indeed, if, at our years, we were to go an age back to hunt
up imaginary or forgotten facts, to disturb the repose of affections so
sweetening to the evening of our lives. Be assured, my dear Sir, that I
am incapable of receiving the slightest impression from the effort now
made to plant thorns on the pillow of age, worth, and wisdom, and to
sow tares between friends who have been such for near half a century.
Beseeching you, then, not to suffer your mind to be disquieted by this
wicked attempt to poison its peace, and praying you to throw it by among
the things which have never happened, I add sincere assurances of my
unabated and constant attachment, friendship, and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXVI.--TO THE PRESIDENT, October 24,1823

TO THE PRESIDENT.

Monticello, October 24,1823.

Dear Sir,

The question presented by the letters you have sent me, is the most
momentous which has ever been offered to my contemplation since that of
Independence. That made us a nation, this sets our compass, and points
the course which we are to steer through the ocean of time opening on
us. And never could we embark on it under circumstances more auspicious.
Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to entangle ourselves
in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer Europe to
intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North and South, has a
set of interests distinct from those of Europe, and peculiarly her own.

She should therefore have a system of her own, separate and apart from
that of Europe. While the last is laboring to become the domicile of
despotism, our endeavor should surely be, to make our hemisphere that of
freedom. One nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit;
she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. By acceding to her
proposition, we detach her from the band of despots, bring her mighty
weight into the scale of free government, and emancipate a continent at
one stroke, which might otherwise linger long in doubt and difficulty.
Great Britain is the nation which can do us the most harm of any one,
or all, on earth; and with her on our side we need not fear the whole
world. With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cordial
friendship; and nothing would tend more to knit our affections, than to
be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause. Not that I would
purchase even her amity at the price of taking part in her wars. But the
war in wh