ecurity from a cause which no longer exists. No
prepossessions now will shut their ears to truth. They begin to see to
what port their leaders were steering during their slumbers, and there
is yet time to haul in, if we can avoid a war with France. All can be
done peaceably, by the people confining their choice of Representatives
and Senators to persons attached to republican government and the
principles of 1776, not office-hunters, but farmers, whose interests
are entirely agricultural. Such men are the true representatives of the
great American interest, and are alone to be relied on for expressing
the proper American sentiments. We owe gratitude to France, justice to
England, good-will to all, and subservience to none. All this must be
brought about by the people, using their elective rights with prudence
and self-possession, and not suffering themselves to be duped by
treacherous emissaries. It was by the sober sense of our citizens that
we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism,
and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back. I
am happy in this occasion of reviving the memory of old things, and of
assuring you of the continuance of the esteem and respect of, Dear Sir,
your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCXVIII.--TO JAMES MONROE, September 7, 1797

THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JAMES MONROE.

Monticello, September 7, 1797.

The doubt which you suggest as to our jurisdiction over the case of the
Grand Jury vs. Cabell had occurred to me, and naturally occurs on first
view of the question. But I knew, that to send the petition to the House
of Representatives in Congress, would make bad worse; that a majority
of that House would pass a vote of approbation. On examination of the
question, too, it appeared to me that we could maintain the authority of
our own government over it.

A right of free correspondence between citizen and citizen, on their
joint interests, whether public or private, and under whatsoever laws
these interests arise (to wit, of the State, of Congress, of France,
Spain, or Turkey), is a natural right: it is not the gift of any
municipal law, either of England, of Virginia, or of Congress: but in
common with all our other natural rights, it is one of the objects
for the protection of which society is formed, and municipal laws
established.

The courts of this commonwealth (and among them the General Court, as a
court of impeachment) ar