University of Virginia Library

TO N. P. TRIST

Dear Sir Your favors of the 18th. have been
duly recd. I am sorry you thought an apology
necessary for the delay in sending me the residue of
my letters to Mr. Jefferson; and rather surprized
that you should be scrupulous of reading any of
them. I took for granted that you would regard them,
as on his files equally open tho' less entitled to inspection
than his to me. In forwarding the parcels
you are so obliging as to gather for me, it may be
best to wait for a private & direct conveyance, if
such an one be near in propect. Otherwise there is
so little risk in so short a distance by the mail, that I
have no objection to that conveyance.

Before I recd. your letter I had not adverted
to the criticism in the Advocate on Mr. Rush; nor
even read the criticism on the criticism, being
diverted from it by the signature, which, I ascribed
to the author who has published so much under it,
and whose views of every branch of the subject I
thought myself sufficiently acquainted with.

I had indeed read but skimmingly the Treasury
Report itself. I was certainly not struck with the
passage in question as a heresy, and suspect that it
must have been misunderstood by those who denounce
it as such.[97]

How far or in what mode it may be proper to
countervail by encouragements to Manufactures, the
invitations given to Agriculture, by superadding to
other lands in the Market the vast field of cheap &
fertile lands opened by Congs., is assuredly a fair
subject for discussion. But that such a field is attractive
to Agriculture as much as an augmentation
of profits is to Manufactures, I conceive to be almost
luce clarius. It is true that as the enlarged sale of
fertile lands may be increasing the food & other
articles in Market cheapen them to the manufacturer,
and so far operate for a time at least as an encouragement
to him; but the advantage bears in this case
no proportion to the effect of a redundancy of cheap
& fertile lands in drawing of capital as well as that
class of population from which manufactories are
to be recruited.

The actual fall in the price of land particularly in
Virginia may be attributed to several causes 1. to
the uncertainty & low prices of the crops. 2. to the
quantity of land thrown into market by debtors,
and the defect of purchasers, both owing to the

general condition of the people, not difficult but unnecessary
to be explained. But the 3 and main cause
is the low price at which fertile lands in the Western
market are attainable; tempting the owners here to
sell out & convert the proceeds, or as much of them
as they can spare, into cheaper & better lands there.

Nothing would be further from my wishes than to
withhold at proper prices, a fair supply, of the
Natl. domain to Emigrants, whether of choice or of
necessity: But how can it be doubted that in
proportion as the supply should be reduced in
quantity or raised in price, emigration would be
checked and the price of land here augmented.

Put the case that the dividing mountains were to
become, an impassable barrier to further emigrations,
is it not obvious that the price of land on this
side, except so far as other temporary causes might
be a check, would spring up the moment the fact
was known. Or take another case: that the population
on the other side, instead of being there had
remained & been added to the number on this, can it
be believed that the price of land on this would be
as low as it is. Suppose finally a general reflux of
the Western population into the old States, a like
effect on the price of land can be still less doubted.

That the redundancy & cheapness of land is unfavorable
to manufactures, in a degree even beyond
the comparative profitableness of the labour bestowed,
is shewn by experience, and is easily explained.
The pride of ownership when this exists or
is expected, the air of great freedom, the less of

constancy & identity of application, are known to
seduce to rural life the drudges in workshops. What
wd. be the condition of Birmingham or Manchester
were 40 or 50 millions of fertile acres placed at an
easy distance and offered at the price of our Western
lands? What a transfer of capital, & difficulty of
retaining or procuring operatives wd. ensue! And
altho' the addition to the products of the earth, by
cheapening the necessaries of life, might seem to
favor manufactures, the advantage would be vastly
overbalanced by the increased price of labour
produced by the new demand for it, and by the
superior attractiveness of the agricultural demand.

Why do such numbers flee annually from the more
populous to less populous parts of the U. S. where
land is cheaper? Evidently Because less labour, is
more competent to supply the necessaries & comforts
of life. Can an instance be produced of emigrants
from the soil of the West, to the manufactories
of Massts or Pena.

Among the effects of the transmigration from the
Atlantic region to the ultra-montane, it is not to be
overlooked that besides reducing the price of land
in the former by diminishing the proportion of
inhabitants; it reduces it still further by reducing
the value of its products in glutted markets. This is
the result at which the reasoning of the——[98] fairly
arrived, and justifies the appeal made to the interest
of the Southern farmers & planters on the question

of having the same people for consumers of their
vendibles, or rival producers of them.

But whilst I do justice to the successful reasoning in
the case, I take the liberty of remarking, that in comparing
land with machinery or materials an important
distinction shd. be kept in view. Land unlike the
latter, is a co-operating self-agent, with a surface
not extendible by art, as machines & in many cases
materials also, may be multiplied by it. Arkwright's
machine, which co-operates a thousand times as
much with human agency as the Earth does, being
multipliable indefinitely, soon sinks in the price to
the mere cost of construction. Were the surface
or the fertility of the earth Equally susceptible of
increase, artificial & indefinite the cases would be
parallel. The earth is rather a source; than an
instrument or material for the supplies of manufactũg,
except when used in potting & brick work.

Having thus undertaken to criticise a criticism
on a point of some amount I will indulge the mood
as to a very minute one. You use the word "doubtlessly."
As you may live long, and may write much,
it might be worth while to save the reiterated
trouble of two supernumerary letters if they were
merely such. But if there be no higher authority
than the Lexicography of Johnson, the ly is
apocryphal: And if not so, the cacophony alone of
the elongated word ought to banish it; doubtless
being, without doubt, an adverb, as well as an adjective,
and more used in the former than the latter
character.