THOMAS JEFFERSON 41 THOMAS JEFFERSON [THOMAS JEFFERSON was born of a good family at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Virginia, April 13, 1743, and died at Monticello near by, in the same county, July 4, 1826. He received an excellent education at William and Mary College, and saw much of the best society. He studied law under Chancellor Wythe, began to practise at the bar, and achieved at once a considerable success. At the age of twenty-six he entered the House of Burgesses, and served off and on with much distinction until the breaking out of the Revolution. He then entered Congress, where he succeeded John Dickinson as the chief drafter of state papers, the most important of these being the "Declaration of Independence." After this he returned to Virginia politics, labored successfully to modify the state laws in a democratic direction, and served as governor for two years, during which period his administration was much harassed by the invasions of the British. In 1783 he reëntered Congress and took part in important legislation. The next year he went to France as minister plenipotentiary, succeeding Franklin in 1785. His career as a diplomat was successful, but was cut short by his acceptance of the post of Secretary of State in Washington's first cabinet. He was subsequently elected Vice-President in 1797 and President from 1801 to 1809. His two presidential administrations were marked rather by profound influence than by overtly exerted executive force, but the first secured to the country the vast territory of Louisiana. He was succeeded by his disciple Madison, and during his retirement at Monticello he maintained his grip upon politics through his large correspondence. From 1817 to his death he was mainly interested in founding the University of Virginia. Throughout his old age he was looked up to as the chief political theorist and most typical republican of the country, but this public homage entailed a hospitality that left him poor. 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 fairness be termed a great writer. This is true despite the many excellences of the "Notes on Virginia," his only book, of his state papers, and of his countless letters, which, while fascinating to the student of his character, are rather barren of charm when read without some ulterior purpose. Yet he was surely in one important respect a greater writer than any of his American forerunners and contemporaries, not even Franklin excepted. His was the most influential pen of his times, and it is to his writings that posterity turns with most interest whenever the purposes, the hopes, the fears of the great Revolutionary epoch become matters of study. They reveal also the personality of Jefferson himself, but so subtle was that great man that we can never feel that we understand him fully. We may learn to understand, however, with fair thoroughness the theory of government that he had worked out for himself from French and English sources; we may see how every letter he wrote carried his democratic doctrines farther afield; we may feel him getting a firm grasp not merely upon his contemporaries, but upon generations yet to be; finally, we can observe yawning across his later writings the political chasm into which the young republic was one day to fall. But writings that enable us to do all this are certainly great in their way, and so is the hand that penned them, and in a way Jefferson has given us a masterpiece. The "Declaration of Independence," whatever may be the justice of the criticisms directed against this and that clause or statement, is a true piece of literature, because ever since it was written it has been alive with emotion. Though we were to read it a thousand times, it would stir every one of us that loves liberty and his native land and has a sense for the rhetoric of denunciation and aspiration. It is true that our national taste has changed, and that the fervent eloquence of the Declaration would be distinctly out of place to-day. This is only to say that the art of writing prose has made great strides since Jefferson's time; but we must not forget that, if his pen was not that of a chastened writer, it was nevertheless that of a ready and a wonderfully effective one. There are two elaborate editions of Jefferson's writings, the so-called "Congressional” in nine volumes and that of Paul Leicester Ford in ten (1892– 1899). The text of the latter is followed here with the kind permission of the publishers, G. P. Putnam's Sons. There are numerous biographies, including George Tucker's (1837), H. S. Randall's in three volumes (1858), James Parton's (1874), and John T. Morse's in the "American Statesmen" (1883).] JEFFERSON ON FRANCE [FROM HIS "AUTOBIOGRAPHY."] AND here, I cannot leave this great and good country without expressing my sense of its preeminence of character among the nations of the earth. A more benevolent people I have never known, nor greater warmth and devotedness in their select friendships. Their kindness and accommodation to strangers is unparalleled, and the hospitality of Paris is beyond anything I had conceived to be practicable in a large city. Their eminence, too, in science, the communicative dispositions of their scientific men, the politeness of the general manners, the ease and vivacity of their conversation, give a charm to their society, to be found nowhere FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 43 else. In a comparison of this, with other countries, we have the proof of primacy, which was given to Themistocles, after the battle of Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first reward of valor, and the second to Themistocles. So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France. FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS1 [DELIVERED MARCH 4, 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 assembled, to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look towards 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 1 This address may fairly be regarded as one of our great political classics. and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked, amid the conflicting elements of a troubled sea. During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussion and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers, unused to think freely, and to speak and to write what 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. And 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 persecutions. 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 less by others, and should divide opinions 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 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. 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 the honest patriot, in the full tide of success FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 45 ful 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, and 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 principles, 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 degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for all descendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our 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, gratitude, 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 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 govern ment, 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 principle[s] of |