March 29

[This is from a letter to Samuel Adams, March 29, 1801, shortly after I took presidential office, expressing profound respect for Adams's legacy and outlining my vision for the nation's political future.]

I often asked myself, is this exactly in the spirit of the patriarch of liberty, Samuel Adams? Is it as he would express it? Will he approve of it? I have felt a great deal for our country in the times we have seen: but individually for no one so much as yourself. When I have been told that you were avoided, insulated, frowned on, I could but ejaculate ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ I confess I felt an indignation for you, which for myself I have been able under every trial to keep entirely passive. However, the storm is over, and we are in port. The ship was not rigged for the service she was put on. We will shew the smoothness of her motions on her republican tack.

I hope we shall once more see harmony restored among our citizens, & an entire oblivion of past feuds. Some of the leaders who have most committed themselves cannot come into this. But I hope the great body of our fellow citizens will do it. I will sacrifice every thing but principle to procure it. A few examples of justice on officers who have perverted their functions to the oppression of their fellow citizens, must, in justice to those citizens, be made. But opinion, & the just maintenance of it shall never be a crime in my view; nor bring injury on the individual. those whose misconduct in office ought to have produced their removal even by my predecessor, must not be protected by the delicacy due only to honest men. How much I lament that time has deprived us of your aid: it would have been a day of glory which should have called you to the first office of the administration. But give us your counsel my friend, and give us your blessing: and be assured that there exists not in the heart of man a more faithful esteem than mine to you, & that I shall ever bear you the most affectionate veneration & respect.

[In my March 29, 1805 letter to Judge John Tyler, a prominent Virginia jurist and trusted republican ally, I write during a short visit to Monticello to discuss the policy objectives behind my second inaugural address and the strategic grounds of the ongoing First Barbary War. I justify our military actions against Tripoli by explaining that paying tribute would only invite further extortions from other Barbary States, and I defend our deployment of a naval blockade to overawe the Mediterranean region after Commodore Richard Morris failed to execute his orders. My calculation that our refusal to pay tribute would spark a revolution among European powers to emancipate themselves from this degrading yoke highlights my intense desire to project American naval power globally, showing how I sought to use the young republic's military resolve to rewrite the rules of international commerce and assert our complete independence on the world stage.]

Your favor of the 17th found me on a short visit to this place, and I observe in it with great pleasure a continuance of your approbation of the course we are pursuing, and particularly the satisfaction you express with the last inaugural address. The first was, from the nature of the case, all profession and promise. Performance, therefore, seemed to be the proper office of the second. But the occasion restricted me to mention only the most prominent heads, and the strongest justification of these in the fewest words possible. The crusade preached against philosophy by the modern disciples of steady habits, induced me to dwell more in showing its effect with the Indians than the subject otherwise justified.

The war with Tripoli stands on two grounds of fact. 1st. It is made known to us by our agents with the three other Barbary States, that they only wait to see the event of this, to shape their conduct accordingly. If the war is ended by additional tribute, they mean to offer us the same alternative. 2dly. If peace was made, we should still, and shall ever, be obliged to keep a frigate in the Mediterranean to overawe rupture, or we must abandon that market. Our intention in sending Morris with a respectable force, was to try whether peace could be forced by a coercive enterprise on their town. His inexecution of orders baffled that effort. Having broke him, we try the same experiment under a better commander. If in the course of the summer they cannot produce peace, we shall recall our force, except one frigate and two small vessels, which will keep up a perpetual blockade. Such a blockade will cost us no more than a state of peace, and will save us from increased tributes, and the disgrace attached to them. There is reason to believe the example we have set, begins already to work on the dispositions of the powers of Europe to emancipate themselves from that degrading yoke. Should we produce such a revolution there, we shall be amply rewarded for what we have done. Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great respect and esteem.