AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Thomas Jefferson
1743 – 1790
With the Declaration of Independence
January 6, 1821
At the age of 77, I begin to make some memoranda and state some
recollections of dates & facts concerning myself, for my own more ready
reference & for the information of my family.
The tradition in my father’s family was that their ancestor came to this
country from Wales, and from near the mountain of Snowdon, the highest in
Gr. Br. I noted once a case from Wales in the law reports where a person of
our name was either pl. or def. and one of the same name was Secretary to
the Virginia company. These are the only instances in which I have met with
the name in that country. I have found it in our early records, but the
first particular information I have of any ancestor was my grandfather who
lived at the place in Chesterfield called Ozborne’s and ownd. the lands
afterwards the glebe of the parish. He had three sons, Thomas who died
young, Field who settled on the waters of Roanoke and left numerous
descendants, and Peter my father, who settled on the lands I still own
called Shadwell adjoining my present residence. He was born Feb. 29,
1707/8, and intermarried 1739. with Jane Randolph, of the age of 19. daur
of Isham Randolph one of the seven sons of that name & family settled at
Dungeoness in Goochld. They trace their pedigree far back in England &
Scotland, to which let every one ascribe the faith & merit he chooses.
My father’s education had been quite neglected; but being of a strong mind,
sound judgment and eager after information, he read much and improved
himself insomuch that he was chosen with Joshua Fry professor of Mathem. in
W. & M. college to continue the boundary line between Virginia & N.
Caroline which had been begun by Colo Byrd, and was afterwards employed
with the same Mr. Fry to make the 1st map of Virginia which had ever been
made, that of Capt Smith being merely a conjectural sketch. They possessed
excellent materials for so much of the country as is below the blue ridge;
little being then known beyond that ridge. He was the 3d or 4th settler of
the part of the country in which I live, which was about 1737. He died Aug.
17. 1757, leaving my mother a widow who lived till 1776, with 6 daurs & 2.
sons, myself the elder. To my younger brother he left his estate on James
river called Snowden after the supposed birth-place of the family. To
myself the lands on which I was born & live. He placed me at the English
school at 5. years of age and at the Latin at 9. where I continued until
his death. My teacher Mr. Douglas a clergyman from Scotland was but a
superficial Latinist, less instructed in Greek, but with the rudiments of
these languages he taught me French, and on the death of my father I went
to the revd Mr. Maury a correct classical scholar, with whom I continued
two years, and then went to Wm. and Mary college, to wit in the spring of
1760, where I continued 2. years. It was my great good fortune, and what
probably fixed the destinies of my life that Dr. Wm. Small of Scotland was
then professor of Mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful
branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and
gentlemanly manners, & an enlarged & liberal mind. He, most happily for me,
became soon attached to me & made me his daily companion when not engaged
in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the
expansion of science & of the system of things in which we are placed.
Fortunately the Philosophical chair became vacant soon after my arrival at
college, and he was appointed to fill it per interim: and he was the first
who ever gave in that college regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric & Belles
lettres. He returned to Europe in 1762, having previously filled up the
measure of his goodness to me, by procuring for me, from his most intimate
friend G. Wythe, a reception as a student of law, under his direction, and
introduced me to the acquaintance and familiar table of Governor Fauquier,
the ablest man who had ever filled that office. With him, and at his table,
Dr. Small & Mr. Wythe, his amici omnium horarum, & myself, formed a partie
quarree, & to the habitual conversations on these occasions I owed much
instruction. Mr. Wythe continued to be my faithful and beloved Mentor in
youth, and my most affectionate friend through life. In 1767, he led me
into the practice of the law at the bar of the General court, at which I
continued until the revolution shut up the courts of justice. [For a sketch
of the life & character of Mr. Wythe see my letter of Aug. 31. 20. to Mr.
John Saunderson]
In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county
in which I live, & continued in that until it was closed by the revolution.
I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of
slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal government,
nothing liberal could expect success. Our minds were circumscribed within
narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate
to the mother country in all matters of government, to direct all our
labors in subservience to her interests, and even to observe a bigoted
intolerance for all religions but hers. The difficulties with our
representatives were of habit and despair, not of reflection & conviction.
Experience soon proved that they could bring their minds to rights on the
first summons of their attention. But the king’s council, which acted as
another house of legislature, held their places at will & were in most
humble obedience to that will: the Governor too, who had a negative on our
laws held by the same tenure, & with still greater devotedness to it: and
last of all the Royal negative closed the last door to every hope of
amelioration.
On the 1st of January, 1772 I was married to Martha Skelton widow of
Bathurst Skelton, & daughter of John Wayles, then 23. years old. Mr. Wayles
was a lawyer of much practice, to which he was introduced more by his great
industry, punctuality & practical readiness, than to eminence in the
science of his profession. He was a most agreeable companion, full of
pleasantry & good humor, and welcomed in every society. He acquired a
handsome fortune, died in May, 1773, leaving three daughters, and the
portion which came on that event to Mrs. Jefferson, after the debts should
be paid, which were very considerable, was about equal to my own patrimony,
and consequently doubled the ease of our circumstances.
When the famous Resolutions of 1765, against the Stamp-act, were proposed,
I was yet a student of law in Wmsbg. I attended the debate however at the
door of the lobby of the H. of Burgesses, & heard the splendid display of
Mr. Henry’s talents as a popular orator. They were great indeed; such as I
have never heard from any other man. He appeared to me to speak as Homer
wrote. Mr. Johnson, a lawyer & member from the Northern Neck, seconded the
resolns, & by him the learning & the logic of the case were chiefly
maintained. My recollections of these transactions may be seen pa. 60,
Wirt’s life of P. H., to whom I furnished them.
In May, 1769, a meeting of the General Assembly was called by the Govr.,
Ld. Botetourt. I had then become a member; and to that meeting became known
the joint resolutions & address of the Lords & Commons of 1768 – 9, on the
proceedings in Massachusetts. Counter-resolutions, & an address to the
King, by the H. of Burgesses were agreed to with little opposition, & a
spirit manifestly displayed of considering the cause of Massachusetts as a
common one. The Governor dissolved us: but we met the next day in the
Apollo of the Raleigh tavern, formed ourselves into a voluntary convention,
drew up articles of association against the use of any merchandise imported
from Gr. Britain, signed and recommended them to the people, repaired to
our several counties, & were re elected without any other exception than of
the very few who had declined assent to our proceedings.
Nothing of particular excitement occurring for a considerable time our
countrymen seemed to fall into a state of insensibility to our situation.
The duty on tea not yet repealed & the Declaratory act of a right in the
British parl to bind us by their laws in all cases whatsoever, still
suspended over us. But a court of inquiry held in R. Island in 1762, with a
power to send persons to England to be tried for offences committed here
was considered at our session of the spring of 1773. as demanding
attention. Not thinking our old & leading members up to the point of
forwardness & zeal which the times required, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Francis
L. Lee, Mr. Carr & myself agreed to meet in the evening in a private room
of the Raleigh to consult on the state of things. There may have been a
member or two more whom I do not recollect. We were all sensible that the
most urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding with all
the other colonies to consider the British claims as a common cause to all,
& to produce an unity of action: and for this purpose that a commee of
correspondce in each colony would be the best instrument for
intercommunication: and that their first measure would probably be to
propose a meeting of deputies from every colony at some central place, who
should be charged with the direction of the measures which should be taken
by all. We therefore drew up the resolutions which may be seen in Wirt pa
87. The consulting members proposed to me to move them, but I urged that it
should be done by Mr. Carr, my friend & brother in law, then a new member
to whom I wished an opportunity should be given of making known to the
house his great worth & talents. It was so agreed; he moved them, they were
agreed to nem. con. and a commee of correspondence appointed of whom Peyton
Randolph, the Speaker, was chairman. The Govr. (then Ld. Dunmore) dissolved
us, but the commee met the next day, prepared a circular letter to the
Speakers of the other colonies, inclosing to each a copy of the resolns and
left it in charge with their chairman to forward them by expresses.
The origination of these commees of correspondence between the colonies has
been since claimed for Massachusetts, and Marshall II. 151, has given into
this error, altho’ the very note of his appendix to which he refers, shows
that their establmt was confined to their own towns. This matter will be
seen clearly stated in a letter of Samuel Adams Wells to me of Apr. 2.,
1819, and my answer of May 12. I was corrected by the letter of Mr. Wells
in the information I had given Mr. Wirt, as stated in his note, pa. 87,
that the messengers of Massach. & Virga crossed each other on the way
bearing similar propositions, for Mr. Wells shows that Mass. did not adopt
the measure but on the receipt of our proposn delivered at their next
session. Their message therefore which passed ours, must have related to
something else, for I well remember P. Randolph’s informing me of the
crossing of our messengers.
The next event which excited our sympathies for Massachusets was the Boston
port bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the 1st of June, 1774.
This arrived while we were in session in the spring of that year. The lead
in the house on these subjects being no longer left to the old members, Mr.
Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee, 3. or 4. other members, whom I do not
recollect, and myself, agreeing that we must boldly take an unequivocal
stand in the line with Massachusetts, determined to meet and consult on the
proper measures in the council chamber, for the benefit of the library in
that room. We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people
from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to passing events; and
thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting & prayer would be
most likely to call up & alarm their attention. No example of such a
solemnity had existed since the days of our distresses in the war of 55.
since which a new generation had grown up. With the help therefore of
Rushworth, whom we rummaged over for the revolutionary precedents & forms
of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution,
somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on
which the Port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation &
prayer, to implore heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to
inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts
of the King & parliament to moderation & justice. To give greater emphasis
to our proposition, we agreed to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas,
whose grave & religious character was more in unison with the tone of our
resolution and to solicit him to move it. We accordingly went to him in the
morning. He moved it the same day; the 1st of June was proposed and it
passed without opposition. The Governor dissolved us as usual. We retired
to the Apollo as before, agreed to an association, and instructed the
commee of correspdce to propose to the corresponding commees of the other
colonies to appoint deputies to meet in Congress at such place, annually,
as should be convenient to direct, from time to time, the measures required
by the general interest: and we declared that an attack on any one colony
should be considered as an attack on the whole. This was in May. We further
recommended to the several counties to elect deputies to meet at Wmsbg the
1st of Aug ensuing, to consider the state of the colony, & particularly to
appoint delegates to a general Congress, should that measure be acceded to
by the commees of correspdce generally. It was acceded to, Philadelphia was
appointed for the place, and the 5th of Sep. for the time of meeting. We
returned home, and in our several counties invited the clergy to meet
assemblies of the people on the 1st of June, to perform the ceremonies of
the day, & to address to them discourses suited to the occasion. The people
met generally, with anxiety & alarm in their countenances, and the effect
of the day thro’ the whole colony was like a shock of electricity, arousing
every man & placing him erect & solidly on his centre. They chose
universally delegates for the convention. Being elected one for my own
county I prepared a draught of instructions to be given to the delegates
whom we should send to the Congress, and which I meant to propose at our
meeting. In this I took the ground which, from the beginning I had thought
the only one orthodox or tenable, which was that the relation between Gr.
Br. and these colonies was exactly the same as that of England & Scotland
after the accession of James & until the Union, and the same as her present
relations with Hanover, having the same Executive chief but no other
necessary political connection; and that our emigration from England to
this country gave her no more rights over us, than the emigrations of the
Danes and Saxons gave to the present authorities of the mother country over
England. In this doctrine however I had never been able to get any one to
agree with me but Mr. Wythe. He concurred in it from the first dawn of the
question What was the political relation between us & England? Our other
patriots Randolph, the Lees, Nicholas, Pendleton stopped at the half-way
house of John Dickinson who admitted that England had a right to regulate
our commerce, and to lay duties on it for the purposes of regulation, but
not of raising revenue. But for this ground there was no foundation in
compact, in any acknowledged principles of colonization, nor in reason:
expatriation being a natural right, and acted on as such, by all nations,
in all ages. I set out for Wmsbg some days before that appointed for our
meeting, but was taken ill of a dysentery on the road, & unable to proceed.
I sent on therefore to Wmsbg two copies of my draught, the one under cover
to Peyton Randolph, who I knew would be in the chair of the convention, the
other to Patrick Henry. Whether Mr. Henry disapproved the ground taken, or
was too lazy to read it (for he was the laziest man in reading I ever knew)
I never learned: but he communicated it to nobody. Peyton Randolph informed
the convention he had received such a paper from a member prevented by
sickness from offering it in his place, and he laid it on the table for
perusal. It was read generally by the members, approved by many, but
thought too bold for the present state of things; but they printed it in
pamphlet form under the title of “A Summary view of the rights of British
America.” It found its way to England, was taken up by the opposition,
interpolated a little by Mr. Burke so as to make it answer opposition
purposes, and in that form ran rapidly thro’ several editions. This
information I had from Parson Hurt, who happened at the time to be in
London, whether he had gone to receive clerical orders. And I was informed
afterwards by Peyton Randolph that it had procured me the honor of having
my name inserted in a long list of proscriptions enrolled in a bill of
attainder commenced in one of the houses of parliament, but suppressed in
embryo by the hasty step of events which warned them to be a little
cautious. Montague, agent of the H. of Burgesses in England made extracts
from the bill, copied the names, and sent them to Peyton Randolph. The
names I think were about 20 which he repeated to me, but I recollect those
only of Hancock, the two Adamses, Peyton Randolph himself, Patrick Henry, &
myself.1 The convention met on the 1st of Aug, renewed their association,
appointed delegates to the Congress, gave them instructions very
temperately & properly expressed, both as to style & matter; and they
repaired to Philadelphia at the time appointed. The splendid proceedings of
that Congress at their 1st session belong to general history, are known to
every one, and need not therefore be noted here. They terminated their
session on the 26th of Octob, to meet again on the 10th May ensuing. The
convention at their ensuing session of Mar, ’75, approved of the
proceedings of Congress, thanked their delegates and reappointed the same
persons to represent the colony at the meeting to be held in May: and
foreseeing the probability that Peyton Randolph their president and Speaker
also of the H. of B. might be called off, they added me, in that event to
the delegation.
Mr. Randolph was according to expectation obliged to leave the chair of
Congress to attend the Gen. Assembly summoned by Ld. Dunmore to meet on the
1st day of June 1775. Ld. North’s conciliatory propositions, as they were
called, had been received by the Governor and furnished the subject for
which this assembly was convened. Mr. Randolph accordingly attended, and
the tenor of these propositions being generally known, as having been
addressed to all the governors, he was anxious that the answer of our
assembly, likely to be the first, should harmonize with what he knew to be
the sentiments and wishes of the body he had recently left. He feared that
Mr. Nicholas, whose mind was not yet up to the mark of the times, would
undertake the answer, & therefore pressed me to prepare an answer. I did
so, and with his aid carried it through the house with long and doubtful
scruples from Mr. Nicholas and James Mercer, and a dash of cold water on it
here & there, enfeebling it somewhat, but finally with unanimity or a vote
approaching it. This being passed, I repaired immediately to Philadelphia,
and conveyed to Congress the first notice they had of it. It was entirely
approved there. I took my seat with them on the 21st of June. On the 24th,
a commee which had been appointed to prepare a declaration of the causes of
taking up arms, brought in their report (drawn I believe by J. Rutledge)
which not being liked they recommitted it on the 26th, and added Mr.
Dickinson and myself to the committee. On the rising of the house, the
commee having not yet met, I happened to find myself near Govr W.
Livingston, and proposed to him to draw the paper. He excused himself and
proposed that I should draw it. On my pressing him with urgency, “we are as
yet but new acquaintances, sir, said he, why are you so earnest for my
doing it?” “Because, said I, I have been informed that you drew the Address
to the people of Gr. Britain, a production certainly of the finest pen in
America.” “On that, says he, perhaps sir you may not have been correctly
informed.” I had received the information in Virginia from Colo Harrison on
his return from that Congress. Lee, Livingston & Jay had been the commee
for that draught. The first, prepared by Lee, had been disapproved &
recommitted. The second was drawn by Jay, but being presented by Govr
Livingston, had led Colo Harrison into the error. The next morning, walking
in the hall of Congress, many members being assembled but the house not yet
formed, I observed Mr. Jay, speaking to R. H. Lee, and leading him by the
button of his coat, to me. “I understand, sir, said he to me, that this
gentleman informed you that Govr Livingston drew the Address to the people
of Gr Britain.” I assured him at once that I had not received that
information from Mr. Lee & that not a word had ever passed on the subject
between Mr. Lee & myself; and after some explanations the subject was
dropt. These gentlemen had had some sparrings in debate before, and
continued ever very hostile to each other.
I prepared a draught of the Declaration committed to us. It was too strong
for Mr. Dickinson. He still retained the hope of reconciliation with the
mother country, and was unwilling it should be lessened by offensive
statements. He was so honest a man, & so able a one that he was greatly
indulged even by those who could not feel his scruples. We therefore
requested him to take the paper, and put it into a form he could approve.
He did so, preparing an entire new statement, and preserving of the former
only the last 4. paragraphs & half of the preceding one. We approved &
reported it to Congress, who accepted it. Congress gave a signal proof of
their indulgence to Mr. Dickinson, and of their great desire not to go too
fast for any respectable part of our body, in permitting him to draw their
second petition to the King according to his own ideas, and passing it with
scarcely any amendment. The disgust against this humility was general; and
Mr. Dickinson’s delight at its passage was the only circumstance which
reconciled them to it. The vote being passed, altho’ further observn on it
was out of order, he could not refrain from rising and expressing his
satisfaction and concluded by saying “there is but one word, Mr. President,
in the paper which I disapprove, & that is the word Congress,” on which Ben
Harrison rose and said “there is but on word in the paper, Mr. President,
of which I approve, and that is the word Congress.”
On the 22d of July Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, R. H. Lee, & myself, were
appointed a commee to consider and report on Ld. North’s conciliatory
resolution. The answer of the Virginia assembly on that subject having been
approved I was requested by the commee to prepare this report, which will
account for the similarity of feature in the two instruments.
On the 15th of May, 1776, the convention of Virginia instructed their
delegates in Congress to propose to that body to declare the colonies
independent of G. Britain, and appointed a commee to prepare a declaration
of rights and plan of government.
In Congress, Friday June 7. 1776. The delegates from Virginia moved in
obedience to instructions from their constituents that the Congress should
declare that these United colonies are & of right ought to be free &
independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British crown, and that all political connection between them & the state
of Great Britain is & ought to be, totally dissolved; that measures should
be immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a
Confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together.
The house being obliged to attend at that time to some other business, the
proposition was referred to the next day, when the members were ordered to
attend punctually at ten o’clock.
Saturday June 8. They proceeded to take it into consideration and referred
it to a committee of the whole, into which they immediately resolved
themselves, and passed that day & Monday the 10th in debating on the
subject.
It was argued by Wilson, Robert R. Livingston, E. Rutledge, Dickinson and
others
That tho’ they were friends to the measures themselves, and saw the
impossibility that we should ever again be united with Gr. Britain, yet
they were against adopting them at this time:
That the conduct we had formerly observed was wise & proper now, of
deferring to take any capital step till the voice of the people drove us
into it:
That they were our power, & without them our declarations could not be
carried into effect;
That the people of the middle colonies (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylva, the
Jerseys & N. York) were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British
connection, but that they were fast ripening & in a short time would join
in the general voice of America:
That the resolution entered into by this house on the 15th of May for
suppressing the exercise of all powers derived from the crown, had shown,
by the ferment into which it had thrown these middle colonies, that they
had not yet accommodated their minds to a separation from the mother
country:
That some of them had expressly forbidden their delegates to consent to
such a declaration, and others had given no instructions, & consequently no
powers to give such consent:
That if the delegates of any particular colony had no power to declare such
colony independant, certain they were the others could not declare it for
them; the colonies being as yet perfectly independant of each other:
That the assembly of Pennsylvania was now sitting above stairs, their
convention would sit within a few days, the convention of New York was now
sitting, & those of the Jerseys & Delaware counties would meet on the
Monday following, & it was probable these bodies would take up the question
of Independance & would declare to their delegates the voice of their
state:
That if such a declaration should now be agreed to, these delegates must
retire & possibly their colonies might secede from the Union:
That such a secession would weaken us more than could be compensated by any
foreign alliance:
That in the event of such a division, foreign powers would either refuse to
join themselves to our fortunes, or, having us so much in their power as
that desperate declaration would place us, they would insist on terms
proportionably more hard and prejudicial:
That we had little reason to expect an alliance with those to whom alone as
yet we had cast our eyes:
That France & Spain had reason to be jealous of that rising power which
would one day certainly strip them of all their American possessions:
That it was more likely they should form a connection with the British
court, who, if they should find themselves unable otherwise to extricate
themselves from their difficulties, would agree to a partition of our
territories, restoring Canada to France, & the Floridas to Spain, to
accomplish for themselves a recovery of these colonies:
That it would not be long before we should receive certain information of
the disposition of the French court, from the agent whom we had sent to
Paris for that purpose:
That if this disposition should be favorable, by waiting the event of the
present campaign, which we all hoped would be successful, we should have
reason to expect an alliance on better terms:
That this would in fact work no delay of any effectual aid from such ally,
as, from the advance of the season & distance of our situation, it was
impossible we could receive any assistance during this campaign:
That it was prudent to fix among ourselves the terms on which we should
form alliance, before we declared we would form one at all events:
And that if these were agreed on, & our Declaration of Independance ready
by the time our Ambassador should be prepared to sail, it would be as well
as to go into that Declaration at this day.
On the other side it was urged by J. Adams, Lee, Wythe, and others
That no gentleman had argued against the policy or the right of separation
from Britain, nor had supposed it possible we should ever renew our
connection; that they had only opposed its being now declared:
That the question was not whether, by a declaration of independance, we
should make ourselves what we are not; but whether we should declare a fact
which already exists:
That as to the people or parliament of England, we had alwais been
independent of them, their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy from
our acquiescence only, & not from any rights they possessed of imposing
them, & that so far our connection had been federal only & was now
dissolved by the commencement of hostilities:
That as to the King, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but that this
bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late act of parliament, by
which he declares us out of his protection, and by his levying war on us, a
fact which had long ago proved us out of his protection; it being a certain
position in law that allegiance & protection are reciprocal, the one
ceasing when the other is withdrawn:
That James the IId. never declared the people of England out of his
protection yet his actions proved it & the parliament declared it:
No delegates then can be denied, or ever want, a power of declaring an
existing truth:
That the delegates from the Delaware counties having declared their
constituents ready to join, there are only two colonies Pennsylvania &
Maryland whose delegates are absolutely tied up, and that these had by
their instructions only reserved a right of confirming or rejecting the
measure:
That the instructions from Pennsylvania might be accounted for from the
times in which they were drawn, near a twelvemonth ago, since which the
face of affairs has totally changed:
That within that time it had become apparent that Britain was determined to
accept nothing less than a carte-blanche, and that the King’s answer to the
Lord Mayor Aldermen & common council of London, which had come to hand four
days ago, must have satisfied every one of this point:
That the people wait for us to lead the way:
That they are in favour of the measure, tho’ the instructions given by some
of their representatives are not:
That the voice of the representatives is not always consonant with the
voice of the people, and that this is remarkably the case in these middle
colonies:
That the effect of the resolution of the 15th of May has proved this,
which, raising the murmurs of some in the colonies of Pennsylvania &
Maryland, called forth the opposing voice of the freer part of the people,
& proved them to be the majority, even in these colonies:
That the backwardness of these two colonies might be ascribed partly to the
influence of proprietary power & connections, & partly to their having not
yet been attacked by the enemy:
That these causes were not likely to be soon removed, as there seemed no
probability that the enemy would make either of these the seat of this
summer’s war:
That it would be vain to wait either weeks or months for perfect unanimity,
since it was impossible that all men should ever become of one sentiment on
any question:
That the conduct of some colonies from the beginning of this contest, had
given reason to suspect it was their settled policy to keep in the rear of
the confederacy, that their particular prospect might be better, even in
the worst event:
That therefore it was necessary for those colonies who had thrown
themselves forward & hazarded all from the beginning, to come forward now
also, and put all again to their own hazard:
That the history of the Dutch revolution, of whom three states only
confederated at first proved that a secession of some colonies would not be
so dangerous as some apprehended:
That a declaration of Independence alone could render it consistent with
European delicacy for European powers to treat with us, or even to receive
an Ambassador from us:
That till this they would not receive our vessels into their ports, nor
acknowledge the adjudications of our courts of admiralty to be legitimate,
in cases of capture of British vessels:
That though France & Spain may be jealous of our rising power, they must
think it will be much more formidable with the addition of Great Britain;
and will therefore see it their interest to prevent a coalition; but should
they refuse, we shall be but where we are; whereas without trying we shall
never know whether they will aid us or not:
That the present campaign may be unsuccessful, & therefore we had better
propose an alliance while our affairs wear a hopeful aspect:
That to await the event of this campaign will certainly work delay, because
during this summer France may assist us effectually by cutting off those
supplies of provisions from England & Ireland on which the enemy’s armies
here are to depend; or by setting in motion the great power they have
collected in the West Indies, & calling our enemy to the defence of the
possessions they have there:
That it would be idle to lose time in settling the terms of alliance, till
we had first determined we would enter into alliance:
That it is necessary to lose no time in opening a trade for our people, who
will want clothes, and will want money too for the paiment of taxes:
And that the only misfortune is that we did not enter into alliance with
France six months sooner, as besides opening their ports for the vent of
our last year’s produce, they might have marched an army into Germany and
prevented the petty princes there from selling their unhappy subjects to
subdue us.
It appearing in the course of these debates that the colonies of N. York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina were not
yet matured for falling from the parent stem, but that they were fast
advancing to that state, it was thought most prudent to wait a while for
them, and to postpone the final decision to July 1. but that this might
occasion as little delay as possible a committee was appointed to prepare a
declaration of independence. The commee were J. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger
Sherman, Robert R. Livingston & myself. Committees were also appointed at
the same time to prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to
state the terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance. The committee
for drawing the declaration of Independence desired me to do it. It was
accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the house on
Friday the 28th of June when it was read and ordered to lie on the table.
On Monday, the 1st of July the house resolved itself into a commee of the
whole & resumed the consideration of the original motion made by the
delegates of Virginia, which being again debated through the day, was
carried in the affirmative by the votes of N. Hampshire, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, N. Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, N. Carolina, &
Georgia. S. Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. Delaware having but
two members present, they were divided. The delegates for New York declared
they were for it themselves & were assured their constituents were for it,
but that their instructions having been drawn near a twelvemonth before,
when reconciliation was still the general object, they were enjoined by
them to do nothing which should impede that object. They therefore thought
themselves not justifiable in voting on either side, and asked leave to
withdraw from the question, which was given them. The commee rose &
reported their resolution to the house. Mr. Edward Rutledge of S. Carolina
then requested the determination might be put off to the next day, as he
believed his colleagues, tho’ they disapproved of the resolution, would
then join in it for the sake of unanimity. The ultimate question whether
the house would agree to the resolution of the committee was accordingly
postponed to the next day, when it was again moved and S. Carolina
concurred in voting for it. In the meantime a third member had come post
from the Delaware counties and turned the vote of that colony in favour of
the resolution. Members of a different sentiment attending that morning
from Pennsylvania also, their vote was changed, so that the whole 12
colonies who were authorized to vote at all, gave their voices for it; and
within a few days, the convention of N. York approved of it and thus
supplied the void occasioned by the withdrawing of her delegates from the
vote.
Congress proceeded the same day to consider the declaration of Independance
which had been reported & lain on the table the Friday preceding, and on
Monday referred to a commee of the whole. The pusillanimous idea that we
had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of
many. For this reason those passages which conveyed censures on the people
of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause
too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in
complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to
restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to
continue it. Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender
under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves
yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others. The
debates having taken up the greater parts of the 2d 3d & 4th days of July
were, in the evening of the last, closed the declaration was reported by
the commee, agreed to by the house and signed by every member present
except Mr. Dickinson. As the sentiments of men are known not only by what
they receive, but what they reject also, I will state the form of the
declaration as originally reported. The parts struck out by Congress shall
be distinguished by a black line drawn under them; & those inserted by them
shall be placed in the margin or in a concurrent column.
A Declaration by the Representatives of the
United States of America, in General
Congress Assembled.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth the separate & equal station to which
the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to
the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and [certain]
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, & the pursuit of
happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is
the right of the people to alter or abolish it, & to institute new
government, laying it’s foundation on such principles, & organizing it’s
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety & happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long
established should not be changed for light & transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to
suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses &
usurpations begun at a distinguished period and pursuing invariably the
same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it
is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, & to provide
new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance
of these colonies; & such is now the necessity which constrains them to
expunge [alter] their former systems of government. The history of the
present king of Great Britain is a history of unremitting [repeated]
injuries & usurpations, among which appears no solitary fact to contradict
the uniform tenor of the rest but all have [all having] in direct object
the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this
let facts be submitted to a candid world for the truth of which we pledge a
faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome & necessary for the
public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be
obtained; & when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts
of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation
in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, & formidable to tyrants
only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable,
and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole
purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly & continually for
opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to
be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have
returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in
the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without &
convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that
purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to
pass others to encourage their migrations hither, & raising the conditions
of new appropriations of lands.
He has suffered [obstructed] the administration of justice totally to cease
in some of these states [by] refusing his [assent to laws for establishing
judiciary powers.
He has made our judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, & the amount & paiment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices by a self assumed power and sent
hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their
substance.
He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies and ships of war
without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independant of, & superior to the
civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitutions & unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts
of pretended legislation for quartering large bodies of armed troops among
us; for protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment for any murders
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; for cutting
off our trade with all parts of the world; for imposing taxes on us without
our consent; for depriving us [ ] [in many cases] of the benefits of trial
by jury; for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended
offences; for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging it’s
boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for
introducing the same absolute rule into these states [colonies]; for taking
away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering
fundamentally the forms of our governments; for suspending our own
legislatures, & declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for
us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here withdrawing his governors, and declaring
us out of his allegiance & protection. [by declaring us out of his
protection, and waging war against us.]
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, & destroyed
the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to
compleat the works of death, desolation & tyranny already begun with
circumstances of cruelty and perfidy [ ] [scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, & totally] unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to
bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their
friends & brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has [excited domestic insurrection among us, & has] endeavored to bring
on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose
known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes,
& conditions of existence.
He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the
allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who
never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of
the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where
MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for
suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact
of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms
among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by
murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former
crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he
urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the
most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by
repeated injuries.
A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a
tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a [ ] [free] people who mean to be free.
Future ages will scarcely believe that the hardiness of one man adventured,
within the short compass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad
& so undisguised for tyranny over a people fostered & fixed in principles
of freedom.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend a
[an unwarrantable] jurisdiction over these our states [us]. We have
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration & settlement here, no
one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that these were
effected at the expense of our own blood & treasure, unassisted by the
wealth or the strength of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our
several forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying
a foundation for perpetual league & amity with them: but that submission to
their parliament was no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if
history may be credited: and, we [ ] [have] appealed to their native
justice and magnanimity as well as to [and we have conjured them by] the
ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely
to [would inevitably] interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too
have been deaf to the voice of justice & of consanguinity, and when
occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of
removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have, by
their free election, re-established them in power. At this very time too
they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers
of our common blood, but Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & destroy
us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly
spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must [We
must therefore] endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them
as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We might
have been a free and a great people together; but a communication of
grandeur & of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so, since they
will have it. The road to happiness & to glory is open to us too. We will
tread it apart from them, and acquiesce in the necessity which denounces
our eternal separation [ ] [and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind,
enemies in war, in peace friends.]!
We therefore the representatives of the United States
America in General Congress assembled do in the name &
by authority of the good people of these states reject
& renounce all allegiance & subjection to the kings of
Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by,
through or under them: we utterly dissolve all
political connection which may heretofore have
subsisted between us & the people or parliament of
Great Britain: & finally we do assert & declare these
colonies to be free & independent states, & that as
free & independent states, they have full power to levy
war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish
commerce, & to do all other acts & things which
independent states may of right do. And for the support
of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other
our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honor.
We therefore the representatives of of the United
States of America in General Congress assembled,
appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the
rectitude of our intentions, do in the name, & by the
authority of the good people of these colonies,
solemnly publish & declare that these united colonies
are & of right ought to be free & independent states;
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British crown, and that all political connection
between them & the state of Great Britain is, & ought
to be, totally dissolved; & that as free & independent
states they have full power to levy war, conclude
peace, contract alliances, establish commerce & to do
all other acts & things which independent states may of
right do. And for the support of this declaration, with
a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence
we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our
fortunes, & our sacred honor.
The Declaration thus signed on the 4th, on paper was engrossed on
parchment, & signed again on the 2d. of August.
Some erroneous statements of the proceedings on the declaration of
independence having got before the public in latter times, Mr. Samuel A.
Wells asked explanations of me, which are given in my letter to him of May
12. 19. before and now again referred to. I took notes in my place while
these things were going on, and at their close wrote them out in form and
with correctness and from 1 to 7 of the two preceding sheets are the
originals then written; as the two following are of the earlier debates on
the Confederation, which I took in like manner.
On Friday July 12. the Committee appointed to draw the articles of
confederation reported them, and on the 22d. the house resolved themselves
into a committee to take them into consideration. On the 30th. & 31st. of
that month & 1st. of the ensuing, those articles were debated which
determined the proportion or quota of money which each state should furnish
to the common treasury, and the manner of voting in Congress. The first of
these articles was expressed in the original draught in these words. “Art.
XI. All charges of war & all other expenses that shall be incurred for the
common defence, or general welfare, and allowed by the United States
assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be
supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants
of every age, sex & quality, except Indians not paying taxes, in each
colony, a true account of which, distinguishing the white inhabitants,
shall be triennially taken & transmitted to the Assembly of the United
States.”
Mr. [Samuel] Chase moved that the quotas should be fixed, not by the number
of inhabitants of every condition, but by that of the “white inhabitants.”
He admitted that taxation should be alwais in proportion to property, that
this was in theory the true rule, but that from a variety of difficulties,
it was a rule which could never be adopted in practice. The value of the
property in every State could never be estimated justly & equally. Some
other measure for the wealth of the State must therefore be devised, some
standard referred to which would be more simple. He considered the number
of inhabitants as a tolerably good criterion of property, and that this
might alwais be obtained. He therefore thought it the best mode which we
could adopt, with one exception only. He observed that negroes are
property, and as such cannot be distinguished from the lands or
personalities held in those States where there are few slaves, that the
surplus of profit which a Northern farmer is able to lay by, he invests in
cattle, horses, &c. whereas a Southern farmer lays out that same surplus in
slaves. There is no more reason therefore for taxing the Southern states on
the farmer’s head, & on his slave’s head, than the Northern ones on their
farmer’s heads & the heads of their cattle, that the method proposed would
therefore tax the Southern states according to their numbers & their wealth
conjunctly, while the Northern would be taxed on numbers only: that negroes
in fact should not be considered as members of the state more than cattle &
that they have no more interest in it.
Mr. John Adams observed that the numbers of people were taken by this
article as an index of the wealth of the state, & not as subjects of
taxation, that as to this matter it was of no consequence by what name you
called your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves. That in some
countries the labouring poor were called freemen, in others they were
called slaves; but that the difference as to the state was imaginary only.
What matters it whether a landlord employing ten labourers in his farm,
gives them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of life,
or gives them those necessaries at short hand. The ten labourers add as
much wealth annually to the state, increase it’s exports as much in the one
case as the other. Certainly 500 freemen produce no more profits, no
greater surplus for the paiment of taxes than 500 slaves. Therefore the
state in which are the labourers called freemen should be taxed no more
than that in which are those called slaves. Suppose by any extraordinary
operation of nature or of law one half the labourers of a state could in
the course of one night be transformed into slaves: would the state be made
the poorer or the less able to pay taxes? That the condition of the
laboring poor in most countries, that of the fishermen particularly of the
Northern states, is as abject as that of slaves. It is the number of
labourers which produce the surplus for taxation, and numbers therefore
indiscriminately, are the fair index of wealth. That it is the use of the
word “property” here, & it’s application to some of the people of the
state, which produces the fallacy. How does the Southern farmer procure
slaves? Either by importation or by purchase from his neighbor. If he
imports a slave, he adds one to the number of labourers in his country, and
proportionably to it’s profits & abilities to pay taxes. If he buys from
his neighbor it is only a transfer of a labourer from one farm to another,
which does not change the annual produce of the state, & therefore should
not change it’s tax. That if a Northern farmer works ten labourers on his
farm, he can, it is true, invest the surplus of ten men’s labour in cattle:
but so may the Southern farmer working ten slaves. That a state of one
hundred thousand freemen can maintain no more cattle than one of one
hundred thousand slaves. Therefore they have no more of that kind of
property. That a slave may indeed from the custom of speech be more
properly called the wealth of his master, than the free labourer might be
called the wealth of his employer: but as to the state, both were equally
it’s wealth, and should therefore equally add to the quota of it’s tax.
Mr. [Benjamin] Harrison proposed as a compromise, that two slaves should be
counted as one freeman. He affirmed that slaves did not do so much work as
freemen, and doubted if two effected more than one. That this was proved by
the price of labor. The hire of a labourer in the Southern colonies being
from 8 to pound 12. while in the Northern it was generally pound 24.
Mr. [James] Wilson said that if this amendment should take place the
Southern colonies would have all the benefit of slaves, whilst the Northern
ones would bear the burthen. That slaves increase the profits of a state,
which the Southern states mean to take to themselves; that they also
increase the burthen of defence, which would of course fall so much the
heavier on the Northern. That slaves occupy the places of freemen and eat
their food. Dismiss your slaves & freemen will take their places. It is our
duty to lay every discouragement on the importation of slaves; but this
amendment would give the jus trium liberorum to him who would import
slaves. That other kinds of property were pretty equally distributed thro’
all the colonies: there were as many cattle, horses, & sheep, in the North
as the South, & South as the North; but not so as to slaves. That
experience has shown that those colonies have been alwais able to pay most
which have the most inhabitants, whether they be black or white, and the
practice of the Southern colonies has alwais been to make every farmer pay
poll taxes upon all his labourers whether they be black or white. He
acknowledges indeed that freemen work the most; but they consume the most
also. They do not produce a greater surplus for taxation. The slave is
neither fed nor clothed so expensively as a freeman. Again white women are
exempted from labor generally, but negro women are not. In this then the
Southern states have an advantage as the article now stands. It has
sometimes been said that slavery is necessary because the commodities they
raise would be too dear for market if cultivated by freemen; but now it is
said that the labor of the slave is the dearest.
Mr. Payne urged the original resolution of Congress, to proportion the
quotas of the states to the number of souls.
Dr. [John] Witherspoon was of opinion that the value of lands & houses was
the best estimate of the wealth of a nation, and that it was practicable to
obtain such a valuation. This is the true barometer of wealth. The one now
proposed is imperfect in itself, and unequal between the States. It has
been objected that negroes eat the food of freemen & therefore should be
taxed. Horses also eat the food of freemen; therefore they also should be
taxed. It has been said too that in carrying slaves into the estimate of
the taxes the state is to pay, we do no more than those states themselves
do, who alwais take slaves into the estimate of the taxes the individual is
to pay. But the cases are not parallel. In the Southern colonies slaves
pervade the whole colony; but they do not pervade the whole continent. That
as to the original resolution of Congress to proportion the quotas
according to the souls, it was temporary only, & related to the monies
heretofore emitted: whereas we are now entering into a new compact, and
therefore stand on original ground.
Aug 1. The question being put the amendment proposed was rejected by the
votes of N. Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode island, Connecticut, N. York,
N. Jersey, & Pennsylvania, against those of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
North & South Carolina. Georgia was divided.
The other article was in these words. “Art. XVII. In determining questions
each colony shall have one vote.”
July 30. 31. Aug 1. Present 41. members. Mr. Chase observed that this
article was the most likely to divide us of any one proposed in the draught
then under consideration. That the larger colonies had threatened they
would not confederate at all if their weight in congress should not be
equal to the numbers of people they added to the confederacy; while the
smaller ones declared against a union if they did not retain an equal vote
for the protection of their rights. That it was of the utmost consequence
to bring the parties together, as should we sever from each other, either
no foreign power will ally with us at all, or the different states will
form different alliances, and thus increase the horrors of those scenes of
civil war and bloodshed which in such a state of separation & independance
would render us a miserable people. That our importance, our interests, our
peace required that we should confederate, and that mutual sacrifices
should be made to effect a compromise of this difficult question. He was of
opinion the smaller colonies would lose their rights, if they were not in
some instances allowed an equal vote; and therefore that a discrimination
should take place among the questions which would come before Congress.
That the smaller states should be secured in all questions concerning life
or liberty & the greater ones in all respecting property. He therefore
proposed that in votes relating to money, the voice of each colony should
be proportioned to the number of its inhabitants.
Dr. Franklin thought that the votes should be so proportioned in all cases.
He took notice that the Delaware counties had bound up their Delegates to
disagree to this article. He thought it a very extraordinary language to be
held by any state, that they would not confederate with us unless we would
let them dispose of our money. Certainly if we vote equally we ought to pay
equally; but the smaller states will hardly purchase the privilege at this
price. That had he lived in a state where the representation, originally
equal, had become unequal by time & accident he might have submitted rather
than disturb government; but that we should be very wrong to set out in
this practice when it is in our power to establish what is right. That at
the time of the Union between England and Scotland the latter had made the
objection which the smaller states now do. But experience had proved that
no unfairness had ever been shown them. That their advocates had
prognosticated that it would again happen as in times of old, that the
whale would swallow Jonas, but he thought the prediction reversed in event
and that Jonas had swallowed the whale, for the Scotch had in fact got
possession of the government and gave laws to the English. He reprobated
the original agreement of Congress to vote by colonies and therefore was
for their voting in all cases according to the number of taxables.
Dr. Witherspoon opposed every alteration of the article. All men admit that
a confederacy is necessary. Should the idea get abroad that there is likely
to be no union among us, it will damp the minds of the people, diminish the
glory of our struggle, & lessen it’s importance; because it will open to
our view future prospects of war & dissension among ourselves. If an equal
vote be refused, the smaller states will become vassals to the larger; &
all experience has shown that the vassals & subjects of free states are the
most enslaved. He instanced the Helots of Sparta & the provinces of Rome.
He observed that foreign powers discovering this blemish would make it a
handle for disengaging the smaller states from so unequal a confederacy.
That the colonies should in fact be considered as individuals; and that as
such, in all disputes they should have an equal vote; that they are now
collected as individuals making a bargain with each other, & of course had
a right to vote as individuals. That in the East India company they voted
by persons, & not by their proportion of stock. That the Belgic confederacy
voted by provinces. That in questions of war the smaller states were as
much interested as the larger, & therefore should vote equally; and indeed
that the larger states were more likely to bring war on the confederacy in
proportion as their frontier was more extensive. He admitted that equality
of representation was an excellent principle, but then it must be of things
which are coordinate; that is, of things similar & of the same nature: that
nothing relating to individuals could ever come before Congress; nothing
but what would respect colonies. He distinguished between an incorporating
& a federal union. The union of England was an incorporating one; yet
Scotland had suffered by that union: for that it’s inhabitants were drawn
from it by the hopes of places & employments. Nor was it an instance of
equality of representation; because while Scotland was allowed nearly a
thirteenth of representation they were to pay only one fortieth of the land
tax. He expressed his hopes that in the present enlightened state of men’s
minds we might expect a lasting confederacy, if it was founded on fair
principles.
John Adams advocated the voting in proportion to numbers. He said that we
stand here as the representatives of the people. That in some states the
people are many, in others they are few; that therefore their vote here
should be proportioned to the numbers from whom it comes. Reason, justice,
& equity never had weight enough on the face of the earth to govern the
councils of men. It is interest alone which does it, and it is interest
alone which can be trusted. That therefore the interests within doors
should be the mathematical representatives of the interests without doors.
That the individuality of the colonies is a mere sound. Does the
individuality of a colony increase it’s wealth or numbers. If it does, pay
equally. If it does not add weight in the scale of the confederacy, it
cannot add to their rights, nor weigh in argument. A. has pound 50. B.
pound 500. C. pound 1000. in partnership. Is it just they should equally
dispose of the monies of the partnership? It has been said we are
independent individuals making a bargain together. The question is not what
we are now, but what we ought to be when our bargain shall be made. The
confederacy is to make us one individual only; it is to form us, like
separate parcels of metal, into one common mass. We shall no longer retain
our separate individuality, but become a single individual as to all
questions submitted to the confederacy. Therefore all those reasons which
prove the justice & expediency of equal representation in other assemblies,
hold good here. It has been objected that a proportional vote will endanger
the smaller states. We answer that an equal vote will endanger the larger.
Virginia, Pennsylvania, & Massachusetts are the three greater colonies.
Consider their distance, their difference of produce, of interests & of
manners, & it is apparent they can never have an interest or inclination to
combine for the oppression of the smaller. That the smaller will naturally
divide on all questions with the larger. Rhode isld, from it’s relation,
similarity & intercourse will generally pursue the same objects with
Massachusetts; Jersey, Delaware & Maryland, with Pennsylvania.
Dr. [Benjamin] Rush took notice that the decay of the liberties of the
Dutch republic proceeded from three causes. 1. The perfect unanimity
requisite on all occasions. 2. Their obligation to consult their
constituents. 3. Their voting by provinces. This last destroyed the
equality of representation, and the liberties of great Britain also are
sinking from the same defect. That a part of our rights is deposited in the
hands of our legislatures. There it was admitted there should be an
equality of representation. Another part of our rights is deposited in the
hands of Congress: why is it not equally necessary there should be an equal
representation there? Were it possible to collect the whole body of the
people together, they would determine the questions submitted to them by
their majority. Why should not the same majority decide when voting here by
their representatives? The larger colonies are so providentially divided in
situation as to render every fear of their combining visionary. Their
interests are different, & their circumstances dissimilar. It is more
probable they will become rivals & leave it in the power of the smaller
states to give preponderance to any scale they please. The voting by the
number of free inhabitants will have one excellent effect, that of inducing
the colonies to discourage slavery & to encourage the increase of their
free inhabitants.
Mr. [Stephen] Hopkins observed there were 4 larger, 4 smaller, & 4
middle-sized colonies. That the 4 largest would contain more than half the
inhabitants of the confederated states, & therefore would govern the others
as they should please. That history affords no instance of such a thing as
equal representation. The Germanic body votes by states. The Helvetic body
does the same; & so does the Belgic confederacy. That too little is known
of the ancient confederations to say what was their practice.
Mr. Wilson thought that taxation should be in proportion to wealth, but
that representation should accord with the number of freemen. That
government is a collection or result of the wills of all. That if any
government could speak the will of all, it would be perfect; and that so
far as it departs from this it becomes imperfect. It has been said that
Congress is a representation of states; not of individuals. I say that the
objects of its care are all the individuals of the states. It is strange
that annexing the name of “State” to ten thousand men, should give them an
equal right with forty thousand. This must be the effect of magic, not of
reason. As to those matters which are referred to Congress, we are not so
many states, we are one large state. We lay aside our individuality,
whenever we come here. The Germanic body is a burlesque on government; and
their practice on any point is a sufficient authority & proof that it is
wrong. The greatest imperfection in the constitution of the Belgic
confederacy is their voting by provinces. The interest of the whole is
constantly sacrificed to that of the small states. The history of the war
in the reign of Q. Anne sufficiently proves this. It is asked shall nine
colonies put it into the power of four to govern them as they please? I
invert the question, and ask shall two millions of people put it in the
power of one million to govern them as they please? It is pretended too
that the smaller colonies will be in danger from the greater. Speak in
honest language & say the minority will be in danger from the majority. And
is there an assembly on earth where this danger may not be equally
pretended? The truth is that our proceedings will then be consentaneous
with the interests of the majority, and so they ought to be. The
probability is much greater that the larger states will disagree than that
they will combine. I defy the wit of man to invent a possible case or to
suggest any one thing on earth which shall be for the interests of
Virginia, Pennsylvania & Massachusetts, and which will not also be for the
interest of the other states.
* * *
These articles reported July 12. 76 were debated from day to day, & time to
time for two years, were ratified July 9, ’78, by 10 states, by N. Jersey
on the 26th. of Nov. of the same year, and by Delaware on the 23d. of Feb.
following. Maryland alone held off 2 years more, acceding to them Mar 1,
81. and thus closing the obligation.
Our delegation had been renewed for the ensuing year commencing Aug. 11.
but the new government was now organized, a meeting of the legislature was
to be held in Oct. and I had been elected a member by my county. I knew
that our legislation under the regal government had many very vicious
points which urgently required reformation, and I thought I could be of
more use in forwarding that work. I therefore retired from my seat in
Congress on the 2d. of Sep. resigned it, and took my place in the
legislature of my state, on the 7th. of October.
On the 11th. I moved for leave to bring in a bill for the establishmt of
courts of justice, the organization of which was of importance; I drew the
bill it was approved by the commee, reported and passed after going thro’
it’s due course.
On the 12th. I obtained leave to bring in a bill declaring tenants in tail
to hold their lands in fee simple. In the earlier times of the colony when
lands were to be obtained for little or nothing, some provident individuals
procured large grants, and, desirous of founding great families for
themselves, settled them on their descendants in fee-tail. The transmission
of this property from generation to generation in the same name raised up a
distinct set of families who, being privileged by law in the perpetuation
of their wealth were thus formed into a Patrician order, distinguished by
the splendor and luxury of their establishments. From this order too the
king habitually selected his Counsellors of State, the hope of which
distinction devoted the whole corps to the interests & will of the crown.
To annul this privilege, and instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more
harm and danger, than benefit, to society, to make an opening for the
aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the
direction of the interests of society, & scattered with equal hand through
all it’s conditions, was deemed essential to a well ordered republic. To
effect it no violence was necessary, no deprivation of natural right, but
rather an enlargement of it by a repeal of the law. For this would
authorize the present holder to divide the property among his children
equally, as his affections were divided; and would place them, by natural
generation on the level of their fellow citizens. But this repeal was
strongly opposed by Mr. Pendleton, who was zealously attached to ancient
establishments; and who, taken all in all, was the ablest man in debate I
have ever met with. He had not indeed the poetical fancy of Mr. Henry, his
sublime imagination, his lofty and overwhelming diction; but he was cool,
smooth and persuasive; his language flowing, chaste & embellished, his
conceptions quick, acute and full of resource; never vanquished; for if he
lost the main battle, he returned upon you, and regained so much of it as
to make it a drawn one, by dexterous man;oeuvres, skirmishes in detail, and
the recovery of small advantages which, little singly, were important
altogether. You never knew when you were clear of him, but were harassed by
his perseverance until the patience was worn down of all who had less of it
than himself. Add to this that he was one of the most virtuous & benevolent
of men, the kindest friend, the most amiable & pleasant of companions,
which ensured a favorable reception to whatever came from him. Finding that
the general principle of entails could not be maintained, he took his stand
on an amendment which he proposed, instead of an absolute abolition, to
permit the tenant in tail to convey in fee simple, if he chose it: and he
was within a few votes of saving so much of the old law. But the bill
passed finally for entire abolition.
In that one of the bills for organizing our judiciary system which proposed
a court of chancery, I had provided for a trial by jury of all matters of
fact in that as well as in the courts of law. He defeated it by the
introduction of 4. words only, “if either party chuse.” The consequence has
been that as no suitor will say to his judge, “Sir, I distrust you, give me
a jury” juries are rarely, I might say perhaps never seen in that court,
but when called for by the Chancellor of his own accord.
The first establishment in Virginia which became permanent was made in
1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650.
The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the
English commenced the trade and continued it until the revolutionary war.
That suspended, ipso facto, their further importation for the present, and
the business of the war pressing constantly on the legislature, this
subject was not acted on finally until the year 78. when I brought in a
bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition,
and stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future
efforts its final eradication.
The first settlers of this colony were Englishmen, loyal subjects to their
king and church, and the grant to Sr. Walter Raleigh contained an express
Proviso that their laws “should not be against the true Christian faith,
now professed in the church of England.” As soon as the state of the colony
admitted, it was divided into parishes, in each of which was established a
minister of the Anglican church, endowed with a fixed salary, in tobacco, a
glebe house and land with the other necessary appendages. To meet these
expenses all the inhabitants of the parishes were assessed, whether they
were or not, members of the established church. Towards Quakers who came
here they were most cruelly intolerant, driving them from the colony by the
severest penalties. In process of time however, other sectarisms were
introduced, chiefly of the Presbyterian family; and the established clergy,
secure for life in their glebes and salaries, adding to these generally the
emoluments of a classical school, found employment enough, in their farms
and schoolrooms for the rest of the week, and devoted Sunday only to the
edification of their flock, by service, and a sermon at their parish
church. Their other pastoral functions were little attended to. Against
this inactivity the zeal and industry of sectarian preachers had an open
and undisputed field; and by the time of the revolution, a majority of the
inhabitants had become dissenters from the established church, but were
still obliged to pay contributions to support the Pastors of the minority.
This unrighteous compulsion to maintain teachers of what they deemed
religious errors was grievously felt during the regal government, and
without a hope of relief. But the first republican legislature which met in
76. was crowded with petitions to abolish this spiritual tyranny. These
brought on the severest contests in which I have ever been engaged. Our
great opponents were Mr. Pendleton & Robert Carter Nicholas, honest men,
but zealous churchmen. The petitions were referred to the commee of the
whole house on the state of the country; and after desperate contests in
that committee, almost daily from the 11th of Octob. to the 5th of
December, we prevailed so far only as to repeal the laws which rendered
criminal the maintenance of any religious opinions, the forbearance of
repairing to church, or the exercise of any mode of worship: and further,
to exempt dissenters from contributions to the support of the established
church; and to suspend, only until the next session levies on the members
of that church for the salaries of their own incumbents. For although the
majority of our citizens were dissenters, as has been observed, a majority
of the legislature were churchmen. Among these however were some reasonable
and liberal men, who enabled us, on some points, to obtain feeble
majorities. But our opponents carried in the general resolutions of the
commee of Nov. 19. a declaration that religious assemblies ought to be
regulated, and that provision ought to be made for continuing the
succession of the clergy, and superintending their conduct. And in the bill
now passed was inserted an express reservation of the question Whether a
general assessment should not be established by law, on every one, to the
support of the pastor of his choice; or whether all should be left to
voluntary contributions; and on this question, debated at every session
from 76 to 79 (some of our dissenting allies, having now secured their
particular object, going over to the advocates of a general assessment) we
could only obtain a suspension from session to session until 79. when the
question against a general assessment was finally carried, and the
establishment of the Anglican church entirely put down. In justice to the
two honest but zealous opponents, who have been named I must add that
altho’, from their natural temperaments, they were more disposed generally
to acquiesce in things as they are, than to risk innovations, yet whenever
the public will had once decided, none were more faithful or exact in their
obedience to it.
The seat of our government had been originally fixed in the peninsula of
Jamestown, the first settlement of the colonists; and had been afterwards
removed a few miles inland to Williamsburg. But this was at a time when our
settlements had not extended beyond the tide water. Now they had crossed
the Alleghany; and the center of population was very far removed from what
it had been. Yet Williamsburg was still the depository of our archives, the
habitual residence of the Governor & many other of the public
functionaries, the established place for the sessions of the legislature,
and the magazine of our military stores: and it’s situation was so exposed
that it might be taken at any time in war, and, at this time particularly,
an enemy might in the night run up either of the rivers between which it
lies, land a force above, and take possession of the place, without the
possibility of saving either persons or things. I had proposed it’s removal
so early as Octob. 76. but it did not prevail until the session of May.
’79.
Early in the session of May 79. I prepared, and obtained leave to bring in
a bill declaring who should be deemed citizens, asserting the natural right
of expatriation, and prescribing the mode of exercising it. This, when I
withdrew from the house on the 1st of June following, I left in the hands
of George Mason and it was passed on the 26th of that month.
In giving this account of the laws of which I was myself the mover &
draughtsman, I by no means mean to claim to myself the merit of obtaining
their passage. I had many occasional and strenuous coadjutors in debate,
and one most steadfast, able, and zealous; who was himself a host. This was
George Mason, a man of the first order of wisdom among those who acted on
the theatre of the revolution, of expansive mind, profound judgment, cogent
in argument, learned in the lore of our former constitution, and earnest
for the republican change on democratic principles. His elocution was
neither flowing nor smooth, but his language was strong, his manner most
impressive, and strengthened by a dash of biting cynicism when provocation
made it seasonable.
Mr. Wythe, while speaker in the two sessions of 1777. between his return
from Congress and his appointment to the Chancery, was an able and constant
associate in whatever was before a committee of the whole. His pure
integrity, judgment and reasoning powers gave him great weight. Of him see
more in some notes inclosed in my letter of August 31. 1821, to Mr. John
Saunderson.
Mr. Madison came into the House in 1776. a new member and young; which
circumstances, concurring with his extreme modesty, prevented his venturing
himself in debate before his removal to the Council of State in Nov. 77.
From thence he went to Congress, then consisting of few members. Trained in
these successive schools, he acquired a habit of self-possession which
placed at ready command the rich resources of his luminous and
discriminating mind, & of his extensive information, and rendered him the
first of every assembly afterwards of which he became a member. Never
wandering from his subject into vain declamation, but pursuing it closely
in language pure, classical, and copious, soothing always the feelings of
his adversaries by civilities and softness of expression, he rose to the
eminent station which he held in the great National convention of 1787. and
in that of Virginia which followed, he sustained the new constitution in
all its parts, bearing off the palm against the logic of George Mason, and
the fervid declamation of Mr. Henry. With these consummate powers were
united a pure and spotless virtue which no calumny has ever attempted to
sully. Of the powers and polish of his pen, and of the wisdom of his
administration in the highest office of the nation, I need say nothing.
They have spoken, and will forever speak for themselves.
So far we were proceeding in the details of reformation only; selecting
points of legislation prominent in character & principle, urgent, and
indicative of the strength of the general pulse of reformation. When I left
Congress, in 76. it was in the persuasion that our whole code must be
reviewed, adapted to our republican form of government, and, now that we
had no negatives of Councils, Governors & Kings to restrain us from doing
right, that it should be corrected, in all it’s parts, with a single eye to
reason, & the good of those for whose government it was framed. Early
therefore in the session of 76. to which I returned, I moved and presented
a bill for the revision of the laws; which was passed on the 24th. of
October, and on the 5th. of November Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe, George
Mason, Thomas L. Lee and myself were appointed a committee to execute the
work. We agreed to meet at Fredericksburg to settle the plan of operation
and to distribute the work. We met there accordingly, on the 13th. of
January 1777. The first question was whether we should propose to abolish
the whole existing system of laws, and prepare a new and complete
Institute, or preserve the general system, and only modify it to the
present state of things. Mr. Pendleton, contrary to his usual disposition
in favor of antient things, was for the former proposition, in which he was
joined by Mr. Lee. To this it was objected that to abrogate our whole
system would be a bold measure, and probably far beyond the views of the
legislature; that they had been in the practice of revising from time to
time the laws of the colony, omitting the expired, the repealed and the
obsolete, amending only those retained, and probably meant we should now do
the same, only including the British statutes as well as our own: that to
compose a new Institute like those of Justinian and Bracton, or that of
Blackstone, which was the model proposed by Mr. Pendleton, would be an
arduous undertaking, of vast research, of great consideration & judgment;
and when reduced to a text, every word of that text, from the imperfection
of human language, and it’s incompetence to express distinctly every shade
of idea, would become a subject of question & chicanery until settled by
repeated adjudications; that this would involve us for ages in litigation,
and render property uncertain until, like the statutes of old, every word
had been tried, and settled by numerous decisions, and by new volumes of
reports & commentaries; and that no one of us probably would undertake such
a work, which, to be systematical, must be the work of one hand. This last
was the opinion of Mr. Wythe, Mr. Mason & myself. When we proceeded to the
distribution of the work, Mr. Mason excused himself as, being no lawyer, he
felt himself unqualified for the work, and he resigned soon after. Mr. Lee
excused himself on the same ground, and died indeed in a short time. The
other two gentlemen therefore and myself divided the work among us. The
common law and statutes to the 4. James I. (when our separate legislature
was established) were assigned to me; the British statutes from that period
to the present day to Mr. Wythe, and the Virginia laws to Mr. Pendleton. As
the law of Descents, & the criminal law fell of course within my portion, I
wished the commee to settle the leading principles of these, as a guide for
me in framing them. And with respect to the first, I proposed to abolish
the law of primogeniture, and to make real estate descendible in parcenary
to the next of kin, as personal property is by the statute of distribution.
Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve the right of primogeniture, but seeing at
once that that could not prevail, he proposed we should adopt the Hebrew
principle, and give a double portion to the elder son. I observed that if
the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double work, it might be a
natural evidence of his right to a double portion; but being on a par in
his powers & wants, with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par
also in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the decision of the
other members.
On the subject of the Criminal law, all were agreed that the punishment of
death should be abolished, except for treason and murder; and that, for
other felonies should be substituted hard labor in the public works, and in
some cases, the Lex talionis. How this last revolting principle came to
obtain our approbation, I do not remember. There remained indeed in our
laws a vestige of it in a single case of a slave. It was the English law in
the time of the Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the Hebrew law of “an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” and it was the law of several antient
people. But the modern mind had left it far in the rear of it’s advances.
These points however being settled, we repaired to our respective homes for
the preparation of the work.
Feb. 6. In the execution of my part I thought it material not to vary the
diction of the antient statutes by modernizing it, nor to give rise to new
questions by new expressions. The text of these statutes had been so fully
explained and defined by numerous adjudications, as scarcely ever now to
produce a question in our courts. I thought it would be useful also, in all
new draughts, to reform the style of the later British statutes, and of our
own acts of assembly, which from their verbosity, their endless
tautologies, their involutions of case within case, and parenthesis within
parenthesis, and their multiplied efforts at certainty by saids and
aforesaids, by ors and by ands, to make them more plain, do really render
them more perplexed and incomprehensible, not only to common readers, but
to the lawyers themselves. We were employed in this work from that time to
Feb. 1779, when we met at Williamsburg, that is to say, Mr. Pendleton, Mr.
Wythe & myself, and meeting day by day, we examined critically our several
parts, sentence by sentence, scrutinizing and amending until we had agreed
on the whole. We then returned home, had fair copies made of our several
parts, which were reported to the General Assembly June 18. 1779. by Mr.
Wythe and myself, Mr. Pendleton’s residence being distant, and he having
authorized us by letter to declare his approbation. We had in this work
brought so much of the Common law as it was thought necessary to alter, all
the British statutes from Magna Charta to the present day, and all the laws
of Virginia, from the establishment of our legislature, in the 4th. Jac. 1.
to the present time, which we thought should be retained, within the
compass of 126 bills, making a printed folio of 90 pages only. Some bills
were taken out occasionally, from time to time, and passed; but the main
body of the work was not entered on by the legislature until after the
general peace, in 1785. when by the unwearied exertions of Mr. Madison, in
opposition to the endless quibbles, chicaneries, perversions, vexations and
delays of lawyers and demi-lawyers, most of the bills were passed by the
legislature, with little alteration.
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had,
to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude
of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations
in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved
that it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the
preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy
author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word
“Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus
Christ, the holy author of our religion.” The insertion was rejected by a
great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle
of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan,
the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.
Beccaria and other writers on crimes and punishments had satisfied the
reasonable world of the unrightfulness and inefficacy of the punishment of
crimes by death; and hard labor on roads, canals and other public works,
had been suggested as a proper substitute. The Revisors had adopted these
opinions; but the general idea of our country had not yet advanced to that
point. The bill therefore for proportioning crimes and punishments was lost
in the House of Delegates by a majority of a single vote. I learnt
afterwards that the substitute of hard labor in public was tried (I believe
it was in Pennsylvania) without success. Exhibited as a public spectacle,
with shaved heads and mean clothing, working on the high roads produced in
the criminals such a prostration of character, such an abandonment of
self-respect, as, instead of reforming, plunged them into the most
desperate & hardened depravity of morals and character. – Pursue the
subject of this law. – I was written to in 1785 (being then in Paris) by
Directors appointed to superintend the building of a Capitol in Richmond,
to advise them as to a plan, and to add to it one of a prison. Thinking it
a favorable opportunity of introducing into the state an example of
architecture in the classic style of antiquity, and the Maison quarree of
Nismes, an antient Roman temple, being considered as the most perfect model
existing of what may be called Cubic architecture, I applied to M.
Clerissault, who had published drawings of the Antiquities of Nismes, to
have me a model of the building made in stucco, only changing the order
from Corinthian to Ionic, on account of the difficulty of the Corinthian
capitals. I yielded with reluctance to the taste of Clerissault, in his
preference of the modern capital of Scamozzi to the more noble capital of
antiquity. This was executed by the artist whom Choiseul Gouffier had
carried with him to Constantinople, and employed while Ambassador there, in
making those beautiful models of the remains of Grecian architecture which
are to be seen at Paris. To adapt the exterior to our use, I drew a plan
for the interior, with the apartments necessary for legislative, executive
& judiciary purposes, and accommodated in their size and distribution to
the form and dimensions of the building. These were forwarded to the
Directors in 1786. and were carried into execution, with some variations
not for the better, the most important to which however admit of future
correction. With respect of the plan of a Prison, requested at the same
time, I had heard of a benevolent society in England which had been
indulged by the government in an experiment of the effect of labor in
solitary confinement on some of their criminals, which experiment had
succeeded beyond expectation. The same idea had been suggested in France,
and an Architect of Lyons had proposed a plan of a well contrived edifice
on the principle of solitary confinement. I procured a copy, and as it was
too large for our purposes, I drew one on a scale, less extensive, but
susceptible of additions as they should be wanting. This I sent to the
Directors instead of a plan of a common prison, in the hope that it would
suggest the idea of labor in solitary confinement instead of that on the
public works, which we had adopted in our Revised Code. It’s principle
accordingly, but not it’s exact form, was adopted by Latrobe in carrying
the plan into execution, by the erection of what is now called the
Penitentiary, built under his direction. In the meanwhile the public
opinion was ripening by time, by reflection, and by the example of
Pensylva, where labor on the highways had been tried without approbation
from 1786 to 89. & had been followed by their Penitentiary system on the
principle of confinement and labor, which was proceeding auspiciously. In
1796. our legislature resumed the subject and passed the law for amending
the Penal laws of the commonwealth. They adopted solitary, instead of
public labor, established a gradation in the duration of the confinement,
approximated the style of the law more to the modern usage, and instead of
the settled distinctions of murder & manslaughter, preserved in my bill,
they introduced the new terms of murder in the 1st & 2d degree. Whether
these have produced more or fewer questions of definition I am not
sufficiently informed of our judiciary transactions to say. I will here
however insert the text of my bill, with the notes I made in the course of
my researches into the subject.
Feb. 7. The acts of assembly concerning the College of Wm. & Mary, were
properly within Mr. Pendleton’s portion of our work. But these related
chiefly to it’s revenue, while it’s constitution, organization and scope of
science were derived from it’s charter. We thought, that on this subject a
systematical plan of general education should be proposed, and I was
requested to undertake it. I accordingly prepared three bills for the
Revisal, proposing three distinct grades of education, reaching all
classes. 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor.
2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common
purposes of life, and such as would be desirable for all who were in easy
circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences
generally, & in their highest degree. The first bill proposed to lay off
every county into Hundreds or Wards, of a proper size and population for a
school, in which reading, writing, and common arithmetic should be taught;
and that the whole state should be divided into 24 districts, in each of
which should be a school for classical learning, grammar, geography, and
the higher branches of numerical arithmetic. The second bill proposed to
amend the constitution of Wm. & Mary College, to enlarge it’s sphere of
science, and to make it in fact an University. The third was for the
establishment of a library. These bills were not acted on until the same
year ’96. and then only so much of the first as provided for elementary
schools. The College of Wm. & Mary was an establishment purely of the
Church of England, the Visitors were required to be all of that Church; the
Professors to subscribe it’s 39 Articles, it’s Students to learn it’s
Catechism, and one of its fundamental objects was declared to be to raise
up Ministers for that church. The religious jealousies therefore of all the
dissenters took alarm lest this might give an ascendancy to the Anglican
sect and refused acting on that bill. Its local eccentricity too and
unhealthy autumnal climate lessened the general inclination towards it. And
in the Elementary bill they inserted a provision which completely defeated
it, for they left it to the court of each county to determine for itself
when this act should be carried into execution, within their county. One
provision of the bill was that the expenses of these schools should be
borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his
general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor; and
the justices, being generally of the more wealthy class, were unwilling to
incur that burthen, and I believe it was not suffered to commence in a
single county. I shall recur again to this subject towards the close of my
story, if I should have life and resolution enough to reach that term; for
I am already tired of talking about myself.
The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the existing laws
respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future & general
emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and
attempted only by way of amendment whenever the bill should be brought on.
The principles of the amendment however were agreed on, that is to say, the
freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a proper age.
But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition,
nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it
must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly
written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is
it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same
government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction
between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of
emancipation and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree as that the
evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be pari passu filled up by
free white laborers. If on the contrary it is left to force itself on,
human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look
for an example in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. This
precedent would fall far short of our case.
I considered 4 of these bills, passed or reported, as forming a system by
which every fibre would be eradicated of antient or future aristocracy; and
a foundation laid for a government truly republican. The repeal of the laws
of entail would prevent the accumulation and perpetuation of wealth in
select families, and preserve the soil of the country from being daily more
& more absorbed in Mortmain. The abolition of primogeniture, and equal
partition of inheritances removed the feudal and unnatural distinctions
which made one member of every family rich, and all the rest poor,
substituting equal partition, the best of all Agrarian laws. The
restoration of the rights of conscience relieved the people from taxation
for the support of a religion not theirs; for the establishment was truly
of the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being entirely composed
of the less wealthy people; and these, by the bill for a general education,
would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to
exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government: and all this
would be effected without the violation of a single natural right of any
one individual citizen. To these too might be added, as a further security,
the introduction of the trial by jury, into the Chancery courts, which have
already ingulfed and continue to ingulf, so great a proportion of the
jurisdiction over our property.
On the 1st of June 1779. I was appointed Governor of the Commonwealth and
retired from the legislature. Being elected also one of the Visitors of Wm.
& Mary college, a self-electing body, I effected, during my residence in
Williamsburg that year, a change in the organization of that institution by
abolishing the Grammar school, and the two professorships of Divinity &
Oriental languages, and substituting a professorship of Law & Police, one
of Anatomy Medicine and Chemistry, and one of Modern languages; and the
charter confining us to six professorships, we added the law of Nature &
Nations, & the Fine Arts to the duties of the Moral professor, and Natural
history to those of the professor of Mathematics and Natural philosophy.
Being now, as it were, identified with the Commonwealth itself, to write my
own history during the two years of my administration, would be to write
the public history of that portion of the revolution within this state.
This has been done by others, and particularly by Mr. Girardin, who wrote
his Continuation of Burke’s history of Virginia while at Milton, in this
neighborhood, had free access to all my papers while composing it, and has
given as faithful an account as I could myself. For this portion therefore
of my own life, I refer altogether to his history. From a belief that under
the pressure of the invasion under which we were then laboring the public
would have more confidence in a Military chief, and that the Military
commander, being invested with the Civil power also, both might be wielded
with more energy promptitude and effect for the defence of the state, I
resigned the administration at the end of my 2d. year, and General Nelson
was appointed to succeed me.
Soon after my leaving Congress in Sep. ’76, to wit on the last day of that
month, I had been appointed, with Dr. Franklin, to go to France, as a
Commissioner to negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce with that
government. Silas Deane, then in France, acting as agent2 for procuring
military stores, was joined with us in commission. But such was the state
of my family that I could not leave it, nor could I expose it to the
dangers of the sea, and of capture by the British ships, then covering the
ocean. I saw too that the laboring oar was really at home, where much was
to be done of the most permanent interest in new modelling our governments,
and much to defend our fanes and fire-sides from the desolations of an
invading enemy pressing on our country in every point. I declined therefore
and Dr. Lee was appointed in my place. On the 15th. of June 1781. I had
been appointed with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens a
Minister plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then expected to be
effected thro’ the mediation of the Empress of Russia. The same reasons
obliged me still to decline; and the negotiation was in fact never entered
on. But, in the autumn of the next year 1782 Congress receiving assurances
that a general peace would be concluded in the winter and spring, they
renewed my appointment on the 13th. of Nov. of that year. I had two months
before that lost the cherished companion of my life, in whose affections,
unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten years in unchequered
happiness. With the public interests, the state of my mind concurred in
recommending the change of scene proposed; and I accepted the appointment,
and left Monticello on the 19th. of Dec. 1782. for Philadelphia, where I
arrived on the 27th. The Minister of France, Luzerne, offered me a passage
in the Romulus frigate, which I accepting. But she was then lying a few
miles below Baltimore blocked up in the ice. I remained therefore a month
in Philadelphia, looking over the papers in the office of State in order to
possess myself of the general state of our foreign relations, and then went
to Baltimore to await the liberation of the frigate from the ice. After
waiting there nearly a month, we received information that a Provisional
treaty of peace had been signed by our Commissioners on the 3d. of Sept.
1782. to become absolute on the conclusion of peace between France and
Great Britain. Considering my proceeding to Europe as now of no utility to
the public, I returned immediately to Philadelphia to take the orders of
Congress, and was excused by them from further proceeding. I therefore
returned home, where I arrived on the 15th. of May, 1783.
On the 6th. of the following month I was appointed by the legislature a
delegate to Congress, the appointment to take place on the 1st. of Nov.
ensuing, when that of the existing delegation would expire. I accordingly
left home on the 16th. of Oct. arrived at Trenton, where Congress was
sitting, on the 3d. of Nov. and took my seat on the 4th., on which day
Congress adjourned to meet at Annapolis on the 26th.
Congress had now become a very small body, and the members very remiss in
their attendance on it’s duties insomuch that a majority of the states,
necessary by the Confederation to constitute a house even for minor
business did not assemble until the 13th. of December.
They as early as Jan. 7. 1782. had turned their attention to the monies
current in the several states, and had directed the Financier, Robert
Morris, to report to them a table of rates at which the foreign coins
should be received at the treasury. That officer, or rather his assistant,
Gouverneur Morris, answered them on the 15th in an able and elaborate
statement of the denominations of money current in the several states, and
of the comparative value of the foreign coins chiefly in circulation with
us. He went into the consideration of the necessity of establishing a
standard of value with us, and of the adoption of a money-Unit. He proposed
for the Unit such a fraction of pure silver as would be a common measure of
the penny of every state, without leaving a fraction. This common divisor
he found to be 1 – 1440 of a dollar, or 1 – 1600 of the crown sterling. The
value of a dollar was therefore to be expressed by 1440 units, and of a
crown by 1600. Each Unit containing a quarter of a grain of fine silver.
Congress turning again their attention to this subject the following year,
the financier, by a letter of Apr. 30, 1783. further explained and urged
the Unit he had proposed; but nothing more was done on it until the ensuing
year, when it was again taken up, and referred to a commee of which I was a
member. The general views of the financier were sound, and the principle
was ingenious on which he proposed to found his Unit. But it was too minute
for ordinary use, too laborious for computation either by the head or in
figures. The price of a loaf of bread 1 – 20 of a dollar would be 72.
units.
A pound of butter 1 – 5 of a dollar 288. units.
A horse or bullock of 80. D value would require a notation of 6. figures,
to wit 115,200, and the public debt, suppose of 80. millions, would require
12. figures, to wit 115,200,000,000 units. Such a system of
money-arithmetic would be entirely unmanageable for the common purposes of
society. I proposed therefore, instead of this, to adopt the Dollar as our
Unit of account and payment, and that it’s divisions and sub-divisions
should be in the decimal ratio. I wrote some Notes on the subject, which I
submitted to the consideration of the financier. I received his answer and
adherence to his general system, only agreeing to take for his Unit 100. of
those he first proposed, so that a Dollar should be 14 40 – 100 and a crown
16. units. I replied to this and printed my notes and reply on a flying
sheet, which I put into the hands of the members of Congress for
consideration, and the Committee agreed to report on my principle. This was
adopted the ensuing year and is the system which now prevails. I insert
here the Notes and Reply, as shewing the different views on which the
adoption of our money system hung. The division into dimes, cents & mills
is now so well understood, that it would be easy of introduction into the
kindred branches of weights & measures. I use, when I travel, an Odometer
of Clarke’s invention which divides the mile into cents, and I find every
one comprehend a distance readily when stated to them in miles & cents; so
they would in feet and cents, pounds & cents, &c.
The remissness of Congress, and their permanent session, began to be a
subject of uneasiness and even some of the legislatures had recommended to
them intermissions, and periodical sessions. As the Confederation had made
no provision for a visible head of the government during vacations of
Congress, and such a one was necessary to superintend the executive
business, to receive and communicate with foreign ministers & nations, and
to assemble Congress on sudden and extraordinary emergencies, I proposed
early in April the appointment of a commee to be called the Committee of
the states, to consist of a member from each state, who should remain in
session during the recess of Congress: that the functions of Congress
should be divided into Executive and Legislative, the latter to be
reserved, and the former, by a general resolution to be delegated to that
Committee. This proposition was afterwards agreed to; a Committee
appointed, who entered on duty on the subsequent adjournment of Congress,
quarrelled very soon, split into two parties, abandoned their post, and
left the government without any visible head until the next meeting in
Congress. We have since seen the same thing take place in the Directory of
France; and I believe it will forever take place in any Executive
consisting of a plurality. Our plan, best I believe, combines wisdom and
practicability, by providing a plurality of Counsellors, but a single
Arbiter for ultimate decision. I was in France when we heard of this
schism, and separation of our Committee, and, speaking with Dr. Franklin of
this singular disposition of men to quarrel and divide into parties, he
gave his sentiments as usual by way of Apologue. He mentioned the Eddystone
lighthouse in the British channel as being built on a rock in the
mid-channel, totally inaccessible in winter, from the boisterous character
of that sea, in that season. That therefore, for the two keepers employed
to keep up the lights, all provisions for the winter were necessarily
carried to them in autumn, as they could never be visited again till the
return of the milder season. That on the first practicable day in the
spring a boat put off to them with fresh supplies. The boatmen met at the
door one of the keepers and accosted him with a How goes it friend? Very
well. How is your companion? I do not know. Don’t know? Is not he here? I
can’t tell. Have not you seen him to-day? No. When did you see him? Not
since last fall. You have killed him? Not I, indeed. They were about to lay
hold of him, as having certainly murdered his companion; but he desired
them to go up stairs & examine for themselves. They went up, and there
found the other keeper. They had quarrelled it seems soon after being left
there, had divided into two parties, assigned the cares below to one, and
those above to the other, and had never spoken to or seen one another
since.
But to return to our Congress at Annapolis, the definitive treaty of peace
which had been signed at Paris on the 3d. of Sep. 1783. and received here,
could not be ratified without a House of 9. states. On the 23d. of Dec.
therefore we addressed letters to the several governors, stating the
receipt of the definitive treaty, that 7 states only were in attendance,
while 9. were necessary to its ratification, and urging them to press on
their delegates the necessity of their immediate attendance. And on the
26th. to save time I moved that the Agent of Marine (Robert Morris) should
be instructed to have ready a vessel at this place, at N. York, & at some
Eastern port, to carry over the ratification of the treaty when agreed to.
It met the general sense of the house, but was opposed by Dr. Lee on the
ground of expense which it would authorize the agent to incur for us; and
he said it would be better to ratify at once & send on the ratification.
Some members had before suggested that 7 states were competent to the
ratification. My motion was therefore postponed and another brought forward
by Mr. Read of S. C. for an immediate ratification. This was debated the
26th. and 27th. Reed, Lee, [Hugh] Williamson & Jeremiah Chace urged that
ratification was a mere matter of form, that the treaty was conclusive from
the moment it was signed by the ministers; that although the Confederation
requires the assent of 9. states to enter into a treaty, yet that it’s
conclusion could not be called entrance into it; that supposing 9. states
requisite, it would be in the power of 5. states to keep us always at war;
that 9. states had virtually authorized the ratifion having ratified the
provisional treaty, and instructed their ministers to agree to a definitive
one in the same terms, and the present one was in fact substantially and
almost verbatim the same; that there now remain but 67. days for the
ratification, for it’s passage across the Atlantic, and it’s exchange; that
there was no hope of our soon having 9. states present; in fact that this
was the ultimate point of time to which we could venture to wait; that if
the ratification was not in Paris by the time stipulated, the treaty would
become void; that if ratified by 7 states, it would go under our seal
without it’s being known to Gr. Britain that only 7. had concurred; that it
was a question of which they had no right to take cognizance, and we were
only answerable for it to our constituents; that it was like the
ratification which Gr. Britain had received from the Dutch by the
negotiations of Sr. Wm. Temple.
On the contrary, it was argued by Monroe, Gerry, Howel, Ellery & myself
that by the modern usage of Europe the ratification was considered as the
act which gave validity to a treaty, until which it was not obligatory.3
That the commission to the ministers reserved the ratification to Congress;
that the treaty itself stipulated that it should be ratified; that it
became a 2d. question who were competent to the ratification? That the
Confederation expressly required 9 states to enter into any treaty; that,
by this, that instrument must have intended that the assent of 9. states
should be necessary as well to the completion as to the commencement of the
treaty, it’s object having been to guard the rights of the Union in all
those important cases where 9. states are called for; that, by the contrary
construction, 7 states, containing less than one third of our whole
citizens, might rivet on us a treaty, commenced indeed under commission and
instructions from 9. states, but formed by the minister in express
contradiction to such instructions, and in direct sacrifice of the
interests of so great a majority; that the definitive treaty was admitted
not to be a verbal copy of the provisional one, and whether the departures
from it were of substance or not, was a question on which 9. states alone
were competent to decide; that the circumstances of the ratification of the
provisional articles by 9. states, the instructions to our ministers to
form a definitive one by them, and their actual agreement in substance, do
not render us competent to ratify in the present instance; if these
circumstances are in themselves a ratification, nothing further is
requisite than to give attested copies of them, in exchange for the British
ratification; if they are not, we remain where we were, without a
ratification by 9. states, and incompetent ourselves to ratify; that it was
but 4. days since the seven states now present unanimously concurred in a
resolution to be forwarded to the governors of the absent states, in which
they stated as a cause for urging on their delegates, that 9. states were
necessary to ratify the treaty; that in the case of the Dutch ratification,
Gr. Britain had courted it, and therefore was glad to accept it as it was;
that they knew our constitution, and would object to a ratification by 7.
that if that circumstance was kept back, it would be known hereafter, &
would give them ground to deny the validity of a ratification into which
they should have been surprised and cheated, and it would be a dishonorable
prostitution of our seal; that there is a hope of 9. states; that if the
treaty would become null if not ratified in time, it would not be saved by
an imperfect ratification; but that in fact it would not be null, and would
be placed on better ground, going in unexceptionable form, tho’ a few days
too late, and rested on the small importance of this circumstance, and the
physical impossibilities which had prevented a punctual compliance in point
of time; that this would be approved by all nations, & by Great Britain
herself, if not determined to renew the war, and if determined, she would
never want excuses, were this out of the way. Mr. Reade gave notice he
should call for the yeas & nays; whereon those in opposition prepared a
resolution expressing pointedly the reasons of the dissent from his motion.
It appearing however that his proposition could not be car-ried, it was
thought better to make no entry at all. Massa-chusetts alone would have
been for it; Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Virginia against it, Delaware,
Maryland & N. Carolina, would have been divided.
Our body was little numerous, but very contentious. Day after day was
wasted on the most unimportant questions. My colleague Mercer was one of
those afflicted with the morbid rage of debate, of an ardent mind, prompt
imagination, and copious flow of words, he heard with impatience any logic
which was not his own. Sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but
wordy debate, he asked how I could sit in silence hearing so much false
reasoning which a word should refute? I observed to him that to refute
indeed was easy, but to silence impossible. That in measures brought
forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but
that in general I was willing to listen. If every sound argument or
objection was used by some one or other of the numerous debaters, it was
enough: if not, I thought it sufficient to suggest the omission, without
going into a repetition of what had been already said by others. That this
was a waste and abuse of the time and patience of the house which could not
be justified. And I believe that if the members of deliberative bodies were
to observe this course generally, they would do in a day what takes them a
week, and it is really more questionable, than may at first be thought,
whether Bonaparte’s dumb legislature which said nothing and did much, may
not be preferable to one which talks much and does nothing. I served with
General Washington in the legislature of Virginia before the revolution,
and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them
speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to
decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing
that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress
errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the
people send 150. lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield
nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150. lawyers should do business together
ought not to be expected. But to return again to our subject.
Those who thought 7. states competent to the ratification being very
restless under the loss of their motion, I proposed, on the 3d. of January
to meet them on middle ground, and therefore moved a resolution which
premising that there were but 7. states present, who were unanimous for the
ratification, but, that they differed in opinion on the question of
competency. That those however in the negative were unwilling that any
powers which it might be supposed they possessed should remain unexercised
for the restoration of peace, provided it could be done saving their good
faith, and without importing any opinion of Congress that 7. states were
competent, and resolving that treaty be ratified so far as they had power;
that it should be transmitted to our ministers with instructions to keep it
uncommunicated; to endeavor to obtain 3. months longer for exchange of
ratifications; that they should be informed that so soon as 9. states shall
be present a ratification by 9. shall be sent them; if this should get to
them before the ultimate point of time for exchange, they were to use it,
and not the other; if not, they were to offer the act of the 7. states in
exchange, informing them the treaty had come to hand while Congress was not
in session, that but 7. states were as yet assembled, and these had
unanimously concurred in the ratification. This was debated on the 3d. and
4th. and on the 5th. a vessel being to sail for England from this port
(Annapolis) the House directed the President to write to our ministers
accordingly.
Jan. 14. Delegates from Connecticut having attended yesterday, and another
from S. Carolina coming in this day, the treaty was ratified without a
dissenting voice, and three instruments of ratification were ordered to be
made out, one of which was sent by Colo. Harmer, another by Colo. Franks,
and the 3d. transmitted to the agent of Marine to be forwarded by any good
opportunity.
Congress soon took up the consideration of their foreign relations. They
deemed it necessary to get their commerce placed with every nation on a
footing as favorable as that of other nations; and for this purpose to
propose to each a distinct treaty of commerce. This act too would amount to
an acknowledgment by each of our independance and of our reception into the
fraternity of nations; which altho’, as possessing our station of right and
in fact, we would not condescend to ask, we were not unwilling to furnish
opportunities for receiving their friendly salutations & welcome. With
France the United Netherlands and Sweden we had already treaties of
commerce, but commissions were given for those countries also, should any
amendments be thought necessary. The other states to which treaties were to
be proposed were England, Hamburg, Saxony, Prussia, Denmark, Russia,
Austria, Venice, Rome, Naples, Tuscany, Sardinia, Genoa, Spain, Portugal,
the Porte, Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis & Morocco.
Mar. 16. On the 7th. of May Congress resolved that a Minister
Plenipotentiary should be appointed in addition to Mr. Adams & Dr. Franklin
for negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign nations, and I was
elected to that duty. I accordingly left Annapolis on the 11th. Took with
me my elder daughter then at Philadelphia (the two others being too young
for the voyage) & proceeded to Boston in quest of a passage. While passing
thro’ the different states, I made a point of informing myself of the state
of the commerce of each, went on to New Hampshire with the same view and
returned to Boston. From thence I sailed on the 5th. of July in the Ceres a
merchant ship of Mr. Nathaniel Tracey, bound to Cowes. He was himself a
passenger, and, after a pleasant voyage of 19. days from land to land, we
arrived at Cowes on the 26th. I was detained there a few days by the
indisposition of my daughter. On the 30th. we embarked for Havre, arrived
there on the 31st. left it on the 3d. of August, and arrived at Paris on
the 6th. I called immediately on Doctr. Franklin at Passy, communicated to
him our charge, and we wrote to Mr. Adams, then at the Hague to join us at
Paris.
Before I had left America, that is to say in the year 1781. I had received
a letter from M. de Marbois, of the French legation in Philadelphia,
informing me he had been instructed by his government to obtain such
statistical accounts of the different states of our Union, as might be
useful for their information; and addressing to me a number of queries
relative to the state of Virginia. I had always made it a practice whenever
an opportunity occurred of obtaining any information of our country, which
might be of use to me in any station public or private, to commit it to
writing. These memoranda were on loose papers, bundled up without order,
and difficult of recurrence when I had occasion for a particular one. I
thought this a good occasion to embody their substance, which I did in the
order of Mr. Marbois’ queries, so as to answer his wish and to arrange them
for my own use. Some friends to whom they were occasionally communicated
wished for copies; but their volume rendering this too laborious by hand, I
proposed to get a few printed for their gratification. I was asked such a
price however as exceeded the importance of the object. On my arrival at
Paris I found it could be done for a fourth of what I had been asked here.
I therefore corrected and enlarged them, and had 200. copies printed, under
the title of Notes on Virginia. I gave a very few copies to some particular
persons in Europe, and sent the rest to my friends in America. An European
copy, by the death of the owner, got into the hands of a bookseller, who
engaged it’s translation, & when ready for the press, communicated his
intentions & manuscript to me, without any other permission than that of
suggesting corrections. I never had seen so wretched an attempt at
translation. Interverted, abridged, mutilated, and often reversing the
sense of the original, I found it a blotch of errors from beginning to end.
I corrected some of the most material, and in that form it was printed in
French. A London bookseller, on seeing the translation, requested me to
permit him to print the English original. I thought it best to do so to let
the world see that it was not really so bad as the French translation had
made it appear. And this is the true history of that publication.
Mr. Adams soon joined us at Paris, & our first employment was to prepare a
general form to be proposed to such nations as were disposed to treat with
us. During the negotiations for peace with the British Commissioner David
Hartley, our Commissioners had proposed, on the suggestion of Doctr.
Franklin, to insert an article exempting from capture by the public or
private armed ships of either belligerent, when at war, all merchant
vessels and their cargoes, employed merely in carrying on the commerce
between nations. It was refused by England, and unwisely, in my opinion.
For in the case of a war with us, their superior commerce places infinitely
more at hazard on the ocean than ours; and as hawks abound in proportion to
game, so our privateers would swarm in proportion to the wealth exposed to
their prize, while theirs would be few for want of subjects of capture. We
inserted this article in our form, with a provision against the molestation
of fishermen, husbandmen, citizens unarmed and following their occupations
in unfortified places, for the humane treatment of prisoners of war, the
abolition of contraband of war, which exposes merchant vessels to such
vexatious & ruinous detentions and abuses; and for the principle of free
bottoms, free goods.
In a conference with the Count de Vergennes, it was thought better to leave
to legislative regulation on both sides such modifications of our
commercial intercourse as would voluntarily flow from amicable
dispositions. Without urging, we sounded the ministers of the several
European nations at the court of Versailles, on their dispositions towards
mutual commerce, and the expediency of encouraging it by the protection of
a treaty. Old Frederic of Prussia met us cordially and without hesitation,
and appointing the Baron de Thulemeyer, his minister at the Hague, to
negotiate with us, we communicated to him our Project, which with little
alteration by the King, was soon concluded. Denmark and Tuscany entered
also into negotiations with us. Other powers appearing indifferent we did
not think it proper to press them. They seemed in fact to know little about
us, but as rebels who had been successful in throwing off the yoke of the
mother country. They were ignorant of our commerce, which had been always
monopolized by England, and of the exchange of articles it might offer
advantageously to both parties. They were inclined therefore to stand aloof
until they could see better what relations might be usefully instituted
with us. The negotiations therefore begun with Denmark & Tuscany we
protracted designedly until our powers had expired; and abstained from
making new propositions to others having no colonies; because our commerce
being an exchange of raw for wrought materials, is a competent price for
admission into the colonies of those possessing them: but were we to give
it, without price, to others, all would claim it without price on the
ordinary ground of gentis amicissimae.
Mr. Adams being appointed Min. Pleny. of the U S. to London, left us in
June, and in July 1785. Dr. Franklin returned to America, and I was
appointed his successor at Paris. In Feb. 1786. Mr. Adams wrote to me
pressingly to join him in London immediately, as he thought he discovered
there some symptoms of better disposition towards us. Colo. Smith, his
Secretary of legation, was the bearer of his urgencies for my immediate
attendance. I accordingly left Paris on the 1st. of March, and on my
arrival in London we agreed on a very summary form of treaty, proposing an
exchange of citizenship for our citizens, our ships, and our productions
generally, except as to office. On my presentation as usual to the King and
Queen at their levees, it was impossible for anything to be more ungracious
than their notice of Mr. Adams & myself. I saw at once that the ulcerations
in the narrow mind of that mulish being left nothing to be expected on the
subject of my attendance; and on the first conference with the Marquis of
Caermarthen, his Minister of foreign affairs, the distance and
disinclination which he betrayed in his conversation, the vagueness &
evasions of his answers to us, confirmed me in the belief of their aversion
to have anything to do with us. We delivered him however our Projet, Mr.
Adams not despairing as much as I did of it’s effect. We afterwards, by one
or more notes, requested his appointment of an interview and conference,
which, without directly declining, he evaded by pretences of other pressing
occupations for the moment. After staying there seven weeks, till within a
few days of the expiration of our commission, I informed the minister by
note that my duties at Paris required my return to that place, and that I
should with pleasure be the bearer of any commands to his Ambassador there.
He answered that he had none, and wishing me a pleasant journey, I left
London the 26th. arrived at Paris on the 30th. of April.
While in London we entered into negotiations with the Chevalier Pinto,
Ambassador of Portugal at that place. The only article of difficulty
between us was a stipulation that our bread stuff should be received in
Portugal in the form of flour as well as of grain. He approved of it
himself, but observed that several Nobles, of great influence at their
court, were the owners of wind mills in the neighborhood of Lisbon which
depended much for their profits on manufacturing our wheat, and that this
stipulation would endanger the whole treaty. He signed it however, & it’s
fate was what he had candidly portended.
My duties at Paris were confined to a few objects; the receipt of our
whale-oils, salted fish, and salted meats on favorable terms, the admission
of our rice on equal terms with that of Piedmont, Egypt & the Levant, a
mitigation of the monopolies of our tobacco by the Farmers-general, and a
free admission of our productions into their islands; were the principal
commercial objects which required attention; and on these occasions I was
powerfully aided by all the influence and the energies of the Marquis de La
Fayette, who proved himself equally zealous for the friendship and welfare
of both nations; and in justice I must also say that I found the government
entirely disposed to befriend us on all occasions, and to yield us every
indulgence not absolutely injurious to themselves. The Count de Vergennes
had the reputation with the diplomatic corps of being wary & slippery in
his diplomatic intercourse; and so he might be with those whom he knew to
be slippery and double-faced themselves. As he saw that I had no indirect
views, practised no subtleties, meddled in no intrigues, pursued no
concealed object, I found him as frank, as honorable, as easy of access to
reason as any man with whom I had ever done business; and I must say the
same for his successor Montmorin, one of the most honest and worthy of
human beings.
Our commerce in the Mediterranean was placed under early alarm by the
capture of two of our vessels and crews by the Barbary cruisers. I was very
unwilling that we should acquiesce in the European humiliation of paying a
tribute to those lawless pirates, and endeavored to form an association of
the powers subject to habitual depredations from them. I accordingly
prepared and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with
their governments, articles of a special confederation in the following
form.
* * *
“Proposals for concerted operation among the powers at war with the
Piratical States of Barbary.
1. It is proposed that the several powers at war with the
Piratical States of Barbary, or any two or more of them who shall
be willing, shall enter into a convention to carry on their
operations against those states, in concert, beginning with the
Algerines.
2. This convention shall remain open to any other power who shall
at any future time wish to accede to it; the parties reserving a
right to prescribe the conditions of such accession, according to
the circumstances existing at the time it shall be proposed.
3. The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical
states to perpetual peace, without price, & to guarantee that
peace to each other.
4. The operations for obtaining this peace shall be constant
cruises on their coast with a naval force now to be agreed on. It
is not proposed that this force shall be so considerable as to be
inconvenient to any party. It is believed that half a dozen
frigates, with as many Tenders or Xebecs, one half of which shall
be in cruise, while the other half is at rest, will suffice.
5. The force agreed to be necessary shall be furnished by the
parties in certain quotas now to be fixed; it being expected that
each will be willing to contribute in such proportion as
circumstance may render reasonable.
6. As miscarriages often proceed from the want of harmony among
officers of different nations, the parties shall now consider &
decide whether it will not be better to contribute their quotas
in money to be employed in fitting out, and keeping on duty, a
single fleet of the force agreed on.
7. The difficulties and delays too which will attend the
management of these operations, if conducted by the parties
themselves separately, distant as their courts may be from one
another, and incapable of meeting in consultation, suggest a
question whether it will not be better for them to give full
powers for that purpose to their Ambassadors or other ministers
resident at some one court of Europe, who shall form a Committee
or Council for carrying this convention into effect; wherein the
vote of each member shall be computed in proportion to the quota
of his sovereign, and the majority so computed shall prevail in
all questions within the view of this convention. The court of
Versailles is proposed, on account of it’s neighborhood to the
Mediterranean, and because all those powers are represented
there, who are likely to become parties to this convention.
8. To save to that council the embarrassment of personal
solicitations for office, and to assure the parties that their
contributions will be applied solely to the object for which they
are destined, there shall be no establishment of officers for the
said Council, such as Commis, Secretaries, or any other kind,
with either salaries or perquisites, nor any other lucrative
appointments but such whose functions are to be exercised on
board the sd vessels.
9. Should war arise between any two of the parties to this
convention it shall not extend to this enterprise, nor interrupt
it; but as to this they shall be reputed at peace.
10. When Algiers shall be reduced to peace, the other pyratical
states, if they refuse to discontinue their pyracies shall become
the objects of this convention, either successively or together
as shall seem best.
11. Where this convention would interfere with treaties actually
existing between any of the parties and the sd states of Barbary,
the treaty shall prevail, and such party shall be allowed to
withdraw from the operations against that state.”
* * *
Spain had just concluded a treaty with Algiers at the expense of 3.
millions of dollars, and did not like to relinquish the benefit of that
until the other party should fail in their observance of it. Portugal,
Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark and Sweden were favorably
disposed to such an association; but their representatives at Paris
expressed apprehensions that France would interfere, and, either openly or
secretly support the Barbary powers; and they required that I should
ascertain the dispositions of the Count de Vergennes on the subject. I had
before taken occasion to inform him of what we were proposing, and
therefore did not think it proper to insinuate any doubt of the fair
conduct of his government; but stating our propositions, I mentioned the
apprehensions entertained by us that England would interfere in behalf of
those piratical governments. “She dares not do it,” said he. I pressed it
no further. The other agents were satisfied with this indication of his
sentiments, and nothing was now wanting to bring it into direct and formal
consideration, but the assent of our government, and their authority to
make the formal proposition. I communicated to them the favorable prospect
of protecting our commerce from the Barbary depredations, and for such a
continuance of time as, by an exclusion of them from the sea, to change
their habits & characters from a predatory to an agricultural people:
towards which however it was expected they would contribute a frigate, and
it’s expenses to be in constant cruise. But they were in no condition to
make any such engagement. Their recommendatory powers for obtaining
contributions were so openly neglected by the several states that they
declined an engagement which they were conscious they could not fulfill
with punctuality; and so it fell through.
May 17. In 1786. while at Paris I became acquainted with John Ledyard of
Connecticut, a man of genius, of some science, and of fearless courage, &
enterprise. He had accompanied Capt Cook in his voyage to the Pacific, had
distinguished himself on several occasions by an unrivalled intrepidity,
and published an account of that voyage with details unfavorable to Cook’s
deportment towards the savages, and lessening our regrets at his fate.
Ledyard had come to Paris in the hope of forming a company to engage in the
fur trade of the Western coast of America. He was disappointed in this, and
being out of business, and of a roaming, restless character, I suggested to
him the enterprise of exploring the Western part of our continent, by
passing thro St. Petersburg to Kamschatka, and procuring a passage thence
in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sound, whence he might make his
way across the continent to America; and I undertook to have the permission
of the Empress of Russia solicited. He eagerly embraced the proposition,
and M. de Semoulin, the Russian Ambassador, and more particularly Baron
Grimm the special correspondent of the Empress, solicited her permission
for him to pass thro’ her dominions to the Western coast of America. And
here I must correct a material error which I have committed in another
place to the prejudice of the Empress. In writing some Notes of the life of
Capt Lewis, prefixed to his expedition to the Pacific, I stated that the
Empress gave the permission asked, & afterwards retracted it. This idea,
after a lapse of 26 years, had so insinuated itself into my mind, that I
committed it to paper without the least suspicion of error. Yet I find, on
recurring to my letters of that date that the Empress refused permission at
once, considering the enterprise as entirely chimerical. But Ledyard would
not relinquish it, persuading himself that by proceeding to St. Petersburg
he could satisfy the Empress of it’s practicability and obtain her
permission. He went accordingly, but she was absent on a visit to some
distant part of her dominions,4 and he pursued his course to within 200.
miles of Kamschatka, where he was overtaken by an arrest from the Empress,
brought back to Poland, and there dismissed. I must therefore in justice,
acquit the Empress of ever having for a moment countenanced, even by the
indulgence of an innocent passage thro’ her territories this interesting
enterprise.
May 18. The pecuniary distresses of France produced this year a measure of
which there had been no example for near two centuries, & the consequences
of which, good and evil, are not yet calculable. For it’s remote causes we
must go a little back.
Celebrated writers of France and England had already sketched good
principles on the subject of government. Yet the American Revolution seems
first to have awakened the thinking part of the French nation in general
from the sleep of despotism in which they were sunk. The officers too who
had been to America, were mostly young men, less shackled by habit and
prejudice, and more ready to assent to the suggestions of common sense, and
feeling of common rights. They came back with new ideas & impressions. The
press, notwithstanding it’s shackles, began to disseminate them.
Conversation assumed new freedoms. Politics became the theme of all
societies, male and female, and a very extensive & zealous party was formed
which acquired the appellation of the Patriotic party, who, sensible of the
abusive government under which they lived, sighed for occasions of
reforming it. This party comprehended all the honesty of the kingdom
sufficiently at it’s leisure to think, the men of letters, the easy
Bourgeois, the young nobility partly from reflection, partly from mode, for
these sentiments became matter of mode, and as such united most of the
young women to the party. Happily for the nation, it happened at the same
moment that the dissipations of the Queen and court, the abuses of the
pension-list, and dilapidations in the administration of every branch of
the finances, had exhausted the treasures and credit of the nation,
insomuch that it’s most necessary functions were paralyzed. To reform these
abuses would have overset the minister; to impose new taxes by the
authority of the King was known to be impossible from the determined
opposition of the parliament to their enregistry. No resource remained then
but to appeal to the nation. He advised therefore the call of an assembly
of the most distinguished characters of the nation, in the hope that by
promises of various and valuable improvements in the organization and
regimen of the government, they would be induced to authorize new taxes, to
controul the opposition of the parliament, and to raise the annual revenue
to the level of expenditures. An Assembly of Notables therefore, about 150.
in number named by the King, convened on the 22d. of Feb. The Minister
(Calonne) stated to them that the annual excess of expenses beyond the
revenue, when Louis XVI. came to the throne, was 37. millions of livres;
that 440. millns. had been borrowed to reestablish the navy; that the
American war had cost them 1440. millns. (256. mils. of Dollars) and that
the interest of these sums, with other increased expenses had added 40
millns. more to the annual deficit. (But a subseqt. and more candid
estimate made it 56. millns.) He proffered them an universal redress of
grievances, laid open those grievances fully, pointed out sound remedies,
and covering his canvas with objects of this magnitude, the deficit
dwindled to a little accessory, scarcely attracting attention. The persons
chosen were the most able & independent characters in the kingdom, and
their support, if it could be obtained, would be enough for him. They
improved the occasion for redressing their grievances, and agreed that the
public wants should be relieved; but went into an examination of the causes
of them. It was supposed that Calonne was conscious that his accounts could
not bear examination; and it was said and believed that he asked of the
King to send 4. members to the Bastile, of whom the M. de la Fayette was
one, to banish 20. others, & 2. of his Ministers. The King found it shorter
to banish him. His successor went on in full concert with the Assembly. The
result was an augmentation of the revenue, a promise of economies in it’s
expenditure, of an annual settlement of the public accounts before a
council, which the Comptroller, having been heretofore obliged to settle
only with the King in person, of course never settled at all; an
acknowledgment that the King could not lay a new tax, a reformation of the
criminal laws, abolition of torture, suppression of Corvees, reformation of
the gabelles, removal of the interior custom houses, free commerce of grain
internal & external, and the establishment of Provincial assemblies; which
alltogether constituted a great mass of improvement in the condition of the
nation. The establishment of the Provincial assemblies was in itself a
fundamental improvement. They would be of the choice of the people, one
third renewed every year, in those provinces where there are no States,
that is to say over about three fourths of the kingdom. They would be
partly an Executive themselves, & partly an Executive council to the
Intendant, to whom the Executive power, in his province had been heretofore
entirely delegated. Chosen by the people, they would soften the execution
of hard laws, & having a right of representation to the King, they would
censure bad laws, suggest good ones, expose abuses, and their
representations, when united, would command respect. To the other
advantages might be added the precedent itself of calling the Assemblee des
Notables, which would perhaps grow into habit. The hope was that the
improvements thus promised would be carried into effect, that they would be
maintained during the present reign, & that that would be long enough for
them to take some root in the constitution, so that they might come to be
considered as a part of that, and be protected by time, and the attachment
of the nation.
The Count de Vergennes had died a few days before the meeting of the
Assembly, & the Count de Montmorin had been named Minister of foreign
affairs in his place. Villedeuil succeeded Calonnes as Comptroller general,
& Lomenie de Bryenne, Archbishop of Thoulouse, afterwards of Sens, &
ultimately Cardinal Lomenie, was named Minister principal, with whom the
other ministers were to transact the business of their departments,
heretofore done with the King in person, and the Duke de Nivernois, and M.
de Malesherbes were called to the Council. On the nomination of the
Minister principal the Marshals de Segur & de Castries retired from the
departments of War & Marine, unwilling to act subordinately, or to share
the blame of proceedings taken out of their direction. They were succeeded
by the Count de Brienne, brother of the Prime minister, and the Marquis de
la Luzerne, brother to him who had been Minister in the United States.
May 24. A dislocated wrist, unsuccessfully set, occasioned advice from my
Surgeon to try the mineral waters of Aix in Provence as a corroborant. I
left Paris for that place therefore on the 28th. of Feb. and proceeded up
the Seine, thro’ Champagne & Burgundy, and down the Rhone thro’ the
Beaujolais by Lyons, Avignon, Nismes to Aix, where finding on trial no
benefit from the waters, I concluded to visit the rice country of Piedmont,
to see if anything might be learned there to benefit the rivalship of our
Carolina rice with that, and thence to make a tour of the seaport towns of
France, along it’s Southern and Western coast, to inform myself if anything
could be done to favor our commerce with them. From Aix therefore I took my
route by Marseilles, Toulon, Hieres, Nice, across the Col de Tende, by
Coni, Turin, Vercelli, Novara, Milan, Pavia, Novi, Genoa. Thence returning
along the coast by Savona, Noli, Albenga, Oneglia, Monaco, Nice, Antibes,
Frejus, Aix, Marseilles, Avignon, Nismes, Montpellier, Frontignan, Cette,
Agde, and along the canal of Languedoc, by Bezieres, Narbonne, Cascassonne,
Castelnaudari, thro’ the Souterrain of St. Feriol and back by
Castelnaudari, to Toulouse, thence to Montauban & down the Garonne by
Langon to Bordeaux. Thence to Rochefort, la Rochelle, Nantes, L’Orient,
then back by Rennes to Nantes, and up the Loire by Angers, Tours, Amboise,
Blois to New Orleans, thence direct to Paris where I arrived on the 10th.
of June. Soon after my return from this journey to wit, about the latter
part of July, I received my younger daughter Maria from Virginia by the way
of London, the youngest having died some time before.
The treasonable perfidy of the Prince of Orange, Stadtholder & Captain
General of the United Netherlands, in the war which England waged against
them for entering into a treaty of commerce with the U. S. is known to all.
As their Executive officer, charged with the conduct of the war, he
contrived to baffle all the measures of the States General, to dislocate
all their military plans, & played false into the hands of England and
against his own country on every possible occasion, confident in her
protection, and in that of the King of Prussia, brother to his Princess.
The States General indignant at this patricidal conduct applied to France
for aid, according to the stipulations of the treaty concluded with her in
85. It was assured to them readily, and in cordial terms, in a letter from
the Ct. de Vergennes to the Marquis de Verac, Ambassador of France at the
Hague, of which the following is an extract.
“Extrait de la depeche de Monsr. le Comte de Vergennes a Monsr. le Marquis
de Verac, Ambassadeur de France a la Haye, du 1er Mars 1786.
“Le Roi concourrera, autant qu’il sera en son pouvoir, au succes de la
chose, et vous inviterez de sa part les patriotes de lui communiquer leurs
vues, leurs plans, et leurs envieux. Vous les assurerez que le roi prend un
interet veritable a leurs personnes comme a leur cause, et qu’ils peuvent
compter sur sa protection. Ils doivent y compter d’autant plus, Monsieur,
que nous ne dissimulons pas que si Monsr. le Stadhoulder reprend son
ancienne influence, le systeme Anglois ne tardera pas de prevaloir, et que
notre alliance deviendroit unetre de raison. Les Patriotes sentiront
facilement que cette position seroit incompatible avec la dignite, comme
avec la consideration de sa majeste. Mais dans le cas, Monsieur, ou les
chefs des Patriotes auroient a craindre une scission, ils auroient le temps
suffisant pour ramener ceux de leurs amis que les Anglomanes ont egares, et
preparer les choses de maniere que la question de nouveau mise en
deliberation soit decide selon leurs desirs. Dans cette hypothese, le roi
vous autorise a agir de concert avec eux, de suivre la direction qu’ils
jugeront devoir vous donner, et d’employer tous les moyens pour augmenter
le nombre des partisans de la bonne cause. Il me reste, Monsieur, il me
reste Monsieur, de vous parler de la surete personelle des patriotes. Vous
les assurerez que dans tout etat de cause, le roi les prend sous sa
protection immediate, et vous ferez connoitre partout ou vous le jugerez
necessaire, que sa Majeste regarderoit comme une offense personnelle tout
ce qu’on entreprenderoit contre leur liberte. Il est a presumer que ce
langage, tenu avec energie, en imposera a l’audace des Anglomanes et que
Monsr. le Prince de Nassau croira courir quelque risque en provoquant le
ressentiment de sa Majeste.”
This letter was communicated by the Patriots to me when at Amsterdam in
1788. and a copy sent by me to Mr. Jay in my letter to him of Mar. 16.
1788.
The object of the Patriots was to establish a representative and republican
government. The majority of the States general were with them, but the
majority of the populace of the towns was with the Prince of Orange; and
that populace was played off with great effect by the triumvirate of Harris
the English Ambassador afterwards Ld. Malmesbury, the Prince of Orange a
stupid man, and the Princess as much a man as either of her colleagues, in
audaciousness, in enterprise, & in the thirst of domination. By these the
mobs of the Hague were excited against the members of the States general,
their persons were insulted & endangered in the streets, the sanctuary of
their houses was violated, and the Prince whose function & duty it was to
repress and punish these violations of order, took no steps for that
purpose. The States General, for their own protection were therefore
obliged to place their militia under the command of a Committee. The Prince
filled the courts of London and Berlin with complaints at this usurpation
of his prerogatives, and forgetting that he was but the first servant of a
republic, marched his regular troops against the city of Utrecht, where the
States were in session. They were repulsed by the militia. His interests
now became marshalled with those of the public enemy & against his own
country. The States therefore, exercising their rights of sovereignty,
deprived him of all his powers. The great Frederic had died in August 86.5
He had never intended to break with France in support of the Prince of
Orange. During the illness of which he died, he had thro’ the Duke of
Brunswick, declared to the Marquis de la Fayette, who was then at Berlin,
that he meant not to support the English interest in Holland: that he might
assure the government of France his only wish was that some honorable place
in the Constitution should be reserved for the Stadtholder and his
children, and that he would take no part in the quarrel unless an entire
abolition of the Stadtholderate should be attempted. But his place was now
occupied by Frederic William, his great nephew, a man of little
understanding, much caprice, & very inconsiderate; and the Princess his
sister, altho’ her husband was in arms against the legitimate authorities
of the country, attempting to go to Amsterdam for the purpose of exciting
the mobs of that place and being refused permission to pass a military post
on the way, he put the Duke of Brunswick at the head of 20,000 men, and
made demonstrations of marching on Holland. The King of France hereupon
declared, by his Charge des Affaires in Holland that if the Prussian troops
continued to menace Holland with an invasion, his Majesty, in quality of
Ally, was determined to succor that province.6 In answer to this Eden gave
official information to Count Montmorin, that England must consider as at
an end, it’s convention with France relative to giving notice of it’s naval
armaments and that she was arming generally.7 War being now imminent, Eden
questioned me on the effect of our treaty with France in the case of a war,
& what might be our dispositions. I told him frankly and without hesitation
that our dispositions would be neutral, and that I thought it would be the
interest of both these powers that we should be so; because it would
relieve both from all anxiety as to feeding their W. India islands. That
England too, by suffering us to remain so, would avoid a heavy land-war on
our continent, which might very much cripple her proceedings elsewhere;
that our treaty indeed obliged us to receive into our ports the armed
vessels of France, with their prizes, and to refuse admission to the prizes
made on her by her enemies: that there was a clause also by which we
guaranteed to France her American possessions, which might perhaps force us
into the war, if these were attacked. “Then it will be war, said he, for
they will assuredly be attacked.”8 Liston, at Madrid, about the same time,
made the same inquiries of Carmichael. The government of France then
declared a determination to form a camp of observation at Givet, commenced
arming her marine, and named the Bailli de Suffrein their Generalissimo on
the Ocean. She secretly engaged also in negotiations with Russia, Austria,
& Spain to form a quadruple alliance. The Duke of Brunswick having advanced
to the confines of Holland, sent some of his officers to Givet to
reconnoitre the state of things there, and report them to him. He said
afterwards that “if there had been only a few tents at that place, he
should not have advanced further, for that the King would not merely for
the interest of his sister, engage in a war with France.” But finding that
there was not a single company there, he boldly entered the country, took
their towns as fast as he presented himself before them, and advanced on
Utrecht. The States had appointed the Rhingrave of Salm their
Commander-in-chief, a Prince without talents, without courage, and without
principle. He might have held out in Utrecht for a considerable time, but
he surrendered the place without firing a gun, literally ran away & hid
himself so that for months it was not known what had become of him.
Amsterdam was then attacked and capitulated. In the meantime the
negotiations for the quadruple alliance were proceeding favorably. But the
secrecy with which they were attempted to be conducted, was penetrated by
Fraser, Charge des affaires of England at St. Petersburg, who instantly
notified his court, and gave the alarm to Prussia. The King saw at once
what would be his situation between the jaws of France, Austria, and
Russia. In great dismay he besought the court of London not to abandon him,
sent Alvensleben to Paris to explain and soothe, and England thro’ the D.
of Dorset and Eden, renewed her conferences for accommodation. The
Archbishop, who shuddered at the idea of war, and preferred a peaceful
surrender of right to an armed vindication of it, received them with open
arms, entered into cordial conferences, and a declaration, and counter
declaration were cooked up at Versailles and sent to London for
approbation. They were approved there, reached Paris at 1 o’clock of the
27th. and were signed that night at Versailles. It was said and believed at
Paris that M. de Montmorin, literally “pleuroit comme un enfant,” when
obliged to sign this counter declaration; so distressed was he by the
dishonor of sacrificing the Patriots after assurances so solemn of
protection, and absolute encouragement to proceed.9 The Prince of Orange
was reinstated in all his powers, now become regal. A great emigration of
the Patriots took place, all were deprived of office, many exiled, and
their property confiscated. They were received in France, and subsisted for
some time on her bounty. Thus fell Holland, by the treachery of her chief,
from her honorable independence to become a province of England, and so
also her Stadtholder from the high station of the first citizen of a free
republic, to be the servile Viceroy of a foreign sovereign. And this was
effected by a mere scene of bullying & demonstration, not one of the
parties, France England or Prussia having ever really meant to encounter
actual war for the interest of the Prince of Orange. But it had all the
effect of a real and decisive war.
Our first essay in America to establish a federative government had fallen,
on trial, very short of it’s object. During the war of Independance, while
the pressure of an external enemy hooped us together, and their enterprises
kept us necessarily on the alert, the spirit of the people, excited by
danger, was a supplement to the Confederation, and urged them to zealous
exertions, whether claimed by that instrument, or not. But when peace and
safety were restored, and every man became engaged in useful and profitable
occupation, less attention was paid to the calls of Congress. The
fundamental defect of the Confederation was that Congress was not
authorized to act immediately on the people, & by it’s own officers. Their
power was only requisitory, and these requisitions were addressed to the
several legislatures, to be by them carried into execution, without other
coercion than the moral principle of duty. This allowed in fact a negative
to every legislature, on every measure proposed by Congress; a negative so
frequently exercised in practice as to benumb the action of the federal
government, and to render it inefficient in it’s general objects, & more
especially in pecuniary and foreign concerns. The want too of a separation
of the legislative, executive, & judiciary functions worked
disadvantageously in practice. Yet this state of things afforded a happy
augury of the future march of our confederacy, when it was seen that the
good sense and good dispositions of the people, as soon as they perceived
the incompetence of their first compact, instead of leaving it’s correction
to insurrection and civil war, agreed with one voice to elect deputies to a
general convention, who should peaceably meet and agree on such a
constitution as “would ensure peace, justice, liberty, the common defence &
general welfare.”
This Convention met at Philadelphia on the 25th. of May ’87. It sate with
closed doors and kept all it’s proceedings secret, until it’s dissolution
on the 17th. of September, when the results of their labors were published
all together. I received a copy early in November, and read and
contemplated it’s provisions with great satisfaction. As not a member of
the Convention however, nor probably a single citizen of the Union, had
approved it in all it’s parts, so I too found articles which I thought
objectionable. The absence of express declarations ensuring freedom of
religion, freedom of the press, freedom of the person under the
uninterrupted protection of the Habeas corpus, & trial by jury in civil as
well as in criminal cases excited my jealousy; and the re-eligibility of
the President for life, I quite disapproved. I expressed freely in letters
to my friends, and most particularly to Mr. Madison & General Washington,
my approbations and objections. How the good should be secured, and the ill
brought to rights was the difficulty. To refer it back to a new Convention
might endanger the loss of the whole. My first idea was that the 9. states
first acting should accept it unconditionally, and thus secure what in it
was good, and that the 4. last should accept on the previous condition that
certain amendments should be agreed to, but a better course was devised of
accepting the whole and trusting that the good sense & honest intentions of
our citizens would make the alterations which should be deemed necessary.
Accordingly all accepted, 6. without objection, and 7. with recommendations
of specified amendments. Those respecting the press, religion, & juries,
with several others, of great value, were accordingly made; but the Habeas
corpus was left to the discretion of Congress, and the amendment against
the reeligibility of the President was not proposed by that body. My fears
of that feature were founded on the importance of the office, on the fierce
contentions it might excite among ourselves, if continuable for life, and
the dangers of interference either with money or arms, by foreign nations,
to whom the choice of an American President might become interesting.
Examples of this abounded in history; in the case of the Roman emperors for
instance, of the Popes while of any significance, of the German emperors,
the Kings of Poland, & the Deys of Barbary. I had observed too in the
feudal History, and in the recent instance particularly of the Stadtholder
of Holland, how easily offices or tenures for life slide into inheritances.
My wish therefore was that the President should be elected for 7. years &
be ineligible afterwards. This term I thought sufficient to enable him,
with the concurrence of the legislature, to carry thro’ & establish any
system of improvement he should propose for the general good. But the
practice adopted I think is better allowing his continuance for 8. years
with a liability to be dropped at half way of the term, making that a
period of probation. That his continuance should be restrained to 7. years
was the opinion of the Convention at an early stage of it’s session, when
it voted that term by a majority of 8. against 2. and by a simple majority
that he should be ineligible a second time. This opinion &c. was confirmed
by the house so late as July 26. referred to the committee of detail,
reported favorably by them, and changed to the present form by final vote
on the last day but one only of their session. Of this change three states
expressed their disapprobation, N. York by recommending an amendment that
the President should not be eligible a third time, and Virginia and N.
Carolina that he should not be capable of serving more than 8. in any term
of 16. years. And altho’ this amendment has not been made in form, yet
practice seems to have established it. The example of 4 Presidents
voluntarily retiring at the end of their 8th year, & the progress of public
opinion that the principle is salutary, have given it in practice the force
of precedent & usage; insomuch that should a President consent to be a
candidate for a 3d. election, I trust he would be rejected on this
demonstration of ambitious views.
But there was another amendment of which none of us thought at the time and
in the omission of which lurks the germ that is to destroy this happy
combination of National powers in the General government for matters of
National concern, and independent powers in the states for what concerns
the states severally. In England it was a great point gained at the
Revolution, that the commissions of the judges, which had hitherto been
during pleasure, should thenceforth be made during good behavior. A
Judiciary dependent on the will of the King had proved itself the most
oppressive of all tools in the hands of that Magistrate. Nothing then could
be more salutary than a change there to the tenure of good behavior; and
the question of good behavior left to the vote of a simple majority in the
two houses of parliament. Before the revolution we were all good English
Whigs, cordial in their free principles, and in their jealousies of their
executive Magistrate. These jealousies are very apparent in all our state
constitutions; and, in the general government in this instance, we have
gone even beyond the English caution, by requiring a vote of two thirds in
one of the Houses for removing a judge; a vote so impossible where10 any
defence is made, before men of ordinary prejudices & passions, that our
judges are effectually independent of the nation. But this ought not to be.
I would not indeed make them dependant on the Executive authority, as they
formerly were in England; but I deem it indispensable to the continuance of
this government that they should be submitted to some practical & impartial
controul: and that this, to be imparted, must be compounded of a mixture of
state and federal authorities. It is not enough that honest men are
appointed judges. All know the influence of interest on the mind of man,
and how unconsciously his judgment is warped by that influence. To this
bias add that of the esprit de corps, of their peculiar maxim and creed
that “it is the office of a good judge to enlarge his jurisdiction,” and
the absence of responsibility, and how can we expect impartial decision
between the General government, of which they are themselves so eminent a
part, and an individual state from which they have nothing to hope or fear.
We have seen too that, contrary to all correct example, they are in the
habit of going out of the question before them, to throw an anchor ahead
and grapple further hold for future advances of power. They are then in
fact the corps of sappers & miners, steadily working to undermine the
independant rights of the States, & to consolidate all power in the hands
of that government in which they have so important a freehold estate. But
it is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their
distribution, that good government is effected. Were not this great country
already divided into states, that division must be made, that each might do
for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do
than a distant authority. Every state again is divided into counties, each
to take care of what lies within it’s local bounds; each county again into
townships or wards, to manage minuter details; and every ward into farms,
to be governed each by it’s individual proprietor. Were we directed from
Washington when to sow, & when to reap, we should soon want bread. It is by
this partition of cares, descending in gradation from general to
particular, that the mass of human affairs may be best managed for the good
and prosperity of all. I repeat that I do not charge the judges with wilful
and ill-intentioned error; but honest error must be arrested where it’s
toleration leads to public ruin. As, for the safety of society, we commit
honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench,
whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure
them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the republic, which is the first
and supreme law. In the impeachment of judge Pickering of New Hampshire, a
habitual & maniac drunkard, no defence was made. Had there been, the party
vote of more than one third of the Senate would have acquitted him.
Among the debilities of the government of the Confederation, no one was
more distinguished or more distressing than the utter impossibility of
obtaining, from the states, the monies necessary for the payment of debts,
or even for the ordinary expenses of the government. Some contributed a
little, some less, & some nothing, and the last furnished at length an
excuse for the first to do nothing also. Mr. Adams, while residing at the
Hague, had a general authority to borrow what sums might be requisite for
ordinary & necessary expenses. Interest on the public debt, and the
maintenance of the diplomatic establishment in Europe, had been habitually
provided in this way. He was now elected Vice President of the U. S. was
soon to return to America, and had referred our bankers to me for future
councel on our affairs in their hands. But I had no powers, no
instructions, no means, and no familiarity with the subject. It had always
been exclusively under his management, except as to occasional and partial
deposits in the hands of Mr. Grand, banker in Paris, for special and local
purposes. These last had been exhausted for some time, and I had fervently
pressed the Treasury board to replenish this particular deposit; as Mr.
Grand now refused to make further advances. They answered candidly that no
funds could be obtained until the new government should get into action,
and have time to make it’s arrangements. Mr. Adams had received his
appointment to the court of London while engaged at Paris, with Dr.
Franklin and myself, in the negotiations under our joint commissions. He
had repaired thence to London, without returning to the Hague to take leave
of that government. He thought it necessary however to do so now, before he
should leave Europe, and accordingly went there. I learned his departure
from London by a letter from Mrs. Adams received on the very day on which
he would arrive at the Hague. A consultation with him, & some provision for
the future was indispensable, while we could yet avail ourselves of his
powers. For when they would be gone, we should be without resource. I was
daily dunned by a company who had formerly made a small loan to the U S.
the principal of which was now become due; and our bankers in Amsterdam had
notified me that the interest on our general debt would be expected in
June; that if we failed to pay it, it would be deemed an act of bankruptcy
and would effectually destroy the credit of the U S. and all future
prospect of obtaining money there; that the loan they had been authorized
to open, of which a third only was filled, and now ceased to get forward,
and rendered desperate that hope of resource. I saw that there was not a
moment to lose, and set out for the Hague on the 2d. morning after
receiving the information of Mr. Adams’s journey. I went the direct road by
Louvres, Senlis, Roye, Pont St. Maxence, Bois le duc, Gournay, Peronne,
Cambray, Bouchain, Valenciennes, Mons, Bruxelles, Malines, Antwerp,
Mordick, and Rotterdam, to the Hague, where I happily found Mr. Adams. He
concurred with me at once in opinion that something must be done, and that
we ought to risk ourselves on doing it without instructions, to save the
credit of the U S. We foresaw that before the new government could be
adopted, assembled, establish it’s financial system, get the money into the
treasury, and place it in Europe, considerable time would elapse; that
therefore we had better provide at once for the years 88. 89. & 90. in
order to place our government at it’s ease, and our credit in security,
during that trying interval. We set out therefore by the way of Leyden for
Amsterdam, where we arrived on the 10th. I had prepared an estimate showing
that
Florins.
there would be necessary for the year 88 — 531,937 — 10
89 — 538,540
90 — 473,540
——————–
Total, 1,544,017 — 10 Flor.
to meet this the bankers had in hand 79,268 — 2 — 8
& the unsold bonds would yield 542,800
==========
622,068 — 2 — 8
we proposed then to borrow a million yielding… 900,000
which would leave a small deficiency of….. 1,949 — 7 — 4
Mr. Adams accordingly executed 1000. bonds, for 1000. florins each, and
deposited them in the hands of our bankers, with instructions however not
to issue them until Congress should ratify the measure. This done, he
returned to London, and I set out for Paris; and as nothing urgent forbade
it, I determined to return along the banks of the Rhine to Strasburg, and
thence strike off to Paris. I accordingly left Amsterdam on the 30th of
March, and proceeded by Utrecht, Nimeguen, Cleves, Duysberg, Dusseldorf,
Cologne, Bonne, Coblentz, Nassau, Hocheim, Frankfort, & made an excursion
to Hanau, thence to Mayence and another excursion to Rudesheim, &
Johansberg; then by Oppenheim, Worms, and Manheim, and an excursion to
Heidelberg, then by Spire, Carlsruh, Rastadt & Kelh, to Strasburg, where I
arrived Apr. 16th, and proceeded again on the 18th, by Phalsbourg,
Fenestrange, Dieuze, Moyenvie, Nancy, Toul, Ligny, Barleduc, St. Diziers,
Vitry, Chalons sur Marne, Epernay, Chateau Thierri, Meaux, to Paris where I
arrived on the 23d. of April; and I had the satisfaction to reflect that by
this journey our credit was secured, the new government was placed at ease
for two years to come, and that as well as myself were relieved from the
torment of incessant duns, whose just complaints could not be silenced by
any means within our power.
A Consular Convention had been agreed on in 84. between Dr. Franklin and
the French government containing several articles so entirely inconsistent
with the laws of the several states, and the general spirit of our
citizens, that Congress withheld their ratification, and sent it back to me
with instructions to get those articles expunged or modified so as to
render them compatible with our laws. The minister retired unwillingly from
these concessions, which indeed authorized the exercise of powers very
offensive in a free state. After much discussion it was reformed in a
considerable degree, and the Convention was signed by the Count Montmorin
and myself, on the 14th. of Nov. 88 not indeed such as I would have wished;
but such as could be obtained with good humor & friendship.
On my return from Holland, I had found Paris still in high fermentation as
I had left it. Had the Archbishop, on the close of the assembly of
Notables, immediately carried into operation the measures contemplated, it
was believed they would all have been registered by the parliament, but he
was slow, presented his edicts, one after another, & at considerable
intervals of time, which gave time for the feelings excited by the
proceedings of the Notables to cool off, new claims to be advanced, and a
pressure to arise for a fixed constitution, not subject to changes at the
will of the King. Nor should we wonder at this pressure when we consider
the monstrous abuses of power under which this people were ground to
powder, when we pass in review the weight of their taxes, and inequality of
their distribution; the oppressions of the tythes, of the tailles, the
corvees, the gabelles, the farms & barriers; the shackles on Commerce by
monopolies; on Industry by gilds & corporations; on the freedom of
conscience, of thought, and of speech; on the Press by the Censure; and of
person by lettres de Cachet; the cruelty of the criminal code generally,
the atrocities of the Rack, the venality of judges, and their partialities
to the rich; the Monopoly of Military honors by the Noblesse; the enormous
expenses of the Queen, the princes & the Court; the prodigalities of
pensions; & the riches, luxury, indolence & immorality of the clergy.
Surely under such a mass of misrule and oppression, a people might justly
press for a thoro’ reformation, and might even dismount their rough-shod
riders, & leave them to walk on their own legs. The edicts relative to the
corvees & free circulation of grain, were first presented to the parliament
and registered. But those for the impot territorial, & stamp tax, offered
some time after, were refused by the parliament, which proposed a call of
the States General as alone competent to their authorization. Their refusal
produced a Bed of justice, and their exile to Troyes. The advocates however
refusing to attend them, a suspension in the administration of justice took
place. The Parliament held out for awhile, but the ennui of their exile and
absence from Paris begun at length to be felt, and some dispositions for
compromise to appear. On their consent therefore to prolong some of the
former taxes, they were recalled from exile, the King met them in session
Nov. 19. 87. promised to call the States General in the year 92. and a
majority expressed their assent to register an edict for successive and
annual loans from 1788. to 92. But a protest being entered by the Duke of
Orleans and this encouraging others in a disposition to retract, the King
ordered peremptorily the registry of the edict, and left the assembly
abruptly. The parliament immediately protested that the votes for the
enregistry had not been legally taken, and that they gave no sanction to
the loans proposed. This was enough to discredit and defeat them. Hereupon
issued another edict for the establishment of a cour pleniere, and the
suspension of all the parliaments in the kingdom. This being opposed as
might be expected by reclamations from all the parliaments & provinces, the
King gave way and by an edict of July 5. 88 renounced his cour pleniere, &
promised the States General for the 1st. of May of the ensuing year: and
the Archbishop finding the times beyond his faculties, accepted the promise
of a Cardinal’s hat, was removed [Sep. 88] from the ministry, and Mr.
Necker was called to the department of finance. The innocent rejoicings of
the people of Paris on this change provoked the interference of an officer
of the city guards, whose order for their dispersion not being obeyed, he
charged them with fixed bayonets, killed two or three, and wounded many.
This dispersed them for the moment; but they collected the next day in
great numbers, burnt 10. or 12. guard houses, killed two or three of the
guards, & lost 6. or 8. more of their own number. The city was hereupon put
under martial law, and after awhile the tumult subsided. The effect of this
change of ministers, and the promise of the States General at an early day,
tranquillized the nation. But two great questions now occurred. 1. What
proportion shall the number of deputies of the tiers etat bear to those of
the Nobles and Clergy? And 2. shall they sit in the same, or in distinct
apartments? Mr. Necker, desirous of avoiding himself these knotty
questions, proposed a second call of the same Notables, and that their
advice should be asked on the subject. They met Nov. 9. 88. and, by five
bureaux against one, they recommended the forms of the States General of
1614. wherein the houses were separate, and voted by orders, not by
persons. But the whole nation declaring at once against this, and that the
tiers etat should be, in numbers, equal to both the other orders, and the
Parliament deciding for the same proportion, it was determined so to be, by
a declaration of Dec. 27. 88. A Report of Mr. Necker to the King, of about
the same date, contained other very important concessions. 1. That the King
could neither lay a new tax, nor prolong an old one. 2. It expressed a
readiness to agree on the periodical meeting of the States. 3. To consult
on the necessary restriction on lettres de Cachet. And 4. how far the Press
might be made free. 5. It admits that the States are to appropriate the
public money; and 6. that Ministers shall be responsible for public
expenditures. And these concessions came from the very heart of the King.
He had not a wish but for the good of the nation, and for that object no
personal sacrifice would ever have cost him a moment’s regret. But his mind
was weakness itself, his constitution timid, his judgment null, and without
sufficient firmness even to stand by the faith of his word. His Queen too,
haughty and bearing no contradiction, had an absolute ascendency over him;
and around her were rallied the King’s brother d’Artois, the court
generally, and the aristocratic part of his ministers, particularly
Breteuil, Broglio, Vauguyon, Foulon, Luzerne, men whose principles of
government were those of the age of Louis XIV. Against this host the good
counsels of Necker, Montmorin, St. Priest, altho’ in unison with the wishes
of the King himself, were of little avail. The resolutions of the morning
formed under their advice, would be reversed in the evening by the
influence of the Queen & court. But the hand of heaven weighed heavily
indeed on the machinations of this junto; producing collateral incidents,
not arising out of the case, yet powerfully co-exciting the nation to force
a regeneration of it’s government, and overwhelming with accumulated
difficulties this liberticide resistance. For, while laboring under the
want of money for even ordinary purposes, in a government which required a
million of livres a day, and driven to the last ditch by the universal call
for liberty, there came on a winter of such severe cold, as was without
example in the memory of man, or in the written records of history. The
Mercury was at times 50;dg below the freezing point of Fahrenheit and 22;dg
below that of Reaumur. All out-door labor was suspended, and the poor,
without the wages of labor, were of course without either bread or fuel.
The government found it’s necessities aggravated by that of procuring
immense quantities of fire-wood, and of keeping great fires at all the
cross-streets, around which the people gathered in crowds to avoid
perishing with cold. Bread too was to be bought, and distributed daily
gratis, until a relax-ation of the season should enable the people to work:
and the slender stock of bread-stuff had for some time threatened famine,
and had raised that article to an enormous price. So great indeed was the
scarcity of bread that from the highest to the lowest citizen, the bakers
were permitted to deal but a scanty allowance per head, even to those who
paid for it; and in cards of invitation to dine in the richest houses, the
guest was notified to bring his own bread. To eke out the existence of the
people, every person who had the means, was called on for a weekly
subscription, which the Cures collected and employed in providing messes
for the nourishment of the poor, and vied with each other in devising such
economical compositions of food as would subsist the greatest number with
the smallest means. This want of bread had been foreseen for some time past
and M. de Montmorin had desired me to notify it in America, and that, in
addition to the market price, a premium should be given on what should be
brought from the U S. Notice was accordingly given and produced
considerable supplies. Subsequent information made the importations from
America, during the months of March, April & May, into the Atlantic ports
of France, amount to about 21,000 barrels of flour, besides what went to
other ports, and in other months, while our supplies to their West-Indian
islands relieved them also from that drain. This distress for bread
continued till July.
Hitherto no acts of popular violence had been produced by the struggle for
political reformation. Little riots, on ordinary incidents, had taken
place, as at other times, in different parts of the kingdom, in which some
lives, perhaps a dozen or twenty, had been lost, but in the month of April
a more serious one occurred in Paris, unconnected indeed with the
revolutionary principle, but making part of the history of the day. The
Fauxbourg St. Antoine is a quarter of the city inhabited entirely by the
class of day-laborers and journeymen in every line. A rumor was spread
among them that a great paper manufacturer, of the name of Reveillon, had
proposed, on some occasion, that their wages should be lowered to 15 sous a
day. Inflamed at once into rage, & without inquiring into it’s truth, they
flew to his house in vast numbers, destroyed everything in it, and in his
magazines & work shops, without secreting however a pin’s worth to
themselves, and were continuing this work of devastation when the regular
troops were called in. Admonitions being disregarded, they were of
necessity fired on, and a regular action ensued, in which about 100. of
them were killed, before the rest would disperse. There had rarely passed a
year without such a riot in some part or other of the Kingdom; and this is
distinguished only as cotemporary with the revolution, altho’ not produced
by it.
The States General were opened on the 5th. of May 89. by speeches from the
King, the Garde des Sceaux Lamoignon, and Mr. Necker. The last was thought
to trip too lightly over the constitutional reformations which were
expected. His notices of them in this speech were not as full as in his
previous `Rapport au Roi.’ This was observed to his disadvantage. But much
allowance should have been made for the situation in which he was placed
between his own counsels, and those of the ministers and party of the
court. Overruled in his own opinions, compelled to deliver, and to gloss
over those of his opponents, and even to keep their secrets, he could not
come forward in his own attitude.
The composition of the assembly, altho’ equivalent on the whole to what had
been expected, was something different in it’s elements. It has been
supposed that a superior education would carry into the scale of the
Commons a respectable portion of the Noblesse. It did so as to those of
Paris, of it’s vicinity and of the other considerable cities, whose greater
intercourse with enlightened society had liberalized their minds, and
prepared them to advance up to the measure of the times. But the Noblesse
of the country, which constituted two thirds of that body, were far in
their rear. Residing constantly on their patrimonial feuds, and
familiarized by daily habit with Seigneurial powers and practices, they had
not yet learned to suspect their inconsistence with reason and right. They
were willing to submit to equality of taxation, but not to descend from
their rank and prerogatives to be incorporated in session with the tiers
etat. Among the clergy, on the other hand, it had been apprehended that the
higher orders of the hierarchy, by their wealth and connections, would have
carried the elections generally. But it proved that in most cases the lower
clergy had obtained the popular majorities. These consisted of the Cures,
sons of the peasantry who had been employed to do all the drudgery of
parochial services for 10. 20. or 30 Louis a year; while their superiors
were consuming their princely revenues in palaces of luxury & indolence.
The objects for which this body was convened being of the first order of
importance, I felt it very interesting to understand the views of the
parties of which it was composed, and especially the ideas prevalent as to
the organization contemplated for their government. I went therefore daily
from Paris to Versailles, and attended their debates, generally till the
hour of adjournment. Those of the Noblesse were impassioned and
tempestuous. They had some able men on both sides, and actuated by equal
zeal. The debates of the Commons were temperate, rational and inflexibly
firm. As preliminary to all other business, the awful questions came on,
Shall the States sit in one, or in distinct apartments? And shall they vote
by heads or houses? The opposition was soon found to consist of the
Episcopal order among the clergy, and two thirds of the Noblesse; while the
tiers etat were, to a man, united and determined. After various
propositions of compromise had failed, the Commons undertook to cut the
Gordian knot. The Abbe Sieyes, the most logical head of the nation, (author
of the pamphlet Qu’est ce que le tiers etat? which had electrified that
country, as Paine’s Common sense did us) after an impressive speech on the
10th of June, moved that a last invitation should be sent to the Nobles and
Clergy, to attend in the Hall of the States, collectively or individually
for the verification of powers, to which the commons would proceed
immediately, either in their presence or absence. This verification being
finished, a motion was made, on the 15th. that they should constitute
themselves a National assembly; which was decided on the 17th. by a
majority of four fifths. During the debates on this question, about twenty
of the Cures had joined them, and a proposition was made in the chamber of
the clergy that their whole body should join them. This was rejected at
first by a small majority only; but, being afterwards somewhat modified, it
was decided affirmatively, by a majority of eleven. While this was under
debate and unknown to the court, to wit, on the 19th. a council was held in
the afternoon at Marly, wherein it was proposed that the King should
interpose by a declaration of his sentiments, in a seance royale. A form of
declaration was proposed by Necker, which, while it censured in general the
proceedings both of the Nobles and Commons, announced the King’s views,
such as substantially to coincide with the Commons. It was agreed to in
council, the seance was fixed for the 22d. the meetings of the States were
till then to be suspended, and everything, in the meantime, kept secret.
The members the next morning (20th.) repairing to their house as usual,
found the doors shut and guarded, a proclamation posted up for a seance
royale on the 22d. and a suspension of their meetings in the meantime.
Concluding that their dissolution was now to take place, they repaired to a
building called the “Jeu de paume” (or Tennis court) and there bound
themselves by oath to each other, never to separate of their own accord,
till they had settled a constitution for the nation, on a solid basis, and
if separated by force, that they would reassemble in some other place. The
next day they met in the church of St. Louis, and were joined by a majority
of the clergy. The heads of the Aristocracy saw that all was lost without
some bold exertion. The King was still at Marly. Nobody was permitted to
approach him but their friends. He was assailed by falsehoods in all
shapes. He was made to believe that the Commons were about to absolve the
army from their oath of fidelity to him, and to raise their pay. The court
party were now all rage and desperate. They procured a committee to be held
consisting of the King and his ministers, to which Monsieur & the Count
d’Artois should be admitted. At this committee the latter attacked Mr.
Necker personally, arraigned his declaration, and proposed one which some
of his prompters had put into his hands. Mr. Necker was brow-beaten and
intimidated, and the King shaken. He determined that the two plans should
be deliberated on the next day and the seance royale put off a day longer.
This encouraged a fiercer attack on Mr. Necker the next day. His draught of
a declaration was entirely broken up, & that of the Count d’Artois inserted
into it. Himself and Montmorin offered their resignation, which was
refused, the Count d’Artois saying to Mr. Necker “No sir, you must be kept
as the hostage; we hold you responsible for all the ill which shall
happen.” This change of plan was immediately whispered without doors. The
Noblesse were in triumph; the people in consternation. I was quite alarmed
at this state of things. The soldiery had not yet indicated which side they
should take, and that which they should support would be sure to prevail. I
considered a successful reformation of government in France, as ensuring a
general reformation thro Europe, and the resurrection, to a new life, of
their people, now ground to dust by the abuses of the governing powers. I
was much acquainted with the leading patriots of the assembly. Being from a
country which had successfully passed thro’ a similar reformation, they
were disposed to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me. I urged
most strenuously an immediate compromise; to secure what the government was
now ready to yield, and trust to future occasions for what might still be
wanting. It was well understood that the King would grant at this time 1.
Freedom of the person by Habeas corpus. 2. Freedom of conscience. 3.
Freedom of the press. 4. Trial by jury. 5. A representative legislature. 6.
Annual meetings. 7. The origination of laws. 8. The exclusive right of
taxation and appropriation. And 9. The responsibility of ministers; and
with the exercise of these powers they would obtain in future whatever
might be further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They
thought otherwise however, and events have proved their lamentable error.
For after 30. years of war, foreign and domestic, the loss of millions of
lives, the prostration of private happiness, and foreign subjugation of
their own country for a time, they have obtained no more, nor even that
securely. They were unconscious of (for who could foresee?) the melancholy
sequel of their well-meant perseverance; that their physical force would be
usurped by a first tyrant to trample on the independance, and even the
existence, of other nations: that this would afford fatal example for the
atrocious conspiracy of Kings against their people; would generate their
unholy and homicide alliance to make common cause among themselves, and to
crush, by the power of the whole, the efforts of any part, to moderate
their abuses and oppressions.
When the King passed, the next day, thro’ the lane formed from the Chateau
to the Hotel des etats, there was a dead silence. He was about an hour in
the House delivering his speech & declaration. On his coming out a feeble
cry of “Vive le Roy” was raised by some children, but the people remained
silent & sullen. In the close of his speech he had ordered that the members
should follow him, & resume their deliberations the next day. The Noblesse
followed him, and so did the clergy, except about thirty, who, with the
tiers, remained in the room, and entered into deliberation. They protested
against what the King had done, adhered to all their former proceedings,
and resolved the inviolability of their own persons. An officer came to
order them out of the room in the King’s name. “Tell those who sent you,
said Mirabeau, that we shall not move hence but at our own will, or the
point of the bayonet.” In the afternoon the people, uneasy, began to
assemble in great numbers in the courts, and vicinities of the palace. This
produced alarm. The Queen sent for Mr. Necker. He was conducted amidst the
shouts and acclamations of the multitude who filled all the apartments of
the palace. He was a few minutes only with the queen, and what passed
between them did not transpire. The King went out to ride. He passed thro’
the crowd to his carriage and into it, without being in the least noticed.
As Mr. Neckar followed him universal acclamations were raised of “vive
Monsr. Neckar, vive le sauveur de la France opprimee.” He was conducted
back to his house with the same demonstrations of affection and anxiety.
About 200. deputies of the Tiers, catching the enthusiasm of the moment,
went to his house, and extorted from him a promise that he would not
resign. On the 25th. 48. of the Nobles joined the tiers, & among them the
D. of Orleans. There were then with them 164 members of the Clergy, altho’
the minority of that body still sat apart & called themselves the chamber
of the clergy. On the 26th. the Archbp. of Paris joined the tiers, as did
some others of the clergy and of the Noblesse.
These proceedings had thrown the people into violent ferment. It gained the
souldiery, first of the French guards, extended to those of every other
denomination, except the Swiss, and even to the body guards of the King.
They began to quit their barracks, to assemble in squads, to declare they
would defend the life of the King, but would not be the murderers of their
fellow-citizens. They called themselves the souldiers of the nation, and
left now no doubt on which side they would be, in case of rupture. Similar
accounts came in from the troops in other parts of the kingdom, giving good
reason to believe they would side with their fathers and brothers rather
than with their officers. The operation of this medicine at Versailles was
as sudden as it was powerful. The alarm there was so compleat that in the
afternoon of the 27th. the King wrote with his own hand letters to the
Presidents of the clergy and Nobles, engaging them immediately to join the
Tiers. These two bodies were debating & hesitating when notes from the Ct.
d’Artois decided their compliance. They went in a body and took their seats
with the tiers, and thus rendered the union of the orders in one chamber
compleat.
The Assembly now entered on the business of their mission, and first
proceeded to arrange the order in which they would take up the heads of
their constitution, as follows:
First, and as Preliminary to the whole a general Declaration of the Rights
of Man. Then specifically the Principles of the Monarchy; rights of the
Nation; rights of the King; rights of the citizens; organization & rights
of the National assembly; forms necessary for the enactment of laws;
organization & functions of the provincial & municipal assemblies; duties
and limits of the Judiciary power; functions & duties of the military
power.
A declaration of the rights of man, as the preliminary of their work, was
accordingly prepared and proposed by the Marquis de la Fayette.
But the quiet of their march was soon disturbed by information that troops,
and particularly the foreign troops, were advancing on Paris from various
quarters. The King had been probably advised to this on the pretext of
preserving peace in Paris. But his advisers were believed to have other
things in contemplation. The Marshal de Broglio was appointed to their
command, a high flying aristocrat, cool and capable of everything. Some of
the French guards were soon arrested, under other pretexts, but really on
account of their dispositions in favor of the National cause. The people of
Paris forced their prison, liberated them, and sent a deputation to the
Assembly to solicit a pardon. The Assembly recommended peace and order to
the people of Paris, the prisoners to the king, and asked from him the
removal of the troops. His answer was negative and dry, saying they might
remove themselves, if they pleased, to Noyons or Soissons. In the meantime
these troops, to the number of twenty or thirty thousand, had arrived and
were posted in, and between Paris and Versailles. The bridges and passes
were guarded. At three o’clock in the afternoon of the 11th July the Count
de la Luzerne was sent to notify Mr. Neckar of his dismission, and to
enjoin him to retire instantly without saying a word of it to anybody. He
went home, dined, and proposed to his wife a visit to a friend, but went in
fact to his country house at St. Ouen, and at midnight set out for
Brussels. This was not known until the next day, 12th when the whole
ministry was changed, except Villedeuil, of the Domestic department, and
Barenton, Garde des sceaux. The changes were as follows.
The Baron de Breteuil, president of the council of finance; de la
Galaisiere, Comptroller general in the room of Mr. Neckar; the Marshal de
Broglio, minister of War, & Foulon under him in the room of Puy-Segur; the
Duke de la Vauguyon, minister of foreign affairs instead of the Ct. de
Montmorin; de La Porte, minister of Marine, in place of the Ct. de la
Luzerne; St. Priest was also removed from the council. Luzerne and
Puy-Segur had been strongly of the Aristocratic party in the Council, but
they were not considered as equal to the work now to be done. The King was
now compleatly in the hands of men, the principal among whom had been noted
thro’ their lives for the Turkish despotism of their characters, and who
were associated around the King as proper instruments for what was to be
executed. The news of this change began to be known at Paris about 1. or 2.
o’clock. In the afternoon a body of about 100 German cavalry were advanced
and drawn up in the Place Louis XV. and about 200. Swiss posted at a little
distance in their rear. This drew people to the spot, who thus accidentally
found themselves in front of the troops, merely at first as spectators; but
as their numbers increased, their indignation rose. They retired a few
steps, and posted themselves on and behind large piles of stones, large and
small, collected in that Place for a bridge which was to be built adjacent
to it. In this position, happening to be in my carriage on a visit, I
passed thro’ the lane they had formed, without interruption. But the moment
after I had passed, the people attacked the cavalry with stones. They
charged, but the advantageous position of the people, and the showers of
stones obliged the horse to retire, and quit the field altogether, leaving
one of their number on the ground, & the Swiss in their rear not moving to
their aid. This was the signal for universal insurrection, and this body of
cavalry, to avoid being massacred, retired towards Versailles. The people
now armed themselves with such weapons as they could find in armorer’s
shops and private houses, and with bludgeons, and were roaming all night
thro’ all parts of the city, without any decided object. The next day
(13th.) the assembly pressed on the king to send away the troops, to permit
the Bourgeoisie of Paris to arm for the preservation of order in the city,
and offer to send a deputation from their body to tranquillize them; but
their propositions were refused. A committee of magistrates and electors of
the city are appointed by those bodies to take upon them it’s government.
The people, now openly joined by the French guards, force the prison of St.
Lazare, release all the prisoners, and take a great store of corn, which
they carry to the Corn-market. Here they get some arms, and the French
guards begin to form & train them. The City-committee determined to raise
48.000. Bourgeoise, or rather to restrain their numbers to 48.000. On the
14th. they send one of their members (Mons. de Corny) to the Hotel des
Invalides, to ask arms for their Garde-Bourgeoise. He was followed by, and
he found there a great collection of people. The Governor of the Invalids
came out and represented the impossibility of his delivering arms without
the orders of those from whom he received them. De Corny advised the people
then to retire, and retired himself; but the people took possession of the
arms. It was remarkable that not only the Invalids themselves made no
opposition, but that a body of 5000. foreign troops, within 400. yards,
never stirred. M. de Corny and five others were then sent to ask arms of M.
de Launay, governor of the Bastile. They found a great collection of people
already before the place, and they immediately planted a flag of truce,
which was answered by a like flag hoisted on the Parapet. The deputation
prevailed on the people to fall back a little, advanced themselves to make
their demand of the Governor, and in that instant a discharge from the
Bastile killed four persons, of those nearest to the deputies. The deputies
retired. I happened to be at the house of M. de Corny when he returned to
it, and received from him a narrative of these transactions. On the
retirement of the deputies, the people rushed forward & almost in an
instant were in possession of a fortification defended by 100. men, of
infinite strength, which in other times had stood several regular sieges,
and had never been taken. How they forced their entrance has never been
explained. They took all the arms, discharged the prisoners, and such of
the garrison as were not killed in the first moment of fury, carried the
Governor and Lt. Governor to the Place de Greve (the place of public
execution) cut off their heads, and sent them thro’ the city in triumph to
the Palais royal. About the same instant a treacherous correspondence
having been discovered in M. de Flesselles, prevot des marchands, they
seized him in the Hotel de Ville where he was in the execution of his
office, and cut off his head. These events carried imperfectly to
Versailles were the subject of two successive deputations from the assembly
to the king, to both of which he gave dry and hard answers for nobody had
as yet been permitted to inform him truly and fully of what had passed at
Paris. But at night the Duke de Liancourt forced his way into the king’s
bed chamber, and obliged him to hear a full and animated detail of the
disasters of the day in Paris. He went to bed fearfully impressed. The
decapitation of de Launai worked powerfully thro’ the night on the whole
aristocratic party, insomuch that, in the morning, those of the greatest
influence on the Count d’Artois represented to him the absolute necessity
that the king should give up everything to the Assembly. This according
with the dispositions of the king, he went about 11. o’clock, accompanied
only by his brothers, to the Assembly, & there read to them a speech, in
which he asked their interposition to re-establish order. Altho’ couched in
terms of some caution, yet the manner in which it was delivered made it
evident that it was meant as a surrender at discretion. He returned to the
Chateau afoot, accompanied by the assembly. They sent off a deputation to
quiet Paris, at the head of which was the Marquis de la Fayette who had,
the same morning, been named Commandant en chef of the Milice Bourgeoise,
and Mons Bailly, former President of the States General, was called for as
Prevot des marchands. The demolition of the Bastile was now ordered and
begun. A body of the Swiss guards of the regiment of Ventimille, and the
city horse guards joined the people. The alarm at Versailles increased. The
foreign troops were ordered off instantly. Every minister resigned. The
king confirmed Bailly as Prevot des Marchands, wrote to Mr. Neckar to
recall him, sent his letter open to the assembly, to be forwarded by them,
and invited them to go with him to Paris the next day, to satisfy the city
of his dispositions; and that night, and the next morning the Count
D’Artois and M. de Montesson a deputy connected with him, Madame de
Polignac, Madame de Guiche, and the Count de Vaudreuil, favorites of the
queen, the Abbe de Vermont her confessor, the Prince of Conde and Duke of
Bourbon fled. The king came to Paris, leaving the queen in consternation
for his return. Omitting the less important figures of the procession, the
king’s carriage was in the center, on each side of it the assembly, in two
ranks afoot, at their head the M. de la Fayette, as Commander-in-chief, on
horseback, and Bourgeois guards before and behind. About 60.000 citizens of
all forms and conditions, armed with the muskets of the Bastile and
Invalids, as far as they would go, the rest with pistols, swords, pikes,
pruning hooks, scythes &c. lined all the streets thro’ which the procession
passed, and with the crowds of people in the streets, doors & windows,
saluted them everywhere with cries of “vive la nation,” but not a single
“vive le roy” was heard. The King landed at the Hotel de Ville. There M.
Bailly presented and put into his hat the popular cockade, and addressed
him. The King being unprepared, and unable to answer, Bailly went to him,
gathered from him some scraps of sentences, and made out an answer, which
he delivered to the audience as from the king. On their return the popular
cries were “vive le roy et la nation.” He was conducted by a garde
bourgeoise to his palace at Versailles, & thus concluded an amende
honorable as no sovereign ever made, and no people ever received.
And here again was lost another precious occasion of sparing to France the
crimes and cruelties thro’ which she has since passed, and to Europe, &
finally America the evils which flowed on them also from this mortal
source. The king was now become a passive machine in the hands of the
National assembly, and had he been left to himself, he would have willingly
acquiesced in whatever they should devise as best for the nation. A wise
constitution would have been formed, hereditary in his line, himself placed
at it’s head, with powers so large as to enable him to do all the good of
his station, and so limited as to restrain him from it’s abuse. This he
would have faithfully administered, and more than this I do not believe he
ever wished. But he had a Queen of absolute sway over his weak mind, and
timid virtue; and of a character the reverse of his in all points. This
angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of the Rhetor Burke, with some
smartness of fancy, but no sound sense was proud, disdainful of restraint,
indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure,
and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck. Her
inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d’Artois and
others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the
treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and
her opposition to it her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led
herself to the Guillotine, & drew the king on with her, and plunged the
world into crimes & calamities which will forever stain the pages of modern
history. I have ever believed that had there been no queen, there would
have been no revolution. No force would have been provoked nor exercised.
The king would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder
counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only,
with the same pace, to advance the principles of their social institution.
The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns, I shall
neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say that the first
magistrate of a nation cannot commit treason against his country, or is
unamenable to it’s punishment: nor yet that where there is no written law,
no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts, and a power in our
hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right, and redressing
wrong. Of those who judged the king, many thought him wilfully criminal,
many that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with
the horde of kings, who would war against a regeneration which might come
home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die than all. I
should not have voted with this portion of the legislature. I should have
shut up the Queen in a Convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed
the king in his station, investing him with limited powers, which I verily
believe he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his
understanding. In this way no void would have been created, courting the
usurpation of a military adventurer, nor occasion given for those
enormities which demoralized the nations of the world, and destroyed, and
is yet to destroy millions and millions of it’s inhabitants. There are
three epochs in history signalized by the total extinction of national
morality. The first was of the successors of Alexander, not omitting
himself. The next the successors of the first Caesar, the third our own
age. This was begun by the partition of Poland, followed by that of the
treaty of Pilnitz; next the conflagration of Copenhagen; then the
enormities of Bonaparte partitioning the earth at his will, and devastating
it with fire and sword; now the conspiracy of kings, the successors of
Bonaparte, blasphemously calling themselves the Holy Alliance, and treading
in the footsteps of their incarcerated leader, not yet indeed usurping the
government of other nations avowedly and in detail, but controuling by
their armies the forms in which they will permit them to be governed; and
reserving in petto the order and extent of the usurpations further
meditated. But I will return from a digression, anticipated too in time,
into which I have been led by reflection on the criminal passions which
refused to the world a favorable occasion of saving it from the afflictions
it has since suffered.
M. Necker had reached Basle before he was overtaken by the letter of the
king, inviting him back to resume the office he had recently left. He
returned immediately, and all the other ministers having resigned, a new
administration was named, to wit St. Priest & Montmorin were restored; the
Archbishop of Bordeaux was appointed Garde des sceaux; La Tour du Pin
Minister of War; La Luzerne Minister of Marine. This last was believed to
have been effected by the friendship of Montmorin; for altho’ differing in
politics, they continued firm in friendship, & Luzerne, altho’ not an able
man was thought an honest one. And the Prince of Bauvau was taken into the
Council.
Seven princes of the blood royal, six ex-ministers, and many of the high
Noblesse having fled, and the present ministers, except Luzerne, being all
of the popular party, all the functionaries of government moved for the
present in perfect harmony.
In the evening of Aug. 4. and on the motion of the Viscount de Noailles
brother in law of La Fayette, the assembly abolished all titles of rank,
all the abusive privileges of feudalism, the tythes and casuals of the
clergy, all provincial privileges, and, in fine, the Feudal regimen
generally. To the suppression of tythes the Abbe Sieyes was vehemently
opposed; but his learned and logical arguments were unheeded, and his
estimation lessened by a contrast of his egoism (for he was beneficed on
them) with the generous abandonment of rights by the other members of the
assembly. Many days were employed in putting into the form of laws the
numerous demolitions of ancient abuses; which done, they proceeded to the
preliminary work of a Declaration of rights. There being much concord of
sentiment on the elements of this instrument, it was liberally framed, and
passed with a very general approbation. They then appointed a Committee for
the reduction of a projet of a Constitution, at the head of which was the
Archbishop of Bordeaux. I received from him, as Chairman of the Committee a
letter of July 20. requesting me to attend and assist at their
deliberations; but I excused myself on the obvious considerations that my
mission was to the king as Chief Magistrate of the nation, that my duties
were limited to the concerns of my own country, and forbade me to
intermeddle with the internal transactions of that in which I had been
received under a specific character only. Their plan of a constitution was
discussed in sections, and so reported from time to time, as agreed to by
the Committee. The first respected the general frame of the government; and
that this should be formed into three departments, Executive, Legislative
and Judiciary was generally agreed. But when they proceeded to subordinate
developments, many and various shades of opinion came into conflict, and
schism, strongly marked, broke the Patriots into fragments of very
discordant principles. The first question Whether there should be a king,
met with no open opposition, and it was readily agreed that the government
of France should be monarchical & hereditary. Shall the king have a
negative on the laws? shall that negative be absolute, or suspensive only?
Shall there be two chambers of legislation? or one only? If two, shall one
of them be hereditary? or for life? or for a fixed term? and named by the
king? or elected by the people? These questions found strong differences of
opinion, and produced repulsive combinations among the Patriots. The
Aristocracy was cemented by a common principle of preserving the ancient
regime, or whatever should be nearest to it. Making this their Polar star,
they moved in phalanx, gave preponderance on every question to the
minorities of the Patriots, and always to those who advocated the least
change. The features of the new constitution were thus assuming a fearful
aspect, and great alarm was produced among the honest patriots by these
dissensions in their ranks. In this uneasy state of things, I received one
day a note from the Marquis de la Fayette, informing me that he should
bring a party of six or eight friends to ask a dinner of me the next day. I
assured him of their welcome. When they arrived, they were La Fayette
himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander La Meth, Blacon, Mounier, Maubourg, and
Dagout. These were leading patriots, of honest but differing opinions
sensible of the necessity of effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices,
knowing each other, and not afraid therefore to unbosom themselves
mutually. This last was a material principle in the selection. With this
view the Marquis had invited the conference and had fixed the time & place
inadvertently as to the embarrassment under which it might place me. The
cloth being removed and wine set on the table, after the American manner,
the Marquis introduced the objects of the conference by summarily reminding
them of the state of things in the Assembly, the course which the
principles of the constitution were taking, and the inevitable result,
unless checked by more concord among the Patriots themselves. He observed
that altho’ he also had his opinion, he was ready to sacrifice it to that
of his brethren of the same cause: but that a common opinion must now be
formed, or the Aristocracy would carry everything, and that whatever they
should now agree on, he, at the head of the National force, would maintain.
The discussions began at the hour of four, and were continued till ten
o’clock in the evening; during which time I was a silent witness to a
coolness and candor of argument unusual in the conflicts of political
opinion; to a logical reasoning, and chaste eloquence, disfigured by no
gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed
in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by
Xenophon, by Plato and Cicero. The result was an agreement that the king
should have a suspensive veto on the laws, that the legislature should be
composed of a single body only, & that to be chosen by the people. This
Concordate decided the fate of the constitution. The Patriots all rallied
to the principles thus settled, carried every question agreeably to them,
and reduced the Aristocracy to insignificance and impotence. But duties of
exculpation were now incumbent on me. I waited on Count Montmorin the next
morning, and explained to him with truth and candor how it had happened
that my house had been made the scene of conferences of such a character.
He told me he already knew everything which had passed, that, so far from
taking umbrage at the use made of my house on that occasion, he earnestly
wished I would habitually assist at such conferences, being sure I should
be useful in moderating the warmer spirits, and promoting a wholesome and
practicable reformation only. I told him I knew too well the duties I owed
to the king, to the nation, and to my own country to take any part in
councils concerning their internal government, and that I should persevere
with care in the character of a neutral and passive spectator, with wishes
only and very sincere ones, that those measures might prevail which would
be for the greatest good of the nation. I have no doubt indeed that this
conference was previously known and approved by this honest minister, who
was in confidence and communication with the patriots, and wished for a
reasonable reform of the Constitution.
Here I discontinue my relation of the French revolution. The minuteness
with which I have so far given it’s details is disproportioned to the
general scale of my narrative. But I have thought it justified by the
interest which the whole world must take in this revolution. As yet we are
but in the first chapter of it’s history. The appeal to the rights of man,
which had been made in the U S. was taken up by France, first of the
European nations. From her the spirit has spread over those of the South.
The tyrants of the North have allied indeed against it, but it is
irresistible. Their opposition will only multiply it’s millions of human
victims; their own satellites will catch it, and the condition of man thro’
the civilized world will be finally and greatly ameliorated. This is a
wonderful instance of great events from small causes. So inscrutable is the
arrangement of causes & consequences in this world that a two-penny duty on
tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of
all it’s inhabitants. I have been more minute in relating the early
transactions of this regeneration because I was in circumstances peculiarly
favorable for a knowledge of the truth. Possessing the confidence and
intimacy of the leading patriots, & more than all of the Marquis Fayette,
their head and Atlas, who had no secrets from me, I learnt with correctness
the views & proceedings of that party; while my intercourse with the
diplomatic missionaries of Europe at Paris, all of them with the court, and
eager in prying into it’s councils and proceedings, gave me a knolege of
these also. My information was always and immediately committed to writing,
in letters to Mr. Jay, and often to my friends, and a recurrence to these
letters now insures me against errors of memory.
These opportunities of information ceased at this period, with my
retirement from this interesting scene of action. I had been more than a
year soliciting leave to go home with a view to place my daughters in the
society & care of their friends, and to return for a short time to my
station at Paris. But the metamorphosis thro’ which our government was then
passing from it’s Chrysalid to it’s Organic form suspended it’s action in a
great degree; and it was not till the last of August that I received the
permission I had asked. – And here I cannot leave this great and good
country without expressing my sense of it’s preeminence of character among
the nations of the earth. A more benevolent people, I have never known, nor
greater warmth & devotedness in their select friendships. Their kindness
and accommodation to strangers is unparalleled, and the hospitality of
Paris is beyond anything I had conceived to be practicable in a large city.
Their eminence too in science, the communicative dispositions of their
scientific men, the politeness of the general manners, the ease and
vivacity of their conversation, give a charm to their society to be found
nowhere else. In a comparison of this with other countries we have the
proof of primacy, which was given to Themistocles after the battle of
Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first reward of valor, and the
second to Themistocles. So ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, In
what country on earth would you rather live? – Certainly in my own, where
are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest & sweetest affections
and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.
On the 26th. of Sep. I left Paris for Havre, where I was detained by
contrary winds until the 8th. of Oct. On that day, and the 9th. I crossed
over to Cowes, where I had engaged the Clermont, Capt. Colley, to touch for
me. She did so, but here again we were detained by contrary winds until the
22d. when we embarked and landed at Norfolk on the 23d. of November. On my
way home I passed some days at Eppington in Chesterfield, the residence of
my friend and connection, Mr. Eppes, and, while there, I received a letter
from the President, Genl. Washington, by express, covering an appointment
to be Secretary of State. I received it with real regret. My wish had been
to return to Paris, where I had left my household establishment, as if
there myself, and to see the end of the Revolution, which, I then thought
would be certainly and happily closed in less than a year. I then meant to
return home, to withdraw from Political life, into which I had been
impressed by the circumstances of the times, to sink into the bosom of my
family and friends, and devote myself to studies more congenial to my mind.
In my answer of Dec. 15. I expressed these dispositions candidly to the
President, and my preference of a return to Paris; but assured him that if
it was believed I could be more useful in the administration of the
government, I would sacrifice my own inclinations without hesitation, and
repair to that destination; this I left to his decision. I arrived at
Monticello on the 23d. of Dec. where I received a second letter from the
President, expressing his continued wish that I should take my station
there, but leaving me still at liberty to continue in my former office, if
I could not reconcile myself to that now proposed. This silenced my
reluctance, and I accepted the new appointment.
In the interval of my stay at home my eldest daughter had been happily
married to the eldest son of the Tuckahoe branch of Randolphs, a young
gentleman of genius, science and honorable mind, who afterwards filled a
dignified station in the General Government, & the most dignified in his
own State. I left Monticello on the 1st of March 1790. for New York. At
Philadelphia I called on the venerable and beloved Franklin. He was then on
the bed of sickness from which he never rose. My recent return from a
country in which he had left so many friends, and the perilous convulsions
to which they had been exposed, revived all his anxieties to know what part
they had taken, what had been their course, and what their fate. He went
over all in succession, with a rapidity and animation almost too much for
his strength. When all his inquiries were satisfied, and a pause took
place, I told him I had learnt with much pleasure that, since his return to
America, he had been occupied in preparing for the world the history of his
own life. I cannot say much of that, said he; but I will give you a sample
of what I shall leave: and he directed his little grandson (William Bache)
who was standing by the bedside, to hand him a paper from the table to
which he pointed. He did so; and the Doctr. putting it into my hands,
desired me to take it and read it at my leisure. It was about a quire of
folio paper, written in a large and running hand very like his own. I
looked into it slightly, then shut it and said I would accept his
permission to read it and would carefully return it. He said, “no, keep
it.” Not certain of his meaning, I again looked into it, folded it for my
pocket, and said again, I would certainly return it. “No,” said he, “keep
it.” I put it into my pocket, and shortly after took leave of him. He died
on the 17th. of the ensuing month of April; and as I understood that he had
bequeathed all his papers to his grandson William Temple Franklin, I
immediately wrote to Mr. Franklin to inform him I possessed this paper,
which I should consider as his property, and would deliver to his order. He
came on immediately to New York, called on me for it, and I delivered it to
him. As he put it into his pocket, he said carelessly he had either the
original, or another copy of it, I do not recollect which. This last
expression struck my attention forcibly, and for the first time suggested
to me the thought that Dr. Franklin had meant it as a confidential deposit
in my hands, and that I had done wrong in parting from it. I have not yet
seen the collection he published of Dr. Franklin’s works, and therefore
know not if this is among them. I have been told it is not. It contained a
narrative of the negotiations between Dr. Franklin and the British
Ministry, when he was endeavoring to prevent the contest of arms which
followed. The negotiation was brought about by the intervention of Ld. Howe
and his sister, who, I believe, was called Lady Howe, but I may misremember
her title. Ld. Howe seems to have been friendly to America, and exceedingly
anxious to prevent a rupture. His intimacy with Dr. Franklin, and his
position with the Ministry induced him to undertake a mediation between
them; in which his sister seemed to have been associated. They carried from
one to the other, backwards and forwards, the several propositions and
answers which past, and seconded with their own intercessions the
importance of mutual sacrifices to preserve the peace & connection of the
two countries. I remember that Ld. North’s answers were dry, unyielding, in
the spirit of unconditional submission, and betrayed an absolute
indifference to the occurrence of a rupture; and he said to the mediators
distinctly, at last that “a rebellion was not to be deprecated on the part
of Great Britain; that the confiscations it would produce would provide for
many of their friends.” This expression was reported by the mediators to
Dr. Franklin, and indicated so cool and calculated a purpose in the
Ministry, as to render compromise hopeless, and the negotiation was
discontinued. If this is not among the papers published, we ask what has
become of it? I delivered it with my own hands into those of Temple
Franklin. It certainly established views so atrocious in the British
government that it’s suppression would to them be worth a great price. But
could the grandson of Dr. Franklin be in such degree an accomplice in the
parricide of the memory of his immortal grandfather? The suspension for
more than 20. years of the general publication bequeathed and confided to
him, produced for awhile hard suspicions against him: and if at last all
are not published, a part of these suspicions may remain with some.
I arrived at New York on the 21st. of Mar. where Congress was in session.
So far July 29. 21.
1See Girardin’s History of Virginia, Appendix No. 12, note.
2His ostensible character was to be that of a merchant, his real one that
of agent for military supplies, and also for sounding the dispositions of
the government of France, and seeing how far they would favor us, either
secretly or openly. His appointment had been by the Committee of Foreign
Correspondence, March, 1776.
3Vattel, L. 2, 156. L, 77. I. Mably Droit D’Europe, 86.
4The Crimea.
5lre to Jay Aug. 6. 87.
6My lre Sep. 22. 87.
7My lre to J. Jay Sep.24.
8lre to Carm. Dec. 15.
9My lre to Jay Nov. 3. lre to J. Adams, Nov. 13.
10In the impeachment of judge Pickering of New Hampsire, a habitual &
maniac drunkard, no defence was made. Had there been, the party vote of
more than one third of the Senate would have acquitted him.
This etext was retrieved by ftp from ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg
It is also available from www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg
Be the first to comment