My salutations to Mrs. Madison, friendly esteem to Mr. Giles, Page, &c.  I am, with sincere affection, yours,

Th:  Jefferson.

P. S. Have you considered all the consequences of your proposition respecting post-roads?  I view it as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress and their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money.  You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post-office revenues:  but the other revenues will soon be called in to their aid, and it will be a source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest.  We have thought, hitherto, that the roads of a State could not be so well administered even by the State legislature as by the magistracy of the county, on the spot.  How will they be when a member of New Hampshire is to mark out a road for Georgia?  Does the power to establish post-roads, given you by the constitution, mean that you shall make the roads, or only select from those already made those on which there shall be a post?  If the term be equivocal (and I really do not think it so), which is the safest construction; that which permits a majority of Congress to go to cutting down mountains and bridging of rivers, or the other, which if too restricted may be referred to the States for amendment, securing still due measures and proportion among us, and providing some means of information to the members of Congress tantamount to that ocular inspection, which, even in our county determinations, the magistrate finds cannot be supplied by any other evidence?  The fortification of harbors was liable to great objection.  But national circumstances furnished some color.  In this case there is none.  The roads of America are the best in the world, except those of France and England.  But does the state of our population, the extent of our internal commerce, the want of sea and river navigation, call for such expense on roads here, or are our means adequate to it?  Think of all this, and a great deal more which your good judgment will suggest, and pardon my freedom.  T. J.

LETTER CXC.—­TO WILLIAM B. GILES, March 19,1796.

THOMAS JEFFERSON TO WILLIAM B. GILES.

I know not when I have received greater satisfaction than on reading the speech of Dr. Leib, in the Pennsylvania Assembly.  He calls himself a new member.  I congratulate honest republicanism on such an acquisition, and promise myself much from a career which begins on such elevated ground.  We are in suspense here to see the fate and effect of Mr. Pitt’s bill against democratic societies.  I wish extremely to get at the true history of this effort to suppress freedom of meeting, speaking, writing, and printing.  Your acquaintance with Sedgwick will enable you to do it.  Pray get the outlines of the bill he intended to have brought in for this purpose.  This will