Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4Jefferson, Thomas
History
Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
were right; and from this fatal error of the republicans, from their
separation from yourself and the constitutionalists, in their councils,
flowed all the subsequent sufferings and crimes of the French nation.
The hazards of a second change fell upon them by the way. The foreigner
gained time to anarchize by gold the government he could not overthrow
by arms, to crush in their own councils the genuine republicans, by the
fraternal embraces of exaggerated and hired pretenders, and to turn the
machine of Jacobinism from the change to the destruction of order: and,
in the end, the limited monarchy they had secured was exchanged for
the unprincipled and bloody tyranny of Robespierre, and the equally
unprincipled and maniac tyranny of Bonaparte. You are now rid of him,
and I sincerely wish you may continue so. But this may depend on the
wisdom and moderation of the restored dynasty. It is for them now to
read a lesson in the fatal errors of the republicans; to be contented
with a certain portion of power, secured by formal compact with the
nation, rather than, grasping at more, hazard all upon uncertainty, and
risk meeting the fate of their predecessor, or a renewal of their own
exile. We are just informed, too, of an example which merits, if true,
their most profound contemplation. The gazettes say, that Ferdinand of
Spain is dethroned, and his father re-established on the basis of their
new constitution. This order of magistrates must, therefore, see, that
although the attempts at reformation have not succeeded in their whole
length, and some secession from the ultimate point has taken place, yet
that men have by no means fallen back to their former passiveness; but
on the contrary, that a sense of their rights, and a restlessness to
obtain them, remain deeply impressed on every mind, and, if not quieted
by reasonable relaxations of power, will break out like a volcano on
the first occasion, and overwhelm every thing again in its way. I always
thought the present King an honest and moderate man: and having
no issue, he is under a motive the less for yielding to personal
considerations. I cannot, therefore, but hope, that the patriots in and
out of your legislature, acting in phalanx, but temperately and wisely,
pressing unremittingly the principles omitted in the late capitulation
of the King, and watching the occasions which the course of events will
create, may get those principles engrafted into it, and sanctioned by
the solemnity of a national act.
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