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Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Frederick W. Hatch, 12 May 1822 [Quote]

but it seems to be expected that there will be a concourse of one or two thousand others attending it, from all parts of the country; and experience has proved to me that my place is considered as among the curiosities of the neighborhood, and that it will probably be visited as such by most of...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William J. Coffee, 10 July 1822 [Quote]

You are right in what you have thought and done as to the Metops of our Doric pavilion. those of the baths of Diocletian are all human faces, and so are to be those of our Doric pavilion. but in my middle room at Poplar Forest, I mean to mix the faces and ox-sculls, a fancy which I can indulge in...

Extract from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 July 1822 [Quote]

Your number of 1267. letters in a year, does not surprise me; I have no list of mine, and I could not make one without a weeks research. and I do not believe I ever received one quarter part of your number. And I very much doubt whether I received in the same year one twelfth part; There are...

Extract from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 July 1822 [Quote]

I hope one day your letters will be all published in volumes. They will not always appear Orthodox, or liberal in politicks; but they will exhibit a mass of Taste, Sense, Literature and Science, presented in a sweet simplicity, and a neat elegance of Stile, which will be read with delight in...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Maria Hadfield Cosway, 24 Oct. 1822 [Quote]

I, am laying the foundation of an University in my native state, which I hope will repay the liberalities of it’s legislature by improving the virtue and science of their country, already blest with a soil and climate emulating those of your favorite Lodi. I have been myself the Architect of the...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 2 Nov. 1822 [Quote]

in our village of Charlottesville there is a good degree of religion with a small spice only of fanatacism. we have four sects, but without either church or meeting house. the Court house is the common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. here episcopalian and presbyterian, methodist and...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 8 Dec. 1822 [Quote]

the pure and simple unity of the creator of the universe is now all but ascendant in the Eastern states; it is dawning in the West, and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States.

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 8 Dec. 1822 [Quote]

man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder is the sport of every wind. with such persons gullability which they call faith takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 28 Dec. 1822 [Quote]

of all things the most important is the completion of the buildings. the remission of the debt will come of itself. it is already remitted in the mind of every man, even of the enemies of the institution. and there is nothing pressing very immediately for it’s expression. the great object of our...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 13 Jan. 1823 [Quote]

were it necessary to give up either the Primaries or the University, I would rather abandon the last. because it is safer to have a whole people respectably enlightened, than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance. this last is the most dangerous state in which a nation can be...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Robert Walsh, 5 April 1823 [Quote]

do not think a biography should be written, or at least not published, during the life of the person the subject of it. it is impossible that the writer’s delicacy should permit him to speak as freely of the faults or errors of a living, as of a dead character. there is still however a better...

Extract from James Fenimore Cooper, 17 June 1823 [Quote]

While we were at the Point it rained much of the time ... Two or three of the intelligent men that I found here spoke so confidently of the merits of a picture that they had, of Jefferson, by Sully, that I thought I would relieve both M[athews] and myself by a visit to the library. You know my...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 12 June 1823 [Quote]

on every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, & instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was past.