constitution itself, were not explicitly
secured by a supplementary declaration. There are rights which it is
useless to surrender to the government, and which governments have
yet always been fond to invade. These are the rights of thinking,
and publishing our thoughts by speaking or writing; the right of free
commerce; the right of personal freedom. There are instruments for
administering the government so peculiarly trust-worthy, that we
should never leave the legislature at liberty to change them. The
new constitution has secured these in the executive and legislative
departments; but not in the judiciary. It should have established trials
by the people themselves, that is to say, by jury. There are instruments
so dangerous to the rights of the nation, and which place them so
totally at the mercy of their governors, that those governors, whether
legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such
instruments on foot, but in well defined cases. Such an instrument is a
standing army. We are now allowed to say, such a declaration of rights,
as a supplement to the constitution, where that is silent, is wanting,
to secure us in these points. The general voice has legitimated this
objection. It has not, however, authorized me to consider as a
real defect, what I thought, and still think one, the perpetual
re-eligibility of the President. But three States out of eleven having
declared against this, we must suppose we are wrong, according to the
fundamental law of every society, the _lex majoris partis_, to which we
are bound to submit. And should the majority change their opinion, and
become sensible that this trait in their constitution is wrong, I would
wish it to remain uncorrected, as long as we can avail ourselves of
the services of our great leader, whose talents and whose weight of
character, I consider as peculiarly necessary to get the government
so under way, as that it may afterwards be carried on by subordinate
characters.

I must give you sincere thanks for the details of small news contained
in your letter. You know how previous that kind of information is to a
person absent from his country, and how difficult it is to be procured.
I hope to receive soon permission to visit America this summer, and to
possess myself anew, by conversation with my countrymen, of their spirit
and their ideas. I know only the Americans of the year 1784. They tell
me this is to be much a stranger to those of 1789. Thi