The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
IMMIGRATION FROM THE OLD WORLD
Among the ancients, the redundance of population was sometimes
checked by exposing infants. To the moderns, America has offered a
more humane resource. Many, who cannot find employment in Europe,
accordingly come here. Those who can labor do well, for the most part.
Of the learned class of emigrants, a small portion find employments
analogous to their talents. But many fail, and return to complete
their course of misery in the scenes where it began. Even here we
find too strong a current from the country to the towns; and instances
beginning to appear of that species of misery; which you are so
humanely endeavoring to relieve with you. Although we have in the old
countries of Europe the lesson of their experience to warn us, yet I
am not satisfied we shall have the firmness and wisdom to profit by
it. The general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their
hands, and the strong allurements of great cities to those who have
any turn for dissipation, threaten to make them here, as in Europe,
the sinks of voluntary misery.
to David Williams, 14 November 1803
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