of Albemarle, in Virginia. He was educated at the College of William and
Mary, at Williamsburg, then the capital of the colony, where, under Dr.
Small, a native of Scotland, who was then Professor of Mathematics in
the College, he studied mathematics, ethics, and other branches of
knowledge. His education, owing to the care of this excellent instructor
and his own industry, must have been of a superior kind. In addition to
his general acquirements, he made himself well acquainted with the best
Greek and Latin writers, and to the end of his long life retained his
ability to read them. Mr. Jefferson studied law under Mr. Wythe, then a
lawyer of eminence. He made his first appearance at the bar of the
General Court in 1767, at the age of twenty-four, about two years after
the misunderstanding between Great Britain and the Colonies had
commenced. He practised for seven or eight years in the General Court,
and was gradually rising to the first rank as an accurate and able
lawyer, when he was called away to more important duties by the
political events that preceded the American Revolution. In 1769 he was
elected a member of the House of Burgesses for the County of Albemarle.
In the session of this spring the House unanimously came to resolutions
in opposition to those which had been lately passed in England by both
Houses of Parliament on the affairs of Massachusetts. This measure,
which was accompanied with the declaration that the right of laying
taxes in Virginia was exclusively vested in its own legislature, and
others of a like tendency, induced the Governor, Lord Botetourt,
abruptly to dissolve the Assembly. The next day the members met at the
Raleigh Tavern, and entered into articles of agreement, by which they
bound themselves not to import or purchase certain specified kinds of
British merchandise, till the act of parliament for raising a revenue in
America was repealed; and they recommended this agreement to be adopted
by their constituents. Eighty-eight members signed the agreement, among
whom were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others, who
afterwards took a distinguished part in public affairs.
In 1773, on the meeting of the Virginia Assembly in the spring, Mr.
Jefferson was an active member in organizing the Standing Committee of
Correspondence and Inquiry, the main objects of which were to procure
early intelligence of the proceedings of the British Parliament, and to
maintain a constant communication among all the Colonies. On the
dissolution of the Assembly, in May 1774, by the Governor, Lord Dunmore,
eighty-nine members met at the Raleigh Tavern, and, among other things,
recommended the Committee of Correspondence to communicate with the
Committees in the other colonies “on the expediency of appointing
deputies for the several colonies of British America, to meet in General
Congress, at such place annually as should be thought most convenient,”
to consult on their common interests. It was also forthwith agreed that
the members who might be elected under the writs at that time issuing in
the colony of Virginia, should meet in Convention at Williamsburg on the
1st of August following, in order to appoint delegates to the Congress,
if such General Congress should be approved by the other colonies. The
Convention did meet, and thus formed the first popular assembly in
Virginia, uncontrolled by Governor or Council. Mr. Jefferson, who was
one of the deputies, prepared instructions for the delegates who might
be sent to the Congress. In his absence, for illness prevented him from
attending on this occasion, his instructions were laid on the table for
perusal, and were generally approved, but thought too bold in the
existing state of affairs. Still the Convention printed them, in the
form of a pamphlet, under the title of A Summary View of the Rights of
British America. The Convention drew up another set of instructions,
which, though not so strong as Mr. Jefferson’s, expressed with great
clearness the points at issue between the colonies and the
mother-country, and the grievances of which the colonies had to
complain. The General Congress, consisting of fifty-five members, met at
Philadelphia, September 4, 1774. The disputes which had broken out
between Lord Dunmore and the Assembly of Virginia were continually
increased by fresh causes of mutual irritation. The Governor at last
thought it prudent to remove himself and his family into a British ship
of war that was lying at York in York River. His whole conduct during
this period was feeble and contemptible. His last acts from his
head-quarters at Norfolk were to annoy the inhabitants on the rivers and
bays by a predatory kind of warfare, to proclaim martial law in the
colony, and to give freedom to such of the slaves as would bear arms
against their masters. At last, after setting fire to Norfolk, he was
obliged to take refuge in his ships, and soon after to leave the
country. Thus ended the colonial government in Virginia.
June 21, 1775, Mr. Jefferson took his seat in the General Congress, as
one of the delegates from Virginia, and was appointed one of a Committee
for preparing a declaration of the cause of taking up arms. A part of
the address which he drew up was finally adopted, and no doubt greatly
contributed to bring about the more decisive declaration of the
following year. In 1776, Mr. Jefferson was again a delegate to Congress,
and one of a committee appointed to draw up a Declaration of
Independence. The committee was chosen in the usual way, by ballot, and
as Mr. Jefferson had received the greatest number of votes, he was
deputed by the other members to make the draught. Before it was shown to
the committee, a few verbal alterations were made in it by Dr. Franklin
and Mr. Adams. After being curtailed about one-third, and with some
slight alterations in the part retained, it was agreed to by the House,
July 4, and signed by all the members present, except one. This
instrument is too well known to require any remarks. It has both merits
and defects; but it possessed one great quality. It served the purpose
for which it was intended, and its author had the satisfaction of seeing
the mighty question between the mother-country and the colonies referred
to the decision of the sword, the only alternative then left except
unconditional and disgraceful submission.
Before their adjournment the Virginia Convention, July 5, had elected
Mr. Jefferson a delegate to Congress for another year; but he declined
the honour on various grounds, among which was his desire to assist in
reforming the laws of Virginia, under the New Constitution, which had
just been adopted. Congress also marked their sense of his services by
appointing him joint envoy to France, with Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane;
but domestic considerations induced him to decline this honour also.
From this time Mr. Jefferson’s public life is interwoven with the
history of his native state, and with that of the United States. During
the war, he took no part in military movements. He was governor of
Virginia in part of 1779, 1780, and part of 1781, in which year the
State suffered considerably from the incursions of Lord Cornwallis; and
at the close of his period of office, he narrowly escaped being taken
prisoner by Colonel Tarleton, in his own house at Monticello.
In May, 1784, Mr. Jefferson was appointed by Congress minister to
France; where he remained five years, during which he was actively
employed in promoting the general interests of his country, and in
keeping up an extensive correspondence. His industry and methodical
habits enabled him to devote a great deal of his time to the examination
of everything that could in any way prove beneficial to his countrymen.
His correspondence during this period shows the variety of his pursuits,
his unwearied industry, and unbounded zeal for every improvement that
could benefit the social condition of man. His remarks on the political
troubles of France, of which he witnessed the beginning, are
characterized by his usual closeness of observation, and his sanguine
anticipations of the benefit that would result from the people being
called to participate in the exercise of the sovereign power. After all
that has been written on the subject, they will still be read with
interest.
He returned to America at the close of 1789, and early in the next year
he was appointed Secretary of State by the President, General
Washington. He held this office till the end of 1793, when he resigned.
From 1793 to 1797 he lived in retirement. In 1797 he was elected
Vice-President of the United States; and in 1801 was chosen President,
in place of Mr. Adams, by the House of Representatives, on whom the
election devolved in consequence of the equal division of the electors’
votes between Mr. Jefferson and Colonel Burr. He was elected a second
time, and after fulfilling his term of eight years retired to his
favourite residence at Monticello, near the centre of the State of
Virginia.
On Mr. Jefferson’s retirement from the Presidency of the United States
he received, in the form of a farewell address, the thanks of the
General Assembly of his native State, Feb. 9, 1809. After briefly
recapitulating the leading measures of his administration, most of which
faction itself must allow were eminently calculated to promote the
happiness of the nation, and secure those republican principles on which
the constitution was founded, the General Assembly conclude with bearing
testimony to his unvarying singleness of purpose, from the days of his
youth when he resisted the Governor Dunmore, to his retirement from the
highest honours which the united nation could bestow. This address,
which, in point of style, is more free from objection than most American
productions of the same class, is such as few men on retiring from power
have received, and it was offered for services which few have performed.
In this document, among the advantages for which the nation was indebted
to Mr. Jefferson’s administration, the acquisition of Louisiana and with
it the free navigation of the Mississippi, are not forgotten. Mr.
Jefferson early saw the importance of the United States possessing this
great outlet for the commerce of the Western States, and strongly urged
it while he was Secretary of State under General Washington. The object
was accomplished in 1803, when Louisiana was purchased from the French,
for 15,000,000 dollars.
Mr. Jefferson himself thought that the most important service which he
ever rendered to his country, was his opposition to the federal party
during the presidency of Mr. Adams, while he was himself Vice-President
of the United States. Himself in the Senate, and Mr. Gallatin in the
House of Representatives, had alone to sustain the brunt of the battle,
and to keep the Republican party together. The re-action that ensued,
drove Mr. Adams from his office, and placed Mr. Jefferson there. Mr.
Jefferson’s administration was characterized by a zealous and unwearied
activity in the promotion of all those measures which he believed to be
for the general welfare. He never allowed considerations of relationship
or friendship to bias him in the selection of proper persons for
offices; he always found, as he says, that there were better men for
every place than any of his own connexions.
The last years of his life, though spent in retirement, were not wasted
in inactivity. He continued his habits of early rising and constant
occupation: he maintained a very extensive correspondence with all parts
of the world, received at his table a great number of visitors, and was
actively engaged in the foundation and direction of the University of
Virginia, which was established by the State of Virginia, near the
village of Charlottesville, a few miles from Monticello.
The last letter in Mr. Jefferson’s published correspondence, and it is
probably the last that he wrote, is in reply to Mr. Weightman of
Washington, on behalf of the citizens of Washington who had invited Mr.
Jefferson to the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of American
Independence. His health would not permit him to accept the invitation:
his reply is characteristic. The zeal for republican institutions which
had animated him during a long life still glows warm and fresh in the
letter of a man of the age of fourscore and three, suffering under a
painful malady. His firm conviction in the truth of those principles
which he had maintained through life, appears stronger as he approaches
the termination of his career. He died July 4, 1826, the day of the
celebration, just half a century after that on which the instrument was
signed. Mr. Adams died on the same day. Mr. Jefferson is buried in the
grounds near his own house, with a simple inscription recording him as
the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the Act for Religious
Toleration; and as the Rector of the University of Virginia. The fact of
his having been President of the United States is not mentioned.
The latter days of Mr. Jefferson were embittered by pecuniary
difficulties, which were owing, no doubt, in some measure to the neglect
of his estates during his long absence on the public service; and in a
great degree to an obligation which he incurred to pay a friend’s debts
(see an excellent letter to Mr. Madison, Feb. 17, 1826).
In the 4th vol. of his Memoirs, &c., p. 439, are printed his Thoughts on
Lotteries, which were written at the time when he was making his
application to the Legislature of Virginia for permission to sell his
property by lottery, in order to pay his debts and make some provision
for his family. The general arguments in defence of lotteries are
characterized by Mr. Jefferson’s usual felicity of expression and
ingenuity in argument, and they are also in like manner pervaded by the
fallacies which are involved in many of his political and moral
speculations. But this paper has merits which entitle it to particular
attention. It contains a brief recapitulation of his services; and is in
fact the epitome of the life of a man who for sixty years was actively
and usefully employed for his country. “I came,” he says, “of age in
1764, and was soon put into the nomination of justices of the county in
which I live, and at the first election following I became one of its
representatives in the legislature;
“I was thence sent to the old Congress;
“Then employed two years with Mr. Pendleton and Wythe, on the revisal
and reduction to a single code of the whole body of the British
Statutes, the acts of our Assembly, and certain parts of the Common Law;
“Then elected Governor;
“Next to the legislature, and to Congress again;
“Sent to Europe as Minister Plenipotentiary;
“Appointed Secretary of State to the new government;
“Elected Vice-President and President;
“And lastly, a Visitor and Rector of the University of Virginia. In
these different offices, with scarcely any interval between them, I have
been in the public service now sixty-one years, and during the far
greater part of that time in foreign countries, or in other states.”
This is the outline of Mr Jefferson’s public life: to fill it up would
be to write the history of the United States, from the troubles which
preceded the declaration of Independence, to Mr. Jefferson’s retirement
from the Presidency in 1809.
The paper from which we have already made one extract, presents us with
his services, in another point of view, still more interesting. It is an
epitome of those great measures which were due mainly or entirely to his
firm resolution, unwearied industry, and singleness of mind, in his
pursuit of objects which he believed essential to the stability and
happiness of his country.
“If legislative services are worth mentioning, and the stamp of
liberality and equality, which was necessary to be impressed on our laws
in the first crisis of our birth as a nation, was of any value, they
will find that the leading and most important laws of that day were
prepared by myself, and carried chiefly by my efforts; supported,
indeed, by able and faithful coadjutors from the ranks of the House,
very effective as seconds, but who would not have taken the field as
leaders.
“The prohibition of the further importation of slaves was the first of
these measures in time.
“This was followed by the abolition of entails, which broke up the
hereditary and high-handed aristocracy, which by accumulating immense
masses of property in single lines of families, had divided our country
into two distinct orders, of nobles and plebeians.
“But further to complete the equality among our citizens, so essential
to the maintenance of republican government, it was necessary to abolish
the principle of primogeniture. I drew the law of descents, giving equal
inheritance to sons and daughters, which made a part of the revised
code.
“The attack on the establishment of a dominant religion was first made
by myself. It could be carried at first only by a suspension of salaries
for one year, by battling it again at the next session for another year,
and so from year to year, until the public mind was ripened for the bill
for establishing religious freedom, which I had prepared for the revised
code also. This was at length established permanently, and by the
efforts of Mr. Madison, being myself in Europe at the time that work was
brought forward.
“To these particular services, I think I might add the establishment of
our University, as principally my work, acknowledging at the same time,
as I do, the great assistance received from my able colleagues of the
Visitation. But my residence in the vicinity threw of course on me the
chief burden of the enterprise, well as of the buildings, as of the
general organization and care of the whole. The effect of this
institution on the future fame, fortune, and prosperity of our country,
can as yet be seen but at a distance. That institution is now qualified
to raise its youth to an order of science unequalled in any other state;
and this superiority will be the greater from the free range of mind
encouraged there, and the restraint imposed at other seminaries by the
shackles of a domineering hierarchy, and a bigoted adhesion to ancient
habits.”
When Mr. Jefferson was a member of the Colonial Legislature, he made an
effort for the emancipation of slaves; but all proposals of that kind,
as well as to stop the importation of slaves, were discouraged during
the colonial government. The importation of slaves into Virginia,
whether by sea or land, was stopped in 1778, in the third year of the
Commonwealth, by a bill brought in by Mr. Jefferson, which passed
without opposition, and as Mr. Jefferson observes, “stopped the increase
of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final
eradication[4].” The Act for the Abolition of Entails was not carried
without some opposition, and that for the abolition of the Established
Anglican Church was not finally carried till 1778, though before the
Revolution the majority of the people had become dissenters from the
Church. The reason of the difficulty lay in the majority of the
legislature being churchmen.
Footnote 4:
Act in Hening’s Statutes at Large, vol ix., p. 471. Act declaring
tenants of lands, or slaves in taille, to hold the same in fee simple.
Hening, ix., p. 226.
Mr. Jefferson married, in 1772, Martha Skelton, the widow of Bathurst
Skelton. She died ten years after their marriage. One daughter, and a
numerous family of grandchildren and great grandchildren, survived him.
He was the author of Notes on Virginia, which have been several times
printed; but his reputation as a writer rests on his official papers and
correspondence, of which latter, we believe, that which is published
forms only a part of what he left behind him.
The authorities here used are Jefferson’s Memoirs, Correspondence, &c.,
London, 1829, and part of the forthcoming Life of Jefferson, by
Professor Tucker, of the University of Virginia. An article in the
Journal of Education, No. 7, by Professor Tucker, contains a full
account of the University of Virginia. To these sources we add, as
evidence for some opinions expressed, some personal knowledge of Mr.
Jefferson during the last two years of his life.
[Illustration]
WILBERFORCE.
William Wilberforce, whose name a heartfelt, enlightened, and unwearied
philanthropy, directing talents of the highest order, has enrolled among
those of the most illustrious benefactors of mankind, was born August
24, 1759, in Hull, where his ancestors had been long and successfully
engaged in trade. By his father’s death he was left an orphan at an
early age. He received the chief part of his education at the grammar
school of Pocklington, in Yorkshire, and at St. John’s College,
Cambridge, of which he became a fellow-commoner about 1776 or 1777. When
just of age, and apparently before taking his B.A. degree, he was
returned for his native town at the general election of 1780. In 1784 he
was returned again; but being also chosen member for Yorkshire, he
elected to sit for that great county, which he continued to represent
until the year 1812, during six successive parliaments. From 1812 to
1825, when he retired from parliament, he was returned by Lord Calthorpe
for the borough of Bramber. His politics were in general those of Mr.
Pitt’s party, and his first prominent appearance was in 1783, in
opposition to Mr. Fox’s India Bill. In 1786 he introduced and carried
through the Commons a bill for the amendment of our criminal code, which
was roughly handled by the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, and rejected in the
House of Lords without a division.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by E. Scriven._
WILBERFORCE.
_From a Picture by George Richmond._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge
_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]
At the time when Mr. Wilberforce was rising into manhood, the iniquity
of the Slave Trade had engaged in a slight degree the attention of the
public. To the Quakers belongs the high honour of having taken the lead
in denouncing that unjust and unchristian traffic. At the beginning of
the eighteenth century, during the life of Penn, the Quakers of
Pennsylvania passed a censure upon it, and from time to time the Society
of Friends expressed their disapprobation of the deportation of negroes,
until in 1761 they completed their good work by a resolution to disown
all such as continued to be engaged in it. Occasionally the question was
brought before magistrates, whether a slave became entitled to his
liberty upon landing in England. In 1765 Granville Sharp came forward as
the protector of a negro, who, having been abandoned and cast upon the
world in disease and misery by his owner, was healed and assisted
through the charity of Mr. Sharp’s brother. Recovering his value with
his health, he was claimed and seized by his master, and would have been
shipped to the colonies, as many Africans were, but for the prompt and
resolute interference of Mr. Sharp. In several similar cases the same
gentleman came forward successfully: but the general question was not
determined, or even argued, until 1772, when the celebrated case of the
negro Somerset was brought before the Court of King’s Bench, which
adjudged, after a deliberate hearing, that in England the right of the
master over the slave could not be maintained. The general question was
afterwards, in 1778, decided still more absolutely by the Scotch Courts,
in the case of Wedderburn _v._ Knight. In 1783 an event occurred well
qualified to rouse the feelings of the nation, and call its attention to
the atrocities of which the Slave Trade was the cause and pretext. An
action was brought by certain underwriters against the owners of the
ship Zong, on the ground that the captain had caused 132 weak, sickly
slaves to be thrown overboard, for the purpose of claiming their value,
for which the plaintiffs would not have been liable if the cargo had
died a natural death. The fact of the drowning was admitted, and
defended on the plea that want of water had rendered it necessary;
though it appeared that the crew had not been put upon short allowance.
It now seems incredible that no criminal proceeding should have been
instituted against the perpetrators of this wholesale murder.