled, surrounded by a crowd of competitors, of equal claims and perhaps superior credit and interest, may prefer a comfortable certainty here for an uncertain hope there, and a lingering delay even of that. From this description we expect we may draw professors equal to those of the highest name. The difficulty is to distinguish them. "On this head our hope and trust is in you. Your knowledge of the state of things, your means of finding out a character or two at each place, truly trustworthy, and into whose hands you can commit our agent with entire safety, for information, caution and cooperation, induces me to request your patronage and aid in our endeavors to obtain such men, and such only, as will fulfill our views. An unlucky selection in the outset would forever blast our prospects. From our information of the character of the different Universities, we expect we should go to Oxford for our classical professor, to Cambridge for those of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Natural History, and to Edinburgh for a professor of Anatomy, and the elements or outlines only of Medicine." Mr. Jefferson was much censured, or "squibbed," as he termed it, for sending abroad for professors; and even the latter, on their arrival in our country, did not escape some unfriendly criticisms from offended professional brethren. Whether as good a selection could have been made in our own country, from those who were unengaged-and such were certainly all Mr. Jefferson had in view when he expressed his fears to Rush, that men of the first order of science, in "every branch," could not be obtained at home-we shall not take it upon ourselves to say. The Visitors of the University thought not, and that was a very sufficient. reason for their action. It at least can be safely asserted, that the selection which was made, was an eminently good one. In a letter (February 4th) to Mr. Sparks, who had forwarded him a copy of the North American Review,' containing an article on African emancipation and colonization, Mr. Jefferson gave his views at considerable length on those subjects. There is nothing in the general principles expressed, different from those in the Notes on Virginia, but some of the practical propositions in regard to means vary. He said: "I shall speak in round numbers, not absolutely accurate, yet not so wide from truth as to vary the result materially. There are in the United States a million and a half of people of color in slavery. To send off the whole of these at once, nobody conceives to be practicable for us, or expedient for them. Let us take twenty-five years for its accomplishment, within which time they will be doubled. Their estimated value as property, in the first place (for actual property has been lawfully Which was then edited by Mr. Sparks. СНАР. ХІІ. ] EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION. 499 vested in that form, and who can lawfully take it from the possessors ?) at an aver age of two hundred dollars each, young and old, would amount to six hundred millions of dollars, which must be paid or lost by somebody. To this add the cost of their transportation by land and sea to Mesurado, a year's provision of food and clothing, implements of husbandry and of their trades, which will amount to three hundred millions more, making thirty-six millions of dollars a year, for twenty-five years, with insurance of peace all that time, and it is impossible to look at the question a second time. I am aware that at the end of about sixteen years, a gradual detraction from this sum will commence, from the gradual diminution of breeders, and go on during the remaining nine years. Calculate this deduction, and it is still impossible to look at the enterprise a second time. I do not say this to induce an inference that the getting rid of them is forever impossible. For that is neither my opinion nor my hope. But only that it cannot be done in this way. There is, I think, a way in which it can be done; that is, by emancipating the after-born, leaving them, on due compensation, with their mothers, until their services are worth their maintenance, and then putting them to industrious occupations, until a proper age for deportation. This was the result of my reflections on the subject five and forty years ago, and I have never yet been able to conceive any other practicable plan. It was sketched in the Notes on Virginia, under the fourteenth query. The estimated value of the new-born infant is so low (say twelve dollars and fifty cents), that it would probably be yielded by the owner gratis, and would thus reduce the six hundred millions of dollars, the first head of expense, to thirty-seven millions and a half; leaving only the expenses of nourishment while with the mother, and of transportation. And from what fund are these expenses to be furnished? Why not from that of the lands which have been ceded by the very States now needing this relief? and ceded on no consideration, for the most part, but that of the general good of the whole. These cessions already constitute one fourth of the States of the Union. It may be said that these lands have been sold; are now the property of the citizens composing those States; and the money long ago received and expended. But an equivalent of lands in the territories since acquired, may be appropriated to that object, or so much, at least, as may be sufficient; and the object, although more important to the slave States, is highly so to the others also, if they were serious in their arguments on the Missouri question. The slave States, too, if more interested, would also contribute more by their gratuitous liberation, thus taking on themselves alone the first and heaviest item of expense. After assigning several reasons in favor of attempting this general colonization in St. Domingo, instead of Africa, he added in reference to his proposed means of defraying the expense: "I am aware that this subject involves some constitutional scruples. But a liberal construction, justified by the object, may go far, and an amendment of the constitution, the whole length necessary. The separation of infants from their mothers, too, would produce some scruples of humanity. But this would be straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel." A letter to Robert J. Garnett, February 14th, shows that Mr. Jefferson was very ill satisfied with the tendency of a class of measures which received the approbation of Congress, towards the close of Mr. Monroe's Administration-particularly those for internal improvements. He thought the Federalists, with nothing changed but their names, were now in possession of one branch of the government, were strong in another, and were "openly marching by the road of construction" to "that consolidation which had always been their real object." To check this, he proposed the following constitutional amendments: first, "the limitation of the term of the Presidential service;" second, "the placing the choice of President effectually in the hands of the people;" third," the giving to Congress the power of internal improvement, on condition that each State's federal proportion of the moneys so expended, should be employed within the State." 1 To Mr. Isaac Englebrecht, who requested something from Mr. Jefferson's pen, the latter declared (February 25th), that he knew "nothing more moral, more sublime, more worthy of preservation than David's description of the good man in his 15th Psalm," and he transcribed it for his correspondent, from Brady and Tate's version, commencing: "Lord, who's the happy man that may to thy blest courts repair, On the 4th of April, he addressed a letter to Edward Livingston, who had inclosed to him his speech in Congress in favor of internal improvements. While courteously dissenting from its positions, Mr. Jefferson pays a tribute to "those powers of reasoning and persuasion of which he had formerly seen . . so many proofs." The whole tone of the letter was kind, and indicated a cordial reconciliation between the writer and one of the ablest of his contemporaries. To John H. Pleasants (April 19th), Mr. Jefferson expressed, in substance, the same general views in regard to the existing Constitution of Virginia, which were given to Mr. Kercheval eight years earlier. On the 5th of June, he replied to a letter from Major John Cartwright, of England. The latter had also forwarded to him "his volume on the English Constitution." (The Constitution Produced and Illustrated, published in 1823.) This toughest and 1 See ante, p. 443. sturdiest of English reformers--this Whig Cobbet, with the principles and tastes of a gentleman-this "old radical," this "heart of sedition," "the old heart in London from which the veins of sedition in the country were supplied," as Canning styled him, in the House of Commons-this man who counted among his personal friends Fox, and Sheridan, and Wilberforce, and Whitbread, and Price, was, of course, an admirer of Jefferson.' The communication of the latter to him is too long for even analysis here. He agreed with Cartwright, in deriving the English Constitution from the Saxons, and said that this was set at naught by the Norman conquerors, etc. Jefferson proceeded to cite a multitude of authorities to prove the judicial dictum untrue that Christianity was a part of the common law, and to show when and how it was interpolated into English decisions. The body of these citations constitute but an abridgment from an article in Jefferson's common-place book, when he was a law student." Cartwright received this letter on the 13th of July, and observed with high satisfaction, that the signature was as firm as that to the Declaration of Independence. He published it; and his biography states that he again wrote to Jefferson, on the 28th of the same month. This letter was long in reaching its destination, and a knowledge of the publication of the former one preceded it. Jefferson wrote Edward Everett (October 15th): "Your letter of September the 10th gave me the first information that mine to Major Cartwright had got into the newspapers; and the first notice, indeed, that he had received it. I was a stranger to his person, but not to his respectable and patriotic character. I received from him a long and interesting letter, and answered it with frankness, going without reserve into several subjects, to which his letter had led, but on which I did not suppose I was writing for the newspapers. The publication of a letter in such a case, without the consent of the writer, is not a fair practice. "The part which you quote, may draw on me the host of judges and divines." He then proceeds to elaborate and fortify portions of his argument. Cartwright was already in his grave. On the 23d of September, 1824, a philanthropist as true, and a reformer as brave as 1 In 1774 Cartwright published a series of letters favoring American Independence. (See his Life and Correspondence, edited by his niece, F. D. Cartwright, 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1826.) See vol. í. p. 52. history mentions, died with rapturous exclamations on his tongue, on learning that Iturbide's schemes had failed, and that the liberties of Mexico were considered out of danger. As he died under the displeasure of Mr. Jefferson (though unapprised of it) it is with with real satisfaction we transcribe the following passage from Mr. Trist's memoranda: Sunday, October, 1824, Mr. Jefferson said: 'I have got a letter from Cartwright, and he has explained the reason of my letter getting into the papers. The very day (I believe) on which he received it, a man was condemned to three years imprisonment, on the ground that the Scriptures are a part of the common law.'” The writer of the above informs us, that this was spoken in a tone which indicated that Cartwright's explanation was received as an amply sufficient one. On the 29th of June, Mr. Jefferson wrote the communication to Martin Van Buren, in regard to the Mazzei letter, and to the fresh charges of Pickering on that subject, which has already been cited, and sufficiently noticed.' In July he received a letter from Henry Lee, the son of Gen. Henry or Harry Lee, of the Revolution, which proved the opening of an unfortunate acquaintance.' Lee's letter inclosed the prospectus of a newspaper he was about to start. Mr. Jefferson replied with great courtesy, and subscribed for the paper. His letter closed thus: "A paper which shall be governed by the spirit of Mr. Madison's celebrated report, of which you express in your prospectus so just and high an approbation, cannot be false to the rights of all classes. The grandfathers of the present generation of your family I knew well. They were friends and fellow-laborers with me in the same cause and principle. Their descendants cannot follow better guides. Accept the assurance of my best wishes and respectful consideration." General Lafayette made his triumphal visit to the United States in 1824. He landed at New York, in August, and his progress through the country was one entire ovation. On the first of October he wrote to Mr. Jefferson, from Philadelphia, informing him that he proposed to visit his neighborhood; and the latter immediately sent him a warm invitation to come to Monticello. Jefferson wrote to Richard Rush, four days afterwards, that 2 See APPENDIX, No. 32. See vol. ii. p. 365 et seq. |