we portrayed in the same pages the Hon. Peter B. Sweeny; or as we felt when, subsequently, we portrayed the Hon. Andrew H. Green at the very outset of his career as Comptroller. Some may say that our present sketch has some flaws in it; but we make no claim to perfection. If we have succeeded in showing that some of our New York scientists make remarkable discoveries, we are willing to leave the rest to Time, fully satisfied that it will prove the justness and accuracy of our views just as it has already done in the case of each of the two great patriots and benefactors of their race just mentioned.

ART. IV.-1. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, being his Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and other Writings, official and private, etc. Published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library. 9 vols., 8vo.

2. The Life of Thomas Jefferson. By HENRY S. RANDALL, LL. D. 3 vols. Philadelphia.

1865.

3. The Life of Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the United States, with parts of his Correspondence never before published, etc. By GEORGE TUCKER. 2 vols., 8vo. 1837.

4. Life of Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the United States. By JAMES PARTON. 1 vol., 8vo. Boston. 1874.

JEFFERSON was one of the founders of the Republic, though he did not co-operate with those who organized our Federal Government, as he was at that time minister to France, and only returned to become secretary of state in the administration of Washington. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence, and, if not the founder, at least he was the great leader of the Republican party that grew up in opposition to the administrations of Washington and Adams.

In considering the position he thus held and the events with

which his name is connected, we must assign him a place of the first magnitude among American statesmen, and among the presidents of the United States. He cannot stand beside Franklin, Washington, and John Jay, for purity and disinterestedness of character, or above Henry Mason, George Clinton, or Samuel Adams, as a friend of the people, or as a lover of democratic government. He cannot be placed above many others of his contemporaries for distinguished services to his country. He never had the organizing foresight of Hamilton or Madison; yet he was one of the foremost leaders of a party; he was a scholar, a scientist, a devoted patriot and philanthropist. Thus he takes rank among the Jays, the Adamses, and the Pinckneys of the revolutionary period, and has influenced the destinies of his country during its whole existence. After Washington and Franklin, he has shared this influence with John Adams, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay.

As a party leader he was eminently successful, and yet no statesman of that age was more open in the avowal of his opinions. Such being his potency in American politics, it becomes us to inquire on what foundation his fame now rests, and what gave him his eminence. Jefferson was no orator,

the

and scarcely ever addressed public bodies. He was a public character and a public writer only; and his writings were very meagre, except his letters on public affairs. He was a leader by the force of his character and intelligence. He got his fame by these qualities and by fortunate circumstances that first gave him prominence as the author of the Declaration at age of 33. He wrote the finest state paper of the Revolution, and the one that asserted our rights to exist as a nation; and so his name became indissolubly connected with that great event, as well as forever associated with those who composed that Congress of patriots. Jefferson has largely influenced our politics in the past, and will do so in the future. Like Hamilton, his fame was largely partizan since the establishment of the Constitution, and it is therefore difficult to estimate his real virtues as a man and a statesman.

That age of intense earnestness and hatred, as well as party prejudice and honest difference, is buried; and, if we have not yet reached a clear sky, the clouds have broken away and we live under a more steady light. Then social intercourse became quite extinct between opposing parties under the baneful influence of the French Revolution, and those asperities remained with us for a long time, and divided the young republic, and envenomed our party contests as it did those of England. Jefferson returned from France as the friend of reform, and as a mark of his sympathy he wore the French red vest and breeches. Those not so marked in their sympathy for France were disposed to make light of this exhibition of dress on the part of Jefferson, and thought it not quite the thing for a secretary of state of the United States. But Fox and many whigs in the house of commons, in like manner, put on buff and blue to show their sympathy for America in 1796; and while we admire the one act we can excuse the other.

So, in Jefferson, we have an honest character, and one that was deeply earnest in all his purposes. He was brave in revolution, decided in peace, and courageous as a public man. In some degree he combines the philosopher with the man of action. In his own time, he was derided by his opponents as "the philosopher," as a disparagement, while Hamilton was called the projector and the exotic. Satire sometimes discovers the actual qualities only to exaggerate or disparage them; and hence we can learn truth from satire itself. Jefferson exhibited strong tastes and aptitudes for philosophy, and with opportunity he would have achieved some great work. His Notes on Virginia show what aptitude he had in research, and we read this work with deep interest, even at the present day. He corrected many errors of Buffon in natural history, and always pursued those studies with seeming delight. He had no fears of investigation, and calmly weighed all evidence, except in politics, where he was an uncompromising republican. Here all was to be judged by one sole test; was it a government by the people? for the form and substance were with him material and essential. Thus

his life and character are to be considered and analyzed, and his influence upon his country determined. Since men have hitherto disagreed as to these, we enter upon a difficult if not a delicate task.

Jefferson was fortunate in his public life. He appeared at the opportune juncture to draft the Declaration. He with John Adams and Dr. Franklin negotiated and signed the treaty of peace with Great Britain; he became governor of Virginia, secretary of state, vice-president and third president of the United States. All these with many subordinate places he filled with marked ability and honor. He was not without faults, and he sometimes erred in administration, but he was honest, frugal, and faithful in all his offices; for it was an age of poverty, and we then had all the virtues of the best age of Rome. There was then no rapacity, no demoralization in the administration of the federal and state governments; that came in a later age when integrity had diminished in public life as the state had grown rich and corrupt. So in the early history of our government there is found strict integrity and honor among public men, however much we may find to censure in them as public characters or as partizans. Jefferson held office to the detriment of his private fortune, and Hamilton was in need while secretary of the treasury, and retired to his profession to gain an independence. So integrity was then a virtue confined to no party, and these leaders were conspicuous examples of nearly every public virtue in statesmanship. Thus in portraying Mr. Jefferson we are dealing with an honest and high-toned public man. His faults were mainly those of his age, and his virtues were his own.

Jefferson was graduated at William and Mary College, after two years' study. He was said to be well educated for that time, and received the first honors of his alma mater; and Mr. Wirtley said that he came to the bar with a large and exceptional knowledge, having studied law with no less a jurist than George Wythe, afterward chancellor of Virginia. Suffice it that these preparatory studies soon gave Jefferson a respectable standing in his profession as a sound lawyer, and

his family influence soon gave him a fair income as a practitioner; yet, having a large estate to engage his attention, and being very soon drawn to public affairs by the Revolution, he gave up his profession at the end of about six years never to resume it. He had taken high rank as a lawyer, even in this short period, and this gave him weight as a new and rising politician. He served for a time in the Virginia legislature, where he first met Washington, and was finally selected as one of the Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress where he was soon recognized as an accomplished writer. He came at the proper juncture for his own fame, though he had been preceded by such writers as John Jay, John Dickinson, and Richard Henry Lee.

He took his seat in the second Congress the 21st day of June, 1775, to supply the place of Peyton Randolph, whose health caused him to withdraw from the chair as the first president of that Congress, and thereby John Hancock, his successor, became illustrious by his signature to the Declaration. Jefferson's summary view of the rights of British America, his paper of instructions to the Virginia delegates in 1774, had preceded him, and he had written the answer of Virginia to Lord North's conciliatory proposition which he brought with him; and thus, as John Adams says, he brought with him a reputation for literature, science, and a happy talent for composition. Adams says of him: "Though a quiet member in Congress, he was so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon committees, and in conversation-not even Samuel Adams was more so-that Jefferson soon seized upon his heart."

Five days after he and Dickinson were added to a committee consisting of Lee, Gov. Livingston, and Jay, who were to prepare the second petition to the King of England, which Jefferson drew. It did not meet Dickinson's mind, and so he made the final report retaining but a little of Jefferson's draft. This was approved by the committce, and reported to and adopted by Congress. This last petition was entrusted to Richard Penn and Arthur Lee to present to the