CXXXVII.--TO SAMUEL KERCHIVAL, September 5, 1816

TO SAMUEL KERCHIVAL.

Monticello, September 5, 1816.

Sir,

Your letter of August the 16th is just received. That which I wrote to
you under the address of H. Tompkinson, was intended for the author
of the pamphlet you were so kind as to send me, and therefore, in your
hands, found its true destination. But I must beseech you, Sir, not to
admit a possibility of its being published. Many good people will revolt
from its doctrines, and my wish is to offend nobody; to leave to those
who are to live under it, the settlement of their own constitution, and
to pass in peace the remainder of my time. If those opinions are sound,
they will occur to others, and will prevail by their own weight,
without the aid of names. I am glad to see that the Staunton meeting has
rejected the idea of a limited convention. The article, however, nearest
my heart, is the division of the counties into wards. These will be pure
and elementary republics, the sum of all which, taken together, composes
the State, and will make of the whole a true democracy as to the
business of the wards, which is that of nearest and daily concern.
The affairs of the larger sections, of counties, of States, and of
the Union, not admitting personal transaction by the people, will be
delegated to agents elected by themselves; and representation will thus
be substituted, where personal action becomes impracticable. Yet,
even over these representative organs, should they become corrupt and
perverted, the division into wards constituting the people, in their
wards, a regularly organized power, enables them by that organization
to crush, regularly and peaceably, the usurpations of their unfaithful
agents, and rescues them from the dreadful necessity of doing it
insurrectionally. In this way we shall be as republican as a large
society can be; and secure the continuance of purity in our government,
by the salutary, peaceable, and regular control of the people. No other
depositories of power have ever yet been found, which did not end in
converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their
charge. George the III., in execution of the trust confided to him, has,
within his own day, loaded the inhabitants of Great Britain with debts
equal to the whole fee-simple value of their island, and under pretext
of governing it, has alienated its whole soil to creditors who could
lend money to be lavished on priests