The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
PRESIDENCY / EXPERIENCE
A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It
carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and
dangers, we were fellow laborers in the same cause, struggling for
what is most valuable to man, his right of self-government. Laboring
always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead, threatening to
overwhelm us.
In your day, French depredations; in mine,
English, and the Berlin and Milan decrees; now, the English orders of
council, and the piracies they authorize. When these shall be over, it
will be the impressment of our seamen or something else; and so we
have gone on, and so we shall go on, puzzled and prospering beyond
example in the history of man. And I do believe we shall continue to
growl, to multiply and prosper until we exhibit an association,
powerful, wise and happy, beyond what has yet been seen by men.
to John Adams, 21 January 1812
|