December 28

[After John Adams was elected President, I wrote a letter to him on December 28, 1796, but asked James Madison to forward it to Mr. Adams if he deemed it appropriate. Mr. Madison decided not to forward it. Perhaps it would have smoothed any perceived differences we had. My contention was with Mr. Hamilton, not Mr. Adams. Having retired to Monticello for three years since 1793, I didn’t run for office in 1796, yet was elected Vice-President placing second with 68 electoral votes to Adams’s 71 electoral votes.]

The public and the public papers have been much occupied lately in placing us in a point of opposition to each other. I trust with confidence that less of it has been felt by ourselves personally. In the retired canton where I am, I learn little of what is passing: pamphlets I see never; papers but a few; and the fewer the happier. Our latest intelligence from Philadelphia at present is of the 16th inst. but tho’ at that date your election to the first magistracy seems not to have been known as a fact, yet with me it has never been doubted. I knew it impossible you should lose a vote North of the Delaware, and even if that of Pennsylvania should be against you in the mass, yet that you would get enough South of that to place your succession out of danger. I have never one single moment expected a different issue; and tho’ I know I shall not be believed, yet it is not the less true that I have never wished it. My neighbors, as my compurgators, could aver that fact, because they see my occupations and my attachment to them. Indeed it is possible that you may be cheated of your succession by a trick worthy the subtlety of your archfriend of New York, who has been able to make of your real friends tools to defeat their and your just wishes. Most probably he will be disappointed as to you; and my inclinations place me out of his reach.

I leave to others the sublime delights of riding in the storm, better pleased with sound sleep and a warm birth below, with the society of neighbors, friends and fellow laborers of the earth, than of spies and sycophants. No one then will congratulate you with purer disinterestedness than myself. The share indeed which I may have had in the late vote, I shall still value highly, as an evidence of the share I have in the esteem of my fellow citizens. But while, in this point of view, a few votes less would be little sensible, the difference in the effect of a few more would be very sensible and oppressive to me. I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office. Since the day too on which you signed the treaty of Paris our horizon was never so overcast. I devoutly wish you may be able to shun for us this war by which our agriculture, commerce and credit will be destroyed. If you are, the glory will be all your own; and that your administration may be filled with glory and happiness to yourself and advantage to us is the sincere wish of one who tho’, in the course of our voyage thro’ life, various little incidents have happened or been contrived to separate us, retains still for you the solid esteem of the moments when we were working for our independence, and sentiments of respect and affectionate attachment.

[This is from my letter to James Madison, December 28, 1794, regarding the unpopular distilled spirits excise tax (“whiskey tax”) that I later repealed in 1802. The enforcement of this excise tax was an unnecessary display of federal government might that risked dismembering the Union. Unfortunately, this issue and others caused a rift in my relationship with Gen. Washington. When I was President, I abolished all internal taxes and their collectors, including this excise tax, and allowed the United States to support itself on land sales tax and import customs duties alone. Despite the tax cuts, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin and I were still able to reduce the national debt by 30 percent.]

With respect to the transactions against the excise-law, it appears to me that you are all swept away in the torrent of governmental opinions, or that we do not know what these transactions have been. We know of none which according to the definitions of the law, have been any thing more than riotous. There was indeed a meeting to consult about a separation. But to consult on a question does not amount to a determination of that question in the affirmative, still less to the acting on such a determination: but we shall see I suppose what the court lawyers, & courtly judges & would-be Ambassadors will make of it.

The excise-law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by the constitution. The 2nd to act on that admission. The 3rd & last will be to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, & setting us all afloat to chuse which part of it we will adhere to. The information of our militia returned from the Westward is uniform, that tho the people there let them pass quietly, they were objects of their laughter, not of their fear, that 1000 men could have cut off their whole force in a thousand places of the Alleganey, that their detestation of the excise law is universal, and has now associated to it a detestation of the government, & that separation which perhaps was a very distant & problematical event, is now near, & certain & determined in the mind of every man.