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To William Branch Giles, Monticello, December 26, 1825
DEAR SIR, -- I wrote you a letter yesterday, of which you will
be free to make what use you please. This will contain matters not
intended for the public eye. I see, as you do, and with the deepest
affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our
government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights
reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all
powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which,
if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together the
decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the President, and
the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the
legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too evident, that
the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to
strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved
by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and
domestic. Under the power to regulate commerce, they assume
indefinitely that also over agriculture and manufactures, and call it
regulation to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry,
and that too the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the
other, the most flourishing of all. Under the authority to establish
post roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains for the
construction of roads, of digging canals, and aided by a little
sophistry on the words "general welfare," a right to do, not only the
acts to effect that, which are specifically enumerated and permitted,
but whatsoever they shall think, or pretend will be for the general
welfare. And what is our resource for the preservation of the
constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and
argue with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives
chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combination, some from
incorrect views of government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient
voting together to out-number the sound parts; and with majorities
only of one, two, or three, bold enough to go forward in defiance.
Are we then to stand to our arms, with the hot-headed Georgian?
No. That must be the last resource, not to be thought of until much
longer and greater sufferings. If every infraction of a compact of
so many parties is to be resisted at once, as a dissolution of it,
none can ever be formed which would last one year. We must have
patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under
delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of
consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter
of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole
alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or
submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between
these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no
hesitation. But in the meanwhile, the States should be watchful to
note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as
they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as
wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as
acknowledgments or precedents of our yeomanry. This will be to them a
next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps
the surest stepping-stone to it.
I learn with great satisfaction that your school is thriving
well, and that you have at its head a truly classical scholar. He is
one of three or four whom I can hear of in the State. We were
obliged the last year to receive shameful Latinists into the
classical school of the University, such as we will certainly refuse
as soon as we can get from better schools a sufficiency of those
properly instructed to form a class. We must get rid of this
Connecticut Latin, of this barbarous confusion of long and short
syllables, which renders doubtful whether we are listening to a
reader of Cherokee, Shawnee, Iroquois, or what. Our University has
been most fortunate in the five professors procured from England. A
finer selection could not have been made. Besides their being of a
grade of science which has left little superior behind, the
correctness of their moral character, their accommodating
dispositions, and zeal for the prosperity of the institution, leave
us nothing more to wish. I verily believe that as high a degree of
education can now be obtained here, as in the country they left. And
a finer set of youths I never saw assembled for instruction. They
committed some irregularities at first, until they learned the lawful
length of their tether; since which it has never been transgressed in
the smallest degree. A great proportion of them are severely devoted
to study, and I fear not to say that within twelve or fifteen years
from this time, a majority of the rulers of our State will have been
educated here. They shall carry hence the correct principles of our
day, and you may count assuredly that they will exhibit their country
in a degree of sound respectability it has never known, either in our
days, or those of our forefathers. I cannot live to see it. My joy
must only be that of anticipation. But that you may see it in full
fruition, is the probable consequence of the twenty years I am ahead
of you in time, and is the sincere prayer of your affectionate and
constant friend.
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