***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Thomas Jefferson, by Ellis***


Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!

Please take a look at the important information in this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*

Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
further information is included below.  We need your donations.


Thomas Jefferson

by Edward S. Ellis

October, 1996  [Etext #712]


***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Thomas Jefferson, by Ellis***
*****This file should be named tjeff10.txt or tjeff10.zip******

Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, tjeff11.txt.
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tjeff10a.txt.


We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
of the official release dates, for time for better editing.

Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
new copy has at least one byte more or less.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
files per month:  or 400 more Etexts in 1996 for a total of 800.
If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
total should reach 80 billion Etexts.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only 10% of the present number of computer users.  2001
should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.


We need your donations more than ever!


All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/BU":  and are
tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (BU = Benedictine
University).  (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go to BU.)

For these and other matters, please mail to:

Project Gutenberg
P. O. Box  2782
Champaign, IL 61825

When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
Michael S. Hart <[email protected]>

We would prefer to send you this information by email
(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).

******
If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]

ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
login:  anonymous
password:  your@login
cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET INDEX?00.GUT
for a list of books
and
GET NEW GUT for general information
and
MGET GUT* for newsletters.

**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
(Three Pages)


***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
Benedictine University (the "Project").  Among other
things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
    requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
    etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
    if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
    binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
    including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
    cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
    *EITHER*:

    [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
         does *not* contain characters other than those
         intended by the author of the work, although tilde
         (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
         be used to convey punctuation intended by the
         author, and additional characters may be used to
         indicate hypertext links; OR

    [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
         no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
         form by the program that displays the etext (as is
         the case, for instance, with most word processors);
         OR

    [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
         no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
         etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
         or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
    "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
    net profits you derive calculated using the method you
    already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
    don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
    payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine
    University" within the 60 days following each
    date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
    your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
Association / Benedictine University".

*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*





[Prepared by Diane and Don Nafis, [email protected]]




Great Americans of History

THOMAS JEFFERSON

A CHARACTER SKETCH

BY EDWARD S. ELLIS, A. M. AUTHOR OF 'The People's Standard History of the
United States," "The Eclectic Primary History of the United States," Etc.

with supplementary essay by

G. MERCER ADAM Late Editor of "Self-Culture" Magazine, Etc., Etc.

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE TOGETHER WITH ANECDOTES,
CHARACTERISTICS, AND CHRONOLOGY




No golden eagle, warm from the stamping press of the mint, is more sharply
impressed with its image and superscription than was the formative period of
our government by the genius and personality of Thomas Jefferson.

Standing on the threshold of the nineteenth century, no one who attempted to
peer down the shadowy vista, saw more clearly than he the possibilities, the
perils, the pitfalls and the achievements that were within the grasp of the
Nation. None was inspired by purer patriotism.  None was more sagacious,
wise and prudent, and none understood his countrymen better.

By birth an aristocrat, by nature he was a democrat.  The most learned man
that ever sat in the president's chair, his tastes were the simple ones of a
farmer.  Surrounded by the pomp and ceremony of Washington and Adams'
courts, his dress was homely.  He despised titles, and preferred severe
plainness of speech and the sober garb of the Quakers.

"What is the date of your birth, Mr. President?" asked an admirer.

"Of what possible concern is that to you?" queried the President in turn.

"We wish to give it fitting celebration."

"For that reason, I decline to enlighten you;  nothing could be more
distasteful to me than what you propose, and, when you address me, I shall
be obliged if you will omit the 'Mr.' "

If we can imagine Washington doing so undignified a thing as did President
Lincoln, when he first met our present Secretary of State, (John Sherman)
and compared their respective heights by standing back to back, a sheet of
paper resting on the crowns of Washington and Jefferson would have lain
horizontal and been six feet two inches from the earth, but the one was
magnificent in physique, of massive frame and prodigious strength,�the other
was thin, wiry, bony, active, but with muscles of steel, while both were as
straight as the proverbial Indian arrow.

Jefferson's hair was of sandy color, his cheeks ruddy, his eyes of a light
hazel, his features angular, but glowing with intelligence and neither could
lay any claim to the gift of oratory.

Washington lacked literary ability, while in the hand of Jefferson, the pen
was as masterful as the sword in the clutch of Saladin or Godfrey of
Bouillon.  Washington had only a common school education, while Jefferson
was a classical scholar and could express his thoughts in excellent Italian,
Spanish and French, and both were masters of their temper.

Jefferson was an excellent violinist, a skilled mathematician and a profound
scholar.  Add to all these his spotless integrity and honor, his
statesmanship, and his well curbed but aggressive patriotism, and he
embodied within himself all the attributes of an ideal president of the
United States.

In the colonial times, Virginia was the South and Massachusetts the North.
The other colonies were only appendages.  The New York Dutchman dozed over
his beer and pipe, and when the other New England settlements saw the
Narragansetts bearing down upon them with upraised tomahawks, they ran for
cover and yelled to Massachusetts to save them.

Clayborne fired popguns at Lord Baltimore, and the Catholic and Protestant
Marylanders enacted Toleration Acts, and then chased one another over the
border, with some of the fugitives running all the way to the Carolinas,
where the settlers were perspiring over their efforts in installing new
governors and thrusting them out again, in the hope that a half-fledged
statesman would turn up sometime or other in the shuffle.

What a roystering set those Cavaliers were!  Fond of horse racing, cock
fighting, gambling and drinking, the soul of hospitality, quick to take
offense, and quicker to forgive,�duellists as brave as Spartans, chivalric,
proud of honor, their province, their blood and their families, they envied
only one being in the world and that was he who could establish his claim to
the possession of a strain from the veins of the dusky daughter of Powhatan
�Pocahontas.

Could such people succeed as pioneers of the wilderness?

Into the snowy wastes of New England plunged the Pilgrims to blaze a path
for civilization in the New World.  They were perfect pioneers down to the
minutest detail.  Sturdy, grimly resolute, painfully honest, industrious,
patient, moral and seeing God's hand in every affliction, they smothered
their groans while writhing in the pangs of starvation and gasped in husky
whispers:  �He doeth all things well; praise to his name!"  Such people
could not fail in their work.

And yet of the first ten presidents, New England furnished only the two
Adamses, while Virginia gave to the nation, Washington, Jefferson, Madison,
Monroe and then tapered off with Tyler.

In the War for the Union, the ten most prominent leaders were Grant,
Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Farragut, Porter, Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J. E.
Johnston and Longstreet.  Of these, four were the products of Virginia,
while none came from New England, nor did she produce a real, military
leader throughout the civil war, though she poured out treasure like water
and sent as brave soldiers to the field as ever kept step to the drum beat,
while in oratory, statesmanship and humanitarian achievement, her sons have
been leaders from the foundation of the Republic.

Thomas Jefferson was born in Shadwell, Albemarle County,Va., April 2,1743.
His father was the owner of thirty slaves and of a wheat and tobacco farm of
nearly two thousand acres.  There were ten children, Thomas being the third.
His father was considered the strongest man physically in the county, and
the son grew to be like him in that respect, but the elder died while the
younger was a boy.

Entering William and Mary College, Thomas was shy, but his ability quickly
drew attention to him.  He was an irrestrainable student, sometimes studying
twelve and fourteen hours out of the twenty-four.  He acquired the strength
to stand this terrific strain by his exercise of body.  His father warned
his wife just before his death not to allow their son to neglect this
necessity, but the warning was superfluous.  The youth was a keen hunter, a
fine horseman and as fond as Washington of out door sports.

He was seventeen years old when he entered college and was one of the
"gawkiest" students.  He was tall, growing fast, raw-boned, with prominent
chin and cheek bones, big hands and feet, sandy-haired and freckled.  His
mind broadened and expanded fast under the tutelage of Dr. William Small, a
Scotchman and the professor of mathematics, who made young Jefferson his
companion in his walks, and showed an interest in the talented youth, which
the latter gratefully remembered throughout life.

Jefferson was by choice a farmer and never lost interest in the management
of his estate.  One day, while a student at law, he wandered into the
legislature and was thrilled by the glowing speech of Patrick Henry who
replied to an interruption:

�If this be treason, make the most of it."

He became a lawyer in his twenty-fourth year, and was successful from the
first, his practice soon growing to nearly five hundred cases annually,
which yielded an income that would be a godsend to the majority of lawyers
in these days.

Ere long, the mutterings of the coming Revolution drew Jefferson aside into
the service of his country.

At the age of twenty-six (May 11, 1769), he took his seat in the House of
Burgesses, of which Washington was a member.  On the threshold of his public
career, he made the resolution which was not once violated during his life,
"never to engage, while in public office, in any kind of enterprise for the
improvement of my fortune, nor to wear any other character than that of a
farmer."  Thus, during his career of nearly half a century, he was impartial
in his consideration of questions of public interest.

His first important speech was in favor of the repeal of the law that
compelled a master when he freed his slaves to send them out of the colony.
The measure was overwhelmingly defeated, and its mover denounced as an enemy
of his country.

It was about this time that Jefferson became interested in Mrs. Martha
Wayles Skelton, a childless widow, beautiful and accomplished and a daughter
of John Wayles, a prominent member of the Williamsburg bar.  She was under
twenty years of age, when she lost her first husband, rather tall, with
luxuriant auburn hair and an exceedingly graceful manner.

She had many suitors, but showed no haste to lay aside her weeds.  The
aspirants indeed were so numerous that she might well hesitate whom to
choose, and more than one was hopeful of winning the prize.

It so happened that one evening, two of the gentlemen called at the same
time at her father's house.  They were friends, and were about to pass from
the hall into the drawing-room, when they paused at the sound of music.
Some one was playing a violin with exquisite skill, accompanied by the
harpsicord, and a lady and gentleman were singing.

There was no mistaking the violinist, for there was only one in the
neighborhood capable of so artistic work, while Mrs. Skelton had no superior
as a player upon the harpsicord, the fashionable instrument of those days.
Besides, it was easy to identify the rich, musical voice of Jefferson and
the sweet tones of the young widow.

The gentlemen looked significantly at each other.  Their feelings were the
same.

"We are wasting our time," said one; "we may as well go home."

They quietly donned their hats and departed, leaving the ground to him who
had manifestly already pre-empted it.

On New Year's day, 1772, Jefferson and Mrs. Skelton were married and no
union was more happy.  His affection was tender and romantic and they were
devoted lovers throughout her life.  Her health and wishes were his first
consideration, and he resolved to accept no post or honor that would involve
their separation, while she proved one of the truest wives with which any
man was ever blessed of heaven.  The death of his father-in-law doubled
Jefferson's estate, a year after his marriage.  His life as a gentleman
farmer was an ideal one, and it is said that as a result of experimentation,
Jefferson domesticated nearly every tree and shub, native and foreign, that
was able to stand the Virginia winters.

Jefferson's commanding ability, however, speedily thrust him into the
stirring incidents that opened the Revolution.  In September, 1774, his
"Draught of Instructions" for Virginia's delegation to the congress in
Philadelphia was presented. The convention refused to adopt his radical
views, but they were published in a pamphlet and copies were send to
England, where Edmund Burke had it republished with emendations of his own.

Great Britain viewed the paper as the extreme of insolence and punished the
author by adding his name to the list of proscriptions enrolled in a bill of
attainder.

Jefferson was present as a member of the convention, which met in the parish
church at Richmond, in March, 1775, to consider the course that Virginia
should take in the impending crisis.  It was at that meeting that Patrick
Henry electrified his hearers with the thrilling words:

"Gentlemen may cry, 'Peace, peace!' but there is no peace!  The war has
actually begun!  The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our
ears the clash of resounding arms!  Our brethren are already in the field.
Why stand we here idle?  What is it the gentlemen wish?  What would they
have?  Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery?  Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others
may take, but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY, Or GIVE ME DEATH!"

Within the following month occurred the battle of Lexington.

Washington, Jefferson and Patrick Henry were members of the committee
appointed to arrange a plan for preparing Virginia to act her part in the
struggle.  When Washington, June, 20, 1775, received his commission as
commander-in-chief of the American army, Jefferson succeeded to the vacancy
thus created, and the next day took his seat in congress.

A few hours later came the news of the battle of Bunker Hill.

Jefferson was an influential member of the body from the first.  John Adams
said of him:  "he was so prompt, frank, explicit and decisive upon
committees that he soon seized upon every heart."  Virginia promptly re-
elected him and the part he took in draughting the Declaration of
Independence is known to every school boy.

His associates on the committee were Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and
Robert R. Livingston.  It was by their request that he prepared the document
(see fac-simile, page 49,) done on the second floor of a small building, on
the corner of Market and Seventh Streets.  The house and the little desk,
constructed by Jefferson himself, are carefully preserved.

The paper was warmly debated and revised in congress on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th
of July, 1776.  The weather was oppressively hot, and on the last day an
exasperating but providential invasion of the hall by a swarm of flies
hurried the signing of the document.  Some days afterward, the committee of
which Jefferson was a member provided as a motto of the new seal, that
perfect legend,�E Pluribus Unum.

The facts connected with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence
must always be of profound interest.  The public are inclined to think that
our Magna Charta was accepted and signed with unbounded enthusiasm and that
scarcely any opposition to it appeared, but the contrary was the fact.

While Jefferson was the author of the instrument, John Adams, more than any
one man or half a dozen men brought about its adoption.  When the question
was afterward asked him, whether every member of congress cordially approved
it, he replied, "Majorities were constantly against it.  For many days the
majority depended on Mr. Hewes of North Carolina.  While a member one day
was reading documents to prove that public opinion was in favor of the
measure, Mr. Hewes suddenly started upright, and lifting up both hands to
heaven, as if in a trance, cried out:

'It is done, and I will abide by it.'

I would give more for a perfect painting of the terror and horror of the
faces of the old majority at that moment than for the best piece of
Raphael."

Jefferson has given a synopsis of the arguments for and against the adoption
of the Declaration.  It will be remembered that the hope of the colonies or
new States, even after the war had continued for a considerable time, was
not so much independence as to extort justice from Great Britain.

Had this been granted, the separation would have been deferred and when it
came, as come it must, probably would have been peaceable.  At the same
time, there was a strenuous, aggressive minority who was insistent from the
first for a complete severance of the ties binding us to the mother country.

The debate in congress showed that New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina were not ready to take the irrevocable
step, but it was evident that they were fast approaching that mood, and the
wise leaders tarried in order to take them in their company.

In the vote of July 1, the Pennsylvania and South Carolina delegates still
opposed, while those from New York did the same, contrary to their own
convictions but in obedience to home instructions, which later were changed.

The signs of unanimity became unmistakable on the Second, and two days
later, as every one knows. the adoption of the Declaration took place,
though it was not until the Second of August that all the members, excepting
John Dickinson had signed.

Five years passed before the Articles of Confederation were formally adopted
by the states, by which time it had become clear that they must totally fail
of their purpose, for each state decided for itself whether to respond  to
the demands of congress.  The poison of nullification thus infused into the
body politic at its birth bore baleful fruit in the years that followed.

On six separate occasions, there were overt acts on the part of the States.

The first occurred in 1798, when Virginia and Kentucky passed nullification
resolutions.

The second was the attempt of New England in 1803 to form a northern
confederacy, comprising five New England States, and New York and New
Jersey.  The third was Aaron Burr's wild scheme in the Southwest.

The fourth, the resolution of the New England States to withold cooperation
in the War of 1812.

The fifth, the nullification acts of South Carolina in 1832.

The sixth and last, the effort of eleven states to form the Southern
Confederacy.  This brought the burning issue to a head and settled the
question for the ages to come.

It seems incredible in these times that the country submitted for a month to
the intolerable Alien and Sedition acts. Should any congressman propose
their reenactment to-day, he would be looked upon as a crank and be laughed
out of court.  They were enacted when Jefferson was Vice President and were
the creation of the brilliant Alexander Hamilton, whose belief was in a
monarchy rather than a republic.

The Sedition act made it a felony punishable with a fine of $5000 and five
years imprisonment for persons to combine in order to impede the operation
of any law of the United States, or to intimidate persons from taking
Federal office, or to commit or advise a riot or insurrection or unlawful
assembly.

It declared further that the writing or publishing of any scandalous,
malicious or false statement against the president or either house of
congress should be punishable by a fine of $2000 and imprisonment for two
years.

It will be noted that this law precluded all free discussion of an act of
congress, or the conduct of the president.

In other words, it was meant to be the death blow to freedom of speech.

But bad as it was, the Alien act, which congress passed at the same session,
1798, was ten fold worse.

There had been much unrest caused by the intermeddling of foreigners in the
States, and it was now decided that the president might drive out of the
country any alien he chose thus to banish, and to do it without assigning
any reason therefor.  It was not necessary even to sue or to bring charges;
if an alien receiving such notice from the president refused to obey, he
could be imprisoned for three years.

President Adams afterward declared that he did not approve of this stern
measure which was the work of Hamilton, and boasted that it was not enforced
by him in a single instance.

Nevertheless, the Sedition act was enforced to a farcical degree.

When President Adams was passing through Newark, N. J., he was saluted by
the firing of cannon.  One of the cannoneers, who was strongly opposed to
him, expressed the wish that he might be struck by some of the wadding.  For
this remark, he was arrested and compelled to pay a fine of one hundred
dollars.

Editor Frothingham printed his belief that Hamilton wished to buy the Aurora
for the purpose of suppressing it.  For expressing that opinion he was fined
and imprisoned.  Thomas Cooper made the remark that in 1797 President Adams
was "hardly in the infancy of political mistakes," and these mild words cost
him $400 and kept him in prison for six months.

It is hard to believe that the following proceedings took place within the
present hundred years in the United States of America, and yet they did.

In the case against Callender, Judge Chase denounced the accused to the
jurors and forbade the marshals to place any one not a Federalist on the
jury.  The lawyers who defended Callender were threatened with corporal
punishment.

In Otsego, N. Y., Judge Peck obtained signers to a petition for the repeal
of the obnoxious acts.  For such action he was indicted and taken to New
York city for trial.

That was the sacred right of petition with a vengeance.

Matthew Lyon, while canvassing his district in Vermont for re-election to
congress, charged the president in one of his speeches with "unbounded
thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation and a selfish avarice,"
certainly mild expressions compared with what are heard in these times, but
because of their utterance, Mr. Lyon spent four months in jail and paid a
fine of $1OOO.

When he had served out his term and been re-elected, a strong effort was
made to prevent his taking his seat.  It failed and in 1840, his fine was
returned to him with interest.

It can well be understood that the passage and enforcement of such
iniquitous measures caused alarm and indignation throughout the country.

Edward Livingston declared that they would "disgrace Gothic barbarism."
Jefferson's soul was stirred with the profoundest indignation.  Under his
inspiration, the Virginia assembly adopted resolutions calling on the state
to nullify within its limits the enforcement of the Sedition act.  The Alien
and Sedition laws were declared unconstitutional, and the sister States were
invited to unite in resisting them, "in order to maintain unimpaired the
authorities, rights and liberties reserved to the States respectively or to
the people."

These views were not only those of Jefferson, but of Patrick Henry, George
Mason and nearly all leading Virginians.

Kentucky, the child of her loins, seconded the action of Virginia, urged
thereto by Jefferson who moulded her resolutions.

The revolt against the measures was so widespread that the Alien act was
repealed in 1800, and the Sedition act in the following year.

Having been essentially Federal measures, they were buried in the same grave
with the Federal party.

Having rendered these invaluable services, Jefferson resigned his seat in
congress, on account of the illness of his wife and the urgent need of his
presence at home.  Moreover, he had been elected a member of the legislature
of his State and was anxious to purge its statute books of a number of
objectionable laws.

He had hardly entered upon the work, when he was notified of his appointment
as a joint commissioner with Franklin and Deane as representatives of the
United States in France.  After reflection, he declined the appointment,
believing his duty at home was more important.  That such was the fact was
proven by his success in securing the repeal of the system of entail, thus
allowing all property in the State to be held in fee simple, and by the
abolishment of the connection between church and state.  The latter required
years in order to effect complete success, but it was reached at last.

How forceful were many of the expressions he employed during that contest,
such as: "Compulsion makes hypocrites, not converts;" "Truth stands by
itself; error alone needs the support of government."

Jefferson's committee abolished the frightful penalties of the ancient code;
he set on foot the movement for the improvement of public education; he drew
the bill for the establishment of courts of law in the State, and
prescribing their methods and powers; he destroyed the principle of
primogeniture, and brought about the removal of the capital from
Williamsburg to Richmond.

Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as Governor of the State, at the opening
of the year 1779.  The two years were marked by incessant trial and the
severest labor, for the war had reached Virginia soil and the State was
desolated.

More than once the legislature was obliged to flee before the enemy; Gates
was crushed at Camden; Arnold the traitor scourged Richmond with his
raiders; Monticello itself was captured by cavalry, and Jefferson escaped
only by a hair's breadth.  His estate was trampled over, his horses stolen,
his barns burned, his crops destroyed and many of his slaves run off.

He declined a third election,and in the autumn of 1782, to his inconsolable
sorrow, his wife died, leaving three daughters, the youngest a babe.

In the following November, he took his seat in congress at Annapolis, and
during that session he proposed and caused the adoption of our present
system of decimal currency.

In May, 1784, he was again elected plenipotentiary to France to assist
Franklin and Adams in negotiating commercial treaties with foreign nations.
He arrived in Paris in July, and in May, succeeding, became sole
plenipotentiary to the king of France for three years from March 1O, 1785.

Jefferson's residence in France produced a profound impression upon him and
had much to do in crystallizing his ideas of the true form of government.

That country was groveling under the heel of one of the most hideous systems
that the baseness of man ever conceived.  Who has not read of the nobleman
who, when his coachman ran over a child and crushed out its life, was only
concerned lest its blood should soil his carriage, or of the poor peasants
who were compelled to beat the bogs all night long, to prevent the frogs
from croaking and thereby disturbing the slumber of their lordly masters?
The condition of no people could be more horrible, than that of the lower
classes in France previous to the uprising, with its excesses that horrified
the world.

Jefferson enjoyed the music, the art and the culture of the gay capital, but
could never shake off the oppression caused by the misery of the people.

"They are ground to powder," he said, "by the vices of the form of
government which is one of wolves over sheep, or kites over pigeons."

He took many journeys through the country and made it a practice to enter
the houses of the peasants and talk with them upon their affairs and manner
of living.  He often did this, using his eyes at the same time with the
utmost assiduity.  All that he learned deepened the sad impression he had
formed, and he saw with unerring prevision the appalling retribution that
was at hand.

But Jefferson was not the officer to forget or neglect his duties to his own
government, during the five years spent in France.

Algiers, one of the pestilent Barbary States, held a number of American
captives which she refused to release except upon the payment of a large
ransom.  It had been the custom for years for the powerful Christian nations
to pay those savages to let their ships alone, because it was cheaper to do
so than to maintain a fleet to fight them.  Jefferson strove to bring about
a union of several nations with his own, for the purpose of pounding some
sense into the heads of the barbarians and compelling them to behave
themselves.

One reason why he did not succeed was because our own country had no navy
with which to perform her part in the compact.

France, with that idiotic blindness which ruled her in those fearful days,
maintained a protective system which prevented America from sending cheap
food to starving people, nor was Jefferson able to effect more than a slight
change in the pernicious law.  One thing done by him made him popular with
the masses.  His "Notes on Virginia" was published both in French and
English.  Like everything that emanated from his master hand, it was well
conceived and full of information.  In addition, it glowed with republican
sentiment and delighted the people.  He was in Paris when his State
legislature enacted the act for which he had so strenuously worked,
establishing the freedom of religion.  He had numerous copies of it printed
in French and distributed.  It struck another popular chord and received the
ardent praise of the advanced Liberals.

Jefferson was too deeply interested in educational work to forget it among
any surroundings.  All new discoveries, inventions and scientific books were
brought to the knowledge of the colleges in the United States, and he
collected a vast quantity of seeds, roots and nuts for transplanting in
American soil.

It need hardly be said that his loved Monticello was not forgotten, and, as
stated elswhere, he grew about everything of that nature that would stand
the rigor of the Virginia winters.  No office or honor could take away
Jefferson's pride as a cultivator of the soil.

Returning to Virginia on leave of absence, in the autumn of 1789, he was
welcomed with official honors and the cordial respect of his fellow
citizens.  On the same day he learned of his appointment by Washington as
his Secretary of State.

He would have preferred to return to his former post, but yielded to the
wishes of the first president, and, arriving in New York in March, 1790,
entered at once upon the duties of his office.

In the cabinet Jefferson immediately collided with the brilliant Alexander
Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury.

The two could no more agree than oil and water.

Jefferson was an intense republican-democrat, and was shocked and disgusted
to find himself in an atmosphere of distrust of a republican system of
government, with an unmistakable leaning toward monarchical methods.  This
feeling prevailed not only in society, but showed itself among the political
leaders.

Jefferson's political creed may be summed up in his own words:

"The will of the majority is the natural law of every society and the only
sure guardian of the rights of man; though this may err, yet its errors are
honest, solitary and short-lived.  We are safe with that, even in its
deviations, for it soon returns again to the right way."

Hamilton believed in a strong, centralized government, and on nearly every
measure that came before the cabinet, these intellectual giants wrangled.
Their quarrels were so sharp that Washington was often distressed.  He
respected both too deeply to be willing to lose either, but it required all
his tact and mastering influence to hold them in check. Each found the other
so intolerable, that he wished to resign that he might be freed from meeting
him.

Hamilton abhorred the French revolution, with its terrifying excesses, and
Jefferson declared that no horror equalled that of France's old system of
government.

Finally Jefferson could stand it no longer and withdrew from the cabinet
January 1, 1794.

An equally potent cause for his resignation was the meagreness of his salary
of $3500.  It was wholly insufficient and his estate was going to ruin.  He
yearned to return to his beloved pursuit, that of a farmer.

The request by Washington to act as special envoy to Spain did not tempt
him, but he allowed his name to be put forward as a candidate for the
presidency in 1796.  John Adams received 71 votes and Jefferson 68, which in
accordance with the law at that time made him vice-president.

President Adams ignored him in all political matters, and Jefferson found
the chair of presiding officer of the senate congenial.  He presided with
dignity and great acceptability, and his "Manual of Parliamentary Practice"
is still the accepted authority in nearly all of our deliberative bodies.

The presidential election of 1800 will always retain its place among the
most memorable in our history.

The Federalists had controlled the national government for twelve years, or
ever since its organization, and they were determined to prevent the
elevation of Jefferson, the founder of the new Republican party.  The
Federal nominees were John Adams for president and Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney for vice-president, while the Republican vote was divided between
Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

A favorite warning on the part of those who see their ideas threatened with
overthrow is that our country is "trembling on the verge of revolution."
How many times in the past twenty-five, ten and five years have ranting men
and women proclaimed from the housetops that we were "on the verge of
revolution?"  According to these wild pessimists the revolution is always at
hand, but somehow or other it fails to arrive.  The probabilities are that
it has been permanently side-tracked.

During the campaign of 1800, Hamilton sounded the trumpet of alarm, when he
declared in response to a toast:

"If Mr. Pinckney is not elected, a revolution will be the consequence, and
within four years I will lose my head or be the leader of a triumphant
army."

The Federalist clergy joined in denouncing Jefferson on the ground that he
was an atheist.  The Federalists said what they chose, but when the
Republicans grew too careless they were fined and imprisoned under the
Sedition law.

The exciting canvas established one fact: there was no man in the United
States so devotedly loved and so fiercely hated as Thomas Jefferson.  New
York had twelve electoral votes, and because of the Alien and Sedition laws
she witheld them from Adams and cast them upon the Republican side.

It may not be generally known that it was because of this fact that New York
gained its name of the "Empire State."

The presidential vote was:  Jefferson, 73; Burr, 73; John Adams, 65; C. C.
Pinckney, 64; Jay, 1.  There being a tie between the leading candidates, the
election was thrown into the House of Representatives, which assembled on
the 11th of February, 1801, to make choice between Burr and Jefferson.

It is to the credit of Hamilton that, knowing the debased character of Burr,
he used his utmost influence against him.

A great snow storm descended upon the little town of Washington and the
excitement became intense.  On the first ballot, eight States voted for
Jefferson and six for Burr, while Maryland and Vermont were equally divided.
All the Federalists voted for Burr with the single exception of Huger of
South Carolina, not because of any love for Burr, but because he did not
hate him as much as he did Jefferson.

Mr. Nicholson of Maryland was too ill to leave his bed.  Without his vote,
his State would have been given to Burr, but with it, the result in Maryland
would be a tie.

It was a time when illness had to give way to the stern necessity of the
case, and the invalid was wrapped up and brought on his bed through the
driving snow storm and placed in one of the committee rooms of the house,
with his wife at his side, administering medicines and stimulants night and
day.  On each vote the ballot box was brought to the bed side and his feeble
hand deposited the powerful bit of paper.

Day after day, the balloting went on until thirty-five ballots had been
cast.

By that time, it was clear that no break could be made in the Jefferson
columns and it was impossible to elect Burr. When the thirty-sixth ballot
was cast, the Federalists of Maryland, Delaware and South Carolina threw
blanks and the Federalists of Vermont stayed away, leaving their Republican
brothers to vote those States for Jefferson.  By this slender chance did the
republic escape a calamity, and secure the election of Jefferson for
president with Burr for vice-president.

The inauguration of the third president was made a national holiday
throughout the country.  The church bells were rung, the military paraded,
joyous orations were delivered,and many of the newspapers printed in full
the Declaration of Independence.

The closeness of the election resulted in a change in the electoral law by
which the president and vice-president must of necessity belong to the same
political party.

Jefferson had every reason to feel proud of his triumph, but one of the
finest traits of his character was his magnanimity.

The irascible Adams made an exhibition of himself on the 4th of March, when
in a fit of rage, he rose before day-light and set out in his coach for
Massachusetts, refusing to wait and take part in the inauguration of his
successor.  With the mellowness of growing years, he realized the silliness
of the act, and he and Jefferson became fully reconciled and kept up an
affectionate correspondence to the end of their lives.

Jefferson did all he could to soothe the violent party feeling that had been
roused during the election.  This spirit ran like a golden thread through
his first excellently conceived inaugural.  He reminded his fellow citizens
that while they differed in opinion, there was no difference in principle,
and put forth the following happy thought:

"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.  If there be any among us,
who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let
them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of
opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

There can be little doubt that he had Hamilton in mind when he answered, as
follows, in his own forceful way the radical views of that gifted statesman.

"Some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong, that
this government is not strong enough.  I believe this, on the contrary, is
the strongest government on earth.  I believe it is the only one where every
man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and
would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern."

It was characteristic of Jefferson's nobility that one of his first efforts
was to undo, so far as he could, the mischief effected by the detested
Sedition law.  Every man who was in durance because of its operation was
pardoned, and he looked upon the law as "a nullity as obsolete and palpable,
as if congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image."

He addressed friendly and affectionate letters to Kosciusko and others, and
invited them to be his guests at the White House.  Samuel Adams of
Massachusetts had been shamefully abused during the canvas, but he felt
fully compensated by the touching letter from the president.  Thomas Paine
was suffering almost the pangs of starvation in Paris, and Jefferson paid
his passage home.  Everywhere that it was possible for Jefferson to extend
the helping hand he did so with a delicacy and a tact, that won him
multitudes of friends and stamped him as one of nature's noblemen.

The new president selected an able cabinet,  consisting of James Madison,
Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury; Henry
Dearborn, Secretary of War; Robert Smith,Secretary of the Navy; Gideon
Granger, Postmaster-general; Levi Lincoln, Attorney General.  This household
proved a veritable "happy family," all working together in harmony
throughout the two terms, and Jefferson declared that if he had his work to
do over again, he would select the same advisers without exception.

Although the policy,"to the victors belong the spoils," had not been
formulated at that time, its spirit quickened the body politic.  Jefferson's
supporters expected him to turn out a part at least of the Federalists, who
held nearly all the offices, but he refused, on the principle that a
competent and honest office holder should not be removed because of his
political opinions.  When he, therefore, made a removal, it was as a rule,
for other and sufficient reasons.

But he did not hesitate to show his dislike of the ceremony that prevailed
around him.  He stopped the weekly levee at the White House, and the system
of precedence in force at the present time; also the appointment of fast and
thanksgiving days.  He dressed with severe simplicity and would not permit
any attention to be paid him as president which would be refused him as a
private citizen.  In some respects, it must be conceded that this remarkable
man carried his views to an extreme point.

The story, however, that he rode his horse alone to the capitol, and, tying
him to the fence, entered the building, unattended, lacks confirmation.

Jefferson was re-elected in 1804, by a vote of 162 to 14 for Pinckney, who
carried only two States out of the seventeen.

The administrations of Jefferson were marked not only by many important
national events, but were accompanied by great changes in the people
themselves.  Before and for some years after the Revolution, the majority
were content to leave the task of thinking, speaking and acting to the
representatives, first of the crown and then to their influential neighbors.
The property qualification abridged the right to vote, but the active,
hustling nature of the Americans now began to assert itself.  The universal
custom of wearing wigs and queues was given up and men cut their own hair
short and insisted that every free man should have the right to vote.

Jefferson was the founder and head of the new order of things, and of the
republican party, soon to take the name of democratic, which controlled all
the country with the exception of New England.

Our commerce increased enormously, for the leading nations of Europe were
warring with one another; money came in fast and most of the national debt
was paid.

Louisiana with an area exceeding all the rest of the United States, was
bought from France in 1803, for $15,000,000, and from the territory were
afterward carved the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas,
Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Oklahoma, the Indian Territory and most of
the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and Wyoming.

The upper Missouri River and the Columbia River country to the Pacific Ocean
were explored in 1804-6, by Lewis and Clarke, the first party of white men
to cross the continent north of Mexico.  Ohio was admitted to the Union in
1802.   Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont made her maiden trip from New York
to Albany in 1807.  The first boatload of anthracite coal was shipped to
Philadelphia, and it was a long time before the people knew what to do with
it.

The Tripolitan Pirates were snuffed out (1801-1805).  The blight of the
Embargo Act settled upon our commerce in  1807, in which year the opening
gun of the War of 1812 was fired when the Leopard outraged the Chesapeake.

The Embargo Act was a grievous mistake of Jefferson, though its purpose was
commendable.  Under the plea of securing our ships against capture, its real
object was to deprive England and France of the commodities which could be
secured only in the United States.  This measure might have been endurable
for an agricultural people, but it could not be borne by a commercial and
manufacturing one, like New England, whose goods must find their market
abroad.  Under the Embargo Act, the New England ships were rotting and
crumbling to pieces at her wharves.  It was not long before she became
restless.  The measure was first endorsed by the Massachusetts legislature,
but the next session denounced it.

Early in 1809, congress passed an act allowing the use of the army and navy
to enforce the embargo and make seizures.

The Boston papers printed the act in mourning and, meetings were called to
memorialize the legislature.  That body took strong ground, justifying the
course of Great Britain, demanding of congress that it should repeal the
embargo and declare war against France.  Moreover, the enforcement act was
declared "not legally binding," and resistance to it was urged.

This was as clear a case of nullification as that of South Carolina in 1832.

Connecticut was as hot-headed as Massachusetts.

John Quincy Adams has stated that at that time the "Essex Junto" agreed upon
a New England convention to consider the expediency of secession.  Adams
denounced the plotters so violently that the Massachusetts legislature
censured him by vote, upon which he resigned his seat in the United States
senate.

The Embargo Act was passed by congress, December 22, 1807, at the instance
of Jefferson, and repealed February 28, 1809, being succeeded by the Non-
Intercourse Act, which forbade French and British vessels to enter American
ports.  It was mainly due to Jefferson's consummate tact that war with Great
Britain was averted after the Leopard and Chesapeake affair, and he always
maintained that had his views been honestly carried out by the entire
nation, we should have obtained all we afterward fought for, without the
firing of a hostile gun.

When on March 4, 1809, Jefferson withdrew forever from public life, he was
in danger of being arrested in Washington for debt.  He was in great
distress, but a Richmond bank helped him for a time with a loan.  He
returned to Monticello, where he lived with his only surviving daughter
Martha, her husband and numerous children, and with the children of his
daughter Maria, who had died in 1804.

He devoted hard labor and many years to the perfection of the common school
system in Virginia, and was so pleased with his establishment of the college
at Charlottesville, out of which grew the University of Virginia, that he
had engraved on his tombstone, "Father of the University of Virginia," and
was prouder of the fact than of being the author of the Declaration of
Independence.

Meanwhile, his lavish hospitality carried him lower and lower into poverty.
There was a continual procession of curious visitors to Monticello, and old
women poked their umbrellas through the window panes to get a better view of
the grand old man.  Congress in 1814, paid him $23,000 for his library which
was not half its value.  Some time afterward a neighbor obtained his name as
security on a note for $20,000 and left him to pay it all.

In the last year of his life, when almost on the verge of want, $16,500 was
sent to him as a present from friends in New York, Philadelphia and
Baltimore, more than one-half being raised by Mayor Hone of New York.
Jefferson was moved to tears, and in expressing his gratitude said, he was
thankful that not a penny had been wrung from taxpayers.

In the serene sunset of life, the "Sage of Monticello" peacefully passed
away on the afternoon of July 4, 1826, and a few hours later, John Adams, at
his home in Quincy, Mass., breathed his last.  A reverent hush fell upon the
country, at the thought of these two great men, one the author of the
Declaration of Independence and the other the man who brought about its
adoption, dying on the fiftieth anniversary of its signing, and many saw a
sacred significance in the fact.

Horace Greeley in referring to the co-incidence, said there was as much
probability of a bushel of type flung into the street arranging themselves
so as to print the Declaration of Independence, as there was of Jefferson
and Adams expiring on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of that
instrument; and yet one alternative of the contingency happened and the
other never can happen.

Jefferson's liberal views have caused him to be charged with infidelity.

He profoundly respected the moral character of Christ, but did not believe
in divine redemption through Christ's work. His dearest aim was to bring
down the aristocracy and elevate the masses.

He regarded slavery as a great moral and political evil, and in referring to
it said: "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just."

No more humane slave owner ever lived, and his servants regarded him with
almost idolatrous affection, while his love of justice, his hospitality, his
fairness to all and his winning personality disarmed enmity and gave him
many of his truest and warmest friends from among his political opponents.

A peculiar fact connected with Jefferson is the difference among his
portraits.  This is due to the varying periods at which they were made.  As
we have stated, he was raw-boned, freckled and ungainly in his youth, but
showed a marked improvement in middle life.  When he became old, many
esteemed him good looking, though it can hardly be claimed that he was
handsome.

When Jefferson was eighty years old, Daniel Webster wrote the following
description of the venerable "Sage of Monticello:"

"Never in my life did I see his countenance distorted by a single bad
passion or unworthy feeling.  I have seen the expression of suffering,
bodily and mental, of grief, pain, sadness, disagreeable surprise and
displeasure, but never of anger, impatience, peevishness, discontent, to say
nothing of worse or more ignoble emotions.  To the contrary, it was
impossible to look on his face without being struck with the benevolent,
intelligent, cheerful and placid expression.  It was at once intellectual,
good, kind and pleasant, whilst his tall, spare figure spoke of health,
activity and that helpfulness, that power and will, 'never to trouble
another for what he could do himself,' which marked his character."

This sketch may well be closed with Jefferson's own words regarding life and
happiness.

"Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot
of one of his creatures in this world; but that He has very much put it in
our power the nearness of our approach to it, is what I have steadfastly
believed.

The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with
calamities and misfortunes, which may greatly afflict us; and to fortify our
minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one
of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives.

The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the
Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen must happen, and that by
our uneasiness we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may
add to its force after it has fallen.

These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some
measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way, to bear up with a
tolerable degree of patience under this burden of life, and to proceed with
a pious and unshaken resignation till we arrive at our journey's end, when
we may deliver up our trust into the hands of Him who gave it, and receive
such reward as to Him shall seem proportionate to our merits."


THOMAS JEFFERSON.
(1743-1826)
By G. Mercer Adam

JEFFERSON, when he penned the famous Declaration of Independence, which
broke all hope of reconciliation with the motherland and showed England what
the deeply-wronged Colonies of the New World unitedly desired and would in
the last resort fight for, had then just passed his thirty-third birthday.
Who was the man, and what were his upbringings and status in the then young
community, that inspired the writing of this great historic document� a
document that on its adoption gave these United States an ever-memorable
national birthday, and seven years later, by the Peace of Versailles, wrung
from Britain recognition of the independence of the country and ushered it
into the great sisterhood of Nations?  To his contemporaries and a later
political age, Jefferson, in spite of his culture and the aristocratic
strain in his blood, is known as the advocate of popular sovereignty and the
champion of democracy in matters governmental, as United States minister to
France between the years 1784-89, as Secretary of State under Washington,
and as U. S. President from 1801 to 1809.  By education and bent of mind, he
was, however, an idealist in politics, a thinker and writer, rather than a
debater and speaker, and one who in his private letters, State papers, and
public documents did much to throw light, in his era, on the origin and
development of American political thought.  A man of fine education and of
noble, elevated character, he earned distinction among his fellows, and
though opposed politically by many prominent statesmen of the day, who, like
Washington, Hamilton, and Adams, were in favor of a strong centralized
government, while Jefferson, in the interests of the masses, feared
encroachments on State and individual liberty, he was nevertheless paid the
respect, consideration, and regard of his generation, as his services have
earned the gratitude and his memory the endearing commendation of posterity.

The illustrous statesman was born April 13, 1743, at �Shadwell," his
father's home in the hill country of central Virginia, about 150 miles from
Williamsburg, once the capital of the State, and the seat of William and
Mary college, where Jefferson received his higher education.  His father,
Peter Jefferson, was a planter, owning an estate of about 2,000 acres,
cultivated, as was usual in Virginia, by slave labor.  His mother was a Miss
Randolph, and well connected; to her the future President owed his
aristocratic blood and refined tastes, and with good looks a fine, manly
presence.  By her, Thomas, who was the third of nine children, was in his
childhood's days gently nurtured, though himself fond of outdoor life and
invigorating physical exercise.  His father died when his son was but
fourteen, and to him he bequeathed the Roanoke River estate, afterwards
rebuilt and christened �Monticello."  His studies at the time were pursued
under a fairly good classical scholar; and on passing to college he there
made diligent use of his time in the study of history, literature, the
sciences, and mathematics.

When he left college Jefferson took up the study of law under the direction
of George Wythe, afterwards Chancellor, then a rising professional man of
high attainments, to whom the youth seems to have been greatly indebted as
mentor and warm, abiding friend.  He was also fortunate in the acquaintance
he was able to make among many of the best people of Virginia, including
some historic names, such as Patrick Henry, Edmund Randolph, and Francis
Fauquier, the lieutenant-governor of the province, a gentleman with strong
French proclivities, and a devoted student of the destructive writings of
Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, that had much to do in bringing on the
French Revolution.  By his father's death, he acquired a modest income,
besides his little estate, and the former he added to by his legal practice
when, in 1767, he obtained his diploma as a lawyer.  In 1769, he became a
member of the House of Burgesses along with Washington and other prominent
Virginians, and with the exception of brief intervals he served with
distinction until the outbreak of the Revolution.  In 1772, he married a
young widow in good circumstances, and this enabled him to add alike to his
income and to his patrimony.  About the time of the meeting of the Colonial
Convention, called in 1775, to choose delegates for the Continental Congress
at Philadelphia, at which Patrick Henry was present, the youthful Jefferson,
now known as an able political writer, wrote his �Summary View of the Rights
of British America"�a trenchant protest against English taxation of the
Colonies, which had considerable influence in creating public feeling
favorable to American Independence.

The effect of this notable utterance was, later on, vastly increased by the
draft he prepared of the Declaration of Independence, the latter immortal
document being somewhat of a transcript of views set forth by Jefferson in
his former paper, as well as of ideas expressed by the English philosopher,
John Locke, in his �Theory of Government," and by Rosseau, in his �Discourse
on the Origin of Inequality Among Men;" though the circumstances of the
Colonies at this time were of course different; while to England and the
European nations the Declaration was a startling revelation of the attitude
now assumed by the great leaders of the movement for separation as well as
for freedom and independence.  In the passing of this great national charter
John Adams, as all know, was of much service to Jefferson in the debate over
it in committee, as well as in the subsequent ratification of it by the
House.  Franklin was also of assistance in its revision in draft form; and
most happy was the result, not only in the ultimate passing of the great
historic document, but in its affirmation of the intelligent stand taken by
the Colonies against England and her monarch, and in its pointed definition
of the theory of democratic government on which the new fabric of popular
rule in the New World was founded and raised.

In the autumn of 1776, Jefferson resigned his seat in Congress, or rather
declined re-election to the Third Continental Congress, and retired for a
time to his Virginia home.  He also, at this period, declined appointment to
France on the mission on which Franklin had set out; nevertheless, we
presently find him a member of the legislature of his own State, taking part
in passing measures in which he was particularly interested.  Many of these
measures are indicative of the breadth of mind and large, tolerant views for
which Jefferson was noted, viz.: the repeal in Virginia of the laws of
entail; the abolition of primogeniture and the substitution of equal
partition of inheritance; the affirmation of the rights of conscience and
the relief of the people from taxation for the support of a religion not
their own; and the introduction of a general system of education, so that
the people, as the author of these beneficent acts himself expressed it,
�would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to
exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government." Other measures
included the abolition of capital punishment, save for murder and treason,
and an embargo placed on the importation of slaves, though Jefferson failed
in his larger design of freeing all slaves, as he desired, hoping that this
would be done throughout the entire country, while also beneficently
extending to them white aid and protection.

In 1779, Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry in the governorship of Virginia.
This was the period when the English were prosecuting their campaigns in the
South, checked by General Nathaniel Greene�when South Carolina was being
overrun by Cornwallis, and Virginia itself was invaded by expeditions from
New York under Philips and Arnold.  As Jefferson had no military abilities,
indeed, was a recluse rather than a man of action, the administration of his
native Province, while able and efficient, was lacking in the notable
incident which the then crisis of affairs would naturally call forth.  Even
his own Virginia homestead was at this time raided by the English cavalry
officer, Colonel Tarleton, and much of his property was either desolated or
stolen.  This occasioned bitter resentment against the English in
Jefferson's mind; while the serious illness and early death of his loved
wife, which occurred just then, led him to surrender office and return for a
time to the seclusion of his home.

Meanwhile, thrice was the offer made to the fast-budding statesman to
proceed to France as ambassador; and only on the post being pressed upon him
for the fourth time did he accept its duties and responsibilities and set
out, accompanied by a daughter whom he wished to have educated abroad, for
Paris in the summer of 1784.

In the post now vacated by Franklin, Jefferson remained for five years,
until the meeting of the French Estates-General and the outbreak of the
Revolution against absolute monarchy and the theory of the State in France
upon which it rested.  With French society, Jefferson, even more than his
predecessor, was greatly enamored, and was on intimate terms with the
savants of the era, including those who by their writings had precipitated
the French Revolution, with all its excesses and horrors.  The latter, it is
true, filled Jefferson with dismay on his return to America, though dear to
him were the principles which the apostles of revolution advocated and the
wellbeing of the people, in spite of the anarchy that ensued.  What
diplomatic business was called for during his holding the post of minister,
Jefferson efficiently conducted, and with the courtesy as well as sagacity
which marked all his relations as a publicist and man of the world.  Unlike
John Adams, who with Franklin had been his predecessor as American envoy to
France, he was on good terms with the French minister, Count Vergennes;
while he shut his eyes, which Adams could not do, to the lack of
disinterestedness in French friendliness toward the Colonies and remembered
only the practical and timely service the nation had rendered to his
country.  Jefferson added to his services at this era by his efforts to
suppress piracy in the Mediterranean, on the part of corsairs belonging to
the Barbary States, which he further checked, later on, by the bombardment
of Tripoli and the punishment administered to Algiers during the Tripolitan
war (1801-05), for her piratical attacks on neutral commerce.

After traveling considerably through Europe and informing himself as to the
character and condition of the people in the several countries visited,
Jefferson returned to America just at the time when Washington was elected
to the Presidency.  In his absence, the Federal Convention had met at
Philadelphia, the Constitution of the United States had been adopted and
ratified, and the government had been organized with its executive
departments, then limited to five, viz.: The State Department, the Treasury,
the War Department, the Department of Justice, and the Post-office.  The
Judiciary had also been organized and the Supreme Court founded.  With these
organizations of the machinery of government came presently the founding of
parties, especially the rise of the Republican or Democratic party, as it
was subsequently called, in opposition to the Federalist party, then led by
Hamilton, Jay, and Morris.  At this juncture, on the return of Jefferson
from the French mission, and after a visit to his home in Virginia,
Washington offered him the post of Secretary of State, which he accepted,
and entered upon the duties of that office in New York in March, 1791.  His
chief colleague in the Cabinet, soon now to become his political opponent,
was Alexander Hamilton, who had charge of the finances, as head of the
Treasury department.  Between these two men, as chiefs of the principal
departments of government, President Washington had an anxious time of it in
keeping the peace, for each was insistently arrayed against the other, not
only in their respective attitudes toward England and in the policy of the
administration in the then threatening war with France, but also as to the
powers the National Government should be entrusted with in relation to the
legislatures of the separate states.  What Jefferson specially feared, with
his firmly held views as to the independence of public opinion, and
especially his hatred of monarchy and all its ways, was that the
conservative and aristocratic influences of the envirnoment [sic] of New
York, hardly as yet escaped from the era of royal and Tory dominion and
submission to the English Crown, might fashion the newly federated nation
upon English models and give it a complexion far removed, socially as well
as politically, from Republican simplicity, coupled with a disposition to
aggress upon and dictate to the individual states of the Union, to their
nullification and practical effacement.

For this apparent tendency, Jefferson specially blamed Hamilton, since his
tastes as well as his sympathies were known to be aristocratic, as indeed
were Washington's, in his fondness for courtly dignity and the trappings and
ceremonies of high office.  But his antagonism to Hamilton was specially
called forth by the latter's creation of a National Bank, with its tendency
to aggrandize power and coerce or control votes at the expense of the
separate States.  He further was opposed to the great financier and
aristocrat for his leanings toward England and against France, in the war
that had then broken out between these nations, and for his sharp criticism
of the draft of the message to Congress on the relations of France and
England, which Jefferson had penned, and which was afterwards to influence
Washington in issuing the Neutrality Proclamation of 1793.  In this attitude
toward Hamilton and the administration, of which both men were members,
Jefferson was neither selfish nor scheming, but, on the contrary, was
discreet and patriotic, as well as just and high-minded.  "What he desired
supremely," as has been well stated by a writer, "was the triumph of
democratic principles, since he saw in this triumph the welfare of the
country�the interests of the many against the ascendancy of the few�the real
reign of the people, instead of the reign of an aristocracy of money or
birth."  In this opposition to his chief and able colleague, and feeling
strongly on the matters which constantly brought him into collision with the
centralizing designs of the President and the preponderating influence in
the Cabinet hostile to his views, Jefferson resigned his post in December,
1793, and retired for a time to his estate at Monticello.

Jefferson always relished the period of his brief retirements to his
Virginia home, where he could enjoy his library, entertain his friends, and
overlook his estates.  There, too, he took a lively interest in popular and
higher education, varied by outlooks on the National situation, not always
pleasing to him, as in the case of Jay's treaty with England (1794-95),
which shortly afterwards proved fatal to that statesman's candidature for
the Presidential office.  Meanwhile, the contentions and rivalries of the
political parties grew apace; and in 1797, just before the retirement of
Washington at the close of his second administration, the struggle between
Democrats and Federalists became focussed on the prize of the Presidency�the
�Father of his Country" having declined to stand for a third term.  The
candidates, we need hardly say, were John Adams, who had been Vice President
in Washington's administration, and Thomas Jefferson, the former being the
standard-bearer of the Federalists, and the latter the candidate of the
anti-Federal Republicans.  The contest ended by Adams securing the
Presidency by three votes (71 to 68) over Jefferson, who thus, acording to
the usage of the time, became Vice-President.

The Adams' Administration, though checkered by divided counsels and by the
machinations of party, was on the whole beneficial to the country.  It had,
however, to face new complications with France, then under the Directory.
These complications arose, in part, from soreness over the passing of the
Jay treaty with England, and in part because America could not be bled for
money through its envoys, at the bidding of unscrupulous members of the
Directory.  The situation was for a time so grave as to incite to war
preparations in the United States, and to threatened naval demonstrations
against France.  Nor were matters improved by the enforcement of the Alien
and Sedition Acts (1798), directed against those deemed dangerous to the
peace and safety of the country, or who, like the more violent members of
the Press, published libels on the Government.  The storm which these
obnoxious Acts evoked led to their speedy repeal, though not before
Jefferson and Madison had denounced them as fetters on the freedom of public
speech and infringements of the rights of the people.  They were moreover
resented as not being in harmony with the Constitution, as a compact to
which the individual States of the Union were parties, and which Jefferson
especially deemed to be in jeopardy from Federalist legislation.

The result of these agitations of the period, and of breaches, which had now
come about, between the Adams and Hamilton wings of the Federalist party,
showed itself in the Presidential campaign of 1800.  Washington, by this
time, had passed from earthly scenes, and the coming nineteenth century was
to bring such changes and developments in the young nation as few then
foresaw or even dreamed of.  At this era, when the Adams Administration was
about to close, Jefferson, in spite of his known liberal, democratic views,
was one of the most popular of political leaders, save with the Federalists,
now dwindling in numbers and influence.  He it was who was put forward on
the Republican side for the Presidency, while Adams, still favored by the
Federalists and himself desiring a second term of office, became the
Federalist candidate.  Associated with the latter in the contest was Charles
C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, who was named for the Vice-Presidency; while
the Republican candidate for the minor post was Aaron Burr, an able but
unscrupulous politician of New York.  When the electoral votes were counted,
Jefferson and Burr, it was found, had each received seventy-three votes;
while Adams secured sixty-five and Pinckney sixty-four votes.  The tie
between Jefferson and Burr caused the election to be thrown into the House
of Representatives, where the Federalists were still strong, and who, in
their dislike of Jefferson, reckoned on finally giving the Presidency to
Burr.  To this, Hamilton, however, magnanimously objected, and in the end
Jefferson secured the Presidential prize, while to Burr fell the Vice-
Presidency.

For the next eight years, until the coming of Madison's Administration,
Jefferson was at the helm of national affairs, assisted by an able Cabinet,
the chief members of which were James Madison, Secretary of State, and the
Swiss financier, Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury.  Aaron Burr, as
we have recorded, was Vice-President, though the relations of Jefferson with
him were far from cordial, owing to his political intrigues, which led the
President ultimately to eschew him and distrust his character.  Jefferson's
attitude toward the man was later on shown to be well iustified, as the
result of Burr's hateful quarrel with Alexander Hamilton, and his mortally
wounding that eminent statesman in a duel, which doomed him to political and
social ostracism.  It was still further intensified by Burr's treasonable
attempt to seduce the West out of the Union and to found with it and Mexico
a rival Republic, with the looked-for aid of Britain.  These unscrupulous
acts occurred in Jefferson's second term; and, failing in his conspiracy,
Burr deservedly brought upon himself national obloquy, as well as
prosecution for treason, though nothing came of the latter.

Some two years after Jefferson's assumption of office, Ohio was admitted as
a State into the Union.  The next year (1803) saw, however, an enormous
extension of the national domain, thanks to the President's far-seeing, if
at the time unconstitutional, policy.  This was the purchase from France, at
the cost of $15,000,000, of Louisiana, a vast territory lying between the
Mississippi, the Rocky Mountains, and the Rio Grande, which had been
originally settled by the French, and by their government ceded in 1763 to
Spain as a set-off for Florida, while the French King at the same time ceded
his other possessions on this continent to England.  In 1800, Napoleon had
forced Spain to re-cede Louisiana to France, as the price of the First
Consul's uncertain goodwill and other intangible or elusive favors.  At this
period, France desired to occupy the country, or at least to form a great
seaport at New Orleans, the entrepot of the Mississippi, that might be of
use to her against English warships in the region of the West Indies.  When
news of the transfer of Louisiana to France reached this side of the water,
Jefferson was greatly exercised over it, and had notions of off-setting it
by some joint action with Great Britain.  His inducement to this unwonted
course, considering his hatred of England and love for France, was his
knowledge of the fact that French occupation of Louisiana meant the closing
of the Mississippi to American commerce.

The purchase of Louisiana, which at one stroke more than doubled the
existing area of the nation, was at first hotly opposed, especially by the
Federalists.  It was deemed by them an unwarrantable stretch of the
Constitution on Jefferson's part, both in negotiating for it as a then
foreign possession without authority from Congress, and in pledging the
country's resources in its acquisition.  The President was, however,
sustained in his act, not only by the Senate, which ratified the purchase,
but by the hearty approval and acclaim of the people.  Happily at this time
the nation was ready for the acquisition and in good shape financially to
pay for it, since the country was prospering, and its finances, thanks to
the President's policy of economy and retrenchment, were adequate to assume
the burden involved in the purchase.  The national debt at this period was
being materially reduced, and with its reduction came, of course, the saving
on the interest charge; while the national income and credit were
encouragingly rising.  Though the economical condition of the United States
was thus favorable at this era, the state of trade, hampered by the policy
of commercial restriction against foreign commerce, then prevailing, was not
as satisfactory as the shippers of the East and the commercial classes
desired.  The reason of this was the unsettled relations of the United
States with foreign countries, and especially with England, whose policy had
been and still was to thwart the New World republic and harass its commerce
and trade.  To this England was incited by the bitter memories of the
Revolutionary war and her opposition to rivalry as mistress of the seas.
Hence followed, on the part of the United States, the non-Importation Act,
the Embargo Act of 1807-08, and other retaliatory measures of Jefferson's
administration, coupled with reprisals at sea and other expedients to offset
British empressment of American sailors and the right of search, so
ruthlessly and annoyingly put in force against the newborn nation and her
maritime people.  The English people themselves, or a large proportion of
them at least, were as strongly opposed to these aggressions of their
government as were Americans, and while their voice effected little in the
way of amelioration, it brought the two peoples once more distinctly nearer
to the resort to war.  Meanwhile, the Embargo Act had become so irritating
to our own people that the Jefferson administration was compelled to repeal
it, though saving its face, for the time being, by the enforcement of the
non-intercourse law, which imposed stringent restrictions upon British and
French ships entering American harbors.

Such are the principal features of the Jefferson administration and the more
important questions with which it had to deal.  Among other matters which we
have not noted were the organization of the United States Courts; the
removal of the seat of government from Philadelphia to Washington; the party
complexion of Jefferson's appointments to the civil service, in spite of his
expressed design to be non-partisan in the selection to office; and the
naming of men for the foreign embassies, such as James Monroe as
plenipotentiary to France, assisted at the French Court by Robert R.
Livingstone, and at the Spanish Court by Charles C. Pinckney.  Other matters
to which Jefferson gave interested attention include the dispatch of the
explorers, Lewis and Clarke, to report on the features of the Far Western
country, then in reality a wilderness, and to reclaim the vast unknown
region for civilization.  The details of this notable expedition up the
Missouri to its source, then on through the Indian country across the
Rockies to the Pacific, need not detain us, since the story is familiar to
all.  With the Louisiana purchase, it opened up great tracts of the
continent, later on to become habitable and settled areas, and make a great
and important addition to the public domain.  In the appointment of the
expedition and the interest taken in it, Jefferson showed his intelligent
appreciation of what was to become of high value to the country, and ere
long result in a land of beautiful homes to future generations of its hardy
people.

At the close of his second term in the Presidential chair (1809) Jefferson
retired once more, and finally, to �Monticello," after over forty years of
almost continuous public service.  His career in this high office was
entirely worthy of the man, being that of an honorable and public-spirited,
as well as an able and patriotic, statesman.  If not so astute and sagacious
as some who have held the presidency, especially in failing to see where his
political principles, if carried out to their logical conclusions, would
lead, his conscientiousness and liberality of mind prevented him from
falling gravely into error or making any very fatal mistakes.  Though far
from orthodox,�indeed, a freethinker he may be termed, in matters of
religious belief, his personal life was most exemplary, and his relations
with his fellowmen were ever just, honorable, and upright.  He had no gifts
as a speaker, but was endowed highly as a writer and thinker; and,
generally, was a man of broad intelligence, unusual culture for his time,
and possessed a most alert and enlightened mind.  His interest in education
and the liberal arts was great, and with his consideration for the deserving
poor and those in class servitude, was indulged in at no inconsiderable cost
to his pocket.  His hospitality was almost a reproach to him, as his
impoverished estates and diminished fortunes in the latter part of his life
attest.  His faith in democracy as a form of government was unbounded, as
was his loyalty to that beneficent political creed summed up in the motto�
�Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity."  �As a president," writes the lecturer,
Dr. John Lord, �he is not to be compared with Washington for dignity, for
wisdom, for consistency, or executive ability.  Yet, on the whole, he has
left a great name for giving shape to the institutions of his country, and
for intense patriotism."

"Jefferson's manners," records the same entertaining writer, "were simple,
his dress was plain, he was accessible to everybody, he was boundless in his
hospitalities, he cared little for money, his opinions were liberal and
progressive, he avoided quarrels, he had but few prejudices, he was kind and
generous to the poor and unfortunate, he exalted agricultural life, he hated
artificial splendor, and all shams and lies.  In his morals he was
irreproachable, unlike Hamilton and Burr; he never made himself ridiculous,
like John Adams, by egotism, vanity, and jealousy; he was the most domestic
of men, worshipped by his family and admired by his guests; always ready to
communicate knowledge, strong in his convictions, perpetually writing his
sincere sentiments and beliefs in letters to his friends,�as upright and
honest a man as ever filled a public station, and finally retiring to
private life with the respect of the whole nation, over which he continued
to exercise influence after he had parted with power.  And when he found
himself poor and embarrassed in consequence of his unwise hospitality, he
sold his library, the best in the country, to pay his debts, as well as the
most valuable part of his estate, yet keeping up his cheerfulness and
serenity of temper, and rejoicing in the general prosperity,�which was
produced by the ever-expanding energies and resources of a great country,
rather than by the political theories which he advocated with so much
ability."

In Jefferson's own mind, just what was the essence of his political gospel
we ascertain from a succinct yet comprehensive passage in his able First
Inaugural Address.  In that address President Jefferson sets forth
instructively what he terms the essential principles of government, and
those upon which, as he conceives, his own administration was founded and by
which it was guided.  The governing principles it affirms are:�
"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion,
religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all
nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the state
governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for
our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican
tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole
constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety
abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people; a mild and
safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution, where
peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of
the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but
to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-
disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of
war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the
military authority � economy in the public expenditure, that labor may be
lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation
of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its
handmaiden; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at
the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and
freedom of person, under the protection of the Habeas Corpus; and trial by
juries impartially selected.  These principles form the bright constellation
which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution
and reformation.  The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have
been devoted to their attainment; they should be the creed of our political
faith; the text of civic instruction; the touchstone by which to try the
services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of
error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road
which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

Jefferson had completed his sixty-sixth year when he relinquished the
presidency to his friend and pupil, James Madison, and retired to his loved
Virginia home.  There he lived on for seventeen years, enjoying the esteem
and respect of the nation, and taking active interest in his favorite
schemes on behalf of education in his native state and his helpful work in
founding the college which was afterwards expanded into the University of
Virginia.  His interest in national affairs, up to the last, remained keen
and fervid, as the vast collection of his published correspondence show, as
well as his many visiting contemporaries attest.  In the winter of 1825-6,
his health began to fail, and in the following spring he made his will and
prepared for posterity the original draft of his great historic achievement
as a writer and patriot�the Declaration of Independence.  As the year (1826)
wore on, he expressed a wish to live until the fiftieth anniversary of the
nation's independence, a wish that, as in the case of his distinguished
contemporary, John Adams, was granted by the favor of Heaven, and he died on
the 4th of July, mourned by the whole country.  In numberless quarters,
funeral honors were paid to his memory, the more memorable orations being
that of Daniel Webster, delivered in Boston.  To his tomb still come
annually many reverent worshippers; while, among the historic shrines of the
nation, his home at Monticello attracts ever-increasing hosts of loving and
admiring pilgrims.

THOMAS JEFFERSON'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS�1801.

Friends and fellow-citizens:�Called upon to undertake the duties of the
first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of
that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assmbled, to express my
grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look
toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my
talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments
which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly
inspire.  A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing
all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in
commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to
destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye when I contemplate these
transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of
this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I
shrink from the contemplation and humble myself before the magnitude of the
undertaking.  Utterly, indeed, should I despair, did not the presence of
many whom I here see, remind me that in the other high authorities provided
by our Constitution, I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of
zeal on which to rely under all difficulties.  To you then, gentlemen, who
are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those
associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and
support, which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are
all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.

During the contest of opinions through which we have passed, the animation
of discussions and exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose
on strangers unused to think freely, and to speak and to write as they
think.  But this being now decided by the voice of the nation, enounced
according to the rules of the constitution, all will, of course, arrange
themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the
common good.  All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle that, though
the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be
rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights,
which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.

Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind; let us
restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which
liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things.  Let us reflect that,
having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind
so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a
political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and
bloody persecution.

During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonized
spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost
liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach
even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and
feared by some, and should divide opinion as to measures of safety.  But
every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.  We have
called by different names brethren of the same principle.  We are all
republicans; we are all federalists.  If there be any among us who wish to
dissolve this union, or to change its republican form, let them stand
undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be
tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

I know, indeed, that some honest men have feared that a republican
government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough.  But
would not the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment,
abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic
and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by
possibility want energy to preserve itself?  I trust not.  I believe this,
on the contrary, the strongest government on earth.  I believe it is the
only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard
of the law; would meet invasions of public order as his own personal
concern.

Sometimes, it is said, that man cannot be trusted with the government of
himself.  Can he then be trusted with the government of others?  Or have we
found angels in the form of kings to govern him?  Let history answer this
question.  Let us, then, pursue with courage and confidence our own federal
and republican principle, our attachment to union and representative
government.

Kindly separated by nature, and a wide ocean, from the exterminating havoc
of one quarter of the globe, too high-minded to endure the degradation of
the others; possessing a chosen country with room enough for all to the
hundredth and thousandth generation; entertaining a dull sense of our equal
right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisition of our own
industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not
from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them, enlightened by a
benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all
of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratutude and the love of
man, acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its
dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and in
his greater happiness hereafter.  With all these blessings, what more is
necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people?  Still one thing more,
fellow-citizens:  a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from
injuring one another shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of
labor the bread it has earned.  This is the sum of good government, and this
is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend
everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what
I deem the essential principles of this government, and consequently those
which ought to shape its administration.  I will compress them in the
narrowest limits they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all
its limitations:  Equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or
persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship
with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State
governments in all their rights as the most competent administrations for
our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican
tendencies; the preservation of the general government, in its whole
constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety
abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people, a mild and
safe corrective of abuses, which are lopped by the sword of revolution,
where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the
decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which
there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of
despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace, and for
the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of
the civil over the military authority; economy in public expense that labor
may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred
preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of
commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of
all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of
the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus;
and trial by juries impartially selected.

These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and
guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation:  the wisdom
of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their
attainment; they should be the creed of our political faith, the text of
civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we
trust; and should we wander from them in error or alarm, let us hasten to
retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace,
liberty, and safety.

I repair then, fellow-citizens, to the post which you have assigned me.
With experience enough in subordinate stations to know the difficulties of
this, the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall
to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation
and the favor which bring him into it.  Without pretensions to that high
confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character,
whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his
country's love, and had destined for him the fairest page in the volume of
faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and
effect to the legal administration of your affairs.  I shall often go wrong
through defect of judgment; when right, I shall often be thought wrong by
those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.  I ask
your indulgence for my errors, which will never be intentional; and your
support against the errors of others, who may contemn what they would not,
if seen in all its parts.

The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for
the past; and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of
those who have bestowed it in advance to conciliate that of others by doing
them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and
freedom of all.  Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I
advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you
become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make.  And may
that infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our
councils to what is best and give them a favorable issue for your peace and
prosperity.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
BY ISIDORE A. ZACHARIAS.

From "Self-Culture" Magazine for Jan., 1896 by kind permission of the
publishers The Werner Co., Akron, O.

No surer or more lasting cause conduced to the political, financial, and
national development of this country, no unforeseen or long-sought measure
received more universal approbation and revealed to all its great
importance, than did the Louisiana purchase.  Its acquisition marks a
political revolution,�a bloodless and tearless revolution.  It gave
incomputable energy to the centralization of our Government.  By removing
the danger of foreign interference and relieving the burden of arming
against hostile forces, it opened a field for the spread and growth of
American institutions.  It enlarged the field of freedom's action to work
out the task of civilization on a basis of substantial and inspiring
magnitude.  It extended the jurisdiction of the United States to take in the
mighty Mississippi.  It gave an impetus to exploration and adventure, to
investment and enterprise, and fed the infantile nation with a security born
of greatness.

The expeditions of La Salle furnished the basis of the original French
claims to the vast region called by France in the New World Louisiana.
Settlement was begun in 1699.  French explorers secured the St. Lawrence and
Mississippi rivers, the two main entrances to the heart of America.  They
sought to connect Canada and Louisiana by a chain of armed towns and
fortified posts, which were sparsely though gradually erected.  In 1722 New
Orleans was made the capital of the French possessions in the Southwest.
France hoped to build in this colony a kingdom rich and lucrative, and this
hope the early conditions, the stretch of fertile and easily traversable
country, stimulated.  The French and Indian wars came on.  The English
forces, aided by American colonists of English descent, captured the French
forts, destroyed their towns, and took dominion of their territory.  The
Seven Years' War, ending in America in the capture of Quebec by the immortal
Wolfe, completed the downfall of French-America.  The treaty of Paris ceded
to Spain the territory of Louisiana.

The Government at Madrid now assumed control of the region; settlers became
more numerous, the planting of sugar was begun, the province flourished.
While Spain in 1782-83 occupied both sides of the Mississippi from 31  north
latitude to its mouth, the United States and Great Britian declared in the
Treaty of Paris that the navigation of that river from its source to its
outlet should be free to both nations.  Spain denied that such provisions
were binding on her.  She sought to levy a duty on merchandise transported
on the river.  She denied the right of our citizens to use the Mississippi
as a highway, and complications ensued.  The Americans claimed the free
navigation of the river and the use of New Orleans for a place of deposit as
a matter of right.  However, the unfriendly policy of Spain continued for
some years.  In 1795 the Spanish Government became involved in a war with
France.  Weakened by loss of forces and fearing hostilities from this
country, Spain consented to sign a treaty of friendship, boundaries and
navigation with our envoy, Thomas Pinckney.  Its most important article was
to this effect, that "His Catholic Majesty likewise agrees that the
navigation of the said river (Mississippi), in its whole breadth, from its
source to the ocean, shall be free only to his subjects and to the subjects
of the United States."

On October 1,1800, by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain gave back to
France that province of Louisiana which in 1762 France had given her.  The
consideration for its retrocession was an assurance by France that the Duke
of Palma, son-in-law of the King of Spain, should be raised to the dignity
of King and have his territory enlarged by the addition of Tuscany.  Rumors
of this treaty reached America in the spring of 1801, though its exact terms
were not known until the latter part of that year.  Immediately upon the
reception of this information, our Government and its citizens were aroused.
The United States found herself hemmed in between the two professional
belligerents of Europe�a perilous position for the young power.  The
excitement increased when, in October, 1802, the Spanish Intendant declared
that New Orleans could no longer be used as a place of deposit.  Nor was any
other place designated for such purpose, although in the reaty [sic] of 1795
it was stipulated that in the event of a withdrawal of the right to use New
Orleans, some other point would be named.  It was now a subject of extreme
importance to the Republic into whose control the highway of traffic should
pass. President Jefferson called the attention of Congress to this
retrocession.  He anticipated the French designs.  He justly feared that
Napoleon Bonaparte would seek to renew the old colonial glories of France,
and the warlike genius and ambitious spirit of the "First Consul" augmented
this fear.  Word came in November, 1802, of an expedition being fitted out
under French command to take possession of Louisiana, all protests of our
Minister to the transfer having proved futile.  Our nation then realized
fully the peril of the situation.  Congress directed the Governors of the
States to call out 80,000 militia, if necessary, and it appropriated
$2,000,000 for the purchase of the Island of New Orleans and the adjacent
lands.

Early in January, 1803, the President decided to hasten matters by sending
James Monroe to France, to be associated with Robert R. Livingston, our
minister to that country, as commissioners for the purchase of New Orleans
and the Floridas.  Livingston had been previously working on the same line,
but without success.  Instructions were given them that if France was
obstinate about selling the desired territory, to open negotiations with the
British Government, with a view to preventing France from taking possession
of Louisiana.  European complications, however, worked in favor of this
country more than did our own efforts.  Ere Monroe arrived at his
destination disputes arose between England and France concerning the Island
of Malta.  The clouds of war began to gather.  Napoleon discerned that
England's powerful navy would constantly menace and probably capture New
Orleans, if it were possessed by him, and fearing a frustration of his
designs of conquest by too remote accessions, Napoleon, at this juncture,
made overtures for a sale to the United States not only of the Island of New
Orleans but of the whole area of the province.  The money demanded would be
helpful to France, and the wily Frenchman probably saw in such a transfer an
opportunity of embroiling the Government at Washington in boundary disputes
with the British and Spanish soverigns.  These considerations served to
precipitate French action.

Marbois, who had the confidence of Napoleon, and who had been in the
diplomatic service in America, was now at the head of the French Treasury.
He was put forward to negotiate with our representatives with respect to the
proposed sale.  On April 1O, 1803, news came from London that the peace of
Amiens was at an end; war impended.  Bonaparte at once sent for Marbois and
ordered him to push the negotiations with Livingston, without awaiting the
arrival of Monroe, of whose appointment the "First Consul" was aware.
Monroe reached Paris on the 12th of April, and the negotiations, already
well under way, progressed rapidly.  A treaty and two conventions were
signed by Barbe-Marbois for the French, and by Livingston and Monroe for the
United States, on April 30th, less than three weeks after the commission had
begun its work.  The price agreed upon for the cession of Louisiana was
75,000,000 francs, and for the satisfying of French spoliation claims due to
Americans was estimated at $3,750,000.  The treaty was ratified by Bonaparte
in May, 1803, and by the United States Senate in the following October.  The
cession of the territory was contained in one paper, another fixed the
amount to be paid and the mode of payment, a third arranged the method of
settling the claims due to Americans.

The treaty did not attempt a precise description or boundary of the
territory ceded.  In the treaty of San Ildefonso general terms only are
used.  It speaks of Louisiana as of "the same extent that it now has in the
hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it
should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and the
other States."  The treaty with the United States describes the land as "the
said territory, with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully and in the
same manner as have been acquired by the French Republic, in virtue of the
above-mentioned treaty concluded with his Catholic Majesty."

The Court at Madrid was astounded when it heard of the cession to the United
States.  Florida was left hemmed in and an easy prey in the first
hostilities.  Spain filed a protest against the transfer, claiming that by
express provision of the articles of cession to her, France was prohibited
from alienating it without Spanish consent.  The protest being ignored,
Spain began a course of unfriendly proceedings against the United States.
Hostile acts on her part were continued to such an extent that a declaration
of war on the part of this country would have been justified.  We relied
upon the French to protect our title.  At length, without any measures of
force, the cavilling of Spain ceased and she acquiesced in the transfer.

Upon being confronted with the proposition of sale by Marbois, our Ministers
were dazzled.  They recognized the vast importance of an acceptance, yet
felt their want of authority.  With a political prescience and broad
patriotism they overstepped all authority and concluded the treaty for the
purchase of this magnificent domain.  Authorized to purchase a small island
and a coaling-place, they contracted for an empire.  The treaty of
settlement was looked upon by our representatives as a stroke of state.
When the negotiations were consummated and the treaties signed and
delivered, Mr. Livingston said:  "We have lived long, and this is the
fairest work of our lives.  The treaty we have just signed will transform a
vast wilderness into a flourishing country.  From this day the United States
becomes a first-class power.  The articles we have signed will produce no
tears, but ages of happiness for countless human beings."  Time has verified
these expressions.  At the same period, the motives and sentiment of
Bonaparte were bodied forth in the sentence:  "I have given to England a
maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride."

The acquisition was received with merited and general applause.  Few
objections were made.  The only strenuous opposition arose from some
Federalists, who could see no good in any act of the Jeffersonian
administration, however meritorious it might be.  Out of the territory thus
acquired have been carved Louisiana, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska,
Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and the largest portion of
Minnesota, Wyoming, and Colorado.  They now form the central section of the
United States, and are the homes of millions and the sources of countless
wealth.

It is possible here to notice but briefly the vast and permanent political
and economical consequences to the United States of this purchase.  The
party which performed this service came into power as the maintainer of
voluntary union.  The soul of the strict construction party was Thomas
Jefferson.  Inclined to French ideas, he had been for several years previous
to the founding of our Constitution imbibing their extreme doctrines.  No
sooner did he return than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what
passed Hamilton and Adams unobserved, the key to the popular fancy.  He knew
precisely where the strength of the Federalists lay, and by what means alone
that strength could be overpowered.

Coming into office as the champion of "State-rights and strict
construction," it was beyond his power to give theoretical affirmance to
this transcendent act of his agents.  His own words reveal his anomalous
situation:  "The Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign
territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union.  The
executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the
good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution.  The
Legislature, in casting behind metaphysical subleties and risking themselves
like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for it, and throw themselves on
their country for doing for them unauthorized what we know they would have
done for themselves had they been in a position to do it."  "Doing for them
unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves" was the
policy of the Federalists, and the very ground upon which Mr. Jefferson had
denounced their policy and defeated them.  The purchase was, in fact, quite
within those implied powers of the Constitution which had always been
contended for by the Federalists, and such leaders as Hamilton and Morris
acknowledged this.  Under the strict construction theory, not only could
there be no authority for such an acquisition of territory without the
consent of the several States denominated "part of the original compact,"
but the manifest and necessary consequences of this accession, in its
effects upon the Union and  upon the balance of power within the Government,
were overwhelming to such an extent as to amount almost to a revolution.

This event may be looked upon as a revolution in the direction of
unification and the impairment of the powers of the several States, brought
about by the very party which had undertaken to oppose such tendencies.  The
territory gained stretches over a million square miles equal in area to the
territory previously comprised in the Union, and twice as large as that
actually occupied by the original thirteen States.  Compared with this
innovation, the plans of the Federalists for strengthening the Central
Government were inconsiderable.  A new nation was engrafted on the old, and
neither the people of the several States nor their immediate representatives
were questioned; but by a treaty the President and the Senate changed the
whole structure of the territory and modified the relations of the States.
Thenceforth, the Louisiana purchase stood as a repudiation by their own
champions of the strict construction fallacies.  Thenceforth, the welfare of
the country stands above party allegiance.  The right to make purchases was
thereafter, by general acquiescence of all political parties, within the
powers of the Federal Government.  Indeed, it became manifest that implied
as well as expressed powers accrued to the National Government.

The territory of Louisiana proved a fruitful soil for the spread of slavery,
nor was it less productive of struggles and strife over the admission of
States carved therefrom.  The Civil War has pacified the jarring elements
and left to be realized now the beneficent results of the empire gained.
With Louisiana the United States gained control of the entire country
watered by the Mississippi and its effluents.  With the settlement of the
western country, the Mississippi river assumed its normal function in the
national development, forming out of that region the backbone of the Union.
The Atlantic and Pacific States can never destroy the Union while the
Central States remain loyal.  Thus do we see the basis of our governmental
existence removed from the narrow strip along the Atlantic to the far larger
central basin; binding by natural ligaments a union far less secure on mere
constitutional or artificial connections.  Thus have the intentions of its
projectors been fulfilled, the peace of our nation secured, a spirit of
confidence in our institutions diffused, and enterprise and prosperity
advanced.  The purchase was an exercise of patriotism unrestrained and
unbiased by considerations unconnected with the public good.  It curbed the
impulse of State jealousies, secured to the Union unwonted prestige, and
discovered the latent force and broad possibilities of our national system.

ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF JEFFERSON.

JEFFERSON'S BRIDAL JOURNEY.

Jefferson and his young bride, after the marriage ceremony, set out for
their Monticello home.  The road thither was a rough mountain track, upon
which lay the snow to a depth of two feet.

At sunset they reached the house of one of their neighbors eight miles
distant from Monticello.  They arrived at their destination late at night
thoroughly chilled with the cold.

They found the fires all out, not a light burning, not a morsel of food in
the larder, and not a creature in the house.  The servants had all gone to
their cabins for the night, not expecting their master and mistress.

But the young couple, all the world to each other, made merry of this sorry
welcome to a bride and bridegroom, and laughed heartily over it.

WOULD MAKE NO PROMISES FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

While the Presidential election was taking place in the House of
Representatives, amid scenes of great excitement, strife and intrigue, which
was to decide whether Jefferson or Burr should be the chief magistrate of
the nation, Jefferson was stopped one day, as he was coming out of the
Senate chamber, by Gouverneur Morris, a prominent leader of the Federalists.

Mr. Morris said, "I wish to have an earnest talk with you, Mr. Jefferson, on
the alarming situation of things."

"I am very glad," said Jefferson, "to talk matters over with you."

"As you well know," said Mr. Morris, "I have been strenuously opposing you,
as have also the large minority of the States."

"To be frank with you," he continued, "we are very much afraid of you."

"We fear,

"First�That you will turn all the Federalists out of office.

"Second�That you will put down the navy.

"Third�That you will wipe off the public debt

"Now, if you will declare, or authorize your friends to declare that you
will not take these steps, your election will be made sure."

Mr. Jefferson replied, "Gouverneur Morris, I naturally want to be President,
and yet I cannot make any terms to obtain the position.

"I shall never go into the office by capitulation.  I cannot have my hands
tied by any conditions which would hinder me from pursuing the measures
which I deem best for the public good.

"I must be perfectly free.  The world can judge my future course by that
which I have hitherto followed.

"I am thankful to you for your interest, but I cannot make the slightest
promise."

THE MOULD-BOARD OF LEAST RESISTANCE.

Mr. A. J. Stansbury says:  "I heard John Randolph (who hated Jefferson) once
describe, in his own biting, caustic manner, the delight expressed by him in
a new model for the mould-board of a plough.

"It was called 'the mould-board of least resistance;' and the inventor had
gone into a very profound mathematical demonstration, to prove that it
deserved its name.

"Jefferson listened and was convinced; and deeming it a great discovery,
recommended it, with zeal, to all his agricultural friends.

"The Virginia planters, accordingly (who thought every thing of their great
man as a natural philosopher), agreed, many of them, to take this new
'mould-board of least resistance.'

"It was accordingly cast,and forwarded to their farms; when lo! on trial, no
ordinary team could draw it through the soil."

JEFFERSON AS AN INVENTOR.

"He sometimes figured as an inventor himself, and on that subject let me
relate to you an anecdote which vividly portrays the character of his mind.
You know that he had perched his country seat on a mountain height,
commanding a magnificent prospect, but exposed to the sweep of wintry winds,
and not very convenient of access.

"Not far from Monticello, and within the bounds of his estate, was a
solitary and lofty hill, so situated as to be exposed to the blast of two
currents of wind, coming up through valleys on different sides of it.

"Mr. Jefferson thought this would be an admirable position for a wind-mill;
and having recently invented a model for a saw-mill to be moved by vertical
sails, he sent for an engineer and submitted it to his judgment.
"The man of professional science examined his plan, and listened with
profound attention and deference to Mr. Jefferson's explanations of it, and
to his eloquent illustration of the advantages it would secure.

"He very attentively heard him through, but made no comment upon the plan.

" 'What do you think of my idea?' said Mr. Jefferson.

" 'I think it is a most ingenious one,' was the reply, 'and decidedly the
best plan for a saw-mill I have ever seen.'

"Jefferson was delighted, and forthwith entered into a written agreement for
the erection of such a mill on the neighboring height.

"The work went bravely on; the inventor very frequently mounting his horse,
and riding over to see how it proceeded.

"When the frame was up, and the building approached its completion, the
engineer rode over to Monticello to obtain a supply of money, and to get
some directions about the saws.

"Jefferson kept him to dinner; and when the cloth was removed and wine sat
upon the table, he turned to his guest, and with an air of much
satisfaction, exclaimed,

" 'And so, Mr.��, you like my mill.'

" 'I do, sir, indeed, very much; it is certainly one of the greatest
improvements in the construction of saw mills I ever witnessed.'

" 'You think the sails are so hung that it cannot fail to work?'

" 'Certainly; it must work, it cannot help it.'

" 'And there's always a wind upon that hill; if it does not come up one
valley, it is sure to come up the other; and the hill is so high and steep
that there is nothing to interrupt the full sweep of the wind, come which
way it will.  You think, then, on the whole, that the thing cannot fail of
complete success?'

" 'I should think so, sir, but for one thing.'

" 'Ah!  What's that?'

" 'I have been wondering in my own mind, how you are to get up your saw-
logs.'

"Jefferson threw up his hands and eyes:  'I never thought of that!'

"The mill was abandoned, of course."

JEFFERSON AND THE JOCKEY.

"Jefferson's favorite exercise was riding.  He was a judge of a horse, and
rode a very good one.

"One day, during his presidential term, he was riding somewhere in the
neighborhood of Washington, when there came up a cross road, a well-known
jockey and dealer in horse-flesh, whose name we will call Jones.

"He did not know the President, but his professional eye was caught, in a
moment, by the noble steed he rode.

"Coming up with an impudent boldness characteristic of the man, he accosted
the rider, and forthwith began talking in the slang of his trade, about the
horse, his points, his age, and his value, and expressed a readiness to
'swap' horses.

"Mr. Jefferson gave him brief replies, and civilly declined all offers of
exchange.

"The fellow offered boot, and pressed and increased his bids, as the closer
he looked at the stranger's steed, the better he liked him.

"All his offers were refused with a coolness that nettled him.

"He then became rude, but his vulgarity made as little impression as his
money, for Jefferson had the most perfect command of his temper, and no man
could put him in a passion.

"The jockey wanted him to show the animal's gait, and urged him to trot with
him for a wager.  But all in vain.

"At length, seeing that the stranger was no customer, and utterly
impracticable, he raised his whip and struck Mr. Jefferson's horse across
the flank, setting him off in a sudden gallop, which would have brought a
less accomplished rider to the ground.

"At the same time he put spurs to his own beast, hoping for a race.
Jefferson kept his seat, reined in his restive steed, and put an equally
effective rein upon his own temper.

"The jockey wondered; but impudently turned it off with a laugh, and still
keeping by the side of his new acquaintance, began talking politics.  Being
a staunch Federalist, he commenced to launch out against 'Long Tom,' and the
policy of his administration.

"Jefferson took his part in the conversation, and urged some things in
reply.

"Meanwhile they had ridden into the city, and were making their way along
Pennsylvania avenue.  At length they came opposite the gate of the
presidential mansion.

"Here Mr. Jefferson reined up, and courteously invited the man to enter.

"The jockey raised his eye-brows, and asked�

" 'Why, do you live here?'

" 'Yes,' was the simple reply.

" 'Why, stranger, what the deuce might be your name?'

" 'My name is Thomas Jefferson.'

"Even the jockey's brass turned pale�when, putting spurs to his nag, he
exclaimed�

" 'And my name is Richard Jones, and I'm ok!'

"Saying which, he dashed up the avenue at double quick time, while the
President looked after him with a smile, and then rode into the gate."

JEFFERSON AND PATRICK HENRY.

Patrick Henry was an early friend and companion of Jefferson.  He was a
jovial young fellow noted for mimicry, practical jokes, fiddling and
dancing.  Jefferson's holidays were sometimes spent with Henry, and the two
together would go off on hunting excursions of which each was passionately
fond.  Both were swift of foot and sound of wind.

Deer, turkey, foxes and other game were eagerly pursued.  Jefferson looked
upon Patrick Henry as the moving spirit of all the fun of the younger
circle, and had not the faintest idea of the wonderful talents that lay
latent in his companion's mind.

And, Henry too, did not see in the slender, freckled, sandy-haired
Jefferson, the coming man who was to be united with him in some of the most
stirring and important events in American history.

Jefferson did not realize that this rustic youngster, careless of dress, and
apparently thoughtless in manner, and sometimes, to all appearance, so
unconcerned that he was taken by some to be an idiot, was to be the flaming
tongue of a coming Revolution.  Henry did not dream that this fiddling boy,
Jefferson, was to be the potent pen of a Declaration which was to emancipate
a hemisphere.

One day in 1760, just after Jefferson had entered upon his college studies
at Williamsburg, Henry came to his room to tell him, that since their
parting of a few months before, after the Christmas holidays, he had studied
law, and had come to Williamsburg to get a license to practice.  The fact
was he had studied law but six weeks, and yet felt himself able to pass the
examination.  The examination was conducted by four examiners.  Three of
them signed the license.  The fourth, George Wythe, refused his signature.
But Henry was now duly admitted to the bar.  He went back, however, to
assist his father-in-law, Mr. Shelton, in tending his tavern, and for four
years, practicing occasionally, he waited his time.

In May, 1765, Henry was elected to the House of Burgesses which met at
Williamsburg.  While in attendance as a member Henry was the guest of young
Jefferson.  Henry presented a rustic appearance.  His dress was coarse and
worn.  His fame had not become fully known at Williamsburg, "and he moved
about the streets unrecognized though not unmarked.  The very oddity of his
appearance provoked comment."

In the Assembly were some of the most brilliant and distinguished men in the
Colony.  Among them were Peyton Randolph, George Wythe, John Robinson,
Richard Henry Lee, and Edmund Pendleton.

Dignified manners prevailed among the members.  An elaborate and formal
courtesy characterized them in their proceedings.  They were polished and
aristocratic men, not specially interested in the welfare of the common
people.  They were strongly desirous of perpetuating the class distinctions
observed in Virginia society.  A very marked contrast was apparent between
them and the tall, gaunt, coarse-attired, unpolished member from Louisa.

Not being personally known to the majority of the House, little notice was
taken of him, and no expectaions of any particular influence to be exercised
by him upon its deliberations were expected.  When the news of the passage
of the Stamp Act reached the assembly, amazement and indignation were felt
by the Royalist leaders, at the folly of the English ministry.  But there
seemed no way before them but submission to the Imperial decree.  But Henry
saw that the hour had come for meeting the issue between the King and the
Colonies.

He rose in his seat and offered his famous Five Resolutions, which in
substance declared that Englishmen living in America had all the rights of
Englishmen living in England, and that all attempts to impose taxes upon
them without the consent of their own representatives, had "a manifest
tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."

These resolutions provoked an animated and exciting debate.  There is a
strong probability that Jefferson knew the intentions of Henry, for he was
present on that ever memorable occasion in the House.

No provision was made in the Assembly chamber for spectators.  There was no
gallery from which they could look down upon the contestants.  In the
doorway between the lobby and the chamber Jefferson took his stand, intently
watching Henry's attitude and actions.

In a hesitating way, stammering in his utterances, he began reading his
Resolutions. Then followed the opening sentences of the magnificent oration
of this "Demosthenes of the woods," as Byron termed him.

No promise did they give of what was to follow.  Very soon the
transformation came.  Jefferson saw him draw himself to his full height and
sweep with a conqueror's gaze the entire audience before and about him.

No impediment now; no inarticulate utterances now.  With a voice rich and
full, and musical, he poured out his impassioned plea for the liberties of
the people.  Then soaring to one of his boldest flights, he cried out in
electric tones:

"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third
-----."  The Speaker sprang to his feet, crying, "Treason!  treason!"  The
whole assembly was in an uproar, shouting with the Speaker, "Treason!
treason!"  Not only the royalists, but others who were thoroughly alarmed by
the orator's audacious words, joined in the cry.  But never for a moment did
Henry flinch.  Fixing his eye upon the Speaker, and throwing his arm forward
from his dilating form, as though to hurl the words with the power of a
thunderbolt, he added in a tone none but he himself could command, "May
profit by their example."  Then, with a defiant look around the room, he
said, "If this be treason, make the most of it."

Fifty-nine years afterwards Jefferson continued to speak of that great
occasion with unabated enthusiasm.  He narrated anew the stirring scenes
when the shouts of; "treason, treason," echoed through the Hall.

In his record of the debate which followed the speech of Henry he described
it as "most bloody."  The arguments against the resolutions, he said were
swept away by the "torrents of sublime eloquence" from the lips of Patrick
Henry.  With breathless interest, Jefferson, standing in the doorway,
watched the taking of the vote on the last resolution.  It was upon this
resolution that the battle had been waged the hottest.  It was carried by a
majority of a single vote.  When the result was announced, Peyton Randolph,
the King's Attorney General, brushed by Jefferson, in going out of the
House, exclaiming bitterly with an oath as he went, "I would have given five
hundred guineas for a single vote."

The next day, in the absence of the mighty orator, the timid Assembly
expunged the fifth resolution and modified the others.  The Governor,
however, dissolved the House for daring to pass at all the resolutions.  But
he could not dissolve the spirit of Henry nor the magical effect of the
resolutions which had been offered.  By his intrepid action Henry took the
leadership of the Assembly out of the hands which hitherto had controlled
it.

The resolutions as originally passed were sent to Philadelphia.  There they
were printed, and from that center of energetic action were widely
circulated throughout the Colonies.  The heart of Samuel Adams and the
Boston patriots were filled with an unspeakable joy as they read them.  The
drooping spirits of the people were revived and the doom of the Stamp Act
was sealed.

WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON.

Dr. James Schouler says:  "That Jefferson did not enter into the rhapsodies
of his times which magnified the first President into a demigod infallible,
is very certain; and that, sincerely or insincerely, he had written from his
distant retreat to private friends in Congress with less veneration for
Washington's good judgment on some points of policy than for his personal
virtues and honesty, is susceptible of proof by more positive testimony than
the once celebrated Mazzei letter.  Yet we should do Jefferson the justice
to add that political differences of opinion never blinded him to the
transcendent qualities of Washington's character, which he had known long
and intimately enough to appreciate with its possible limitations, which is
the best appreciation of all.  Of many contemporary tributes which were
evoked at the close of the last century by that great hero's death, none
bears reading so well in the light of another hundred years as that which
Jefferson penned modestly in his private correspondence."

INFLUENCE OF PROF. SMALL ON JEFFERSON.

Speaking of the influence exerted over him by Dr. William Small, Professor
of Mathematics at William and Mary College, who supplied the place of a
father, and was at once "guide, philosopher and friend," Jefferson said:
"It was Dr. Small's instruction and intercourse that probably fixed the
destinies of my life."

JEFFERSON AND THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

In the epitaph of Jefferson, written by himself, there is no mention of his
having been Governor of Virginia, Plenipotentiary to France, Secretary of
State, Vice President and President of the United States.  But the
inscription does mention that he was the "Author of the Declaration of
American Independence; of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom; and
Father of the University of Virginia."

These were the three things which, in his own opinion, constituted his most
enduring title to fame. and it is to be observed that freedom was the fruit
of all three.  By the first he contributed to the emancipation of the
American colonies from British rule; by the second he broke the chains of
sectarian bigotry that had fettered his native State; and by the third he
gave that State and her sisters the chance to strike the shackles of
ignorance from the minds of their sons.

Free Government, free faith, free thought�these were the treasures which
Thomas Jefferson bequeathed to his country and his State; and who, it may
well be asked, has ever left a nobler legacy to mankind?

His was a mind that thrilled with that active, aggressive and innovating
spirit which has done so much to jostle men out of their accustomed grooves
and make them think for themselves.

No one appreciated more than he the fact that the light of experience, as
revealed in the history of the race, should be the guide of mankind.  But,
for that very reason, he did not slavishly worship the past, well knowing
that history points not only to the wisdom of sages and the virtues of
saints, but also to the villainy of knaves and the stupidity of fools.

The condition of life is change; the cessation of change is death.  History
is movement, not stagnation; and Jefferson emphatically believed in
progress.

The fact that a dogma in politics, theology or educational theory had been
accepted by his ancestors did not make it necessarily true in his eyes.
"Let well enough alone" was no maxim of his.  Onward and upward was ever his
aim.

His interests were wide and intense, ranging from Anglo-Saxon roots to
architectural designs, from fiddling to philosophy, from potatoes to
politics, from rice to religion.  In all these things, and in many more
besides, he took the keenest interest; but in nothing, perhaps, did he
display throughout his life a more unfaltering zeal than in the cause of
education.

"A system of general instruction," said he in 1818, "which shall reach every
description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the
earliest, so it will be the latest of all the public concerns in which I
shall permit myself to take an interest."

From first to last Jefferson's aim was to establish, in organic union and
harmonious co-operation, a system of educational institutions consisting of
(1) primary schools, to be supported by local taxation; (2) grammar schools,
classical academies or local colleges; and (3) a State University, as roof
and spire of the whole edifice.

He did not succeed in realizing the whole of his scheme, but he did finally
succeed in inducing the Legislature to pass an act in the year 1819 by which
the State accepted the gift of Central College (a corporation based upon
private subscriptions due to Jefferson's efforts), and converted it into the
University of Virginia.

This action was taken on the report of a commission previously appointed,
which had met at Rockfish Gap, in the Blue Ridge Mountains � a commission
composed probably of more eminent men than had ever before presided over the
birth of a university.  Three of these men, who met together in that
unpretentious inn, were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe
(then President of the United States).

Yet it was remarked by the lookers-on that Mr. Jefferson was the principal
object of regard both to the members and spectators; that he seemed to be
the chief mover of the body�the soul that animated it; and some who were
present, struck by their manifestations of deference, conceived a more
exalted idea of him on this simple and unpretending occasion than they had
ever previously entertained.�R. H. Dabney.

THE FINANCIAL DIARY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Thomas Jefferson kept a financial diary and account book from January 1st
1791, to December 28th, 1803, embracing the last three years of his service
as Secretary of State under Washington, the four years of his Vice-
Presidency under John Adams, and the first three years following his own
election to the Presidency.

This diary was one of the most valuable treasures in the library of the late
Mr. Tilden.

Among the items enumerated in the very fine, but neat and legible hand of
Mr. Jefferson, is the following:

"Gave J. Madison ord. on bank for 9625 D."

The modern symbol of the dollar was not then in use.  Jefferson uniformly
used a capital D to denote this unit of our Federal currency.

Madison was Jefferson's most intimate friend, and was a member of congress
at the time the above entry was made Jan. 8, 1791, at Philadelphia.

Whenever Jefferson went home to Monticello or returned thence to his duties,
he frequently stopped with Mr. Madison.

While they were in the public service together, it appears by this diary,
that they traveled together to and from their posts of duty.  It also seems
that one or the other generally acted as paymaster.

The inadequate salary of $3,500 which Jefferson received as Secretary of
State, was $500 more than that of any other cabinet officer.

HORSE BACK RIDING TO INAUGURATION.

It would seem on the authority of Mrs. Randolph, the great-granddaughter of
Mr. Jefferson, in her work, "The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson," that
the President rode "the magnificent Wildair" to the capitol, and hitched to
the palisades while he went in to deliver his inaugural.  The truth of the
incident, however, is not established.

In Jefferson's diary we have this entry:

Feb'y 3, 1801, Rec'd from Col. John Hoomes of the Bowling Green a bay horse
Wildair, 7 yr. old, 16 hands high, for which I am to pay him 300 D May 1.

There were no pavements, sidewalks nor railroads then in Washington.  There
were not even wagon roads.  There was no getting about, therefore, for
either men or women without horses.

COST OF SERVANTS, ETC.

Jefferson estimated the cost of his ten servants per week, $28.70, or $2.87
per head.

Jefferson managed to pay off many of his small debts with his first year's
salary as President.  It seems never to have occurred to him to lay by
anything out of his receipts.

He thought that at the end of the second year he had about $300 in hand.

It is interesting to know in these temperance days that the wine bill of
Jefferson was $1,356.00 per year.

Mr. Jefferson, judging by his diary, was an inveterate buyer of books and
pamphlets.  He also apparently never missed an opportunity of seeing a show
of any kind.

There are items for seeing a lion, a small seal, an elephant, an elk, Caleb
Phillips a dwarf, a painting, etc., with the prices charged.  It cost him 11
1/2 d for seeing the lion, and 25 cents the dwarf.

WOULD TAKE NO PRESENTS.

The Rev. Mr. Leland sent him a great cheese, presumably as a present.  Mr.
Jefferson was not in the habit "of deadheading at hotels," nor of receiving
presents, however inconsiderable in value, which would place him under any
obligation to the donor.  The diary contains the following minute regarding
the cheese:

1802.  Gave Rev'd Mr. Leland, bearer of the cheese of 1235 Ibs weight, 200
D.

So the monster article cost the President sixteen cents a pound.

It will be a surprise to those who have been educated to associate Mr.
Jefferson's name with indifference, if not open hostility, to revealed
religion, to find among his expenses�some entered as charity, but most of
them, exclusive of what is reported under the charity rubric� entries like
the following:

1792

Nov 27 Pd Mr B a Subscription for missionaries 15 D.

1798 Feby 26 pd 5D in part of 20D Subscription for a hot-press bible

1801

June 25 Gave order on J Barnes for 25D towards fitting up a chapel.

Sept 23 pd Contribution at a Sermon 7.20

1802

April 7 Gave order on J Barnes for 50D charity in favor of the Revd Mr
Parkinson towards a Baptist meeting house.

9 Gave order on J. Barnes in favr the Revd Doctr Smith towards rebuilding
Princeton College 100D

1802

July 11 Subscribed to the Wilmington Academy 100D

1803

Feby 25 Gave Hamilton & Campbell ord. on J. Barnes for 100D charity to
Carlisle College.

 "     28 Gave Genl Winn ord. on J. Barnes for 100D charity to Jefferson
Monticello Academy in S. Carolina.

March 1. Gave in charity to the Revd Mr Chambers of Alexandria for his
church an order on J. Barnes for 50D

Nov 18 Gave order on J. Barnes for 100D in favor of Revd Mr Coffin for a
college in Tennessee.

We doubt whether since the Presidential salary was doubled any of President
Jefferson's successors has contributed as large a percentage of his salary
to charitable or religious uses.

INDOLENCE.

In a letter to his daughter Martha, written in March,1787, Jefferson writes:

"Of all the cankers of human happiness, none corrodes with so silent, yet
baneful a tooth, as indolence.

"Body and mind both unemployed, our being becomes a burthen, and every
object about us loathsome, even the dearest.

"Idleness begets ennui, ennui the hypochondria, and that a diseased body.

"No laborious person was ever yet hysterical.

"Exercise and application produce order in our affairs, health of body and
cheerfulness of mind.  These make us precious to our friends.

"It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed.  If not
then, it never is afterwards.

"The future of our lives, therefore, depends on employing well the short
period of youth.

"If at any moment, my dear, you catch yourself in idleness, start from it as
you would the precipice of a gulf.

"You are not, however, to consider yourself as unemployed while taking
exercise.  That is necessary for your health, and health is the first of all
objects."

TITLES OF HONOR AND OFFICE.

He wrote to one of his friends concerning this matter as follows:

"The Senate and Representatives differed about the title of President.  The
former wanted to style him 'His Highness, George Washington, President of
the United States, and Protector of their Liberties.'  I hope the terms of
Excellency, Honor, Worship, Esquire, forever disappear from among us.  I
wish that of Mr. would follow them."

THE TERM OF THE PRESIDENCY.

Mr. Jefferson was inclined at first to have the President elected for seven
years, and be thereafter ineligible.  He afterwards modified his views in
favor of the present system, allowing only a continuance for eight years.

Regarding a third term, he says in his autobiography:  "Should a President
consent to be a candidate for a third election, I trust he would be rejected
on this demonstration of ambitious views."

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS AND LAWYERS.

Mr. Jefferson wrote in his autobiography regarding the Continental Congress
in 1783:

"Our body was little numerous, but very contentious.  Day after day was
wasted on the most unimportant questions.

"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise,
in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose
trade it is to question everything, yield nothing and talk by the hour?

"That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to
be expected."

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

George Bancroft, in glowing words, speaks of this great creation of the
genius of Jefferson:

"This immortal State paper, which for its composer was the aurora of
enduring fame, was 'the genuine effusion of the soul of the country at that
time.'

"It was the revelation of its mind, when, in its youth, its enthusiasm, its
sublime confronting of danger, it rose to the highest creative powers of
which man is capable."�Bancroft's U S., vol. 8, ch. 70.

JEFFERSON AND THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

"On the 30th of April, 1819, some forty-three years after Jefferson's
Declaration was written, there appeared in the Raleigh (N. C.) Register what
purported to be a Declaration of Independence, drawn up by the citizens of
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 20th, 1775.  As this was nearly
fourteen months before the Colonies declared their independence, and as many
of the expressions in the Mecklenburg paper bore a striking resemblance to
Jefferson's expressions, it excited a good deal of curiosity, and led to a
discussion which has been continued to the present day.  Those desirous of
seeing the arguments pro and con, put in their latest and best form, will
find them in two articles in the "Magazine of American History," in the
January and March numbers of 1889.

"It is sufficient here to say that there was found among the British State
papers, as well as in contemporaneous newspapers in this country, the
original Mecklenburg paper, which was not a Declaration of Independence at
all, but simply patriotic resolutions similar to those which were published
in most of the Colonies at that time.

"And so the Mecklenburg Declaration takes its place with the stories of
Pocahontas and of William Tell."� Boutell.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.

In effecting the purchase of Louisiana, Mr. Jefferson has thus been
eulogized by James G. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress:"

"Mr. Jefferson made the largest conquest ever peacefully achieved, at a cost
so small that the sum expended for the entire territory does not equal the
revenue which has since been collected on its soil in a single month, in
time of great public peril."

JEFFERSON AND BENEDICT ARNOLD.

Benedict Arnold, with the British troops, had entered the Chesapeake in
January, 1781, and sailed up the James River.  He captured Richmond, the
capital, then a town of less than two thousand people, and destroyed
everything upon which he could lay his hands.

Jefferson summoned the militia, who came by thousands to oppose the traitor.
Arnold, however, sailed down to Portsmouth and escaped.

Jefferson then urged upon General Muhlenburg the importance of picking out a
few of the best men in his command "to seize and bring off the greatest of
all traitors."

"I will undertake," he said, "if they are successful in bringing him off
alive, that they shall receive five thousand guineas reward among them."

The effort was not made.

A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.

Jefferson mingled a great deal with the common people, especially with
mechanics.

Often, when President, he would walk down to the Navy Yard early on a
summer's morning, and sitting down upon an anchor or spar, would enter into
conversation with the surprised and delighted shipwrights.  He asked many
questions of these artisans, who would take the utmost pains to satisfy his
enquiries.

His political opponents believed unjustly that he did this simply for
effect.  They would say,

"There, see the demagogue!"

"There's long Tom, sinking the dignity of his station to get votes and court
the mob."

ARISTOCRACY OF MIND.

Although Jefferson was an ardent democrat, in some sense he was also an
aristocrat.

He firmly believed in an aristocracy of mind, and told John Adams that he
rejoiced that nature had created such an aristocracy.

He unmistakably gave his preference to men of learning and refinement, at
least he put these above other recommendations.

Mr. Jefferson, however, was not consistent with himself, for he frequently
called General Washington "Your Excellency," during the war, and also when
he was a private citizen at Mt. Vernon.

EVIL YOUTHFUL COMPANIONS.

Just after his college days Mr. Jefferson fell into company, as so many
young men do, of a most undesirable sort.

According to his own statements it was a source of amazement even to himself
that he ever escaped to be worth anything to the world.  He realized in
later years what a dangerous risk he had run.

READ LITTLE FICTION.

While he was an extensive reader in his early days, going into almost every
field of literature, including poetry, he read very little fiction.

In fact, there was comparatively but little fiction then worth the name.
Not from any sentiment of duty or moral impropriety, but from simple
aversion he let it alone.

NEITHER ORATOR NOR GOOD TALKER.

Jefferson was neither an orator nor a good talker.  He could not make a
speech.  His voice would sink downwards instead of rising upwards out of his
throat.

But as regards legal learning he was in the front rank.  No one was more
ready than he in ably written opinions and defenses.

It was in what John Adams termed "the divine science of politics" that
Jefferson won his immortal and resplendent fame.

SELF-CONTROL.

With all his apparent tolerance and good humor, there was a great deal of
the arbitrary and despotic in Mr. Jefferson's nature.  Stern principle alone
enabled him to keep his native imperiousness within proper bounds.

THE INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON'S SISTER.

Among those who exerted a marked influence on Jefferson's early years was
his oldest and favorite sister Jane.  She was three years his senior, and
was a woman of superior standing and great elevation of character.  She was
his constant companion when he was at home, and a sympathizing friend to
whom he unlocked his heart.  She was a "singer of uncommon skill and
sweetness, and both were particularly fond of the solemn music used by the
Church of England in the Psalms."  She died in the fall of 1765, at the age
of twenty-five.  He cherished her memory with the warmest affection to the
close of his life.

JEFFERSON A DOCTRINAIRE.

Lewis Henry Boutell, in his "Jefferson as a Man of Letters," says:

"That Jefferson, in justifying the action of the colonists, should have
thought more of the metaphysical rights than historical facts, illustrates
one of the marked features of his character.  He was often more of a
doctrinaire than a practical statesman.  He reminds us of the words which
Burke applied on a certain occasion to Chatham:  'For a wise man he seemed
to me at that time to be governed too much by general maxims.' "

RECONCILIATION WITH JOHN ADAMS.

For many years the friendship between Jefferson and John Adams had been
broken off.  Mrs. Adams had become decidedly hostile in feeling towards
Jefferson.  But through a mutual friend, Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, a
reconciliation was fully established between them.

It was a spectacle in which the whole country greatly rejoiced, to see the
intimacy restored between the two venerable men, once Presidents of the
United States, and brothers in helping secure the independence of their
beloved land.

Although they did not see each other face to face again, a continuous,
instructive and affectionate correspondence was kept up between them.  Their
topics of discourse were those relating to Revolutionary times, but
especially to religion.

NEGRO COLONIZATION.

Mr. Jefferson believed in the colonization of negroes to Africa, and the
substitution of free white labor in their place.

He wrote to John Lynch, of Virginia, in 1811, as follows:  "Having long ago
made up my mind on this subject (colonization), I have no hesitation in
saying that I have ever thought it the most desirable measure which could be
adopted, for gradually drawing off this part of our population most
advantageously for themselves as as [sic] well as for us.

"Going from a country possessing all the useful arts, they might be the
means of transplanting them among the inhabitants of Africa, and would thus
carry back to the country of their origin, the seeds of civilization, which
might render their sojournment and sufferings here a blessing in the end to
that country."

Many other eminent men have shared the same opinion, and not a few prominent
leaders among the Afro-American people.

But it is now an impossibility.  The American negro is in America to stay.
The ever pressing problem of his relationship to the white man involves
questions of education, labor, politics and religion, which will take
infinite patience, insight, forbearance and wisdom to settle justly.

EDUCATING AMERICAN BOYS ABROAD.

Mr. Jefferson was a strong opponent of the practice of sending boys abroad
to be educated.  He says:

"The boy sent to Europe acquires a fondness for European luxury and
dissipation, and a contempt for the simplicity of his own country.

"He is fascinated with the privileges of the European aristocrats, and sees
with abhorrence the lovely equality which the poor enjoy with the rich in
his own country.

"He contracts a partiality for aristocracy or monarchy.

"He forms foreign friendships which will never be useful to him.

"He loses the seasons of life for forming in his own country those
friendships which of all others are the most faithful and permanent.

"He returns to his own country a foreigner, unacquainted with the practices
of domestic economy necessary to preserve him from ruin.

"He speaks and writes his native tongue as a foreigner, and is therefore
unqualified to obtain those distinctions which eloquence of the tongue and
pen insures in a free country.

"It appears to me then that an American going to Europe for education loses
in his knowledge, in his morals, in his health, in his habits and in his
happiness."

These utterances of Jefferson apply of course only to boys in the formative
period of their lives, and not to mature students who go abroad for higher
culture.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Mr. Jefferson always believed the cause of the French Revolution to be just.
Its horrors and excesses were the necessary evils attendant upon the death
of tyranny and the birth of liberty.

Louis the XVI was thoroughly conscientious.  At the age of twenty he
ascended the throne, and strove to present an example of morality, justice
and economy.  But he had not firmness of will to support a good minister or
to adhere to a good policy.

In the course of events a great demonstration of the French populace was
made against the king.  Thousands of persons carrying pikes and other
weapons marched to the Tuileries.  For four hours Louis was mobbed.  He then
put on a red cap to please his unwelcome visitors, who afterwards retired.

Long after the "Days of Terror" Jefferson wrote in his autobiography:

"The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns (Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette), I shall neither approve nor condemn.

"I am not prepared to say that the first magistrate of a nation cannot
commit treason against his country or is not amenable to its punishment.
Nor yet, that where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is
not a law in our hearts and a power in our hands given for righteous
employment in maintaining right and redressing wrong.

"I should have shut the queen up in a convent, putting her where she could
do no harm."

Mr. Jefferson then declared that he would have permitted the King to reign,
believing that with the restraints thrown around him, he would have made a
successful monarch.

SAYINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.
From the Life of Jefferson, by Dr. Irelan.

MARRIAGE.

Harmony in the marriage state is the very first object to be aimed at.

Nothing can preserve affections uninterrupted but a firm resolution never to
differ in will, and a determination in each to consider the love of the
other as of more value than any object whatever on which a wish had been
fixed.

How light, in fact, is the sacrifice of any other wish when weighed against
the affections of one with whom we are to pass our whole life!

EDITORS AND NEWSPAPERS.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this:
Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths; 2nd,
Probabilities; 3rd, Possibilities; 4th, Lies.  The first chapter would be
very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers, and
information from such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his own
reputation for their truth.  The second would contain what, from a mature
consideration of all circumstances, he would conclude to be probably true.
This, however, should rather contain too little than too much.  The third
and fourth should be professedly for those readers who would rather have
lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy.

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all
it contains rather than do an immoral act.

Whenever you are to do anything, though it can never be known but to
yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you,
and act accordingly.

From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive
the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of
death.

Though you cannot see when you take one step, what will be the next, yet
follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you
out of the labyrinth in the nearest manner possible.

An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.

Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate
himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by
trimming, by untruth, by injustice.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty
than those attending a too small degree of it.

Yet it is easy to foresee, from the nature of things, that the encroachments
of the State governments will tend to an excess of liberty which will
correct itself, while those of the General Government will tend to monarchy,
which will fortify itself from day to day.

Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government.

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people
(the slaves) are to be free.

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through,
it is best to make up our minds to it, meet it with firmness, and
accommodate every thing to it in the best way practicable.

The errors and misfortunes of others should be a school for our own
instruction.

The article of dress is, perhaps, that in which economy is the least to be
recommended.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of
the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be
reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws
must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.

A good cause is often injured more by ill-timed efforts of its friends than
by the arguments of its enemies.

Persuasion, perseverance, and patience are the best advocates on questions
depending on the will of others.

I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as
necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.  An observation
of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their
punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much.  It is a
medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty
generations.

With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the
comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of
Heaven with Hell.  England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the
intermediate station.

I have a right to nothing, which another has a right to take away.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people.  Enable them to see that it
is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall
become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there.

Health, learning, and virtue will insure your happiness; they will give you
a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honor.

If I were to decide between the pleasures derived from the classical
education which my father gave me, and the estate left me, I should decide
in favor of the farmer.

Good humor and politeness never introduce into mixed society a question on
which they foresee there will be a difference of opinion.

The general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands,
and the strong allurements of great cities to those who have any turn for
dissipation, threaten to make them here, as in Europe, the sinks of
voluntary misery.

I have often thought that if Heaven had given me choice of my position and
calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near
a good market for the productions of the garden.  No occupation is so
delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to
that of the garden.

I sincerely, then, believe with you in the general existence of a moral
instinct.  I think it is the brightest gem with which the human character is
studded, and the want of it as more degrading than the most hideous of the
bodily deformities.

I must ever believe that religion substantially good, which produces an
honest life, and we have been authorized by one (One) whom you and I equally
respect, to judge of the tree by its fruit.

Where the law of majority ceases to be acknowledged there government ends,
the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who
can take them.

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He has a
chosen people, whose breasts he has made this peculiar deposit for
substantial and genuine virtue, it is the focus in which He keeps alive that
sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth.

The wise know their weakness too well to assume infallibility; and he who
knows most knows best how little he knows.

TEN CANONS FOR PRACTICAL LIFE.

1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do today.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to
you.
5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We never repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
9. Take things always by their smooth handle.
1O. When angry count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.


ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.

By Daniel Webster

Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services of John and Thomas
Jefferson, Delivered in Faneuil Hall, August 2, 1826.

This is an unaccustomed spectacle.  For the first time, fellow-citizens,
badges of mourning shroud the columns and overhang the arches of this hall.
These walls, which were consecrated, so long ago, to the cause of American
liberty, which witnessed her infant struggles, and rung with the shouts of
her earliest victories, proclaim, now, that distinguished friends and
champions of that great cause have fallen.  It is right that it shall be
thus.  The tears which flow, and the honors that are shown when the founders
of the republic die, give hope that the republic itself may be immortal.  It
is fit, by public assembly and solemn observance, by anthem and by eulogy,
we commemorate the services of national benefactors, extol their virtues,
and render thanks to God for eminent blessings, early given and long
continued, to our favored countrty [sic].

Adams and Jefferson are no more; and we are assembled, fellow-citizens, the
aged, the middle-aged, and the young, by the spontaneous impulse of all,
under the authority of the municipal government, with the presence of the
chief-magistrate of the commonwealth, and others, its official
representatives, the university, and the learned societies, to bear our part
in those manifestations of respect and gratitude which universally pervade
the land.  Adams and Jefferson are no more.  On our fiftieth anniversary,
the great day of national jubilee, in the very hour of public rejoicing, in
the midst of echoing and re-echoing voices of thanksgiving, while their own
names were on all tongues, they took their flight together to the world of
spirits.

If it be true that no one can safely be pronounced happy while he lives, if
that event which terminates life can alone crown its honors and its glory,
what felicity is here!  The great epic of their lives, how happily
concluded!  Poetry itself has hardly closed illustrious lives, and finished
the career of earthly renown, by such a consummation.  If we had the power,
we could not wish to reverse this dispensation of the Divine Providence.
The great objects of life were accomplished, the drama was ready to be
closed.  It has closed; our patriots have fallen; but so fallen, at such
age, with such coincidence, on such a day, that we cannot rationally lament
that that end has come, which we know could not long be deferred.

Neither of these great men, fellow-citizens, could have died, at any time,
without leaving an immense void in our American society.  They have been so
intimately, and for so long a time blended with the history of the country,
and especially so united, in our thoughts and recollections, with the events
of the revolution [text destroyed] the death of either would have touched
the strings of public sympathy.  We should have felt that one great link
connecting us with former times, was broken; that we had lost something
more, as it were, of the presence of the revolution itself, and of the act
of independence, and were driven on, by another great remove, from the days
of our country's early distinction, to meet posterity, and to mix with the
future.  Like the mariner, whom the ocean and the winds carry along, till he
sees the stars which have directed his course and lighted his pathless way
descent, one by one, beneath the rising horizon, we should have felt that
the stream of time had borne us onward till another luminary, whose light
had cheered us and whose guidance we had followed, had sunk away from our
sight.

But the concurrence of their death on the anniversary of independence has
naturally awakened stronger emotions.  Both had been presidents, both had
lived to great age, both were early patriots, and both were distinguished
and ever honored by their immediate agency in the act of independence.  It
cannot but seem striking and extraordinary, that these two should live to
see the fiftieth year from the date of that act; that they should complete
that year; and that then, on the day which had fast linked forever  their
own fame with their country's glory, the heavens should open to receive them
both at once.  As their lives themselves were the gifts of Providence, who
is not willing to recognize in their happy termination, as well as in their
long continuance, proofs that our country and its benefactors are objects of
His care?

Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more.  As human beings, indeed they
are no more.  They are no more, as in 1776, bold and fearless advocates of
independence; no more, as on subsequent periods, the head of the government;
no more, as we have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of
admiration and regard.  They are no more. They are dead.  But how little is
there of the great and good which can die!  To their country they yet live,
and live forever.  They live in all that perpetuates the remembrance of men
on earth; in the recorded proofs of their own great actions, in the
offspring of their intellect, in the deep-engraved lines of public
gratitude, and in the respect and homage of mankind.  They live in their
example; and they live, emphatically, and will live, in the influence which
their lives and efforts, their principles and opinion, now exercise, and
will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their own
country, but thoughout the civilized world.  A superior and commanding human
intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not
a temporary flame, burning bright for a while, and then expiring, giving
place to returning darkness.  It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well
as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so
that when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no
night follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the
potent contact of its own spirit.   Bacon died; but the human understanding
roused by the touch of his miraculous wand to a perception of the true
philosophy and the just mode of inquiring after truth, has kept on its
course successfully and gloriously.  Newton died; yet the courses of the
spheres are still known, and they yet move on in the orbits which he saw,
and described for them, in the infinity of space.

No two men now live, fellow-citizens, perhaps it may be doubted whether any
two men have ever lived in one age, who, more than those we now commemorate,
have impressed their own sentiments, in regard to politics and government,
on mankind, infused their own opinions more deeply into the opinions of
others, or given a more lasting direction to the current of human thought.
Their work doth not perish with them.  The tree which they assisted to plant
will flourish, although they water it and protect it no longer; for it has
struck its roots deep, it has sent them to the very center; no storm, not of
force to burst the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread wide; they
stretch their protecting arms broader and broader, and its top is destined
to reach the heavens.  We are not deceived.  There is no delusion here.  No
age will come in which the American revolution will appear less than it is,
one of the greatest events in human history.  No age will come in which it
will cease to be seen and felt, on either continent, that a mighty step, a
great advance, not only in American affairs, but in human affairs, was made
on the 4th of July, 1776.  And no age will come we trust, so ignorant or so
unjust as not to see and acknowledge the efficient agency of these we now
honor in producing that momentous event.

We are not assembled, therefore, fellow-citizens, as men overwhelmed with
calamity by the sudden disruption of the ties of friendship or affection, or
as in despair for the republic by the untimely blighting of its hopes.
Death has not surprised us by an unseasonable blow.  We have, indeed, seen
the tomb close, but it has closed only over mature years, over long-
protracted public service, over the weakness of age, and over life itself
only when the ends of living had been fulfilled.  These suns, as they rose
slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms in their ascendant, so they
have not rushed from their meridian to sink suddenly in the west.  Like the
mildness, the serenity, the continuing benignity of summer's day, they have
gone down with slow-descending, grateful, long-lingering light; and now that
they are beyond the visible margin of the world, good omens cheer us from
"the bright track of their fiery car!"

There were many points of similarity in the lives and fortunes of these
great men.  They belonged to the same profession, and had pursued its
studies and its practice, for unequal lengths of time indeed, but with
diligence and effect.  Both were learned and able lawyers.  They were
natives and inhabitants, respectively, of those two of the colonies which at
the revolution were the largest and most powerful, and which naturally had a
lead in the political affairs of the times.  When the colonies became in
some degree united, by the assembling of a general congress, they were
brought to act together in its deliberations, not indeed at the same time,
but both at early periods.  Each had already manifested his attachment to
the cause of the country, as well as his ability to maintain it, by printed
addresses, public speeches, extensive correspondence, and whatever other
mode could be adopted for the purpose of exposing the encroachments of the
British parliament, and animating the people to a manly resistance.  Both,
were not only decided, but early, friends of independence.  While others yet
doubted, they were resolved; where others hesitated, they pressed forward.
They were both members of the committee for preparing the declaration of
independence, and they constituted the sub-committee appointed by the other
members to make the draft.  They left their seats in congress, being called
to other public employment, at periods not remote from each other, although
one of them returned to it afterward for a short time.  Neither of them was
of the assembly of great men which formed the present constitution, and
neither was at any time member of congress under its provisions.  Both have
been public ministers abroad, both vice-presidents and both presidents.
These coincidences are now singularly crowned and completed.   They have
died together; and they died on the anniversary of liberty.

When many of us were last in this place, fellow-citizens, it was on the day
of that anniversary.  We were met to enjoy the festivities belonging to the
occasion, and to manifest our grateful homage to our political fathers.  We
did not, we could not here forget our venerable neighbor of Quincy.  We knew
that we were standing, at a time of high and palmy prosperity, where he had
stood in the hour of utmost peril; that we saw nothing but liberty and
security, where he had met the frown of power; that we were enjoying
everything, where he had hazarded everything; and just and sincere plaudits
rose to his name, from the crowds which filled this area, and hung over
these galleries.  He whose grateful duty it was to speak to us, [Hon,
Joshiah Quincy] on that day, of the virtues of our fathers, had, indeed,
admonished us that time and years were about to level his venerable frame
with the dust.  But he bade us hope that "the sound of a nation's joy,
rushing from our cities, ringing from our valleys, echoing from our hills,
might yet break the silence of his aged ear; that the rising blessings of
grateful millions might yet visit with glad light his decaying vision."
Alas! that vision was then closing forever.  Alas! the silence which was
then settling on that aged ear was an everlasting silence!   For, lo!  in
the very moment of our festivities, his freed spirit ascended to God who
gave it!  Human aid and human solace terminate at the grave; or we would
gladly have borne him upward, on a nation's outspread hands; we would have
accompanied him, and with the blessings of millions and the prayers of
millions, commended him. to the Divine favor.

While still indulging our thoughts, on the coincidence of the death of this
venerable man with the anniversary of independence, we learn that Jefferson,
too, has fallen. and that these aged patriots, these illustrious fellow-
laborers, have left our world together.  May not such events raise the
suggestion that they are not undesigned, and that Heaven does so order
things, as sometimes to attract strongly the attention and excite the
thoughts of men?  The occurrence has added new interest to our anniversary,
and will be remembered in all time to come.

The occasion, fellow-citizens, requires some account of the lives and
services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.   This duty must necessarily be
performed with great brevity, and in the discharge of it I shall be obliged
to confine myself, principally, to those parts of their historv and
character which belonged to them as public men.

John Adams was born at Quincy, then part of the ancient town of Braintree,
on the 19th of October, (old style,) 1735. He was a descendant of the
Puritans, his ancestors having early emigrated from England, and settled in
Massachusetts.  Discovering early a strong love of reading and of knowledge,
together with the marks of great strength and activity of mind, proper care
was taken by his worthy father to provide for his education.  He pursued his
youthful studies in Braintree, under Mr. Marsh, a teacher whose fortune it
was that Josiah Quincy, Jr., as well as the subject of these remarks, should
receive from him his instruction in the rudiments of classical literature.
Having been admitted, in 1751, a member of Harvard College, Mr. Adams was
graduated, in course, in 1755; and on the catalogue of that institution, his
name, at the time of his death, was second among the living alumni, being
preceded only by that of the venerable Holyoke.  With what degree of
reputation he left the university is not now precisely known.  We know only
that he was a distinguished in a class which numbered Locke and Hemmenway
among its members.  Choosing the law for his profession, he commenced and
prosecuted its studies at Worcester, under the direction of Samuel Putnam, a
gentleman whom he has himself described as an acute man, an able and learned
lawyer, and as in large professional practice at that time.  In 1758 he was
admitted to the bar, and cormmenced business in Braintree.  He is understood
to have made his first considerable effort, or to have attained his first
signal success, at Plymouth, on one of those occasions which furnish the
earliest opportunity for distinction to many young men of the profession, a
jury trial, and a criminal cause.  His business naturally grew with his
reputation, and his residence in the vicinity afforded the opportunity, as
his growing eminence gave the power, of entering on the large field of
practice which the capital presented.  In 1766 he removed his residence to
Boston, still continuing his attendance on the neighboring circuits, and not
unfrequently called to remote parts of the province.  In 1770 his
professional firmness was brought to a test of some severity, on the
application of the British officers and Soldiers to undertake their defense,
on the trial of the indictments found against them on account of the
transactions of the memorable 5th of March.  He seems to have thought, on
this occasion, that a man can no more abandon the proper duties of his
profession, than he can abandon other duties.  The event proved, that, as he
judged well for his own reputation, he judged well, also, for the interest
and permanent fame of his country.  The result of that trial proved, that
notwithstanding the high degree of excitement then existing in consequence
of the measures of the British government, a jury of Massachusetts would not
deprive the most reckless enemies, even the officers of that standing army
quartered among them which they so perfectly abhorred, of any part of that
protection which the law, in its mildest and most indulgent interpretation,
afforded to persons accused of crimes.

Without pursuing Mr. Adams's professional course further, suffice it to say,
that on the first establishment of the judicial tribunals under the
authority of the state, in 1776, he received an offer of the high and
responsible station of chief-justice of the supreme court of his state.  But
he was destined for another and a different career.  From early life, the
bent of his mind was toward politics. a propensity which the state of the
times, if it did not create, doubtless very much strengthened.  Public
subjects must have occupied the thoughts and filled up the conversation in
the circles in which he then moved, and the interesting questions at that
time just arising could not but sieve on a mind like his, ardent, sanguine,
and patriotic.  The letter, fortunately preserved, written by him at
Worcester, so early as the 12th of October, 1755, is a proof of very
comprehensive views, and uncommon depth of reflection, in a young man not
yet quite twenty.  In this letter he predicted the transfer of power, and
the establishment of a new seat of empire in America; he predicted, also,
the increase of population in the colonies; and anticipated their naval
distinction, and foretold that all Europe combined could not subdue them.
All this is said not on a public occasion or for effect, but in the style of
sober and friendly correspondence, as the result of his own thoughts. "I
sometimes retire," said he, at the close of the letter, "and, laying things
together, form some reflections pleasing to myself.  The produce of one of
these reveries you have read above."*  This prognostication so early in his
own life, so early in the history of the country, of independence, of vast
increase of numbers, of naval force, of such augmented power as might defy
all Europe, is remarkable.  It is more remarkable that its author should
have lived to see fulfilled to the letter what could have seemed to others,
at the time, but the extravagance of youthful fancy.  His earliest political
feelings were thus strongly American, and from this ardent attachment to his
native soil he never departed.

While still living at Quincy, and at the age of twenty-four, Mr. Adams was
present, in this town, on the argument before the supreme court respecting
Writs of Assistance, and heard the celebrated and patriotic speech of James
Otis.  Unquestionably, that was a masterly performance.  No flighty
declamation about liberty, no superficial discussion of popular topics, it
was a learned, penetrating, convincing, constitutional argument, expressed
in a strain of high and resolute patriotism.  He grasped the question then
pending between England and her colonies with the strength of a lion; and if
he sometimes sported, it was only because the lion himself is sometimes
playful.  Its success appears to have been as great as its merits, and its
impression was widely felt.  Mr. Adams himself seems never to have lost the
feeling it produced, and to have entertained constantly the fullest
conviction of its important effects.  "I do say," he observes, "in the most
solemn manner, that Mr. Otis's Oration against Writs of Assistance breathed
into this nation the breath of life."

In 1765 Mr. Adams laid before the public, what I suppose to be his first
printed performance, except essays for the periodical press, A Dissertation
on the Canon and Feudal Law.  The object of this work was to show that our
New England ancestors, in, consenting to exile themselves from their native
land, were actuated mainly by the desire of delivering themeslves [sic] from
the power of the hierarchy, and from the monarchial and aristocratical
political systems of the other continent, and to make this truth bear with
effect on the politics of the times.  Its tone is uncommonly bold and
animated for that period.  He calls on the people, not only to defend, but
to study and understand, their rights and privileges; urges earnestly the
necessity of diffusing general knowledge; invokes the clergy and the bar,
the colleges and academies, and all others who have the ability and the
means to expose the insidious designs of arbitrary power, to resist its
approaches, and to be persuaded that there is a settled design on foot to
enslave all America.  "Be it remembered," says the author, "that liberty
must, at all hazards, be supported.  We have a right to it, derived from our
Maker.  But if we had not, our fathers have earned it and bought it for us,
at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their
blood.  And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among
the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge,
as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them
understandings and a desire to know.  But, besides this, they have a right,
an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible right, to that most dreaded and
envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the character and conduct of their
rulers.  Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees of the
people and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed or
wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that
they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and better agents,
attorneys, and trustees."

The citizens of this town conferred on Mr. Adams his first political
distinction, and clothed him with his first political trust, by electing him
one of their representatives in 1770.  Before this time he had become
extensively known throughout the province, as well by the part he had acted
in relation to public affairs, as by the exercise of his professional
ability.  He was among those who took the deepest interest in the
controversy with England and whether in or out of the legislature, his time
and talents were alike devoted to the cause.  In the years 1773 and 1774 he
was chosen a councilor by the members of the general court, but rejected by
Governor Hutchinson in the former of those years, and by Governor Gage in
the latter.

The time was now at hand, however, when the affairs of the colonies urgently
demanded united counsels.  An open rupture with the parent state appeared
inevitable, and it was but the dictate of prudence that those who were
united by a common interest and a common danger, should protect that
interest and guard against that danger, by united efforts.  A general
congress of delegates from all the colonies having been proposed and agreed
to, the house of representatives, on the 17th of June, 1774, elected James
Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine,
delegates from Massachusetts.  This appointment was made at Salem, where the
general court had been convened by Governor Gage, in the last hour of the
existence of a house of representatives under the provincial charter.  While
engaged in this important business, the governor, having been informed of
what was passing, sent his secretary with a message dissolving the general
court.  The secretary, finding the door locked, directed the messenger to go
in and inform the speaker that the secretary was at the door with a message
from the governor.  The messenger returned, and informed the secretary that
the orders of the house were that the doors should be kept fast; whereupon
the secretary soon after read a proclamation, dissolving the general court,
upon, the stairs.  Thus terminated forever, the actual exercise of the
political power of England in or over Massachusetts.  The four last named
delegates accepted their appointments, and took their seats in congress the
first day of its meeting, September 5th, 1774, in Philadelphia.

The proceedings of the first congress are well known, and have been
universally admired.  It is in vain that we would look for superior proofs
of wisdom, talent, and patriotism.  Lord Chatham said that, for himself, he
must declare that he had studied and admired the free states of antiquity,
the master states of the world, but that, for solidity of reasoning, force
of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, no body of men could stand in
preference to this congress.  It is hardly inferior praise to say that no
production of that great man himself can be pronounced superior to several
of the papers, published as the proceedings of this most able, most firm,
most patriotic assembly.  There is, indeed, nothing superior to them in the
range of political disquisition.  They not only embrace, illustrate and
enforce everything which political philosophy, the love of liberty, and the
spirit of free inquiry had antecedently produced, but they add new and
striking views of their own, and apply the whole, with irresistible force,
in support of the cause which had drawn them together.

Mr. Adams was a constant attendant on the deliberations of this body, and
bore an active part in its important measures.  He was of the committee to
state the rights of the colonies, and of that, also, which reported the
Address to the King.

As it was in the continental congress, fellow-citizens, that those whose
deaths have given rise to this occasion were first brought together, and
called on to unite their industry and their ability in the service of the
country, let us now turn to the other of these distinguished men, and take a
brief notice of his life up to the period when he appeared within the walls
of congress.

Thomas Jefferson descended from ancestors who had been settled in Virginia
for some generations, was born near the spot on which he died, in the county
of Albemarle, on the 2d of April, (old style,) 1743.  His youthful studies
were pursued in the neighborhood of his father's residence, until he was
removed to the college of William and Mary, the highest honors of which he
in due time received.  Having left the college with reputation, he applied
himself to the study of the law under the tuition of George Wythe, one of
the highest judicial names of which that state can boast.  At an early age,
he was elected a member of the legislature, in which he had no sooner
appeared than he distinguished himself by knowledge, capacity, and
promptitude.

Mr. Jefferson appears to have been imbued with an early love of letters and
science, and to have cherished a strong disposition to pursue these objects.
To the physical sciences, especially, and to ancient classic literature, he
is understood to have had a warm attachment, and never entirely to have lost
sight of them in the midst of the busiest occupations.  But the times were
times for action, rather than for contemplation.  The country was to be
defended, and to be saved, before it could be enjoyed.  Philosophic leisure
and literary pursuits, and even the objects of professional attention, where
[sic] all necessarily postponed to the urgent calls of the public service.
The exigency of the country made the same demand on Mr. Jefferson that it
made on others who had the ability and the disposition to serve it; and he
obeyed the call; thinking and feeling in this respect with the great Roman
orator: "Quis enim est tam cupidus in perspicienda cognoscendaque rerum
nature, ut, si, ei tractanti contemplantique, res cognitione dignissmas
subito sit allatum periculum discrimenque patriae, cui subvenire
opitularique possit, non illa omnia relinquat atque abJiciat, etiam si
dinumerare se stellas, aut metiri mundi magnitudinem posse arbitretur?"

Entering with all his heart into the cause of liberty, his ability,
patriotism, and power with the pen, naturally drew upon him a large
participation in the most important concerns.  Wherever he was, there was
found a soul devoted to the cause, power to defend and maintain it, and
willingness to incur all its hazards.  In 1774 he published a Summary View
of the Rights of British America, a valuable production among those intended
to show the dangers which threatened the liberties of the country, and to
encourage the people in their defense.  In June, 1775, he was elected a
member of the continental Congress, as successor to Peyton Randolph, who had
retired on account of ill health, and took his seat in that body on the 21st
of the same month.

And now, fellow-citizens, without pursuing the biography of these
illustrious men further, for the present, let us turn our attention to the
most prominent act of their lives, their participation in the DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE.

Preparatory to the introduction of that important measure, a committee, at
the head of which was Mr. Adams, had reported a resolution, which congress
adopted the 10th of May, recommending, in substance, to all the colonies
which had not already established governments suited to the exigencies of
their affairs, to adopt such government as would, in the opinion of the
representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of
their constituents in particular, and America in general.

This significant vote was soon followed by the direct proposition which
Richard Henry Lee had the honor to submit to Congress, by resolution, on the
7th day of June.  The published journal does not expressly state it, but
there is no doubt, I suppose, that this resolution was in the same words
when originally submitted by Mr. Lee, as when finally passed.  Having been
discussed on Saturday, the 8th, and Monday, the 10th of June, this
resolution was on the last mentioned day postponed for further consideration
to the first day of July; and at the same time, it was voted that a
committee be appointed to prepare a Declaration to the effect of the
resolution.  This committee was elected by ballot, on the following day, and
consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman,
and Robert R. Livingston.

It is usual when committees are elected by ballot, that their members are
arranged in order, according to the number of votes which each has received.
Mr. Jefferson, therefore, had received the highest, and Mr. Adams the next
highest number of votes.  The difference is said to have been but of a
single vote.  Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams, standing thus at the head of the
committee, were requested by the other members to act as a sub-committee to
prepare the draft; and Mr. Jefferson drew up the paper.  The original draft,
as brought by him from his study, and submitted to the other members of the
committee, with interlineations in the handwriting of Dr. Franklin, and
others in that of Mr. Adams, was in Mr. Jefferson's possession at the time
of his death.  The merit of this paper is Mr. Jefferson's.  Some changes
were made in it on the suggestion of other members of the committee, and
others by congress while it was under discussion.   But none of them altered
the tone. the frame, the arrangement, or the general character of the
instrument,  As a composition, the Declaration is Mr. Jefferson's.  It is
the production of his mind, and the high honor of it belongs to him, clearly
and absolutely.

It has sometimes been said, as if it were a derogation from the merits of
this paper; that it contains nothing new; that it only states grounds of
proceeding, and presses topics of argument, which had often been stated and
pressed before.   But it was not the object of the Declaration to produce
anything new.  It was not to invent reasons for independence, but to state
those which governed the congress.  For great and sufficient causes it was
proposed to declare independence; and the proper business of the paper to be
drawn was to set forth those causes, and justify the authors of the measure,
in any event of fortune, to the country, and to posterity.  The cause of
American independence, moreover, was now to be presented to the world in
such manner, if it might so be, as to engage its sympathy, to command its
respect, to attract its admiration. and in an assembly of most able and
distinguished men, Thomas Jefferson had the high honor of being the selected
advocate of this cause.  To say that he performed his great work well, would
be doing him injustice.   To say that he did it excellently well, admirably
well, would be inadequate and halting praise.  Let us rather say that he so
discharged the duty assigned him, that all Americans may well rejoice that
the work of drawing the title-deed of their liberties devolved on his hands.

With all its merits, there are those who have thought that there was one
thing in the declaration to be regretted; and that is, the asperity and
anger with which it speaks of the person of the king; the industrious
ability with which it accumulates and charges upon him all the injuries
which the colonies had suffered from the mother country.  Possibly some
degree of injustice, now or hereafter, at home or abroad, may be done to the
character of Mr. Jefferson, if this part of the declaration be not placed in
its proper light.  Anger or resentment, certainly much less personal
reproach and invective, could not properly find place in a composition of
such high dignity, and of such lofty and permanent character.

A single reflection on the original ground of dispute between England and
the colonies, is sufficient to remove any unfavorable impression in this
respect.

The inhabitants of all the colonies, while colonies, admitted themselves
bound by their allegiance to the king; but they disclaimed altogether, the
authority of parliament; holding themselves, in this respect, to resemble
the condition of Scotland and Ireland before the respective unions of those
kingdoms with England, when they acknowledged allegiance to the same king,
but each had its separate legislature.  The tie, therefore, which our
revolution was to break, did not subsist between us and the British
parliament, or between us and the British government, in the aggregate, but
directly between us and the king himself.  The colonists had never admitted
themselves subject to parliament.  That was precisely the point of the
original controversy.  They had uniformly denied that parliament had
authority to make laws for them.  There was, therefore, no subjection to
parliaments to be thrown off.**  But allegiance to the king did exist, and
had been uniformly acknowledged; and down to 1775, the most solemn
assurances had been given that it was not intended to break that allegiance,
or to throw it off.  Therefore, as the direct object and only effect of the
declaration, according to the principles on which the controversy had been
maintained on our part, were to sever the tie of allegiance which bound us
to the king, it was properly and necessarily founded on acts of the crown
itself, as its justifying causes.  Parliament is not so much as mentioned in
the whole instrument.  When odious and oppressive acts are referred to, it
is done by charging the king with confederating with others, "in pretended
acts of legislation," the object being constantly to hold the king himself
directly responsible for those measures which were the grounds of
separation.  Even the precedent of the English revolution was not
overlooked, and in this case as well as in that, occasion was found to say
that the king had abdicated the government.  Consistency with the principles
upon which resistance began, and with all the previous state papers issued
by congress, required that the declaration should be bottomed on the
misgovernment of the king; and therefore it was properly framed with that
aim and to that end.  The king was known, indeed, to have acted, as in other
cases, by his ministers, and with his parliament; but as our ancestors had
never admitted themselves subject either to ministers or to parliament,
there were no reasons to be given for now refusing obedience to their
authority.  This clear and obvious necessity of founding the declaration on
the misconduct of the king himself gives to that instrument its personal
application, and its character of direct and pointed accusation.

The declaration having been reported to congress by the committee, the
resolution itself was taken up and debated on the first day of July, and
again on the second on which last day, it was agreed to and adopted, in
these words:

"Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free
and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state
of Great Britian is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

Having thus passed the main resolution, congress proceeded to consider the
reported draft of the declaration.  It was discussed on the second, and
third, and fourth days of the month, in committee of the whole, and on the
last of those days, being reported from that committee, it received the
final approbation and sanction of congress.  It was ordered, at the same
time, that copies be sent to the several states, and that it be proclaimed
at the head of the army.  The declaration thus published did not bear the
names of the members, for as yet, it had not been signed by them.  It was
authenticated like other papers of the congress, by the signatures of the
President and secretary.  On the 19th of July, as appears by the secret
journal, congress "Resolved, That the declaration, passed on the fourth, be
fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and style of 'THE UNANIMOUS
DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;' and that the same,
when engrossed, be signed by every member of congress."  And on the SECOND
day of  August following, "the declaration being engrossed, and compared at
the table, was signed by the members."  So that it happens, fellow-citizens,
that we pay these honors to their memory on the anniversary of that day, on
which these great men actually signed their names to the declaration.  The
declaration was thus made, that is, it passed and was adopted as an act of
congress, on the fourth of July; it was then signed, and certified by the
President and secretary, like other acts.  The FOURTH OF JULY, therefore, is
the anniversary of the declaration.  But the signatures of the members
present were made to it, being then engrossed on parchment, on the second
day of August.  Absent members afterward signed, as they came in; and indeed
it bears the signatures of some who were not chosen members of congress
until after the fourth of July.  The interest belonging to the subject will
be sufficient, I hope, to justify these details.

The congress of the revolution, fellow-citizens, sat with closed doors, and
no report of its debates was ever taken.  The discussion, therefore, which
accompanied this great measure, has never been preserved, except in memory
and by tradition.  But it is, I believe, doing no injustice to others to say
that the general opinion was, and uniformly has been, that in debate, on the
side of independence, John Adams had no equal.  The great author of the
declaration himself has expressed that opinion uniformly and strongly.
"John Adams," said he, in the hearing of him who has now the honor to
address you, "John Adams was our colossus on the floor.  Not graceful, not
elegant, not always fluent, in his public addresses, he yet came out with a
power, both of thought and of expression, which moved us from our seats."

For the part which he was here to perform, Mr. Adams doubtless was eminently
fitted. He possessed a bold spirit, which disregarded danger, and a sanguine
reliance on the goodness of the cause, and the virtues of the people, which
led him to overlook all obstacles.  His character, too, had been formed in
troubled times.  He had been rocked in the early storms of the controversy,
and had acquired a decision and a hardihood proportioned to the severity of
the discipline which he had undergone.

He not only loved the American cause devoutly, but had studied and
understood it.  It was all familiar to him.  He had tried his powers on the
questions which it involved, often and in various ways; and had brought to
their consideration whatever of argument or illustration the history of his
own country, the history of England, or the stores of ancient or of legal
learning could furnish.  Every grievance enumerated in the long catalogue of
the declaration had been the subject of his discussion, and the object of
his remonstrance and reprobation.  From 1760, the colonies, the rights of
the colonies, the liberties of the colonies, and the wrongs inflicted on the
colonies, had engaged his constant attention; and it has surprised those who
have had the opportunity of observing, with what full remembrance and with
what prompt recollection he could refer, in his extreme old age, to every
act of parliament affecting the colonies, distinguishing and stating their
respective titles, sections, and provisions; and to all the colonial
memorials, remonstrances and petitions with whatever else belonged to the
intimate and exact history of the times from that year to 1775.  It was, in
his own judgment, between these years that the American people came to a
full understanding and thorough knowledge of their rights, and to a fixed
resolution of maintaining them; and bearing, himself, an active part in all
important transactions, the controversy with England being then in effect
the business of his life, facts, dates and particulars, made an impression
which was never effaced.  He was prepared, therefore, by education and
discipline, as well as by natural talent and natural temperament, for the
part which he was now to act.

The eloquence of Mr. Adams resembled his general character, and formed,
indeed, a part of it.  It was bold, manly, and energetic, and such the
crisis required. When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous
occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited,
nothing is valuable in speech farther than it is connected with high
intellectual and moral endowments.  Clearness, force, and earnestness, are
the qualities which produce conviction.  True eloquence, indeed, does not
consist in speech.  It cannot be brought from far.  Labor and learning may
toil for it, but they will toil in vain.  Words and phrases may be marshaled
in every way, but they cannot compass it.  It must exist in the man, in the
subject, and in the occasion.  Affected passion, intense expression, the
pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it; they cannot reach it.  It
comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth,
or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native
force.  The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied
contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the
fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision
of the hour.  Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all
elaborate oratory contemptible.  Even genius itself then feels rebuked and
subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities.  Then patriotism is
eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent.  The clear conception, outrunning
the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless
spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every
feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object�this,
this is eloquence; or rather it is something greater and higher than all
eloquence, it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action.

In July, 1776, the controversy had passed the stage of argument.  An appeal
had been made to force, and opposing armies were in the field.  Congress,
then, was to decide whether the tie which had so long bound us to the parent
state was to be severed at once, and severed forever.  All the colonies had
signified their resolution to abide by this decision, and the people looked
for it with the most intense anxiety.  And surely, fellow-citizens, never,
never were men called to a more important political deliberation.  If we
contemplate it from the point where they then stood, no question could be
more full of interest; if we look at it now, and judge of its importance by
its effects, it appears in still greater magnitude.

Let us, then, bring before us the assembly, which was about to decide a
question thus big with the fate of empire.  Let us open their doors and look
in upon their deliberations.  Let us survey the anxious and care-worn
countenances, let us hear the firm-toned voices of this band of patriots.

HANCOCK presides over the solemn sitting; and one of those not yet prepared
to pronounce for absolute independence is on the floor, and is urging his
reasons for dissenting from the declaration.

"Let us pause!  This step once taken, cannot be retraced.  This resolution,
once passed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation.  If success attend the
arms of England, we shall then be no longer colonies, with charters and with
privileges; these will all be forfeited by this act; and we shall be in the
condition of other conquered people, at the mercy of the conquerors.  For
ourselves, we may be ready to run the hazard; but are we ready to carry the
country to that length?  Is success so probable as to justify it?  Where is
the military, where the naval power, by which we are to resist the whole
strength of the arm of England, for she will exert that strength to the
utmost?  Can we rely on the constancy and perseverance of the people?  or
will they not act as the people of other countries have acted, and, wearied
with a long war, submit, in the end, to a worse oppression?  While we stand
on our old ground, and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are
right, and are not answerable for consequences.  Nothing, then can be
imputed to us.  But if we now change our object, carry our pretensions
farther, and set up for absolute independence, we shall lose the sympathy of
mankind.  We shall no longer be defending what we possess, but struggling
for something which we never did possess, and which we have solemnly and
uniformly disclaimed all intention of pursuing, from the very outset of the
troubles.  Abandoning thus our old ground, of resistance only to arbitrary
acts of oppression, the nations will believe the whole to have been mere
pretense, and they will look on us, not as injured, but as ambitious
subjects.  I shudder before this responsibility.  It will be on us, if,
relinquishing the ground we have stood on so long, and stood on so safely we
now proclaim independence, and carry on the war for that  object, while
these cities burn, these pleasant fields whiten and bleach with the bones of
their owners, and these streams run blood.  It will be upon us, it will be
upon us, if, failing to maintain this unseasonable and ill-judged
declaration, a sterner despotism, maintained by military power, shall be
established over our posterity, when we ourselves, given up by an exhausted,
a harassed, a misled people, shall have expiated our rashness and atoned for
our presumption on the scaffold."

It was for Mr. Adams to reply to arguments like these.  We know his
opinions, and we know his character.  He would commence with his accustomed
directness and earnestness.

"'Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart
to this vote.  It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at
independence.  But there's a divinity which shapes our ends.  The injustice
of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest for our
good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our
grasp.  We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours.  Why, then, should
we defer the declaration?  Is any man so weak as now to hope for
reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country
and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor?  Are not
you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our venerable colleague near
you, are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of
punishment and of vengeance?  Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what
are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws?
If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up the war?
Do we mean to submit to the measures of parliament, Boston Port Bill and
all?  Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to
powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust?  I know we
do not mean to submit.  We never shall submit.  Do we intend to violate that
most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God,
of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the
dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised
to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives?  I
know there is not a man here, who would not rather see a general
conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or
title of that plighted faith fall to the ground.  For myself, having, twelve
months ago, in this place, moved you, that George Washington be appointed
commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for defense of American
liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him.

"The war, then, must go on.  We must fight it through.  And if the war must
go on, why put off longer the declaration of independence?  That measure
will strengthen us  It will give us character abroad. The nations will then
treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves
subjects, in arms against our sovereign.  Nay, I maintain that England
herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence,
than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct
toward us has been a course of injustice and oppression.  Her pride will be
less wounded by submitting to that course of things which now predestinates
our independence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her
rebellious subjects.  The former she would regard as the result of fortune,
the latter she would feel as her own deep disgrace.  Why, then, why, then,
sir, do we not as soon as possible change this from a civil to a national
war?  And since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state
to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory?

"If we fail, it can be no worse for us.  But we shall not fail.  The cause
will raise up armies; the cause will create navies.  The people, the people,
if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves,
gloriously, through this struggle.  I care not how fickle other people have
been found.  I know the people of these colonies, and I know that resistance
to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot be
eradicated.  Every colony, indeed, has expressed its willingness to follow,
if we but take the lead.  Sir, the declaration will inspire the people with
increased courage.  Instead of a long and bloody war for the restoration of
privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under
a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire independence,
and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life.  Read this
declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn from its
scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, or to perish on the
bed of honor.  Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the
love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or
fall with it.  Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear
it who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon, let them see it who saw
their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the
streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its
support.

"Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly,
through this day's business.  You and I, indeed, may rue it.  We may not
live to the time when this declaration shall be made good.  We may die; die
colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold.
Be it so.  Be it so.  If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall
require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at the
appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may.  But while I do live,
let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free
country.

"But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this declaration
will stand.  It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand,
and it will richly compensate for both.  Through the thick gloom of the
present I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven.  We shall
make this a glorious, an immortal day.  When we are in our graves, our
children will honor it.  They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with
festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations.   On its annual return they
will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not
of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.  Sir,
before God, I believe the hour is come.  My judgment approves this measure,
and my whole heart is in it.  All that I have, and all that I am, and all
that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave
off as I begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the
declaration.  It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall
be my dying sentiment, independence, now, and INDEPENDENCE FOREVER."

And so that day shall be honored, illustrious prophet and patriot!  so that
day shall be honored, and as often as it returns, thy renown shall come
along with it, and the glory of thy life, like the day of thy death, shall
not fail from the remembrance of men.

It would be unjust, fellow-citizens, on this occasion while we express our
veneration for him who is the immediate subject of these remarks, were we to
omit a most respectful, affectionate, and grateful mention of those other
great men, his collegues, who stood with him, and with the same spirit, the
same devotion, took part in the interesting transaction.  Hancock, the
proscribed Hancock, exiled from his home by a military governor, cut off by
proclamation from the mercy of the crown�Heaven reserved for him the
distinguished honor of putting this great question to the vote, and of
writing his own name first, and most conspicuously, on that parchment which
spoke defiance to the power of the crown of England.  There, too, is the
name of that other proscribed patriot, Samuel Adams, a man who hungered and
thirsted for the independence of his country, who thought the declaration
halted and lingered, being himself not only ready, but eager, for it, long
before it was proposed:  a man of the deepest sagacity, the clearest
foresight, and the profoundest judgment in men.  And there is Gerry, himself
among the earliest and the foremost of the patriots, found, when the battle
of Lexington summoned them to common counsels, by the side of Warren, a man
who lived to serve his country at home and abroad, and to die in the second
place in the government.  There, too, is the inflexible, the upright, the
Spartan character, Robert Treat Paine.  He also lived to serve his country
through the struggle, and then withdrew from her councils, only that he
might give his labors and his life to his native state, in another relation.
These names, fellow-citizens, are the treasures of the commonwealth:  and
they are treasures which grow brighter by time.

It is now necessary to resume and to finish with great brevity the notice of
the lives of those whose virtues and services we have met to commemorate.

Mr. Adams remained in congress from its first meeting till November, 1777,
when he was appointed minister to France.  He proceeded on that service in
the February following, embarking in the Boston frigate on the shore of his
native town at the foot of Mount Wollaston.  The year following, he was
appointed commissioner to treat of peace with England.   Returning to the
United States, he was a delegate from Braintree in the convention for
framing the constitution of this commonwealth, in 1780.  At the latter end
of the same year, he again went abroad in the diplomatic service of the
country, and was employed at various courts, and occupied with various
negotiations, until 1788.  The particulars of these interesting and
important services this occasion does not allow time to relate.  In 1782 he
concluded our first treaty with Holland.  His negotiations with that
republic, his efforts to persuade the states-general to recognize our
independence, his incessant and indefatigable exertions to represent the
American cause favorably on the continent, and to counteract the designs of
its enemies, open and secret, and his successful undertaking to obtain
loans, on the credit of a nation yet new and unknown, are among his most
arduous. most useful, most honorable services.  It was his fortune to bear a
part in the negotiation for peace with England, and in something more than
six years from the declaration which he had so strenuously supported, he had
the satisfaction to see the minister plenipotentiary of the crown subscribe
to the instrument which declared that his "Britannic majesty acknowledged
the United States to be free, sovereign, and independent."  In these
important transactions, Mr. Adams' conduct received the marked approbation
of congress and of the countrty.

While abroad, in 1787, he published his Defense of the American
Constitution; a work of merit and ability, though composed with haste, on
the spur of a particular occasion, in the midst of other occupations, and
under circumstances not admitting of careful revision.  The immediate object
of the work was to counteract the weight of opinion advanced by several
popular European writers of that day, Mr. Turgct, the Abbe de Mably and Dr.
Price, at a time when the people of the United States were employed in
forming and revising their system of government.

Returning to the United States in 1788, he found the new government about
going into operation, and was himself elected the first vice-president, a
situation which he filled with reputation for eight years, at the expiration
of which he was raised to the presidential chair, as immediate successor to
the immortal Washington.  In this high station he was succeeded by Mr.
Jefferson, after a memorable controversy between their respective friends,
in 1801; and from that period his manner of life has been known to all who
hear me.  He has lived for five-and-twenty years, with every enjoyment that
could render old age happy.  Not inattentive to the occurrences of the
times, political cares have not yet materially, or for any long time,
disturbed his repose.  In 1820 he acted as elector of president and vice-
president, and in the same year we saw him, then at the age of eighty-five,
a member of the convention of this commonwealth called to revise the
constitution.  Forty years before, he had been one of those who formed that
constitution; and he had now the pleasure of witnessing that there was
little which the people desired to change.  Possessing all his faculties to
the end of his long life, with an unabated love of reading and
contemplation, in the center of interesting circles of friendship and
affection, he was blessed in his retirement with whatever of repose and
felicity the condition of man allows.  He had, also, other enjoyments.  He
saw around him that prosperity and general happiness which had been the
object of his public cares and labors.  No man ever beheld more clearly, and
for a longer time, the great and beneficial effects of the services rendered
by himself to his country.  That liberty which he so early defended, that
independence of which he was so able an advocate and supporter, he saw, we
trust, firmly and securely established.  The population of the country
thickened around him faster, and extended wider, than his own sanguine
predictions had anticipated; and the wealth respectability, and power of the
nation sprang up to a magnitude which it is quite impossible he could have
expected to witness in his day.  He lived also to behold those principles of
civil freedom which had been developed, established, and practically applied
in America, attract attention, command respect, and awaken imitation, in
other regions of the globe; and well might, and well did, he exclaim, "Where
will the consequences of the American revolution end?"

If anything yet remains to fill this cup of happiness let it be added that
he lived to see a great and intelligent people bestow the highest honor in
their gift where he had bestowed his own kindest parental affections and
lodged his fondest hopes.  Thus honored in life, thus happy at death, he saw
the JUBILEE, and he died; and with the last prayers which trembled on his
lips was the fervent supplication for his country, "Independence forever!"

Mr. Jefferson, having been occupied in the years 1778 and 1779 in the
important service of revising the laws of Virginia, was elected governor of
that state, as successor to Patrick Henry, and held the situation when the
state was invaded by the British arms.  In 1781 he published his Notes on
Virginia, a work which attracted attention in Europe as well as America,
dispelled many misconceptions respecting this continent, and gave its author
a place among men distinguished for science.  In November, 1783, he again
took his seat in the continental congress, but in the May following was
appointed minister plenipotentiary, to act abroad, in the negotiation of
commercial treaties, with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams.  He proceeded to
France in execution of this mission, embarking at Boston; and that was the
only occasion on which he ever visited this place.  In I785 he was appointed
minister to France, the duties of which situation he continued to perform
until October, 1789, when he obtained leave to retire, just on the eve of
that tremendous revolution which has so much agitated the world in our
times.  Mr. Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic duties was marked by
great ability, diligence, and patriotism; and while he resided at Paris, in
one of the most interesting periods, his character for intelligence, his
love of knowledge and of the society of learned men, distinguished him in
the highest circles of the French capital.  No court in Europe had at that
time in Paris a representative commanding or enjoying higher regard for
political knowledge or for general attainments, than the minister of this
then infant republic.  Immediately on his return to his native country, at
the organization of the government under the present constitution, his
talents and experience recommended him to President Washington for the first
office in his gift.  He was placed at the head of the department of state.
In this situation, also, he manifested conspicuous ability.  His
correspondence with the ministers of other powers residing here, and his
instructions to our own diplomatic agents abroad, are among our ablest state
papers.  A thorough knowledge of the laws and usages of nations, perfect
acquaintance with the immediate subject before him, great felicity, and
still greater faculty, in writing, show themselves in whatever effort his
official situation called on him to make.  It is believed by competent
judges, that the diplomatic intercourse of the government of the United
States, from the first meeting of the continental congress in 1774 to the
present time taken together, would not suffer, in respect to the talent with
which it has been conducted, by comparison with anything which other and
older states can produce; and to the attainment of this respectability and
distinction Mr. Jefferson has contributed his full part.

On the retirement of General Washington from the presidency, and the
election of Mr. Adams to that office in 1797, he was chosen vice-president.
While presiding in this capacity over the deliberations of the senate, he
compiled and published a Manual of Parliamentary Practice, a work of more
labor and more merit than is indicated by its size.  It is now received as
the general standard by which proceedings are regulated; not only in both
houses of congress, but in most of the other legislative bodies in the
country.  In 1801 he was elected president, in opposition to Mr. Adams, and
re-elected in 1805, by a vote approaching toward unanimity.

From the time of his final retirement from public life, in 1809, Mr.
Jefferson lived as became a wise man.  Surrounded by affectionate friends,
his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge undiminished, with uncommon health and
unbroken spirits, he was able to enjoy largely the rational pleasures of
life, and to partake in that public prosperity which he had so much
contributed to produce.  His kindness and hospitality, the charm of his
conversation, the ease of his manners, the extent of his acquirements, and,
especially, the full store of revolutionary incidents which he possessed,
and which he knew when and how to dispense, rendered his abode in a high
degree attractive to his admiring countrymen, while his high public and
scientific character drew toward him every intelligent and educated traveler
from abroad.  Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson had the pleasure of knowing
that the respect which they so largely received was not paid to their
official stations.  They were not men made great by office; but great men,
on whom the country for its own benefit had conferred office.  There was
that in them which office did not give, and which the relinquishment of
office did not, and could not, take away.  In their retirement, in the midst
of their fellow-citizens, themselves private citizens, they enjoyed as high
regard and esteem as when filling the most important places of public trust.

There remained to Mr. Jefferson yet one other work of patriotism and
beneficence, the establishment of a university in his native state.  To this
object he devoted years of incessant and anxious attention, and by the
enlightened liberality of the legislature of Virginia, and the cooperation
of other able and zealous friends, he lived to see it accomplished.  May all
success attend this infant seminary; and may those who enjoy its advantages,
as often as their eyes shall rest on the neighboring height, recollect what
they owe to their disinterested and indefatigable benefactor; and may
letters honor him who thus labored in the cause of letters!

Thus useful, and thus respected, passed the old age of Thomas Jefferson.
But time was on its ever-ceaseless wing, and was now bringing the last hour
of this illustrious man.  He saw its approach with undisturbed serenity.  He
counted the moments as they passed, and beheld that his last sands were
falling.  That day, too, was at hand which he had helped to make immortal.
One wish, one hope, if it were not presumptuous, beat in his fainting
breast.  Could it be so might it please God, he would desire once more to
see the sun, once more to look abroad on the scene around him on the great
day of liberty.  Heaven, in its mercy, fulfilled that prayer.  He saw that
sun, he enjoyed its sacred light he thanked God for this mercy, and bowed
his aged head to the grave.  "Felix, non vitae tantum claritate, sid etiam
opportunitate mortis."

The last public labor of Mr. Jefferson naturally suggests the expression of
the high praise which is due, both to him and to Mr. Adams, for their
uniform and zealous attachment to learning, and to the cause of general
knowledge.  Of the advantages of learning, indeed, and of literary
accomplishments, their own characters were striking recommendations and
illustrations.  They were scholars, ripe and good scholars; widely
acquainted with ancient, as well as modern literature, and not altogether
uninstructed in the deeper sciences.  Their acquirements, doubtless, were
different, and so were the particular objects of their literary pursuits; as
their tastes and characters, in these respects differed like those of other
men.  Being, also, men of busy lives, with great objects requiring action
constantly before them, their attainments in letters did not become showy or
obtrusive.  Yet I would hazard the opinion, that, if we could now ascertain
all the causes which gave them eminence, and distinction in the midst of the
great men with whom they acted, we should find not among the least their
early acquisitions in literature, the resources which it furnished, the
promptitude and facility which it communicated, and the wide field it opened
for analogy and illustration; giving them thus, on every subject, a larger
view and a broader range, as well for discussion as for the government of
their own conduct.

Literature sometimes, and pretensions to it much oftener disgusts, by
appearing to hang loosely on the character, like something foreign or
extraneous, not a part, but an ill-adjusted appendage; or by seeming to
overload and weigh it down bv its unsightly bulk, like the productions of
bad taste in architecture, where there is messy and cumbrous ornament
without strength or solidity of column.  This has exposed learning, and
especially classical learning, to reproach.  Men have seen that it might
exist without mental superiority, without vigor, without good taste, and
without utility.  But in such cases classical learning has only not inspired
natural talent, or, at most, it has but made original feebleness of
intellect, and natural bluntness of perception, something more conspicuous.
The question, after all, if it be a question, is, whether literature,
ancient as well as modern, does not assist a good understanding, improve
natural good taste, add polished armor to native strength, and render its
possessor, not only more capable of deriving private happiness from
contemplation and reflection, but more accomplished also for action in the
affairs of life, and especially for public action.  Those whose memories we
now honor were learned men; but their learning was kept in its proper place,
and made subservient to the uses and objects of life.  Thev were scholars,
not common nor superficial; but their scholarship was so in keeping with
their character, so blended and inwrought, that careless observers, or bad
judges, not seeing an ostentatious display of it, might infer that it did
not exist; forgetting, or not knowing, that classical learning in men who
act in conspicuous public stations, perform duties which exercise the
faculty of writing, or address popular deliberative, or judicial bodies, is
often felt where it is little seen, and sometimes felt more effectually
because it is not seen at all.

But the cause of knowledge, in a more enlarged sense, the cause of general
knowledge and of a popular education, had no warmer friends, nor more
powerful advocates, than Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson.  On this foundation
they knew the whole republican system rested; and this great and all-
important truth they strove to impress, by all the means in their power.  In
the early publication already referred to Mr. Adams expresses the strong and
just sentiment, that the education of the poor is more important, even to
the rich themselves, than all their own.  On this great truth indeed, is
founded that unrivaled, that invaluable political and moral institution, our
own blessing and the glory of our fathers, the New England system of free
schools.

As the promotion of knowledge had been the object of their regard through
life, so these great men made it the subject of their testamentary bounty.
Mr. Jefferson is understood to have bequeathed his library to the university
of his native state, and that of Mr. Adams is bestowed on the inhabitants of
Quincy.

Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, fellow-citizens, were successively presidents
of the United States.  The comparative merits of their respective
administrations for a long time agitated and divided public opinion.  They
were rivals, each  supported by numerous and powerful portions of the
people, for the highest office.  This contest, partly the cause and partly
the consequence of the long existence of two great political parties in the
country, is now part of the history of our government.  We may naturally
regret that anything should have occurred to create difference and discord
between those who had acted harmoniously and efficiently in the great
concerns of the revolution.  But this is not the time, nor this the
occasion, for entering into the grounds of that difference, or for
attempting to discuss the merits of the questions which it involves.  As
practical questions, they were canvassed when the measures which they
regarded were acted on and adopted; and as belonging to history, the time
has not come for their consideration.

It is, perhaps, not wonderful, that, when the constitution of the United
States went first into operation, different opinions should be entertained
as to the extent of the powers conferred by it.  Here was a natural source
of diversity of sentiment.  It is still less wonderful, that that event,
about cotemporary with our government under the present constitution, which
so entirely shocked all Europe, and disturbed our relations with her leading
powers, should be thought, by different men, to have different bearings on
our own prosperity; and that the early measures adopted by our government,
in consequence of this new state of things, should be seen in opposite
lights.  It is for the future historian, when what now remains of prejudice
and misconception shall have passed away, to state these different opinions,
and pronounce impartial judgment.  In the mean time, all good men rejoice,
and well may rejoice, that the sharpest differences sprung out of measures
which, whether right or wrong, have ceased with the exigencies that gave
them birth, and have left no permanent effect, either on the constitution or
on the general prosperity of the country.  This remark, I am aware, may be
supposed to have its exception in one measure, the alteration of the
constitution as to the mode of choosing President; but it is true in its
general application.  Thus the course of policv pursued toward France in
1798, on the one hand, and the measures of commercial restriction commenced
in 1807, on the other, both subjects of warm and severe opposition, have
passed away and left nothing behind them.  They were temporary, and whether
wise or unwise, their consequences were limited to their respective
occasions.  It is equally clear, at the same time, and it is equally
gratifying, that those measures of both administrations which were of
durable importance, and which drew after them interesting and long remaining
consequences, have received general approbation.  Such was the organization,
or rather the creation, of the navy, in the administration of Mr. Adams;
such the acquisition of Louisiana, in that of Mr. Jefferson.  The country,
it may safely be added, is not likely to be willing either to approve, or to
reprobate, indiscriminately, and in the aggregate, all the measures of
either, or of any, administration.  The dictate of reason and justice is,
that, holding each one his own sentiments on the points in difference, we
imitate the great men themselves in the forbearance and moderation which
they have cherished, and in the mutual respect and kindness which they have
been so much inclined to feel and to reciprocate.

No men, fellow-citizens, ever served their country with more entire
exemption from every imputation of selfish and mercenary motives, than those
to whose memory we are paying these proofs of respect.  A suspicion of any
disposition to enrich themselves, or to profit by their public employments,
never rested on either.  No sordid motive approached them.  The inheritance
which they have left to their children is of their character and their fame.

Fellow-citizens, I will detain you no longer by this faint and feeble
tribute to the memory of the illustrious dead.  Even in other hands,
adequate justice could not be performed, within the limits of this occasion.
Their highest, their best praise, is your deep conviction of their merits,
your affectionate gratitude for their labors and services.  It is not my
voice, it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits, this arresting of all
attention, these solemn ceremonies, and this crowded house, which speak
their eulogy.  Their fame, indeed, is safe.  That is now treasured up beyond
the reach of accident.   Although no sculptured marble should rise to their
memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their
remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.  Marble columns may,
indeed, moulder into dust, time may erase all impress from the crumbling
stone, but their fame remains; for with AMERICAN LIBERTY it rose, and with
AMERICAN LIBERTY ONLY can it perish.  It was the last swelling peal of
yonder choir, THEIR BODIES ARE BURIED IN PEACE, BUT THEIR NAME LIVETH
EVERMORE.  I catch that solemn song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral
triumph, THEIR NAME LIVETH EVERMORE.

Of the illustrious signers of the declaration of independence there now
remains only Charles Carroll.  He seems an aged oak, standing alone on the
plain, which time has spared a little longer after all its cotemporaries
have been leveled with the dust.  Venerable object!  we delight to gather
round its trunk, while yet it stands, and to dwell beneath its shadow.  Sole
survivor of an assembly of as great men as the world has witnessed, in a
transaction one of the most important that history records, what thoughts,
what interesting reflections, must fill his elevated and devout soul!  If he
dwell on the past, how touching its recollections; if he survey the present,
how happy, how joyous, how full of the fruition of that hope, which his
ardent patriotism indulged; if he glance at the future, how does the
prospect of his country's advancement almost bewilder his weakened
conception!  Fortunate, distinguished patriot!  Interesting relic of the
past!  Let him know that, while we honor the dead, we do not forget the
living; and that there is not a heart here which does not fervently pray
that Heaven may keep him yet back from the society of his companions.

And now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this occasion without a
deep and solemn conviction of the duties which have devolved upon us.  This
lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear
purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to
transmit.  Generations past and generations to come hold us responsible for
this sacred trust.  Our fathers, from behind, admonish us, with their
anxious paternal voices; posterity calls out to us, from the bosom of the
future; the world turns hither its solicitous eyes; all, all conjure us to
act wisely, and faithfully, in the relation which we sustain.  We can never,
indeed, pay the debt which is upon us; but by virtue, by morality, by
religion, by the cultivation of every good principle and every good habit,
we may hope to enjoy the blessing, through our day, and to leave it
unimpared to our children.  Let us feel deeply how much of what we are and
of what we possess we owe to this liberty, and to these institutions of
government.  Nature has indeed given us a soil which yields bounteously to
the hands of industry, the mighty and fruitful ocean is before us, and the
skies over our heads shed health and vigor.  But what are lands, and seas,
and skies to civilized man, without society, without knowledge, without
morals, without religious culture; and how can these be enjoyed, in all
their extent and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise
institutions and a free government?  Fellow-citizens, there is not one of
us, there is not one of us here present, who does not, at this moment, and
at every moment, experience in his own condition, and in the condition of
those most near and dear to him, the influence and the benefits of this
liberty and these institutions.  Let us then acknowledge the blessing, let
us feel it deeply and powerfully, let us cherish a strong affection for it,
and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, let it
not have been shed in vain; the great hope of posterity, let it not be
blasted.

The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the world around us, a
topic to which, I fear, I advert too often, and dwell on too long, cannot be
altogether omitted here.  Neither individuals nor nations can perform their
part well, until they understand and feel its importance, and comprehend and
justly appreciate all the duties belonging to it.  It is not to inflate
national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling of self-importance,
but it is that we may judge justly of our situation, and of our own duties,
that I earnestly urge this consideration of our position and our character
among the nations of the earth.  It cannot be denied, but by those who would
dispute against the sun, that with America, and in America, a new era
commences in human affairs.  This era is distinguished by free
representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by improved systems
of national intercourse, by a newly awakened and unconquerable spirit of
free inquiry and by a diffusion of knowledge through the community, such as
has been before altogether unknown and unheard of.  America, America, our
country, fellow-citizens, our own dear and native land, is inseparably
connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great
interests.  If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be
because we have upholden them.  Let us contemplate, then, this connection,
which binds the prosperity of others to our own; and let us manfully
discharge all the duties which it imposes.  If we cherish the virtues and
principles of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of
human liberty and human happiness.  Auspicious omens cheer us. Great
examples are before us.  Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our
path.  WASHINGTON is in the clear, upper sky.  These other stars have now
joined the American constellation; they circle round their center, and the
heavens beam with new light.  Beneath this illumination let us walk the
course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, the
common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity.


*Extract of a letter written by John Adams, dated at Worcester,
Massachusetts, October 12, 1755.

"Soon after the Reformation, a few people came over into this New World, for
conscience' sake.  Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the
great seat of empire into America.  It looks likely to me; for, if we can
remove the turbulent Gallios, our people, according to the exactest
computations, will, in another century, become more numerous than England
itself.  Should this be the case, since we have, I may say, all the naval
stores of the nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain a mastery of
the seas; and then the united forces of all Europe will not be able to
subdue us.  The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to
disunite us.

"Be not surprised that I am turned polititian.  The whole town is immersed
in politics.  The interests of nations, and all the dira of war, make the
subject of every conversation.  I sit and hear, and after having been led
through a maze of sage obversations, I sometimes retire, and, laying things
together, form some reflections pleasing to myself.  The produce of one of
these reveries you have read above."

**This question. of the power of parliament over the colonies, was discussed
with singular ability by Governor Hutchinson on the one side, and the house
of representatives of Massachusetts on the other, in 1773.  The argument of
the house is in the form of an answer to the governor's message, and was
reported by Mr. Samuel Adams, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Hawley, Mr. Bowers, Mr.
Hobson, Mr. Foster, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Thayer.  As the power of the
parliament had been acknowledged, so far, at least, as to affect us by laws
of trade, it was not easy to settle the line of distinction.   It was
thought, however, to be very clear that the charters of the colonies had
exempted them from the general legislation of the British parliament.  See
Massachusetts State Papers, p. 351


THE STORY OF JEFFERSON.
FOR A SCHOOL OR CLUB PROGRAMME.

Each numbered paragraph is to be given to a pupil or member to read, or to
recite in a clear, distinct tone.

If the school or club is small, each person may take three or four
paragraphs, but should not be required to recite them in succession.

1.  Thomas Jefferson was born April 13, 1743.  His home was among the
mountains of Central Virginia on a farm, called Shadwell, 150 miles
northwest of Williamsburg.

2.  His father's name was Peter Jefferson.  His ancestors were Welsh people.
Like George Washington, he learned the art of surveying.  He was a superb
specimen of a Virginia landholder, being a giant in frame, and having the
strength of three strong men.

3.  One of his father's favorite maxims was, "Never ask another to do for
you what you can do for yourself."

4.  His mother's name was Jane Randolph.  She was a noble woman.  Thomas
Jefferson derived his temper, his disposition, his sympathy with living
nature from his mother.

5.  He was very fond of the violin, as were a great many of the Virginia
people.  During twelve years of his life, he practiced on that instrument
three hours a day.

6.  He early learned to love the Indians from his acquaintance with many of
their best chiefs.  He held them in great regard during his life.

7.  His father died in 1757, when Thomas was but fourteen years of age. The
son always spoke of his father with pride and veneration.

8.  He entered William and Mary College in the spring of 1760, when he was
seventeen years old.

9.  After two years of college life he began the study of law in 1763.

1O.  When he came of age in April, 1764, he signalized the event by planting
a beautiful avenue of trees near his house.

11.  While studying law he carried on the business of a farmer, and showed
by his example, that the genuine culture of the mind is the best preparation
for the common, as well as the higher, duties of life.

12.  When he was elected to the Virginia Assembly, and thus entered upon the
public service, he avowed afterwards to Madison, that "the esteem of the
world was, perhaps, of higher value in his eyes than everything in it."

13.  His marriage was a very happy one.  His wife was a beautiful woman, her
countenance being brilliant with color and expression.

14.  Six children blessed their marriage, five girls and a boy.  Only two of
them, Martha and Mary, lived to mature life.

15.  Monticello, the home of Jefferson, was blessed at every period of his
long life with a swarm of merry children whom, although not his own, he
greatly loved.

16.  Mrs. Jefferson once said of her husband, who had done a generous deed
for which he had received an ungrateful return, "He is so good himself that
he cannot understand how bad other people may be."

17.  In his draft of instructions for Virginia's delegates to the Congress
which was to meet in Philadelphia in September, 1774, he used some plain
language to George III.

18.  The stupid, self-willed and conceited monarch did not follow his
advice, and so lost the American Colonies, the brightest jewels in England's
crown.

19.  Sixty gentlemen, in silk stockings and pigtails, sitting in a room of
no great size in a plain brick building up a narrow alley in Philadelphia,
composed the Continental Congress.

20.  Thomas Jefferson was one of the members most welcome in that body.  He
brought with him "a reputation," as John Adams records, "for literature,
science, and a happy talent for composition."

21.  As late as Nov. 29,1775, Jefferson clung to the idea of connection with
great Britain.

22.  He wrote his kinsman, John Randolph, that there was not a man in the
British Empire who more cordially loved a union with Great Britain than he
did.

23.  He said: "It is an immense misfortune to the whole empire to have such
a king at such a time.  We are told, and everything proves it true, that he
is the bitterest enemy we have."

24.  When the draft of the Declaration was submitted to the Congress it made
eighteen suppressions, six additions and ten alterations; and nearly every
one was an improvement.

25.  It should be a comfort to students who have to witness the corrections
of their compositions to know, that this great work of Jefferson, which has
given him immortal fame had to be pruned of its crudities, redundancies and
imprudences.

26.  They should be as ready as he was to submit to criticisms and to profit
by them as he did, in their future efforts.

27.  Daniel Webster shall tell in his own language the remainder of this
story of Jefferson's life.

28. "In 1781 he published his notes on Virginia, a work which attracted
attention in Europe as well as America, dispelled many misconceptions
respecting this continent, and gave its author a place among men
distinguished for science.

29.  "With Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, in 1784, he proceeded to France, in
execution of his mission as Minister plenipotentiary, to act in the
negotiation of commercial treaties.

30.  "In 1785 he was appointed Minister to France.

31.  "Mr. Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic duties was marked by great
ability, diligence and patriotism.

32.  "While he resided in Paris, in one of the most interesting periods, his
love of knowledge, and of the society of learned men, distinguished him in
the highest circles of the French capital.

33.  "Immediately on his return to his native country he was placed by
Washington at the head of the department of State.

34.  "In this situation, also, he manifested conspicuous ability.

35.  "His correspondence with the ministers of other powers residing here,
and his instructions to our own diplomatic agents abroad are among our
ablest State papers.

36.  "In 1797 he was chosen Vice President.  In 1801 he was elected
President in opposition to Mr. Adams, and reelected in 1805, by a vote
approaching towards unanimity.

37.  "From the time of his final retirement from public life Mr. Jefferson
lived as becomes a wise man.

38.  "Surrounded by affectionate friends, his ardor in the pursuit of
knowledge undiminished, with uncommon health and unbroken spirits, he was
able to enjoy largely the rational pleasures of life, and to partake in that
public prosperity which he had so much contributed to produce.

39.  "His kindness and hospitality, the charm of his conversation, the ease
of his manners, and especially the full store of revolutionary incidents
which he possessed, and which he knew when and how to dispense, rendered his
abode in a high degree attractive to his admiring countrymen.

40.  "His high public and scientific character drew towards him every
intelligent and educated traveler from abroad.

41.  "Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson had the pleasure of knowing that the
respect which they so largely received was not paid to their official
stations.

42.  "They were not men made great by office; but great men, on whom the
country for its own benefit had conferred office.

43.  "There was that in them which office did not give, and which the
relinquishment of office did not and could not take away.

44.  "In their retirement, in the midst of their fellow citizens, themselves
private citizens, they enjoyed as high regard and esteem as when filling the
most important places of public trust.

45.  "Thus useful and thus respected passed the old age of Thomas Jefferson.

46.  "But time was on its ever-ceaseless wing, and was now bringing the last
hour of this illustrious man.

47.  "He saw its approach with undisturbed serenity.  He counted the moments
as they passed, and beheld that his last sands were falling.

48.  "That day, too, was at hand which he had helped make immortal.  One
wish, one hope�if it were not presumptuous �beat in his fainting breast.

49.  "Could it be so ---might it please God�he would desire once more to see
the sun�once more to look abroad on the scene around him, on the great day
of liberty.

50.  "Heaven in its mercy fulfilled that prayer.  He saw that sun�he enjoyed
that sacred light�he thanked God for this mercy, and bowed his aged head to
the grave."

PR06RAMME FOR A JEFFERSONIAN EVENING.

1.  Vocal Solo�"Star Spangled Banner."
2.  Recitation�One of Jefferson's Speeches.
3.  Description of Jefferson's Home, Illustrated by Pictures.
4.  Recitation�Declaration of Independence.
5.  Recitation�"Battle of the Kegs," by Francis Hopkinson, ("Progress," Vol.
2, page 761).
6.  Instrumental Music�"Yankee Doodle."
7.  Home Life of the Statesman. (Paper or Address.)
8.  Anecdotes of Jefferson.
9.  Question Box Concerning the Politics of the Time.
10.  Vocal Solo�"My Country, 'Tis of Thee."

QUESTONS FOR REVIEW.

When and where was Thomas Jefferson born?  What was his height?   What was
the color of his hair and eyes?  What can you say of his literary ability?
What of his scholarship?   What of his moral character?  To which of his
teachers was he especially indebted?  When was his public career begun?
What resolution was then taken?  What effect would this resolution have upon
modern politicians, if it were made and faithfully kept?  Upon what subject
was his first important speech made?  With what result?  Whom did Jefferson
marry?  What was the reception given Jefferson and his bride?  What
important public document did he prepare in connection with the Revolution?
When did he take his seat in Congress?  In what way was he connected with
the Declaration of Independence?  Who were his associates on the Committee?
Give a brief history of the events connected with the signing of the
Declaration of Independence?  How much time passed before the Articles of
Confederation were formally signed by the States?  What were the overt acts
of opposition by the various States?  What was the Alien act?  What was the
Sedition act?  What instances can you give of the prompt punishment of
seditious utterances?  When were the Alien and Sedition acts repealed?  What
important measures did Jefferson succeed in passing in his own State?  When
did he become Governor of the State? What were his duties in relation to
foreign treaties?  What were his impressions concerning the French
government? What was his influence upon educational work?  What was the
character of the Barbary States?  Why were they permitted to hold Americans
as captives?  What was Jefferson's opinion on the subject?  When did he
enter Washington's Cabinet, and what position did he fill?  What was his
relation to Alexander Hamilton?  Who were the other members of the Cabinet?
What led Jefferson to resign from the Cabinet?  When did he become Vice
President? How did President Adams treat him?  What have you to say about
Jefferson's "Manual of Parliamentary Practice?" Who were the Federal
nominees for President and Vice President in 1800?  What was the note of
alarm sounded by Hamilton?  What was the attitude of the clergy towards
Jefferson, and why?  Who were the Federalists?  Who were the Republicans?
What name did the Republicans afterwards take?  What were some of the
exciting incidents connected with the vote for President?  What was the
number of ballots cast for President?  Who was the Vice President elected
with Jefferson?  What was the character of his administration?  Who were the
members of his Cabinet?  Did Jefferson turn men in a wholesale way out of
office?  What was his attitude towards ceremonies?  How did he dress?  When
was he re-elected?  What was the most important result of his influence?
What great purchase of territory was made? What States and Territories have
been carved out of it?  Who explored the upper Missouri and Columbia River
country, and when?  What steamboat made her maiden trip, and when?  When was
the first boat load of anthracite coal shipped to Philadelphia?  What
pirates were snuffed out, and when?  Why did John Quincy Adams resign his
seat in the United States Senate?  What was the Non-Intercourse act?  What
was the condition of our commerce at this time?  What Act proved to be one
of his greatest mistakes?  When was it passed?  When repealed?  What was his
financial condition?  What were the results of his efforts for education?
What did Congress pay for his library?  When did he die?  Who died on the
same day that Jefferson did?  What did Horace Greeley say about the
coincidence?  What was the character of Jefferson as a slave-holder?  Why is
there a difference in Jefferson's portraits?  What was Daniel Webster's
statement regarding, his countenance?  What was his opinion of slavery?
What was Jefferson's opinion concerning happiness?  What did he say of
resignations?  What is the epitaph on Jefferson's tomb?  What was
Jefferson's statement regarding promises for the Presidency?  What is the
story of the Mould Board of Least Resistance?  What is the story of
Jefferson as an inventor?  What is the story of Jefferson and the horse
jockey?  What was the peculiar relationship between Jefferson and Patrick
Henry?  Who were some of the brilliant members of the Virginia assembly?
What are the main features of Henry's famous speech before that assembly?
What were the treasures Jefferson bequeathed to his country and his State?
What did Jefferson say of titles of honor and office?  What was his opinion
of a third term?  What were his views regarding lawyers in Congress?  What
is the true history of the Mecklenburg Declarations of lndependence?  What
were Jefferson's oratorical powers?

SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL STUDY.

1.  The Declaration of Independence as a literary production.
2.  The Declaration of Independence as apparently founded in Acts xvii, 26.
3.  General condition of the Country at the time of Jefferson's election to
the Presidency.
4.  Leading events connected with his administration.
5.  General results of his political influence.
6.  Leading characteristics of the man.
7.  Jefferson and Hamilton.  Littell's Age, Vol. 81, p. 613.
8.  College Days of Jefferson.  Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 29, p, 16.
9.  Family of Jefferson.  Harpers Mag., Vol. 43, p. 366.
1O.  Jefferson in Continental Congress.  Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 29, p. 676.
11.  Jefferson in the War of the Revolution.  Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 29, p.
517.
12.  Jefferson and nullification.  See Lives of Jefferson.
13.  Jefferson and Patrick Henry.  See Lives of Jefferson..
14.  Pecuniary Embarrassments of Thomas Jefferson.  See Lives of Jefferson.
15.  Religious Opinions of Jefferson.  See Lives of Jefferson.
16.  Jefferson a Reformer of Old Virginia.  Atlantic Monthly Vol 30, p. 32


BlBLI0GRAPHY.

For those who wish to read extensively, the following works are especially
commended:

Life of Thomas Jefferson.  By James Parton. Jas. R. Osgood & Co., Boston,
1874.

Life of Thomas Jefferson.  By Henry S. Randall, LL. D. J. B. Lippincott &
Co., Philadelphia.

Life of Thomas Jefferson.  John Robert Irelan, M. D., Chicago.

Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson, the Man of Letters.  Lewis Henry Routell, Chicago.
Privately printed.

Biography of Thomas Jefferson.  Cyclopedia of American Biography. D.
Appleton & Co.

History of the People of the United States.  John Bach McMaster. Vols. I and
II. D. Appleton & Co.

Lives of the Presidents.  John Frost, LL. D. Phillips & Sampson, Boston.

Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson.  Daniel Webster, Faneuil Hall, Aug. 2, 1826.

Character of Thomas Jefferson.  North American Review, Vol. 91, p. 107.

Jefferson's Opinions on Slavery.  Andrew D. White, Atlantic Mag., Vol. 9, p.
29.

Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.  Littell's Living Age. Vol. 81, p. 273.

War of Independence. John Fiske.  Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New
York.

The Critical Period of American History.  John Fiske. Houghton, Mifflin &
Co., Boston and New Yorok.[sic]




CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS In the Life of Jefferson.

1743 Born Albemarle County, Virginia, April 2.
1760 Entered William and Mary College.
1764 Admitted to the bar of the General Court of Virginia when 21 years of
age.
1769 Chosen Representative in the Provincial Legislature.
1772 Married Mrs. Martha Skelton, January 21st.
1773 Appointed Member of the First Committee of Correspondence established
by the Colonial Legislature, March 12th.
1774 Published the "Summary View of the Rights of British America."
1776 Chosen to a Seat in the Continental Congress.  Appointed Chairman of
the Committee to prepare the Declaration of Independence.
1779 Elected to the Virginia Legislature.  Helped alleviate the condition of
the British Prisoners sent from Saratoga to Charlottesville, Va.
Elected by the Legislature to succeed Patrick Henry as Governor of Virginia,
June 1.
1781 Elected to the Legislature of Virginia after serving as Governor two
years.
"Notes of Virginia" written.
1782 Appointed by Congress to serve with the American Negotiators for Peace.
1783 Elected Delegate to Congress.
Wrote Notes on the Establishment of a Coinage of the United States.
1784 Appointed by Congress as Minister Plenipotentiary, with John Adams and
Benjamin Franklin, to negotiate Treaties of Commerce with Foreign Nations, May.
1785 Succeeded Franklin as Minister to France.
1789 Appointed Secretary of State by Washington.
1793 Resigned the position of Secretary of State, December 31.
1796 Elected Vice-President of the United States.
1800 Eletced [sic] President of the Untied States.
1803 Louisiana Purchase.
1804 Northwestern Exploring Expedition under Lewis and Clark.
 Re-Elected President of the United States.
1807 Passage of The Embargo Act, December 22.
1818 University of Virginia founded, of which Jefferson was Rector
 until his death.
1826 Died on the same day that John Adams expired, July 4th.





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Thomas Jefferson, by Ellis

You are viewing proxied material from sl0w.org. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.