The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
POLITICAL ECONOMY / PHYSIOCRACY
It is rare I can indulge myself in the luxury of philosophy. Your
letters give me a few of these delicious moments. Placed as you are in
a great commercial town, with little opportunity of discovering the
dispositions of the country portions of our citizens, I do not wonder
at your doubts whether they will generally and sincerely concur in the
sentiment and measures developed in my message of the 7th of January.
But from forty-one years of intimate connection with the agricultural
inhabitants of my country, I can pronounce them as different from
those of the cities, as those of any two nations known. The sentiments
of the former can in no degree be inferred from those of the latter.
You have spoken a profound truth in these words "
il y a dans les Etats-Unis un bon sens silencieux, Un esprit de
justice froide, qui, lorsqu'il est question d'e'mettre un vote, couvre
tous les bavardages de ceux qui font les habiles." A plain
country farmer has written recently a pamphlet on our public affairs.
His testimony of the sense of the country is the best which can be
produced of the justness of your observation. His words are the tongue
of man if not his whole body, so in this case the noisy part of the
community was not all the body politic. During the career of fury and
contention (in 1800) the sedate, grave part of the people were still,
hearing all, and judging for themselves what method to take, when the
constitutional time of action should come, the exercise of the right
of suffrage. The majority of the present legislature are in unison
with the agricultural part of our citizens and you will see that there
is nothing in the message, to which they do not accord. Something may
perhaps be left undone from motives of compromise for a time, and not
to claim by too sudden a reformation; but with a view to be resumed at
another time. I am perfectly satisfied the effect of the proceedings
of this session of Congress will be to consolidate the present body of
well meaning citizens together, whether Federal or Republican,
heretofore called. I do not mean to include royalists or priests,
their opposition is unmovable, but they will be vox et preterea
nihili, leaders without followers. I am satisfied that within one
year from this time were an election to take place between two
candidates, merely Republican and Federal, where no personal
opposition existed against either, the Federal candidate would not get
the vote of a single elector in the United States.
It was my destiny to come to the government when it had for several
years been committed to a particular political sect, to the absolute
and entire exclusion of those who were in sentiment with the body of
the nation. I found the country entirely in the enemy's hands. It was
necessary to dislodge some of them, out of the thousands of officers
in the United States. Nine only have been removed for political
principle and eighteen for delinquencies chiefly pecuniary. The whole
herd have squealed out as if all their throats were cut. These acts of
justice, few as they have been, have raised great personal objections
to me, of which a new character would be [unclear]. When this
government was first established, it was possible to have set it going
on two principles, but the contracted-English half-lettered ideas of
Hamilton destroyed that hope in the bud. We can pay off his debt in
fifteen years but we can never get rid of his financial system. It
mortifies me to be strengthened by principles which I deem radically
vicious, but this vice is entailed on us by a just error. In other
parts of our government I hope we shall be able by degrees to
introduce sound principles and make them habitual. What is practicable
must often control what is pure theory, and the habits of the governed
determine in a great degree what is practicable. Hence the same
original principles, modified in practice according to the different
habits of different nations, present governments of very different
aspects. The same principles reduced to forms of practice accommodated
to our habits, and put into forms accommodated to the habits of the
French nation would present governments very unlike each other. I have
no doubt that a great man, thoroughly knowing the habits of France,
might so accommodate to them the principles of free governments, as to
enable them to live free. But in the hands of those who have not this
coup d'oeil many unsuccessful experiments I fear are yet to be
tried before they will settle down in freedom and tranquillity. I
applaud therefore your determination to remain here, where, though for
yourself and the adults of your family the dissimilitude of our
manners and the difference of tongue will be sources of real
unhappiness, yet lesser than the horrors and dangers which France
would present to you; and as to those of your family still in infancy,
they will be formed to the circumstances of the country, and will, I
doubt not, be happier here than they could have been in Europe, under
any circumstances.
to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 18 January 1802
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