al and selfish views of the few
who direct their affairs, has not been seen, perhaps, on earth. Or if it
existed, for a moment, at the birth of ours, it would not be easy to fix
the term of its continuance. Still, I believe it does exist here in a
greater degree than any where else; and for its growth and continuance,
as well as for your personal health and happiness, I offer sincere
prayers, with the homage of my respect and esteem.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXXXV.--TO SAMUEL KERCHIVAL, July 12, 1816

TO SAMUEL KERCHIVAL.

Monticello, July 12, 1816.

Sir,

I duly received your favor of June the 13th, with the copy of the
letters on the calling a convention, on which you are pleased to ask
my opinion. I have not been in the habit of mysterious reserve on any
subject, nor of buttoning up my opinions within my own doublet. On
the contrary, while in public service especially, I thought the public
entitled to frankness, and intimately to know whom they employed. But
I am now retired: I resign myself, as a passenger, with confidence to
those at present at the helm, and ask but for rest, peace, and good
will. The question you propose, on equal representation, has become a
party one, in which I wish to take no public share. Yet, if it be asked
for your own satisfaction only, and not to be quoted before the public,
I have no motive to withhold it, and the less from you, as it coincides
with your own. At the birth of our republic, I committed that opinion
to the world, in the draught of a constitution annexed to the Notes
on Virginia, in which a provision was inserted for a representation
permanently equal. The infancy of the subject at that moment, and our
inexperience of self-government, occasioned gross departures in that
draught from genuine republican canons. In truth, the abuses of monarchy
had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that we
imagined every thing republican which was not monarchy. We had not yet
penetrated to the mother principle, that 'governments are republican
only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute
it.' Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principle in
them. But experience and reflection have but more and more confirmed me
in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed.
On that point, then, I am entirely in sentiment with your letters; and
only lament that a copyright of your pamphlet prevents their app