The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
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The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
I informed you in my last, of the success of our first expedition against
the Indians. A second has gone against them, the result of which is not
yet known. Our public credit is good, but the abundance of paper has
produced a spirit of gambling in the funds, which has laid up our ships
at the wharves, as too slow instruments of profit, and has even disarmed
the hand of the tailor of his needle and thimble. They say the evil will
cure itself. I wish it may; but I have rarely seen a gamester cured, even
by the disasters of his vocation. Some new indications of the ideas with
which the British cabinet are coming into treaty, confirm your opinions,
which I know to be right, but the Anglomany of some would not permit them
to accede to.
Adieu, my dear Sir. Your affectionate humble servant.
TO BENJ. BANNEKER.
Philadelphia, August 30, 1791.
Sir,--I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and for
the Almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs
as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal
to those of the others colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of
them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both
in Africa and America. I can add with truth, that nobody wishes more
ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both
of their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility
of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be
neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your Almanac
to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris,
and member of the Philanthropic society, because I considered it as a
document to which your color had a right for their justification against
the doubts which have been entertained of them. I am, with great esteem,
Sir, your most obedient humble servant.
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, August 30, 1791.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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