TO LE CHEVALIER DE ONIS.
Monticello, April 28, 1814.
I thank you, Sir, for the copy of the new constitution of Spain which you have been so kind as to send me; and I sincerely congratulate yourself and the Spanish nation on this great stride towards political happiness. The invasion of Spain has been the most unprecedented and unprincipled of the transactions of modern times. The crimes of its enemies, the licentiousness of its associates in defence, the exertions and sufferings of its inhabitants under slaughter and famine, and its consequent depopulation, will mark indelibly the baneful ascendancy of the tyrants of the sea and continent, and characterize with blood and wretchedness the age in which they have lived. Yet these sufferings of Spain will be remunerated, her population restored and increased, under the auspices and protection of this new constitution; and the miseries of the present generation will be the price, and even the cheap price of the prosperity of endless generations to come.
There are parts of this constitution, however, in which you would expect of course that we should not concur. One of these is the intolerance of all but the Catholic religion; and no security provided against the re-establishment of an Inquisition, the exclusive judge of Catholic opinions, and authorized to proscribe and punish those it shall deem anti-Catholic. Secondly, the aristocracy, quater sublimata, of her legislators; for the ultimate electors of these will themselves have been three times sifted from the mass of the people, and may choose from the nation at large persons never named by any of the electoral bodies. But there is one provision which will immortalize its inventors. It is that which, after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen who cannot read and write. This is new, and is the fruitful germ of the improvement of everything good, and the correction of everything imperfect in the present constitution. This will give you an enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government. On the whole I hail your country as now likely to resume and surpass its ancient splendor among nations. This might perhaps have been better secured by a just confidence in the self-sufficient strength of the peninsula itself; everything without its limits being its weakness not its force. If the mother country has not the magnanimity to part with the colonies in friendship, thereby making them, what they would certainly be, her natural and firmest allies, these will emancipate themselves, after exhausting her strength and resources in ineffectual efforts to hold them in subjection. They will be rendered enemies of the mother country, as England has rendered us by an unremitting course of insulting injuries and silly provocations. I do not say this from the impulse of national interest, for I do not know that the United States would find an interest in the independence of neighbor nations, whose produce and commerce would rivalize ours. It could only be that kind of interest which every human being has in the happiness and prosperity of every other. But putting right and reason out of the question, I have no doubt that on calculations of interest alone, it is that of Spain to anticipate voluntarily, and as a matter of grace, the independence of her colonies, which otherwise necessity will enforce.
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