any
thing public. I thought myself perfectly fixed in this determination
when I left Philadelphia, but every day and hour since has added to its
inflexibility. It is a great pleasure to me to retain the esteem and
approbation of the President, and this forms the only ground of any
reluctance at being unable to comply with every wish of his. Pray convey
these sentiments and a thousand more to him, which my situation does
not permit me to go into. But however suffering by the addition of every
single word to this letter, I must add a solemn declaration that neither
Mr. J. nor Mr. ------- ever mentioned to me one word of any want of
decorum in Mr. Carmichael, nor any thing stronger or more special than
stated in my notes of the conversation. Excuse my brevity, my dear Sir,
and accept assurances of the sincere esteem and respect, with which I
have the honor to be your affectionate friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXI.--TO JAMES MADISON, December 28, 1794

TO JAMES MADISON.

Monticello, December 28, 1794.

Dear Sir,

I have kept Mr. Jay's letter a post or two, with an intention of
considering attentively the observations it contains: but I have really
now so little stomach for any thing of that kind, that I have not
resolution enough even to endeavor to understand the observations. I
therefore return the letter, not to delay your answer to it, and beg
you in answering for yourself, to assure him of my respects and thankful
acceptance of Chalmers' Treaties, which I do not possess, and if you
possess yourself of the scope of his reasoning, make any answer to it
you please for me. If it had been on the rotation of my crops, I would
have answered myself, lengthily perhaps, but certainly _con gusto_.

The denunciation of the democratic societies is one of the extraordinary
acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the faction of
monocrats. It is wonderful indeed, that the President should have
permitted himself to be the organ of such an attack on the freedom of
discussion, the freedom of writing, printing, and publishing. It must be
a matter of rare curiosity to get at the modifications of these rights
proposed by them, and to see what line their ingenuity would draw
between democratical societies, whose avowed object is the nourishment
of the republican principles of our constitution, and the society of
the Cincinnati, a self-created one, carving out for itself hereditary
distinctions, l