The life of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of independence, and third president of the United States ...

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Chapter I

The Life of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, President of the United States, and one of the most prominent actors in the stirring scenes of the revolution, cannot, we presume, be unacceptable to any American reader. The incidents of his distinguished life, his talents, the exalted stations which he filled, his intimate connexion wit? those illustrious men whom we delight to honour, and his association with the most important events in the revolutionary struggle, must always afford him a conspicuous place in the history of our country. Shaken as he has been by the storms of the time, and so furiously assailed by political opponents, there was danger, while they contemplated nothing beyond the downfall of the executive, that their weapons might pass through his shield, and strike into the bosom of their country ; yet now, when the fury of the day has passed over, candour will do justice to his talents, appreciate his merits, and render gratitude for his services. The 2 clouds are rolling off from the darkened landscape, and the excellencies of his character can now be distinguished on the horizon in all their native brightness. It has been remarked, that certain stated times and periods have been prolifick of great men. Nature seems then to have exerted herself with a more than ordinary effort, and to have poured them forth -with unusual fertility. But at no time or period did any country produce greater men, or those better qualified to conduct affairs to a successful issue, than at the commencement and during the progress of our combat for independence.

The commanders were ardent and enterprising, and possessing an almost intuitive knowledge of their profession ; our counsellors were firm, prudent and sagacious ; and the continental Congress possessed a collective body of wisdom w^hich the world has seldom witnessed. The people themselves, enthusiastick in the cause of liberty, deeply imbued with a detestation of tyranny, and with all their wrongs and remembrances about them, were brave and determined, unrepining in the midst of hardships, and free from cruelty and licentiousness. With such instruments, under the direction of a benignant Providence, the result was glorious, and its effects and consequences have been beneficially felt over a great part of the globe. "History," said professor Silliman in 1820, "presents no struggle for liberty which has in it more of the moral sublime than that of the American revolution. It has of late years been too much forgotten in the sharp contentions of party, and he who endeavours to withdraw the publick mind from these debasing conflicts, and to fix it on the grandeur of that epoch, which, magnificent in itself, begins now to wear the solemn livery of antiquity as it is viewed through the deepening twilight of almost half a century, certainly performs a meritorious service, and can scarcely need a justification." But if a subject of interest when contemplated in this view — if to the philosopher it affords a profound and gratifying theory in his annals of man — how vastly more important, and what a matter of exultation, must it be to those who reflect that it was their fathers who exhibited this noble spectacle to the world, and that the rights and privileges which they enjoy are the splendid result of their exertions ! Their characters must become not only the subjects of curiosity, but their names of enduring gratitude, and the events of their lives not only the theme of frequent conversation, but familiar as household terms. It is under these impressions that these memoirs are presented to the publick ; the memoirs of him whose name is one of the brightest in the revolutionary galaxy.

Thomas JefTerson was descended from a family who had long been settled in Virginia, the province of his nativity. His ancestors, according to a late biographer, l;iad emigrated there at an early period ; and although bringing with them, as far as is known, no fortune beyond that zeal and enterprize which are so useful and necessary to adventurers in a new and unknovv^n country, and no rank beyond a name which was free from dishonour, they had a standing in the community highly respectable, and lived in circumstances of considerable affluence. " The tradition in my father's family," says the subject of this sketch, in his modest and interesting memoirs, " was, that their ancestor came to

$ L1¥E OP JEFFERSON.

this country from Wales, and from near the mountain of Snowden, the highest in Great Britain. I noted once a case from Wales in the law reports, where a person of our name was either plaintiff or defendant, and one of the same name was secretary to the Virginia Company. These are the only instances in which I have met with the name in that country. I have found it in our early records ; but the first particular information I have of any ancestor, was of my grandfather, who lived at the place in Chesterfield called Ozhorne's, and owned the lands afterwards the glebe of the parish. He had three sons : Thomas, who died young; Field, w^ho settled on the waters of Roanoke, and left numerous descendants ; and Peter, my father, who settled on the lands I still own, called Shadw^ell, adjoining my present residence. He was born February 29, 1707-8, and intermarried, 1739, with Jane Randolph, of the age of 19, daughter of Isham Randolph, one of the seven sons of that name and family, settled at Dungeness, in Goochland. They trace their pedigree far back in England and Scotland, to which let every one ascribe the faith and merit he chooses."

Thomas Jefferson was born April 2, old style, 1743, at Shadwell, in Albemarle county, Virginia, and was the eldest of eight children. His father, though his education had been entirely neglected in early life, yet, being a man of strong mind and sound judgement, he, by subsequent study, acquired no inconsiderable knowledge and information. His progress must have been not only rapid but profound, since Ave find him appointed in the year 1747 one of the commissioners with Joshua Fry, Professor of Mathematicks in William an4

Mary College, for determining the division line between Virginia and North Carolina ; an appointment no less creditable to his talents than his integrity, a confidence in the latter of which is peculiarly necessary in settling the boundaries between jealous and independent territories. After this service, he was again employed with the same gentleman to make a map of Virginia, the first which had ever been made, that of Captain Smith being indebted more to fancy and conjecture than to fact. The father of Thomas Jefferson died August 17, 1757, leaving a widow, who lived until 1776, and six daughters and tAvo sons. To the youngest son he left his estate on James River ; to the eldest, with whose life we are engaged, the lands on which he was born, and lived, and died.

Young JefTerson was placed at an English school at the age of five years : and at a Latin one at the age of nine, where he continued until the death of his father. When that event happened, he was placed under thetuition of the Reverend Mr. Maury, whom he represents as a "correct classical scholar," and with whom he remained two years; when in the spring of 1760 he entered William and Mary College, and continued there the space of two years more. At the latter place it was his great good fortune, and what he considered as fixing the destinies of his life, that Doctor William Small, of Scotland, was then Professor of Mathematicks in the institution; "a man," says his pupil, "profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, of correct and gentlemanly manners, and with an enlarged and liberal mind." An attachment was soon formed between tMese 2* congenial spirits, and they became daily and inseparable companions. From the conversations of this learned man, and true friend, Jefferson confesses that he first imbibed his views of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed.

Doctor Small returned to Europe in 1762, having first occupied the philosophical chair at the College, and filled up the measure of goodness to his young friend by procuring for him a reception as a student at law under the direction of the celebrated George Wythe, the most distinguished man of his age, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards Chancellor of the state of Virginia. With this gentleman he was also united not merely by the ties of professional connexion, but by a congeniality of feeling and similarity of views alike honourable to them both; the friendship formed in youth was cemented and strengthened by age, and when the venerable preceptor closed his life in 1806, he bequeathed his library and philosophical apparatus to a pupil and friend who had already proved himself worthy of his instruction and regard.

In 1767 he was introduced to the practice of the law at the bar of the General Court of the colony, and at which he continued until the revolution. His legal career was not only pursued with zeal, but attended with overflowing success. In the short period he devoted himself to it, he acquired an enviable reputation ; and a monument of his professional labour and legal research still exists in a volume of reports of adjudged cases in the supreme courts of Virginia, compiled and digested amid the engagements of active occupation.

But his energy and talents were demanded by his fellow citizens for publick life, and his country would not permit him to remain in a private station, or attend to ordinary affairs; their hopes and desires already pointed to him, and their interests directed his aim to higher objects and more extensive usefulness. As early as the year 1769 he was elected a member of the provincial legislature from the county where he resided, and continued a member of that body until it was closed by the revolution. In consequence, he became associated with men who will always stand in bold relief among the first, the most ardent, and most determined champions of our rights.

While here, he made one strenuous but fruitless effort for the emancipation of the slaves: so early had a love of liberty and a detestation of tyranny been imprinted on his mind. His failure is ascribed to the effect of the regal government, from which nothing liberal, or that innovated on established errour, could expect success. The minds of the generality were fettered and circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was a duty to be subordinate to the mother country in all matters of government, to direct the colonial labours in subserviance to her interests, and even to observe a bigoted intolerance for all religions but her own. " The difficulties with our representatives," he writes, " were of habit and despair, not of reflection and conviction." And thus this noble attempt was considered as the attempt of rashness, and met the fate of folly. And that which has since immortalized its authors and promoters, was first conceired by the mind and enforced by the eloquence of

Jefferson, and adds no fluttering pinion to his deathless renown.

Ever since the year 1763, a spirit of opposition to the British government had been gradually arising in the province of Virginia, and this spirit was rapidly increasing, owing to the arbitrary measures of the mother country, which seemed to be the result no less of madness than determined oppression. The attachment to England was great in all the colonies, and in Virginia it was more than usually strong ; many of the principal families, according to a popular writer, were connected with it by the closest ties of consanguinity ; the young men of talent were sent thither to complete their education in its colleges ; and by many, and those not the least patriotick, it was fondly looked to as their home. To sever so intimate a connexion could not be an undertaking of ordinary facility ; yet such was the rash course pursued by the British ministry, that a very brief space was sufficient to dissolve in every breast that glowed with national feeling, those ties which had been formed by blood, by time, and by policy. A very short experience and a slight converse with the political history of the world were sufficient to convince every mind that there were no hazards too great to be encountered for the establishment of institutions which would secure the country from a repetition of insults that could only end in abject slavery. It cannot be doubted that Mr. Jefferson was among the first to perceive and suggest the only course that could be adopted. The convictions of his mind, and ardour of his feelings, may, in some measure, be judged, from his recollections of the powerful efforts of the celebrated Patrick Henry,

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and of which he was a witness. " When the famous resolutions of 1 765 against the stamp act were proposed, I was yet a student of law in Williamsburgh. I attended the debate, however, at the door of the lobby of the House of Burgesses, and heard the splendid display of Mr. Henry's talents as a popular orator. They were great indeed ] such as I never heard from any other man. He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote," In Mr. Jefferson's opinion, Henry, one of the most eminent, but at the same time the most indolent of men, was the first who gave impetus to the ball of the revolution in the province of Virginia. Such are the effects of oratorial eloquence I Its power is almost irresistible : it penetrates, says one who seems to have been under the fascination of its influence, into the inmost recesses of the soul. It is able to excite or to calm the passions of men at will ; to drive the multitude forward to acts of rashness, or to say to the contending passions, *' Peace, be still," It changes the whole current of our ideas concerning the nature and importance of objects, and of our obligations and advantages respecting them. It rouses from pernicious indolence, and renders the sentiments and dispositions already formed most influential. In a word, it has made of the human species both angels and monsters ; it has animated to the most noble and generous exertions, and it has impelled to deeds of horrour.

It is in allusion to the events of the same period that Mr. Jefferson writes : " The colonies were taxed internally and externally ; their essential interests sacrificed to individuals in Great Britain ; their legislatures suspended; charters annulled; trials by juries taken away ; their persons subjected to transportation across the Atlantick, and to trial by foreign judicatories ; their supplications for redress thought beneath answer; themselves published as cowards in the councils of their mother country, and courts of Europe; armed troops sent amongst them to enforce submission to these violences; and actual hostilities commenced against them. No alternative was presented but resistance or unconditional submission. Between these, there could be no hesitation. They closed in an appeal to arms."

In 1 769, shortly after the election of Mr. Jeiferson to the provincial legislature, these discontents arrived at their crisis. In May of that year, a meeting of the General Assembly was called by the Governour, Lord Botetourt. To that meeting was made known the joint resolutions and address of the British Lords and Commons of 1768-9, on the proceedings in Massachusetts. Counter resolutions, and an address to the King, by the House of Burgesses, were agreed to with little opposition ; and a spirit manifestly displayed itself of considering the cause of Massachusetts as a common one. The Governour dissolved the General Assembly in consequence of the sympathy which was thus exhibited by a majority of its members ; but they met the next day in the publick room of the Raleigh Tavern, formed themselves into a convention, drew up articles of association against the use of any merchandise from Great Britain, and signed and recommended them to the people. They then repaired to their respective counties ; and were all re-elected except those few who had declined assenting to their proceedings.

On the first of January, 1772, Mr. Jefferson married ike daughter of Mr. John Wayles of Virginia, an alliance by which he at once gained an accession of strength and credit, and received, in the intervals of publick business, that domestick happiness he was so well fitted to partake and enjoy. Its duration, however, was but short ; in little more than ten years, death deprived him of his wife, and left him the sole guardian of two infant daughters : to whose education he devoted himself with a constancy and zeal, which might, in some measure, compensate for the want of a mother's care and instruction. Mr. Wayles was an eminent lawyer of the province, and having by his great industry, punctuality, and practical readiness, acquired a handsome fortune, he died in May, 1773, leaving three daughters : the portion which came on that event to Mrs. Jefferson was about equal to the patrimony of her husband, and consequently doubled the ease of their circumstances.

After the dissolution of the Virginia legislature in 1769, nothing of particular excitement in the country occurred for a considerable length of time ; the nation appeared to have fallen into an apathy or insensibility to their situation ; although the duty on tea was not yet repealed, and the declaratory act of a right in the British parliament to bind them by their laws in all cases, was still supended over them. But they at length aroused from their stupor. A court of inquiry held in Rhode Island in 1762, with a power to send persons to England to be tried for offences committed here, was thought to have aimed a deadly stab at the most sacred rights of the citizen, and as demanding the attention of the legislature of Virginia. The subject was takeri

Tip and considered at the spring session of 1773. On this occasion, Mr. Jefferson associated himself with several of the boldest and most active of his companions in the house, ("not thinking," as he says himself, "the old and leading members up to the point of forwardness and zeal which the times required,") and with them formed the system of Committees of Correspondence, in a private room, in the same Raleigh Tavern. They were sensible that the most urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding Avith all the other colonies, to consider the British claims as a common cause to all, and to produce a unity of action ; and for this purpose, that a committee of correspondence in each colony would be the best instrument for intercommunication, and that their first measure would probably be to propose a meeting of deputies from every colony, at some central place, who should be charged with the direction of the measures which should be taken by all. In furtherance of these views, the following resolutions were drawn up, and probably proceeded from his pen:

*' Whereas the minds of his majesty's faithful subjects in this colony have been much disturbed by various rumours and reports of proceedings tending to deprive them of their ancient legal and constitutional rights:

"And whereas the affairs of this colony are frequently connected with those of Great Britain, as well as the neighbouring colonies, which renders a communication of sentiments necessary; in order therefore to remove the uneasiness and to quiet the minds of the people, as well as for the other good purposes above mentioned:

"Be it resolved, that a standing committee of cones-

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pondence and inquiry be appointed, to consist of eleven persons, to wit: the Honourable Peyton Randolph, Esq. Robert C. Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard H. Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Gary, and Thomas Jefferson, Esquires ; any six of whom to be a committee, whose business it shall be to obtain the most early and authentick intelligence of all such acts and resolutions of the British parliament, or proceedings of administration, as may relate to or affect the British colonies in America; and to keep up and maintain a correspondence and communication with our sister colonies respecting those important considerations ; and the result of such their proceedings, from time to time, to lay before this house.

" Resolved, that it be an instruction to the said committee, that they do, without delay, inform themselves particularly of the principles and authority on Avhich was constituted a Court of Inquiry. said to have been lately held in Rhode Island, with powers to transport persons accused of offences committed in America to places beyond the seas to be tried.

" The said resolutions being severally read a second time, were, upon the question severally put thereupon, agreed to by the house nemine contradicente.

" Resolved, that the Speaker of this house do transmit to the Speakers of the different Assemblies of the British colonies on this continent, copies of the said resolutions, and desire that they will lay them before their respective Assemblies, and request them to appoint some person or persons of their respective bodies 3 to coramunicate from time to time with the said committee."

The consulting members proposed to Mr. Jefferson to move these resolutions : but he urged that it should be done by Mr. Carr, his friend and brother-in-law, then a new member, and to whom he wished an opportunity should be given of making known to the house his great worth and talents. It was so agreed: he moved them, they were adopted without a dissenting voice, and a committee of correspondence appointed, of %vhom Qeyton Randolph, the Speaker, was chairman. The Governour (then Lord Dunmore) immediately dissolved the house : but the com.mittee met next day, prepared a circular letter to the Speakers of the other colonies, inclosing to each a copy of the resolutions, and left it in charge with their chairman to forward .them by expresses.

We would step aside one moment, for the purpose of introducing Mr. Wirt's description of the mind and manners, of the gentleman who first presented these resolutions to the house. "In supporting these resolutions," says he, *' Mr. Carr made his dehut, and a noble one it is said to have been. This gentleman, by profession a lawyer, had recently commenced his practice at the same bars with Patrick Henry; and although he had not yet reached the meridian of life, he was considered by far the most formidable rival in forensick eloquence that Mr. Henry had ever yet had to encounter. He had the advantage of a person at once dignified and engaging, and the manner and action of an accomplished gentleman. His education was a finished one, his mind trained to correct thinking, his conceptions quick, and clear, and strong ; he reasoned with great cogency, and had an imagination which enlightened beautifully, without interrupting or diverting the course of his argument. His voice was finely toned ; his feelings acute: his style free, and rich, and various ; his devotion to the cause of liberty verging on enthusiasm ; and his spirit firm and undaunted, beyond the possibility of being shaken. With what delight the House of Burgesses hailed this new champion, and felicitated -themselves on such an accession to their cause, it is easy to imagine. But what are the hopes and expectations of mortals 1 In two months from the time at which this gentleman stood before the House of Burgesses, in all the pride of health, and genius, and eloquence, he was no more 1 Lost to his friends and his country, and disappointed of standing in that noble triumph which awaited the illustrious band of his compatriots." We have similar testimony from a different pen. " I ■well remember," says an eye witness, " the pleasure expressed in the countenances and conversation of the members generally in this debut of Mr. Carr, and the hopes they conceived, as well from the talents as the patriotism it manifested. But he died within two months after, and in him we lost a powerful fellow labourer. His character was of a high order, a spotless integrity, sound judgement, handsome imagination, enriched by education and reading ; quick and clear in his conceptions; of correct and ready elocution ; impressing every hearer with the sincerity of the heart from which it flowed. His firmness was inflexible in whatever he thought right ; but when no moral principle was in the way, never had man more of the milk of human kindness, of indulgence, of softness, of pleasantry in conversation and conduct. The number of his friends, and the warmth of their affections, were proofs of his worth, and their estimate of it." This was the first and only speech of Mr. Carr in the House of Representatives. He died the 16th of May, 1773, in the thirtieth year of his age.

This system of corresponding committees between the legislatures of the different colonies, which was thus adopted as the best instrument for communication between the respective colonies, and by which they might be- brought to a mutual understanding and a unity of action, has since been asserted to have arisen in Massachusetts, and Judge Marshall, in his Life of Washington, has fallen into the errour. But Mr. Jefferson, and no doubt correctly, asserts the contrary. He imagines the mistake to have arisen from confounding together two distinct committees : adding, " Thus in Massachusetts there were two committees of correspondence, one chosen by the people, the other appointed by the House of Assembly ; in the former, Massachusetts preceded Virginia ; in the latter, Virginia preceded Massachusetts. To the origination of committees for the interiour correspondence between the counties and towns of a state, I know of no claim on the part of Virginia, and certainly none was ever made by myself" And the letter of Samuel A. Wells, Esquire, to Mr. Jefferson, and the answer of the latter of May 12th, 1829, show conclusively that Massachusetts did not adopt the measure, but on receipt of the proposition from Virginia, and which was delivered a.'^ their next session.

On the twelfth of March, 1773, Mr. Jefferson was chosen a member of the first committee of correspondence established by the colonial legislatures, the act already alluded to, as the most important of the revolution in preparing the way for that union of sentiment and action from whence arose the first effective resistance, and on which depended the successful progress and final triumph of the cause.

The year 1774 found Mr. Jefferson still actively engaged in his duties as a member of the legislature of Virginia. The passage by Parliament of the Boston Port Bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the first of June, 1774, was the next event which aroused the indignation and excited the sympathies of the house. It arrived while they were in session, in the spring of 1774. It was at this crisis that Mr. Jefferson wrote, and the members, though not then adopting as resolutions, afterwards published his "Summary View of the Rights of British America;" and in which he maintained what was then thought by many a bold position, but which he considered as the only orthodox and tenable one : that the relation between Great Britain and the colonies was exactly the same as that of England and Scotland, after the accession of James, and until the union, and the same as her present relation with Hanover, having the same executive chief, but no other necessary political connexion ; and that our emigration from England to this country gave her no more rights over us, than the emigration of the Danes and Saxons gave to the authorities of the mother country over England.

" In this doctrine, however," says he, "I had never 3* been able to get any one to agree with me but Mr. Wythe. He coincided in it from the first dawn of the question, What was the political relation between us and England? Our other patriots, Randolph, the Lees, Nicholas and Pendleton, stopped at the half-way house of John Dickinson, who admitted that England had a right to regulate our commerce and to lay duties on it for the purpose of regulation, but not of raising revenue. But for this ground there was no foundation in compact in any acknowledged principles of colonization, nor in reason : expatriation being a national right, and acted on as such by all nations, in all ages."

This pamphlet is addressed to the king, as the chief officer of the people, appointed indeed by the laws, but circumscribed by definitive power, to carry into efiect that institution of government erected by themselves for their use and benefit, and consequently subject to their superintendence. He reminded him that our ancestors had been British freemen ; that they had acquired their settlements here at their own expense and blood ; that it was for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered ; and for themselves alone they had a right to hold. That they had indeed thought proper to adopt the same system of laws under which they had hitherto lived, and to unite themselves under a common sovereign phut that no act of theirs had ever given a title to that authority, which the British parliament arrogated; that the crown had unjustly commenced its encroachments, by distributing the settlements among its favourites, and the followers of its fortunes ; that it then proceeded to abridge the free trade which the colonies possessed as of natural right with all parts of the world; and that afterwards offices were established of little use but to accommodate the ministers and sycophants of the crown. That during the reign of the sovereign whom he immediately addressed, the violation of rights had increased in rapid and bold succession ; being no longer single acts of tyranny, that might be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day;^ but a series of oppressions pursued so unalterably through every change of ministers, as to prove too plainty a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing the colonies to slavery.