Washington, January 21, 1808.
Sir,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of December 20th, and am much pleased to find our progress in manufactures to be so great. That of cotton is peculiarly interesting, because we raise the raw material in such abundance, and because it may, to a great degree, supply our deficiencies both in wool and linen. A former application on behalf of Messrs. Binney & Robertson, was delivered to the Secretary of State, who will engage General Armstrong to aid such measures as they may take in Paris for obtaining permission to draw supplies of Antimony from thence.
It will give me real pleasure to see some good system of measures and weights introduced and combined with the decimal arithmetic. It is a great and difficult question whether to venture only on a half reformation, which by presenting fewer innovations, may be more easily adopted, or, as the French have tried with success, make a radical reform. Your plan presents as few innovations as any I have seen; but I think your foot should refer to the pendulum, by saying, for instance, that the foot shall be a measure which shall be to the second pendulum as 1 to 3,267; or rather as 1 to the length of a pendulum vibrating seconds in latitude 45°. This offers a standard in every place, because it can everywhere be found. The rod you propose is only to be found in Philadelphia. You say in your letter that "if the decimal mode obtain in the division of the pound, the Troy and it, as regards the Troy grain, would be the same." I do not understand this; because the Avoirdupois pound containing 7,000 Troy grains, I do not see how any decimal subdivision of the pound could coincide with the Troy grain. However, I shall be very glad to see adopted whatever measure is most promising. I salute you with esteem and respect.
TO THE REV. MR. MILLAR.
Washington, January 23, 1808.
Sir,—I have duly received your favor of the 18th, and am thankful to you for having written it, because it is more agreeable to prevent than to refuse what I do not think myself authorized to comply with. I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the States, as far as it can be in any human authority. But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises, which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.
I am aware that the practice of my predecessors may be quoted. But I have ever believed, that the example of State executives led to the assumption of that authority by the General Government, without due examination, which would have discovered that what might be a right in a State government, was a violation of that right when assumed by another. Be this as it may, every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.
I again express my satisfaction that you have been so good as to give me an opportunity of explaining myself in a private letter, in which I could give my reasons more in detail than might have been done in a public answer; and I pray you to accept the assurances of my high esteem and respect.
TO MR. BARLOW.
January 24, 1808.