the feeling of personal as opposed to theoretical liking for mankind. Humane, sympathetic, broad-minded he always was in his views, and actions; but in relations to his fellow-kind he seems to have had a distinct repugnance to association with hoi polloi. On the contrary, the chief happiness of his life was found in his intercourse with his social equals; and when his adoption of the people's cause had produced social ostracism by the society of Philadephia, so that old friends of his "crossed the street merely to avoid touching their hats to him," and in his own words, "many declined visiting me with whom I had been on terms of the greatest friendship and intimacy," he ever after, when alluding to the period, used expressions implying that he had endured the keenest suffering. With scarcely an exception, democracy the world over has fought its battles with self-made men as leaders; men near enough to the soil not to feel, or at least able to resist, the pressure of higher social forces: but Jefferson was otherwise, and the suffering this alienation and discrimination caused him is over and over again shown by his reiterated expression of hatred of the very politics to which he gave the larger part of his life.-FORD, PAUL LEICESTER, 1897, Library of the World's Best Literature, ed. Warner, vol. XIV, p. 8233.

The most striking characteristics of Jefferson were his egotism, his industry, and his comprehensive learning. He had an opinion on every subject for every comer. The only subjects on which he confessed himself deficient were geology and poetry. No problem was too abstruse for him to grasp. He seldom asked advice or assistance from others. He was an infallible oracle to half the population of the country and a dangerous demagogue to the other half, but he was universally recognized as a man of scientific as well as literary attainments. . . Thomas Jefferson is perhaps the most picturesque character in American history. He was longer in public life; he exercised a more potent and permanent influence upon his own and succeeding generations than any other man, not excepting Washington; but his character and motives have been and always will be subjects of controversy. There is no difference of opinion as to the honesty and patriotism of Washington,

At

Franklin, Jackson, Lincoln, or Grant; while Jefferson is still extolled by some writers as the greatest and purest of statesmen and patriots, and by others denounced as a dangerous demagogue, unsound in his principles, insincere in his utterances, and dishonest in his acts. the same time no public man ever left so much direct testimony in his own behalf. He was the most prolific of writers. There is scarcely a question in the entire range of human inquiry which he did not discuss; and his manuscripts were intentionally preserved and carefully arranged for the instruction of posterity. He frequently changed his policy and programme, and took different views of the same subjects on different occasions, perhaps on the ancient theory that "a wise man often changes his mind, a fool never."-CURTIS, WILLIAM ELEROY, 1901, The True Thomas Jefferson, pp. 346, 384.

STATESMAN

Now look, my friend, where faint the moonlight falls

On yonder dome, and, in those princely halls,

If thou canst hate, as sure that soul must hate, Which loves the virtuous, and reveres the

great,

If thou canst loathe and execrate with me The poisonous drug of French philosophy, That nauseous slaver of these frantic times, With which false liberty dilutes her crimes,— If thou hast got, within thy freeborn breast, One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest,

With honest scorn for that inglorious soul, Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control,

Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod,

And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god, There, in those walls-but, burning tongue, forbear!

Rank must be reverenced, even the rank that's there:

thwarted by his colleagues, as well as at variance with his chief, and while he administered himself the government of that free and prosperous country,—no reasonable doubt can be entertained, that to his enlightened views and to the firmness of his character, it is indebted for much of that freedom and prosperity.-BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD, 1837, Professor Tucker's Life of Jefferson, Edinburgh Review, vol. 66, p. 156.

The democratic party, not the turbulent and coarse democracy of antiquity or the middle ages, but the great modern democracy, never had a more faithful or more distinguished representative than Jeffer

son.

A warm friend of humanity, liberty, and science; trusting in their goodness as well as their rights; deeply touched by the injustice with which the mass of mankind have been treated, and the sufferings they endure, and incessantly engaged, with an admirable disinterestedness, in remedying them or preventing their recurrence; accepting power as a dangerous necessity, almost as one evil opposed to another, exerting himself, not merely to restrain, but to lower it; distrusting all display, all personal splendor, as a tendency to usurpation; a temper open, kind, indulgent, though ready to take up prejudices against, and feel irritated with the enemies of his party; a mind bold, active, ingenious, inquiring, with more penetration than forecast, but with too much good sense to push things to the extreme, and capable of employing, against a pressing danger or evil, a prudence and firmness, which would perhaps have prevented it, had they been adopted earlier or more generally. GUIZOT, FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME, 1840, An Essay on the Character of Washington and his Influence on the Revolution.

Surely, Jefferson may fairly claim the merit of being the father of the great system of repudiation! Was he sincere in these strange and startling paradoxes? It is difficult to answer, for he talked wildly on many subjects, and often shifted his ground. Still, there is a certain thread of consistency which runs through all his opinions, and would rather tend to show that he was in earnest. If so, his views much resembled the exaggerated notions of schoolboys-respectable, as the conceptions of young, ardent, inexperienced

minds, dazzled by vague dreams of liberty and popular right but wholly deficient in the elements which constitute the character of a statesman. And among the less worthy motives which seem to have influenced his conduct, it is impossible not to recognize a restless jealousy of those superior natures, with whom he was brought in contact, and whose gifts were so different from his own.-RIETHMÜLLER, CHRISTOPHER JAMES, 1864, Alexander Hamilton and his Contemporaries, p. 283.

His career shows him to have possessed many diverse qualities. He was a philosopher, and sometimes a visionary. He was also a politician and a political inventor of the most practical kind. Working in the dark, his hand was felt rather than seen. His lieutenants and agents bore the brunt of the contest, the chief, like a great commander, remaining in the rearthough not always out of the reach of a chance shot.-CHANNING, EDWARD, 1896, The United States of America, 1765-1865, p. 146.

In later years, when the very form of a State constitution became a party question, the influence of Jefferson largely dominated American thought. He stood for the rights of man as these were expressed in the Declaration of Independence, or were read into it by party interpretation. During the eighteenth century his influence fell far short of what it became after the party he was instrumental in organizing obtained possession of the national government. During the half century following his death, when in one form or another slavery and State sovereignty were national issues, and the extension of the franchise and the change from property to persons as the basis of representation were State issues, Jefferson was idealized as the political philosopher and reformer, and his ideas, as interpreted by a powerful party, were of paramount influence in many States. But his influence was always strongest in the newer parts of the country. -THORPE. FRANCIS NEWTON, 1898, A Constitutional History of the American People, 1776 1850, vol. I, p. 43.

Though not a hero worshipper, I am too good a partisan to question my principal; and Jefferson has been not alone my fileleader, but a guiding star in my political firmament. I am used to measure all

systems, to try all causes, to determine all policies by the rules laid down in his philosophy. To me he stands out, after Washington and Franklin, the one clear figure in our early history, a perfect Doric column: wanting the brilliant levity of Hamilton; the sturdy, but narrow, spirit of Adams; sure-footed and far-seeing; not merely a statesman of the first order, but a very principal in the domain of original thinking and moral forces. The minor circumstances of his private life may interest me, but could in no wise change my perspective, because I am fixed in the belief that he was an upright and disinterested man, who considered his duty to his country before all else. Such inconsistencies as appear in his career are but proofs of this, since he never can wholly be true to his convictions, or potent for good in affairs, who does not adapt himself to the changing exigencies of the times, suiting his actions to his words, his words to his actions, according to the course of events.-WATTERSON, HENRY, 1901, The True Thomas Jefferson by William Eleroy Curtis, Note, p. 8.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 1776

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. To say that he performed his great work well, would be doing him injustice. To say that he did 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 titledeed of their liberties devolved on his hands.-WEBSTER, DANIEL, 1826, A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Aug. 2, pp. 26, 27.

This trust devolved on Jefferson, and with it rests on him the imperishable renown of having penned the Declaration of

Independence. To have been the instrument of expressing, in one brief, decisive act, the concentrated will and resolution of a whole family of states, of unfolding, in one all-important manifesto, the causes, the motives, and the justification of this great movement in human affairs; to have been permitted to give the impress and peculiarity of his own mind to a charter of public right, destined-or, rather, let me say, already elevated to an importance, in the estimation of men, equal to any thing human, ever borne on parchment, or expressed in the visible signs of thought, this is the glory of Thomas Jefferson. EVERETT, EDWARD, 1826, Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 1, Orations and Speeches.

Νο

He owed this distinction to respect for the colony which he represented, to the consummate ability of the state papers which he had already written, and to that general favor which follows merit, modesty, and a sweet disposition; but the quality which specially fitted him for the task was the sympathetic character of his nature by which he was able with instinctive perception to read the soul of the nation, and having collected in himself its best thoughts and noblest feelings, to give them out in clear and bold words, mixed with so little of himself, that his country, as it went along with him, found nothing but what it recognised as its own. man of this century had more trust in the collective reason and conscience of his fellow men, or better knew how to take their counsel; and in return he came to be a ruler over the willing in the world of opinion. 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," 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, GEORGE, 1866, History of the United States.

A document which is alone sufficient to perpetuate the name of Thomas Jefferson, and to cover it with glory in the estimation of his countrymen. It came from his mind, clear, shapely, complete as Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, and received no essential additions or important alterations from other hands, except

such slight erbal modification as added little or noting to its essential symmetry, its force, its perspicuity.-MACKAY, CHARLES, 1885, The Founders of the American Republic, p. 238.

One of the most famous documents in the muniment room of history, bespeaks the hand of the philosophic Jefferson. It opens with sweeping aphorisms about the natural rights of man at which political science now smiles, and which, as American abolitionists did not fail to point out at a later day, might seem strange when framed for slave-holding communities by a publicist who himself held slaves.SMITH, GOLDWIN, 1893, The United States, an Outline of Political History, 14921871, p. 87.

The one American state paper that has reached to supreme distinction in the world, and that seems likely to last as long as American civilization lasts.

American confidence in the supreme intellectual merit of this all-famous document received a serious wound, some forty years ago, from the hand of Rufus Choate, when, with a courage greater than would now be required for such an act, he characterized it as made up of "glittering and sounding generalities of natural right.' What the great advocate then so unhesitantly suggested, many a thoughtful American since then has at least suspected, -that this famous proclamation, as a piece of political literature, cannot stand the test of modern analysis; that it belongs to the immense class of over-praised productions; that it is, in fact, a stately patchwork of sweeping propositions of somewhat doubtful validity; that it has long imposed upon mankind by the wellknown effectiveness of verbal glitter and sound; that, at the best, it is an example of florid political declamation belonging to the sophomoric period of our national life

a period which, as we flatter ourselves, we have now outgrown.-TYLER, MOSES COIT, 1897, The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763-1783, vol. I, p. 498.

GENERAL

The Editor, though he cannot be insensible to the genius, the learning, the philosophic inspiration, the generous devotion to virtue, and the love of country, displayed in the writings now committed to the press, is restrained, not less by his

incompetency, than by his relation to the Author, from dwelling on themes which belong to an eloquence that can do justice to the names of illustrious benefactors to their country and to their fellow men.RANDOLPH, THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1829, Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. I, p. 8.

Mr. Jefferson, too, is entitled to great Respect, though after the conduct of his last days, and the posthumous publication of his writings, delicacy towards him from New England New England is an exemplification of something more than Christian meekness and forbearance. ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY, 1830, Thomas Jefferson, Letter to North American Review, Old and New, vol. 7, p. 137.

The inaugural address of Mr. Jefferson was as novel and extraordinary, as the simplicity of the scene which ushered it before the world. For condensation of ideas and Addisonian purity of language, it is allowed to be superior to any thing in the wide circle of political composition. In the short compass in which it is compressed, all the essential principles of free governments are stated, in detail, with the measures best calculated for their attainment and security, and an ample refutation of the adversary principles. Every word is pregnant with sentiment and reproof, and every sentence contains a text on which might be written volumes of political wisdom.-RAYNER, B. L., 1832, Sketches of the Life, Writings and Opinions of Thomas Jefferson, p. 404.

In the talents, by which individuals are commonly supposed to acquire and extend. their influence, he was almost wholly deficient: he had no military taste or skill; he never spoke in public, and had no peculiar power in writing. It is said by the author of the "Familiar Letters,'' that he ruled the American people by "the magic of his pen." This idea appears to be erroneous. Mr. Jefferson wrote through life very little. The little he wrote consisted mostly of private letters, which never went out to the people: in his few published writings, there is no extraordinary force or charm of style. As mere literary productions, they would have attracted no attention; they produced effect not as writings, but as acts There was no magic in his pen.

The

witchcraft of which he acquired influence lay, like that of the Maréchale d' Ancre, in his mental superiority. EVERETT, ALEXANDER HILL, 1834, Origin and Character of the Old Parties, North American Review, vol. 39, pp. 244, 245.

As an author, he has left no memorial that is worthy of his genius; for the public papers drawn by him are admired rather for the patriotic spirit which dictated them than for the intellectual power they exhibit. They presented no occasion for novelty of thought, or argument, or diction. His purpose was only to make a judicious and felicitous use of that which every body knew and would assent to; and this object he has eminently fulfilled. His "Notes on Virginia," though stamped with his characteristic independence of mind, are rather remarkable for the extent of his statistical knowledge, in a country and at a period when knowledge of that kind was so difficult of attainment; and his "Manual" of parliamentary practice required nothing more than care and discrimination. His diplomatic correspondence throughout shows that he possessed logical powers of the highest order; and his letters, especially those of his latter years, are written with great elegance and felicity. But it is on

his merits as a lawgiver and political philosopher that his claims to greatness chiefly rest: it is for these that he is to be praised or condemned by posterity; for beyond all his contemporaries has he impressed his opinions of government on the minds of the great mass of his countrymen. -TUCKER, GEORGE, 1837, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, vol. II, pp. 564, 567.

Jefferson was the Danton of the West; but his forte lay not so much in oratory as in political management. More perhaps than any other statesman of his age, he aspired to be an author, to which title the most vivacious pages of his "Notes on Virginia," conspicuously his graphic description of the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge, his "Autobiography" and "Correspondence," give him a fair claim. His sketches of continental society, though bearing the mark of a somewhat superficial study of French models, and marred by eighteenth-century mannerism, are lively; and his occasional flights of fancy, as in the "Dialogue between the Head and the Heart," at

least ingenious.-NICHOL, JOHN, 1880-85, American Literature, p. 77.

66

Those venomous Anas, among the most unfortunate of all deeds of the pen. .. How differently could we think of him were it not for this bequest which, like the cloven foot, peeps out from beneath his apparent guise of broad charity and kindliness.-MORSE, JOHN T., JR., 1883, Thomas Jefferson (American Statesmen), p. 327.

Jefferson was preeminently a writer. His speeches were not effective, nor was he strong in administration; but in the seclusion of his study or office, with a pen in his hand, his power and ability were unequaled. He was profoundly learned in the theory and practice of government; his writings and career show him to have been one of the broadest and most consistent democrats of any age.-HAWTHORNE, JULIAN, AND LEMMON, LEONARD, 1891, American Literature, p. 28.

Much of Jefferson's remarkable influence was due to his attractive style as a writer. Phrases from his letters and public documents, sometimes fervent, sometimes humorous, circulated through the land like silver coin. He wrote and he talked with warm blood coursing through his veins; and though the shaft might rankle where it was driven, it struck the mark. Vigour, liveliness, and choice felicity of expression marked his style, which was nevertheless scholarly; and while so many of his age modelled their style upon Addison and the "Spectator, sought out the sonorous and balanced their periods laboriously, admitting no word that might not be found in Johnson's dictionary, he preferred rather the figurative, and aimed to make the English vocabulary more copious. His style, like that of every master, was an image of himself, and adaptive he meant it to be to the current American age and institutions.

SCHOULER, JAMES, 1893, Thomas Jefferson (Makers of America), p. 245.

Jefferson was not a thorough American because of the strain of French philosophy that permeated and weakened all his thought. thought. WILSON, WOODROW, 1896, Mere Literature and Other Essays, p. 196. If Jefferson be judged by any single piece of work, except perhaps the "Declaration of Independence," or by the general qualities of his style, he cannot in any