can polity, and of seeking the annihilation
of the State Governments. He was called a monarchist and a
consolidationist. These misrepresentations of his opinions and acts were
forever dispelled, according to the views of honest and unprejudiced
men, by the publication of a letter which he wrote to Timothy Pickering,
in 1803. In that letter he said,--"The highest-toned propositions which
I made to the Convention were for a President, Senate, and Judges,
during good behavior, and a House of Representatives for three years.
Though I would have enlarged the legislative power of the General
Government, yet I never contemplated the abolition of the State
Governments; but, on the contrary, they were, in some particulars,
constituent parts of my plan. This plan was, in my conception,
conformable with the strict theory of a government purely republican;
the essential criteria of which are, that the principal organs of the
executive and legislative departments be elected by the people, and hold
the office by a responsible and temporary or defeasible nature.... I may
truly, then, say that I never proposed either a President or Senate for
life, and that I neither recommended nor meditated the annihilation of
State Governments.... It is a fact that my final opinion was against an
executive during good behavior, on account of the increased danger to
the public tranquillity incident to the election of a magistrate of his
degree of permanency. In the plan of a constitution which I drew up
while the Convention was sitting, and which I communicated to Mr.
Madison about the close of it, perhaps a day or two after, the office of
President has no longer duration than for three years. This plan was
predicated upon these bases: 1. That the political principles of the
people of this country would endure nothing but a republican government;
2. That, in the actual situation of the country, it was itself right and
proper that the republican theory should have a full and fair trial; 3.
That to such a trial it was essential that the government should be so
constructed as to give it all the energy and the stability reconcilable
with the principles of that theory. These were the genuine sentiments of
my heart; and upon them I then acted. I sincerely hope that it may not
hereafter be discovered, that, through want of sufficient attention to
the last idea, the experiment of republican government, even in this
country, has not been as complete, as satisfa