The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
CALLENDER, JAMES T. / RELATIONSHIP WITH
Your favor of the 1st was duly received, and I would not have again
intruded on you, but to rectify certain facts which seem not to have
been presented to you under their true aspect. My charities to
Callender are considered as rewards for his calumnies. [
Note: During the Presidential campaign of 1800, Jefferson gave $50
to the writer, who was a victim of the infamous Sedition Act which was
passed under the Adams Administration.] As early, I think, as
1796, I was told in Philadelphia that Callender, the author of the
Political Progress of Britain, was in that city, a fugitive from
persecution for having written that book, and in distress. I had read
and approved the book; I considered him as a man of genius, unjustly
persecuted. I knew nothing of his private character, and immediately
expressed my readiness to contribute to his relief, and to serve him.
It was a considerable time after, that, on application from a person
who thought of him as I did, I contributed to his relief, and
afterwards repeated the contribution. Himself I did not see till long
after, nor ever more than two or three times. When he first began to
write, he told some useful truths in his coarse way; but nobody sooner
disapproved of his writing than I did, or wished more that he would be
silent. My charities to him were no more meant as encouragements to
his scurrilities, than those I give to the beggar at my door are meant
as rewards for the vices of his life, and to make them chargeable to
myself. In truth, they would have been greater to him, had he never
written a word after the work for which he fled from Britain. With
respect to the calumnies and falsehoods which writers and printers at
large published against Mr. Adams, I was as far from stooping to any
concern or approbation of them, as Mr. Adams was respecting those of
Porcupine, Fenno, or Russel, who published volumes against me for
every sentence vended by their opponents against Mr. Adams. But I
never supposed Mr. Adams had any participation in the atrocities of
these editors, or their writers. I knew myself incapable of that base
warfare, and believed him to be so. On the contrary, whatever I may
have thought of the acts of the Administration of that day, I have
ever borne testimony to Mr. Adams' personal worth; nor was it ever
impeached in my presence, without a just vindication of it on my part.
I never supposed that any person who knew either of us, could believe
that either of us meddled in that dirty work. But another fact is,
that I "liberated a wretch who was suffering for a libel against
Mr. Adams." I do not know who was the particular wretch alluded
to; but I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution
under the Sedition Law, because I considered, and now consider, that
law to be a nullity, as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had
ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image; and that it was as
much my duty to arrest its execution in every stage, as it would have
been to have rescued from the fiery furnace those who should have been
cast into it for refusing to worship the image. It was accordingly
done in every instance, without asking what the offenders had done, or
against whom they had offended, but whether the pains they were
suffering were inflicted under the pretended Sedition Law. It was
certainly possible that my motives for contributing to the relief of
Callender, and liberating sufferers under the Sedition Law, might have
been to protect, encourage, and reward slander; but they may also have
been those which inspire ordinary charities to objects of distress,
meritorious or not, or the obligation of an oath to protect the
Constitution, violated by an unauthorized act of Congress. Which of
these were my motives, must be decided by a regard to the general
tenor of my life. On this I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at
large, to posterity, and still less to that Being who sees himself our
motives, who will judge us from his own knowledge of them, and not on
the testimony of Porcupine or Fenno.
You observe, there has been one other act of my Administration
personally unkind, and suppose it will readily suggest itself to me. I
declare on my honor, madam, I have not the least conception what act
was alluded to. I never did a single one with an unkind intention. My
sole object in this letter being to place before your attention, that
the acts imputed to me are either such as are falsely imputed, or as
might flow from good as well as bad motives, I shall make no other
addition, than the assurances of my continued wishes for the health
and happiness of yourself and Mr. Adams.
to Abigail Adams, 22 July 1804
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