e in the belief, that the useless sacrifice
of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government
and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and
unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be,
that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh
the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more
likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before
they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason
against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of
the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLIII.--TO WILLIAM SHORT, August 4, 1820

TO WILLIAM SHORT.

Monticello, August 4, 1820.

Dear Sir,

I owe you a letter for your favor of June the 29th, which was received
in due time; and there being no subject of the day, of particular
interest, I will make this a supplement to mine of April the 13th. My
aim in that was, to justify the character of Jesus against the fictions
of his pseudo-followers, which have exposed him to the inference of
being an impostor. For if we could believe that he really countenanced
the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanisms which his biographers
father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and
theorizations of the fathers of the early, and fanatics of the latter
ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind, that he
was an impostor. I give no credit to their falsifications of his actions
and doctrines, and to rescue his character, the postulate in my letter
asked only what is granted in reading every other historian. When
Livy and Siculus, for example, tell us things which coincide with our
experience of the order of nature, we credit them on their word, and
place their narrations among the records of credible history. But when
they tell us of calves speaking, of statues sweating blood, and other
things against the course of nature, we reject these as fables not
belonging to history. In like manner, when an historian, speaking of a
character well known and established on satisfactory testimony, imputes
to it things incompatible with that character, we reject them without
hesitation, and assent to that only of which we have better evidence.
Had Plutarch informed us that Caesar and Cicero passed their whole lives
in religious exercises, and a