terity, 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.
What has heretofore passed between us on this institution, makes it my
duty to mention to you, that 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. I did not
apprehend this, while I had American ideas only. But I confess that
what I have seen in Europe has brought me over to that opinion; and
that though the day may be at some distance, beyond the reach of our
lives perhaps, yet it will certainly come, 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. With us, the
branches of this institution cover all the States. The southern ones,
at this time, are aristocratical in their dispositions; and, that that
spirit should grow and extend itself, is within the natural order of
things. 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.

An interruption here, and the departure of the gentleman by whom I send
this, oblige me to conclude it, with assurances of th