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Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826

"Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3"

The real credit of the
United States depends on their ability, and the immutability of their
will, to pay their debts. These were as evident when their paper fell
to nineteen shillings, as when it was at twenty-seven shillings. The
momentary variation was like that in the price of corn, or any other
commodity, the result of a momentary disproportion between the demand
and supply.
The unsuccessful issue of our expedition against the savages the last
year, is not unknown to you. More adequate preparations are making
for the present year, and, in the mean time, some of the tribes have
accepted peace, and others have expressed a readiness to do the same.
Another plentiful year has been added to those which had preceded it,
and the present bids fair to be equally so. A prosperity built on the
basis of agriculture is that which is most desirable to us, because
to the efforts of labor it adds the efforts of a greater proportion of
soil. The checks, however, which the commercial regulations of Europe
have given to the sale of our produce, have produced a very considerable
degree of domestic manufacture, which, so far as it is of the household
kind, will doubtless continue, and so far as it is more public, will
depend on the continuance or discontinuance of the European policy.


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