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

TO JONATHAN DAYTON - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 10 (Correspondence and Papers 1803-1807) [1905]

Edition used:

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 10.

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 JONATHAN DAYTON

j. mss.

Monticello Aug. 17, 07.

Sir,

—I received your letter of the 6th inst requesting my interference to have you admitted to bail, and I have considered it with a sincere disposition to administer every relief from unnecessary suffering, which lies within the limits of my regular authority. But when a person charged with an offence is placed in the possession of the judiciary authority, the laws commit to that solely the whole direction of the case; and any interference with it on the part of the Executive would be an encroachment on their independence, and open to just censure. And still more censurable would this be in a case originating, as yours does, not with the Executive, but an independent authority. I am persuaded therefore, that on reconsideration, you will be sensible that, in declining to interpose in the present case, I do but obey the vigorous prescriptions of duty. [I do it however with the less regret as I presume that the same provisions of the law which have given to the principal defendant the accommodation of common apartments, give the same right to yourself and every other defendant, in a country where the application of equal law to every condition of man is a fundamental principle.]1

[1 ]Part in brackets struck out.