Great Experiment for the whole human race

[This is my letter to David Hall, dated July 6, 1802, on the importance of ensuring our Great Experiment is a success, for the sake of America and all of humanity.]

We have no interests nor passions different from those of our fellow citizens. We have the same object, the success of representative government. Nor are we acting for ourselves alone, but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to shew whether man can be trusted with self government. The eyes of suffering humanity are fixed on us with anxiety as their only hope, and on such a theatre & for such a cause we must suppress all smaller passions & local considerations. The leaders of Federalism say that man cannot be trusted with his own government. We must do no act which shall replace them in the direction of the experiment. We must not, by any departure from principle, dishearten the mass of our fellow citizens who have confided to us this interesting cause.