"The author's object, in writing and compiling this Publication, is not to entertain frivolous curiosity, nor to gratify classic taste, but to disseminate useful instruction amongst all classes of society. He has long cherished a decided confidence, that if the community would appropriate as much wraith to the instruction of the rising generation, as is now devoted to the punishment of crimes and vice, the desired object would be attained, and human misery averted, to a much greater extent. But a small proportion of the people, have the means to purchase, or leisure to study voluminous systems of Moral Philosophy. On the other hand, dogmatical sententious precepts, unsupported by demonstration, are not generally convincing, nor adapted to human temper.--Whenever men shall agree to make moral rectitude their inflexible rule of action, each individual must be persuaded in his own mind, independently of the dictatorial precepts of one another, that his welfare and happiness will be thereby promoted. One particular object of the work, is to inculcate this necessity and duty of general economy and simplicity of manners. It may be confidently presumed, that if the idolatrous and slavish sacrifices of property, to pride, fashion, custom, extravagance, and depraved appetite, were abolished, Poverty, with its hideous train of woes, might be expelled from society, and general Plenty, with its smiling train of blessings, substituted in their stead. The author, having sought with patient and persevering diligence, to detect the origin of the various calamities, which afflict the human family, feels urged, by a sense of fraternal duly, to promulgate the result of his inquiries and experience; and solicits of his fellow-citizens, only such portion of their approbation and patronage as they may find his well-intended efforts entitled to"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

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A new definitive volume of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson This volume’s 627 documents feature a vast assortment of topics. Jefferson writes of his dread of “a doting old age.” He inserts an anonymous note in the Richmond Enquirer denying that he has endorsed a candidate for the next presidential election, and he publishes two letters in that newspaper under his own name to refute a Federalist claim that he once benefited by overcharging the United States Treasury. Jefferson does not reply to unsolicited letters seeking his opinion on constitutional matters, judicial review, and a call for universal white male suffrage in Virginia. Fearing that it would set a dangerous precedent, he declines appointment as patron of a new society “for the civilisation of the Indians.” Jefferson is also asked to comment on proposed improvements to stoves, lighthouses, telescopes, and navigable balloons. Citing his advanced age and stiffened wrist, he avoids detailed replies and allows his complaint to John Adams about the volume of incoming correspondence to be leaked to the press in hopes that strangers will stop deluging them both with letters. Jefferson approves of the growth of Unitarianism and predicts that “there is not a young man now living in the US. who will not die an Unitarian.”

In this book, Cleves argues that American fears of the violence of the French Revolution led to antislavery, antiwar, and public education movements.