William Johnson to Thomas Jefferson, 11 August 1823
From William Johnson
Charleston August 11. 1823
My dear Sir
The last mail brought me yours of the 31st ult. conveying the painful Intelligence of your Indisposition. I trust that ere the receipt of this it will have pleased the divine Disposer of all things to restore you to Health.
I thank you for the Enclosures that it covered, they shall command my early and candid Consideration, and the Result shall furnish the Subject of a future Communication. You may rest assured that your Caution respecting Mr Madison shall be faithfully attended to. I attach great Sanctity1 to all Communications made to me in private Correspondence.
I am also indebted to you for your invaluable Communications of June 12th containing many Observations which I sincerely wish could be made public with the Sanction of your name. I acknowledge to you my dear Sir, that I have some times some gloomy Doubts crossing my mind respecting the Destiny of our beloved Country. Those who cannot govern us may perhaps succeed in dividing us. That greatest of Evils Disunion, appears to be losing its Terrors. My Ears are shocked at Times by Expressions that I hear on this Subject. I enclose you a Copy of an Opinion which I had to deliver a few Days ago which will excite some surprise. The very Men who not long since made such an Outcry against self-created Societies are now heading a most formidable one in this Place. How far they will go God knows. I hope there may be temperate men enough among them to control the furious Passions and false Policy which govern most of them. That unhappy Missouri-discussion shewed its Effects in Blood the last year and will shew them in Persecution for many a year to come. If it be true that “quem Cælum perdere vult prius dementat” I have received a Warning to quit this City. I fear nothing so much as the Effects of the persecuting Spirit that is abroad in this Place. Should it spread thro’ the State & produce a systematic Policy founded on the ridiculous but prevalent notion that it is a struggle for Life or Death, there are no Excesses that we may not look for—whatever be their Effect upon the Union. They are really exemplifying your Observations on their general Principles of Government. They now pronounce the Negros the real Jacobins of this Country, and in doing so shew what they meant when they honored us with the same Epithet.
With a most unaffected Anxiety for your Health & Happiness I subscribe myself
Willm Johnson
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 21 Aug. 1823 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: manuscript or printed version of The Opinion of the Hon. William Johnson, delivered on the 7th August, 1823, in the case of the arrest of the British Seaman under the 3d section of the State Act, entitled, “An Act for the better Regulation of Free Negroes and Persons of Colour, and for other purposes,” passed in December last (n.p., 1823?), stating that the legislation requires that free persons of color entering South Carolina ports or harbors be detained until the vessel that brought them departs, that the captain who transported them is to pay the cost of their detention, and that they be sold as slaves if he proves unwilling or unable to do so; arguing that the above provisions are unfair and contrary to United States law and treaty obligations; worrying that they will lead to retaliation, foreign and domestic, possibly to armed conflict, and potentially to the dissolution of the Union; stating that “the third clause of the act … is clearly unconstitutional and void” (p. 15); and concluding first that, as a federal judge he lacks the power in a state case to issue a writ of habeas corpus for the release from custody of Henry Elkison, the mariner in question, and second that, while he could issue a different writ ordering his conditional release on bond, he doubted that it would be effectual.
In November 1794 President George Washington publicly condemned the organization of a network of Democratic-Republican associations, arguing that these self-created societies had inappropriately “assumed the tone of condemnation” of government actions at the time of the Whiskey Rebellion (, 17:181). The current formidable equivalent was the South-Carolina Association, which, among other things, encouraged the incarceration of free mariners of color during their stays in the state, as required by law.
quem cælum perdere vult prius dementat: “Those whom Heaven wishes to destroy, it first drives mad.”
1. Manuscript: “Sactity.”
Index Entries
- African Americans; detention of free Blacks search
- Elkison, Henry; arrest of search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Health; illness of search
- Johnson, William (1771–1834); and S.C. politics search
- Johnson, William (1771–1834); and TJ’s health search
- Johnson, William (1771–1834); and U.S. politics search
- Johnson, William (1771–1834); letters from search
- Johnson, William (1771–1834); The Opinion of the Hon. William Johnson, delivered on the 7th August, 1823, in the case of the arrest of the British Seaman search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); mentioned search
- Missouri question; mentioned search
- South Carolina; detention of free Blacks entering search
- South Carolina; politics in search
- South-Carolina Association search
- The Opinion of the Hon. William Johnson, delivered on the 7th August, 1823, in the case of the arrest of the British Seaman (W. Johnson) search
- Washington, George; and Democratic-Republican associations search