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Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 22 June 1819 [Quote]

the eyes of our citizens are not yet sufficiently open to the true cause of our distresses. they ascribe them to every thing but their true cause, the banking system; a system, which, if it could do good in any form, is yet so certain of leading to abuse, as to be utterly incompatible with the...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Ezra Styles Ely, 25 June 1819 [Quote]

in that branch of religion which regards the moralities of life, and the duties of a social being, which teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do good to all men, I am sure that you & I do not differ. we probably differ on that which relates to the dogmas of theology, the...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Greenleaf, 5 July 1819 [Quote]

presents his compliments to mr Greenleaf and his thanks for the pamphlet on grammar which came to hand yesterday. the torpor of age and drudgery of letterwriting give him little time to read, and little power of profiting by the advances & improvements in every branch of science. he rejoices...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Sampson, 2 Aug. 1819 [Quote]

I am happy in this comfortable view of things, and have taken with contentedness the early and humble place in the procession which the master of the ceremony assigned to me. if I have walked straight, I have done my part; if awry, the train which follows will correct the line of march. to them...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Brazer, 24 Aug. 1819 [Quote]

among the values of classical learning I estimate the Luxury of reading the Greek & Roman authors in all the beauties of their originals ... I think myself more indebted to my father for this, than for all the other luxuries his cares and affections have placed within my reach.

Extract from Elizabeth Trist to Nicholas P. Trist, 25 Aug. 1819 [Quote]

these hard times require the Bounty of nature to be profusely scatterd to make up for the losses sustaind by letting Money on interest to those who are become Bankrupts Mr Wilson Nicholas has faild for three hundred thousand Dollars. Mr Jeffersons indors’d for him to the amount of twenty...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 6 Sept. 1819 [Quote]

each of the three departments has equally the right to decide for itself what is it’s duty under the constitution, without any regard to what the others may have decided for themselves under a similar question.But you intimate a wish that my opinion should be known on this subject. no, dear Sir....

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 31 Oct. 1819 [Quote]

I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing every thing rational in moral philosophy which Greece & Rome have left us. Epictetus indeed has given us what was good of the Stoics; all beyond, of their doctrines dogmas, being hypocrisy and...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 10 Dec. 1819 [Quote]

the banks, bankrupt law, manufactures, Spanish treaty are nothing. these are occurrences which like waves in a storm will pass under the ship. but the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by revolt, & what more, God only knows. from the battle of Bunker’s hill...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 10 Dec. 1819 [Quote]

it would seem as if they could not see their way clearly to do it. no government can continue good but under the controul of the people: and their people were so demoralised and depraved as to be incapable of exercising a wholsome controul. their reformation then was to be taken up ab...

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 Hugh Nelson, 7 Feb. 1820 [Quote]

I thank you for your information on the progress & prospects of the Missouri question. it is the most portentous one which ever yet threatened our Union. in the gloomiest moment of the revolutionary war I never had any apprehensions equal to what I feel from this source.

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 20 Mar. 1820 [Quote]

this Missouri question by a geographical line of division is the most portentous one I have ever contemplated. King is ready to risk the union for any chance of restoring his party to power and wriggling himself to the head of it. nor is Clinton without his hopes nor scrupulous as to the means of...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 11 Apr. 1820 [Quote]

Our brewing for the use of the present year has been some time over. about the last of Oct. or beginning of Nov. we begin for the ensuing year, and brew malt and brew 3. 60 galln casks successively, which will give so many successive lessons to the person you send. on his return he can try his...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 13 Apr. 1820 [Quote]

among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 13 Apr. 1820 [Quote]

But while this Syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in it’s true and high light, as no imposter himself, but a great Reformer of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with him in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of spiritualism: he...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 13 Apr. 1820 [Quote]

Altho’ I had laid down, as a law to myself, never to write, talk, or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs & therefore had ceased to read newspapers. yet the Missouri question arroused and filled me with alarm. the old schism of federal & republican, threatened nothing...