Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826 to Dr. David Hosack
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00262 Author/Creator: Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826 Place Written: Monticello, Virginia Type: Autograph letter signed Date: May 11, 1821 Pagination: 1 p. : free frank Height: 25 cm, Width: 21 cm Order a Copy
The letter is free franked. Jefferson thanks Hosack for a paper on Nosology, or classification of diseases, a topic that might have interested a man of science like Jefferson, since classification might help find cures. He soon turns to the exciting news of a revolution in Naples which, he writes "secures the efforts of Spain & Portugal, and must cheer the mind of every man of Philanthropy with the prospect it holds up of the extension of representative government to the whole continent of Europe except Russia which too in the end will become capable of it. In what a glorious station does it place us at the head of the world in a revolution from the despotism under which they have been held through all time, or a maniac licentiousness[,] to a state of well regulated liberty of which we have furnished the example."
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