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Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
Monticello Feb. 17. 26.
that hue. they suppose themselves indeed to be whigs, because
they no longer know what whiggism or republicanism means. it is
in our Seminary that the Vestal flame is to be kept alive; it
is thence it is to spread anew over our own and the sister-states.
if we are true and vigilant in our trust, within a dozen or 20
years a majority of our own legislature will be from our school,
and many disciples will have carried it's doctrines home
with them to their several states, and will have leavened thus
the whole mass. N. York has taken strong ground; in vindication
of the constitution; S. Carolina had already done the same. Altho'
I was against our leading, I am equally against omitting to follow
in the same line, and backing them firmly; and I hope that yourself
or some other will mark out the track to be pursued by us.
You will have seen in the newspapers some proceedings in the
legislature, which have cost me much mortification. my own debts
had become considerable but not beyond the effect of some lopping
of property which would have been little felt, when our friend
W.C.N. gave me the Coup de grace. ever since that I have been
paying 1200.D a year interest on his debt, which, with my own,
was absorbing so much of my annual income, as that the Maintenance
of my family was making deep and rapid inroads on my capital,
and had already done it. still, sales at a fair price would leave
me competently provided. had crops and prices for several years
been such as to maintain a steady competition of substantial bidders
at market, all would have been safe. but the long succession of
years of stunted crops, of reduced prices, the general prostration
of the farming business, under levies for the support of manufacturers
&c. with the calamitous fluctuations of value in our paper
medium have kept agriculture in a state of abject depression which
has peopled the Western states, by silently breaking up those
on the Atlantic, & glutted the land market, while it drew
off it's bidders. in such a state of things, property has lost
it's character of being a resource for debts. highland in Bedford,
which, in the days of our plethory, sold readily for from 50 to
100D the acre, (and such sales were many there) would not now
sell for more than from 10 to 20D or 1/4 or 1/5 of their former
price. reflecting on these things, the practice occurred to me,
of selling, on fair valuation, and by way of lottery, often resorted
to, before the revoln to effect large sales and still in constant
usage, in every state, for individual, as well as corporation
purposes. if it is permitted in my case, my lands here alone,
with the mills &c. will pay every thing, and leave me Monticello
& a farm free. if refused, I must sell every thing here, perhaps
considerably in Bedford, move thither with my family, where I
have not even a log-hut to put my head into, and whether ground
for burial will depend on the depredations which, under the form
of sales, shall have been committed on my property. the question
then with me was Utrum horum? but why afflict you with these details?
indeed I cannot tell, unless pains are lessened by communication
with a friend. the friendship which has subsisted between us,
now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles
and pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me thro'
that long period. and if I remove beyond the reach of attentions
to the University, or beyond the bourne of life itself, as I soon
must, it is a comfort to leave that institution under your care,
and an assurance that it will not be wanting. it has also been
a great solace to me, to believe that you are engaged in vindicating
to posterity the course we have pursued for preserving to them,
in all their purity, the blessings of self-government, which we
had assisted too in acquiring for them. if ever the earth has
beheld a system of administration, conducted with a single and
steadfast eye to the general interest and happiness of those committed
to it, one which, protected by truth, can never know reproach,
it is that to which our lives have been devoted. to myself, you
have been a pillar of support thro' life. take care of me when
dead, and be assured that I shall leave with you my last affections.
Th. Jefferson
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