The Reign of Witches

Thomas Jefferson's 1798 letter to John Taylor could have been written yesterday.

One of our great contemporary philosophers, Kamala Harris, once ruminated about the “significance of the passage of time”.

I tend to agree in the sense that the passage of time significantly dulls our perception of history.

One of my faults is that I love to read history – and I don’t mean books about history (although I enjoy some of them as well – Churchills history of WWII is a favorite) – I like to read contemporary accounts of history written in the history maker’s own hand, when possible.

That’s why I enjoy reading the letters of our Founders, Jefferson, Madison, and Adams in particular. Jefferson was a prolific letter writer, so he left behind a broad and significant recounting of the issues of his day - as he saw them.

I was reading last night and came across TJ’s 1798 letter to John Taylor. I found this one particularly interesting and relevant due to the issues addressed – issues we continue to address today. If one thinks the early formation of America worked like clockwork, which many contemporary sources seem to indicate, one would be wrong – very wrong.

In this letter, Jefferson notes the friction between the former colonies over who is to rule whom, the issues of political division, how people were yearning for Europe as things were getting tough here in the former thirteen colonies, and how much the press sucked.

So, I bid you to secure a comfortable spot, grab a coffee, tea, or an adult beverage, and settle in for a trip back to 1798 and see how much you recognize our issues of today in Jefferson’s words.

I excised the part about the patents, modernized some spellings, broke things into rational paragraphs and added a little editorial explanation, when necessary, all for readability but did not alter Jefferson’s meanings.

Enjoy:

Mr. New shewed [shared with] me your letter on the subject of the patent, which gave me an opportunity of observing what you said as to the effect with you of public proceedings, and that it was not unusual now to estimate the separate mass of Virginia and N. Carolina with a view to their separate existence. It is true that we are completely under the saddle of Massachusetts & Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings as well as exhausting our strength and substance. Their natural friends, the three other eastern States, join them from a sort of family pride, and they have the art to divide certain other parts of the Union so as to make use of them to govern the whole. This is not new. It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order, and those who have once got an ascendency and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantages. But our present situation is not a natural one.

The body of our countrymen is substantially republican through every part of the Union. It was the irresistible influence & popularity of Gen. Washington, played off by the cunning of Hamilton, which turned the government over to anti-republican hands, or turned the republican members, chosen by the people, into anti-republicans. He delivered it over to his successor in this state, and very untoward events, since improved with great artifice, have produced on the public mind the impression we see; but still, I repeat it, this is not the natural state. Time alone would bring round an order of things more correspondent to the sentiments of our constituents; but are there not events impending which will do it within a few months? The invasion of England, the public and authentic avowal of sentiments hostile to the leading principles of our Constitution, the prospect of a war in which we shall stand alone, land-tax, stamp-tax, increase of public debt, etc.

Be this as it may, in every free & deliberating society there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties & violent dissensions & discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. Perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch & delate [to make public] to the people the proceedings of the other. But if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no federal government can ever exist.

If to rid ourselves of the present rule of Massachusetts & Connecticut we break the Union, will the evil stop there? Suppose the N. England States alone cut off, will our natures be changed? are we not men still to the south of that, & with all the passions of men? Immediately we shall see a Pennsylvania & a Virginia party arise in the residuary confederacy, and the public mind will be distracted with the same party spirit. What a game, too, will the one party have in their hands by eternally threatening the other that unless they do so & so, they will join their Northern neighbors. If we reduce our Union to Virginia & N. Carolina, immediately the conflict will be established between the representatives of these two States, and they will end by breaking into their simple units. Seeing, therefore, that an association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry, seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel with, I had rather keep our New England associates for that purpose than to see our bickerings transferred to others. They are circumscribed within such narrow limits, & their population so full, that their numbers will ever be the minority, and they are marked, like the Jews, with such a peculiarity of character as to constitute from that circumstance the natural division of our parties.

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it’s true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt. But who can say what would be the evils of a scission, and when & where they would end? Better keep together as we are, hawl [haul] off from Europe as soon as we can, & from all attachments to any portions of it. And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all; and health, happiness, & friendly salutations to yourself.

Adieu.

P. S. It is hardly necessary to caution you to let nothing of mine get before the public. A single sentence, got hold of by the Porcupines, will suffice to abuse & persecute me in their papers for months.