Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826. Autobiography
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY
1743 -- 1790
With the Declaration of Independence
January 6, 1821
At the age of 77, I begin to make some memoranda and state some
recollections of dates & facts concerning myself, for my own more ready reference
& for the information of my family.
The tradition in my father's family was that their ancestor came to
this country from Wales, and from near the mountain of Snowdon, the highest in Gr. Br. I
noted once a case from Wales in the law reports where a person of our name was either pl.
or def. and one of the same name was Secretary to the Virginia company. These are the only
instances in which I have met with the name in that country.I have found it in our early
records, but the first particular information I have of any ancestor was my grandfather
who lived at the place in Chesterfield called Ozborne's and ownd. the lands afterwards the
glebe of the parish. He had three sons, Thomas who died young, Field who settled on the
waters of Roanoke and left numerous descendants, and Peter my father, who settled on the
lands still own called Shadwell adjoining my present residence. He was born Feb. 29,
1707/8, and intermarried 1739. with Jane Randolph, of the age of 19. daur of Isham
Randolph one of the seven sons of that name & family settled at Dungeoness in Goochld.
They trace their pedigree far back in England & Scotland, to which let every one
ascribe the faith & merit he chooses.
My father's education had been quite neglected; but being of a strong
mind, sound judgment and eager after information, he read much and improved himself
insomuch that he was chosen with Joshua Fry professor of Mathem. in W. & M. college to
continue the boundary line between Virginia & N. Caroline which had been begun by Colo
Byrd, and was afterwards employed with the same Mr. Fry to make the 1st map of Virginia
which had ever been made, that of Capt Smith being merely a conjectural sketch. They
possessed excellent
Page 4
materials for so much of the country as is below the blue ridge; little being then known
beyond that ridge. He was the 3d or 4th settler of the part of the country in which I
live, which was about 1737. He died Aug. 17. 1757, leaving my mother a widow who lived
till 1776, with 6 daurs & 2. sons, myself the elder. To my younger brother he left his
estate on James river called Snowden after the supposed birth-place of the family. To
myself the lands on which I was born & live. He placed me at the English school at 5.
years of age and at the Latin at 9. where I continued until his death. My teacher Mr.
Douglas a clergyman from Scotland was but a superficial Latinist, less instructed in
Greek, but with the rudiments of these languages he taught me French, and on the death of
my father I went to the revd Mr. Maury a correct classical scholar, with whom I continued
two years, and then went to Wm. and Mary college, to wit in the spring of 1760, where
continued 2. years. It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of
my life that Dr. Wm. Small of Scotland was then professor of Mathematics, a man profound
in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct
and gentlemanly manners, & an enlarged & liberal mind. He, most happily for me,
became soon attached to me & made me his daily companion when not engaged in the
school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science &
of the system of things in which we are placed. Fortunately the Philosophical chair became
vacant soon after my arrival at college, and he was appointed to fill it per interim: and
he was the first who ever gave in that college regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric &
Belles lettres. He returned to Europe in 1762, having previously filled up the measure of
his goodness to me, by procuring for me, from his most intimate friend G. Wythe, a
reception as a student of law, under his direction, and introduced me to the acquaintance
and familiar table of Governor Fauquier, the ablest man who had ever filled that office.
With him, and at his table, Dr. Small & Mr. Wythe, his amici omnium horarum, &
myself, formed a partie quarree, & to the habitual conversations on these occasions I
owed much instruction. Mr. Wythe continued to be my faithful and beloved Mentor in youth,
and my most affectionate friend through
Page 5
life. In 1767, he led me into the practice of the law at the bar of the General court, at
which I continued until the revolution shut up the courts of justice. [For a sketch of the
life & character of Mr. Wythe see my letter of Aug. 31. 20. to Mr. John Saunderson]
In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the
county in which I live, & continued in that until it was closed by the revolution. I
made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was
rejected: and indeed, during the regal government, nothing liberal could expect success.
Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our
duty to be subordinate to the mother country in all matters of government, to direct all
our labors in subservience to her interests, and even to observe a bigoted intolerance for
all religions but hers. The difficulties with our representatives were of habit and
despair, not of reflection & conviction. Experience soon proved that they could bring
their minds to rights on the first summons of their attention. But the king's council,
which acted as another house of legislature, held their places at will & were in most
humble obedience to that will: the Governor too, who had a negative on our laws held by
the same tenure, & with still greater devotedness to it: and last of all the Royal
negative closed the last door to every hope of amelioration.
On the 1st of January, 1772 I was married to Martha Skelton widow of
Bathurst Skelton, & daughter of John Wayles, then 23. years old. Mr. Wayles was a
lawyer of much practice, to which he was introduced more by his great industry,
punctuality & practical readiness, than to eminence in the science of his profession.
He was a most agreeable companion, full of pleasantry & good humor, and welcomed in
every society. He acquired a handsome fortune, died in May, 1773, leaving three daughters,
and the portion which came on that event to Mrs. Jefferson, after the debts should be
paid, which were very considerable, was about equal to my own patrimony, and consequently
doubled the ease of our circumstances.
When the famous Resolutions of 1765, against the Stamp-act, were
proposed, I was yet a student of law in Wmsbg. attended the debate however at the door of
the lobby of the
Page 6
H. of Burgesses, & heard the splendid display of Mr. Henry's talents as a popular
orator. They were great indeed; such as I have never heard from any other man. He appeared
to me to speak as Homer wrote. Mr. Johnson, a lawyer & member from the Northern Neck,
seconded the resolns, & by him the learning & the logic of the case were chiefly
maintained. My recollections of these transactions may be seen pa. 60, Wirt's life of P.
H., to whom I furnished them.
In May, 1769, a meeting of the General Assembly was called by the
Govr., Ld. Botetourt. I had then become a member; and to that meeting became known the
joint resolutions & address of the Lords & Commons of 1768 -- 9, on the
proceedings in Massachusetts. Counter-resolutions, & an address to the King, by the H.
of Burgesses were agreed to with little opposition, & a spirit manifestly displayed of
considering the cause of Massachusetts as a common one. The Governor dissolved us: but we
met the next day in the Apollo of the Raleigh tavern, formed ourselves into a voluntary
convention, drew up articles of association against the use of any merchandise imported
from Gr. Britain, signed and recommended them to the people, repaired to our several
counties, & were re elected without any other exception than of the very few who had
declined assent to our proceedings.
Nothing of particular excitement occurring for a considerable time
our countrymen seemed to fall into a state of insensibility to our situation. The duty on
tea not yet repealed & the Declaratory act of a right in the British parl to bind us
by their laws in all cases whatsoever, still suspended over us. But a court of inquiry
held in R. Island in 1762, with a power to send persons to England to be tried for
offences committed here was considered at our session of the spring of 1773. as demanding
attention. Not thinking our old & leading members up to the point of forwardness &
zeal which the times required, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Francis L. Lee, Mr. Carr & myself
agreed to meet in the evening in a private room of the Raleigh to consult on the state of
things. There may have been a member or two more whom do not recollect. We were all
sensible that the most urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding with
all the other colonies to consider the British claims as a common cause to all, & to
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produce an unity of action: and for this purpose that a commee of correspondce in each
colony would be the best instrument for intercommunication: and that their first measure
would probably be to propose a meeting of deputies from every colony at some central
place, who should be charged with the direction of the measures which should be taken by
all. We therefore drew up the resolutions which may be seen in Wirt pa 87. The consulting
members proposed to me to move them, but urged that it should be done by Mr. Carr, my
friend & brother in law, then a new member to whom I wished an opportunity should be
given of making known to the house his great worth & talents. It was so agreed; he
moved them, they were agreed to nem. con. and a commee of correspondence appointed of whom
Peyton Randolph, the Speaker, was chairman. The Govr. (then Ld. Dunmore) dissolved us, but
the commee met the next day, prepared a circular letter to the Speakers of the other
colonies, inclosing to each a copy of the resolns and left it in charge with their
chairman to forward them by expresses.
The origination of these commees of correspondence between the
colonies has been since claimed for Massachusetts, and Marshall II. 151, has given into
this error, altho' the very note of his appendix to which he refers, shows that their
establmt was confined to their own towns. This matter will be seen clearly stated in a
letter of Samuel Adams Wells to me of Apr. 2., 1819, and my answer of May 12. I was
corrected by the letter of Mr. Wells in the information I had given Mr. Wirt, as stated in
his note, pa. 87, that the messengers of Massach. & Virga crossed each other on the
way bearing similar propositions, for Mr. Wells shows that Mass. did not adopt the measure
but on the receipt of our proposn delivered at their next session. Their message therefore
which passed ours, must have related to something else, for I well remember P. Randolph's
informing me of the crossing of our messengers.
The next event which excited our sympathies for Massachusets was the
Boston port bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the 1st of June, 1774. This
arrived while we were in session in the spring of that year. The lead in the house on
these subjects being no longer left to the old members, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee,
3. or 4. other members, whom
Page 8
I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that we must boldly take an unequivocal stand in
the line with Massachusetts, determined to meet and consult on the proper measures in the
council chamber, for the benefit of the library in that room. We were under conviction of
the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to
passing events; and thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting & prayer
would be most likely to call up & alarm their attention. No example of such a
solemnity had existed since the days of our distresses in the war of 55. since which a new
generation had grown up. With the help therefore of Rushworth, whom we rummaged over for
the revolutionary precedents & forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we
cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of
June, on which the Port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation &
prayer, to implore heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with
firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King & parliament to
moderation & justice. To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed to wait
the next morning on Mr. Nicholas, whose grave & religious character was more in unison
with the tone of our resolution and to solicit him to move it. We accordingly went to him
in the morning. He moved it the same day; the 1st of June was proposed and it passed
without opposition. The Governor dissolved us as usual. We retired to the Apollo as
before, agreed to an association, and instructed the commee of correspdce to propose to
the corresponding commees of the other colonies to appoint deputies to meet in Congress at
such place, annually, as should be convenient to direct, from time to time, the
measures required by the general interest: and we declared that an attack on any one
colony should be considered as an attack on the whole. This was in May. We further
recommended to the several counties to elect deputies to meet at Wmsbg the 1st of Aug
ensuing, to consider the state of the colony, & particularly to appoint delegates to a
general Congress, should that measure be acceded to by the commees of correspdce
generally. It was acceded to, Philadelphia was appointed for the place, and the 5th of
Sep. for the time of meeting. We returned home, and
Page 9
in our several counties invited the clergy to meet assemblies of the people on the 1st of
June, to perform the ceremonies of the day, & to address to them discourses suited to
the occasion. The people met generally, with anxiety & alarm in their countenances,
and the effect of the day thro' the whole colony was like a shock of electricity, arousing
every man & placing him erect & solidly on his centre. They chose universally
delegates for the convention. Being elected one for my own county I prepared a draught of
instructions to be given to the delegates whom we should send to the Congress, and which I
meant to propose at our meeting. In this I took the ground which, from the beginning I had
thought the only one orthodox or tenable, which was that the relation between Gr. Br. and
these colonies was exactly the same as that of England & Scotland after the accession
of James & until the Union, and the same as her present relations with Hanover, having
the same Executive chief but no other necessary political connection; and that our
emigration from England to this country gave her no more rights over us, than the
emigrations of the Danes and Saxons gave to the present authorities of the mother country
over England. In this doctrine however I had never been able to get any one to agree with
me but Mr. Wythe. He concurred in it from the first dawn of the question What was the
political relation between us & England? Our other patriots Randolph, the Lees,
Nicholas, Pendleton stopped at the half-way house of John Dickinson who admitted that
England had a right to regulate our commerce, and to lay duties on it for the purposes of
regulation, but not of raising revenue. But for this ground there was no foundation in
compact, in any acknowledged principles of colonization, nor in reason: expatriation being
a natural right, and acted on as such, by all nations, in all ages. I set out for Wmsbg
some days before that appointed for our meeting, but was taken ill of a dysentery on the
road, & unable to proceed. sent on therefore to Wmsbg two copies of my draught, the
one under cover to Peyton Randolph, who I knew would be in the chair of the convention,
the other to Patrick Henry. Whether Mr. Henry disapproved the ground taken, or was too
lazy to read it (for he was the laziest man in reading I ever knew) I never learned: but
he communicated it to nobody. Peyton Randolph
Page 10
informed the convention he had received such a paper from a member prevented by sickness
from offering it in his place, and he laid it on the table for perusal. It was read
generally by the members, approved by many, but thought too bold for the present state of
things; but they printed it in pamphlet form under the title of "A Summary view of
the rights of British America." It found its way to England, was taken up by the
opposition, interpolated a little by Mr. Burke so as to make it answer opposition
purposes, and in that form ran rapidly thro' several editions. This information I had from
Parson Hurt, who happened at the time to be in London, whether he had gone to receive
clerical orders. And I was informed afterwards by Peyton Randolph that it had procured me
the honor of having my name inserted in a long list of proscriptions enrolled in a bill of
attainder commenced in one of the houses of vparliament, but suppressed in embryo by the
hasty step of events which warned them to be a little cautious. Montague, agent of the H.
of Burgesses in England made extracts from the bill, copied the names, and sent them to
Peyton Randolph. The names I think were about 20 which he repeated to me, but I recollect
those only of Hancock, the two Adamses, Peyton Randolph himself, Patrick Henry, &
myself.
Note: See Girardin's History of Virginia, Appendix No. 12, note. The convention met
on the 1st of Aug, renewed their association, appointed delegates to the Congress, gave
them instructions very temperately & properly expressed, both as to style &
matter; and they repaired to Philadelphia at the time appointed. The splendid proceedings
of that Congress at their 1st session belong to general history, are known to every one,
and need not therefore be noted here. They terminated their session on the 26th of Octob,
to meet again on the 10th May ensuing. The convention at their ensuing session of Mar,
'75, approved of the proceedings of Congress, thanked their delegates and reappointed the
same persons to represent the colony at the meeting to be held in May: and foreseeing the
probability that Peyton Randolph their president and Speaker also of the H. of B. might be
called off, they added me, in that event to the delegation.
Mr. Randolph was according to expectation obliged to leave the chair
of Congress to attend the Gen. Assembly summoned
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by Ld. Dunmore to meet on the 1st day of June 1775. Ld. North's conciliatory propositions,
as they were called, had been received by the Governor and furnished the subject for which
this assembly was convened. Mr. Randolph accordingly attended, and the tenor of these
propositions being generally known, as having been addressed to all the governors, he was
anxious that the answer of our assembly, likely to be the first, should harmonize with
what he knew to be the sentiments and wishes of the body he had recently left. He feared
that Mr. Nicholas, whose mind was not yet up to the mark of the times, would undertake the
answer, & therefore pressed me to prepare an answer. I did so, and with his aid
carried it through the house with long and doubtful scruples from Mr. Nicholas and James
Mercer, and a dash of cold water on it here & there, enfeebling it somewhat, but
finally with unanimity or a vote approaching it. This being passed, repaired immediately
to Philadelphia, and conveyed to Congress the first notice they had of it. It was entirely
approved there. I took my seat with them on the 21st of June. On the 24th, a commee which
had been appointed to prepare a declaration of the causes of taking up arms, brought in
their report (drawn believe by J. Rutledge) which not being liked they recommitted it on
the 26th, and added Mr. Dickinson and myself to the committee. On the rising of the house,
the commee having not yet met, happened to find myself near Govr W. Livingston, and
proposed to him to draw the paper. He excused himself and proposed that should draw it. On
my pressing him with urgency, "we are as yet but new acquaintances, sir, said he, why
are you so earnest for my doing it?" "Because, said I, I have been informed that
you drew the Address to the people of Gr. Britain, a production certainly of the finest
pen in America." "On that, says he, perhaps sir you may not have been correctly
informed." I had received the information in Virginia from Colo Harrison on his
return from that Congress. Lee, Livingston & Jay had been the commee for that draught.
The first, prepared by Lee, had been disapproved & recommitted. The second was drawn
by Jay, but being presented by Govr Livingston, had led Colo Harrison into the error. The
next morning, walking in the hall of Congress, many members being assembled but the house
not
Page 12
yet formed, I observed Mr. Jay, speaking to R. H. Lee, and leading him by the button of
his coat, to me. "I understand, sir, said he to me, that this gentleman informed you
that Govr Livingston drew the Address to the people of Gr Britain." I assured him at
once that I had not received that information from Mr. Lee & that not a word had ever
passed on the subject between Mr. Lee & myself; and after some explanations the
subject was dropt. These gentlemen had had some sparrings in debate before, and continued
ever very hostile to each other.
I prepared a draught of the Declaration committed to us. It was too
strong for Mr. Dickinson. He still retained the hope of reconciliation with the mother
country, and was unwilling it should be lessened by offensive statements. He was so honest
a man, & so able a one that he was greatly indulged even by those who could not feel
his scruples. We therefore requested him to take the paper, and put it into a form he
could approve. He did so, preparing an entire new statement, and preserving of the former
only the last 4. paragraphs & half of the preceding one. We approved & reported it
to Congress, who accepted it. Congress gave a signal proof of their indulgence to Mr.
Dickinson, and of their great desire not to go too fast for any respectable part of our
body, in permitting him to draw their second petition to the King according to his own
ideas, and passing it with scarcely any amendment. The disgust against this humility was
general; and Mr. Dickinson's delight at its passage was the only circumstance which
reconciled them to it. The vote being passed, altho' further observn on it was out of
order, he could not refrain from rising and expressing his satisfaction and concluded by
saying "there is but one word, Mr. President, in the paper which disapprove, &
that is the word Congress," on which Ben Harrison rose and said "there is
but on word in the paper, Mr. President, of which I approve, and that is the word Congress."
On the 22d of July Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, R. H. Lee, & myself,
were appointed a commee to consider and report on Ld. North's conciliatory resolution. The
answer of the Virginia assembly on that subject having been approved I was requested by
the commee to prepare this report, which will account for the similarity of feature in the
two instruments.
Page 13
On the 15th of May, 1776, the convention of Virginia instructed their
delegates in Congress to propose to that body to declare the colonies independent of G.
Britain, and appointed a commee to prepare a declaration of rights and plan of government.
* * *
>
In Congress, Friday June 7. 1776. The delegates from Virginia moved
in obedience to instructions from their constituents that the Congress should declare that
these United colonies are & of right ought to be free & independent states, that
they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political
connection between them & the state of Great Britain is & ought to be, totally
dissolved; that measures should be immediately taken for procuring the assistance of
foreign powers, and a Confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together.
The house being obliged to attend at that time to some other
business, the proposition was referred to the next day, when the members were ordered to
attend punctually at ten o'clock.
Saturday June 8. They proceeded to take it into consideration and
referred it to a committee of the whole, into which they immediately resolved themselves,
and passed that day & Monday the 10th in debating on the subject.
It was argued by Wilson, Robert R. Livingston, E. Rutledge, Dickinson
and others
That tho' they were friends to the measures themselves, and saw the
impossibility that we should ever again be united with Gr. Britain, yet they were against
adopting them at this time:
That the conduct we had formerly observed was wise & proper now,
of deferring to take any capital step till the voice of the people drove us into it:
That they were our power, & without them our declarations could
not be carried into effect;
That the people of the middle colonies (Maryland, Delaware,
Pennsylva, the Jerseys & N. York) were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British
connection, but that they were fast ripening & in a short time would join in the
general voice of America:
That the resolution entered into by this house on the 15th of May for
suppressing the exercise of all powers derived from the crown, had shown, by the ferment
into which it had thrown these middle colonies, that they had not yet accommodated their
minds to a separation from the mother country:
That some of them had expressly forbidden their delegates to consent
Page 14
to such a declaration, and others had given no instructions, & consequently no powers
to give such consent:
That if the delegates of any particular colony had no power to
declare such colony independant, certain they were the others could not declare it for
them; the colonies being as yet perfectly independant of each other:
That the assembly of Pennsylvania was now sitting above stairs, their
convention would sit within a few days, the convention of New York was now sitting, &
those of the Jerseys & Delaware counties would meet on the Monday following, & it
was probable these bodies would take up the question of Independance & would declare
to their delegates the voice of their state:
That if such a declaration should now be agreed to, these delegates
must retire & possibly their colonies might secede from the Union:
That such a secession would weaken us more than could be compensated
by any foreign alliance:
That in the event of such a division, foreign powers would either
refuse to join themselves to our fortunes, or, having us so much in their power as that
desperate declaration would place us, they would insist on terms proportionably more hard
and prejudicial:
That we had little reason to expect an alliance with those to whom
alone as yet we had cast our eyes:
That France & Spain had reason to be jealous of that rising power
which would one day certainly strip them of all their American possessions:
That it was more likely they should form a connection with the
British court, who, if they should find themselves unable otherwise to extricate
themselves from their difficulties, would agree to a partition of our territories,
restoring Canada to France, & the Floridas to Spain, to accomplish for themselves a
recovery of these colonies:
That it would not be long before we should receive certain
information of the disposition of the French court, from the agent whom we had sent to
Paris for that purpose:
That if this disposition should be favorable, by waiting the event of
the present campaign, which we all hoped would be successful, we should have reason to
expect an alliance on better terms:
That this would in fact work no delay of any effectual aid from such
ally, as, from the advance of the season & distance of our situation, it was
impossible we could receive any assistance during this campaign:
That it was prudent to fix among ourselves the terms on which we
should form alliance, before we declared we would form one at all events:
And that if these were agreed on, & our Declaration of
Independance
Page 15
ready by the time our Ambassador should be prepared to sail, it would be as well as to go
into that Declaration at this day.
On the other side it was urged by J. Adams, Lee, Wythe, and others
That no gentleman had argued against the policy or the right of
separation from Britain, nor had supposed it possible we should ever renew our connection;
that they had only opposed its being now declared:
That the question was not whether, by a declaration of independance,
we should make ourselves what we are not; but whether we should declare a fact which
already exists:
That as to the people or parliament of England, we had alwais been
independent of them, their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy from our acquiescence
only, & not from any rights they possessed of imposing them, & that so far our
connection had been federal only & was now dissolved by the commencement of
hostilities:
That as to the King, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but that
this bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late act of parliament, by which he
declares us out of his protection, and by his levying war on us, a fact which had long ago
proved us out of his protection; it being a certain position in law that allegiance &
protection are reciprocal, the one ceasing when the other is withdrawn:
That James the IId. never declared the people of England out of his
protection yet his actions proved it & the parliament declared it:
No delegates then can be denied, or ever want, a power of declaring
an existing truth:
That the delegates from the Delaware counties having declared their
constituents ready to join, there are only two colonies Pennsylvania & Maryland whose
delegates are absolutely tied up, and that these had by their instructions only reserved a
right of confirming or rejecting the measure:
That the instructions from Pennsylvania might be accounted for from
the times in which they were drawn, near a twelvemonth ago, since which the face of
affairs has totally changed:
That within that time it had become apparent that Britain was
determined to accept nothing less than a carte-blanche, and that the King's answer to the
Lord Mayor Aldermen & common council of London, which had come to hand four days ago,
must have satisfied every one of this point:
That the people wait for us to lead the way:
That they are in favour of the measure, tho' the instructions
given by some of their representatives are not:
That the voice of the representatives is not always consonant with
Page 16
the voice of the people, and that this is remarkably the case in these middle colonies:
That the effect of the resolution of the 15th of May has proved this,
which, raising the murmurs of some in the colonies of Pennsylvania & Maryland, called
forth the opposing voice of the freer part of the people, & proved them to be the
majority, even in these colonies:
That the backwardness of these two colonies might be ascribed partly
to the influence of proprietary power & connections, & partly to their having not
yet been attacked by the enemy:
That these causes were not likely to be soon removed, as there seemed
no probability that the enemy would make either of these the seat of this summer's war:
That it would be vain to wait either weeks or months for perfect
unanimity, since it was impossible that all men should ever become of one sentiment on any
question:
That the conduct of some colonies from the beginning of this contest,
had given reason to suspect it was their settled policy to keep in the rear of the
confederacy, that their particular prospect might be better, even in the worst event:
That therefore it was necessary for those colonies who had thrown
themselves forward & hazarded all from the beginning, to come forward now also, and
put all again to their own hazard:
That the history of the Dutch revolution, of whom three states only
confederated at first proved that a secession of some colonies would not be so dangerous
as some apprehended:
That a declaration of Independence alone could render it consistent
with European delicacy for European powers to treat with us, or even to receive an
Ambassador from us:
That till this they would not receive our vessels into their ports,
nor acknowledge the adjudications of our courts of admiralty to be legitimate, in cases of
capture of British vessels:
That though France & Spain may be jealous of our rising power,
they must think it will be much more formidable with the addition of Great Britain; and
will therefore see it their interest to prevent a coalition; but should they refuse, we
shall be but where we are; whereas without trying we shall never know whether they will
aid us or not:
That the present campaign may be unsuccessful, & therefore we had
better propose an alliance while our affairs wear a hopeful aspect:
That to await the event of this campaign will certainly work delay,
because during this summer France may assist us effectually by cutting off those supplies
of provisions from England & Ireland on
Page 17
which the enemy's armies here are to depend; or by setting in motion the great power they
have collected in the West Indies, & calling our enemy to the defence of the
possessions they have there:
That it would be idle to lose time in settling the terms of alliance,
till we had first determined we would enter into alliance:
That it is necessary to lose no time in opening a trade for our
people, who will want clothes, and will want money too for the paiment of taxes:
And that the only misfortune is that we did not enter into alliance
with France six months sooner, as besides opening their ports for the vent of our last
year's produce, they might have marched an army into Germany and prevented the petty
princes there from selling their unhappy subjects to subdue us.
It appearing in the course of these debates that the colonies of N.
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina were not yet
matured for falling from the parent stem, but that they were fast advancing to that state,
it was thought most prudent to wait a while for them, and to postpone the final decision
to July 1. but that this might occasion as little delay as possible a committee was
appointed to prepare a declaration of independence. The commee were J. Adams, Dr.
Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston & myself. Committees were also appointed
at the same time to prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to state the
terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance. The committee for drawing the
declaration of Independence desired me to do it. It was accordingly done, and being
approved by them, I reported it to the house on Friday the 28th of June when it was read
and ordered to lie on the table. On Monday, the 1st of July the house resolved itself into
a commee of the whole & resumed the consideration of the original motion made by the
delegates of Virginia, which being again debated through the day, was carried in the
affirmative by the votes of N. Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, N.
Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, N. Carolina, & Georgia. S. Carolina and Pennsylvania voted
against it. Delaware having but two members present, they were divided. The delegates for
New York declared they were for it themselves & were assured their constituents were
for it, but that their instructions having been drawn near a twelvemonth before, when
reconciliation was still the general object, they were enjoined by them to do nothing
which should impede that object. They therefore thought themselves not justifiable in
voting on either side, and asked leave to withdraw from the question, which was given
them. The commee rose & reported their resolution to the house. Mr. Edward Rutledge of
S. Carolina then requested the determination might be put off to the next day, as he
believed his
Page 18
colleagues, tho' they disapproved of the resolution, would then join in it for the sake of
unanimity. The ultimate question whether the house would agree to the resolution of the
committee was accordingly postponed to the next day, when it was again moved and S.
Carolina concurred in voting for it. In the meantime a third member had come post from the
Delaware counties and turned the vote of that colony in favour of the resolution. Members
of a different sentiment attending that morning from Pennsylvania also, their vote was
changed, so that the whole 12 colonies who were authorized to vote at all, gave their
voices for it; and within a few days, the convention of N. York approved of it and thus
supplied the void occasioned by the withdrawing of her delegates from the vote.
Congress proceeded the same day to consider the declaration of
Independance which had been reported & lain on the table the Friday preceding, and on
Monday referred to a commee of the whole. The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in
England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason those
passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they
should give them offence. The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of
Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never
attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to
continue it. Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those
censures; for tho' their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty
considerable carriers of them to others. The debates having taken up the greater parts of
the 2d 3d & 4th days of July were, in the evening of the last, closed the declaration
was reported by the commee, agreed to by the house and signed by every member present
except Mr. Dickinson. As the sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive,
but what they reject also, I will state the form of the declaration as originally
reported. The parts struck out by Congress shall be distinguished by a black line drawn
under them; & those inserted by them shall be placed in the margin or in a concurrent
column.
Page 19
A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress Assembled"
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth the separate & equal station to which the laws of
nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and [certain]
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness:
that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, & to
institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles, & organizing it's
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety &
happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be
changed for light & transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that
mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves
by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses
& usurpations begun at a distinguished period and pursuing invariably the same
object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is
their duty to throw off such government, & to provide new guards for their future
security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the
necessity which constrains them to expunge [alter] their former systems of
government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of unremitting
[repeated] injuries & usurpations, among which appears no solitary fact to
contradict the uniform tenor of the rest but all have [all having] in direct object
the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this let facts
Page 20
be submitted to a candid world for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied
by falsehood.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome & necessary
for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate &
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be
obtained; & when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in
the legislature, a right inestimable to them, & formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole
purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly &
continually for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the
people.
He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause
others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have
returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime
exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without & convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that
purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to
encourage their migrations hither, & raising the conditions of new appropriations of
lands.
He has suffered [obstructed] the administration of justice totally
to cease in some of these states [by] refusing his [assent to laws for establishing
judiciary powers.
He has made our judges dependant on his will alone, for the
tenure of their offices, & the amount & paiment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices by a self assumed power
and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies
Page 21
and ships of war without the consentof our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independant of, & superior
to the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign
to our constitutions & unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of
pretended legislation for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting
them by a mock-trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the
inhabitants of these states; for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; for
imposing taxes on us without our consent; for depriving us [ ] [in many cases] of the
benefits of trial by jury; for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended
offences; for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province,
establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging it's boundaries, so as to
render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule
into these states [colonies]; for taking away our charters, abolishing our most
valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments; for suspending our
own legislatures, & declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in
all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here withdrawing his governors, and
declaring us out of his allegiance & protection. [by declaring us out of his
protection, and waging war against us.]
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, &
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries
to compleat the works of death, desolation & tyranny already begun with circumstances
of cruelty and perfidy [ ] [scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, & totally]
unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends &
brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has [ ] [excited domestic insurrection among us, & has]
endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages,
whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished
Page 22
destruction of all ages, sexes, & conditions of existence.
He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens,
with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's
most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never
offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to
incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the
opprobium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain.
Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted
his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of
distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to
purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he
also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one
people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in
the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated
injuries.
A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define
a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a [ ] [free] people who mean to be free. Future
ages will scarcely believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short
compass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad & so undisguised for
tyranny over a people fostered & fixed in principles of freedom.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We
have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend a [an
unwarrantable] jurisdiction over these our states [us]. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration & settlement here, no one of which could
warrant so strange a pretension: that these were effected at the expense of our own blood
& treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great
Page 23
Britain: that in constituting indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted one
common king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league & amity with them: but
that submission to their parliament was no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if
history may be credited: and, we [ ] [have] appealed to their native justice and
magnanimity as well as to [and we have conjured them by] the ties of our common
kindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely to [would inevitably]
interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of
justice & of consanguinity, and when occasions have been given them, by the regular
course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they
have, by their free election, re-established them in power. At this very time too they are
permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but
Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & destroy us. These facts have given the
last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these
unfeeling brethren. We must [We must therefore] endeavor to forget our former love for
them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We
might have been a free and a great people together; but a communication of grandeur &
of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to
happiness & to glory is open to us too. We will tread it apart from them, and
acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our eternal separation [ ] [and hold
them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.]!
"column" 1
We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress
assembled do in the name & by authority of the good people of these states reject
& renounce all allegiance & subjection to the kings of Great Britain & all
others who may hereafter claim by, through or under them: we utterly dissolve all
political
"column" 2
We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress
assembled, appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions, do in the name, & by the authority of the good people of these colonies,
solemnly publish & declare that these united colonies are & of right ought to be
free &
Page 24
"column" 1
connection which may heretofore have subsisted between us & the people or
parliament of Great Britain: & finally we do assert & declare these colonies to be
free & independent states, & that as free & independent states, they have
full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, & to
do all other acts & things which independent states may of right do.
And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our
fortunes, & our sacred honor.
"column" 2
independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and
that all political connection between them & the state of Great Britain is, &
ought to be, totally dissolved; & that as free & independent states they have full
power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce & to do all
other acts & things which independent states may of right do.
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine
providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred
honor.
The Declaration thus signed on the 4th, on paper was engrossed on
parchment, & signed again on the 2d. of August.
* * *
Some erroneous statements of the proceedings on the declaration of
independence having got before the public in latter times, Mr. Samuel A. Wells asked
explanations of me, which are given in my letter to him of May 12. 19. before and now
again referred to. I took notes in my place while these things were going on, and at their
close wrote them out in form and with correctness and from 1 to 7 of the two preceding
sheets are the originals then written; as the two following are of the earlier debates on
the Confederation, which I took in like manner.
On Friday July 12. the Committee appointed to draw the articles of
confederation reported them, and on the 22d. the house resolved themselves into a
committee to take them into consideration. On the 30th. & 31st. of that month &
1st. of the ensuing, those articles were debated which determined the proportion or quota
of money which
Page 25
each state should furnish to the common treasury, and the manner of voting in Congress.
The first of these articles was expressed in the original draught in these words.
"Art. XI. All charges of war & all other expenses that shall be incurred for the
common defence, or general welfare, and allowed by the United States assembled, shall be
defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several colonies in
proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex & quality, except Indians
not paying taxes, in each colony, a true account of which, distinguishing the white
inhabitants, shall be triennially taken & transmitted to the Assembly of the United
States."
Mr. [Samuel] Chase moved that the quotas should be fixed, not by the
number of inhabitants of every condition, but by that of the "white
inhabitants." He admitted that taxation should be alwais in proportion to property,
that this was in theory the true rule, but that from a variety of difficulties, it was a
rule which could never be adopted in practice. The value of the property in every State
could never be estimated justly & equally. Some other measure for the wealth of the
State must therefore be devised, some standard referred to which would be more simple. He
considered the number of inhabitants as a tolerably good criterion of property, and that
this might alwais be obtained. He therefore thought it the best mode which we could adopt,
with one exception only. He observed that negroes are property, and as such cannot be
distinguished from the lands or personalities held in those States where there are few
slaves, that the surplus of profit which a Northern farmer is able to lay by, he invests
in cattle, horses, &c. whereas a Southern farmer lays out that same surplus in slaves.
There is no more reason therefore for taxing the Southern states on the farmer's head,
& on his slave's head, than the Northern ones on their farmer's heads & the heads
of their cattle, that the method proposed would therefore tax the Southern states
according to their numbers & their wealth conjunctly, while the Northern would be
taxed on numbers only: that negroes in fact should not be considered as members of the
state more than cattle & that they have no more interest in it.
Mr. John Adams observed that the numbers of people were taken by this
article as an index of the wealth of the state, & not as subjects of taxation, that as
to this matter it was of no consequence by what name you called your people, whether by
that of freemen or of slaves. That in some countries the labouring poor were called
freemen, in others they were called slaves; but that the difference as to the state was
imaginary only. What matters it whether a landlord employing ten labourers in his farm,
gives them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of life, or gives them
those
Page 26
necessaries at short hand. The ten labourers add as much wealth annually to the state,
increase it's exports as much in the one case as the other. Certainly 500 freemen produce
no more profits, no greater surplus for the paiment of taxes than 500 slaves. Therefore
the state in which are the labourers called freemen should be taxed no more than that in
which are those called slaves. Suppose by any extraordinary operation of nature or of law
one half the labourers of a state could in the course of one night be transformed into
slaves: would the state be made the poorer or the less able to pay taxes? That the
condition of the laboring poor in most countries, that of the fishermen particularly of
the Northern states, is as abject as that of slaves. It is the number of labourers which
produce the surplus for taxation, and numbers therefore indiscriminately, are the fair
index of wealth. That it is the use of the word "property" here, & it's
application to some of the people of the state, which produces the fallacy. How does the
Southern farmer procure slaves? Either by importation or by purchase from his neighbor. If
he imports a slave, he adds one to the number of labourers in his country, and
proportionably to it's profits & abilities to pay taxes. If he buys from his neighbor
it is only a transfer of a labourer from one farm to another, which does not change the
annual produce of the state, & therefore should not change it's tax. That if a
Northern farmer works ten labourers on his farm, he can, it is true, invest the surplus of
ten men's labour in cattle: but so may the Southern farmer working ten slaves. That a
state of one hundred thousand freemen can maintain no more cattle than one of one hundred
thousand slaves. Therefore they have no more of that kind of property. That a slave may
indeed from the custom of speech be more properly called the wealth of his master, than
the free labourer might be called the wealth of his employer: but as to the state, both
were equally it's wealth, and should therefore equally add to the quota of it's tax.
Mr. [Benjamin] Harrison proposed as a compromise, that two slaves
should be counted as one freeman. He affirmed that slaves did not do so much work as
freemen, and doubted if two effected more than one. That this was proved by the price of
labor. The hire of a labourer in the Southern colonies being from 8 to £12. while in the
Northern it was generally £24.
Mr. [James] Wilson said that if this amendment should take place the
Southern colonies would have all the benefit of slaves, whilst the Northern ones would
bear the burthen. That slaves increase the profits of a state, which the Southern states
mean to take to themselves; that they also increase the burthen of defence, which would of
course fall so much the heavier on the Northern. That slaves occupy the places of freemen
and eat their food. Dismiss your slaves & freemen
Page 27
will take their places. It is our duty to lay every discouragement on the importation of
slaves; but this amendment would give the jus trium liberorum to him who would import
slaves. That other kinds of property were pretty equally distributed thro' all the
colonies: there were as many cattle, horses, & sheep, in the North as the South, &
South as the North; but not so as to slaves. That experience has shown that those colonies
have been alwais able to pay most which have the most inhabitants, whether they be black
or white, and the practice of the Southern colonies has alwais been to make every farmer
pay poll taxes upon all his labourers whether they be black or white. He acknowledges
indeed that freemen work the most; but they consume the most also. They do not produce a
greater surplus for taxation. The slave is neither fed nor clothed so expensively as a
freeman. Again white women are exempted from labor generally, but negro women are not. In
this then the Southern states have an advantage as the article now stands. It has
sometimes been said that slavery is necessary because the commodities they raise would be
too dear for market if cultivated by freemen; but now it is said that the labor of the
slave is the dearest.
Mr. Payne urged the original resolution of Congress, to proportion
the quotas of the states to the number of souls.
Dr. [John] Witherspoon was of opinion that the value of lands &
houses was the best estimate of the wealth of a nation, and that it was practicable to
obtain such a valuation. This is the true barometer of wealth. The one now proposed is
imperfect in itself, and unequal between the States. It has been objected that negroes eat
the food of freemen & therefore should be taxed. Horses also eat the food of freemen;
therefore they also should be taxed. It has been said too that in carrying slaves into the
estimate of the taxes the state is to pay, we do no more than those states themselves do,
who alwais take slaves into the estimate of the taxes the individual is to pay. But the
cases are not parallel. In the Southern colonies slaves pervade the whole colony; but they
do not pervade the whole continent. That as to the original resolution of Congress to
proportion the quotas according to the souls, it was temporary only, & related to the
monies heretofore emitted: whereas we are now entering into a new compact, and therefore
stand on original ground.
Aug 1. The question being put the amendment proposed was rejected by
the votes of N. Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode island, Connecticut, N. York, N. Jersey,
& Pennsylvania, against those of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North & South
Carolina. Georgia was divided.
The other article was in these words. "Art. XVII. In determining
questions each colony shall have one vote."
Page 28
July 30. 31. Aug 1. Present 41. members. Mr. Chase observed that this
article was the most likely to divide us of any one proposed in the draught then under
consideration. That the larger colonies had threatened they would not confederate at all
if their weight in congress should not be equal to the numbers of people they added to the
confederacy; while the smaller ones declared against a union if they did not retain an
equal vote for the protection of their rights. That it was of the utmost consequence to
bring the parties together, as should we sever from each other, either no foreign power
will ally with us at all, or the different states will form different alliances, and thus
increase the horrors of those scenes of civil war and bloodshed which in such a state of
separation & independance would render us a miserable people. That our importance, our
interests, our peace required that we should confederate, and that mutual sacrifices
should be made to effect a compromise of this difficult question. He was of opinion the
smaller colonies would lose their rights, if they were not in some instances allowed an
equal vote; and therefore that a discrimination should take place among the questions
which would come before Congress. That the smaller states should be secured in all
questions concerning life or liberty & the greater ones in all respecting property. He
therefore proposed that in votes relating to money, the voice of each colony should be
proportioned to the number of its inhabitants.
Dr. Franklin thought that the votes should be so proportioned in all
cases. He took notice that the Delaware counties had bound up their Delegates to disagree
to this article. He thought it a very extraordinary language to be held by any state, that
they would not confederate with us unless we would let them dispose of our money.
Certainly if we vote equally we ought to pay equally; but the smaller states will hardly
purchase the privilege at this price. That had he lived in a state where the
representation, originally equal, had become unequal by time & accident he might have
submitted rather than disturb government; but that we should be very wrong to set out in
this practice when it is in our power to establish what is right. That at the time of the
Union between England and Scotland the latter had made the objection which the smaller
states now do. But experience had proved that no unfairness had ever been shown them. That
their advocates had prognosticated that it would again happen as in times of old, that the
whale would swallow Jonas, but he thought the prediction reversed in event and that Jonas
had swallowed the whale, for the Scotch had in fact got possession of the government and
gave laws to the English. He reprobated the original agreement of Congress to vote by
colonies and therefore was for their voting in all cases according to the number of
taxables.
Page 29
Dr. Witherspoon opposed every alteration of the article. All men
admit that a confederacy is necessary. Should the idea get abroad that there is likely to
be no union among us, it will damp the minds of the people, diminish the glory of our
struggle, & lessen it's importance; because it will open to our view future prospects
of war & dissension among ourselves. If an equal vote be refused, the smaller states
will become vassals to the larger; & all experience has shown that the vassals &
subjects of free states are the most enslaved. He instanced the Helots of Sparta & the
provinces of Rome. He observed that foreign powers discovering this blemish would make it
a handle for disengaging the smaller states from so unequal a confederacy. That the
colonies should in fact be considered as individuals; and that as such, in all disputes
they should have an equal vote; that they are now collected as individuals making a
bargain with each other, & of course had a right to vote as individuals. That in the
East India company they voted by persons, & not by their proportion of stock. That the
Belgic confederacy voted by provinces. That in questions of war the smaller states were as
much interested as the larger, & therefore should vote equally; and indeed that the
larger states were more likely to bring war on the confederacy in proportion as their
frontier was more extensive. He admitted that equality of representation was an excellent
principle, but then it must be of things which are coordinate; that is, of things similar
& of the same nature: that nothing relating to individuals could ever come before
Congress; nothing but what would respect colonies. He distinguished between an
incorporating & a federal union. The union of England was an incorporating one; yet
Scotland had suffered by that union: for that it's inhabitants were drawn from it by the
hopes of places & employments. Nor was it an instance of equality of representation;
because while Scotland was allowed nearly a thirteenth of representation they were to pay
only one fortieth of the land tax. He expressed his hopes that in the present enlightened
state of men's minds we might expect a lasting confederacy, if it was founded on fair
principles.
John Adams advocated the voting in proportion to numbers. He said
that we stand here as the representatives of the people. That in some states the people
are many, in others they are few; that therefore their vote here should be proportioned to
the numbers from whom it comes. Reason, justice, & equity never had weight enough on
the face of the earth to govern the councils of men. It is interest alone which does it,
and it is interest alone which can be trusted. That therefore the interests within doors
should be the mathematical representatives of the interests without doors. That the
individuality of the colonies is a mere sound. Does the individuality of a colony
Page 30
increase it's wealth or numbers. If it does, pay equally. If it does not add weight in the
scale of the confederacy, it cannot add to their rights, nor weigh in argument. A. has
£50. B. £500. C. £1000. in partnership. Is it just they should equally dispose of the
monies of the partnership? It has been said we are independent individuals making a
bargain together. The question is not what we are now, but what we ought to be when our
bargain shall be made. The confederacy is to make us one individual only; it is to form
us, like separate parcels of metal, into one common mass. We shall no longer retain our
separate individuality, but become a single individual as to all questions submitted to
the confederacy. Therefore all those reasons which prove the justice & expediency of
equal representation in other assemblies, hold good here. It has been objected that a
proportional vote will endanger the smaller states. We answer that an equal vote will
endanger the larger. Virginia, Pennsylvania, & Massachusetts are the three greater
colonies. Consider their distance, their difference of produce, of interests & of
manners, & it is apparent they can never have an interest or inclination to combine
for the oppression of the smaller. That the smaller will naturally divide on all questions
with the larger. Rhode isld, from it's relation, similarity & intercourse will
generally pursue the same objects with Massachusetts; Jersey, Delaware & Maryland,
with Pennsylvania.
Dr. [Benjamin] Rush took notice that the decay of the liberties of
the Dutch republic proceeded from three causes. 1. The perfect unanimity requisite on all
occasions. 2. Their obligation to consult their constituents. 3. Their voting by
provinces. This last destroyed the equality of representation, and the liberties of great
Britain also are sinking from the same defect. That a part of our rights is deposited in
the hands of our legislatures. There it was admitted there should be an equality of
representation. Another part of our rights is deposited in the hands of Congress: why is
it not equally necessary there should be an equal representation there? Were it possible
to collect the whole body of the people together, they would determine the questions
submitted to them by their majority. Why should not the same majority decide when voting
here by their representatives? The larger colonies are so providentially divided in
situation as to render every fear of their combining visionary. Their interests are
different, & their circumstances dissimilar. It is more probable they will become
rivals & leave it in the power of the smaller states to give preponderance to any
scale they please. The voting by the number of free inhabitants will have one excellent
effect, that of inducing the colonies to discourage slavery & to encourage the
increase of their free inhabitants.
Mr. [Stephen] Hopkins observed there were 4 larger, 4 smaller,
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& 4 middle-sized colonies. That the 4 largest would contain more than half the
inhabitants of the confederated states, & therefore would govern the others as they
should please. That history affords no instance of such a thing as equal representation.
The Germanic body votes by states. The Helvetic body does the same; & so does the
Belgic confederacy. That too little is known of the ancient confederations to say what was
their practice.
Mr. Wilson thought that taxation should be in proportion to wealth,
but that representation should accord with the number of freemen. That government is a
collection or result of the wills of all. That if any government could speak the will of
all, it would be perfect; and that so far as it departs from this it becomes imperfect. It
has been said that Congress is a representation of states; not of individuals. I say that
the objects of its care are all the individuals of the states. It is strange that annexing
the name of "State" to ten thousand men, should give them an equal right with
forty thousand. This must be the effect of magic, not of reason. As to those matters which
are referred to Congress, we are not so many states, we are one large state. We lay aside
our individuality, whenever we come here. The Germanic body is a burlesque on government;
and their practice on any point is a sufficient authority & proof that it is wrong.
The greatest imperfection in the constitution of the Belgic confederacy is their voting by
provinces. The interest of the whole is constantly sacrificed to that of the small states.
The history of the war in the reign of Q. Anne sufficiently proves this. It is asked shall
nine colonies put it into the power of four to govern them as they please? I invert the
question, and ask shall two millions of people put it in the power of one million to
govern them as they please? It is pretended too that the smaller colonies will be in
danger from the greater. Speak in honest language & say the minority will be in danger
from the majority. And is there an assembly on earth where this danger may not be equally
pretended? The truth is that our proceedings will then be consentaneous with the interests
of the majority, and so they ought to be. The probability is much greater that the larger
states will disagree than that they will combine. I defy the wit of man to invent a
possible case or to suggest any one thing on earth which shall be for the interests of
Virginia, Pennsylvania & Massachusetts, and which will not also be for the interest of
the other states.
* * *
These articles reported July 12. 76 were debated from day to day,
& time to time for two years, were ratified July 9, '78, by 10 states, by N. Jersey on
the 26th. of Nov. of the same
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year, and by Delaware on the 23d. of Feb. following. Maryland alone held off 2 years more,
acceding to them Mar 1, 81. and thus closing the obligation.
Our delegation had been renewed for the ensuing year commencing Aug.
11. but the new government was now organized, a meeting of the legislature was to be held
in Oct. and I had been elected a member by my county. I knew that our legislation under
the regal government had many very vicious points which urgently required reformation, and
I thought I could be of more use in forwarding that work. I therefore retired from my seat
in Congress on the 2d. of Sep. resigned it, and took my place in the legislature of my
state, on the 7th. of October.
On the 11th. I moved for leave to bring in a bill for the establishmt
of courts of justice, the organization of which was of importance; I drew the bill it was
approved by the commee, reported and passed after going thro' it's due course.
On the 12th. I obtained leave to bring in a bill declaring tenants in
tail to hold their lands in fee simple. In the earlier times of the colony when lands were
to be obtained for little or nothing, some provident individuals procured large grants,
and, desirous of founding great families for themselves, settled them on their descendants
in fee-tail. The transmission of this property from generation to generation in the same
name raised up a distinct set of families who, being privileged by law in the perpetuation
of their wealth were thus formed into a Patrician order, distinguished by the splendor and
luxury of their establishments. From this order too the king habitually selected his
Counsellors of State, the hope of which distinction devoted the whole corps to the
interests & will of the crown. To annul this privilege, and instead of an aristocracy
of wealth, of more harm and danger, than benefit, to society, to make an opening for the
aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of
the interests of society, & scattered with equal hand through all it's conditions, was
deemed essential to a well ordered republic. To effect it no violence was necessary, no
deprivation of natural right, but rather an enlargement of it by a repeal of the law. For
this would authorize the present holder to divide the property among his children equally,
as his affections were
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divided; and would place them, by natural generation on the level of their fellow
citizens. But this repeal was strongly opposed by Mr. Pendleton, who was zealously
attached to ancient establishments; and who, taken all in all, was the ablest man in
debate I have ever met with. He had not indeed the poetical fancy of Mr. Henry, his
sublime imagination, his lofty and overwhelming diction; but he was cool, smooth and
persuasive; his language flowing, chaste & embellished, his conceptions quick, acute
and full of resource; never vanquished; for if he lost the main battle, he returned upon
you, and regained so much of it as to make it a drawn one, by dexterous man;oeuvres,
skirmishes in detail, and the recovery of small advantages which, little singly, were
important altogether. You never knew when you were clear of him, but were harassed by his
perseverance until the patience was worn down of all who had less of it than himself. Add
to this that he was one of the most virtuous & benevolent of men, the kindest friend,
the most amiable & pleasant of companions, which ensured a favorable reception to
whatever came from him. Finding that the general principle of entails could not be
maintained, he took his stand on an amendment which he proposed, instead of an absolute
abolition, to permit the tenant in tail to convey in fee simple, if he chose it: and he
was within a few votes of saving so much of the old law. But the bill passed finally for
entire abolition.
In that one of the bills for organizing our judiciary system which
proposed a court of chancery, I had provided for a trial by jury of all matters of fact in
that as well as in the courts of law. He defeated it by the introduction of 4. words only,
"if either party chuse." The consequence has been that as no suitor will
say to his judge, "Sir, I distrust you, give me a jury" juries are rarely, I
might say perhaps never seen in that court, but when called for by the Chancellor of his
own accord.
The first establishment in Virginia which became permanent was made
in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650. The first
brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade
and continued it until the revolutionary war. That suspended, ipso facto, their further
importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the
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legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year 78. when I brought in a
bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition, and stopped the
increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.
The first settlers of this colony were Englishmen, loyal subjects to
their king and church, and the grant to Sr. Walter Raleigh contained an express Proviso
that their laws "should not be against the true Christian faith, now professed in the
church of England." As soon as the state of the colony admitted, it was divided into
parishes, in each of which was established a minister of the Anglican church, endowed with
a fixed salary, in tobacco, a glebe house and land with the other necessary appendages. To
meet these expenses all the inhabitants of the parishes were assessed, whether they were
or not, members of the established church. Towards Quakers who came here they were most
cruelly intolerant, driving them from the colony by the severest penalties. In process of
time however, other sectarisms were introduced, chiefly of the Presbyterian family; and
the established clergy, secure for life in their glebes and salaries, adding to these
generally the emoluments of a classical school, found employment enough, in their farms
and schoolrooms for the rest of the week, and devoted Sunday only to the edification of
their flock, by service, and a sermon at their parish church. Their other pastoral
functions were little attended to. Against this inactivity the zeal and industry of
sectarian preachers had an open and undisputed field; and by the time of the revolution, a
majority of the inhabitants had become dissenters from the established church, but were
still obliged to pay contributions to support the Pastors of the minority. This
unrighteous compulsion to maintain teachers of what they deemed religious errors was
grievously felt during the regal government, and without a hope of relief. But the first
republican legislature which met in 76. was crowded with petitions to abolish this
spiritual tyranny. These brought on the severest contests in which I have ever been
engaged. Our great opponents were Mr. Pendleton & Robert Carter Nicholas, honest men,
but zealous churchmen. The petitions were referred to the commee of the whole house on the
state of the country; and after desperate contests
Page 35
in that committee, almost daily from the 11th of Octob. to the 5th of December, we
prevailed so far only as to repeal the laws which rendered criminal the maintenance of any
religious opinions, the forbearance of repairing to church, or the exercise of any mode of
worship: and further, to exempt dissenters from contributions to the support of the
established church; and to suspend, only until the next session levies on the members of
that church for the salaries of their own incumbents. For although the majority of our
citizens were dissenters, as has been observed, a majority of the legislature were
churchmen. Among these however were some reasonable and liberal men, who enabled us, on
some points, to obtain feeble majorities. But our opponents carried in the general
resolutions of the commee of Nov. 19. a declaration that religious assemblies ought to be
regulated, and that provision ought to be made for continuing the succession of the
clergy, and superintending their conduct. And in the bill now passed was inserted an
express reservation of the question Whether a general assessment should not be established
by law, on every one, to the support of the pastor of his choice; or whether all should be
left to voluntary contributions; and on this question, debated at every session from 76 to
79 (some of our dissenting allies, having now secured their particular object, going over
to the advocates of a general assessment) we could only obtain a suspension from session
to session until 79. when the question against a general assessment was finally carried,
and the establishment of the Anglican church entirely put down. In justice to the two
honest but zealous opponents, who have been named I must add that altho', from their
natural temperaments, they were more disposed generally to acquiesce in things as they
are, than to risk innovations, yet whenever the public will had once decided, none were
more faithful or exact in their obedience to it.
The seat of our government had been originally fixed in the peninsula
of Jamestown, the first settlement of the colonists; and had been afterwards removed a few
miles inland to Williamsburg. But this was at a time when our settlements had not extended
beyond the tide water. Now they had crossed the Alleghany; and the center of population
was very far removed from what it had been. Yet Williamsburg was still the
Page 36
depository of our archives, the habitual residence of the Governor & many other of the
public functionaries, the established place for the sessions of the legislature, and the
magazine of our military stores: and it's situation was so exposed that it might be taken
at any time in war, and, at this time particularly, an enemy might in the night run up
either of the rivers between which it lies, land a force above, and take possession of the
place, without the possibility of saving either persons or things. I had proposed it's
removal so early as Octob. 76. but it did not prevail until the session of May. '79.
Early in the session of May 79. I prepared, and obtained leave to
bring in a bill declaring who should be deemed citizens, asserting the natural right of
expatriation, and prescribing the mode of exercising it. This, when I withdrew from the
house on the 1st of June following, I left in the hands of George Mason and it was passed
on the 26th of that month.
In giving this account of the laws of which I was myself the mover
& draughtsman, I by no means mean to claim to myself the merit of obtaining their
passage. I had many occasional and strenuous coadjutors in debate, and one most steadfast,
able, and zealous; who was himself a host. This was George Mason, a man of the first order
of wisdom among those who acted on the theatre of the revolution, of expansive mind,
profound judgment, cogent in argument, learned in the lore of our former constitution, and
earnest for the republican change on democratic principles. His elocution was neither
flowing nor smooth, but his language was strong, his manner most impressive, and
strengthened by a dash of biting cynicism when provocation made it seasonable.
Mr. Wythe, while speaker in the two sessions of 1777. between his
return from Congress and his appointment to the Chancery, was an able and constant
associate in whatever was before a committee of the whole. His pure integrity, judgment
and reasoning powers gave him great weight. Of him see more in some notes inclosed in my
letter of August 31. 1821, to Mr. John Saunderson.
Mr. Madison came into the House in 1776. a new member and young;
which circumstances, concurring with his extreme modesty, prevented his venturing himself
in debate before his
Page 37
removal to the Council of State in Nov. 77. From thence he went to Congress, then
consisting of few members. Trained in these successive schools, he acquired a habit of
self-possession which placed at ready command the rich resources of his luminous and
discriminating mind, & of his extensive information, and rendered him the first of
every assembly afterwards of which he became a member. Never wandering from his subject
into vain declamation, but pursuing it closely in language pure, classical, and copious,
soothing always the feelings of his adversaries by civilities and softness of expression,
he rose to the eminent station which he held in the great National convention of 1787. and
in that of Virginia which followed, he sustained the new constitution in all its parts,
bearing off the palm against the logic of George Mason, and the fervid declamation of Mr.
Henry. With these consummate powers were united a pure and spotless virtue which no
calumny has ever attempted to sully. Of the powers and polish of his pen, and of the
wisdom of his administration in the highest office of the nation, I need say nothing. They
have spoken, and will forever speak for themselves.
So far we were proceeding in the details of reformation only;
selecting points of legislation prominent in character & principle, urgent, and
indicative of the strength of the general pulse of reformation. When I left Congress, in
76. it was in the persuasion that our whole code must be reviewed, adapted to our
republican form of government, and, now that we had no negatives of Councils, Governors
& Kings to restrain us from doing right, that it should be corrected, in all it's
parts, with a single eye to reason, & the good of those for whose government it was
framed. Early therefore in the session of 76. to which returned, I moved and presented a
bill for the revision of the laws; which was passed on the 24th. of October, and on the
5th. of November Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee and myself were
appointed a committee to execute the work. We agreed to meet at Fredericksburg to settle
the plan of operation and to distribute the work. We met there accordingly, on the 13th.
of January 1777. The first question was whether we should propose to abolish the whole
existing system of laws, and prepare a new and complete Institute, or preserve the general
Page 38
system, and only modify it to the present state of things. Mr. Pendleton, contrary to his
usual disposition in favor of antient things, was for the former proposition, in which he
was joined by Mr. Lee. To this it was objected that to abrogate our whole system would be
a bold measure, and probably far beyond the views of the legislature; that they had been
in the practice of revising from time to time the laws of the colony, omitting the
expired, the repealed and the obsolete, amending only those retained, and probably meant
we should now do the same, only including the British statutes as well as our own: that to
compose a new Institute like those of Justinian and Bracton, or that of Blackstone, which
was the model proposed by Mr. Pendleton, would be an arduous undertaking, of vast
research, of great consideration & judgment; and when reduced to a text, every word of
that text, from the imperfection of human language, and it's incompetence to express
distinctly every shade of idea, would become a subject of question & chicanery until
settled by repeated adjudications; that this would involve us for ages in litigation, and
render property uncertain until, like the statutes of old, every word had been tried, and
settled by numerous decisions, and by new volumes of reports & commentaries; and that
no one of us probably would undertake such a work, which, to be systematical, must be the
work of one hand. This last was the opinion of Mr. Wythe, Mr. Mason & myself. When we
proceeded to the distribution of the work, Mr. Mason excused himself as, being no lawyer,
he felt himself unqualified for the work, and he resigned soon after. Mr. Lee excused
himself on the same ground, and died indeed in a short time. The other two gentlemen
therefore and myself divided the work among us. The common law and statutes to the 4.
James I. (when our separate legislature was established) were assigned to me; the British
statutes from that period to the present day to Mr. Wythe, and the Virginia laws to Mr.
Pendleton. As the law of Descents, & the criminal law fell of course within my
portion, I wished the commee to settle the leading principles of these, as a guide for me
in framing them. And with respect to the first, I proposed to abolish the law of
primogeniture, and to make real estate descendible in parcenary to the next of kin, as
personal property is by the statute of distribution.
Page 39
Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve the right of primogeniture, but seeing at once that that
could not prevail, he proposed we should adopt the Hebrew principle, and give a double
portion to the elder son. observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do
double work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion; but being on
a par in his powers & wants, with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also
in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the decision of the other members.
On the subject of the Criminal law, all were agreed that the
punishment of death should be abolished, except for treason and murder; and that, for
other felonies should be substituted hard labor in the public works, and in some cases,
the Lex talionis. How this last revolting principle came to obtain our approbation, I do
not remember. There remained indeed in our laws a vestige of it in a single case of a
slave. It was the English law in the time of the Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the
Hebrew law of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," and it was the law of
several antient people. But the modern mind had left it far in the rear of it's advances.
These points however being settled, we repaired to our respective homes for the
preparation of the work.
Feb. 6. In the execution of my part I thought it material not to vary
the diction of the antient statutes by modernizing it, nor to give rise to new questions
by new expressions. The text of these statutes had been so fully explained and defined by
numerous adjudications, as scarcely ever now to produce a question in our courts. I
thought it would be useful also, in all new draughts, to reform the style of the later
British statutes, and of our own acts of assembly, which from their verbosity, their
endless tautologies, their involutions of case within case, and parenthesis within
parenthesis, and their multiplied efforts at certainty by saids and aforesaids,
by ors and by ands, to make them more plain, do really render them more
perplexed and incomprehensible, not only to common readers, but to the lawyers themselves.
We were employed in this work from that time to Feb. 1779, when we met at Williamsburg,
that is to say, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe & myself, and meeting day by day, we examined
critically our several parts, sentence by sentence, scrutinizing and amending
Page 40
until we had agreed on the whole. We then returned home, had fair copies made of our
several parts, which were reported to the General Assembly June 18. 1779. by Mr. Wythe and
myself, Mr. Pendleton's residence being distant, and he having authorized us by letter to
declare his approbation. We had in this work brought so much of the Common law as it was
thought necessary to alter, all the British statutes from Magna Charta to the present day,
and all the laws of Virginia, from the establishment of our legislature, in the 4th. Jac.
1. to the present time, which we thought should be retained, within the compass of 126
bills, making a printed folio of 90 pages only. Some bills were taken out occasionally,
from time to time, and passed; but the main body of the work was not entered on by the
legislature until after the general peace, in 1785. when by the unwearied exertions of Mr.
Madison, in opposition to the endless quibbles, chicaneries, perversions, vexations and
delays of lawyers and demi-lawyers, most of the bills were passed by the legislature, with
little alteration.
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain
degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It
still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally
passed; and a singular proposition proved that it's protection of opinion was meant to be
universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the
holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus
Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the
holy author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in
proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it's protection, the Jew and the
Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.
Beccaria and other writers on crimes and punishments had satisfied
the reasonable world of the unrightfulness and inefficacy of the punishment of crimes by
death; and hard labor on roads, canals and other public works, had been suggested as a
proper substitute. The Revisors had adopted these opinions; but the general idea of our
country had not yet advanced to that point. The bill therefore for proportioning
Page 41
crimes and punishments was lost in the House of Delegates by a majority of a single vote.
I learnt afterwards that the substitute of hard labor in public was tried (I believe it
was in Pennsylvania) without success. Exhibited as a public spectacle, with shaved heads
and mean clothing, working on the high roads produced in the criminals such a prostration
of character, such an abandonment of self-respect, as, instead of reforming, plunged them
into the most desperate & hardened depravity of morals and character. -- Pursue the
subject of this law. -- I was written to in 1785 (being then in Paris) by Directors
appointed to superintend the building of a Capitol in Richmond, to advise them as to a
plan, and to add to it one of a prison. Thinking it a favorable opportunity of introducing
into the state an example of architecture in the classic style of antiquity, and the
Maison quarrée of Nismes, an antient Roman temple, being considered as the most perfect
model existing of what may be called Cubic architecture, I applied to M. Clerissault, who
had published drawings of the Antiquities of Nismes, to have me a model of the building
made in stucco, only changing the order from Corinthian to Ionic, on account of the
difficulty of the Corinthian capitals. I yielded with reluctance to the taste of
Clerissault, in his preference of the modern capital of Scamozzi to the more noble capital
of antiquity. This was executed by the artist whom Choiseul Gouffier had carried with him
to Constantinople, and employed while Ambassador there, in making those beautiful models
of the remains of Grecian architecture which are to be seen at Paris. To adapt the
exterior to our use, I drew a plan for the interior, with the apartments necessary for
legislative, executive & judiciary purposes, and accommodated in their size and
distribution to the form and dimensions of the building. These were forwarded to the
Directors in 1786. and were carried into execution, with some variations not for the
better, the most important to which however admit of future correction. With respect of
the plan of a Prison, requested at the same time, had heard of a benevolent society in
England which had been indulged by the government in an experiment of the effect of labor
in solitary confinement on some of their criminals, which experiment had succeeded
beyond expectation. The same idea had
Page 42
been suggested in France, and an Architect of Lyons had proposed a plan of a well
contrived edifice on the principle of solitary confinement. I procured a copy, and as it
was too large for our purposes, I drew one on a scale, less extensive, but susceptible of
additions as they should be wanting. This I sent to the Directors instead of a plan of a
common prison, in the hope that it would suggest the idea of labor in solitary confinement
instead of that on the public works, which we had adopted in our Revised Code. It's
principle accordingly, but not it's exact form, was adopted by Latrobe in carrying the
plan into execution, by the erection of what is now called the Penitentiary, built under
his direction. In the meanwhile the public opinion was ripening by time, by reflection,
and by the example of Pensylva, where labor on the highways had been tried without
approbation from 1786 to 89. & had been followed by their Penitentiary system on the
principle of confinement and labor, which was proceeding auspiciously. In 1796. our
legislature resumed the subject and passed the law for amending the Penal laws of the
commonwealth. They adopted solitary, instead of public labor, established a gradation in
the duration of the confinement, approximated the style of the law more to the modern
usage, and instead of the settled distinctions of murder & manslaughter, preserved in
my bill, they introduced the new terms of murder in the 1st & 2d degree. Whether these
have produced more or fewer questions of definition I am not sufficiently informed of our
judiciary transactions to say. I will here however insert the text of my bill, with the
notes I made in the course of my researches into the subject.
Feb. 7. The acts of assembly concerning the College of Wm. &
Mary, were properly within Mr. Pendleton's portion of our work. But these related chiefly
to it's revenue, while it's constitution, organization and scope of science were derived
from it's charter. We thought, that on this subject a systematical plan of general
education should be proposed, and I was requested to undertake it. I accordingly prepared
three bills for the Revisal, proposing three distinct grades of education, reaching all
classes. 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for
a middle
Page 43
degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life, and such as would be
desirable for all who were in easy circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching
the sciences generally, & in their highest degree. The first bill proposed to lay off
every county into Hundreds or Wards, of a proper size and population for a school, in
which reading, writing, and common arithmetic should be taught; and that the whole state
should be divided into 24 districts, in each of which should be a school for classical
learning, grammar, geography, and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic. The second
bill proposed to amend the constitution of Wm. & Mary College, to enlarge it's sphere
of science, and to make it in fact an University. The third was for the establishment of a
library. These bills were not acted on until the same year '96. and then only so much of
the first as provided for elementary schools. The College of Wm. & Mary was an
establishment purely of the Church of England, the Visitors were required to be all of
that Church; the Professors to subscribe it's 39 Articles, it's Students to learn it's
Catechism, and one of its fundamental objects was declared to be to raise up Ministers for
that church. The religious jealousies therefore of all the dissenters took alarm lest this
might give an ascendancy to the Anglican sect and refused acting on that bill. Its local
eccentricity too and unhealthy autumnal climate lessened the general inclination towards
it. And in the Elementary bill they inserted a provision which completely defeated it, for
they left it to the court of each county to determine for itself when this act should be
carried into execution, within their county. One provision of the bill was that the
expenses of these schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in
proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor;
and the justices, being generally of the more wealthy class, were unwilling to incur that
burthen, and I believe it was not suffered to commence in a single county. I shall recur
again to this subject towards the close of my story, if I should have life and resolution
enough to reach that term; for I am already tired of talking about myself.
The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the
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existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future & general
emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and attempted only by
way of amendment whenever the bill should be brought on. The principles of the amendment
however were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and
deportation at a proper age. But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the
proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must
bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of
fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races,
equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn
indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the
process of emancipation and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree as that the evil
will wear off insensibly, and their place be pari passu filled up by free white laborers.
If on the contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the
prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or
deletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall far short of our case.
I considered 4 of these bills, passed or reported, as forming a
system by which every fibre would be eradicated of antient or future aristocracy; and a
foundation laid for a government truly republican. The repeal of the laws of entail would
prevent the accumulation and perpetuation of wealth in select families, and preserve the
soil of the country from being daily more & more absorbed in Mortmain. The abolition
of primogeniture, and equal partition of inheritances removed the feudal and unnatural
distinctions which made one member of every family rich, and all the rest poor,
substituting equal partition, the best of all Agrarian laws. The restoration of the rights
of conscience relieved the people from taxation for the support of a religion not theirs;
for the establishment was truly of the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being
entirely composed of the less wealthy people; and these, by the bill for a general
education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to
exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government: and all this would be
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effected without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual citizen. To
these too might be added, as a further security, the introduction of the trial by jury,
into the Chancery courts, which have already ingulfed and continue to ingulf, so great a
proportion of the jurisdiction over our property.
On the 1st of June 1779. I was appointed Governor of the Commonwealth
and retired from the legislature. Being elected also one of the Visitors of Wm. & Mary
college, a self-electing body, I effected, during my residence in Williamsburg that year,
a change in the organization of that institution by abolishing the Grammar school, and the
two professorships of Divinity & Oriental languages, and substituting a professorship
of Law & Police, one of Anatomy Medicine and Chemistry, and one of Modern languages;
and the charter confining us to six professorships, we added the law of Nature &
Nations, & the Fine Arts to the duties of the Moral professor, and Natural history to
those of the professor of Mathematics and Natural philosophy.
Being now, as it were, identified with the Commonwealth itself, to
write my own history during the two years of my administration, would be to write the
public history of that portion of the revolution within this state. This has been done by
others, and particularly by Mr. Girardin, who wrote his Continuation of Burke's history of
Virginia while at Milton, in this neighborhood, had free access to all my papers while
composing it, and has given as faithful an account as I could myself. For this portion
therefore of my own life, I refer altogether to his history. From a belief that under the
pressure of the invasion under which we were then laboring the public would have more
confidence in a Military chief, and that the Military commander, being invested with the
Civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy promptitude and effect for the
defence of the state, I resigned the administration at the end of my 2d. year, and General
Nelson was appointed to succeed me.
Soon after my leaving Congress in Sep. '76, to wit on the last day of
that month, I had been appointed, with Dr. Franklin, to go to France, as a Commissioner to
negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce with that government. Silas Deane,
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then in France, acting as agent
Note: His ostensible character was to be that of a merchant, his real one that of agent
for military supplies, and also for sounding the dispositions of the government of France,
and seeing how far they would favor us, either secretly or openly. His appointment had
been by the Committee of Foreign Correspondence, March, 1776. for procuring military
stores, was joined with us in commission. But such was the state of my family that I could
not leave it, nor could I expose it to the dangers of the sea, and of capture by the
British ships, then covering the ocean. I saw too that the laboring oar was really at
home, where much was to be done of the most permanent interest in new modelling our
governments, and much to defend our fanes and fire-sides from the desolations of an
invading enemy pressing on our country in every point. I declined therefore and Dr. Lee
was appointed in my place. On the 15th. of June 1781. I had been appointed with Mr. Adams,
Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens a Minister plenipotentiary for negotiating peace,
then expected to be effected thro' the mediation of the Empress of Russia. The same
reasons obliged me still to decline; and the negotiation was in fact never entered on.
But, in the autumn of the next year 1782 Congress receiving assurances that a general
peace would be concluded in the winter and spring, they renewed my appointment on the
13th. of Nov. of that year. I had two months before that lost the cherished companion of
my life, in whose affections, unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten years in
unchequered happiness. With the public interests, the state of my mind concurred in
recommending the change of scene proposed; and I accepted the appointment, and left
Monticello on the 19th. of Dec. 1782. for Philadelphia, where I arrived on the 27th. The
Minister of France, Luzerne, offered me a passage in the Romulus frigate, which I
accepting. But she was then lying a few miles below Baltimore blocked up in the ice. I
remained therefore a month in Philadelphia, looking over the papers in the office of State
in order to possess myself of the general state of our foreign relations, and then went to
Baltimore to await the liberation of the frigate from the ice. After waiting there nearly
a month, we received information that a Provisional treaty of peace had been signed by our
Commissioners on the 3d. of
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Sept. 1782. to become absolute on the conclusion of peace between France and Great
Britain. Considering my proceeding to Europe as now of no utility to the public, I
returned immediately to Philadelphia to take the orders of Congress, and was excused by
them from further proceeding. I therefore returned home, where I arrived on the 15th. of
May, 1783.
On the 6th. of the following month I was appointed by the legislature
a delegate to Congress, the appointment to take place on the 1st. of Nov. ensuing, when
that of the existing delegation would expire. I accordingly left home on the 16th. of Oct.
arrived at Trenton, where Congress was sitting, on the 3d. of Nov. and took my seat on the
4th., on which day Congress adjourned to meet at Annapolis on the 26th.
Congress had now become a very small body, and the members very
remiss in their attendance on it's duties insomuch that a majority of the states,
necessary by the Confederation to constitute a house even for minor business did not
assemble until the 13th. of December.
They as early as Jan. 7. 1782. had turned their attention to the
monies current in the several states, and had directed the Financier, Robert Morris, to
report to them a table of rates at which the foreign coins should be received at the
treasury. That officer, or rather his assistant, Gouverneur Morris, answered them on the
15th in an able and elaborate statement of the denominations of money current in the
several states, and of the comparative value of the foreign coins chiefly in circulation
with us. He went into the consideration of the necessity of establishing a standard of
value with us, and of the adoption of a money-Unit. He proposed for the Unit such a
fraction of pure silver as would be a common measure of the penny of every state, without
leaving a fraction. This common divisor he found to be 1 -- 1440 of a dollar, or 1 -- 1600
of the crown sterling. The value of a dollar was therefore to be expressed by 1440 units,
and of a crown by 1600. Each Unit containing a quarter of a grain of fine silver. Congress
turning again their attention to this subject the following year, the financier, by a
letter of Apr. 30, 1783. further explained and urged the Unit he had proposed; but nothing
more was done on it until the ensuing year, when it was again taken up, and referred to a
commee of which I was a member. The general
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views of the financier were sound, and the principle was ingenious on which he proposed to
found his Unit. But it was too minute for ordinary use, too laborious for computation
either by the head or in figures. The price of a loaf of bread 1 -- 20 of a dollar would
be 72. units.
A pound of butter 1 -- 5 of a dollar 288. units.
A horse or bullock of 80. D value would require a notation of 6.
figures, to wit 115,200, and the public debt, suppose of 80. millions, would require 12.
figures, to wit 115,200,000,000 units. Such a system of money-arithmetic would be entirely
unmanageable for the common purposes of society. proposed therefore, instead of this, to
adopt the Dollar as our Unit of account and payment, and that it's divisions and
sub-divisions should be in the decimal ratio. I wrote some Notes on the subject, which I
submitted to the consideration of the financier. I received his answer and adherence to
his general system, only agreeing to take for his Unit 100. of those he first proposed, so
that a Dollar should be 14 40 -- 100 and a crown 16. units. I replied to this and printed
my notes and re
