to promote this disposition to exchange lands which they have to spare & we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare & they want, we shall push our trading houses and be glad to see the good & influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these...
The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by it’s course & communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.
disapproving myself of transferring the honors and veneration for the great birthday of our republic, to any individual, or of dividing them with individuals, I have declined letting my own birthday be known, & have engaged my family not to communicate it. this has been the uniform answer to...
whilst the property & sovereignty of the Missisipi and it’s waters secure an independant outlet for the produce of the Western states, & an uncontrouled navigation through their whole course, free from collision with other powers, & the dangers to our peace from that source, the...
The acquisition of Louisiana … by giving the exclusive navigation of the Missisipi, it avoids the burthens & sufferings of a war, which conflicting interests on that river would inevitably have produced, at no distant period. it opens too a fertile region for the future establishment of their...
favorable to the immediate interests of our Western citizens, so auspicious to the peace & security of the nation in general, which adds to our country territories so extensive & fertile, & to our citizens new brethren to partake of the blessings of freedom & self-government
I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending of government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievement to the mass of happiness which is to ensue.
again there the best distribution of labor is supposed to be that which places the manufacturing hands alongside of the agricultural; so that the one part shall feed both, & the other part furnish both with clothes & other comforts. would that be best here? egoism and first appearances...
would it not be best to make the internal columns of well burnt bricks moulded in portions of circles adapted to the diminution of the columns. Ld Burlington in his notes on Palladio tells us that he found most of the buildings erected under Palladio’s direction & he described in his...
would to god that nation would so far be just in her conduct; as that we might without honor give her that friendship it is so much our interest to bear her.
there never was a Palladio here even in private hands till I brought one ... I send you my portable edition, which I value because it is portable ... it contains only the 1st book on the orders, which is the essential part.
mr Duane informed me that he meant to publish a new edition of the Notes on Virginia ... I should in that case certainly qualify severel expressions in the 19th chapter which have been construed differently from what they were intended. I had under my eye, when writing, the manufacturers of the...
I recieved yesterday your letter of the 11th and observe you are fitting up a Corinthian room for mr. Gallego. I am glad to learn it, because a single example of chaste architecture may guide the taste of the city and especially when they find that that system of architecture which has now been...
I have long since given up the expectation of any early provision for getting in the extinguishment of slavery among us. there are many virtuous men who would make any sacrifices to effect it. many equally virtuous who persuade themselves either that the thing is not wrong, or that it cannot be...
in no case perhaps does habit attach our choice or judgment more than in climate. the Canadian glows with delight in his sleigh & snow, the very idea of which gives me the shivers. the comparison of climate between Europe & N. America, taking together it’s corresponding parts, hangs...
we are firmly convinced and we act on that conviction, that, with nations, as with individuals, our interests, soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.
I recieved last night a letter from mr Thomas Brannagan ... the cause in which he embarks is so holy, the sentiments he expresses in his letter so friendly that it is highly painful to me to hesitate on a compliance which appears so small. but that is not it’s true character, and it would be...
I deem it the duty of every man to devote a certain proportion of his income for charitable purposes, & that it is his further duty to see it so applied as to do the most good of which it is capable.
convinced that all manufactures carried on on private account are so much more economically conducted than by the public, that whatsoever can be found at market can be cheaper bought there than manufactured by the public, we undertake no manufactures of any thing which can be got at market. small...
no two countries upon earth have so many points of common interest & friendship: & their rulers must be great bunglers indeed if with such dispositions they break them asunder.
the grounds which I destine to improve in the style of the English gardens…compose the Northern quadrant of a mountain for about 2/3 of it’s height, & then spread for the upper third over it’s whole crown. they contain about 300. acres, washed at the foot, for about a mile, by a river of the...
I remember you seeing in your greenhouse a plant of a couple of feet height in a pot the fragrance of which (from it’s gummy bud if I recollect rightly) was remarkable peculiarly agreeable to me, and you were so kind as to remark that it required only a green house, and that you would furnish me...