6665. PICKERING (Timothy), Jefferson and.—
I could not have believed that for
so many years, and to such a period of advanced
age, Mr. Pickering could have nourished passions
so vehement and viperous. It appears
that for thirty years past, he has been industriously
collecting materials for vituperating the
characters he had marked for his hatred; some
of whom, certainly, if enmities towards him had
ever existed, had forgotten them all, or buried
them in the grave with themselves. As to myself,
there never had been anything personal between
us, nothing but the general opposition of
party sentiment; and our personal intercourse
had been that of urbanity, as himself says. But
it seems he has been all this time brooding
over an enmity which I had never felt, and that
with respect to myself, as well as others, he has
been writing far and near, and in every direction,
to get hold of original letters, where he
could, copies, where he could not, certificates
and journals, catching at every gossiping story
he could hear of in any quarter, supplying by
suspicions what he could find nowhere else, and
then arguing on this motley farrago as if established
on gospel evidence. * * * He
arraigns me on two grounds, my actions and my
motives. The very actions, however, which he
arraigns, have been such as the great majority
of my fellow citizens have approved. The approbation
of Mr. Pickering and of those who
thought with him, I had no right to expect.
My motives he chooses to ascribe to hypocrisy,
to ambition, and a passion for popularity. Of
these the world must judge between us. It is
no office of his or mine. To that tribunal I
have ever submitted my actions and motives,
without ransacking the Union for certificates,
letters, journals and gossiping tales to justify
myself and weary them. * * * If no action
is to be deemed virtuous for which malice
can imagine a sinister motive, then there never
was a virtuous action; no, not even in the life
of our Saviour himself. But He has taught us
to judge the tree by its fruit and to leave motives
to Him who can alone see into them.
* * * I leave to its fate the libel of Mr.
Pickering, with the thousands of others like it,
to which I have given no other answer than a
steady course of similar action * * *.—
To Martin Van Buren. Washington ed. vii, 362.
Ford ed., x, 305.
(M.
1824)
See Declaration of Independence.
