Volume II Part 3 (1/2)

[19] Paine to Was.h.i.+ngton, May 1, 1790; _Cor. Rev._: Sparks, iv, 328.

Paine did not, personally, bring the key, but forwarded it from London.

[20] Burke in the House of Commons; _Works_: Burke, i, 451-53.

[21] _Ib._

[22] _Reflections on the Revolution in France_; _ib._, i, 489. Jefferson well stated the American radical opinion of Burke: ”The Revolution of France does not astonish me so much as the Revolution of Mr. Burke....

How mortifying that this evidence of the rottenness of his mind must oblige us now to ascribe to wicked motives those actions of his life which were the mark of virtue & patriotism.” (Jefferson to Vaughan, May 11, 1791; _Works_: Ford, vi, 260.)

[23] Paine had not yet lost his immense popularity in the United States.

While, later, he came to be looked upon with horror by great numbers of people, he enjoyed the regard and admiration of nearly everybody in America at the time his _Rights of Man_ appeared.

[24] _Writings_: Conway, ii, 272.

[25] _Writings_: Conway, ii, 406. At this very moment the sympathizers with the French Revolution in America were saying exactly the reverse.

[26] _Writings_: Conway, ii, 278-79, 407, 408, 413, 910.

[27] Compare with Jefferson's celebrated letter to Mazzei (_infra_, chap. VII). Jefferson was now, however, in Was.h.i.+ngton's Cabinet.

[28] Jefferson to Paine, June 19, 1792; _Works_: Ford, vii, 121-22; and see Hazen, 157-60. Jefferson had, two years before, expressed precisely the views set forth in Paine's _Rights of Man_. Indeed, he stated them in even more startling terms. (See Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 6, 1789; _ib._, vi, 1-11.)

[29] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 65-110. John Quincy Adams wrote these admirable essays when he was twenty-four years old. Their logic, wit, and style suggest the writer's incomparable mother. Madison, who remarked their quality, wrote to Jefferson: ”There is more of method ...

in the arguments, and much less of clumsiness & heaviness in the style, than characterizes his [John Adams's] writings.” (Madison to Jefferson, July 13, 1791; _Writings_: Hunt, vi, 56.)

The sagacious industry of Mr. Worthington C. Ford has made these and all the other invaluable papers of the younger Adams accessible, in his _Writings of John Quincy Adams_ now issuing.

[30] Jefferson to Adams, July 17, 1791; _Works_: Ford, vi, 283, and footnote; also see Jefferson to Was.h.i.+ngton, May 8, 1791; _ib._, 255-56.

Jefferson wrote Was.h.i.+ngton and the elder Adams, trying to evade his patronage of Paine's pamphlet; but, as Mr. Ford moderately remarks, ”the explanation was somewhat lame.” (_Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 65; and see Hazen, 156-57.) Later Jefferson avowed that ”Mr. Paine's principles ... were the principles of the citizens of the U. S.”

(Jefferson to Adams, Aug. 30, 1791; _Works_: Ford, vi, 314.) To his intimate friend, Monroe, Jefferson wrote that ”Publicola, in attacking all Paine's principles, is very desirous of involving me in the same censure with the author. I certainly merit the same, for I profess the same principles.” (Jefferson to Monroe, July 10, 1791; _ib._, 280.)

Jefferson at this time was just on the threshold of his discovery of and campaign against the ”deep-laid plans” of Hamilton and the Nationalists to transform the newborn Republic into a monarchy and to deliver the hard-won ”liberties” of the people into the rapacious hands of ”monocrats,” ”stockjobbers,” and other ”plunderers” of the public. (See next chapter.)

[31] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 65-66.

[32] Although John Quincy Adams had just been admitted to the bar, he was still a student in the law office of Theophilus Parsons at the time he wrote the Publicola papers.

[33] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 65-110.

[34] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, footnote to 107.

”As soon as Publicola attacked Paine, swarms appeared in his defense....

Instantly a host of writers attacked Publicola in support of those [Paine's] principles.” (Jefferson to Adams, Aug. 30, 1791; _Works_: Ford, vi, 314; and see Jefferson to Madison, July 10, 1791; _ib._, 279.)

[35] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 110.

[36] Madison to Jefferson, July 13, 1791; _Writings_; Hunt, vi, 56; and see Monroe to Jefferson, July 25, 1791; Monroe's _Writings_: Hamilton, i, 225-26.