The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
CITIZENSHIP AND EMPLOYMENT / OCEANIC COMMERCE
We have now lands enough to employ an infinite number of people in
their cultivation. Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable
citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most
virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its
liberty and interests, by the most lasting bonds. As long, therefore,
as they can find employment m this line, I would not convert them into
mariners, artisans, or anything else. But our citizens will find
employment in this line, till their numbers, and of course their
productions, become too great for the demand, both internal and
foreign. This is not the case as yet, and probably will not be for a
considerable time. As soon as it is, the surplus of hands must be
turned to something else. I should then, perhaps, wish to turn them to
the sea in preference to manufactures; because, comparing the
characters of the two classes, I find the former the most valuable
citizens. I consider the class of artificers as the panders of vice,
and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally
overturned. However, we are not free to decide this question on
principles of theory only. Our people are decided in the opinion, that
it is necessary for us to take a share in the occupation of the ocean,
and their established habits induce them to require that the sea be
kept open to them, and that that line of policy be pursued, which will
render the use of that element to them as great as possible. I think
it a duty in those entrusted with the administration of their affairs,
to conform themselves to the decided choice of their constituents; and
that therefore, we should, in every instance, preserve an equality of
right to them in the transportation of commodities, in the right of
fishing, and in the other uses of the sea.
John Jay, 23 August 1785
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