ADDRESS TO PRESIDENT JEFFERSON-1801.1

Sir,-Although we are by no means fond of formal addresses to any of our rulers, yet, as the practice has already obtained, our silence on the present auspicious occasion might be falsely interpreted into an indifference toward your person, your political opinions, or your administration. We take, therefore, this earliest opportunity to assure you that we love and admire the federal constitution, not merely because it is the result and display of the collected wisdom of our own country, but especially because its principles are the principles of liberty, both civil and religious, and of the rights of man. We contemplate the general government as "the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad." We sincerely respect all the constituted authorities of our country. We regard the Presidency with a cordial attachment and profound respect. But, Sir, we do not regard YOU merely as the dignified functionary of this august office. That you are an American, both in birth and principle, excites in us sensations of more exalted pleasure. We revere your talents, are assured of your patriotism, and rely on your fidelity. More than this-our hearts, in union with your own, reverberate the political opinions you have been pleased to announce in your inaugural speech. Having said this, we need not add that you may assure yourself of our constant and faithful support, while you carry into effect your own rules of government.

Your disposition, expressed in plainly delineating in your inaugural address, and in a particular instance of a more recent date, the chart by which you propose to direct the course of the political ship, on board of which we have embarked the best of our temporal interests, invites a reciprocity of communication. Under this indulgence, we are constrained to express some of our most ardent wishes.

May the general government draw around the whole nation such lines of defence as shall prove forever impassable to every foreign foe. May it secure to the several states, as well the reality, as the form of republican government. May it ever respect those governments as the most "competent for our domestic concerns, and cherish them as the truest bulwarks against anti republican tendencies," and effectually protect them against any possible encroachments on each other. May it effectually extend to us, and to every individual of our fellow citizens, all that protection to which the state governments may be found incompetent. While it thus defends us against ourselves and all the world, may it leave every individual to the free pursuit of his own object in his own way. May the means of defraying the expence necessarily incurred by these measures, be drawn from all the inhabitants, in as just proportion to their respective ability as is possible. May your administration be found, on experiment, to be effectually instrumental in adapting all the subordinate offices of government to the real accommodation of the great public, and of annexing such a precise compensation to the discharge of every trust, as shall invite the ready acceptance of modest ability, and distinguished merit, while the avaricious, the ambitious, and the luxurious, shall see in it no allurement. And may no one description of citizens be favored at the expence of any other.

Liberty herself demands these restrictions: and these indulgences are all she asks.

Thus administered, our government will stand fast on the surest basis,

'Printed Assembly Journal, 1801, pp. 215-218. Adopted by yeas and nays, 86 to 59.

that of public opinion; nor will it need the mercenary support of any privileged class of men, however influential they may be.

May he whose kingdom ruleth over all, direct and bless your whole administration and yourself.

REPLY OF PRESIDENT JEFFERSON.'

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 1801. Sir, I received with great satisfaction, the address you have been pleased to enclose me from the House of Representatives of the Freemen of the State of Vermont. The friendly, and favorable sentiments, they are so good as to express towards myself, personally, are high encouragement to perseverence in duty, and call for my sincere thanks.

With them I join cordially in admiring and revering the constitution of the United States, the result of the collected wisdom of our country. That wisdom has committed to us the important task of proving by example, that a government, if organized in all its parts on the Representative principle, unadulterated by the infusion of spurious elements; if founded not in the fears and follies of man, but on his reason, on his sense of right; on the predominance of the social, over his dissocial passions; may be so free as to restrain him in no moral right, and so firm as to protect him from every moral wrong. To observe our fellow citizens gathering daily under the banners of this faith, devoting their powers to its establishment, and strengthening with their confidence the instruments of their selection, cannot but give new animation to the zeal of those, who, steadfast in the same belief, have seen no other object worthy the labors and losses we have all encountered.

To draw around the whole nation the strength of the general government, as a barrier against foreign foes; to watch the borders of every State, that no external hand may intrude, or disturb the exercise of selfgovernment, reserved to itself; to equalize and moderate the public contributions, that while the requisite services are invited by remuneration, nothing beyond this may exist, to attract the attention of our citizens, from the pursuits of useful industry, nor unjustly to burthen those who continue in those pursuits; these are functions of the general government, on which you have a right to call: They are in unison with those principles, which have met the approbation of the Representatives of Vermont, as announced by myself on the former and recent occasion alluded to. These shall be faithfully pursued, according to the plain and candid import of the expressions in which they were announced. No longer than they are so, will I ask that support, which, through you, has been so respectfully tendered me. And, I join in addressing him, whose kingdom ruleth over all, to direct the administration of their affairs to their own greatest good.

Praying you to be the channel of communicating these sentiments to the House of Representatives of the freemen of the State of Vermont, I beseech you to accept for yourself personally, as well as for them, the homage of my high respect and consideration. TH. JEFFERSON.

Amos Marsh, Esquire, [Speaker of the House.]

'Haswell's Vermont Gazette of Jan. 4 1802.

ADDRESS TO PRESIDENT JEFFERSON-1803.1

To the President of the United States.

Sir,-Tho' opposed to frequent addresses to those who fill important stations in our government, yet there are times when it would be improper to refrain from expressing our grateful acknowledgments to the Ruler of the Universe for the prosperous situation of our common country, and our approbation of those who guide the helm of state. While we view the United States, individually and collectively-rapidly increasing in wealth and population, secured in the uninterrupted enjoyment of life, liberty and property, and almost without contention with any foreign nation; we cannot forbear congratulating you, sir, on the happy effects of those principles, put in operation, which have so frequently appeared in your official communications.

The late suspension of our right of deposit at New Orleans excited an universal spirit of indignation; a spirit which must convince the world that while we earnestly desire to maintain peace with the whole family of mankind, we will not tamely submit to injury or insult from any nation on earth.

While we contemplate the acquisition of an extensive and fertile territory, with the free navigation of the river Mississippi, we cannot but venerate that spirit of moderation and firmness, which among divided councils finally enriched our country without the effusion of blood: and it is with much satisfaction we learn from the highest authority, that no new taxes will be requisite for the completion of the payment for this valuable acquisition. Permit us then to tender to you, sir, our warmest thanks for the conspicuous part you have taken in this important arrangement.

We gratefully contemplate those humane and benevolent measures which civilize our once savage neighbors, and learn them to exchange their hostile weapons for the implements of agriculture and household manufacture.

We recognize with sentiments of esteem, that vigilance and parental care which has enlarged our territory by a negotiation with one of the friendly tribes of Indians.

From knowing that our maritime force is diminished, and that our trade is still protected, we obtain imposing proof, that vigilance and economy go hand in hand in the management of our governmental

affairs.

The flourishing state of our treasury dentonstrates our growing greatness, and must convince every good citizen that the indecent and vilifying expressions too frequently uttered through the medium of the press against the administration of our government, must finally, with equal certainty as justice, revert on the authors.

Your advice to the house of representatives respecting our conduct towards the contending powers of Europe, merits our highest appro

bation.

From our own feelings, as well as from the general knowledge we possess of the sentiments of our constituents, you may be assured that the hardy sons of Vermont, though earnestly engaged in their peaceable pursuits, will be ready to fly, on the call of their country, at the risk of their lives, their fortunes and domestic felicity, to maintain their rights as an independent nation-preferring every consequence to insult and habitual wrong.

1

1 Printed Vermont Assembly Journal, 1803, pp. 264–266.

Permit us to assure you of our most earnest wish that every possible happiness may attend you through life, and that you may finally receive the plaudit of the great Judge of all.

REPLY OF PRESIDENT JEFFRSON.'

To the General Assembly of the State of Vermont.

I join you, fellow citizens, in grateful acknowledgments to the Ruler of the universe, for the prosperous situation of our common country, its rapid increase in wealth and population, and our secure and uninterrupted enjoyment of life, liberty and property. He conducted our fathers to this chosen land, he has maintained us in it in prosperity and safety, and has opened the hearts of the nations, civilized and savage, to yield to us enlargement of territory, as we have increased in numbers; to fill it with the blessings of peace, freedom and self government. It must be a great solace to every virtuous mind, that the countries lately acquired are for equivalents honestly paid, and come to us unstained with blood.

Sensible as we are of the superior advantages of civilized life, of the nourishment which industry provides for the body, and science for the mind and morals, it is our duty to associate our Indian neighbors in these blessings, and to teach them to become members of organized society.

The spirit which manifested itself on the suspension of our rights of deposit at New Orleans, the cool and collected firmness with which our citizens awaited the operations of their government, for its peaceful restoration, their present approbation of a conduct strictly neutral and just between the powers of Europe now in contention, evince dispositions which ought to secure their peace, to protect their industry from new burthens, their citizens from violence, and their commerce from spoliation.

The falsehoods and indecencies you allude to, in which certain presses indulge themselves habitually, defeat their own object before a just and enlightened public. This unenviable and only resource, be it our endeavor to leave them, by an honest and earnest pursuit of the public prosperity.

I thank you, fellow citizens, for the affectionate expressions of your concern for my happiness, present and future; and I pray heaven to have yourselves, as well as our common country, in its holy keeping. THOMAS JEFFERSON.

December 18th, 1803.

'Printed Assembly Journal of January session 1804, pp. 6 and 7.

APPENDIX I.

OBITUARY NOTICES OF GOV. THOMAS CHITTENDEN AND DOCT. JONATHAN ARNOLD.

ON THE DEATH OF GOV. CHITTENDEN.-Aug. 25 1797.1

"Take him for all in all

"We ne'er shall look upon his like again."

To preserve from oblivion such characters as have been eminently useful to society, ought to be the business of the biographer. And we should be happy if the limits we are restricted to in the present essay, did not too narrowly circumscribe us in our attempt to draw the outlines of the character of our late worthy governor. We hope some abler pencil will add all the fine strokes to the portrait, which it justly merits; and when newspaper paragraphs shall be forgotten, the impartial page of history shall place his honored name among the list of heroes, philosophers, and statesmen, who adorned the American revolution and dignify human nature.

THOMAS CHITTENDEN descended from a respectable family, who were among the first settlers in the then colony of New Haven. His mother was sister to the late Rev. Doctor Johnson, father to President Johnson of Columbia college, New York.'

He was born in East Guilford, state of Connecticut, in the year 1730, and received a common school education in his native town, which in those times was but indifferent.

Agreeable to the custom of New England he married early in life, viz. in his twentieth year, into a reputable family by the nanie of Meigs, and removed with his young spouse to Salisbury, in the county of Litchfield. Here, as he advanced in years his opening worth attracted public attention, and by a regular advance he passed through the several grades in the militia, to the command of a regiment. He many years repre

'From the Vermont Gazette of Sept. 12 1797.

Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the uncle of Gov. Chittenden, was the first president of King's (now Columbia) college, New York; an Episcopal clergyman of great learning, judgment, and benevolence; and author of several works, two of which were printed in Philadelphia, by Dr. Franklin, as text books for the University of Pennsylvania.-Drake's Dictionary of American Biography. For a notice of Hon. Dr. William Samuel Johnson, a cousin of Gov. Chittenden, and also president of Columbia college, see Vol. II, p. 149, note 3.