Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson Volume IV Part 47

LETTER CXCI.--TO JAMES MADISON, February 17,1826

TO JAMES MADISON.

Monticello, February 17,1826.

Dear Sir,

Immediately on seeing the overwhelming vote of the House of Representatives against giving us another dollar, I rode to the University and desired Mr. Brockenbrough to engage in nothing new, to stop every thing on hand which could be done without, and to employ all his force and funds in finis.h.i.+ng the circular room for the books, and the Anatomical theatre. These cannot be done without; and for these and all our debts, we have funds enough. But I think it prudent then to clear the decks thoroughly, to see how we shall stand, and what we may accomplish further. In the mean time, there have arrived for us in different ports of the United States, ten boxes of books, from Paris, seven from London, and from Germany I know not how many; in all, perhaps, about twenty-five boxes. Not one of these can be opened until the book-room is completely finished, and all the shelves ready to receive their charge directly from the boxes, as they shall be opened.

This cannot be till May. I hear nothing definitive of the three thousand dollars duty of which we are asking the remission from Congress. In the selection of our Law Professor, we must be rigorously attentive to his political principles. You will recollect, that, before the Revolution, c.o.ke Littleton was the universal elementary book of law students, and a sounder whig never wrote, nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of the British const.i.tution, or in what were called English liberties. You remember also that our lawyers were then all whigs. But when his black-letter text, and uncouth but cunning learning got out of fas.h.i.+on, and the honied Mansfieldism of Blackstone became the students'

hornbook, from that moment, that profession (the nursery of our Congress) began to slide into toryism, and nearly all the young brood of lawyers now are of that hue. They suppose themselves, indeed, to be whigs, because they no longer know what whigism or republicanism means.

It is in our seminary that that vestal flame is to be kept alive; it is thence it is to spread anew over our own and the sister States. If we are true and vigilant in our trust, within a dozen or twenty years a majority of our own legislature will be from our school, and many disciples will have carried its doctrines home with them to their several States, and will have leavened thus the whole ma.s.s. New York has taken strong ground in vindication of the const.i.tution; South Carolina had already done the same. Although I was against our leading, I am equally against omitting to follow in the same line, and backing them firmly; and i hope that yourself or some other will mark out the track to be pursued by us.

You will have seen in the newspapers some proceedings in the legislature, which have cost me much mortification. My own debts had become considerable, but not beyond the effect of some lopping of property, which would have been little felt, when our friend ---- gave me the coup de grace. Ever since that I have been paying twelve hundred dollars a year interest on his debt, which, with my own, was absorbing so much of my annual income, as that the maintenance of my family was making deep and rapid inroads on my capital, and had already done it.

Still, sales at a fair price would leave me competently provided. Had crops and prices for several years been such as to maintain a steady compet.i.tion of substantial bidders at market, all would have been safe.

But the long succession of years of stunted crops, of reduced prices, the general prostration of the farming business, under levies for the support of manufacturers, &c, with the calamitous fluctuations of value in our paper medium, have kept agriculture in a state of abject depression, which has peopled the western States by silently breaking up those on the Atlantic, and glutted the land-market, while it drew off its bidders. In such a state of things, property has lost its character of being a resource for debts. Highland in Bedford, which, in the days of our plethory, sold readily for from fifty to one hundred dollars the acre (and such sales were many then), would not now sell for more than from ten to twenty dollars, or one quarter or one fifth of its former price. Reflecting on these things, the practice occurred to me, of selling, on fair valuation, and by way of lottery, often resorted to before the Revolution to effect large sales, and still in constant usage in every State for individual as well as corporation purposes. If it is permitted in my case, my lands here alone, with the mills, he, will pay every thing, and leave me Monticello and a farm free. If refused, I must sell every thing here, perhaps considerably in Bedford, move thither with my family, where I have not even a log hut to put my head into, and whether ground for burial, will depend on the depredations which, under the form of sales, shall have been committed on my property. The question then with me was, _Utrum horum?_ But why afflict you with these details? Indeed, I cannot tell, unless pains are lessened by communication with a friend. The friends.h.i.+p which has subsisted between us, now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles and pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me through that long period. And if I remove beyond the reach of attentions to the University, or beyond the bourne of life itself, as I soon must, it is a comfort to leave that inst.i.tution under your care, and an a.s.surance that it will not be wanting. It has also been a great solace to me, to believe that you are engaged in vindicating to posterity the course we have pursued for preserving to them, in all their purity, the blessings of self-government, which we had a.s.sisted too in acquiring for them. If ever the earth has beheld a system of administration conducted with a single and steadfast eye to the general interest and happiness of those committed to it, one which, protected by truth, can never know reproach, it is that to which our lives have been devoted. To myself you have been a pillar of support through life. Take care of me when dead, and be a.s.sured that I shall leave with you my last affections.

Th: Jefferson.

[The following paper it is deemed proper to insert, as well because of the explanation it contains of the reasons which led the author to ask permission of the legislature to sell his property by lottery, as of its otherwise interesting character.]

THOUGHTS ON LOTTERIES.

It is a common idea that games of chance are immoral. But what is chance? Nothing happens in this world without a cause. If we know the cause, we do not call it chance; but if we do not know it, we say it was produced by chance. If we see a loaded die turn its lightest side up, we know the cause, and that it is not an effect of chance; but whatever side an unloaded die turns up, not knowing the cause, we say it is the effect of chance. Yet the morality of a thing cannot depend on our knowledge or ignorance of its cause. Not knowing why a particular side of an unloaded die turns up, cannot make the act of throwing it, or of betting on it, immoral. If we consider games of chance immoral, then every pursuit of human industry is immoral, for there is not a single one that is not subject to chance; not one wherein you do not risk a loss for the chance of some gain. The navigator, for example, risks his s.h.i.+p in the hope (if she is not lost in the voyage) of gaining an advantageous freight. The merchant risks his cargo to gain a better price for it. A landholder builds a house on the risk of indemnifying himself by a rent. The hunter hazards his time and trouble in the hope of killing game. In all these pursuits, you stake some one thing against another which you hope to win. But the greatest of all gamblers is the farmer. He risks the seed he puts into the ground, the rent he pays for the ground itself, the year's labor on it, and the wear and tear of his cattle and gear, to win a crop, which the chances of too much or too little rain, and general uncertainties of weather, insects, waste, &c.

often make a total or partial loss. These, then, are games of chance.

Yet so far from being immoral, they are indispensable to the existence of man, and every one has a natural right to choose for his pursuit such one of them as he thinks most likely to furnish him subsistence. Almost all these pursuits of chance produce something useful to society. But there are some which produce nothing, and endanger the well-being of the individuals engaged in them, or of others depending on them. Such are games with cards, dice, billiards, &c. And although the pursuit of them is a matter of natural right, yet society, perceiving the irresistible bent of some of its members to pursue them, and the ruin produced by them to the families depending on these individuals, consider it as a case of insanity, _quoad hoc_, step in to protect the family and the party himself, as in other cases of insanity, infancy, imbecility, &c, and suppress the pursuit altogether, and the natural right of following it. There are some other games of chance, useful on certain occasions, and injurious only when carried beyond their useful bounds. Such are insurances, lotteries, raffles, &tc. These they do not suppress, but take their regulation under their own discretion. The insurance of s.h.i.+ps on voyages is a vocation of chance, yet useful, and the right to exercise it therefore is left free. So of houses against fire, doubtful debts, the continuance of a particular life, and similar cases. Money is wanting for an useful undertaking, as a school, &c. for which a direct tax would be disapproved. It is raised therefore by a lottery, wherein the tax is laid on the willing only, that is to say, on those who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury, for the possibility of a higher prize. An article of property, insusceptible of division at all, or not without great diminution of its worth, is sometimes of so large value as that no purchaser can be found, while the owner owes debts, has no other means of payment, and his creditors no other chance of obtaining it, but by its sale at a full and fair price. The lottery is here a salutary instrument for disposing of it, where many run small risks for the chance of obtaining a high prize. In this way, the great estate of the late Colonel Byrd (in 1756) was made competent to pay his debts, which, had the whole been brought into the market at once, would have overdone the demand, would have sold at half or quarter the value, and sacrificed the creditors, half or three fourths of whom would have lost their debts. This method of selling was formerly very much resorted to, until it was thought to nourish too much a spirit of hazard. The legislature Were therefore induced, not to suppress it altogether, but to take it under their own special regulation. This they did, for the first time, by their act of 1769, c.17., before which time, every person exercised the right freely; and since which time, it is made unlawful but when approved and authorized by a special act of the legislature.

Since then, this right of sale, by way of lottery, has been exercised only under the discretion of the legislature. Let us examine the purposes for which they have allowed it in practice, not looking beyond the date of our independence.

1. It was for a long time an item of the standing revenue of the State.

1813. c. 1. -- 3 An act imposing taxes for the support of government, and c. 2. -- 10.

1814. Dec. c. 1. -- 3. 1814. Feb. c. 1. -- 3. 1818. c. 1. -- 1. 1819. c. 1.

1820. c. 1.

This then is a declaration by the nation, that an act was not immoral, of which they were in the habitual use themselves as a part of the regular means of supporting the government: the tax on the vender of tickets was their share of the profits, and if their share was innocent, his could not be criminal.

2. It has been abundantly permitted, to raise money by lottery for the purposes of schools; and in this, as in many other cases, the lottery has been permitted to retain a part of the money (generally from ten to fifteen per cent.) for the use to which the lottery has been applied.

So that while the adventurers paid one hundred dollars for tickets, they received back eighty-five or ninety dollars only, in the form of prizes, the remaining ten or fifteen being the tax levied on them, with their own consent. Examples are.

1784. c. 34. Authorizing the city of Williamsburg to raise 2000 for a grammar school.

1789. c. 68. For Randolph Academy, 1000.

1789. c. 73. For Fauquier Academy, 500. c. 74. For the Fredericksburg Academy, 4000.

1790. c. 46. For the Transylvania Seminary, 500. For the Southampton Academy, 300.

1796. c. 82. For the New London Academy.

1803. c. 49. For the Fredericksburg Charity School. c 50. For finis.h.i.+ng the Strasburg Seminary. c. 58. For William and Mary College. c. 62. For the Bannister Academy.c. 79. For the Belfield Academy. c. 82. For the Petersburg Academy.

1804. c. 40. For the Hotsprings Seminary. c. 76. For the Stevensburg Academy. c.100. For William and Mary College.

1805. c. 24. For the Rumford Academy.

1812. c. 10. For the Literary Fund. To sell the privilege for $30,000 annually, for seven years.

1816. c. 80. For Norfolk Academy, $12,000. Norfolk Female Society, $2000. Lancastrian School, $6000.

3. The next object of lotteries has been rivers.

1790. c. 46. For a bridge between Gosport and Portsmouth, 400.

1796. c. 83. For clearing Roanoke River.

1804. c. 62. For clearing Quantico Creek.

1805. c. 42. For a toll-bridge over Cheat River.

1816. c. 49. For the Dismal Swamp, $50,000.

4. For roads.

1790. c. 46. For a road to Warminster, 200. For cutting a road from Rockfish gap to Scott's and Nicholas's landing, 400. 1796. c. 85. To repair certain roads.

1803. c. 60. For improving roads to Sn.i.g.g.e.r's and Ashby's gaps. c. 61.

For opening a road to Brock's gap. c. 65. For opening a road from the town of Monroe to Sweet Springs and Lewisburg.

* The acts not being at hand, the sums allowed are not known.

1803. c. 71. For improving the road to Brock's gap.

1805. c. 5. For improving the road to Clarksburg. c. 26. For opening a road from Monongalia Glades to Fis.h.i.+ng Creek.

1813. c. 44. For opening a road from Thornton's gap.

5. Lotteries for the benefit of counties.

1796. c. 78. To authorize a lottery in the county of Shenandoah. c. 84.