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
of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on
the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
I think with you that there should be a school of instruction for our
navy as well as artillery; and I do not see why the same establishment
might not suffice for both. Both require the same basis of general
mathematics, adding projectiles and fortifications for the artillery
exclusively, and astronomy and theory of navigation exclusively for the
naval students. Berout conducted both schools in France, and has left
us the best book extant for their joint and separate instruction. It
ought not to require a separate professor.
A 4th of July oration delivered in the town of Milford, in your State,
gives to Samuel Chase the credit of having "first started the cry of
independence in the ears of his countrymen." Do you remember anything
of this? I do not. I have no doubt it was uttered in Massachusetts even
before it was by Thomas Paine. But certainly I never considered Samuel
Chase as foremost, or even forward in that hallowed cry. I know that
Maryland hung heavily on our backs, and that Chase, although first named,
was not most in unison with us of that delegation, either in politics
or morals, _et c'est ainsi que l'on ecrit l'histoire_!
Your doubt of the legitimacy of the word _gloriola_, is resolved by
Cicero, who, in his letter to Lucceius expresses a wish "_ut nos metipsi
vivi gloriola nostra perfruamur_." Affectionately adieu.
JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.
MONTEZILLO, September 24, 1821.
DEAR SIR,--I thank you for your favor of the 12th instant. Hope springs
eternal. Eight millions of Jews hope for a Messiah more powerful and
glorious than Moses, David, or Solomon; who is to make them as powerful
as he pleases. Some hundreds of millions of Musslemen expect another
prophet more powerful than Mahomet, who is to spread Islamism over the
whole earth. Hundreds of millions of Christians expect and hope for
a millennium in which Jesus is to reign for a thousand years over the
whole world before it is burnt up. The Hindoos expect another and final
incarnation of Vishnu, who is to do great and wonderful things, I know
not what. All these hopes are founded on real or pretended revelation.
The modern Greeks, too, it seems, hope for a deliverer who is to produce
them--the Themistocleses and Demostheneses--the Platos and Aristotles--the
Solons and Lycurguses. On what prophecies they found their belief, I
know not. You and I hope for splendid improvements in human society, and
vast amelioration in the condition of mankind. Our faith may be supposed
by more rational arguments than any of the former, I own that I am very
sanguine in the belief of them, as I hope and believe you are, and your
reasoning in your letter confirmed me in them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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