ings, and famine, the destitutions of lawful rulers of the world without the consent of their constituents, to place his brothers and sisters on their thrones, the cutting up of established societies of men and jumbling them discordantly together again at his caprice, the demolition of the fairest hopes of mankind for the recovery of their rights and amelioration of their condition, and all the numberless train of his other enormities; the man, I say, who could consider all these as no crimes, must have been a moral monster, against whom every hand should have been lifted to slay him." Mr. Jefferson seems to regard his confinement as justifiable by the necessity of the case, (or on the plea of self-preservation,) but he condemns the cold-blooded insults and vexations to which he was subjected.

Many of the letters between these venerable statesmen were on the subject of religion. Their thoughts were naturally more turned from the affairs of this life, to that which they must soon exchange for it. Mr. Jefferson strongly objected to the doctrine of the Trinity, which he considered as irreconcilable with the attributes of a supreme intelligence, and almost as disguised atheism. The most of what he wrote, therefore, on religion, is controversial and confined to this topic. But though he dissented from the prevailing creeds, his mind seemed to be seriously and thoroughly embued with sentiments of a pure and exalted theism.

The whole of this letter must give great satisfaction to those friends of Mr. Jefferson, who, taking their opinion of his religious creed from his enemies, or from some of his own unguarded expressions, had doubted his religious faith. A more entire conviction of the truths of natural theology, more clearly and logically exhibited, is nowhere to be found; and those who hated and reviled him for his supposed unbelief, may here find in him an able auxiliary against the infi

delity which is so often denounced as a prevalent vice of the age.

In June, 1823, Mr. Monroe, then President, consulted Mr. Jefferson on the course it would be proper for the United States to take, in the attempt which was then made by the allied powers to interfere in the concerns of Spain, where the Cortes were making an effort to remodel their constitution, and in whose success the sympathies of the American people were strongly enlisted. Mr. Jefferson says that, abstracted as he had been for some time from politics, he could give but common-place ideas in answer to his inquiries, and they would be but the widow's mite, and offered only because requested. "The matter," he remarks, "which now embroils Europe, the presumption of dictating to an independent nation the form of its government, is so arrogant, so atrocious, that indignation, as well as moral sentiment, enlists all our partialities and our prayers in favour of one, and our equal execrations against the other. I do not know, indeed, whether all nations do not owe to one another a bold and open declaration of their sympathies with the one party, and their detestation of the conduct of the other. But farther than this we are not bound to go; and, indeed, for the sake of the world, we ought not to increase the jealousies, or draw on ourselves the power of this formidable confederacy. I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States, never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labour, property, and lives of their people. On our part never had a people so favourable a chance of trying the

ours.

opposite system, of peace and fraternity with mankind, and the direction of all our means and faculties to the purposes of improvement instead of destruction. With Europe we have few occasions of collision, and these, with a little prudence and forbearance, may be generally accommodated. Of the brethren of our own hemisphere, none are yet, or for an age to come will be, in a shape, condition, or disposition to war against us. And the foothold which the nations of Europe had in either America is slipping from under them, so that we shall be soon rid of their neighbourhood."

He considered England as not acting with good faith towards Spain; that her display of supporting liberal principles in Spain was understood by the allies, as meaning to deceive the English people, and gave no apprehensions to France. "It is," he says, "a theatrical farce, in which the five powers [meaning France, England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia] are the actors, England the Tartuffe, and her people the dupes."- "This war," he adds, " is evidently that of the general body of the aristocracy, in which England is also acting her part. Save but the nobles, and there shall be no war,' says she, masking her measures at the same time under the form of friendship and mediation, and hypocritically, while a party, offering herself as a judge, to betray those whom she is not permitted openly to oppose. A fraudulent neutrality, if neutrality at all, is all Spain will get from her. And Spain, probably, perceives this, and willingly winks at it rather than have her weight thrown openly into the other scale."

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CHAPTER XX.

Letter to Judge Johnson. History of parties in the United States. General Washington's Farewell Address. Decisions of the Supreme Court. How constitutional questions are to be settled. Letter to Mr. Adams on the progress of civil liberty. Publication of Cunningham's correspondence. Letter to Mr. Adams. Mr. Pickering's review. Letter of vindication to Mr. Monroe. Letter to the President on resisting the interference of the Holy Allies in the affairs of Spanish America. To La Fayette on government. Universal political parties. To Mr. Sparks-on colonization in Africa. Exempting imported books from duty. To Mr. Livingston - roads and canals by the federal government. To Major Cartwright on the English constitution. Arrival of La Fayette in the United States. Visits Mr. Jefferson. National joy. Donation suggested by Mr. Jefferson.

1823-1824.

In a letter to Judge Johnson, of South Carolina, then engaged in writing the life of General Greene, Mr. Jefferson adverts to the advantage which the federal party had obtained over their opponents "in preparations for placing their cause favourably before posterity," and expresses pleasure in hearing that Judge Johnson meant to continue hist history of parties; and his views of the respective tenets and objects of the two parties, being here fully and carefully presented to one who was professedly undertaking to transmit their history to posterity, it is now given without abridg

ment.

He says, "That at the formation of our government, many had formed their opinions on European writings and practices, believing the experience of old countries, and especially

of England, abusive as it was, to be a safer guide than mere theory. The doctrines of Europe were, that men in numerous associations cannot be restrained within the limits of order and justice, but by forces physical and moral, wielded over them by authorities independent of their will. Hence their organization of kings, hereditary nobles, and priests. Still further to constrain the brute force of the people, they deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labour, poverty, and ignorance, and to take from them, as from becs, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labour shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus barely to maintain their privileged orders in splendour and idleness, to fascinate the eyes of the people, and excite in them an humble adoration and submission, as to an order of superior beings. Although few among us had gone all these lengths of opinion, yet many had advanced, some more, some less, on the way. And in the convention which formed our government, they endeavoured to draw the cords of government as tight as they could obtain them, to lessen the dependence of the general functionaries on their constituents; to subject to them those of the states; and to weaken their means of maintaining the steady equilibrium which the majority of the convention had deemed salutary for both branches, general and local. To recover, therefore, in practice the powers which the nation had refused, and to warp to their own wishes those actually given, was the steady object of the federal party. Ours, on the contrary, was to maintain the will of the majority of the convention. and of the people themselves. We believed, with them, that man was a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights, and with an innate sense of justice; and that he could be restrained from wrong, and protected in right, by moderate powers, confided to persons of his own choice, and held to their duties by dependence on his own will. We believed that the complicated