Th: Jefferson.

P. S. I just now learn that Mr. Necker proposed yesterday to the
National Assembly a loan of eighty millions, on terms more tempting to
the lender than the former, and that they approved it, leaving him to
arrange the details, in order that they might occupy themselves at once
about the constitution. T. J.




LETTER XI.--TO JAMES MADISON, September 6, 1789


TO JAMES MADISON.

Paris, September 6, 1789.

Dear Sir,

I sit down to write to you, without knowing by what occasion I shall
send my letter. I do it, because a subject comes into my head, which I
wrould wish to develope[sp.] a little more than is practicable in the
hurry of the moment of making up general despatches.

The question, whether one generation of men has a right to bind another,
seems never to have been started either on this, or our side of the
water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit
decision, but place also among the fundamental principles of every
government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here, on