Thomas Jefferson, book reviewer

TO THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE

Monticello, November 4, 1823

My Dear Friend, [...]

I thank you much for the two books you were so kind as to send me by Mr. Gallatin. Miss Wright had before favored me with the first edition of her American work; but her Few days in Athens, was entirely new, and has been a treat to me of the highest order. The manner and matter of the dialogue is strictly ancient; and the principles of the sects are beautifully and candidly explained and contrasted; and the scenery and portraiture of the interlocutors are of higher finish than anything in that line left us by the ancients; and like Ossian, if not ancient, it is equal to the best morsels of antiquity. I augur, from this instance, that Herculaneum is likely to furnish better specimens of modern than of ancient genius; and may we not hope more from the same pen?

Jefferson on journalism

The more things change...

TO JAMES MONROE

Monticello, Jan. 18. 1819

You oblige me infinitely, dear Sir, by sending me the Congressional documents in pamphlet form. For as they come out by piece-meal in the newspapers I never read them. And indeed I read no newspapers now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, as being the only truths we can rely on in a newspaper.

The complete works of Thomas Jefferson

Online. I love the internet.

The founders' English

It's a delight to read Jefferson and the other founders, especially if you're giving them a close study. You can trust them to express complete well-turned thoughts in each sentence, making unnecessary the modern work of hunting through the clauses to put thoughts back together and extract some sense from them.

Jefferson on subsidiarity

Subsidiarity is the principle which states that matters ought to be handled by the smallest (or, the lowest) competent authority.

Here's Jefferson in his autobiography as cited in The Founders' Constitution:

But it is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected. Were not this great country already divided into states, that division must be made, that each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do than a distant authority. Every state again is divided into counties, each to take care of what lies within it's local bounds; each county again into townships or wards, to manage minuter details; and every ward into farms, to be governed each by it's individual proprietor. Were we directed from Washington when to sow, & when to reap, we should soon want bread. It is by this partition of cares, descending in gradation from general to particular, that the mass of human affairs may be best managed for the good and prosperity of all.

The sentence "Were we directed from Washington..." is illustrated by the experience of the Pilgrims their first few years here. They set up a farming system such that all food was grown in common on common land. They starved. Then William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Colony, gave each family their own land to farm, which "made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content". See the journal of William Bradford, excerpted at The Founders' Constitution.