AP Sources:
1776-1836
Thomas Jefferson
to James Madison (1787)
Paris, January
30, 1787
Dear Sir, My last
to you was one of the 16th of December; since which, I have received
yours of November the 25th, and December the 4th, which afforded me, as your letters always do, a treat on matters
public, individual, and economical. I am impatient to learn your sentiments on
the late troubles in the eastern States. So far as I have yet seen, they do not
appear to threaten serious consequences. Those States have suffered by the
stoppage of the channels of their commerce, which have not yet found other
issues. This must render money scarce, and make the people uneasy. This
uneasiness has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable; but I hope they will
provoke no severities from their governments. A consciousness of those in power
that their administration of the public affairs has been honest, may, perhaps,
produce too great a degree of indignation; and those characters, wherein fear
predominates over hope, may apprehend too much from these instances of
irregularity. They may conclude too hastily, that nature has formed man
insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not
founded in truth nor experience. Societies exist under three forms,
sufficiently distinguishable. 1.Without government, as among our Indians.
2.Under governments, wherein the will of every one has a just influence; as in
the case of England, in a slight degree, and in our States, in a great one.
3.Under governments of force; as is the case in all other monarchies, and in
most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under
these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a
problem, not clear in my mind, that the first condition is not the best. But I
believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second
state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that, enjoys a
precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has its evils, too; the principal
of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the
oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam libertatem
quam quietam servitutem.
(Rather a dangerous liberty than a peaceful servitude.) Even this evil is
productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a
general attention to the public affairs. I hold it, that a little rebellion,
now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as
storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish
the encroachments on the rights of people, which have produced them. An
observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in
their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a
medicine necessary for the sound health of government….
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The Federalist
Papers, Introduction (Oct. 27, 1787)
To the People of
the State of New York:
After an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal
government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the
United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending
in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety
and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many
respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked
that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their
conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men
are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and
choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political
constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the
crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in
which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall
act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the genral misfortune of
mankind.
This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to
heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the
event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious
estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not
connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished
than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects
too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not
to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of
views, passions, and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.
Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have
to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain
class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution
of the power, emolument, and consequences of the offices they hold under the
State establishment; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who
will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country,
or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the
subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its
union under one government.
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George
Washington’s First Inaugural Address From New York City (April, 30 1789)
Fellow Citizens
of the Senate and the House of Representatives
Among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with
greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your
order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one
hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with
veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest
predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision , as the
asylum of my declining years—a retreat which was rendered every day more
necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination,
and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it
by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which
the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and
most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his
qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting
inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil
administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In
this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study
to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it
might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have
been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an
affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my
fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as
disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be
palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my
country with some share of the partiality in which they originated.
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Alexander
Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures (1791)
The expediency of encouraging manufactures in the United States, which was not
long since deemed very questionable, appears at this time to be pretty
generally admitted. The embarrassments which have obstructed the progress of
our external trade, have led to serious reflections on the necessity of
enlarging the sphere of our domestic commerce. The restrictive regulations,
which, in foreign markets, abridge the vent of the increasing surplus of our
agricultural produce, serve to beget an earnest desire, that a more extensive
demand for that surplus may be created at home; and the complete success which
has rewarded manufacturing enterprise, in some valuable branches, conspiring
with the promising symptoms which attend some less mature essays in others,
justify a hope, that the obstacles to the growth of this species of industry
are less formidable than they were apprehended to be; and that it is not
difficult to find, in its further extension, a full indemnification for any
external disadvantages, which are or may be experienced, as well as an
accession of resources, favorable to national independence and safety.
There still are, nevertheless, respectable patrons of opinions unfriendly to
the encouragement of manufactures….
It ought readily to be conceded that the cultivation of the earth, as the
primary and most certain source of national supply, as the immediate and chief
source of subsistence to man, as the principal source of those materials which
constitute the nutriment of other kinds of labor, as including a state most
favorable to the freedom and independence of the human mind—one, perhaps,
most conducive to the multiplication of the human species, has intrinsically a
strong claim to pre-eminence over every other kind of industry.
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Peter Cartwright
discusses the events that led to his conversion (1803)
In 1801, when I was in my sixteenth year, my father, my eldest half brother,
and myself, attended a wedding about five miles from home, where there was a
great deal of drinking and dancing, which was very common at marriages in those
days. I drank little or nothing; my delight was in dancing. After a late hour
in the night, we mounted our horses and started for home. I was riding our
race-horse.
A few minutes after we had put up the horses, and were sitting by the fire, I
began to reflect on the manner in which I had spent the day and evening. I felt
guilty and condemned. I rose and walked the floor. My mother was in bed. It
seemed to me all of a sudden, my blood rushed to my head, my heart palpitated,
in a few minutes I turned blind; an awful impression rested on my mind that
death had come and I was unprepared to die. I fell on my knees and began to ask
God to have mercy on me.
My mother sprang from her bed, and was soon on her knees by my side, praying
for me, and exhorting me to look to Christ for mercy, and then and there I
promised the Lord that if he would spare me, I would seek and serve him; and I
never fully broke that promise. My mother prayed for me a long time. At length
we lay down, but there was little sleep for me. Next morning I rose, feeling
wretched beyond expression. I tried to read in the Testament, and retired many
times to secret prayer through the day, but found no relief. I gave up my
race-horse to my father, and requested him to sell him. I went and brought my
pack of cards, and gave them to mother, who threw them into the fire, and they
were consumed. I fasted, watched, and prayed, and engaged in regular reading of
the Testament. I was so distressed and miserable, that I was incapable of any
regular business.
My father was greatly distressed on my account, thinking I must die, and he
would lose his only son. He bade me retire altogether from business, and take
care of myself.
Soon it was noised abroad that I was distracted, and many of my associates in
wickedness came to see me, to try and divert my mind from those gloomy thoughts
of my wretchedness; but all in vain. I exhorted them to desist from the course
of wickedness which we had been guilty of together. The class-leader and local
preacher were sent for. They tried to point me to the bleeding Lamb, they
prayed for me most fervently. Still, I found no comfort, and although I never
believed in the doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation, I was
sorely tempted to believe I was a reprobate, and doomed, and lost eternally,
without any chance of salvation.
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Andrew
Jackson’s Veto of the Bank of the United States (1832)
…It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our
Government. More than eight millions of the stock of this bank is held by
foreigners. By this act, the American Republic proposes virtually to make them
a present of some millions of dollars….
Every monopoly, and all exclusive privileges, are granted at the expense of the
public, which ought to receive a fair equivalent….
…this act does not permit competition in the purchase of this monopoly.
It seems to be predicated on the erroneous idea, that the present stockholders
have a prescriptive right, not only to the favor, but to the bounty of
Government. It appears that more than a forth part of the stock is held by
foreigners, and the residue is held by a few hundred of our citizens, chiefly
of the richest class….
In another of its bearings this provision is fraught with danger. Of the
twenty-five directors of this bank, five are chosen by the Government, and
twenty by the citizen stockholders….
Is there danger to our liberty and independence in a bank, that, in its nature,
has so little to bind it to our country? The President of the bank has told us
that most of the State banks exist for its forbearance. Should its influence
become concentrated, as it may under the operation of such an act as this, in
the hands of a self-elected directory, whose interests are identified with
those of the foreign stockholder, will there not be cause to tremble for the
purity of our elections in peace, and for the independence of our country in
war?…
Should the stock of the bank principally pass into the hands of the subjects of
a foreign country, and we should unfortunately become involved in a war with
that country, what would be our condition? Of the course which would be pursued
by a bank almost wholly owned by the subjects of a foreign power, and managed
by those whose interests, if not affections, would run in the same direction,
there can be no doubt….
If we must have a bank with private stockholders, every consideration of sound
policy, and every impulse of American feeling, admonishes that it should be purely
American. Its
stockholders should be composed exclusively of our own citizens, who, at least,
ought to be friendly to our Government, and willing to support it in times of
difficulty and danger….
…Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth, cannot be produced by
human institutions….every man is equally entitled to protection by law.
But when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages,
artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges,
to make the rich richer, and the potent more powerful, the humble members of
society, the farmers, mechanics, and laborers, who have neither the time nor
the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of
the injustice of their Government….
Nor is our Government to be maintained, or our Union preserved by invasions of
the rights and powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our
General Government strong, we make it weak. Its true strength consists in
leaving individuals and States, as much as possible, to themselves; in making
itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence; not in its control, but
in its protection; not in binding the States more closely to the centre, but
leaving each to move, unobstructed, in its proper orbit.