Spent the evening with Mr Jefferson, whom I love to be with, because he is a man of very extensive learning, and pleasing manners.

Mr Jefferson, spoke concerning Virginia, a State, which he knows very particularly as it is his native Country. The blacks, he tells me, are very well treated there; and increase in population, more in proportion, than the whites. before the War, he says the negroes, were to the whites, in the...

I shall realy regreet to leave Mr. Jefferson, he is one of the choice ones of the Earth.

You can Scarcely have heard a Character too high of my Friend and Colleague Mr. Jefferson, either in point of Power or Virtues. My Fellow Labourer in Congress, eight or nine years ago, upon many arduous Tryals, particularly in the draught of our Declaration of Independence and in the formation of...

there are two amendments only which I am anxious for. 1. a bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have ... the 2d amendment which appears to me essential is the restoring the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate & Presidency: but most of all to the...

we shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace on terms which have been contemplated by some powers we shall form to the American union a barrier against the...

From Jefferson’s First Draft no freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms. From Jefferson’s Second Draft No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]. From Jefferson’s Third Draft No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or...

would you believe Madam, that in [this 18th. centur]y, in France, und[er the reign of Louis XVI, they] are [at this mo]ment pulling down the circular wall of this superb remain [to pave a ro]ad? and that too from a hill which is itself an entire mass of stone just as fit, & more accessible. a...

Roman taste, genius & magnificence excite ideas

from Lyons to Nismes I have been nourished with the remains of Roman grandeur