The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 7 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
Philosophy
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 7 (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
The history of our University you know so far. Seven of the ten pavilions
destined for the professors, and about thirty dormitories, will be
completed this year, and three other, with six hotels for boarding, and
seventy other dormitories, will be completed the next year, and the whole
be in readiness then to receive those who are to occupy them. But means
to bring these into place, and to set the machine into motion, must come
from the legislature. An opposition, in the meantime, has been got up.
That of our _alma mater_, William and Mary, is not of much weight. She
must descend into the secondary rank of academies of preparation for
the University. The serious enemies are the priests of the different
religious sects, to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is
ominous. Their pulpits are now resounding with denunciations against
the appointment of Doctor Cooper, whom they charge as a monotheist in
opposition to their tritheism. Hostile as these sects are, in every other
point, to one another, they unite in maintaining their mystical theogony
against those who believe there is one God only. The Presbyterian clergy
are loudest; the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannical and
ambitious; ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could be now
obtained, to put the torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin
hemisphere, the flames in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor
Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which
has demonstrated that three are one and one is three, nor subscribe
to that of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all
heretics to Calvinistic Creed. They pant to re-establish, _by law_, that
holy inquisition, which they can now only infuse into _public opinion_.
We have most unwisely committed to the hierophants of our particular
superstition, the direction of public opinion, that lord of the universe.
We have given them stated and privileged days to collect and catechise
us, opportunities of delivering their oracles to the people in mass,
and of moulding their minds as wax in the hollow of their hands. But in
despite of their fulminations against endeavors to enlighten the general
mind, to improve the reason of the people, and encourage them in the use
of it, the liberality of this State will support this institution, and
give fair play to the cultivation of reason. Can you ever find a more
eligible occasion of visiting once more your native country, than that
of accompanying Mr. Correa, and of seeing with him this beautiful and
hopeful institution _in ovo_?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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