The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
UNITY / PARTY POLITICS / JEFFERSON CALLED ANTI-FEDERALIST
You say that I have been dished up to you as an anti-federalist, and
ask me if it be just. My opinion was never worthy enough of notice to
merit citing; but since you ask it, I will tell it to you. I am not a
federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions
to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy,
in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for
myself. Such an addiction, is the last degradation of a free and moral
agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go
there at all. Therefore, I am not of the party of federalists. But I
am much farther from that of the anti-federalists. I approved, from
the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new
Constitution; the consolidation of the government; the organization
executive, legislative, and judiciary; the subdivision of the
legislative; the happy compromise of interests between the great and
little States, by the different manner of voting in the different
Houses; the voting by persons instead of States; the qualified
negative on laws given to the executive, which, however, I should have
liked better if associated with the judiciary also, as in New York;
and the power of taxation. I thought at first that the latter might
have been limited. A little reflection soon convinced me it ought not
to be. What I disapproved from the first moment also, was the want of
a bill of rights, to guard liberty against the legislative as well as
the executive branches of the government; that is to say, to secure
freedom in religion, freedom of the press, freedom from monopolies,
freedom from unlawful imprisonment, freedom from a permanent military,
and a trial by jury, in all cases determinable by the laws of the
land. I disapproved, also, the perpetual re-eligibility of the
President. To these points of disapprobation I adhere. My first wish
was, that the nine first conventions might accept the constitution, as
the means of securing to us the great mass of good it contained, and
that the four last might reject it, as the means of obtaining
amendments. But I was corrected in this wish, the moment I saw the
much better. plan of Massachusetts, and which had never occurred to
me. With respect to the declaration of rights, I suppose the majority
of the United States are of my opinion; for I apprehend, all the
anti-federalists and a very respectable proportion of the federalists,
think that such a declaration should now be annexed. The enlightened
part of Europe have given us the greatest credit for inventing the
instrument of security for the rights of the people, and have been not
a little surprised to see us so soon give it up. With respect to the
re-eligibility of the President, I find myself differing from the
majority of my countrymen; for I think there are but three States out
of the eleven which have desired an alteration of this. And indeed,
since the thing is established, I would wish it not to be altered
during the life of our great leader, whose executive talents are
superior to those, I believe, of any man in the world, and who, alone,
by the authority of his name and the confidence reposed in his perfect
integrity, is fully qualified to put the new government so under way,
as to secure it against the efforts of opposition. But, having derived
from our error all the good there was in it, I hope we shall correct
it, the moment we can no longer have the same name at the helm.
to Francis Hopkinson, 13 March 1789
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