Our instructions relative to the Barbary states having required us to proceed by way of negotiation to obtain their peace, it became our duty to do this to the best of our power. Whatever might be our private opinions, they were to be suppressed, and the line marked out to us, was to be followed. It has been so honestly, and zealously.
…
These are the reasons which have influenced my judgment on this question. I give them to you to shew you that I am imposed on by a semblance of reason at least, and not with an expectation of their changing your opinion. You have viewed the subject, I am sure in all it’s bearings. You have weighed both questions with all their circumstances. You make the result different from what I do. The same facts impress us differently. This is enough to make me suspect an error in my process of reasoning tho’ I am not able to detect it.
Trump writes - and thinks! - like a young and petulant schoolchild in comparison with Jefferson.
Compare with Jefferson’s letter to Adams on the matter of the Barbary states …
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0058
Trump writes - and thinks! - like a young and petulant schoolchild in comparison with Jefferson.