Jef-fer-son tried hard to put an end to the slave-trade, which he felt
was a great wrong; he thought, too, that folks should have the right to
serve God in their own way; and he held that on-ly men who could read
and write should vote.
He was a great and a wise man; books were his dear friends; and so
one of the hard-est things he had to do, af-ter he went home to
Mon-ti-cel-lo, when he left the White House, was to sell all his books
to Con-gress in or-der to get mon-ey to live on. To his own home hosts
of friends and stran-gers came to see the great man, just as they had
when he was in Wash-ing-ton. But he sold his books so cheap that the
mon-ey did not help him much; and, at last, it seemed as if he must
sell his dear old home. But now the peo-ple for whom he had done so
much helped him, and a big fund was raised, so that he could keep his
home and live there in com-fort un-til his death.
He lived to be a ver-y old man, and e-ven when he was so weak he could
not rise from his bed, his great, strong brain was still clear. You
know that he died on the 4th of Ju-ly, 1826, just a few hours be-fore
the death of his old friend, John Ad-ams.
Next to the name of George Wash-ing-ton, there is no name a-mong the
great men of our land, of which the peo-ple are so proud, as that of
Thom-as Jef-fer-son.
[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON.]
[Illustration: JAMES MADISON.]