The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (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
You suppose that you have been abused by both parties. As far as has
come to my knowledge, you are misinformed. I have never seen or heard a
sentence of blame uttered against you by the republicans; unless we were
so to construe their wishes that you had more boldly co-operated in a
project of a treaty, and would more explicitly state, whether there was
in your colleagues that flexibility, which persons earnest after peace
would have practised? Whether, on the contrary, their demeanor was not
cold, reserved, and distant, at least, if not backward? And whether, if
they had yielded to those informal conferences which Talleyrand seems to
have courted, the liberal accommodation you suppose might not have been
effected, even with their agency? Your fellow-citizens think they have a
right to full information, in a case of such great concernment to them.
It is their sweat which is to earn all the expenses of the war, and their
blood which is to flow in expiation of the causes of it. It may be in
your power to save them from these miseries by full communications and
unrestrained details, postponing motives of delicacy to those of duty. It
rests with you to come forward independently; to make your stand on the
high ground of your own character; to disregard calumny, and to be borne
above it on the shoulders of your grateful fellow citizens; or to sink
into the humble oblivion, to which the federalists (self-called) have
secretly condemned you; and even to be happy if they will indulge you
oblivion, while they have beamed on your colleagues meridian splendor.
Pardon me, my dear Sir, if my expressions are strong. My feelings are so
much more so, that it is with difficulty I reduce them even to the tone
I use. If you doubt the dispositions towards you, look into the papers,
on both sides, for the toasts which were given throughout the States on
the fourth of July. You will there see whose hearts were with you, and
whose were ulcerated against you. Indeed, as soon as it was known that
you had consented to stay in Paris, there was no measure observed in the
execrations of the war party. They openly wished you might be guillotined,
or sent to Cayenne, or anything else. And these expressions were finally
stifled from a principle of policy only, and to prevent you from being
urged to a justification of yourself. From this principle alone proceed
the silence and cold respect they observe towards you. Still, they
cannot prevent at times the flames bursting from under the embers, as
Mr. Pickering's letters, report, and conversations testify, as well as
the indecent expressions respecting you, indulged by some of them in the
debate on these despatches. These sufficiently show that you are never
more to be honored or trusted by them, and that they wait to crush you for
ever, only till they can do it without danger to themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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