Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Lyle, 10 July 1795 [Quote]
a nailery which I have established with my own negro boys now provides completely for the maintenance of my family, as we make from 8. to 10,000 nails a day
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Madame de Tessé, 6 Sept. 1795 [Quote]
I am now enjoying at home peace, peaches, and poplars ... I am become the most industrious &
ardent farmer of the canton
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Madame de Tessé, 6 Sept. 1795 [Quote]
I am become the most industrious & ardent farmer of the canton and have so much to do to recover my farms from the desolated state in which I found them after a ten years absence, that I have no fear of ennui.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Angelica Schuyler Church, 8 Sept. 1795 [Quote]
I am now in that tranquil situation which is my delight, with all my family living with me, and forming a delicious society.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Pinckney, 8 Sept. 1795 [Quote]
I am entirely a farmer, soul and body, never scarcely admitting a sentiment on any other subject
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Auguste Adet, 14 Oct. 1795 [Quote]
my books, my family, my friends, & my farm, furnish more than enough to occupy me the remainder of my life, & of that tranquil occupation most analogous to my physical & moral constitution.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Volney, 9 Dec. 1795 [Quote]
our citizens are divided into two political sects. one which fears the people most, the other the government. you will readily judge in which of these the people themselves are. for my part I have no fear of a people, well-informed, easy in their circumstances, dispersed over their farms, &...
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 31 Dec. 1795 [Quote]
the President, who errs as other men do, but errs with integrity.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 28 Feb. 1796 [Quote]
this I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded on principles of honesty, not mere force.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 5 Apr. 1796 [Quote]
I lodge him & find provisions; but give no liquor. this is an absolute article, as I never saw work go on well if the workman had liquor. it is therefore a point which I never give up.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Mann Page, 16 May 1796 [Quote]
besides the attention to my farms I am uncovering & repairing my house, which during my absence had gone much to decay. I make some alterations in it with a greater eye to convenience than I had when younger.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 19 June 1796 [Quote]
political conversation I really dislike, & therefore avoid where I can without affectation. but when urged by others, I have never concieved that having been in public life requires me to bely my sentiments, nor even to conceal them. when I am led by conversation to express them, I do it with...
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 19 June 1796 [Quote]
I have one of the Scotch threshing machines nearly finished. it is copied exactly from a model mr Pinckney sent me, only that I have put the whole works (except the horse wheel) into a single frame moveable from one field to another on the two axles of a waggon.
Extract about Thomas Jefferson, by the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt [22–29 June 1796] [Quote]
In private life Mr. Jefferson displays a mild, easy and obliging temper, though he is somewhat cold and reserved. His conversation is of the most agreeable kind, and he possesses a stock of information not inferior to that of any other man.
Extract about Thomas Jefferson, by the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt [22–29 June 1796] [Quote]
His negroes are nourished, clothed, and treated as well as white servants could be. As he cannot expect any assistance from the two small neighbouring towns, every article is made on his farm; his negroes are cabinet-makers, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, &c. The children he employs...
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Jonathan Williams, 3 July 1796 [Quote]
I examined with great satisfaction your barometrical estimate of the heights of our mountains, and with the more as they corroborated conjectures on this subject which I had made before. my estimates had made them a little higher than yours (I speak of the blue ridge.) measuring with a very nice...
Extract from Benjamin Rush to James Currie, 26 July 1796 [Quote]
[Jefferson] is a pure republican, enlightened at the same time in chemistry, natural history and medicine. He is, in a word, a Citizen of the World and the friend of universal peace and happiness.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Robert Pleasants. [27 Aug. 1796] [Quote]
a more general and certain means of providing for the instruction of the slaves, and more desireable as they would in the course of it be mixed with those of free condition. whether, for their happiness, it should extend beyond those destined to be free, is questionable. ignorance &...
Extract from James Madison to James Monroe, 29 Sept. 1796 [Quote]
Much however will necessarily depend on the approaching election I have not seen Jefferson and have thought it best to present him no opportunity of protesting to his friend against being embarked in the contest. Whether he will get a majority of vote is uncertain. I am be no...
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 27 Dec. 1796 [Quote]
there is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature & fortune have measured to him.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 27 Dec. 1796 [Quote]
You have seen my name lately tacked to so much of eulogy & of abuse, that I dare say you hardly thought it meant for your old acquaintance of 76. in truth I did not know myself under the pens either of my friends or foes. it is unfortunate for our peace that unmerited abuse wounds, while...
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 27 Dec. 1796 [Quote]
I love to see honest men & honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, & then profit by their measures.
Extract from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 15 Jan. 1796 [1797] [Quote]
tho wrong in politicks, tho formerly an advocate for Tom pains Rights of Man, and tho frequently mistaken in Men & measures, I do not think him an insincere or a corruptable Man. my Friendship for him has ever been unshaken.
Extract from Thomas Jefferson’s Memoir on the Megalonyx, [10 Feb. 1797] [Quote]
In fine, the bones exist: therefore the animal has existed. The movements of nature are in a never ending circle. The animal species which has once been put into a train of motion, is still probably moving in that train. For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another and another might...
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Brown, 5 Apr. 1797 [Quote]
in Paris particularly all the new & good houses are of a single story. that is of the height of 16. or 18. f. generally, & the whole of it given to the rooms of entertainment; but in the parts where there are bedrooms they have two tier of them of from 8. to 10. f. high each, with a...