profoundness and importance. With all his qualifications however I greatly overrate or he greatly underrates the task in which he has been so anxious to employ his intellectual labors and treasures, for the reformation of our Code of laws, especially in the advanced age at which the work was to be commenced. And I own that I find some difficulty in reconciling the confidence he feels in the adequacy of his powers not only for a digest of our Statutes into a concise and clear system, but a reduction of our unwritten to a text law, with that penetrating and accurate judgment for which he has the reputation. The disinterestedness and friendly zeal, nevertheless, which dictated the offer of his services to our Country are entitled to its acknowledgments, and no one can join in them with more cordiality than myself.

I have looked over & return the letters from Gov Plumer and his son. The work conceived by the latter, and the manner in which he has presented an outline of it, indicate talents which merit cultivation & encouragement. The best answer I can give to your communication on the subject of his wish for a copy of the Journal of the Convention, is to state the circumstance, that at the close of the Convention, the question having arisen what was to be done with the Journal & the other papers, and it being suggested that they ought to be either destroyed or deposited in the Custody of the Presid it was determined that

VOL. VIII.-26

they should remain in his hands subject only to the orders of the National Legislature. Whether a publication of them ought to be promoted, as having a useful tendency, you will probably be better able to decide, on a perusal of the document than one who cannot take the same abstract view of the subject.1

I cannot be insensible to the terms in which you refer to the official relations which have subsisted between us, but must disclaim the obligations which you consider as lying on your side. The results of what took place on mine prove that I only avoided the demerit of a different course. Be pleased Sir to accept assurances of my continued esteem and of my friendly respects.

TO HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER.

MAD. MSS.

MONTP. Dec' 23, 1817.

DR SIR I have recd your favor of the 18th, inclosing the Report on Roads & Canals.2

I respect too much the right and the duty of the Rep of the people to examine for themselves, the merits of all questions before them, and am too conscious of my own fallibility, to view the most rigid & critical examination of the particular question referred to your Committee, with any other feeling than a solicitude for a result favorable to truth and the public good.

1 Published in 1819. See ante, Vol. III, p. 14.

2 Tucker's report was submitted to the House December 15th.— Annals of Cong., 15th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. i., p. 415.

I am not unaware that my belief, not to say knowledge of the views of those who proposed the Constitution, and, what is of more importance my deep impression as to the views of those who bestowed on it the stamp of Authority, may influence my interpretation of the Instrument. On the other hand it is not impossible, that those who consult the Instrument without a danger of that bias, may be exposed to an equal one in their anxiety to find in its text an authority for a particular measure of great apparent Utility.

I must pray you, my dear Sir, to be assured that, altho' I cannot concur in the latitude of Construction taken in the Report, or in the principle that the Consent of States, even of a single one, can enlarge the jurisdiction of the Gen! Govt or in the force & extent allowed to precedents & analogies introduced into the Report, I do not permit this difference of opinion to diminish my esteem for the talents, or my confidence in the motives of its Author. I am far more disposed to acknowledge my thankfulness, for the polite attention shewn in forwarding the document, and for the friendly expressions which accompanied it. Be pleased to accept a sincere return of them.

TO JAMES MONROE.

MAD. MSS.

MONTPELLIER, Dec. 27, 1817

DEAR SIR Your favor of the 22d has been duly I am so much aware that you have not a

reca

moment to spare from your public duties, that I insist on your never answering my letters out of mere civility. This rule I hope will be applied to the present as well as future letters.

My quere as to the expedition agts Amelia Island turned solely on the applicability of the Executive power to such a case. That relating to the right to Indian lands was suggested by the principle which has limited the claim of the U. S. to a right of pre-emption. It seemed also that an unqualified right of a Civilized people to land used by people in the hunter-state, on the principle that the earth was intended for those who would make it most conducive to the sustenance & increase of the human race, might imply a right in a people cultivating it with the Spade, to say to one using the plow, either adopt our mode, or let us substitute it ourselves. It might also be not easy to repel the claims of those without land in other Countries, if not in our own, to vacant lands within the U. S. likely to remain for a long period unproductive of human food. The quere was not meant to contest the doctrine of the Message, under qualifications which were probably entertained without being specified.

The Cumberland road having been a measure taken during the administration of Mr. Jefferson, and, as far as I recollect, not then brought to my particular attention, I cannot assign the grounds assumed for it by Congress, or which produced his sanction. I suspect that the question of Consti

tutionality was but slightly if at all examined by the former. And that the Executive assent was doubtingly or hastily given. Having once become a law, and being a measure of singular utility, additional appropriations took place, of course under the same Administration, and, with the accumulated impulse thence derived, were continued under the succeeding one, with less of critical investigation perhaps than was due to the case. Be all this as it may, the case is distinguished from that now before Congress, by the circumstances 1. that the road was undertaken essentially for the accommodation of a portion of the Country with respect to which Congs have a general power not applicable to other portions. 2. that the funds appropriated, & which alone have been applied, were also under a general power of Congs not applicable to other funds. As a precedent, the case is evidently without the weight allowed to that of the National Bank which had been often a subject of solemn discussion in Congs had long engaged the critical attention of the public, and had received reiterated & deliberate sanctions of every branch of the Govt, to all which had been superadded many positive concurrences of the States, and implied ones by the people at large. The Bank case is analogous to that of the Carriage tax, which was generally regarded by those who opposed the Bank as a direct tax & therefore unconstitutional, and did not receive their acquiescence untill these objections were superseded by the highest Judicial as well as other