able to face the sound parts of so extensive an union:  and if ever they could reach the majority, they would then become the regular government, acquire the ascendancy in Congress, and be able to redress their own grievances by laws peaceably and constitutionally passed.  And even the States in which local discontents might engender a commencement of fermentation, would be paralyzed and self-checked by that very division into parties into which we have fallen, into which all States must fall wherein men are at liberty to think, speak, and act freely, according to the diversities of their individual conformations, and which are, perhaps, essential to preserve the purity of the government, by the censorship which these parties habitually exercise over each other.

You will read, I am sure, with indulgence, the explanations of the grounds on which I have ventured to form an opinion differing from yours.  They prove my respect for your judgment, and diffidence of my own, which have forbidden me to retain, without examination, an opinion questioned by you.  Permit me now to render my portion of the general debt of gratitude, by acknowledgments in advance for the singular benefaction which is the subject of this letter, to tender my wishes for the continuance of a life so usefully employed, and to add the assurances of my perfect esteem and respect.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XCVI.—­TO COLONEL MONROE, May 5, 1811

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Monticello, May 5, 1811.

Dear Sir,

Your favor on your departure from Richmond came to hand in due time.  Although I may not have been among the first, I am certainly with the sincerest, who congratulate you on your re-entrance into the national councils.  Your value there has never been unduly estimated by those whom personal feelings did not misguide.  The late misunderstandings at Washington have been a subject of real concern to me.  I know that the dissolutions of personal friendships are among the most painful occurrences in human life.  I have sincere esteem for all who have been affected by them, having passed with them eight years of great harmony and affection.  These incidents are rendered more distressing in our country than elsewhere, because our printers ravin on the agonies of their victims, as wolves do on the blood of the lamb.  But the printers and the public are very different personages.  The former may lead the latter a little out of their track, while the deviation is insensible:  but the moment they usurp their direction and that of their government, they will be reduced to their true places.  The two last Congresses have been the theme of the most licentious reprobation for printers thirsting after war, some against France, and some against England.  But the people wish for peace with both.  They feel no incumbency on them to become the reformers of the other hemisphere, and to inculcate, with fire and sword, a return to moral order.  When, indeed, peace shall become more losing than war, they may owe to their interest, what these Quixottes are clamoring for on false estimates of honor.  The public are unmoved by these clamors, as the re-election of their legislators shows, and they are firm to their executive on the subject of the more recent clamors.