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as modest as unpretending, as little calculated to strike or astonish as if he had passed unknown through some secluded region of private life. But he had a judgment sure and sound; a steadiness of mind which never suffered any passion, or even any feeling to ruffle its calm; a strength of understanding which worked rather than forced its way through all obstacles, removing or avoiding rather than overleaping them. If profound sagacity, unshaken steadiness of purpose, the entire subjugation of all the passions which carry havoc through ordinary minds, and oftentimes lay waste the fairest prospects of greatness,-nay, the discipline of those feelings that are wont to lull or seduce genius, and to mar and to cloud over the aspect of virtue herself,-joined with or rather leading to the most absolute self-denial, the most habitual and exclusive devotion to principle, if these things can constitute a great character, without either quickness of apprehension or resources of information, or inventive powers or any brilliant quality that might dazzle the vulgar,—then, surely, Washington was the greatest man that ever lived in the world, uninspired by Divine wisdom, and unsustained by supernatural virtue.'

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

MONG the great historical documents that have registered the steps in the advance of freedom

and civilisation throughout the world, none is more interesting, none more venerated, than the Declaration of Independence, the first bond of union among the thirteen. colonies that formed the germ of the United States of North America. It was the hand of Thomas Jefferson that drew up the first draft of that great document; and, had that statesman done nothing else for his country, his name would deserve to be remembered. But he spent, besides, a long life in the public service, and for eight years filled the highest magistracy, as third President. 'It was the fate of Thomas Jefferson,' says one of his biographers, 'to be at once more loved and praised by his friends, and more hated and reviled by his adversaries, than any of his compatriots.' While, doubtless, the love and esteem were largely given to Thomas Jefferson the man, it was the bitterness of public strife that sharpened the tongues of his enemies against him.

Like Washington, who preceded him, and Madison, who succeeded him in the Presidential chair, Jefferson was a Virginian. He was born on April 2, 1743, at Shadwell, now in the county of Goochland, but at that date included in

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Albemarle County. His father, Peter Jefferson, a man of no eminence and no education, was the descendant of a family originally Welsh; while his mother, Jane Randolph, claimed an ancient Scottish pedigree. Peter Jefferson had pushed on to the frontier to make his fortune as a planter; and Shadwell, which at the death of President Jefferson was 800 miles from the limits of the settlements, was at his birth a small frontier town. Comparatively little is recorded of Jefferson's early life. At the age of five years he was sent to an 'English' school, whence he passed to more advanced schools as his age ripened. He was a diligent and proficient scholar, more addicted to his books than to sport. There is a suggestion of the future leader of men in the casually mentioned fact, that Thomas Jefferson rarely solicited the favour of a holiday himself from his master, but generally succeeded in inducing some one of his comrades to undertake the delicate duty, which exposed the petitioner to the risk of a cold refusal. At school he laid the foundation of a good classical knowledge, which throughout his entire life proved a source of education and pleasure to him. At the age of seventeen he became a student at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, and there his acquaintance with Dr. William Small, professor of mathematics, inspired him with an interest in physical and general science that was almost as long-lived as his interest in the classics. For mathematics he had a very special aptitude, and he attained a very high level of knowledge in that branch of study. At Williamsburg Jefferson did a very good amount of work, but he did not seclude himself from the amusements of his companions. He was a good horseman, and enjoyed riding; and he was a very tolerable player on the violin. We

are also told that while at college he contrived to fall in love; but his tall, lank figure, thin, freckled face, and the red hair that seemed to justify his mother's claim to a Scottish ancestry, stood in his way as a squire of dames; and, like his older English contemporary, Wilkes, he had to depend on his eloquence for making favour with the fair sex. At all events, Mrs. Martha Skelton, to whom he was married on January 1, 1772, was not the heroine of his student days.

Like so many others of those who have filled the President's chair, Jefferson chose law as his profession; and he entered the office of George Wythe, then at the head of the Virginia bar, and one of the most learned citizens in the State. In 1767, at the age of twenty-four, he himself was called to the bar of the General Court, the highest tribunal of his native colony. Jefferson was a successful lawyer during the short time he was in active practice. In his very first year he had sixty-eight cases before the chief court of the province; and by 1774, when he ceased regular practice, he had increased his paternity of 1900 acres, worth about £400 per annum, to 5000 acres. His wife, moreover, had brought him a fortune; and he was thus in a position to devote himself to the more engrossing, but less lucrative, pursuit of politics. For Jefferson was to spend his life entirely as a politician; and his life is specially interesting as one of the earliest examples of those peculiarly American careers in which political life is a profession in itself, apart from office. Albemarle County returned Jefferson as its representative in the House of Burgesses in 1769, and he was annually re-elected till the Revolution. From the first he enrolled himself among the Independence party; and when Lord Botetourt, the governor of Virginia, dissolved the House of

Burgesses for its boldly-worded resolutions, he, with George Washington, was among the eighty-eight members who signed the Association, pledging themselves not to import or use certain articles of British manufacture till the repeal of the Act of Parliament for raising revenue in America by taxing various imports.

He was a member, too, of the first convention that met in Williamsburg without the express authority of the law. Illness prevented him from laying in person a paper he had prepared before that assembly; but Peyton Randolph discharged the duty in his place. The paper met with general approval, and was printed as 'A Summary View of the Rights of British America.' This bold document was the first of several important state and political papers that issued from the same able and eloquent pen; for Jefferson was always more successful with his pen than with his tongue. In public speaking he rose but little above mediocrity. This first document was in reality a preliminary draft of the Declaration of Independence; it breathed the same spirit. Bolder steps followed; and Jefferson was always among the more advanced thinkers. When the Virginia Convention of 1775 appointed a committee of defence, and a second committee to inquire whether the king could of right advance the terms of granting public land, it chose Jefferson as a member of both. A still more honourable post was accorded to him the same year, when he took his seat as a deputy to the General Congress at Philadelphia, on June 21, 1775. Five days later he was selected to prepare a declaration of the causes of taking up arms. But his boldness was even yet in advance of the times; and the draft he submitted to the Congress was softened to a less severe and independent style.

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