the
_dulce natale solum_. Our wish is to procure natives, where they can be
found, like these gentlemen, of the first order of acquirement in
their respective lines; but preferring foreigners of the first order to
natives of the second, we shall certainly have to go, for several of our
Professors, to countries more advanced in science than we are.

I set out within three or four days for my other home, the distance
of which, and its cross mails, are great impediments to epistolary
communications. I shall remain there about two months; and there,
here, and every where, I am and shall always be, affectionately and
respectfully yours.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXLIX.--TO JUDGE ROANE, September 6,1819

TO JUDGE ROANE.

Poplar Forest, September 6,1819.

Dear Sir,

I had read in the Enquirer, and with great approbation, the pieces
signed Hampden, and have read them again with redoubled approbation in
the copies you have been so kind as to send me. I subscribe to every
tittle of them. They contain the true principles of the revolution
of 1800, for that was as real a revolution in the principles of our
government as that of 1776 was in its form; not effected indeed by the
sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform,
the suffrage of the people. The nation declared its will by dismissing
functionaries of one principle, and electing those of another, in the
two branches, executive and legislative, submitted to their election.
Over the judiciary department, the constitution had deprived them of
their control. That, therefore, has continued the reprobated system: and
although new matter has been occasionally incorporated into the old, yet
the leaven of the old mass seems to assimilate to itself the new; and
after twenty years' confirmation of the federated system by the voice
of the nation, declared through the medium of elections, we find the
judiciary, on every occasion, still driving us into consolidation.

In denying the right they usurp of exclusively explaining the
constitution, I go further than you do, if I understand rightly your
quotation from the Federalist, of an opinion that 'the judiciary is the
last resort in relation _to the other departments of the government_,
but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under
which the judiciary is derived.' If this opinion be sound, then indeed
is our constitution a complete _felo de se_. For intending to establish
t