The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
SECESSION
Mr. New showed me your letter on the subject of the patent, which
gave me an opportunity of observing what you said as to the effect,
with you, of public proceedings, and that it was not unwise now to
estimate the separate mass of Virginia and North Carolina, with a view
to their separate existence. It is true that we are completely under
the saddle of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and that they ride us
very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings, as well as exhausting our
strength and subsistence. Their natural friends, the three other
Eastern States join them from a sort of family pride, and they have
the art to divide certain other parts of the Union, so as to make use
of them to govern the whole. This is not new, it is the old practice
of despots; to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And
those who have once got an ascendancy, and possessed themselves of
all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have
immense means for retaining their advantage. But our present situation
is not a natural one. The republicans, through every part of the
Union, say, that it was the irresistible influence and popularity of
General Washington played off by the cunning of Hamilton, which turned
the government over to anti-republican hands, or turned the
republicans chosen by the people into anti-republicans. He delivered
it over to his successor in this state, and very untoward events
since, improved with great artifice, have produced on the public mind
the impressions we see. But still I repeat it, this is not the natural
state. Time alone would bring round an order of things mote
correspondent to the sentiments of our constituents. But are there no
events impending, which will do it within a few months? The crisis
with England, the public and authentic avowal of sentiments hostile to
the leading principles of our Constitution, the prospect of a war, in
which we shall stand alone, land tax, stamp tax, increase of public
debt, etc. Be this as it may, in every free and deliberating society,
there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent
dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must
prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. Perhaps this
party division is necessary to induce each to watch and delate to the
people the proceedings of the other. But if on a temporary superiority
of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union,
no federal government can ever exist. If to rid ourselves of the
present rule of Massachusetts and Connecticut, we break the Union,
will the evil stop there? Suppose the New England States alone cut
off, will our nature be changed? Are we not men still to the south of
that, and with all the passions of men? Immediately, we shall see a
Pennsylvania and a Virginia party arise in the residuary confederacy,
and the public mind will be distracted with the same party spirit.
What a game too will the one party have in their hands, by eternally
threatening the other that unless they do so and so, they will join
their northern neighbors. If we reduce our Union to Virginia and North
Carolina, immediately the conflict will be established between the
representatives of these two States, and they will end by breaking
into their simple units. Seeing, therefore, that an association of men
who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet
existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town
meeting or a vestry; seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel
with, I had rather keep our New England associates for that purpose,
than to see our bickerings transferred to others. . . If the game runs
sometimes against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns,
and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the
principles we have lost. For this is a game where principles
are the stake.
to John Taylor, 1 June 1798
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