University of Virginia Library

4735. LIES, Political.—[continued].

Many of the [federal] lies would have required only a simple denial,
but I saw that even that would have led
to the infalliable inference, that whatever I
had not denied was to be presumed true. I
have, therefore, never done even this, but to
such of my friends as happen to converse on
these subjects, and I have never believed that
my character could hang upon every two-penny
lie of our common enemies.—
To William A. Burwell. Ford ed., ix, 230.
(W. 1808)