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Linn County
Sheriff's Office History |
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What
Defines a Sheriff |
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REFORM OF THE VIRGINIA CONSTITUTION
To Samuel Kercheval
Monticello, July 12, 1816
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SIR, -- I duly received your favor of June the
13th, with the copy of the letters on the calling a convention,
on which you are pleased to ask my opinion. I have not been
in the habit of mysterious reserve on any subject, nor of buttoning
up my opinions within my own doublet. On the contrary, while
in public service especially, I thought the public entitled
to frankness, and intimately to know whom they employed. But
I am now retired: I resign myself, as a passenger, with confidence
to those at present at the helm, and ask but for rest, peace
and good will. The question you propose, on equal representation,
has become a party one, in which I wish to take no public share.
Yet, if it be asked for your own satisfaction only, and not
to be quoted before the public, I have no motive to withhold
it, and the less from you, as it coincides with your own. At
the birth of our republic, I committed that opinion to the world,
in the draught of a constitution annexed to the "Notes
on Virginia," in which a provision was inserted for a representation
permanently equal. The infancy of the subject at that moment,
and our inexperience of self-government, occasioned gross departures
in that draught from genuine republican canons. In truth, the
abuses of monarchy had so much filled all the space of political
contemplation, that we imagined everything republican which
was not monarchy. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle,
that "governments are republican only in proportion as
they embody the will of their people, and execute it."
Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principles
in them. But experience and reflection have but more and more
confirmed me in the particular importance of the equal representation
then proposed. On that point, then, I am entirely in sentiment
with your letters; and only lament that a copy- right of your
pamphlet prevents their appearance in the newspapers, where
alone they would be generally read, and produce general effect.
The present vacancy too, of other matter, would give them place
in every paper, and bring the question home to every man's conscience.
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But inequality of representation in both Houses
of our legislature, is not the only republican heresy in this
first essay of our revolutionary patriots at forming a constitution.
For let it be agreed that a government is republican in proportion
as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction
of its concerns (not indeed in person, which would be impracticable
beyond the limits of a city, or small township, but) by representatives
chosen by himself, and responsible to him at short periods,
and let us bring to the test of this canon every branch of our
constitution. |
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In the legislature, the House of Representatives
is chosen by less than half the people, and not at all in proportion
to those who do choose. The Senate are still more disproportionate,
and for long terms of irresponsibility. In the Executive, the
Governor is entirely independent of the choice of the people,
and of their control; his Council equally so, and at best but
a fifth wheel to a wagon. In the Judiciary, the judges of the
highest courts are dependent on none but themselves. In England,
where judges were named and removable at the will of an hereditary
executive, from which branch most misrule was feared, and has
flowed, it was a great point gained, by fixing them for life,
to make them independent of that executive. But in a government
founded on the public will, this principle operates in an opposite
direction, and against that will. There, too, they were still
removable on a concurrence of the executive and legislative
branches. But we have made them independent of the nation itself.
They are irremovable, but by their own body, for any depravities
of conduct, and even by their own body for the imbecilities
of dotage. The justices of the inferior courts are self- chosen,
are for life, and perpetuate their own body in succession forever,
so that a faction once possessing themselves of the bench of
a county, can never be broken up, but hold their county in chains,
forever indissoluble. Yet these justices are the real executive
as well as judiciary, in all our minor and most ordinary concerns.
They tax us at will; fill the office of sheriff, the most important
of all the executive officers of the county; name nearly all
our military leaders, which leaders, once named, are removable
but by themselves. The juries, our judges of all fact, and of
law when they choose it, are not selected by the people, nor
amenable to them. They are chosen by an officer named by the
court and executive. Chosen, did I say? Picked up by the sheriff
from the loungings of the court yard, after everything respectable
has retired from it. Where then is our republicanism to be found?
Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit
of our people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us
republicanly. Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form
of our constitution, all things have gone well. But this fact,
so triumphantly misquoted by the enemies of reformation, is
not the fruit of our constitution, but has prevailed in spite
of it. Our functionaries have done well, because generally honest
men. If any were not so, they feared to show it. |
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But it will be said, it is easier to find faults
than to amend them. I do not think their amendment so difficult
as is pretended. Only lay down true principles, and adhere to
them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by
the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against
the ascendency of the people. If experience be called for, appeal
to that of our fifteen or twenty governments for forty years,
and show me where the people have done half the mischief in
these forty years, that a single despot would have done in a
single year; or show half the riots and rebellions, the crimes
and the punishments, which have taken place in any single nation,
under kingly government, during the same period. The true foundation
of republican government is the equal right of every citizen,
in his person and property, and in their management. Try by
this, as a tally, every provision of our constitution, and see
if it hangs directly on the will of the people. Reduce your
legislature to a convenient number for full, but orderly discussion.
Let every man who fights or pays, exercise his just and equal
right in their election. Submit them to approbation or rejection
at short intervals. Let the executive be chosen in the same
way, and for the same term, by those whose agent he is to be;
and leave no screen of a council behind which to skulk from
responsibility. It has been thought that the people are not
competent electors of judges learned in the law. But I do not
know that this is true, and, if doubtful, we should follow principle.
In this, as in many other elections, they would be guided by
reputation, which would not err oftener, perhaps, than the present
mode of appointment. In one State of the Union, at least, it
has long been tried, and with the most satisfactory success.
The judges of Connecticut have been chosen by the people every
six months, for nearly two centuries, and believe there has
hardly ever been an instance of change; so powerful is the curb
of incessant responsibility. If prejudice, however, derived
from a monarchical institution, is still to prevail against
the vital elective principle of our own, and if the existing
example among ourselves of periodical election of judges by
the people be still mistrusted, let us at least not adopt the
evil, and reject the good, of the English precedent; let us
retain amovability on the concurrence of the executive and legislative
branches, and nomination by the executive alone. Nomination
to office is an executive function. To give it to the legislature,
as we do, is a violation of the principle of the separation
of powers. It swerves the members from correctness, by temptations
to intrigue for office themselves, and to a corrupt barter of
votes; and destroys responsibility by dividing it among a multitude.
By leaving nomination in its proper place, among executive functions,
the principle of the distribution of power is preserved, and
responsibility weighs with its heaviest force on a single head.
The organization of our county administrations may be thought
more difficult. But follow principle, and the knot unties itself.
Divide the counties into wards of such size as that every citizen
can attend, when called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them
the government of their wards in all things relating to themselves
exclusively. A justice, chosen by themselves, in each, a constable,
a military company, a patrol, a school, the care of their own
poor, their own portion of the public roads, the choice of one
or more jurors to serve in some court, and the delivery, within
their own wards, of their own votes for all elective officers
of higher sphere, will relieve the county administration of
nearly all its business, will have it better done, and by making
every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the
offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him
by his strongest feelings to the independence of his country,
and its republican constitution. The justices thus chosen by
every ward, would constitute the county court, would do its
judiciary business, direct roads and bridges, levy county and
poor rates, and administer all the matters of common interest
to the whole country. These wards, called townships in New England,
are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved
themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man
for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation.
We should thus marshal our government into, 1, the general federal
republic, for all concerns foreign and federal; 2, that of the
State, for what relates to our own citizens exclusively; 3,
the county republics, for the duties and concerns of the county;
and 4, the ward republics, for the small, and yet numerous and
interesting concerns of the neighborhood; and in government,
as well as in every other business of life, it is by division
and subdivision of duties alone, that all matters, great and
small, can be managed to perfection. And the whole is cemented
by giving to every citizen, personally, a part in the administration
of the public affairs. |
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The sum of these amendments is, 1. General Suffrage.
2. Equal representation in the legislature. 3. An executive
chosen by the people. 4. Judges elective or amovable. 5. Justices,
jurors, and sheriffs elective. 6. Ward divisions. And 7. Periodical
amendments of the constitution. |
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I have thrown out these as loose heads of amendment,
for consideration and correction; and their object is to secure
self-government by the republicanism of our constitution, as
well as by the spirit of the people; and to nourish and perpetuate
that spirit. I am not among those who fear the people. They,
and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.
And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers
load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between
economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into
such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our
drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and
our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people
of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen
hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these
to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the
sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live,
as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think,
no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad
to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains
on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our landholders, too,
like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates
called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must
wander, like theirs, in foreign countries, and be contented
with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory of the nation.
This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes
are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.
And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure
from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second;
that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society
is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities
left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the
bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to
be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural,
instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this
frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in
its train wretchedness and oppression. |
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Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious
reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred
to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age
a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond
amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored
with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the
present, but without the experience of the present; and forty
years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading;
and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the
dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried
changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections
had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate
ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their
ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must
go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that
becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries
are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change
with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance
also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require
a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as
civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their
barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which has
lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely
yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring
progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung
to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and
obliged their subjects to seek through blood and violence rash
and ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred to the
peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would
have been put into acceptable and salutary forms. Let us follow
no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is
not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering
its own affairs. Let us, as our sister States have done, avail
ourselves of our reason and experience, to correct the crude
essays of our first and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous,
and well-meaning councils. And lastly, let us provide in our
constitution for its revision at stated periods. What these
periods should be, nature herself indicates. By the European
tables of mortality, of the adults living at any one moment
of time, a majority will be dead in about nineteen years. At
the end of that period, then, a new majority is come into place;
or, in other words, a new generation. Each generation is as
independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had
gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself
the form of government it believes most promotive of its own
happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances
in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors;
and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity
of doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided
by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical
repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time,
if anything human can so long endure. It is now forty years
since the constitution of Virginia was formed. The same tables
inform us, that, within that period, two-thirds of the adults
then living are now dead. Have then the remaining third, even
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 everything 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 the best for themselves. But how collect their voice?
This is the real difficulty. If invited by private authority,
or 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 forever.
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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. shall, with not the less truth, assure
you of my great respect and consideration.
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http://etext.virginia.edu |
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