February 28

[In my February 28, 1796 letter to John Adams, my longtime revolutionary compatriot and then-Vice President, I write from my temporary retirement at Monticello to warn against a multi-person French executive, arguing that a single person is necessary for decisive executive action, while using our shared dedication to a moral government to fiercely denounce the systemic corruption of the British system. My declaration that I wished there was an ocean of fire between the British island and the United States reveals the absolute extremity of my anti-British animus, and how deeply I feared that any ongoing cultural or political contact with our former rulers would permanently poison the republican purity of our young nation.]

I am to thank you, my dear Sir, for forwarding Mr. D'Ivernois' book on the French revolution. I recieve every thing with respect which comes from him. But it is on politics, a subject I never loved, and now hate. I will not promise therefore to read it thoroughly. I fear the oligarchical executive of the French will not do. We have always seen a small council get into cabals and quarrels, the more bitter and relentless the fewer they are. We saw this in our committee of the states; and that they were, from their bad passions, incapable of doing the business of their country. I think that for the prompt, clear and consistent action so necessary in an Executive, unity of person is necessary as with us. I am aware of the objection to this, that the office becoming more important may bring on serious discord in elections. In our country I think it will be long first; not within our day; and we may safely trust to the wisdom of our successors the remedies of the evil to arise in theirs. Both experiments however are now fairly committed, and the result will be seen. Never was a finer canvas presented to work on than our countrymen. All of them engaged in agriculture or the pursuits of honest industry, independant in their circumstances, enlightened as to their rights, and firm in their habits of order and obedience to the laws. This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded on principles of honesty, not of mere force. We have seen no instance of this since the days of the Roman republic, nor do we read of any before that. Either force or corruption has been the principle of every modern government, unless the Dutch perhaps be excepted, and I am not well enough informed to except them absolutely. If ever the morals of a people could be made the basis of their own government, it is our case; and he who could propose to govern such a people by the corruption of their legislature, before he could have one night of quiet sleep, must convince himself that the human soul as well as body is mortal. I am glad to see that whatever grounds of apprehension may have appeared of a wish to govern us otherwise than on principles of reason and honesty, we are getting the better of them. I am sure, from the honesty of your heart, you join me in detestation of the corruption of the English government, and that no man on earth is more incapable than yourself of seeing that copied among us, willingly. I have been among those who have feared the design to introduce it here, and it has been a strong reason with me for wishing there was an ocean of fire between that island and us.

[This is from my letter to my law mentor, the venerable George Wythe, on February 28, 1800, asking him to assist me in developing a manual of procedures for the Senate when I was Vice President. I later learned that the House of Representatives was using it as well. In fact, to this very day the Congress still use my Manual of Parliamentary Practice — published in 1801 — 224 years later.]

I know how precious your time is and how exclusively you devote it to the duties of your office. Yet I venture to ask a few hours or minutes of it on motives of public service, as well as private friendship. I will explain the occasion of the application. You recollect enough of the old Congress to remember that their mode of managing the business of the house was not only unparliamentary, but that the forms were so awkward & inconvenient that it was impossible sometimes to get at the true sense of the majority. The House of Repr. of the US are now pretty much in the same situation. In the Senate it is in our power to get into a better way.

Our ground is this. The Senate have established a few rules for their government, and have subjected the decisions on these & on all other points of order without debate, & without appeal, to the judgment of their President. He, for his own sake, as well as theirs, must prefer recurring to some system of rules, ready formed; & there can be no question that the Parliamentary rules are the best known to us for managing the debates, & obtaining the sense of a deliberative body. I have therefore made them my rule of decision, rejecting those of the old Congress altogether; & it gives entire satisfaction to the Senate; insomuch that we shall not only have a good system there, but probably, by the example of its effects, produce a conformity in the other branch.

But in the course of this business I find perplexities, having for 20 years been out of deliberative bodies & become rusty as to many points of proceeding: & so little has the Parliamentary branch of the law been attended to, that I not only find no person here, but not even a book to aid me. I had, at an early period of life, read a good deal on the subject, & common placed what I read. This common-place has been my pillar. But there are many questions of practice, on which that is silent. Some of them are so minute indeed and belong so much to every day’s practice that they have never been thought worthy of being written down. Yet from desuetude they have slipped my memory. You will see by the inclosed paper what they are.

I know with what pain you write: therefore I have left a margin in which you can write a simple negative or affirmative opposite every position, or perhaps, with as little trouble correct the text by striking out or interlining. This is what I have earnestly to solicit from you: and I would not have given you the trouble if I had had any other resource. But you are in fact the only spark of Parliamentary science now remaining to us.

I am the more anxious, because I have been forming a manual of Parliamentary law, which I mean to deposit with the Senate as the Standard by which I judge, and am willing to be judged. Tho’ I should be opposed to it’s being printed, yet it may be done perhaps without my consent; and in that case I should be sorry indeed should it go out with errors that a Tyro should not have committed. And yet it is precisely those to which I am most exposed. I am less afraid as to important matters, because for them I have printed authorities. But it is those small matters of daily practice, which 20 years ago were familiar to me, but have in that time escaped my memory.

I hope under these circumstances you will pardon the trouble I propose to you in the inclosed paper. I am not pressed in time, so that your leisure will be sufficient for me. Accept the salutations of grateful & sincere friendship and attachment and many prayers for your health and happiness.