Jefferson's Letter To General Washington On Foreign Threat

 “Paris, November 14, 1786.”

“The author of the political part of the "Encyclopédie Methodique" desired me to examine his article, "Etats Unis." I did so. I found it a tissue of errors; for, in truth, they know nothing about us here.” 

 “In a work, which is sure of going down to the latest posterity, I thought it material to set facts to rights as much as possible. The author was well disposed; but could not entirely get the better of his original bias. I send you the article as ultimately published. If you find any material errors in it, and will be so good as to inform me of them, I shall probably have opportunities of setting this author to rights.”

“I have never heard a person in Europe, learned or unlearned, express his thoughts on this institution, who did not consider it as dishonorable and destructive to our governments; and that every writing which has come out since my arrival here, in which it is mentioned, considers it, even as now reformed, as the germ whose development is one day to destroy the fabric we have reared.”

“When a single fibre left of this institution will produce an hereditary aristocracy, which will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world. To know the mass of evil which flows from this fatal source, a person must be in France; he must see the finest soil, the finest climate, the most compact State, the most benevolent character of people, and every earthly advantage combined, insufficient to prevent this scourge from rendering existence a curse to twenty-four out of twenty-five parts of the inhabitants of this country.” (Jefferson saw a serious risk that a philosophy, such as heredity aristocracy, foreign to the US philosophy of freedom, could infect our infant government. Wonder how he would view the nationalistic populism being promoted these days?)

“I do not flatter myself with the immortality of our governments; but I shall think little also of their longevity, unless this germ of destruction be taken out. When the society themselves shall weigh the possibility of evil, against the impossibility of any good to proceed from this institution, I cannot help hoping they will eradicate it. I know they wish the permanence of our governments, as much as any individuals composing them.”

Excerpt From

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-writings-of-thomas-jefferson/id396135642?mt=11

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