November 20

[On November 20, 1801, while serving as President, I wrote from Washington to Amos Marsh, Esquire, the Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives, to join him in revering the federal Constitution and asserted that our great task is to prove by practical example that a representative government, founded upon human reason, right, and social passions rather than fear, can remain perfectly free while protecting our citizens from moral wrongs. I outlined my vision for the general government to serve solely as a barrier against foreign foes, to guard state borders against external intrusion, and to minimize public contributions so that our citizens are never unjustly burdened or enticed away from useful industry. I sought to solidify my sweeping electoral victory of 1800 by articulating a strict, agrarian defense of state sovereignty and minimal federal taxation directly to a newly supportive New England legislature.]

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 self-government reserved to itself, to equalize and moderate the public contributions, that while the requisite services are invited by due 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 occasions 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.