approbation of the President, and this forms the only ground of any reluctance at being unable to comply with every wish of his.  Pray convey these sentiments and a thousand more to him, which my situation does not permit me to go into.  But however suffering by the addition of every single word to this letter, I must add a solemn declaration that neither Mr. J. nor Mr. ------- ever mentioned to me one word of any want of decorum in Mr. Carmichael, nor any thing stronger or more special than stated in my notes of the conversation.  Excuse my brevity, my dear Sir, and accept assurances of the sincere esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be your affectionate friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXI.—­TO JAMES MADISON, December 28, 1794

TO JAMES MADISON.

Monticello, December 28, 1794.

Dear Sir,

I have kept Mr. Jay’s letter a post or two, with an intention of considering attentively the observations it contains:  but I have really now so little stomach for any thing of that kind, that I have not resolution enough even to endeavor to understand the observations.  I therefore return the letter, not to delay your answer to it, and beg you in answering for yourself, to assure him of my respects and thankful acceptance of Chalmers’ Treaties, which I do not possess, and if you possess yourself of the scope of his reasoning, make any answer to it you please for me.  If it had been on the rotation of my crops, I would have answered myself, lengthily perhaps, but certainly con gusto.

The denunciation of the democratic societies is one of the extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the faction of monocrats.  It is wonderful indeed, that the President should have permitted himself to be the organ of such an attack on the freedom of discussion, the freedom of writing, printing, and publishing.  It must be a matter of rare curiosity to get at the modifications of these rights proposed by them, and to see what line their ingenuity would draw between democratical societies, whose avowed object is the nourishment of the republican principles of our constitution, and the society of the Cincinnati, a self-created one, carving out for itself hereditary distinctions, lowering over our constitution eternally, meeting together in all parts of the Union, periodically, with closed doors, accumulating a capital in their separate treasury, corresponding secretly and regularly, and of which society the very persons denouncing the democrats are themselves the fathers, founders, and high officers.  Their sight must be perfectly dazzled by the glittering of crowns and coronets, not to see the extravagance of the proposition to suppress the friends of general freedom, while those who wish to confine that freedom to the few are permitted to go on in their principles and practices.  I here put out of sight the persons whose misbehavior