156 CIVIL RIGHTS. Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than on our opinions in physics or geometry; and, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust or emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him judicially of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right. (From a bill for establishing religious freedom, 1779. F. II., 238.) CIVIL SERVICE.-Your recommendation of Mr. Reynolds would have given me all the disposition possible to have found a place for him. But in the office to which I have been called, all was full, and I could not in any case think it just to turn out those in possession who have behaved well, merely to put others in. (To Francis Willis, 1790. F. V., 157.) CIVIL SERVICE.-Out of about six hundred offices named by the President there were six Republicans only when I came into office and these were chiefly half-breeds. Out of upwards of three hundred holding office during pleasure, I removed about fifteen or those who had signalized themselves by their own intolerance in office, because the public voice called for it imperiously, and it was just that the Republicans should at length have some participation in the government. There never was another removal but for such delinquencies as removed the Republicans equally. In the horrid drudgery I always felt myself as a public executioner, an office which no one who knows me, I hope, supposes very grateful to my feelings. It was considerably alleviated, however, by the industry of their newspapers in endeavoring to excite resentment enough to enable me to meet the operation. (To William Short, 1807. F. IX., 51.) CIVIL SERVICE.-See Offices, Rotation, Nepotism. THE CLASSICS.-You ask my opinion on the extent to which classical learning should be carried in our country. A sickly condition permits me to think, and a rheumatic hand to write too briefly on this litigated question. The utilities we derive from the remains of the Greek and Latin languages are, first, as models of pure taste in writing. To these we are certainly indebted for the national and chaste style of modern composition which so much distinguishes the nations to whom these languages are familiar. Without these models we should probably have continued the inflated style of our Northern ancestors, or the hyperbolical and vague one of the East. 2d. Among the values of classical learning, I estimate the luxury of reading the Greek and Roman authors in all the beauties of their originals. And why should not this innocent and elegant luxury take its pre-eminent stand ahead of all those addressed merely to the senses? I think myself more indebted to my father for this than for all the other luxuries his cares and affections have placed within my reach; and more now than when younger, and more susceptible of delights from other sources. When the decays of age have enfeebled the useful energies of the mind, the classic pages fill up the vacuum of ennui and become sweet composers to that rest of the grave into which we are all sooner or later to descend. 3d. A third value is in the stores of real science deposited, and transmitted us in these languages, to wit: in history, ethics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, natural history, etc. But to whom are these things useful? Certainly not to all men. There are conditions of life to which they must be forever estranged, and there are epochs of life too, after which the endeavor to attain them would be a great misemployment of time. Their acquisition should be the occupation of our early years only, when the memory is susceptible of deep and lasting impressions, and reason and judgment not yet strong enough for abstract speculations. (To John Brazier, 1819. C. VII., 131.) CLERGY.-I observe in the same scheme of a constitution an abridgment of the right of being elected, which after seventeen years more of experience and reflection I do not approve. It is incapacitation of a clergyman from being elected. The clergy by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. They are still so in many countries and even in some of these United States. Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them to the footing of other useful callings. It now appears that our means were effectual. The clergy here seem to have relinquished all pretensions to privilege and to stand on a footing with lawyers, physicians, etc. They ought, therefore, to possess the same rights. (To Jeremiah Moore, 1800. F. VII., 454.) CLERGY.-The Palladium is understood to be the clerical paper, and from the clergy I expect no mercy. They crucified their Saviour, who preached that their kingdom was not of this world; and all who practice on that precept must expect the extreme of their wrath. The laws of the present day withhold their hands from blood; but lies and slander still remain to them. (To Levi Lincoln, 1801. F. VII., 84.) COLLEGES.-You have now an happy opportunity of carrying this intermediate establishment into execution without laying a cent of tax on the people, or taking one from the treasury. Divide the State into college districts of about eighty miles square each. There would be about eight such districts below the Alleghany, and two beyond it, which would be necessarily of larger extent because of the sparseness of their population. The only advance these colleges would call for, would be for a dwelling house for the teacher, of about one thousand two hundred dollars cost, and a boarding house with four or five bed rooms, and a school room for probably about twenty or thirty boys. The whole should cost not more than five thousand dollars, but the funds of William and Mary would enable you to give them ten thousand dollars each. The district might be so laid off that the principal towns and the academies now existing might form convenient sites for their colleges; as, for example, Williamsburg, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Hampden, Sydney, Lynchburg or Lexington, Staunton, Winchester, etc. Thus, of William and Mary, you will make ten colleges, each as useful as she ever was, leaving one in Williamsburg by itself, placing as good a one within a day's ride of every man in the State and get our whole scheme of education com 159 pletely established. (To COLONIES.-Ancient nations considered Colonies principally 1824. C. VII., 385.) as receptacles for a too numerous population, and as natural and useful allies in times of war; but modern nations, viewing commerce as an object of first importance, value Colonies chiefly as instruments for the increase of that. (To the Swedish Embassador at Paris, 1786. F. IV., 238.) COMMERCE. Our interest will be to throw open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the vent of whatever they may choose to bring into our ports and asking the same in theirs. (From "Notes on Virginia," 1782. F. III., 279.) COMMERCE.-All the world is becoming commercial. Were it practicable to keep our new empire separated from them. we might indulge ourselves in speculating whether commerce contributes to the happiness of mankind. But we cannot separate ourselves from them. Our citizens have had too full a taste of the comforts furnished by the arts and manufactures to be debarred the use of them. We must then in our defense endeavor to share as large a portion as we can of this modern source of wealth and power. (To George Washington, 1784. F. III., 422.) COMMERCE.-With England nothing will produce a treaty but an enforcement of the resolutions of Congress proposing that there should be no trade where there is no treaty. The infatuation of that nation seems really preternatural. If anything will open their eyes it will be the application to the avarice of the merchants who are the very people who have opposed the treaty first meditated, and who have excited the spirit of hostility at present prevailing against us. Deaf to every principle of common sense, insensible to the feelings of men, they firmly believe they shall be permitted by us to keep all the carrying trade and that we shall attempt no act of retaliation because they are pleased to think it our interest not to do so. (Written from Paris to James Madison, 1784. F. VI., 7.) COMMERCE.-Congress, by the Confederation, have no original and inherent power over the commerce of the States. But by 160 * * * the 9th article they are authorized to enter into treaties of COMMERCE. I have heard with great pleasure that our assembly have come to the resolution of giving the regulation of commerce to the federal head. I will venture to assert that The politics of there is not one of its opposers who, placed on this ground, would not see the wisdom of this measure. Europe render it indispensably necessary that with respect to everything external we be one nation only, firmly hooped together. Interior Government is what each State should keep to itself. If it could be seen in Europe that all our States could be brought to concur in what the Virginia assembly has done, it would produce a total revolution in their opinion of us, and respect for us. And it should ever be held in mind that insult and war are the consequences of a want of respectability in the national character. As long as the States exercise separately those acts of power which respect foreign nations, so long will there continue to be irregularities committed by some one or other of them, which will constantly keep us on an ill footing with foreign nations. (Written from Paris to James Madison, 1786. F. IV., 192.) COMMERCE. I have laid my shoulder to the opening of the markets of this country to our produce, and rendering its transportation a nursery for our seamen. A maritime force is the only one by which we can act on Europe. Our navigation law (if it be wise to have any) should be the reverse of that of England. Instead of confining importations to home bottoms |