It were easy to proceed further in our exhibition of the defects of character which marked Mr. Jefferson; but enough has been said to put our young countrymen on their guard; and we confess it affords us no pleasure to dwell upon the picture of moral delinquency. Rejecting Christianity himself, and seeking to make young infidels by the wholesale, building his system of morals upon the miserable sophism that the end of actions alone determined their virtue, stooping to the meanness of recording the unguarded languge of familiar conversation, that it might furnish that testimony which inordinate self-conceit made necessary to comfort, calmly waiting until death had shut the door against the possibility of contradicting that testimony, violating the sacred claims of friendship, and practising consummate duplicity, the list of Mr. Jefferson's defects surely needs no addition there is however one trait more of which it becomes us to say a word, if it be for no other purpose than that of recording our protest against an opinion of dangerous tendency, which should have been rebuked by our author.

It was the received belief of many who knew Mr. Jefferson, that he was deficient in courage. The opinion was founded chiefly upon his conduct, while Governor of Virginia, during the war of the Revolution. We mean not to enter upon the details of that conduct; our author furnishes us with a defence of it, composed for the most part of a formal vindication prepared by Mr. Jefferson, and by him published anonymously in 1805; in which, as he wrote in the third person, the statement, without any seeming departure from modesty, commends Mr. Jefferson, and possesses also the additional advantage of appearing to be the testimony, not of the accused, but of some third person who professes to have been an eye witness. We candidly acknowledge that in our view it is of very little moment whether Mr. Jefferson was a coward or not. He resigned his office of Governor because, as he said, he possessed no military qualifications, and desired that some one should rule who was a soldier. One thing is certain, that no incident of Mr. Jefferson's political life ever shook his popularity as much as his conduct during the invasion of Virginia by Arnold. In the legislature which immediately followed his resignation, an impeachment was proposed, and a day was appointed for a hearing at the next session; but the proceedings were ultimately dropped without investigation, and a resolution was adopted by the lower house which was exculpatory and complimentary; this in the Senate was pared down to a simple expression of the high opinion entertained "of Mr. Jefferson's ability, rectitude, and integrity as chief magistrate," and a wish to remove from him "all unmerited

censure." Our author informs us that this alteration of the resolution by the Senate, served "to improve the form, without affecting its substance:" vol. i. p. 157-note. A comparison of the two resolutions led us to the belief that the sole object of the Senate's alterations was to affect the substance. The point however, is of little importance, nor should we have touched at all the question of his courage, but for the fact that his biographer repels the charge of cowardice by the production of what we deem very equivocal proof of firmness of nerve.

"Among his political assailants in Albemarle, was one whom he thought to have so far transcended the just limits of party warfare, that he had determined to challenge him, and would have done so, if the friend he consulted had seconded his purpose." Vol. ii. p. 501.

What

And this is one proof that Mr. Jefferson was a hero. He actually thought of sending to his antagonist an invitation to the duello! and said he would have done so, but for the want of a friend to second his purpose; for we know not how, save from his own declaration, professor Tucker can possibly know what he would have done. What an illustrious exhibition of courage! a craven spirit must have belonged to General Washington, for he would have refused to fight a duel! What a mortification to the chivalric Jefferson, that when one friend refused to bear his challenge, he had not another on earth to whom he might apply for the purpose. But to be serious; there is something worse than ridiculous in this contemptible item of testimony to Mr. Jefferson's bravery. It becomes not a professor of moral philosophy to adduce evidence like this with nothing more to mark his reprobation of it, than the declaration that "men in general" consider it satisfactory. Young men are ready enough to adopt the belief that what the world calls wounded honor, can be healed only by a murder; they are ready enough to consider duelling as evidence of valor: it was not necessary then to countenance indirectly their false notions; it had been more in keeping with the lessons of the professor's chair, at least to have intimated that in his view the supposed proof was no evidence at all; for that while a miserable poltroon may have his "courage screwed to the sticking place" and fight from that most contemptible cowardice, a fear of the world's laugh; it demands moral courage of the highest order, to brave the world and obey the Maker of it.

We proceed now to speak of the character of Mr. Jefferson's mind. It was more remarkable for its activity than for its accuracy it was deficient in the power of nice discrimination, it wanted logical precision. In all that Mr. Jefferson has left behind him, one looks in vain for the evidence of that severe

mental discipline which marks intellects of the first order; there is none of that power of close consecutive reasoning, where each thought in the train of argumentation hangs on its predecessor, forming a chain from which no link can be stricken. Mr. Jefferson supposed himself to be a metaphysician; he was not; his mind caught too eagerly at the visible, the tangible; it had but little relish for abstract ratiocination: and yet Mr. Jefferson was very far from wanting talents. He apprehended quickly, acquired readily, and often applied judiciously that which he had learned from others, but which he never could have discovered for himself. He thought much, but was deficient in that originality which belongs only to commanding intellects: the range of his thoughts too, appears from his writings, not to have been in the higher region of great general truths, but rather amid the details of individual cases as they arose for his consideration. As a writer, he is diffuse, sometimes happy and forcible in the use of a striking phrase or mode of expression, and not unmindful of euphony in the structure of his sentences: but his sentences are frequently too long, and their force and beauty are both marred by the needless introduction of words coined by himself, and savoring too much of affectation. He was not a writer of pure English, and indeed justified his neglect of it in composition.

In this estimate of Mr. Jefferson, considered intellectually, we of course are entirely at variance with his biographer. In the summary of his character which concludes the work of professor Tucker, a combination of excellencies so rare is presented to us, that human nature can scarce attain nearer to perfection than would a being invested with the qualities which are here attributed to Mr. Jefferson, by his too friendly biographer. And of all the strange assertions made by the professor, one of the strangest is that, in which we are gravely informed, in reply to the charge that Mr. Jefferson was visionary, that he merely possessed a sagacity which looked further into futurity than the short-sighted vision of his contemporaries could reach; and among those contemporaries, whose visual organs were thus defective, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Jay are particularly named. Now to any one acquainted with our past history, there is something very ridiculous in the thought of a serious comparison between Thomas Jefferson, and either Mr. Hamilton, or Chief Justice Jay. Considered with reference to intellectual power, they are not to be named together: both the latter gentlemen possessed understandings of the very first order; and blind as professor Tucker would fain persuade us they were, we defy him to produce any evidence from their history, that in one instance,

they entertained opinions as mistaken and visionary as some of Mr. Jefferson's, which we will now proceed to notice.

One of his opinions was, that "the use of the earth belongs to the living generations, and that the dead have no more right than they have power over it." This opinion, his biographer tells us, was "probably suggested by some of the questions of first principles which were then under discussion in the National Assembly and were in great vogue throughout Paris." Following it out to its consequences, he very gravely informs us, that no generation can pledge or encumber the lands of a country for a longer space than nineteen years, such being the ave rage term of its own existence; that this restriction is founded in nature and the first principles of justice, and that,

“Every law, and even constitution, naturally expires at the expiriation of this term; and that no public debt can be contracted which would be rightfully binding on the nation after the same lapse of time." Vol. i. p. 291.

And this choice specimen of silliness, he actually supposed to be most profoundly philosophical; for he writes to Mr. Madison concerning it, and says, "turn this subject in your mind, my dear Sir, and particularly as to the power of contracting debts, and develop it with that cogent logic which is so peculiarly yours:" and again, "at first blush it may be laughed at, as a dream of a theorist, but examination will prove it to be solid and salutary." Mr. Madison did indeed possess a logical mind very far superior to Mr. Jefferson's; and though he answered this letter with great tenderness toward the feelings of his friend, we cannot help suspecting that his excellent understanding compelled him quietly to enjoy his laugh at this new fangled conceit of National Assembly wisdom. After an exposure of the absurdity, and utter impracticability of the whole scheme, which does great credit to the clearness and strength of his mind, in a seeming show of modest diffidence, he thus concludes, with what might be mistaken for a delicate sarcasm on the philosopher:

"It is so much easier to descry the little difficulties immediately incident to every great plan, than to comprehend its general and remote benefits, that further light must be added to the councils of our country, before many truths which are seen through the medium of philosophy, become visible to the naked eye of the ordinary politician." Vol. i. p. 296.

Again, another of his favorite opinions was, that the judiciary should be dependent on the people for their tenure of office. That judges should not be irresponsible, all will admit; but that this responsibility should be created by making their

continuance in office depend on the favor of the multitude, is a proposition to which few will assent. In times of peril, a nation may find the best security for its rights in an independent judiciary; certain it is, that no rights, either public or private are safe, when the judges are afraid of the censure of the people. In a republic like ours, let the judiciary be placed above the reach of popular caprice, and let the bar be possessed of an ordinary share of fearlessness and patriotism, and we think it will be found difficult to deprive the people of their rights; indeed as long as the law is respected it cannot be done. The people must themselves become the instruments of their own ruin, by the lawless prostration of all the safeguards which the constitution and laws have thrown around them. It is no kindness therefore to the people to make the judiciary immediately dependent on them: they have the deepest interest in placing them above the reach of popular excitement and clamor; but on this subject, the policy pursued by most of the states in this confederacy, may well supply the place of further remark on our parts.

Another of the notions of Mr. Jefferson was, that the federal Executive of the United States, was more republican than its Senate; and the reasons assigned for it are that the president is elected for but four years, while senators are appointed for six; and further, that the first is elected by the people, the last by the state legislatures. As to the last mentioned reason it does not rest upon a substantial difference as to the mode of election; the intervention of presidential electors chosen by the people, and of a state legislature chosen by the people, also, brings the case to a similarity; for both electors, and legislators, after they are chosen, may vote as they please, and both generally comply with the will of a majority of their constituents: but suppose there existed a substantial difference of mode, it is still not a sufficient reason for Mr. Jefferson's opinion, unless indeed he can show that nothing is truly republican, but a direct vote of the people themselves, without the intervention of a body acting by their consent, and under powers which they have delegated. There is here an evident confounding of an unmixed democracy with a republic. As well might Mr. Jefferson have asserted that our state legislatures, elected as they are by the people, were not republican; and that the people should delegate their power to no one, but meet themselves in one grand legislative conclave. So far as the will of the people, and their right to be heard in the expression of it, are features of a republican system, (and we are prepared to contend for them as such); whenever, as among us, the first movement must come from the people, that will and that right are equally preserved, whether