Your favor of the 15th of June is received, and I am very thankful
for the kindness of its expressions respecting myself. But it
ascribes to me merits which I do not claim. I was only of a band
devoted to the cause of independence, all of whom exerted equally
their best endeavors for its success, and have a common right to the
merits of its acquisition. So also in the civil revolution of 1801.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted
in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve
it in that will require unremitting vigilance. Whether the surrender
of our opponents, their reception into our camp, their assumption of
our name, and apparent accession to our objects, may strengthen or
weaken the genuine principles of republicanism, may be a good or an
evil, is yet to be seen. I consider the party division of whig and
tory the most wholesome which can exist in any government, and well
worthy of being nourished, to keep out those of a more dangerous
character. We already see the power, installed for life, responsible
to no authority (for impeachment is not even a scare-crow),
advancing with a noiseless and steady pace to the great object of
consolidation. The foundations are already deeply laid by their
decisions, for the annihilation of constitutional State rights, and
the removal of every check, every counterpoise to the ingulphing*
power of which themselves are to make a sovereign part. If ever this
vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of
the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a
wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be
borne, and you will have to choose between reformation and
revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the
other is inevitable. Before the canker is become inveterate, before
its venom has reached so much of the body politic as to get beyond
control, remedy should be applied. Let the future appointments of
judges be for four or six years, and renewable by the President and
Senate. This will bring their conduct, at regular periods, under
revision and probation, and may keep them in equipoise between the
general and special governments. We have erred in this point, by
copying England, where certainly it is a good thing to have the
judges independent of the King. But we have omitted to copy their
caution also, which makes a judge removable on the address of both
legislative Houses. That there should be public functionaries
independent of the nation, whatever may be their demerit, is a
solecism in a republic, of the first order of absurdity and
inconsistency.
To the printed inquiries respecting our schools, it is not in my
power to give an answer. Age, debility, an ancient dislocated, and
now stiffened wrist, render writing so slow and painful, that I am
obliged to decline every thing possible requiring writing. An act of
our legislature will inform you of our plan of primary schools, and
the annual reports show that it is becoming completely abortive, and
must be abandoned very shortly, after costing us to this day one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars, and yet to cost us forty-five
thousand dollars a year more until it shall be discontinued; and if
a single boy has received the elements of common education, it must
be in some part of the country not known to me. Experience has but
too fully confirmed the early predictions of its fate. But on this
subject I must refer you to others more able than I am to go into
the necessary details; and I conclude with the assurances of my
great esteem and respect.
