1814

TO DOCTOR WALTER JONES.

Monticello, January 2,1814.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of November the 25th reached this place December the 21st,
having been near a month on the way. How this could happen I know not,
as we have two mails a week both from Fredericksburg and Richmond. It
found me just returned from a long journey and absence, during which
so much business had accumulated, commanding the first attentions, that
another week has been added to the delay.

I deplore, with you, the putrid state into which our newspapers have
passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those
who write for them; and I enclose you a recent sample, the production of
a New England judge, as a proof of the abyss of degradation into which
we are fallen. These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste, and
lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information, and
a curb on our functionaries, they have rendered themselves useless, by
forfeiting all title to belief. That this has, in a great degree, been
produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit, I agree with
you; and I have read with great pleasure the paper you enclosed me on
that subject, which I now return. It is at the same time a perfect model
of the style of discussion which candor and decency should observe,
of the tone which renders difference of opinion even amiable, and a
succinct, correct, and dispassionate history of the origin and progress
of party among us. It might be incorporated, as it stands, and without
changing a word, into the history of the present epoch, and would give
to posterity a fairer view of the times than they will probably derive
from other sources. In reading it, with great satisfaction, there was
but a single passage where I wished a little more developement of a very
sound and catholic idea; a single intercalation to rest it solidly on
true bottom. It is near the end of the first page, where you make a
statement of genuine republican maxims; saying, 'that the people ought
to possess as much political power as can possibly consist with the
order and security of society.' Instead of this, I would say, 'that
the people, being the only safe depository of power, should exercise in
person every function which their qualifications enable them to exercise
consistently with the order and security of society; that we now find
them equal to the election of those who shall be invested with
their executive and