nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses
but our machines have now been running for 70. or 80. years, and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a
pinion, next a spring, will be giving way: and however we may tinker them up for awhile, all will at length surcease motion.
I hope the
necessity
will at length be seen of establishing institutions, here as in Europe, where every branch of science, useful at this day, may be taught in it’s highest degrees.
I had the pleasure to receive a letter from Mr Jefferson 10th June from poplar Forest inclosing Percivals Book in defence of the Princess of Wales, he observed that it will confirm the Moral truth that independently of another world the wicked have their torments here also.
mine on the subject of the slavery of negroes have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger root. the love of justice & the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a mortal reproach to us that they should have...
I have seen no proposition so expedient on the whole, as that of emancipation of those [slaves] born after a given day, and of their education and expatriation at a proper age.
their amalgamation with the other colour produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character can innocently consent.
my opinion has ever been that, until more can be done for them, we should endeavor, with those whom fortune has thrown on our hands, to feed & clothe them well, protect them from ill usage, require such reasonable labor only as is performed voluntarily by freemen, and be led by no...
for the present we may groupe the sciences into Professorships as follows, subject however to be changed according to the qualifications of the persons we may be able to engage.
nobody who knows the President can doubt but that he has honestly done every thing he could to the best of his judgment. and there is no sounder judgment than his. I cannot account for what has happened but by...
and Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences, whether we consider it’s subjects as furnishing the principal subsistence of life to man & beast, delicious varieties for our tables, refreshments from our orchards, the adornments of our flower-borders, shade and perfume of our groves,...
truth advances, & error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow-men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step.
instead of fearing and endeavoring to crush our prosperity, had they cultivated it in friendship, it might have become a bulwark instead of a breaker to them. there has never been an administration in this country which would not gladly have met them more than half way on the road to an equal, a...
to do wrong is a melancholy resource. even where retaliation renders it indispensably necessary. it is better to suffer much from the scalpings, the incensions conflagrations, the rapes and rapine of savages, than to countenance and strengthen such barbarisms by retortion. I have ever deemed it...
In conversation, he is free and communicative. All topics that fall under discussion are treated by him with equal unreservedness. He seems, indeed, to have no thought or opinion to conceal, and his stores of knowledge are unlocked and laid open with the same freedom in which nature unfolds her...
the class principally defective is that of agriculture. it is the first in utility, & ought to be the first in respect. the same artificial means which have been used to produce a competition to learning, may be equally successful in restoring agriculture to it’s primary dignity in the eyes...
altho’ we have, in the old countries of Europe, the lesson of their experience, to warn us, yet I am not satisfied we shall have the firmness & wisdom to profit by it. the general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands, & the strong allurements of great cities to...
there is nothing I desire so much as that all the young people in the estate should intermarry with one another and stay at home. they are worth a great deal more in that case than when they have husbands and wives abroad.
let the beer be put into the cellar immediately, for fear of it’s freezing, setting the proper head of the barrels uppermost, that the bottles in them may stand with the corks up.
of publishing a book on religion, my dear Sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world of religious sects. of these there must be at least ten thousand, every individual of every one of which believes all are wrong but his own. to...
it’s only merit was in being the first publication which carried the claim of our rights their whole length, and asserted that there was no rightful link of connection between us and England but that of being under the same king.