24

REPORT ON FRENCH AND BRITISH COMMERCE. [CHAP. I.

time had not yet expired, was Rufus King, perhaps the ablest member of the Federal party in the Senate. The most prominent Republican member was James Monroe. The afterwards celebrated Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, first took his seat in the House of Representatives this session. Among the other conspicuous new members, were William Findley and Andrew Gregg, of Pennsylvania; Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey; General Artemas Ward, of Massachusetts; and James Hillhouse, of Connecticut. Madison, Giles and Page returned from Virginia; Gerry, Ames and Sedgwick from Massachusetts; Fitzsimmons, Muhlenburg and Hartley from Pennsylvania; Lawrence, Benson and Sylvester from New York; Smith, Sumpter and Tucker from South Carolina; Williamson from North Carolina; Baldwin from Georgia; Boudinot from New Jersey; Trumbull from Connecticut; Livermore from New Hampshire; and Vining from Dela

ware.

Several reports to Congress, several Cabinet opinions, and several instructions to our foreign ministers, were prepared by the Secretary of State during the session; and though a number of these papers possess no inconsiderable interest, even now, we feel compelled to pass them without notice.

Believing that a moment was approaching when it might be useful to have the conditions of American commerce with the French and British dominions accurately understood, Mr. Jefferson, on the 23d of December, placed a carefully drawn up tabular exhibit of the facts before the President. This disclosed some remarkable circumstances. But a single article, indigo, was subjected to a higher duty in France than in Great Britain, except in their West India possessions, where there was, in a few instances, a difference of one per cent. in favor of England. On all the most important American products the French duties were lower-in some cases greatly lower-while many of those products were absolutely prohibited in England. The latter also prohibited the naturalization of American ships, which was permitted in France. English port charges were higher. Our tonnage in the French trade, including the islands, was three times larger than in the English. Yet in the face of all these facts, our exports (leaving out the West India Islands),

son-in-law, and although he was a man of commanding appearance, yet his manners, having been formed in camps, and not in courts or among the people, were austere and aristo cratic, and rendered him personally unpopular." (Vol. i. p. 50.)

JHAP. I.]

ON A NEW CONSTITUTION FOR VIRGINIA.

25

were about five times and our imports about nine times as large to and from England, as to and from France.' And it would be appropriate to add, that in the face of all these facts-in the face of our different Revolutionary obligations to those countries-in the face of England's continued refusal to evacuate our territory, or to enter upon any terms of commercial negotiation, or even to exchange a minister with us the last Federal Congress had refused to make a particle of discrimination between. the regulations imposed on British and French commerce! Mr. Jefferson attributed the refusal to prejudices in favor of England, somewhat aided by southern prejudices against the shipping interests of New England.'

Of the same date with the preceding, Mr. Jefferson addressed a letter to Mr. Stuart of Virginia, on the expediency of forming a new Constitution for that State. He considered it desirable, but thought it would be unsafe to proceed without some previous understanding with Patrick Henry as to the nature of the proposed amendments. This patriotic but rather unstable politician had been inflamed to a great pitch of exasperation by the adoption of the United States Constitution. He now scarcely belonged to any party-but his unbounded popularity and his resistless eloquence made him still able to defeat almost any measure which could be brought forward for the interior concerns of the State. He had hitherto been considered opposed to the formation of a new Constitution in Virginia, and if a convention was called in defiance of his views, Mr. Jefferson apprehended that he would "either fix the thing as at present, or change it for the worse." He proceeds thus, in modern phrase, to “define his own position," and, incidentally to touch on some interesting topics of federal politics:

“I shall hazard my own ideas to you as hastily as my business obliges me. I wish to preserve the line drawn by the federal Constitution between the general and particular governments as it stands at present, and to take every prudent means of preventing either from stepping over it. Though the experiment has not yet had a long enough course to show us from which quarter encroachments are most to be feared, yet it is easy to foresee, from the nature of things, that the encroachments

It should be remarked, however, that our exports to and imports from the French West Indies, exceeded by, say, one-fourth those to and from the British West Indies.

2 These views will be found expressed in a letter to Edward Rutledge, of Aug. 25, 1791. Mr. Jefferson particularly points to the South Carolina members of Congress as entertaining the second class of prejudices, and urges Mr. Rutledge to attempt to remove them.

26

JEFFERSON'S ANA COMMENCED.

[CHAP. I.

of the State Governments will tend to an excess of liberty which will correct itself (as in the late instance), while those of the General Government will tend to monar chy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cure, as all experience shows. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it. Then it is important to strengthen the State Governments; and as this cannot be done by any change in the federal Constitution (for the preservation of that is all we need contend for), it must be done by the States themselves, erecting such barriers at the constitutional line as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the General Government. The only barrier in their power is a wise government. A weak one will lose ground in every contest. To obtain a wise and an able goverment, I consider the following changes as important. Render the legislature a desirable station by lessening the number of representatives (say to 100) and lengthening somewhat their term, and proportion them equally among the electors. Adopt also a better mode of appointing senators. Render the Executive a more desirable post to mer of abilities by making it more independent of the legislature. To wit, let him be chosen by other electors, for a longer time, and ineligible for ever after. Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government. Let him feel the whole weight of it then, by taking away the shelter of his executive council. Experience both ways has already established the superiority of this measure. Render the judiciary respectable by every possible means, to wit, firm tenure in office, competent salaries, and reduction of their numbers. Men of high learning and abilities are few in every country; and by taking in those who are not so, the able part of the body have their hands tied by the unable. This branch of the government will have the weight of the conflict on their hands, because they will be the last appeal of reason. These are my general ideas of amendments; but, preserving the ends, I should be flexible and conciliatory as to the means. You ask whether Mr. Madison and myself could attend on a Convention which should be called. Mr. Madison's engagements as a member of Congress will probably be from October to March or April in every year. Mine are constant while I hold my office, and my attendance would be very unimportant. Were it otherwise, my office should not stand in the way of it."

Before leaving the history of Mr. Jefferson's life, for this year, it is necessary to allude to a practice adopted by him towards the close of it, which has, in its final consequences, drawn upon him more bitter animadversion than any, than all, the other acts of his life put together. It has, in thousands of bosoms, converted what would have been mere partisan prejudice, into personal and vindictive hate. It has, in thousands of even liberal minds, produced wholly distorted estimates of his temper, his candor, his fairness towards opponents-in a word, of his whole character both as a man and a politician. We allude to his making the memoranda which have been published under the head of "Ana." This word, we need not say, is a termination derived from the Latin, and when, in the usual

CHAP. I.]

THEIR NATURE.

27

way, connected with a proper name, is understood to denote anecdotes or sayings of the person bearing that name.'

Mr. Jefferson's Ana consist of records of official, semi-official, and private conversations and proceedings under a great variety of circumstances, in some instances witnessed by himself, in others reported to him by third persons.

It has been claimed that the original making of many of these memoranda was a violation of the established decorums of society or of official etiquette, and that the intention of publishing them converted an error into a crime. The very fact that they were not published until after Mr. Jefferson's death, has been claimed to imply a more settled and ruthless malignity. The public have been eloquently told of hate and bitterness surviving the tomb-of profanations of the sanctuary of the grave, to "shoot" from it "poisoned arrows" at the dead and the living.'

It is conceded, at the outset, that Mr. Jefferson undoubtedly wrote his Ana, contemplating their publication, if events, in his judgment, should render it expedient. They were begun at what he esteemed a most perilous crisis of public affairs, to record facts which would explain the real designs of the two political parties. Perhaps he had formed no settled purpose in regard to the use to be made of them further than as aids to his own memory. It is probable that their other use was left to depend upon circumstances. If the designs he attributed to the Federalists had continued to progress towards a successful termination, and especially if they had continued at the same time concealed from the popular knowledge, we can entertain no doubt that such portions of the Ana would have been contemporaneously made public as respect for official secrecy permitted. The motive which induced the making of such a record, if patriotic and consistently carried out, would certainly demand this.

But the designs of the Federalists were not successful. No minute documentary evidence became necessary to expose and overthrow their projects, whatever they were. Notwithstand

For example, Baconiana, Voltariana, Scaligerana, etc. We doubt, however, whether the word was well selected as a title to a considerable class of the memoranda or recollections Mr. Jefferson placed under it.

This is Judge Marshall's figure. (Life of Washington, second edition. vol. ji Appendix, p. 32.) The reader is requested to turn to Judge Marshall's remarks accom Danying those particularly cited.

28

EXPECTED PUBLICATION OF ANA.

[CHAP. I

ing this, more than twenty years after the writing of most of the Ana, they were calmly revised" for more accurate. and we may add, more certain preservation. Mr. Jefferson's suffering them, in this situation, to pass into the hands of what may be termed his literary executor, leaving their publication to the judgment of that executor, makes him as responsible for the action of the latter in the premises as if it had been his own individual action. Nay, this is hardly stating the case strongly enough. It is apparent that when Mr. Jefferson made his "calm revisal," he expected the publication of the papers under certain circumstances-unless their object should be antici pated, within a reasonable time, by an equivalent publication from some other source. That object was not anticipated by any other publication. His executor, then, had no alternative. The sole question left is, was Mr. Jefferson justifiable in writing such memoranda, and in impliedly directing their posthumous publication?

There is, assuredly, no kind or shade of dishonor which a chivalric mind shrinks from more instinctively and more loathingly, than from a violation of personal confidence, whether that confidence pertains to public or private concerns. This feeling is not the dictate of overstrained sentiment, but of common honesty; of laws absolutely necessary for the preservation of society, or at least for the preservation of its civilization. Where the official cannot freely confer with his brother official, in or out of official conclave, without having all his inmost thoughts carried to the newspapers-where men cannot meet amidst the gaieties of the soiree, or the genialities of the dinner table, without padlocks on their mouths, and eyes gleaming watclifully for an advantage, society must dissolve, or sink into the barbarism, when it thus sinks into the espionage, of Japan. Among men of any breeding the intimation that a disclosure is "confidential" is not necessary to make it confidential. The time, the place and the circumstances often just as distinctly and imperatively impose that obligation. As a general thing, polite society, and especially where the assembled circle is small, is to be regarded as neutral ground where even antagonists on public questions can meet with armor off. In the genial glow, when those antagonists have discovered captivating personal qualities in each other or in each other's families-when perhaps music,