But the Chief Justice says, ’there must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.’  True, there must; but does that prove it is either party?  The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress, or of two thirds of the States.  Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs.  And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force.

I rejoice in the example you set of seriatim opinions.  I have heard it often noticed, and always with high approbation.  Some of your brethren will be encouraged to follow it occasionally, and in time, it may be felt by all as a duty, and the sound practice of the primitive court be again restored.  Why should not every judge be asked his opinion, and give it from the bench, if only by yea or nay?  Besides ascertaining the fact of his opinion, which the public have a right to know, in order to judge whether it is impeachable or not, it would show whether the opinions were unanimous or not, and thus settle more exactly the weight of their authority.

The close of my second sheet warns me that it is time now to relieve you from this letter of unmerciful length.  Indeed, I wonder how I have accomplished it, with two crippled wrists, the one scarcely able to move my pen, the other to hold my paper.  But I am hurried sometimes beyond the sense of pain, when unbosoming myself to friends who harmonize with me in principle.  You and I may differ occasionally in details of minor consequence, as no two minds, more than two faces, are the same in every feature.  But our general objects are the same; to preserve the republican form and principles of our constitution, and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that has established.  These are the two sheet anchors of our Union.  If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.  To my prayers for its safety and perpetuity, I add those for the continuation of your health, happiness, and usefulness to your country.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXIII.—­TO JAMES MADISON, August 30,1823

TO JAMES MADISON.

Monticello, August 30,1823.

Dear Sir,

I received the enclosed letters from the President, with a request that after perusal I would forward them to you, for perusal by yourself also, and to be returned then to him.

You have doubtless seen Timothy Pickering’s fourth of July observations on the Declaration of Independence.  If his principles and prejudices, personal and political, gave us no reason to doubt whether he had truly quoted the information he alleges to have received from Mr. Adams, I should then say, that in some of the particulars, Mr. Adams’s memory has led him into unquestionable error.  At the age of eighty-eight, and forty-seven years