Jefferson, Thomas

1 page (7 x 7 1/4 in.; 178 x 183 mm; sight) on wove paper, Monticello, 15 February 1821; browned, a few short fold separations. Matted, framed and glazed with a portrait of Jefferson.

1 page (7 x 7 1/4 in.; 178 x 183 mm; sight) on wove paper, Monticello, 15 February 1821; browned, a few short fold separations. Matted, framed and glazed with a portrait of Jefferson.
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Jefferson finds parallels between American Indians and the ancient Spartans. Henry Wheaton was a lawyer, jurist, and diplomat. In December 1820, he delivered the anniversary discourse at the New-York Historical Society, taking as his subject not the history of the United States, but "the science of public or international law." John Adams, John Marshall, and Thomas Jefferson all praised the work, although Jefferson's comments also reveal his prejudices towards Native Americans.

"I thank you, Sir, for the very able Discourse you have been so kind to send me on international law. I concur much in it's doctrines, and very particularly in it's estimate of the Lacedaemonian character. how such a tribe of savages ever acquired the admiration of the world has always been beyond my comprehension. I can view them but on a level with our American Indians, and I see in Logan, Tecumseh & the little Turtle fair parallel to for their Brasidas, Agesilaus &tc. the difficulty is to conceive that such a horde of Barbarians could so long remain unimproved, in the neighborhood of a people so polished as the Athenians; to whom they owe altogether that their name is now known to the world. all the good that can be said of them is that they were as brave as bull-dogs."

Wheaton greatly expanded his theme in Elements of International Law (1836), which became the standard work on the subject for decades. The 1821 publication of the Discourse is very rare; Jefferson's copy is unrecorded in Sowerby's Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson.