The extracts from Jefferson's letters which I give in this chapter the reader will find to be of unusual interest. Among his family letters I find the following touching note to one of his grand-daughters.
To Mrs. Anne C. Bankhead.
Monticello, May 26th, 1811.
My dear Anne—I have just received a copy of the Modern Griselda, which Ellen tells me will not be unacceptable to you; I therefore inclose it. The heroine presents herself certainly as a perfect model of ingenious perverseness, and of the art of making herself and others unhappy. If it can be made of use in inculcating the virtues and felicities of life, it must be by the rule of contraries.
Nothing new has happened in our neighborhood since you left us; the houses and the trees stand where they did; the flowers come forth like the belles of the day, have their short reign of beauty and splendor, and retire, like them, to the more interesting office of reproducing their like. The Hyacinths and Tulips are off the stage, the Irises are giving place to the Belladonnas, as these will to the Tuberoses, etc.; as your mamma has done to you, my dear Anne, as you will do to the sisters of little John, and as I shall soon and cheerfully do to you all in wishing you a long, long good-night. Present me respectfully to Doctor and Mrs. Bankhead, and accept for Mr. Bankhead and yourself the assurances of my cordial affections, not forgetting that Cornelia shares them.
TH. JEFFERSON.
In January, 1811, Dr. Rush, in a friendly letter to Mr. Jefferson, expressed regret at the suspension of intercourse between Mr. Adams and himself. Jefferson's letter in reply is one of the most charming he ever wrote.
To Benjamin Rush.—[Extract.]
I receive with sensibility your observations on the discontinuance of friendly correspondence between Mr. Adams and myself, and the concern you take in its restoration. This discontinuance has not proceeded from me, nor from the want of sincere desire and of effort on my part to renew our intercourse. You know the perfect coincidence of principle and of action, in the early part of the Revolution, which produced a high degree of mutual respect and esteem between Mr. Adams and myself. Certainly no man was ever truer than he was, in that day, to those principles of rational republicanism which, after the necessity of throwing off our monarchy, dictated all our efforts in the establishment of a new Government. And although he swerved afterwards towards the principles of the English Constitution, our friendship did not abate on that account. While he was Vice-president, and I Secretary of State, I received a letter from President Washington, then at Mount Vernon, desiring me to call together the Heads of Department, and to invite Mr. Adams to join us (which, by-the-by, was the only instance of that being done), in order to determine on some measure which required dispatch; and he desired me to act on it, as decided, without again recurring to him. I invited them to dine with me, and after dinner, sitting at our wine, having settled our question, other conversation came on, in which a collision of opinion arose between Mr. Adams and Colonel Hamilton on the merits of the British Constitution; Mr. Adams giving it as his opinion that, if some of its defects and abuses were corrected, it would be the most perfect constitution of government ever devised by man. Hamilton, on the contrary, asserted that, with its existing vices, it was the most perfect model of government that could be formed, and that the correction of its vices would render it an impracticable government. And this, you may be assured, was the real line of difference between the political principles of these two gentlemen.
Another incident took place on the same occasion, which will further delineate Mr. Hamilton's political principles. The room being hung around with a collection of the portraits of remarkable men, among them were those of Bacon, Newton, and Locke. Hamilton asked me who they were. I told him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced, naming them. He paused for some time: "The greatest man," said he, "that ever lived was Julius Cæsar." Mr. Adams was honest as a politician, as well as a man; Hamilton honest as a man, but, as a politician, believing in the necessity of either force or corruption to govern men.
Writing to Colonel Duane in the same year, speaking of the state of the country and differences of opinion, he says: "These, like differences of face, are a law of our nature, and should be viewed with the same tolerance. The clouds which have appeared for some time to be gathering around us have given me anxiety, lest an enemy, always on the watch, always prompt and firm, and acting in well-disciplined phalanx, should find an opening to dissipate hopes, with the loss of which I would wish that of life itself. To myself, personally, the sufferings would be short. The powers of life have declined with me more in the last six months than in as many preceding years. A rheumatic indisposition, under which your letter found me, has caused this delay in acknowledging its receipt."
In a letter of December 5th, 1811, to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jefferson, after alluding to letters from him, wherein he expresses a desire to bring about a reconciliation between Mr. Adams and himself, says:
To Benjamin Rush.
Two of the Mr. Coles, my neighbors and friends, took a tour to the northward during the last summer. In Boston they fell into company with Mr. Adams, and by his invitation passed a day with him at Braintree. He spoke out to them every thing which came uppermost, and as it occurred to his mind, without any reserve; and seemed most disposed to dwell on those things which happened during his own Administration. He spoke of his masters, as he called his Heads of Departments, as acting above his control, and often against his opinions. Among many other topics, he adverted to the unprincipled licentiousness of the press against myself, adding, "I always loved Jefferson, and still love him."
This is enough for me. I only needed this knowledge to revive towards him all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives.... I wish, therefore, but for an apposite occasion to express to Mr. Adams my unchanged affection for him. There is an awkwardness which hangs over the resuming a correspondence so long discontinued, unless something could arise which should call for a letter. Time and chance may perhaps generate such an occasion, of which I shall not be wanting in promptitude to avail myself. From this fusion of mutual affections, Mrs. Adams is, of course, separated. It will only be necessary that I never name her.[58] In your letters to Mr. Adams you can perhaps suggest my continued cordiality towards him, and, knowing this, should an occasion of writing first present itself to him, he will perhaps avail himself of it, as I certainly will, should it first occur to me. No ground for jealousy now existing, he will certainly give fair play to the natural warmth of his heart. Perhaps I may open the way in some letter to my old friend Gerry, who, I know, is in habits of the greatest intimacy with him. I have thus, my friend, laid my heart open to you, because you were so kind as to take an interest in healing again Revolutionary affections, which have ceased in expression only, but not in their existence. God ever bless you, and preserve you in life and health.