Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/331

318 risking the charge of applauding Paine's assaults on Christianity, and without seeming to invite him to continue such "useful labors" in America. No man could express more delicate shades of sympathy than Jefferson when he chose. He had smarted for years under the lashing caused by his Mazzei letter, and knew that a nest of hornets would rise about him the moment the "Maryland" should arrive; yet he wrote an assurance of his "high esteem and affectionate attachment" to Paine, with a "sincere prayer" that he might "long live to continue" his "useful labors." These expressions were either deceptive, or they proved the President's earnestness and courage. The letter to Paine was not, like the letter to Mazzei, a matter of apology or explanation. Jefferson never withdrew or qualified its language, or tried to soften its effect. "With respect to the letter," he wrote to Paine in 1805, "I never hesitated to avow and to justify it in conversation. In no other way do I trouble myself to contradict anything which is said." Believing that the clergy would have taken his blood if the law had not restrained them, he meant to destroy their church if he could; and he gave them fair notice of his intention.

Although the letter to Paine was never explained away, other expressions of the President seemed to contradict the spirit of this letter, and these the President took trouble to explain. What had he meant by his famous appeal in behalf of harmony