if they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their will, and to laws heretofore made by them, the other two thirds, who, with themselves, compose the present mass of adults?  If they have not, who has?  The dead?  But the dead have no rights.  They are nothing; and nothing cannot own something.  Where there is no substance, there can be no accident.  This corporeal globe, and every thing upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation.  They alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction:  and this declaration can only be made by their majority.  That majority, then, has a right to depute representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution what they think will be best for themselves.  But how collect their voice?  This is the real difficulty.  If invited by private authority to county or district meetings, these divisions are so large, that few will attend; and their voice will be imperfectly or falsely pronounced.  Here, then, would be one of the advantages of the ward divisions I have proposed.  The mayor of every ward, on a question like the present, would call his ward together, take the simple yea or nay of its members, convey these to the county court, who would hand on those of all its wards to the proper general authority; and the voice of the whole people would be thus fairly, fully, and peaceably expressed, discussed, and decided by the common reason of the society.  If this avenue be shut to the call of sufferance, it will make itself heard through that of force, and we shall go on, as other nations are doing, in the endless circle of oppression, rebellion, reformation; and oppression, rebellion, reformation, again; and so on, for ever.

These, Sir, are my opinions of the governments we see among men, and of the principles by which alone we may prevent our own from falling into the same dreadful track.  I have given them at greater length than your letter called for.  But I cannot say things by halves; and I confide them to your honor, so to use them as to preserve me from the gridiron of the public papers.  If you shall approve and enforce them, as you have done that of equal representation, they may do some good.  If not, keep them to yourself as the effusions of withered age, and useless time.  I shall, with not the Less truth, assure you of my great respect and consideration.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXXXVI.—­TO JOHN TAYLOR, July 21, 1816

TO JOHN TAYLOR.

Monticello, July 21, 1816.

Dear Sir,