good, by the diversity of interests, which may render this assembly a system of three bodies inimical to each other, and no one of them truly friends to the nation. If our well intentioned ministers had taken up the idea of convoking a National Assembly, they might have reformed this evil, and given us a form of representation founded upon principles of justice and good policy; but now that they call it in spite of themselves, they cannot help following the old form; and it is from an assembly, the composition of which is so exceptionable, that we are to expect a constitution. The light, which has lately been shed upon the science of political economy, is our only ground of hope and consolation; and perhaps it will be sufficient to triumph over ministers, orders, and political bodies, over their passions and their prejudices. Posterity must judge of this; but I much fear, that our first steps in the career of liberty will not be guided by that sound reason, which alone can lead us promptly and permanently to happiness. You Americans were in a far more favorable position for the establishment of a good constitution. You had none of those distinctions of birth and place, with which superstition and the feudal system have cursed old Europe. It was partly to avoid the evil influence of these prejudices, that your forefathers left their country, and sought a retreat in the forests of America, which they soon converted into fertile fields. They had imbibed, with the milk of their British mothers, the love and the principles of liberty, which, sometimes forgotten by that nation, have never been extinct among them; and these principles and this love had taken deep root in the hearts of your countrymen. When the ministers and Parliament of England attempted to enslave you, they were resisted with an energy which they had never expected; and, when you had acquired a rank among nations, you took, for the basis of your government and of your laws, personal liberty, liberty of property and consequently of trade, and religious liberty. You allowed men to enjoy all the rights, which they hold from nature, and of which everywhere else either legislators or circumstances have more or less deprived them. But the pleasure of conversing with you has carried me beyond the proper limits of a letter. If I did not know your indulgence, I should ask your pardon; but your friendship and the interest of the subject make me feel this to be unnecessary. Give your distant blessing to a nation, which, at least, has the merit of appreciating your worth, and which, by the enlightened men it has produced, is worthy that you should take an interest in its fate, though it has often been the last to profit by the lessons, which it has given to others. I shall close my letter by offering you, on the part of the author and on mine, a Dissertation on Nyctalopia, a disease endemic in the neighbourhood of La Rocheguyon. You will find there the names of M. de Condorcet and the Abbé Rochon, who desire to add their affectionate compliments to those of all my family. Remember me to yours, and ever believe in the constant regard and affection of the DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. FROM CHARLOTTE FILANGIERI TO B. FRANKLIN. Translation. Naples, 27 September, 1788. SIR, Attribute this long delay to my grief, and sympathize with me in my affliction. The Chevalier Gaetano Filangieri, my husband and my friend, is no more. He died on the 21st of July, in the flower of his age, the victim of a cruel disease, and with him my happiness has gone. He has left three children, with no other patrimony than the memory of his virtues and his reputation. If the letter, which you wrote to him on the 14th of October, 1787, had reached him before the 1st of July, the day on which the disease attacked him, he would not have failed to answer it, and to send you the copies of his work on legislation, which you had requested. I shall myself perform what would have been his wish, and you will receive through the channel, which you pointed out to him, all that you desire. The little that remains of his immortal work will shortly be printed, and I shall deem it a duty to send it to you as soon as it comes from the press. I shall also have the melancholy pleasure of sending you, at the same time, the history of his life, and a selection from the best of his writings. Accept, Sir, the assurance of the high consideration, and the sincere respect so fully your due, with which I have the honor to be, &c. CHARLOTTE FILANGIERI.* * Filangieri died at the age of thirty-six. His great work was left unfinished; but the deficiency has been in some degree supplied by Benjamin Constant, who added to the Paris edition of 1822 a volume, entitled Commentaire sur l'Ouvrage de Filangieri. TO THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. Philadelphia, 22 October, 1788. Our public affairs begin to wear a more quiet aspect. The disputes about the faults of the new constitution are subsided. The first Congress will probably mend the principal ones, and future Congresses the rest. That which you mentioned did not pass unnoticed in the Convention. Many, if I remember right, were for making the President incapable of being chosen after the first four years; but the majority were for leaving the electors free to choose whom they pleased; and it was alleged, that such incapacity might tend to make the President less attentive to the duties of his office, and to the interests of the people, than he would be if a second choice depended on their good opinion of him. We are making experiments in politics; what knowledge we shall gain by them will be more certain, though perhaps we may hazard too much in that mode of acquiring it. Having now finished my turn of being President, and promising myself to engage no more in public business, I hope to enjoy the small remains of life that are allowed me, in the repose I have so long wished for. I purpose to employ it in completing the personal history you mention.* It is now brought down to my fiftieth year. What is to follow will be of more important transactions; but it seems to me what is done will be of more general use to young readers, exemplifying strongly the effects of prudent and imprudent conduct in the commencement of a life of business.† B. FRANKLIN. *The Memoirs of his Life. †Two days later he wrote to M. le Veillard as follows. mend daily, and are getting into good order very fast. Never was any TO MADAME LAVOISIER. Philadelphia, 23 October, 1788. I have a long time been disabled from writing to my dear friend, by a severe fit of the gout, or I should sooner have returned my thanks for her very kind present of the portrait, which she has herself done me the honor to make of me. It is allowed by those, who have seen it, to have great merit as a picture in every respect; but what particularly endears it to me is the hand that drew it. Our English enemies, when they were in possession of this city and my house, made a prisoner of my portrait, and carried it off with them, leaving that of its companion, my wife, by itself, a kind of widow. You have replaced the husband, and the lady seems to smile as well pleased. It is true, as you observe, that I enjoy here every thing that a reasonable mind can desire, a sufficiency of income, a comfortable habitation of my own building, having all the conveniences I could imagine; a dutiful and affectionate daughter to nurse and take care of me, a number of promising grandchildren, some old measure so thoroughly discussed as our proposed new Constitution. Many objections were made to it in the public papers, and answers to those objections. Much party heat there was, and some violent personal abuse. I kept out of the dispute, and wrote only one little paper on the occasion, which I enclose. You seem to be too apprehensive about our President's being perpetual. Neither he nor we have any such intentions; of what danger there may be of such an event we are all aware, and shall take care effectually to prevent it. The choice is from four years to five years; the appointments will be small Thus we may change our President if we do not like his conduct, and he will have less inducement to struggle for a new election. As to the two chambers, I am of your opinion, that one alone would be better; but, my dear friend, nothing in human affairs and schemes is perfect; and perhaps this is the case of our opinions."— October 24th. On this subject of a single legislative body, see Vol. V. p. 165. VOL. X. 46 EE |