A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 1, Part 3: Thomas Jefferson

Part 1

A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS.

BY JAMES D. RICHARDSON

Thomas Jefferson

March 4, 1801, to March 4, 1809

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Va., on April 2 (old style), 1743. He was the oldest son of Peter Jefferson, who died in 1757. After attending private schools, he entered William and Mary College in 1760. In 1767 began the practice of the law. In 1769 was chosen to represent his county in the Virginia house of burgesses, a station he continued to fill up to the period of the Revolution. He married Mrs. Martha Skelton in 1772, she being a daughter of John Wayles, an eminent lawyer of Virginia. On March 12, 1773, was chosen a member of the first committee of correspondence established by the Colonial legislature. Was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1775; was placed on the Committee of Five to prepare the Declaration of Independence, and at the request of that committee he drafted the Declaration, which, with slight amendments, was adopted July 4, 1776. Resigned his seat in Congress and occupied one in the Virginia legislature in October, 1776. Was elected governor of Virginia by the legislature on June 1, 1779, to succeed Patrick Henry. Retired to private life at the end of his term as governor, but was the same year elected again to the legislature. Was appointed commissioner with others to negotiate treaties with France in 1776, but declined. In 1782 he was appointed by Congress minister plenipotentiary to act with others in Europe in negotiating a treaty of peace with Great Britain. Was again elected a Delegate to Congress in 1783, and as a member of that body he advocated and had adopted the dollar as the unit and the present system of coins and decimals. In May, 1784, was appointed minister plenipotentiary to Europe to assist John Adams and Benjamin Franklin in negotiating treaties of commerce. In March, 1785, was appointed by Congress minister at the French Court to succeed Dr. Franklin, and remained in France until September, 1789. On his arrival at Norfolk, November 23, 1789, received a letter from Washington offering him the appointment of Secretary of State in his Cabinet. Accepted and became the first Secretary of State under the Constitution. December 31, 1793, resigned his place in the Cabinet and retired to private life at his home. In 1796 was brought forward by his friends as a candidate for President, but Mr. Adams, receiving the highest number of votes, was elected President, and Jefferson became Vice-President for four years from March 4, 1797. In 1800 was again voted for by his party for President. He and Mr. Burr received an equal number of electoral votes, and under the Constitution the House of Representatives was called upon to elect. Mr. Jefferson was chosen on the thirty-sixth ballot. Was reelected in 1804, and retired finally from public life March 4, 1809. He died on the 4th day of July, 1826, and was buried at Monticello, Va.

NOTIFICATION OF ELECTION.

Mr. Pinckney, from the committee instructed on the 18th instant to wait on the President elect to notify him of his election, reported that the committee had, according to order, performed that service, and addressed the President elect in the following words, to wit:

The committee beg leave to express their wishes for the prosperity of your Administration and their sincere desire that it may promote your own happiness and the welfare of our country.

To which the President elect was pleased to make the following reply:

I receive, gentlemen, with profound thankfulness this testimony of confidence from the great representative council of our nation. It fills up the measure of that grateful satisfaction which had already been derived from the suffrages of my fellow-citizens themselves, designating me as one of those to whom they were willing to commit this charge, the most important of all others to them. In deciding between the candidates whom their equal vote presented to your choice, I am sensible that age has been respected rather than more active and useful qualifications.

I know the difficulties of the station to which I am called, and feel and acknowledge my incompetence to them. But whatsoever of understanding, whatsoever of diligence, whatsoever of justice or of affectionate concern for the happiness of man, it has pleased Providence to place within the compass of my faculties shall be called forth for the discharge of the duties confided to me, and for procuring to my fellow-citizens all the benefits which our Constitution has placed under the guardianship of the General Government.

Guided by the wisdom and patriotism of those to whom it belongs to express the legislative will of the nation, I will give to that will a faithful execution.

I pray you, gentlemen, to convey to the honorable body from which you are deputed the homage of my humble acknowledgments and the sentiments of zeal and fidelity by which I shall endeavor to merit these proofs of confidence from the nation and its Representatives; and accept yourselves my particular thanks for the obliging terms in which you have been pleased to communicate their will.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 20, 1801.

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT ELECT.

The President laid before the Senate a letter from the President elect of the United States, which was read, as follows:

WASHINGTON, March 2, 1801.

The PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE OF THE SENATE.

SIR: I beg leave through you to inform the honorable the Senate of the United States that I propose to take the oath which the Constitution prescribes to the President of the United States before he enters on the execution of his office on Wednesday, the 4th instant, at 12 o'clock, in the Senate Chamber.

I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

TH. JEFFERSON.

(The same letter was sent to the House of Representatives.)

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

AT WASHINGTON, D.C.

Friends and Fellow-Citizens.

Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye--when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.

Part 2

During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

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