Such an editor too, would have to set his face against the demoralizing practice of feeding the public mind habitually on slander, and the depravity of taste which this nauseous aliment induces.  Defamation is becoming a necessary of life; insomuch, that a dish of tea in the morning or evening cannot be digested without this stimulant.  Even those who do not believe these abominations, still read them with complaisance to their auditors, and instead of the abhorrence and indignation which should fill a virtuous mind, betray a secret pleasure in the possibility that some may believe them, though they do not themselves.  It seems to escape them, that it is not he who prints, but he who pays for printing a slander, who is its real author.

These thoughts on the subjects of your letter are hazarded at your request.  Repeated instances of the publication of what has not been intended for the public eye, and the malignity with which political enemies torture every sentence from me into meanings imagined by their own wickedness only, justify my expressing a solicitude, that this hasty communication may in nowise be permitted to find its way into the public papers.  Not fearing these political bull-dogs, I yet avoided putting myself in the way of being baited by them, and do not wish to volunteer away that portion of tranquillity, which a firm execution of my duties will permit me to enjoy.

I tender you my salutations, and best wishes for your success.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XLIX.—­TO WILLIAM SHORT, June 12, 1807

TO WILLIAM SHORT.

Washington, June 12, 1807.

Dear Sir,

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The proposition in your letter of May the 16th, of adding an umpire to our discordant negotiators at Paris, struck me favorably on reading it, and reflection afterwards strengthened my first impressions.  I made it therefore a subject of consultation with my coadjutors, as is our usage.  For our government, although in theory subject to be directed by the unadvised will of the President, is, and from its origin has been, a very different thing in practice.  The minor business in each department is done by the Head of the department, on consultation with the President alone.  But all matters of importance or difficulty are submitted to all the Heads of departments composing the cabinet; sometimes by the President’s consulting them separately and successively, as they happen to call on him; but in the greatest cases, by calling them together, discussing the subject maturely, and finally taking the vote, in which the President counts himself but as one.  So that in all important cases the executive is, in fact, a directory, which certainly the President might control:  but of this there was never an example either in the first or the present administration.  I have heard, indeed, that my predecessor sometimes decided things against his council.