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Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Clay, 29 Jan. 1815 [Quote]

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...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 2 Feb. 1816 [Quote]

man … feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs not merely at an election, one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the state who will not be a member of some one of it’s councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Cary Nicholas, 2 Apr. 1816 [Quote]

I would strongly recommend to their consideration, instead of one immense building, to have a small one for every professorship, arranged at proper distances around a square, or rather three sides of a square, to admit extension, connected by a piazza so that they may go dry from one school to...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Dinsmore, 13 Apr. 1817 [Quote]

We are about to establish a College near Charlottesville on the lands formerly Colo Monroe’s, a mile above the town. we do not propose to erect a single grand building, but to form a square of perhaps 200 yards, and to arrange around that pavilions of about 24. by 36.f. one for every...

Extract from Joseph C. Cabell to Thomas Jefferson, 18 Aug. 1817 [Quote]

P. S. I have just copied the your manuscript on meteorological subjects, in which you have condensed a vast variety of most instructive & amusing information. It is astonishing how you could find time, in the midst of your other engagements to make such a prodigious number of observations. I...

Extract from William C. Rives to John H. Cocke, 20 Jan. 1819 [Quote]

I am very happy in being able, at last, to congratulate you on the success of the Bill for the establishment of an University at the Central college. It was carried, on yesterday, by in the House of Delegates by the overwhelming & unexpected majority of 141 to 28 ... Among the many sources of...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 22 Jan. 1820 [Quote]

if our legislature does not heartily push our University we must send our children for education to Kentucky or Cambridge. the latter will return them to us fanatics & tories, the former will keep them to add to their population if however we are to go a begging any where for our education, I...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 22 Jan. 1820 [Quote]

all the states but our own are sensible that knolege is power. the Missouri question is for power. the efforts now generally making thro’ the states to advance their science is for power, while we are sinking into the barbarism of our Indian aborigines, and expect like them to oppose by ignorance...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 30 June 1820 [Quote]

I know no error more consuming to an estate than that of stocking farms with men almost exclusively. I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. what she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 29 July 1820 [Quote]

One of the propositions in your letter of the 8th inst. is so exactly suited to my situation and feelings on the subject of the negroes for Francis, that I cannot hesitate a moment to accede to it. it is that which proposes to loan me the stock you mean to lay out in this way, to be paid for two...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 20 Oct. 1820 [Quote]

my greatest grief would be for the fatal effect of such an event on the hopes and happiness of the world. we exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modelled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government. were we to break to pieces,...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 28 Nov. 1820 [Quote]

what is wanting to restore us to our station among our confederates? not more money from the people. enough has been raised by them, and appropriated to this very object. it is that it should be employed understandingly, and for their greatest good. that good requires that, while they are...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 26 Dec. 1820 [Quote]

nothing has ever presented so threatening an aspect as what is called the Missouri question. the Federalists compleatly put down, and despairing of ever rising again under the old division of whig and tory, devised a new one, of slave-holding, & non-slave-holding states, which, while it had a...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 23 Nov. 1821 [Quote]

My confidence, as you kindly observed, has been often abused by the publication of my letters for the purposes of interest or vanity; and it has been to me the source of much pain to be exhibited before the public in forms not meant for them. I recieve letters expressed in the most friendly terms...