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Thomas Jefferson to John Adams
Monticello Sep. 4, 23.
Dear Sir
Your letter of Aug. 15 was recieved in due time, and with the
welcome of every thing which comes from you. with it's opinions
on the difficulties of revolutions, from despotism to freedom,
I very much concur. the generation which commences a revolution
rarely compleats it. habituated from their infancy to passive
submission of body and mind to their kings and priests, they are
not qualified, when called on, to think and provide for themselves
and their inexperience, their ignorance and bigotry make them
instruments often, in the hands of the Bonapartes and Iturbides
to defeat their own rights and purposes. this is the present situation
of Europe and Spanish America. but it is not desperate. the light
which has been shed on mankind by the art of printing has eminently
changed the condition of the world. as yet that light has dawned
on the midling classes only of the men of Europe. the kings and
the rabble of equal ignorance, have not yet recieved it's rays;
but it continues to spread. and, while printing is preserved,
it can no more recede than the sun return on his course. a first
attempt to recover the right of self-government may fail, so may
a 2d. a 3d. &c. but as a younger, and more instructed race
comes on, the sentiment become more and more intuitive, and a
4th. a 5th. or some subsequent one of the ever renewed attempts
will ultimately succeed. in France the 1st. effort was defeated
by Robespierre, the 2d by Bonaparte, the 3d by Louis XVIII and
his holy allies; another is yet to come, and all Europe, Russia
excepted, has caught the spirit; and all will attain representative
government, more or less perfect. this is now well understood
to be a necessary check on kings, whom they will probably think
it more prudent to chain and tame, than to exterminate. to attain
all this however rivers of blood must yet flow, & years of
desolation pass over, yet the object is worth rivers of blood,
and years of desolation. for what inheritance, so valuable, can
man leave to his posterity? the spirit of the Spaniard and his
deadly and eternal hatred to a Frenchman, gives me much confidence
that he will never submit, but finally defeat this atrocious violation
of the laws of god and man under which he is suffering; and the
wisdom and firmness of the Cortes afford reasonable hope that
that nation will settle down in a temperate representative government,
with an Executive properly subordinated to that. Portugal, Italy,
Prussia, Germany, Greece will follow suit. you and I shall look
down from another world on these glorious atchievements to man,
which will add to the joys even of heaven.
I observe your toast of mr Jay on the 4th. of July, wherein you
say that the omission of his signature to the Declaration of Independance
was by accident. our impressions as to this fact being
different, I shall be glad to have mine corrected, if wrong. Jay,
you know, had been in constant opposition to our laboring majority.
our estimate, at the time, was that he, Dickinson & Johnson
of Maryland by their ingenuity, perseverance and partiality to
our English connection, had constantly kept us a year behind where
we ought to have been in our preparations and proceedings. from
about the date of the Virginia instructions of May 15, 76 to declare
Independance, Mr Jay absented himself from Congress, and never
came there again until Dec. 78. of course he had no part in the
discussions or decision of that question. the instructions to
their delegates by the Convention of New York then sitting, to
sign the Declaration were presented to Congress on the 15th. of
July only, and on that day the journals shew the absence of mr
Jay by a letter recieved from him, as they had done as early as
the 29th. of May by another letter. and, I think, he had been
omitted by the Convention on a new election of Delegates when
they changed their instructions. of this last fact however having
no evidence but an antient impression, I shall not affirm it.
but whether so or not, no agency of accident appears in
the case. this error of fact however, whether. . .
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