mit it to the depository of the neighborhood,
generally found to be the best precaution against losing a good thing.
I will add a word on the political part of our letters. I believe we do
not differ on either of the points you suppose. On education certainly
not; of which the proofs are my bill for the diffusion of knowledge,
proposed near forty years ago, and my uniform endeavors, to this day,
to get our counties divided into wards, one of the principal objects of
which is, the establishment of a primary school in each. But education
not being a branch of municipal government, but, like the other arts
and sciences, an accident only, I did not place it, with election, as a
fundamental member in the structure of government. Nor, I believe, do
we differ as to the county courts. I acknowledge the value of this
institution; that it is in truth our principal executive and judiciary,
and that it does much for little pecuniary reward. It is their
self-appointment I wish to correct; to find some means of breaking up
a cabal, when such a one gets possession of the bench. When this takes
place, it becomes the most afflicting of tyrannies, because its powers
are so various, and exercised on every thing most immediately around
us. And how many instances have you and I known of these monopolies of
county administration! I knew a county in which a particular family (a
numerous one) got possession of the bench, and for a whole generation.
never admitted a man on it who was not of its clan or connection. 1 know
a county now of one thousand and five hundred militia, of which sixty
are federalists. Its court is of thirty members, of whom twenty are
federalists, (every third man of the sect.) There are large and populous
districts in it without a justice, because without a federalist
for appointment: the militia are as disproportionably under federal
officers. And there is no authority on earth which can break up this
junto, short of a general convention. The remaining one thousand four
hundred and forty, free, fighting, and paying citizens, are governed
by men neither of their choice nor confidence, and without a hope
of relief. They are certainly excluded from the blessings of a free
government for life, and indefinitely, for aught the constitution has
provided. This solecism may be called any thing but republican, and
ought undoubtedly to be corrected. I salute you with constant friendship
and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER