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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO WILLIAM SHORT 1 - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 7 (Correspondence 1792-1793) [1905]

Edition used:

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 7

Part of: The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO WILLIAM SHORT1

October 16, 1792.

* * * You complain of silence and reserve on my part with respect to the diplomatic nominations in which you are interested. Had you been here there should have been no silence or reserve, and I long for the moment when I can unbosom to you all that passed on that occasion. But to have trusted such communications to writing, and across the Atlantic, would have been an indiscretion which nothing could have excused. I dropped you short and pregnant sentences from time to time as, duly pondered, would have suggested to you such material circumstances as I knew. You say that silence and reserve were not observed as to Mr. Morris, who knew he was to be appointed. No man upon earth knew he was to be appointed 24 hours before he was appointed but the President himself, and he who wrote Mr. Morris otherwise wrote him a lie. It may be asked how I can affirm that nobody else knew it. I can affirm it from my knowledge of the P’s character, and from what passed between us.

The people of Virginia are beginning to call for a new constitution for their State. This symptom of their wishes will probably bring over Mr. Henry to the proposition. He has been the great obstacle to it hitherto; but you know he is always alive to catch the first sensation of the popular breeze, that he may take the lead of that which in truth leads him. * * *

[1 ]From the Southern Bivouac, II., 434.