In deciding on these questions of evidence, we are bound to proceed by the same laws of evidence which govern the courts of justice. These are the laws of the land, admitting no exceptions of person, public or private. The laws in refusing an appeal to the ordinary tribunals in questions between an individual and the public, and leaving the decision in the executive department, has changed the judge in this instance, but not the law. It has given judiciary but not legislative powers; and the laws of the land are the inheritance and the right of every man, before whatever tribunal he is brought. For instance, that a contract need not be on record; that it may be by parol as well as in writing, that a written contract may be controlled by verbal agreement or other intrinsic matter, are principles of law to which Dr. Stevens is entitled on the one hand, as it is our duty, on the other, to bring his claims to the test of law, to sift the facts on which they rest by the common rules of evidence, and to decide according to these on every item of his accounts, not weakly to relieve an individual by giving him the public money, nor arbitrarily to withhold by public power what is justly due to an individual. This investigation cannot be better trusted than to the justice and judgment of the comptroller, to whom therefore it is referred.
XLI.
Notes on a Draught for a second Inaugural Address.
The former one was an exposition of the principles on which I thought it my duty to administer the government. The second, then, should naturally be a compte rendu, or a statement of facts showing that I have conformed to those principles. The former was promise: this is performance. Yet the nature of the occasion requires that detail should be avoided; that the most prominent heads only should be selected, and these placed in a strong light, but in as few words as possible. These heads are foreign affairs, domestic ditto, viz.: Taxes, Debts, Louisiana, Religion, Indians, the Press. None of these heads need any commentary but that of Indians. This is a proper topic, not only to promote the work of humanizing our citizens towards these people, but to conciliate to us the good opinion of Europe on the subject of the Indians. This, however, might have been done in half the compass it here occupies. But every respecter of science, every friend to political reformation, must have observed with indignation the hue and cry raised against philosophy and the rights of man; and it really seems as if they would be overborne, and barbarism, bigotry, and despotism, would recover the ground they have lost by the advance of the public understanding. I have thought the occasion justified some discountenance of these anti-social doctrines, some testimony against them. But not to commit myself in direct warfare on them, I have thought it best to say what is directly applied to the Indians only, but admits by inference a more general extension.
XLII.
Farewell Address to Th: Jefferson. President of the United States.
[Agreed to by both Houses, Feb. 7, 1809.]
Sir,—The General Assembly of your native State cannot close their session, without acknowledging your services in the office which you are just about to lay down, and bidding you a respectful and affectionate farewell.
We have to thank you for the model of an administration conducted on the purest principles of republicanism; for pomp and state laid aside; patronage discarded; internal taxes abolished; a host of superfluous officers disbanded; the monarchic maxim "that a national debt is a national blessing," renounced, and more than thirty-three millions of our debt discharged; the native right to nearly one hundred millions of acres of our national domain extinguished; and, without the guilt or calamities of conquest, a vast and fertile region added to our country, far more extensive than her original possessions, bringing along with it the Mississippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the west to the Pacific Ocean, and in the intrinsic value of the land itself, a source of permanent and almost inexhaustible revenue. These are points in your administration which the historian will not fail to seize, to expand, and teach posterity to dwell upon with delight. Nor will he forget our peace with the civilized world, preserved through a season of uncommon difficulty and trial; the good will cultivated with the unfortunate aborigines of our country, and the civilization humanely extended among them; the lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Barbary, that we have the means of chastising their piratical encroachments, and awing them into justice; and that theme, on which, above all others, the historic genius will hang with rapture, the liberty of speech and of the press preserved inviolate, without which genius and science are given to man in vain.
In the principles on which you have administered the government, we see only the continuation and maturity of the same virtues and abilities, which drew upon you in your youth the resentment of Dunmore. From the first brilliant and happy moment of your resistance to foreign tyranny, until the present day, we mark with pleasure and with gratitude the same uniform, consistent character, the same warm and devoted attachment to liberty and the republic, the same Roman love of your country, her rights, her peace, her honor, her prosperity.
How blessed will be the retirement into which you are about to go! How deservedly blessed will it be! For you carry with you the richest of all rewards, the recollection of a life well spent in the service of your country, and proofs the most decisive, of the love, the gratitude, the veneration of your countrymen.
That your retirement may be as happy as your life has been virtuous and useful; that our youth may see in the blissful close of your days, an additional inducement to form themselves on your model, is the devout and earnest prayer of your fellow citizens who compose the General Assembly of Virginia.