03: The New Nation

The late rebellion in Massachusets has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course of 11 years, is but one for each state in a century & a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections.

"Some might suggest that the constitutional compromise reached for the lowest common denominator -- for the barest minimum value on which both sides could agree. I rather think something different happened. Both sides found a way to temper ideology and continue working toward the highest aspiration they both shared -- the aspiration to form a more perfect union. They set their sights higher, not lower, in order to identify their common goal and keep moving toward it." He also cited the three-fifths compromise as one of the "pragmatic half-victories" that led to the solidifying of the United States.

"In retrospect we can fairly ask ourselves, would we have voted for the Constitution -- for a new nation, for 'a more perfect union' -- if it meant including the three-fifths compromise? Or would we have voted no -- that is, voted not to undertake what I hope we see as a noble experiment, however flawed and imperfect it has been. Would the alternative have been a fractured continent, a portion of which might have continued far longer as an economy built on the enslavement of human beings? We don’t know; nor could our founders know."

“if three years ago any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws & constitutions of our own making as now appears I should have thought him a bedlamite - a fit subject for a mad house.” He wrote that if the government “shrinks, or is unable to enforce its laws . . . anarchy & confusion must prevail.”

to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice

The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers.

Decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.

But quitting the dim light of historical research, attaching ourselves purely to the dictates of reason and good sense, we shall discover much greater cause to reject than to approve the idea of plurality in the Executive, under any modification whatever.

Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice, in the human character.

second, the opportunity of discovering with facility and clearness the misconduct of the persons they trust, in order either to their removal from office or to their actual punishment in cases which admit of it

Mine on the subject of slavery of negroes have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain, and should have produced not a single effort, nay I fear not much serious willingness to relieve them & ourselves from our present condition of moral & political reprobation.

Their amalgamation with the other color produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character can innocently consent

I know no error more consuming to an estate than that of stocking farms with men almost exclusively. I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm.

I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm.<span class="diigoHighlightCommentLocator"><div class="diigoIcon id_d57c00d9d12f9c84d367b78971961375 type_9 TextIcon yellow" title="" style="bottom: 0px;"></div></span><span class="diigoHighlightCommentLocator"></span> what she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption.

I am drudging at the writing table

say nothing of my religion. it is known to my god and myself alone. it’s evidence before the world is to be sought in my life. if that has been <span style="font-style: italic">honest and dutiful to society</span>, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.”