Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 eg* | . '
 
 THE FOUNDERS 
 
 THE AMERICAN EEPUBLIC
 
 THE FOUN-DEKS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE AMEKICAN EEPUBLIC 
 
 A HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 WITH 
 
 A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER ON ULTRA-DEMOCRACY 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAELES MACKAY 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' LIFE AND LIBERTY IK AMERICA, ETC. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXV 
 
 All Rights reserved
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 WASHINGTON (PART I.), 1 
 
 WASHINGTON (PART II.), ..... 68 
 JOHN ADAMS, . . . . . . .143 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON, 208 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 293 
 
 JAMES MADISON, ...... 323 
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY, . . . 353 
 
 INDEX, .... 429 
 
 1CS9C96
 
 THE FOUNDERS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE AMEEICAN EEPUBLIC, 
 
 WASHINGTON". 
 
 PART I. 
 
 IT is fortunate for the men who, not being born to 
 such greatness as crowns and sceptres confer upon 
 their inheritors, are destined " to achieve greatness 
 or have it thrust upon them," that they do not 
 come into the world with the marks of their destiny 
 upon them that no sign upon their foreheads, no 
 nimbus or aureole of glory around their baby faces, 
 proclaims to the generation in which their lot is 
 cast that such little germs of humanity are to be- 
 come dangerous original thinkers, invincible war- 
 riors, or reckless revolutionists, whose .deeds are to 
 
 A
 
 2 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 deflect the current of history. Were it otherwise, 
 many plots would be devised by the Herods of the 
 epoch to nip such buds of promise at their birth, 
 and cut short the days of those who, if permitted 
 to live, might shake old syteins of faith and remove 
 the old boundaries of empires. Such a child came 
 into the world in the year 1732, and lived well on 
 to, or even a step beyond, what Dante calls the 
 mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, without exhibiting 
 the possession of any extraordinary qualities of 
 mind, or promising to be anything more than a 
 highly respectable country gentleman a mere local 
 magnate, to be honoured after death by a stone in 
 the village churchyard, or an obituary eulogium in 
 the county newspaper. Yet this obscure man was 
 the founder of a great and mighty State, without 
 knowing what he did as much a blind instrument 
 in the hands of Fate as the hammer in the hands 
 of a blacksmith that welds the hot iron into a 
 sword or a ploughshare. 
 
 In that year there stood at a place called Bridges 
 Creek, in Virginia, a lonely farmhouse, of which 
 scarcely a vestige now remains. It was of primi- 
 tive construction and rude materials had a steep 
 roof and far projecting eaves, so near to the 
 ground that a tall man could touch them if stand-
 
 WASHINGTON. 3 
 
 ing underneath. It consisted of four large rooms 
 on the ground - floor, and as many in the attic. 
 Here resided a wealthy and highly respectable 
 planter, Mr Augustine Washington, the owner of 
 many fertile farms within the district "between the 
 then little known but now renowned and historical 
 rivers, the Potomac and the Rappahannock. Mr 
 Washington was in his thirty-eighth year, and had 
 been twice married. By his first wife, Jane Butler, 
 whom he had espoused at twenty-one, he had a 
 family of four children, only two of whom Laur- 
 ence and Augustine survived. This lady dying 
 in 1728, he married in 1730 Mary Ball, the 
 reigning belle and toast of Virginia, who in her 
 progress through life manifested the possession of 
 mental virtues and graces more endearing than 
 physical beauty, and was the true friend, adviser, 
 and consoler of her husband. 
 
 On a cold wintry morning the 22d of February 
 1732 a child was born to this couple in the farm- 
 house at Bridges Creek, whose destiny, if it could 
 have been foreseen by its father and mother, would 
 have caused them to hail its birth with emotions 
 of a higher kind than those which are common to 
 humanity on such interesting occasions. The child 
 received the name of George. The father did not
 
 4 FOUNDERS OF THE AMEEICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 live to see it reach maturity. The mother lived to 
 see its name illustrious, and to acknowledge her son 
 as one of the powers and potentates of the earth. 
 
 Soon after the birth of George Washington, his 
 father removed to a better house on an estate in 
 Stafford County, on the bank of the Rappahannock, 
 opposite to the city of Fredericksburg, at that time 
 little better than a village. Here five other children 
 three sons and two daughters were born to the 
 wealthy planter, whose days flowed in an equable 
 current, occupied in agriculture, in rural sports, in 
 the care and education of his growing family, and 
 in the small political intrigues of a contented and a 
 prosperous colony. The Washingtons had always 
 held their heads high in Virginia. They were 
 of no plebeian stock, but aristocrats who claimed 
 to be descended from the De Wessingtons of the 
 county of Durham in England, who " came over 
 with the Conqueror." The first of the race who 
 settled in America were two brothers John and 
 Andrew. John was the grandfather of Augustine 
 Washington, and came to Virginia in 1657. He 
 was an ardent Cavalier, disgusted with English 
 politics, especially with the execution of the King 
 and the triumph of the abhorred and revolutionary 
 Roundheads. He did not come to Virginia empty-
 
 WASHINGTON. 5 
 
 handed or by accident, but with money enough to 
 purchase lands and slaves, and with the design 
 of sharing the congenial society of many brother 
 Cavaliers who had quitted England for the same 
 reasons as himself. 
 
 He and his descendants, as well as those of his 
 brother Andrew, prospered in the New World, and 
 held rank among what it has since become the fashion 
 to call the F. F. V.'s, or " First Families of Virginia." 
 They hunted, they shot, they fished ; they kept open 
 house for their friends ; they were aristocrats in all 
 their tastes and habits, spoke of England as their 
 " home," sided with the Tory or Eoyalist party 
 in English politics, and looked with aversion upon 
 Puritanism and the airs which it gave itself 
 both in Old England and in New. Laurence, 
 the elder son of Mr Augustine Washington, and 
 future head of the family fourteen years older 
 than George was sent to England when fifteen, 
 to pick up the graces and refinements of English 
 society. He returned to Virginia in the newest 
 gloss of fashion accomplished in manners and 
 conversation seven years afterwards. George, by 
 this time a boy of eight, had been sent to acquire 
 the rudiments of education at the common school 
 of the village, kept by one Hobby, his father's
 
 6 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 tenant, and sexton of the parish. He never re- 
 ceived any higher instruction but such as this, and 
 a subsequent school of the like character, afforded, 
 except a few supplementary lessons in the evenings 
 from his father and mother. He acquired no ac- 
 complishments, no Latin, no Greek, not even a 
 smattering of French ; but he made considerable 
 proficiency in mathematical studies, to which he 
 took kindly, and to which he continued much at- 
 tached throughout life. Though little indebted to 
 schools or schoolmasters, or even to parental teach- 
 ings, he had an inquisitive and a retentive mind, 
 and while there was anything to learn, never was 
 foolish enough to think that his education was 
 completed. His father dying of a severe attack of 
 gout in the stomach when George was in his 
 twelfth year, he was left to the care of his 
 widowed mother aided, however, by Laurence, 
 a young man of high character, towards whom 
 George entertained not only a brotherly affection, 
 but a filial deference and respect. Laurence, with 
 his father's approbation, had, four years previously, 
 volunteered into a regiment raised in the Colonies 
 to assist Great Britain in an expedition to the West 
 Indies to repel the aggressions of the Spaniards and 
 French upon British commerce. In this regiment
 
 WASHINGTON. 7 
 
 he obtained a captain's commission ; and in a short 
 but brilliant military service, made the acquaintance 
 and friendship of the famous Admiral Vernon, the 
 captor of Porto Bello. 
 
 It was in honour of this naval hero that the chief 
 residence of the Washington family received the 
 name of Mount Vernon, which it has ever since re- 
 tained. Two years after his father's death, G-eorge 
 came to the conclusion that he was no longer a 
 schoolboy. He longed to play the part of a man, 
 and to commence his career either in the military or 
 the naval service of Great Britain. But his mother 
 objected. She could not spare her first-born; and 
 when he finally decided to enter the navy, she 
 peremptorily refused her consent. Washington was 
 tenderly attached to her, and made it his duty to 
 obey. He consequently returned to his studies 
 varying them occasionally, as is the fashion with 
 lads when they first feel the impulses of manhood, 
 by falling desperately in love with one or other 
 of the beauties of the neighbourhood. It does not 
 appear that his fits of youthful passion for these fair 
 sirens ever drove the sedate young man into poetry, 
 or even into rhyme though, if he did not compose 
 verses to his mistress's eyebrows, he copied the 
 verses of other people upon cognate themes into his
 
 8 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 diary. Even at this early period he was cold and 
 stern ; was not, at all what the Americans call 
 " demonstrative " ; repelled rather than courted 
 intimacy ; was slow in forming friendships, though 
 stanch to the few that he made ; and as far as the 
 world knew, was without other vices than obstinacy, 
 and occasional fits of violence of temper. He, was 
 his mother's darling, his elder brother's pride a 
 pattern young man ; not unamiable, though un- 
 sympathetic ; a favourite with all old people for 
 the great deference he showed them ; and not dis- 
 liked by the youthful, though they rather tolerated 
 than enjoyed his company. At sixteen years of 
 age he was already a philosopher, and had drawn 
 up for his guidance through life a code of laws or 
 maxims, very methodical, very precise, very (what in 
 our irreverent age would be called) "goody," and 
 very much in the prudent shopkeeping style of 
 Benjamin Franklin. Indeed it seems probable that 
 the ' Poor Eichard's Almanack ' of that author, first 
 published in the year of George Washington's birth, 
 had fallen under the young man's notice, and given 
 that " canny " turn to his mind which always dis- 
 tinguished him not only in his business transac- 
 tions, but in the more serious and important events 
 of his life.
 
 WASHINGTON. 9 
 
 Among the most intimate friends of the Wash- 
 ington family was the Honourable William Fairfax, 
 cousin of Thomas Lord Fairfax, agent to and man- 
 ager of the large estates which that nobleman had 
 inherited from his mother, the daughter of Lord 
 Culpeper, to which latter they had been granted 
 by a charter of King Charles II. In the year of 
 his father's death, Laurence Washington married 
 Anne, this gentleman's daughter, and by this means 
 brought the families into still closer connection. 
 Shortly afterwards, Lord Fairfax himself appeared 
 upon the scene ; and although at the time that he 
 and George Washington came into intimate per- 
 sonal relationship he was old enough to be Wash- 
 ington's grandfather, there were so many points of 
 sympathetic contact between them as to lead to as 
 great a degree of friendship as was possible between 
 persons of such different ages. 
 
 The wild lands of Lord Fairfax, that had since 
 been completely surveyed, extended far into the 
 glens and valleys of the Alleghany Mountains ; and 
 rude squatters from Great Britain and Germany were 
 continually settling upon the choicest corners, where 
 the soil was most fertile, or where there were run- 
 ning streams with water-power sufficient to turn the 
 wheels of saw or corn mills, and claiming them as
 
 10 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 their own by the sole right of possession, which, in 
 new countries even more than in old, is considered 
 to be nine-tenths of the law. Young Washington 
 had mathematical knowledge enough for making 
 accurate surveys ; and his taste as well as talent 
 for this profession induced Lord Fairfax to appoint 
 him his surveyor almost immediately after he had 
 ceased to attend school. In young countries, young 
 men play more promiuent parts than in old ones. 
 The struggle for life in the wilderness, with its 
 wild beasts and wilder men ; the face-to-face con- 
 flict with hardship, privation, and peril which is 
 their usual lot, hardens their bones and ripens their 
 intellects at a period of life when, in an old coun- 
 try surrounded by law, protection, and security, 
 they would still be under tutelage. If such young 
 men lack experience, they generally possess vigour 
 of body and independence of judgment ; and among 
 the rough and hardy people of a frontier-land 
 where the civilised man and the savage come into 
 contact vigour is often the next best tiling to 
 wisdom, if it be not a part of it. 
 
 Lord Fairfax, when he first appointed George 
 Washington to this post, was a tall, gaunt, bony 
 veteran, in the sixtieth year of his age. He was 
 fond of rural life and sports, kept a pack of fox-
 
 WASHINGTON. 1 1 
 
 hounds, and aspired to lead the life of an English 
 nobleman in a country where he was the only noble, 
 though by no means the only gentleman. He had in 
 his youth run a brilliant career in English society; 
 was an officer in the " Blues"; had contributed one or 
 two papers to the ' Tatler,' which had been fathered 
 by Sir Eichard Steele ; and in the height of his popu- 
 larity and fashion had fallen in love with a young 
 lady of rank, to whom he offered hand, heart, and 
 fortune. He was accepted ; the wedding-day was 
 fixed ; the bridal trinkets and dresses were bought ; 
 and a house furnished in London with all the luxuries 
 appropriate to a young couple of their rank and for- 
 tune. Suddenly the fickle fair one changed her mind. 
 She had seen some one since her betrothal whom 
 she liked better than Lord Fairfax. The fortunate 
 " some one " was a duke, and Fairfax was but a 
 baron ; and to become a duchess, she broke her word 
 and ceased to be a lady. The unhappy lover, to 
 forget, if possible, the too fascinating flirt who had 
 trifled with the most precious thing in the world, 
 the affection of a true man's heart, shook off the 
 dust of London from his feet, and visited for the 
 first time his estates in the New World. He was 
 pleased with Virginia, and liked it so well that he 
 resolved to live and die in it.
 
 12 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 " His lordship was a stanch foxhunter. The 
 neighbourhood abounded with sport. But foxhunt- 
 ing in Virginia required bold and skilful horseman- 
 ship. He found Washington as bold as himself in 
 the saddle, and as eager to follow the hounds. He 
 forthwith took him into particular favour, and made 
 him his constant hunting companion." 1 
 
 Such was Washington's earliest friend, by whom 
 he was first introduced to the active business of 
 life. The surveyorship was eagerly accepted ; and 
 in the month of March 1748, having completed 
 his sixteenth year in February, he set out for the 
 beautiful valley of the Shenandoah in company with 
 George William Fairfax a young man of two-and- 
 twenty the son of the Hon. William Fairfax, his 
 lordship's cousin. He was engaged in this expedi- 
 tion about a month, and enjoyed for the first time 
 the hardy delights of " roughing it " in the wilder- 
 ness, of sleeping on the bare ground ; of waging 
 war against wild animals ; of parleying diplomati- 
 cally with wary, and, it might be, treacherous and 
 hostile Indians ; of fording streams when swollen 
 into floods ; of braving the wind, the rain, the cold, 
 and of thinking about danger only as a thing to 
 be defied and surmounted. He had no particular 
 
 1 Washington Irving.
 
 WASHINGTON. 1 3 
 
 taste for the beautiful or the romantic, but he had 
 a very keen eye for the practical and the useful. 
 He was neither poet nor artist, but wholly a sur- 
 veyor. He detected the best "localities" at a 
 glance ; studied the qualities of the soil, of the 
 timber, of the water ; knew where to lay out 
 building lots and farm lots to the best purpose ; 
 And, young as he was, treasured in his mind, like 
 a true disciple of Poor Eichard, the places where, in 
 the immediate neighbourhood of his patron's lands, 
 he could secure from other and smaller proprietors 
 an occasional good bargain for himself. He received 
 for his services on this occasion a doubloon per diem 
 a sum equivalent to about thirty shillings and 
 performed his duties so greatly to the satisfaction of 
 Lord Fairfax that, through his lordship's influence, 
 aided by that of his own family, he received the 
 valuable appointment of Public Surveyor. 
 
 This was rapid advancement for such a youth, 
 even in a new country, and was due as much to 
 his high connections as to his merits. Partly in 
 consequence of the reports made by Washington 
 in his survey, Lord Fairfax laid out a large manor 
 called Greenway Court, containing ten thousand 
 acres of arable, meadow, and forest land, and pro- 
 jected a lordly manor-house fit for the accommoda-
 
 14 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 tion of a person of his rank and fortune. The 
 manor-house was never even commenced his lord- 
 ship contenting himself, until he should find time 
 and money to build such a residence as he required, 
 with a low stone building overshadowed by trees, 
 the former residence of his steward and land-agent. 
 In this house he entertained his friends, but never 
 slept in it, lodging every night in a contiguous 
 " shanty," which he fitted up to suit tastes that had 
 become somewhat eccentric since the luckless day 
 when he was so cruelly jilted, and that became 
 more and more eccentric with his advancing years. 
 
 He never lost his love of hunting or of literature ; 
 and as befitted a qiwndam contributor to the ' Tatler ' 
 and, it was said, to the ' Spectator ' also he took a 
 lively interest in books both new and old, of which 
 he had a considerable store, all of which he placed at 
 the disposition of the young surveyor. Around the 
 humble dwelling-place in the midst of this splendid 
 domain were numerous wooden outhouses for his 
 retinue of servants, both black and white, with 
 stables for his horses and kennels for his hounds. 
 He kept open house for all comers, whether Indians, 
 half-breeds, or the hardy backwoodsmen who came 
 to carve themselves homes and estates out of the 
 illimitable wilderness. His table was plain but
 
 WASHINGTON. 15 
 
 plentiful, and served in the English fashion ; and 
 his conversation to such as knew how to appre- 
 ciate it, like the members of the "Washington family, 
 and especially George was highly instructive as 
 well as entertaining. For three years George Wash- 
 ington was a welcome guest at Greenway Court ; and 
 when he could spare a few days from the wander- 
 ing work of his profession, he preferred to spend 
 them in his lordship's society rather than in his 
 own home. During these years the young man 
 unknown to himself under the hands of the Pro- 
 vidence that shapes our ends to purposes of which 
 we never dream when we are rough-hewing them, 
 was gradually acquiring the experience and the 
 habits that fitted him in after-life for the great 
 part he was destined to play in the history of 
 America. " His rugged and toilsome expeditions in 
 the mountains, among rude scenes and among rough 
 people, inured him to hardships and made him apt 
 at expedients ; while his intercourse with his culti- 
 vated brother and with the various members of the 
 Fairfax family had a happy effect in toning up his 
 inirid and Banners, and counteracting the careless 
 and self-indulgent habitudes of the wilderness." 1 
 In the year 1751, the long-pending disputes 
 
 1 Washington Irving.
 
 16 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 between the British and French Governments, on 
 the qucestio veacata of the boundaries of the respective 
 possessions of the two countries in North America, 
 reached a point that portended a settlement by 
 arms rather than by negotiation. France claimed 
 all the vast unknown countries that lay to the west 
 of the Ohio, and all the beautiful and fertile valley 
 of that river ; and endeavoured, not without success, 
 to enlist the Indian aborigines on the French side 
 of the quarrel. The English Government and the 
 colonists were equally stubborn in the assertion of 
 their rights ; and in Virginia more especially, which 
 claimed possession of the whole breadth of the 
 continent in a westerly direction to the Rocky 
 Mountains, the hostility against both the French and 
 Indians daily increased in bitterness and intensity. 
 
 The better to prepare for impending war, the 
 whole inhabited province was divided into mili- 
 tary or militia districts, each to be governed by 
 an adjutant-general, with the rank of a major in 
 the army, and the pay of 150 per annum. The 
 duties of each adjutant-general were to attend to 
 the organisation and equipment of the militia. 
 Laurence Washington sought and obtained one of 
 these appointments for his brother George. But 
 he never lived to see his brother enter upon the
 
 WASHINGTON. 1 7 
 
 duties of his office. The state of his health had 
 long been delicate, and the symptoms of pulmonary 
 consumption having developed themselves with 
 alarming rapidity, he was advised by his physicians 
 to escape the severity of a Virginian winter by a 
 voyage to the West Indies. Thither he repaired in 
 the autumn of 1751, with his brother George for 
 companion, and arrived in Barbadoes after a voyage 
 of five weeks. Laurence seemed to derive benefit 
 from the change of climate ; but George, after he 
 had been fourteen days in the island, was attacked 
 with smallpox. He lay in some danger for three 
 weeks, but finally recovered. The disease left a 
 few traces on his face, but not sufficiently deep to 
 disfigure him, or even to attract the notice of those 
 who conversed with him. The benefit derived by 
 Laurence was but of short duration ; and fearing 
 that he might not live to return home, George was 
 commissioned to return to Virginia and escort Mrs 
 Washington to her husband. 
 
 After George had taken his departure, his brother's 
 health revived a little, and he determined to pro- 
 ceed to Bermuda, with the intention of passing a 
 /ear in that island. Ultimately he countermanded 
 the orders sent to his wife to join him in the West 
 Indies, and returned home to die in the bosom of 
 
 B
 
 18 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 his family. He was only in his thirty-fourth year. 
 In him George Washington lost a true friend and 
 a second father. Laurence reposed so much con- 
 fidence in his brother as to appoint him one of 
 his executors, and guardian of his only child, an 
 infant daughter. After devoting himself, with the 
 mingled energy and prudence that characterised 
 him in all his doings, to the settlement of his 
 brother's affairs a task which occupied him for 
 some months, and which was almost wholly left to 
 him and his co-executors he entered into the 
 business of his military appointment ; and for six 
 years, with occasional and often long visits to his 
 home, was engaged in a series of frontier expedi- 
 tions against the Indian allies of the French. Many 
 and great were the hardships he underwent, but 
 these he bore cheerfully. Greater and still more 
 trying were the annoyances he suffered at the hands 
 of the raw, ignorant, and insubordinate militiamen 
 whom it was his fortune to command. The men 
 mostly took service for a limited period, and when 
 that period had expired, refused to serve any longer. 
 They were generally mutinous ; thought themselves 
 as good as their commander, and perhaps a great deal 
 better, which is a very common characteristic of the 
 native-born American to this day, whether he be
 
 WASHINGTON. 1 9 
 
 sailor or soldier, or a subordinate in civil life ; they 
 wasted their provisions, and refused to carry their 
 rations, preferring to subsist on the chance spoils 
 of the way. On the inarch, when breakfast was 
 wanted, they would knock down the first ox or cow 
 they could find, roast it whole or piecemeal, as their 
 firewood served or their impatience impelled, never 
 caring to whom it belonged, or paying, or even 
 apologising to the unhappy owner. At dinner or 
 supper to both of which meals they looked for- 
 ward with as much regularity as if they were at 
 home if no settler's ox or sheep came in the way 
 or a little out of it, they separated in search of 
 game ; and the commander had to halt in spite of 
 himself, to allow the greedy stragglers to return 
 to the rendezvous. " For the want of proper mili- 
 tary laws," says Mr Washington Irving, " they 
 were obstinate, self-willed, and perverse. Every 
 individual had his own crude notion of things, and 
 would undertake to direct. If his advice were 
 neglected, he would think himself slighted, and to 
 redress his grievance would depart for his home." 
 Well was it, perhaps, for Washington, that he had 
 much experience of his countrymen in small matters, 
 for it prepared him for a more painful experience in 
 after-times in matters of vital moment. By learning
 
 20 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 to subdue small evils, he grew hardened enough to 
 be able to subdue great ones. 
 
 As Washington was by birth, training, and feel- 
 ing an aristocrat, he looked upon these democratic 
 vagaries of his soldiers with both personal and 
 professional disgust, and used the influence which 
 his family possessed in the Virginia Legislature to 
 introduce and carry an Act for the better regulation 
 of the militia, the establishment of courts-martial, 
 and the punishment of insubordination. This done, 
 he proceeded to reorganise his little force, to fill up 
 vacancies, and extend the length of service. He 
 was at this time in his twenty-fourth year, still a 
 young man, though matured in mind, and having as 
 yet but little sympathy with the Republican habits 
 and ideas that were springing up around him, though 
 not perhaps so vigorously in his native Virginia as 
 in the colonies of New England. His military 
 duties bringing him in the year 1756 to Philadelphia,, 
 then the principal commercial city of the Western 
 World, he sent an order to London for liveries 
 for his servants, which shows how little in unison 
 were his tastes with those which have since pre- 
 vailed in America, where not even the President 
 dares to introduce a livery -suit to his servants. 
 "Send me," he wrote, "two complete livery -suits
 
 WASHINGTON. 21 
 
 for servants, with a spare cloak, and all necessary 
 trimmings for two suits more. I would have you 
 choose the livery by our (the Washington) arms ; 
 only, as the field of the arms is white, I think the 
 clothes had better not be quite so, but nearly like 
 the enclosed (pattern). The trimmings and facings 
 of scarlet, and a scarlet waistcoat. If livery lace is 
 not quite disused, I should be glad to have the 
 cloak laced I like that fashion best ; and two 
 silver-laced hats for the above servants. One set 
 of horse-furniture, with livery lace, with the Wash- 
 ington crest on the housings, &c. The cloak to be 
 of the same piece and colour of the clothes. Three 
 gold -and -scarlet sword-knots. Three silver -and- 
 blue ditto. One fashionable gold-laced hat." 
 
 Proceeding to New York, the young commander 
 not wholly hardened against female charms by his 
 rough life on the frontier and the cares of com- 
 mand, but with that keen eye to the main chance 
 which had been strengthened by the maxims of 
 Poor Eichard became aware both of the beauty 
 and of the wealth of a certain Miss Mary Philipse, 
 daughter of a great landed proprietor on the banks of 
 the Hudson. A schoolfellow and friend of his early 
 days one Beverley Eobinson, son of John Eobin- 
 son, Speaker of the Lower House of the Virginia
 
 22 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Legislature had married the sister and co-heiress of 
 this lady. Washington, while his military duties 
 detained him in New York, was invited to make 
 his early schoolmate's house his home. Here 
 he was thrown every evening into the society of 
 the fair lady, who for a time became dear to his 
 heart, and pleasant in anticipation to his pocket. 
 But somehow or other he did not prosper in his 
 wooing. Either he was not ardent enough or 
 acceptable enough, or the lady's affections had been 
 placed elsewhere ; or perhaps, as Mr Washington 
 Irving hints by way of explanation, he was called 
 away by his public duties before he had made 
 sufficient approaches in his siege of her heart to 
 warrant a summons to surrender. 
 
 However this may be, his stay at New York was 
 but short, and he had to hurry first to Williamsburg 
 to attend the opening of the Legislature of Virginia, 
 and afterwards to Winchester to oppose the Indians, 
 who, with their French allies, threatened the security 
 of the whole frontier line of the Ohio, and even of 
 Lord Fairfax in his rural domains of Greenway 
 Court. At Winchester, after a few weeks' absence, 
 a letter reached liim from a confidential friend in 
 New York, urging him to return thither without 
 delay if he wished to secure the hand and fortune
 
 WASHINGTON. 23 
 
 of Miss Philipse ; for a formidable rival was in the 
 field a certain Captain Morris, who was carrying 
 everything before him. The critical state of mili- 
 tary affairs generally, and the imminent danger of 
 the city of Winchester, forbade Washington to leave 
 the post of duty ; and the lady of his love (and, 
 perhaps, of his calculations) fell a prize to the more 
 fortunate Captain Morris. 
 
 Washington was too cool, too busy, and too wise to 
 grieve over the disappointment ; and for nearly three 
 years after this time he continued on frontier service, 
 ill supported by the Legislature, worse supported by 
 the militia under his command, but never so greatly 
 discouraged in deed as he was in word, and con- 
 tinually urging plans that were universally acknow- 
 ledged to be sagacious, even by those who refused 
 to act upon them. He had succeeded, after great 
 difficulty, in having Winchester properly fortified, 
 and in inducing the Legislature to establish a line 
 of forts, fifteen miles apart, all along the line of the 
 Ohio. The key of the frontier was at Fort Duquesne, 
 and it had long been the cherished object of Wash- 
 ington, as it had been that of his superiors in 
 military rank, both in the colonial service and in 
 that of the British army, to expel the French from 
 that position. By the year 1758 the fortunes of
 
 24 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 France in America began to wane. The reduction 
 of Louisburg in Nova Scotia by the British, and the 
 capture of the Island of Cape Breton, were the first 
 of the great blows which in no distant time were 
 destined to make an end of French dominion in the 
 northern part of the North American continent, 
 blows that were rapidly followed up by the crown- 
 ing victory of General Wolfe on the Heights of 
 Abraham, and the surrender of all Canada to Great 
 Britain. 
 
 It was in November 1758, after the disastrous 
 failure of an attack upon Fort Duquesne by Major 
 Grant, a British officer, commanding a regiment 
 of Highlanders and Militia, that Washington found 
 himself at the head of one division of a force 
 that was charged to make a second attack for 
 the dislodgment of the French and Indians. The 
 French did not await the onset. The garrison was 
 without supplies, or the reasonable hope of obtain- 
 ing any ; and when the English and Virginians 
 were within one day's march, with a force against 
 which resistance would have been foolhardy, the 
 French commandant embarked his troops in boats 
 upon the Ohio, blew up his powder-magazine, set 
 fire to the fort, and retreated down the Ohio. 
 Washington, in command of the advanced-guard,
 
 WASHINGTON. 25 
 
 took possession on the 25th, and planted the 
 standard of Great Britain amid the ruins of the 
 fort, still smouldering and smoking. The first care 
 of the conquerors was partially to rebuild the fort, 
 restore it to a defensible condition, and change its 
 name to Fort Pitt, in honour of the great English 
 statesman. Upon its site now stands the flourishing 
 manufacturing city of Pittsburg the Manchester of 
 the Ohio. 
 
 "Washington now found his occupation gone, and 
 retired to Mount Vernon to rest for a while on his 
 laurels. With that keen eye for the main chance 
 of which mention has already been made, he had 
 looked abroad, after the failure of his attack on the 
 heart and person of Miss Philipse, for another fair 
 one to supply her place in his affections and his 
 calculations and had found her in a Mrs Curtis, a 
 rich and buxom widow with two children. She had 
 been a widow three years ; was rather below the 
 middle size, but well shaped ; had an agreeable 
 countenance, dark hair and eyes, engaging manners, 
 and a quarter of a million of charms in the shape 
 of a quarter of a million of dollars. Washington's 
 wooing was this time prosperous : he was married 
 shortly after his return from Fort Duquesne, at 
 the home of the bride, and retired forthwith from
 
 26 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 military toils and responsibilities to lead the life of 
 a country squire, after the English fashion with 
 the sole difference of a more fertile soil and more 
 delicious climate than he would have enjoyed in 
 the home of his ancestors, and with black slaves to 
 cultivate his lands, instead of white labourers to 
 work for wages. 
 
 This was the halcyon period of his life, a period 
 that promised him nothing but its own peaceful 
 continuation the happy realisation of the juvenile 
 dream of Alexander Pope : 
 
 " Happy the man whose wish and care 
 
 A few paternal acres bound, 
 Content to breathe his native air 
 On his own ground." 
 
 Mr Washington was himself well-to-do in the 
 world, and by the death of his brother Laurence, 
 had become the actual, if not nominal, head of 
 the family. By his marriage with Mrs Curtis, he 
 acquired a third of her late husband's fortune, 
 which consisted of 45,000 sterling in money, 
 and of large landed possessions in Virginia. He 
 thus became not only comfortable but wealthy 
 had youth, health, love, leisure, reputation, culture, 
 means, everything that smooths the passage through 
 life and strews its pathway with flowers.
 
 WASHINGTON. 27 
 
 Mount Vernon, where he fixed his abode after 
 his marriage, was a residence entirely to his mind. 
 Writing to a friend, he said, " No estate in 
 America is more pleasantly situated : in a high 
 and healthy country ; in a latitude between the 
 extremes of heat and cold ; on one of the finest 
 rivers in the world a river well stocked with fish 
 at all the various seasons of the year, and in the 
 spring with shad, herrings, bass, carp, sturgeon, &c., 
 in good abundance. The borders of the estate are 
 washed by more than ten miles of tide water. 
 Several valuable fisheries appertain to it ; the whole 
 shore, in fact, is one entire fishery." Here the old 
 young man lived en grand seigneur. He kept a 
 carriage-and-four for Mrs Washington, with black 
 coachmen, footmen, and postilions in the Washing- 
 ton livery. He had an excellent stud of horses for 
 himself and his friends, for riding, hunting, and 
 driving, including " Magnolia," an Arab, and other 
 costly favourites. He had dogs also for fox- 
 hunting with Lord Fairfax, entering their names 
 in his diary as Eingwood, Sweetlips, Forrester, 
 Music, True-love, Rockwood, and others known in 
 the annals of English sport. 
 
 But though fond of recreation, Washington never 
 neglected his business. No detail of management
 
 28 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 was too small for his microscopic eye, and no cir- 
 cumstance too trivial for his attention. The planter 
 in those days was a veritable autocrat in his own 
 domain ; and his domain supplied him and his slaves 
 and retainers with all the necessaries, and with some 
 of the minor luxuries, of life. The greater luxuries 
 the plate, the jewelleries, the silks, the velvets, 
 the liveries, the rare wines were all imported from 
 England. The slaves did not consist merely of field- 
 labourers for the production of tobacco, maize, wheat, 
 vegetables, fruits, and for the care and propagation 
 of sheep, cattle, and poultry, but of tailors, shoe- 
 makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, saddlers, bakers, 
 and other artificers. 
 
 Tobacco was the great staple ; and "Washington, 
 unlike other planters who left the reins of govern- 
 ment in the hands of overseers (Eobert Burns, it may 
 be remembered, was a candidate for such an office in 
 Jamaica), superintended the growth, preparation, and 
 export of this article himself, and regularly corre- 
 sponded with his consignees in Liverpool, Bristol, 
 and London on the subject. He was particularly 
 careful of and attentive to the health of his slaves, 
 but was a stern foe to idleness. In most respects he 
 was a model slave-owner ; and by " overseeing " his 
 overseers, and being his own prime minister in the
 
 WASHINGTON. 29 
 
 management of his little kingdom, he prevented those 
 acts of oppression of which brutal and uneducated 
 slave-drivers were sometimes guilty. The colour of 
 their own skins seemed, in the estimation of too 
 many of those jacks-in-office, to justify them in the 
 commission of cruelty ; while the colour of the skins 
 of their victims seemed in like manner to court the 
 stripes, which in the nature of things it was their 
 duty to bear without repining. Washington toler- 
 ated no practices of the kind. He exacted from 
 his negroes the fullest amount of work that their 
 strength and age enabled them to perform ; and he 
 in return gave them full protection, liberal treat- 
 ment, and a fair amount of holidays. 
 
 For five years his life passed happily and profitably 
 on his estates. Cultivating his plantations, hunting 
 with Lord Fairfax, fishing by himself on the bountiful 
 and beautiful Potomac, shooting canvas-back ducks 
 on the not far-distant bays and inlets of the Chesa- 
 peake, and entertaining hospitably the officers of 
 the British ships of war that occasionally made 
 their appearance before Mount Vernon, he had 
 always sufficient to occupy his time. Moreover, 
 he was elected a member of the House of Bur- 
 gesses of Virginia, of which Assembly he long 
 remained a useful though a silent member. He
 
 30 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 did not possess the gift of eloquence, which the 
 Americans prize so highly scarcely ever ventured 
 to address the House, and never made a set speech. 
 It is related that, on his taking his seat for the 
 first time, the Speaker, Mr Robinson, conveyed 
 to him the thanks of the House for the public 
 services he had rendered on the frontier ; and that 
 Washington, on rising to reply, was so nervous and 
 confused that he could not utter a word. " Sit 
 down, Mr Washington," said the Speaker ; " your 
 modesty equals your valour and that surpasses 
 the power of any language I possess." 
 
 Public affairs beyond the confines of Virginia 
 did not occupy much of the young planter's atten- 
 tion ; though the time was rapidly approaching 
 when disputes with the mother-country, small in 
 their origin, were to assume large and formidable 
 proportions, and to put the loyalty of the colonists 
 both aristocratic and puritanic to the severest 
 test. The conquest and the surrender of Canada 
 were not events of unmixed good, though they had 
 given very great satisfaction both in England and 
 America. A sagacious statesman, the Count de 
 Vergennes, French Ambassador at Constantinople, 
 uttered a prophecy which, though consolatory to 
 the amour propre of the French nation, and in-
 
 WASHINGTON. 3 1 
 
 tended to be so, betokened a marvellous insight 
 into the arcana of political action. " The triumph 
 of England," he said, " will be fatal to her power 
 in America. The Colonies will no longer need her 
 protection. She will call upon them to contribute 
 towards supporting the burdens they have helped 
 to bring upon her, and they will answer by re- 
 nouncing their dependence." 
 
 No more remarkable prediction was ever made ; 
 and peace was no sooner restored to the American 
 continent than events began to shape themselves 
 towards its fulfilment. The question of taxing the 
 Colonies was not a new one. It had been suggested 
 so early as the days of Sir Eobert Walpole. That 
 wary Minister, however, would not hear of it. " He 
 will be a bolder man than I am," he said, " and one 
 less friendly to commerce, who will venture on such 
 an expedient. For my part, I would encourage the 
 trade of the Colonies to the utmost ; one-half of the 
 profits will be sure to come into the royal Ex- 
 chequer through the increased demand for British 
 manufactures. This will be to tax them, but far 
 more agreeably to their own constitution and laws." 
 But the sagacious policy of Walpole did not find 
 favour with his successors ; and shortly after the 
 close of the war against the French on the North
 
 32 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 American continent, the Grenville Administration 
 proposed and carried through the Commons a resolu- 
 tion, that " towards further defraying the expenses, 
 it may be proper to charge certain stamp-duties in 
 the said colonies and plantations " ! Unhappy resol- 
 ution ! Everybody in England thought it was quite 
 right. Everybody in America thought it was quite 
 wrong. Even Washington was shaken in his faith 
 that the people at home could not err, and began to 
 anticipate evil. 
 
 Massachusetts, the focus of Puritanism and Re- 
 publicanism, was, if not the first of the colonies to 
 take the alarm, the first to give legal expression to its 
 displeasure ; and her Legislature declared authorita- 
 tively " that the sole right of giving and granting 
 the money of the people of that colony was vested 
 in themselves, and that the imposition of taxes and 
 duties by the Parliament of Great Britain, upon a 
 people who are not represented in that Parliament, 
 is absolutely irreconcilable with their rights." Here 
 spoke the angry spirit of the sons of the English 
 Commonwealth. The other colonies followed one 
 after the other in drawing up petitions to the King 
 and the Parliament, all in the same sense and spirit ; 
 and Pennsylvania, more energetic than the rest, de- 
 spatched Benjamin Franklin, the apostle of " number
 
 WASHINGTON. 33 
 
 one," as portrayed and deified in ' Poor Richard,' to 
 England, as the agent of the colony, charged with 
 the mission of representing to the British Govern- 
 ment the danger as well as the impolicy of the pro- 
 posed measure founded on the utterly erroneous 
 idea that the English in America were less sensi- 
 tive about that sacred place, the pocket, than the 
 English at home. 
 
 On Franklin's arrival in London, he was consulted 
 both by the Ministers and the Opposition ; and de- 
 clared, with all the fervour of a shopkeeper against an 
 attempted robbery, that the Americans would resist 
 the imposition, passively and actively, and that they 
 would rather see the disruption of the Empire than 
 submit to imperial taxation. The Ministry were 
 not convinced, and pressed forward their measure, 
 which, however, excited as little interest in the 
 House of Commons as a debate upon Indian finance 
 does in our own day. In vain Colonel Isaac Barre", 
 who in after-years was suspected, and not without 
 reason, of being the author of the Letters of Junius, 
 thundered against the measure, and brought his ex- 
 perience of America, where he had served under 
 the illustrious Wolfe, to bear in support of his 
 arguments ; in vain did other and less famous 
 leaders of the Opposition take the same side. The 
 
 C
 
 34 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Bill was passed, and the seeds of disaffection, so soon 
 to expand into revolution, were planted in America. 
 Virginia, most loyal and aristocratic of colonies, was 
 as deeply discontented as puritanical New England ; 
 and Patrick Henry, a young lawyer recently elected 
 as a member of the House of Burgesses, suddenly 
 made himself one of the most popular men in 
 America, by introducing into the Legislature a 
 series of resolutions declaring that the General 
 Assembly of Virginia had the exclusive right and 
 power to tax the people of that colony, and that 
 whoever maintained the contrary ought to be re- 
 garded as a public enemy. 
 
 Mr Robinson, the Speaker, objected to the resolu- 
 tions as inflammatory ; but the orator, with all the 
 fervour of his Celtic blood boiling in his veins, 
 defended alike their spirit and their phraseology, 
 and forgot himself so far in the vehemence of his 
 declamation as to warn the Sovereign personally 
 of the danger he incurred by setting himself in 
 opposition to the wishes of his American subjects. 
 "Csesar," said he, " had his Brutus ; Charles his Crom- 
 well ; and George III. may " here the horrified 
 
 Speaker started on his chair, and a cry of " Treason ! 
 treason ! " resounded on all sides. Henry saw with 
 quick perception that his " buncombe " might be dan-
 
 WASHINGTON. 35 
 
 gerous if persisted in ; and after a pause and a low 
 bow to the Speaker, deliberately finished his sentence 
 " and George III. may profit by their example. 
 If this be treason, sir, make the most of it." 
 
 The House was not in the mood for violent 
 language ; and Henry having agreed to modify his 
 resolutions in form, but retaining their spirit, they 
 were passed by a large majority. The Lieutenant- 
 Governor of the colony unwisely added fuel to this 
 growing fire by dissolving the Assembly and issuing 
 writs for a new election thus keeping up and in- 
 tensifying an excitement which it would have been 
 better to have allayed. Washington made no 
 public utterances upon the subject ; but in a letter 
 to Mr Dandridge, his wife's uncle, a resident in 
 London, he said " that the speculative part of the 
 colonists looked upon this unconstitutional method 
 of taxation as a direful attack upon their liberties." 
 He was somewhat cautious, as became so faithful 
 a disciple of the philosophy of Poor Eichard, in 
 expressing his own opinion ; but went on to say : 
 " "Whatever may be the result of this and of some 
 other (/ think I may add} ill-judged measures, 
 I will not undertake to determine ; but this I may 
 venture to affirm, that the advantage accruing to 
 the mother-country will fall greatly short of the
 
 36 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 expectation of the Ministry. ... As to the Stamp 
 Act, regarded in a single view, one of the first bad 
 consequences attending it is, that our Courts of 
 Judicature must inevitably be shut up; for it is 
 impossible, or next to impossible, under our present 
 circumstances, that the Act of Parliament can be 
 complied with, were we ever so willing to enforce 
 its execution. And not to say (which alone would 
 be sufficient) that we have not money enough to 
 pay for the stamps, there are many other cogent 
 reasons which prove that it would be ineffectual." 
 
 While Washington was thus privately " venturing 
 to affirm," and timidly thinking that he might call 
 the measures ill-judged, the fiery oratory of Patrick 
 Henry was working to more potent ends on the 
 public mind, not alone in Virginia, but in all the 
 other colonies. On the motion of the General 
 Assembly of Massachusetts, nearly five months 
 after the passing of Henry's modified resolutions, 
 a Congress was held in New York, at which 
 delegates attended from nine out of the thirteen 
 colonies ; and after stormy though all but unani- 
 mous debates, prepared an address to the King, 
 and petitions to both Houses of Parliament, setting 
 forth the grievances of the American people, and 
 demanding the repeal of the obnoxious Act. Mean-
 
 WASHINGTON. 37 
 
 while riots broke out in several cities ; the stamp 
 distributors were hung in effigy ; their offices were 
 sacked or levelled with the ground ; the stamps 
 were seized and thrown into the flames ; while 
 most of the stamp distributors happy not to be 
 executed in person as well as in effigy hastened 
 to range themselves on the popular side, by resign- 
 ing their too dangerous appointments. 
 
 On the 1st of November 1765, when the Act 
 was to come into operation, all the ships in the 
 harbour of Boston displayed their colours half-mast 
 high, as a sign of mourning for the departed liberty 
 of America ; while the bells of that and other cities 
 rang funereal peals throughout the day. At New 
 York a copy of the Act was fixed upon a pole, 
 surmounted by a death's-head, and a scroll bearing 
 the inscription, " The folly of England and the 
 ruin of America ! " and carried through the streets, 
 followed by a clamorous multitude. Golden, the 
 Lieutenant-Governor who had made himself espe- 
 cially obnoxious to the New Yorkers, by recom- 
 mending to the British Government the taxation of 
 the Colonies, and the establishment of hereditary 
 instead of elective Assemblies fearful of personal 
 violence, withdrew into the fort on Governor's 
 Island, in the harbour, and garrisoned it for defence
 
 38 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 with marines from a British man-of-war. He was 
 barely in time to escape. The mob broke into his 
 stable, took out his carriage, put his effigy into it, 
 paraded it through the streets, with shouts and yells 
 of execration, to the park, where it was hung on a 
 high gallows. In the evening the effigy was cut 
 down, put into the carriage, along with another 
 effigy representing the devil, and drawn by torch- 
 light to the Bowling Green, under the very guns of 
 the fort, where the two effigies, the carriage, and large 
 heaps of stamps, were all committed to the flames. 
 The news of these and similar events, on arriving in 
 the mother- country, very greatly annoyed the British 
 Ministry, and very greatly astonished the people. 
 By one party, the Americans were accused not only 
 of ingratitude, but of rebellion ; by the other, they 
 were supported in their agitation, and urged to 
 persevere, on their own behalf as well as on that 
 of the liberties of Great Britain, which were held 
 on the same tenure as their own. The Grenville 
 Administration had fallen, and been succeeded by 
 that of the Marquis of Eockirigham. The new 
 Ministers, not too obstinate to learn wisdom from 
 events, sent instructions to the various lieutenant- 
 governors of the colonies to do their best to allay 
 the rising storm of disaffection, and promised recpn-
 
 WASHINGTON. 39 
 
 sideration of the whole subject in the approaching 
 session of Parliament. They fulfilled their pledge. 
 Mr Grenville and his friends supported the Stamp 
 Act, which they had carried, and were joined by 
 many friends of the new Administration ; but the 
 Americans found a powerful ally in Mr Pitt. He 
 declared emphatically that the British Parliament 
 had no right to tax the Colonies ; that taxation was 
 no part of the governing or legislative power ; that 
 taxes were a voluntary gift and grant of the Com- 
 mons alone ; and that the Commons of Great Britain 
 could only grant what was their own, and not that 
 which belonged to the Commons of America. At 
 the same time, he admitted the authority of King, 
 Lords, and Commons to be suzerain and supreme in 
 all other matters. Warming with his subject, and 
 in reply to Mr Grenville, who had all but accused 
 him by name of fomenting a seditious spirit in the 
 Colonies, he said, addressing the Speaker : " Sir, a 
 charge is brought against gentlemen sitting in this 
 House for giving birth to sedition in America. The 
 freedom with which they have spoken their senti- 
 ments against this unhappy Act is imputed to them 
 as a crime. The imputation shall not discourage 
 me. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three 
 millions of people so dead to all the principles of
 
 40 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would 
 have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the 
 rest." 
 
 Pitt's eloquence made a great impression upon 
 the country ; perhaps a still greater was , effected 
 by the appearance and examination of Benjamin 
 Franklin at the bar of the House. " Poor Rich- 
 ard," with all his maxims on the tip of his tongue, 
 ready for service against any and all authority 
 that would take his money out of his pocket 
 without his consent, answered all the questions 
 put to him with the fluency and decision of a 
 man who thoroughly understood and felt what 
 he was talking about. When asked if he thought 
 the Americans would submit to a modification of 
 the Stamp Act, he replied : " No ! never ! unless 
 compelled by force of arms ! " To a more friendly 
 question put to him by a member who agreed with 
 Mr Pitt, as to what was the feeling towards Great 
 Britain entertained in the Colonies before the Stamp 
 Act was proposed, he replied : " The best in the 
 world. The Americans submitted willingly to the 
 Government of the Crown, and paid obedience to 
 all the Acts of Parliament. Numerous as the 
 colonists were, they cost England nothing in forts, 
 citadels, garrisons, or armies to keep them in sub-
 
 WASHINGTON. 4 1 
 
 jection. They were garrisoned at the sole expense 
 of a little pen, ink, and paper. They were led by 
 a thread. They had not only a respect but an 
 affection for Great Britain for its laws, its customs, 
 and its manners. The natives of Great Britain 
 were always treated with particular regard in 
 America. To be an ' Old England man ' was of 
 itself a character of respect, and gave a kind of 
 rank among us." " And what is the feeling now ? " 
 asked the same friendly voice. " Oh, very much 
 altered." " If the Act be not repealed, what do 
 you think will be the consequence ? " "A total 
 loss of the respect and affection of the people of 
 America, and of all the commerce that depends 
 on that respect and affection." 
 
 The result of the discussion was, that General 
 Conway brought in a bill for the total repeal of 
 the Stamp Act, which was carried by a large 
 majority although the Ministry, with a view of 
 saving the dignity of the Crown and Parliament, 
 insisted on inserting a saving clause, to the effect 
 " that the Parliament had, and of right ought to 
 have, power to bind the Colonies in all cases what- 
 soever." This proviso was alike ungracious and 
 unnecessary; and the Americans, with a feeling 
 similar to that which might be indulged by a
 
 42 FOUNDEES OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 hungry dog who had received a smart blow on the 
 head for the bone that its master had given it to 
 pick, growled at the substantial benefit, on account 
 of the insult that accompanied it. Washington, 
 who had taken no public part in opposition to the 
 British Government, was exceedingly glad of the 
 repeal of the Act. " Had the Parliament," he said 
 in a contemporary letter, " resolved upon enforcing 
 it, the consequences, I conceive, would have been 
 more direful than is generally apprehended, both to 
 the mother-country and the Colonies. All, there- 
 fore, who were instrumental in procuring the repeal, 
 are entitled to the thanks of every British subject, 
 and have mine cordially." 
 
 The satisfaction of Mr Washington was premature. 
 The arri&re pensfo that lay in the unlucky assertion 
 of the absolute right of Great Britain to legislate 
 for her Colonies, was destined at no distant time to 
 reassertion in a manner quite as displeasing to the 
 Americans as the Stamp Act. The Administration 
 which succeeded that of Lord Rockingham, and of 
 which Mr Pitt, now Lord Chatham, was a member, 
 looking to the form rather than to the spirit, and 
 erroneously thinking even though Lord Chatham 
 knew, and might have taught his colleagues better 
 that it was against the particular Stamp Act,
 
 WASHINGTON. 43 
 
 rather than against taxation generally, that the 
 Americans objected, endeavoured to raise a revenue 
 from America by indirect rather than by direct 
 means. The attempt was unfortunate. There were 
 mischief, discontent, and latent rebellion in the 
 spirit with which the Americans received it. 
 
 The new Ministry was described by Burke as 
 " a diversified mosaic," and " a piece of tesselated 
 pavement without cement." It included, as its 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Charles Towns- 
 end, who had been a vigorous supporter of Mr 
 Grenville's Stamp Act. Under the auspices of 
 this unwise financier, goaded to action by the 
 continual taunts of Grenville, who asserted that 
 nothing but " unworthy cowardice " prevented the 
 British Parliament from taxing America, a Bill 
 was introduced for imposing a duty upon all tea 
 imported into the Colonies, together with smaller 
 duties upon paints, paper, glass, and lead, all 
 articles of British produce. The avowed object 
 of the measure was to provide a fund for the pay- 
 ment of the British troops stationed in America, 
 and for the salaries of the colonial governors, so 
 as to render these functionaries independent of the 
 local Assemblies. How Lord Chatham could have 
 remained a member of an Administration that pro-
 
 44 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 posed a measure so antagonistic to all his recorded 
 sentiments and convictions, was a mystery at the 
 time, and most of all to the Americans. The 
 passing of the Act attracted little notice at home. 
 In America it excited the greatest discontent. All 
 the writers and speakers who had been conspicuous 
 for their opposition to the Stamp Act, were loud 
 in the expression of their disapproval ; and for the 
 first time in American history, the cry of " Inde- 
 pendence " was raised, and received with favour. 
 
 One of the first results of the measure was 
 the proposal by Massachusetts of a General Con- 
 gress of all the Colonies, to consider the state of 
 their relations with the mother-country. This pro- 
 ceeding was looked upon with great displeasure, 
 if not alarm, by the English Ministry. In view of 
 the probability that the Board of Eevenue Com- 
 missioners instituted at Boston would be unable 
 to collect the duties under the new Act, two British 
 regiments were added to two which were already 
 stationed in the city. A town-meeting was imme- 
 diately summoned, to protest against the presence 
 of this military force ; and subsequently a Con- 
 vention, to which more than a hundred towns and 
 villages in Massachusetts sent delegates, was held 
 in Fanueil Hall. Though the Governor, Mr Ber-
 
 WASHINGTON. 45 
 
 nard, denounced the Convention as treasonable, it 
 continued its deliberations for several weeks, and 
 did not separate until it had passed resolutions 
 condemnatory of a standing army in the Colonies, 
 and of the attempt of the Parliament of Great 
 Britain a body in which they were not repre- 
 sented to tax the people of America. 
 
 Shortly after the opening of Parliament, the 
 papers connected with these proceedings in Boston 
 were laid before both Houses, and excited lively 
 discussions. The House of Lords was particularly 
 indignant, declared that the Boston Convention was 
 an insult to his Majesty's authority and a usurpa- 
 tion of the powers of Government, and suggested 
 that the Governor of Massachusetts should be 
 directed to procure the fullest information touching 
 all acts of treason, or misprision of treason, com- 
 mitted in the Colonies since the passing of the late 
 Act in 1767, and to transmit the ringleaders to 
 England for trial. The House of Commons was 
 less vindictive, though there was a majority hostile 
 to the pretensions of the Americans, by whom 
 resolutions, somewhat modified from those of the 
 Lords, were passed, and embodied in an address to 
 the King. The Legislature of Virginia, of which 
 Washington was a member, was in session when
 
 46 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the news of these debates arrived ; and, making 
 common cause with Massachusetts, passed a series 
 of resolutions in denial of the right of England to 
 levy taxes upon the people of America whether 
 directly, as by the late Stamp Act, or indirectly, as 
 by the levying of import duties upon tea or any 
 other commodities. The Speaker was directed to 
 forward these resolutions for concurrence to the 
 Legislatures of all the other colonies. The Gover- 
 nor of Virginia, Lord Botetourt, acted in a very 
 high-handed manner on this occasion. Without 
 previous notice of his intentions, he appeared in 
 the House of Burgesses, and, addressing the Speaker, 
 said : " Mr Speaker, and Gentlemen of the House 
 of Burgesses, I have heard of your resolves, and 
 augur ill of their effects. You have made it my duty 
 to dissolve you, and you are dissolved accordingly ! " 
 It was now that Washington first manifested 
 sympathy with his countrymen. His somewhat 
 sluggish nature was quickened, not so much by 
 the events as by the opinions of the time. No 
 man, unless his genius be of the very highest, or 
 perhaps it may be said of the very coldest order, 
 can escape the contagion of contemporary passion. 
 Few even can escape the contagion of prejudice. 
 Washington was not a man of genius, but a
 
 WASHINGTON. 47 
 
 plain, rational country gentleman, with an excellent 
 capacity for improving his personal fortunes and 
 pushing his way in the world. It was not for him 
 to move too soon or take the initiative in any 
 matter that savoured of disaffection to the mother- 
 country, to whose supremacy he was sincerely at- 
 tached ; but even he, cautious and slow as he was, 
 found himself unable to resist the strong current 
 that had set against English taxation in America. 
 After the dissolution of the House of Burgesses, 
 the members adjourned to a private house, elected 
 a moderator, and proceeded to consider the state of 
 affairs. The result was, that Washington brought 
 forward Articles of Association, which had been 
 drawn up jointly between himself and Mr George 
 Mason, pledging all who signed them neither to 
 import, consume, nor use any goods, merchandise, or 
 articles of manufacture, on the importation of which 
 into the American colonies duties, great or small, 
 had been levied by the British Parliament. Massa- 
 chusetts and other Northern colonies had previously 
 adopted similar resolutions ; and the example was 
 imitated not alone by Virginia, but by the Carolinas 
 and the other Southern colonies. It seemed for 
 a while as if the Americans would rest satisfied 
 with this passive resistance, and as if the British
 
 48 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Parliament, enlightened as to the true state of feel- 
 ing in the Colonies, would repeal the obnoxious 
 Acts. Neither of these expectations was realised. 
 The American motto was " thorough " ; the British 
 policy was " half-measures." And, as usual with 
 men and nations, " thorough " was successful 
 
 Early in 1770 the Duke of Grafton resigned, 
 and Lord North assumed the reins of office. His 
 first public act as regards the Colonies was a 
 blunder, which the Americans interpreted into an 
 insult. Under Ministerial auspices, an Act was 
 passed repealing all the import duties levied upon 
 British and foreign goods in America by the Act 
 of 1767, with the exception of the duty on tea. 
 This duty was retained, not for the sake of any 
 revenue which might be expected from it (for no tea 
 was drunk in America, except an imitation called 
 " hyperion," made of dried raspberry - leaves of 
 indigenous growth, which it was considered both 
 fashionable and patriotic to consume), but solely 
 with the aggravating purpose of maintaining the 
 right of Parliament to tax America. With the 
 view of making the assertion of the right less 
 unpalatable to the Americans, a discrimination was 
 made between the duty levied on tea imported into 
 England and that imported into the Colonies. The
 
 WASHINGTON. 49 
 
 English duty was a shilling per lb., the American 
 duty was only threepence. But the Americans 
 were not to be conciliated or blinded by a com- 
 promise, however seemingly favourable. It was the 
 principle itself to which they objected, and not 
 the amount to which they were made liable. " The 
 properest time to exert our right of taxation," said 
 Lord North, speaking the sentiments of George III. 
 rather than his own, "is when the right is denied. 
 To temporise is to yield ; and the authority of the 
 mother - country, if it be not now asserted, will 
 have to be relinquished for ever. A total repeal 
 cannot be thought of till America is prostrate at 
 our feet." 
 
 For three years the Americans continued to use 
 "hyperion" only using tea itself when it could be 
 procured from the smuggler ; all the while encour- 
 aging in one another a spirit of hostility to the home 
 Government. At last, in 1773, Lord North be- 
 thought himself of another half-measure, which, 
 like most half-measures, did more harm than good. 
 The non - consumption of tea in the Colonies 
 operated unfavourably to the interests of that great 
 mercantile monopoly, the East India Company. 
 Having powerful friends and representatives in 
 Parliament, the Company, which had a large stock 
 
 D
 
 50 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 of tea on hand in their warehouses in London, had 
 influence enough to induce the Minister to carry 
 through Parliament a Bill to enable the Company 
 to re-export their teas without payment of export 
 duty. As the Company could thus offer their teas at 
 a very low rate in America, it was thought by the too 
 clever Minister that the colonists would be tempt- 
 ed, by the cheapness of the article, to forget their 
 principle or their prejudice and to make large 
 purchases, thus yielding the point at issue between 
 them and Great Britain. But the Americans, to use 
 their own word, were too 'cute to betray themselves, 
 or yield a cheap victory to the English Minister. 
 
 A little fleet of tea-ships having been despatched 
 to America, the ports of New York and Philadel- 
 phia refused to receive the cargoes, and the ships 
 returned unladen to Europe. The authorities of 
 Charleston allowed the tea to be landed to be 
 placed in warehouses ; but no one purchased even 
 so much as a pennyworth, and the tea rotted in the 
 stores. In Boston the people were more aggressive, 
 and committed an act which expedited the final 
 catastrophe, which the foremost minds in America 
 had long foreseen. When the first tea-ship arrived 
 in the harbour, a public meeting of the citizens was 
 held in Eanueil Hall, which passed a resolution
 
 WASHINGTON. 51 
 
 forbidding the captain at his peril to unload or 
 attempt to land his cargo. A similar meeting 
 was held on the morrow, which the Governor de- 
 clared to be illegal, and ordered it to disperse. The 
 meeting refused, and the militia declined to act 
 against their fellow - citizens. The consignees 
 promised, if the tea were landed, they would keep 
 it in their cellars without attempting to put it upon 
 the market, until they could receive orders for its 
 return from England. This was not satisfactory 
 to the people, who insisted that the ships should 
 set sail immediately without unloading. Two other 
 ships arrived while this dispute was pending, and 
 samples of the commodity were sent on shore to 
 the merchants ; but all refused to buy. The cap- 
 tains, after a few days, resolved to return to 
 England, but could not obtain a clearance at the 
 custom-house, or a passport from the Governor 
 to clear the port. The Bostonese interpreted this 
 conduct of the Governor and his officials as an 
 attempt to force the tea upon an unwilling peo- 
 ple ; though by what process of reasoning they 
 came to such a conclusion, it is difficult to discover. 
 To cut short the matter, and dare British au- 
 thority to do its worst, it was resolved to attempt 
 a coup-de-main. It was generally expected that on
 
 52 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the 17th of December the commanders of the Brit- 
 ish ships of war in the harbour had determined that 
 the merchant captains should send their tea ashore 
 under cover of the artillery. The ships were moored 
 off Griffin's wharf. It was clear moonlight, when 
 suddenly there appeared in the streets several per- 
 sons all known to be leading citizens of Boston 
 disguised as Indians, with painted faces and feath- 
 ered caps and leggings, and brandishing tomahawks, 
 shouting and yelling. One of them exclaimed, 
 " Boston harbour for a teapot to-night ! " and be- 
 ing joined by several others, until their numbers 
 amounted to five - and - twenty, proceeded to the 
 wharf, boarded the ships, overpowered the surprised 
 captains, and in less than three hours, supported by 
 the townspeople, deliberately broke open all the tea- 
 chests in the three vessels, and threw the contents 
 into the sea. The authorities took no steps to pre- 
 vent the outrage ; the ships of war were silent; and 
 Admiral Montague, chief in command of the naval 
 force, who was sitting on shore at the house of a friend, 
 opened the windows as the daring masqueraders re- 
 turned from their exploit, and said jeeringly, " Well, 
 my boys, you've had a fine night for your Indian 
 caper ! but remember you'll have to pay the piper." 
 For some time previously to this occurrence,
 
 WASHINGTON. 53 
 
 Washington had been absent on his old battle- 
 ground, the Indian frontier, to settle some land 
 claims, which had arisen for services rendered in the 
 Indian and French wars, on the part of officers and 
 others under his command. On his return to Wil- 
 liamsburg he waited upon the Earl of Dunmore, 
 who had been appointed Governor of Virginia on 
 the death of Lord Botetourt, and learned from that 
 nobleman, as well as from his political friends and 
 colleagues in the House of Burgesses, the threaten- 
 ing turn which affairs had taken. Much curiosity, 
 if not anxiety, was felt to know how the news of 
 the Boston outrage would be received " at home." 
 At last it was announced that the British Govern- 
 ment was not only greatly offended with America 
 generally, but disposed to be particularly vindictive 
 against Boston. An Act was rapidly passed, called 
 " The Boston Port Bill," by which all loading and 
 unloading of goods, wares, and merchandise were to 
 be prohibited in the town and harbour, and the estab- 
 lishment of the customs to be transferred to Salem. 
 This was shortly followed by a second Act, tak- 
 ing the appointment of judges, magistrates, and 
 councillors from the hands of the people of Mas- 
 sachusetts, and vesting it in the Crown, such 
 nominees to hold office only during the Eoyal
 
 54 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 pleasure. A third Act was even more outrageous 
 to the feelings of the Americans not in Mas- 
 sachusetts alone, but in all the other colonies 
 which provided that any person indicted for trea- 
 son, murder, or other offence, might at the dis- 
 cretion of the Governor be sent to some other 
 colony for trial, or even to England. The House of 
 Burgesses of Virginia was in session when official 
 notification of these measures arrived. All ordinary 
 business was immediately postponed ; a protest 
 against the three Acts was entered upon the journals 
 of the House, signed by Washington among other 
 members ; and a resolution adopted, setting apart 
 the first day of June then ensuing as a day of 
 fasting, humiliation, and prayer to Almighty God 
 to avert from the American people the threatened 
 deprivation of their rights and liberties, and the 
 evils of civil war. 
 
 On the day following, when the Burgesses were 
 still discussing the ominous state of the Colonies, 
 they were summoned to attend Lord Dunmore 
 in the council - chamber. As curt and decided 
 as his predecessor had been on a similar but less 
 urgent occasion, his lordship told them in few 
 words that their resolution reflected so impro- 
 perly upon the King and the Parliament of Great
 
 WASHINGTON. 55 
 
 Britain, that he had no alternative but to dissolve 
 the House, and that it was dissolved accordingly. 
 The members immediately dispersed, but met as 
 private citizens in the evening in the large room of 
 the principal tavern, where they passed a series of 
 resolutions still more emphatic than those of the 
 previous day declaring that the cause of one 
 colony was the cause of all, and urging the expe- 
 diency and necessity of appointing delegates from 
 each, to meet annually in General Congress to de- 
 liberate on the united interests of America. A 
 resolution to the same effect was simultaneously, 
 and without concert with Virginia, passed by Massa- 
 chusetts ; and meeting everywhere with general con- 
 currence, the first Congress was summoned to meet at 
 Philadelphia on the 5th of September next ensuing. 
 Lord Fairfax and his cousins Washington's 
 most intimate friends though they did not wholly 
 approve of the severe proceedings of the British 
 Parliament, by no means approved of the Boston 
 outrage, or of the manner in which it was condoned 
 or applauded by the Americans. Washington had 
 presided as moderator or chairman of a meeting of 
 the inhabitants of Fairfax County, at which con- 
 siderable indignation had been displayed by various 
 speakers against the conduct of Great Britain ; and
 
 56 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Bryan Fairfax, younger brother of George William, 
 then absent in England, wrote him a letter, urging 
 a respectful petition to the throne for the redress of 
 grievances. Washington, in reply, said he would 
 cheerfully sign a dutiful petition to the King, pro- 
 vided he saw the most distant chance of success 
 which he confessed he did not. Ultimately, how- 
 ever, a committee, appointed for the purpose by the 
 public meeting, of which, as well as of the commit- 
 tee, Washington was chairman, resolved that the 
 Congress about to assemble should be requested to 
 petition the King, inasmuch as petitions to both 
 Houses of Parliament had hitherto proved unavail- 
 ing. This resolution was drawn up by Washington, 
 and is remarkable not only as proceeding from his 
 pen, but as giving the first hint that the Americans 
 might be goaded to take up arms in defence of their 
 liberties. The petition asserted the constitutional 
 rights and privileges of the colonists ; lamented the 
 necessity of taking measures that might be displeas- 
 ing ; declared attachment to the King's person, 
 family, and Government ; desired to continue in 
 dependence upon Great Britain ; entreated him not 
 to reduce his faithful subjects in America to des- 
 peration, and to reflect that from, the King there 
 could ~be ~but one, appeal !
 
 WASHINGTON. 57 
 
 Washington was chosen as one of the seven 
 delegates of Virginia to the General Congress ; and 
 a few days before the time appointed for its meet- 
 ing, set out on horseback to Philadelphia with two 
 of his colleagues, Patrick Henry and Edward Pen- 
 dleton. There were fifty - one delegates in all 
 Georgia being the only colony unrepresented. They 
 met punctually on Monday the 5th of Septem- 
 ber. A question arose as to the mode of vot- 
 ing, whether by colonies or by individual dele- 
 gates. Patrick Henry entered a protest against sec- 
 tionalism. "All America," he said, "is fused into 
 one mass. Where are your landmarks and bound- 
 aries of colonies ? They are all thrown down. The 
 distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, 
 New Yorkers, and New Englanders exist no more. 
 I am not a Virginian, but an American ! " 
 
 The Congress, however, did not share his Celtic 
 enthusiasm, but with Saxon stolidity declined to 
 move quite so fast, and decided that each colony 
 should have but one vote, whatever might be the 
 numbers of its delegates that they should de- 
 liberate with closed doors, and publish nothing but 
 the resolutions which they might pass, unless by 
 order of the majority. The Congress sat for fifty- 
 one days. " It was such an assembly," says John
 
 58 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Adams, who was afterwards President, " as never 
 before came together on a sudden in any part of 
 the world. It discussed every subject that came 
 before it with a moderation, an acuteness, and a 
 minuteness equal to that of Queen Elizabeth's Privy 
 Council." Lord Chatham in England was more 
 eloquent in its praise : " When your lordships look 
 at the papers transmitted to us from America 
 when you consider their clearness, firmness, and 
 wisdom you cannot but respect their cause, and 
 wish to make it your own. For myself, I must 
 declare and avow that, in the master States of the 
 world, I know not the people or senate who, in such 
 a complication of difficult circumstances, can stand 
 before the delegates of America assembled in General 
 Congress in Philadelphia." 
 
 It is known only by tradition what speeches 
 were made ; nor does it appear that Washington 
 took any prominent part in the discussions. Nor 
 is it likely that he did ; for he was a poor speaker, 
 and, like some other soldiers, would rather hear 
 the thunder of artillery than the sound of his own 
 voice in a set oration. Whatever the speeches 
 may have been, the business transacted was of the 
 highest importance. The first was to issue a mani- 
 festo, declaratory of the determination of Congress
 
 WASHINGTON. 59 
 
 to resist any force that might attempt to carry into 
 execution the recent Acts of Parliament, in viola- 
 tion of the rights of the American people. The 
 second was a series of resolutions drawn up by a 
 committee of two members from each colony, which 
 were adopted and promulgated by Congress as a 
 declaration of colonial rights. This document was 
 clear and straightforward, and had those greatest 
 of all merits in argumentative literature precision, 
 concision, and decision. It set forth the natural 
 right of the Americans to the enjoyment of life, 
 liberty, and property. As distance and other cir- 
 cumstances prevented them from direct representa- 
 tion in the British Parliament, they claimed the 
 power to legislate on their local affairs in their 
 colonial assemblies. They consented to be subject 
 to the legislation of the Imperial Parliament in all 
 matters relating to the unity and safety of the 
 kingdom and the general purposes of trade, exclu- 
 sive of the right of the said Parliament to levy 
 taxes, direct or indirect, external or internal, for 
 raising a revenue in America. They declared the 
 maintenance of a standing army in time of peace 
 in any of the colonies, without the consent of the 
 Legislature of each colony, to be contrary to law ; 
 and that the exercise of any legislative powers in
 
 60 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the Colonies by a council appointed by the Crown 
 was unconstitutional, and destructive to American 
 freedom. They concluded by specifying and enum- 
 erating the various Acts passed by the British 
 Parliament in violation of these rights and prin- 
 ciples, adding that to such grievous measures 
 America would not submit; and that, in hopes 
 their fellow-subjects in Great Britain would on 
 revision restore them to the state in which, before 
 the passing of these Acts, both countries found 
 happiness and prosperity, they had resolved upon 
 three peaceable measures : first, to enter into a 
 non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exporta- 
 tion agreement or association, binding all the 
 colonies ; second, to prepare an address to the 
 people of Great Britain, and a memorial to all the 
 inhabitants of British America ; and third, to pre- 
 pare a loyal address to the King. 
 
 These State papers were duly prepared and for- 
 warded to all the colonies and to the British Gov- 
 ernment. The hand of Washington did not appear 
 in any of them, nor did he take a very active part 
 in supporting or proposing them. Patrick Henry, 
 on returning to Virginia, having been asked whom 
 he considered the greatest man in Congress, replied 
 that, for eloquence, Mr Eutledge, of South Carolina,
 
 WASHINGTON. 6 1 
 
 was foremost ; but that, for solid information and 
 sound judgment, Colonel Washington was unques- 
 tionably the greatest man in the Assembly. 
 
 At this time the future independence of the 
 Colonies was but a dream of the over-zealous and 
 the imaginative. Washington, at all events, had 
 not yet learned to look forward to it as the only 
 possible solution of the difficulty. " I am well 
 satisfied," he wrote to a friend, after the adjourn- 
 ment of Congress, " that no such thing is desired 
 by any thinking man in all North America. On 
 the contrary, I think it is the ardent wish of the 
 warmest advocates for liberty, that peace and tran- 
 quillity upon constitutional grounds may be restored, 
 and the horrors of civil discord prevented:' But 
 events, though marching slowly, were marching 
 surely to the end that Washington deprecated ; 
 and when Congress reassembled for its second 
 annual session in 1775, the military situation was 
 so alarming, and the preparations for hostile acts 
 against the British troops in other colonies so ex- 
 tensive, as to lead the thoughtful politicians, of 
 whom Washington was one, to foretell an approach- 
 ing catastrophe, if the British Government continued 
 to be as obstinate as it had hitherto shown itself. 
 One of the first acts of Congress this year was to
 
 62 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 appoint a sub- committee on military affairs of 
 which Washington, marked out for the post by 
 his frontier experience, was elected chairman. 
 This was his first decided step on the road that 
 led to revolution. 
 
 Congress, although it adopted a second " humble 
 and dutiful " petition to the King, did not wait to 
 receive an answer before proceeding to measures 
 which did not wear even the semblance of loyalty. 
 Though John Adams declared the petition to be 
 " imbecile," it had the effect of propitiating the 
 timid, besides giving the bolder spirits an oppor- 
 tunity of predicting its failure. Georgia, which 
 had hitherto stood aloof, cast in her fortunes with 
 the other colonies ; upon which Congress proceeded 
 to form a Federal Union of the thirteen leaving to 
 each the right to regulate its own internal affairs, 
 but vesting in Congress, which represented them 
 all, the power of making peace or war, of entering 
 into treaties and alliances, and of regulating ex- 
 ternal commerce. The Executive power was vested 
 in a Council of twelve. These decisive measures 
 all clearly acts of rebellion rendered it necessary 
 for Congress, if it would not be overwhelmed by 
 the power of the mother-country, to adopt means 
 not alone of defence, but of possible aggression.
 
 WASHINGTON. 63 
 
 It ordered the enlistment of troops, the construction 
 of forts, the provision of arms, ammunition, and 
 military stores ; and to provide money as well as 
 men, authorised the emission of a paper currency to 
 the extent of three millions of dollars, or 600,000 
 sterling. Each note bore the inscription of " The 
 United Colonies," and the credit of the whole 
 Confederacy was pledged for their redemption. 
 
 A British force held possession of Boston which, 
 however, was kept in check by a New England 
 army, under the command of General Artemus 
 Ward. This force was without clothing or pay, 
 and but badly armed and provisioned. Had its 
 true condition been known to General Gage, the 
 British commander, it might possibly have been 
 very summarily dealt with. Congress not only 
 resolved to augment the Continental Army, as it 
 now began to be called, but to provide means 
 for clothing, feeding, and disciplining it. For 
 this latter purpose, a man in whom Congress, the 
 army, and the public had full confidence, was re- 
 quired to assume the responsible position of com- 
 mander-in- chief. There was but one such man in 
 America, and that was Colonel Washington, chair- 
 man of the Military Committee. His name was no 
 sooner mentioned than it received general adhesion
 
 64 FOUNDERS OF THE AMEBICAN EEPUBLIC. 
 
 from the public, though not from Congress. For 
 even at this early period of American history the 
 little rivulet of jealousy between North and South, 
 which in after-times broadened and deepened into 
 a mighty river, and broke out into a torrent of 
 Civil War in 1861, had begun to display itself. 
 The Southern members objected to the command 
 of the continental army being continued in General 
 Artemus "Ward, a New Englander or " Yankee " ; 
 while the Northern members, though not greatly 
 objecting to Washington, would have preferred him 
 more cordially if he had not been a Southerner. But 
 the more the question was discussed, the more 
 settled became the conviction that Washington was 
 the best man for the emergency. 
 
 Washington made no sign. It was not for him 
 to court the post of danger, but to be courted ; 
 and perhaps, with his characteristic prudence, he 
 was not anxious to assume a post of such responsi- 
 bility, with means so inadequate to the great end 
 that he would be expected to accomplish. There 
 were but three persons who had any chance of 
 obtaining the appointment, General Artemus 
 Ward, who was already in command of an army 
 sufficiently strong to coop up the British forces in 
 Boston ; John Hancock of Boston, a good militia
 
 WASHINGTON. 65 
 
 officer, but inexperienced in actual warfare, and at 
 that time President of Congress ; and George Wash- 
 ington. John Adams, the second President of the 
 United States, records in his Diary the scene that 
 occurred in Congress when he took it upon himself 
 to propose Washington for the perilous honour. 
 After describing the military situation, with all its 
 exigencies, he went on to state : " I had no hesita- 
 tion to declare that I had but one gentleman in my 
 mind for the important command, and that was a 
 gentleman from Virginia, who was among us, and 
 very well known to us all a gentleman whose 
 skill and experience as an officer, whose inde- 
 pendent fortune, great talents, and excellent uni- 
 versal character, would command the approbation 
 of all America, and unite the cordial exertions of 
 all the colonies better than any other person in the 
 Union. Mr Washington, who sat near the door, 
 as soon as he heard me allude to him, from his 
 usual modesty darted into the library. Mr Han- 
 cock was our President, which gave me an oppor- 
 tunity to observe his countenance. While I was 
 speaking on the state of the Colonies, the army, 
 and the enemy, he heard me with visible pleasure. 
 But when I came to describe Washington for the 
 coniniandership, I never remarked a more sudden 
 
 E
 
 66 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 and striking change of countenance. Mortification 
 and resentment were expressed as forcibly as his 
 face could exhibit them." 
 
 Congress had been only five weeks in session, 
 when the question was brought to a decision. 
 Though Congress was divided in opinion, the 
 country was all but unanimous ; and for ten days 
 before the vote was taken, vigorous efforts were 
 made by Washington's friends to induce the dis- 
 sentient members to forego opposition, and start 
 Washington on his career with all the advantage 
 and prestige to be derived from unanimity of choice. 
 These efforts were finally successful ; and on the 
 15th of June 1775, Congress voted by ballot for 
 the appointment. Washington was elected without 
 a single dissentient, and was officially informed of 
 the fact on the following day on his taking his 
 seat, and that his pay had been fixed at five 
 hundred dollars a-month (100). He returned 
 thanks very briefly accepted the honour, not 
 without misgiving. " Lest," he added, " some un- 
 lucky event should happen unfavourable to my 
 reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every 
 gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, 
 with the utmost sincerity, that I do not think 
 myself equal to the command I am honoured with."
 
 WASHINGTON. 67 
 
 He also added that he refused the salary assuring 
 Congress that as no pecuniary consideration could 
 have tempted him to forego his domestic ease and 
 happiness to accept so arduous an employment, he 
 was firmly resolved not to make any profit by it. 
 He expected, however, that his actual expenses 
 would be paid, and of these he promised to keep 
 an exact account. 
 
 On the 20th of June he received his commission, 
 and on the 21st departed for the army. "He was 
 now," as he himself wrote to his half-brother, John 
 Augustine, " embarked on a wide ocean, boundless 
 in its prospect, and in which perhaps no safe har- 
 bour is to be found." The ocean was indeed wide, 
 but not boundless ; and though he ultimately found 
 a harbour, it was not until after he had been sorely 
 buffeted by storms, and exposed to countless dan- 
 gers, privations, discouragements, reverses, and 
 calamities in none of which did he ever wholly 
 lose heart and hope, though he often lost faith in 
 his countrymen. He saw the worst and the best 
 of human nature ; and learned in sorrow and suffer- 
 ing, as all must learn who attain to such high posi- 
 tion, that it is no light thing to be an unprofes- 
 sional patriot and the would-be saviour of a country.
 
 68 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 IT was not in the passive, intellectual nature of 
 Washington to excite enthusiasm, but he had the 
 faculty of inspiring confidence. He was pre- 
 eminently truthful, and a man of business, slow 
 to make up his mind ; but when convinced of the 
 right course to be taken, inflexible in working out 
 his purpose. He knew how perilous it was to defy 
 the might of such a country as Great Britain ; but 
 he was not appalled by the immensity of the effort, 
 nor afraid of the consequences of failure to his life, 
 his fortune, or his fame. He rightly considered 
 that if the difficulties of the Colonies were great, 
 the difficulties of the mother- country were great 
 also. The Colonies were struggling to vindicate 
 the principle that there should be no taxation with- 
 out representation a principle which the English
 
 WASHINGTON. 69 
 
 at home had successfully established at the cost 
 of revolution, of civil war, of the execution of a 
 king, and the deposition of a dynasty. A powerful 
 party in the British Parliament and throughout the 
 country were the upholders of this principle in its 
 application to the Colonies, and gave the Americans 
 their votes as well as their sympathy. It is true 
 that the party in power, backed by all the personal 
 influence and authority of the King, was obstinately 
 opposed to the claim put forward by the colonists ; 
 but under a constitutional Government and a par- 
 liamentary regime, it was possible that at some 
 future election this party and the King might find 
 themselves in the minority. The longer the Ameri- 
 cans resisted, the more likely they were to make 
 converts and friends among the English people. In 
 addition to this, the transport of armies across the 
 ocean was costly, tedious, and uncertain. The 
 British fleet could but blockade the coasts and 
 bombard the seaport towns of the Colonies ; but 
 the vast interior lay behind, and was not only rich 
 enough to supply all the material wants of the 
 people, but was virtually impregnable. Besides, 
 England was just out of war with France, and 
 might probably be soon involved in another, either 
 with that or some other Continental power; and,
 
 70 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 however willing to do so, was not able to put 
 forth her whole strength against her discontented 
 children. It seemed to Washington that the true 
 policy of the Colonies was to worry and weary the 
 mother-country ; or, as Mr Lincoln phrased it in 
 more unhappy circumstances nearly ninety years 
 afterwards, to " Keep pegging away." Upon this 
 policy he acted combining it with that of Fabius, 
 until he became a greater even than Fabius him- 
 self in the tactics which the world has agreed to 
 call by the name of that ancient general. It 
 was a long struggle. Washington commenced it 
 in the prime and maturity of his days. He was 
 an elderly man when it was brought to a conclu- 
 sion, not so much by his own valour and prudence, 
 as by the help of an unexpected and welcome ally, 
 on whom he had no original right to calculate. 
 
 When he accepted the commandership-in-chief, a 
 battle had been fought, of which he was ignorant, 
 and of which the news first reached him between 
 Philadelphia and New York on his way to join the 
 army. The British General, Gage, shut up in 
 Boston, with five thousand troops, by the ragged, 
 undisciplined levies under General Artemus Ward 
 of Massachusetts, and his coadjutors, General Put- 
 man of Connecticut and General Greene of Rhode
 
 WASHINGTON. 71 
 
 Island, had been reinforced on the 25th of May by 
 the arrival in Boston Harbour of several ships 
 of war and transports, with between 5000 and 
 CO 00 men, under the command of Generals 
 Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton. It came to the 
 knowledge of General Ward that Gage, chafing under 
 the state of siege to which he had been subjected, 
 now intended to assume the offensive. To prevent 
 this, the Americans resolved to fortify Breed's Hill 
 and Bunker's Hill, two heights commanding the 
 town from the suburb of Charlestown, separated 
 from Boston by the Charles Eiver. They worked 
 at night secretly, and with such goodwill and success, 
 in spite of a few shots fired at them at early dawn 
 from the British ships of war in the harbour, the 
 look-out in which had discovered their operations, 
 that by sunrise, or soon after, they had completed 
 the works and mounted their guns. The firing 
 from the ships aroused Boston ; and General Gage, 
 reconnoitring through a glass, beheld the fortifica- 
 tions that had sprung up in a few hours upon the 
 heights, bristling with armed men. At a council 
 of war, immediately summoned, it was resolved to 
 dislodge the Americans from a position which gave 
 them the power to lay Boston in ashes. The 
 expedition for this purpose, under the command of
 
 72 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Major-General Howe, crossed over the Charles in 
 eighteen barges about noon, and landed a little to 
 the north of Breed's Hill. Here General Howe 
 discovered, to his great mortification, that by some 
 inexplicable blundering his cannon-balls did not fit 
 his cannon, and sent over in all haste to General 
 Gage for a proper supply. 
 
 Meanwhile the Americans were receiving rein- 
 forcements and strengthening their position. The 
 right cannon-balls having arrived, the British pre- 
 pared for a general assault, and were received with a 
 vigour which they little expected. They were thrice 
 repulsed by the Americans the two forces fighting 
 all the while amid the blazing ruins of the wooden 
 town of Charlestown, that had been shelled by the 
 ships of war in the harbour. Ultimately the British 
 gained the ground of Bunker's Hill, for which the 
 main struggle was waged, but at a terrible loss, 
 inflicted by troops whom they had been accustomed 
 to despise as " a rabble-rout " of rustics and clod- 
 hoppers. It was the first battle of the long and 
 weary war; and though the dear-bought victory 
 remained with the British, the Americans boasted 
 of it then, as they boast of it now, as equivalent 
 to a defeat. The British loss was 1054, of whom 
 an unusually large proportion were officers. The
 
 WASHINGTON. 73 
 
 American loss was about 450. "To the Ameri- 
 cans," says Mr "Washington Irving, " this defeat had 
 the effect of a triumph. It gave them confidence 
 in themselves, and consequence in the eyes of their 
 enemies. They had proved to themselves and to 
 others that they could measure weapons with the 
 disciplined soldiers of Europe, and inflict the most 
 harm in the conflict." 
 
 Washington, accompanied by Major-Generals 
 Lee and Schuyler, all on horseback, had started 
 for Philadelphia on the 21st of June, and had 
 proceeded for about twenty miles on the road to 
 New York, when the party was met by a mounted 
 courier, spurring on in all haste with despatches to 
 Congress. Asking his news, they were told of the 
 battle of Bunker's Hill. Washington eagerly in- 
 quired how the militia had fought. When told 
 that they had stood their ground bravely, reserved 
 their fire until at close quarters with the enemy, 
 and then delivered it with deadly effect, he quickly 
 ejaculated, " Thank God ! The liberties of America 
 are safe." On his arrival in New York, he was 
 received by Mr Livingston, President of the As- 
 sembly of the colony, who delivered a congratu- 
 latory address. Mr Livingston, and those for whom 
 he spoke, had not yet travelled so far on the road
 
 74 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 to revolution as to entertain the idea of throwing 
 off the yoke of Great Britain. " Confiding in you, 
 sir," he said, " and in the generals under your com- 
 mand, we have the most nattering hopes of success 
 in the glorious struggle for American liberty, and 
 the fullest assurance that whenever this important 
 contest shall be decided by that fondest wish of 
 every American soul, an accommodation with the, 
 mother-country, you will cheerfully resign the deposit 
 committed into your hands, and reassume the 
 character of our worthiest citizen." Washington's 
 reply was guarded, as became a man who looked 
 both before and after, and never committed himself 
 to the unforeseen. Speaking for himself and his 
 brother generals, he said : " When we assumed the 
 soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen ; and we 
 shall most assuredly rejoice with you in that happy 
 hour, when the establishment of American liberty 
 on the most firm and solid foundations shall enable 
 us to return to our private stations." There was not 
 a word of independence, not a word of the mother- 
 country, in this short and sensible speech. 
 
 Washington remained but one day at New York, 
 and proceeded forthwith to Cambridge, near Boston, 
 where he established his headquarters, and devoted 
 all his time and his best energies to the organisation
 
 WASHINGTON. 75 
 
 and discipline of the forces under his command. 
 He ascertained that the continental or American 
 army amounted to about 12,000 men ill fed, 
 ill clad, and incohesive ; and the British army 
 to 11,000 well disciplined, armed, and pro- 
 visioned. Behind the one army was a popu- 
 lation of three millions, widely scattered over a 
 country more than half of which was a wilder- 
 ness, and still containing a lingering remnant of 
 affection for the old country ; behind the other, a 
 population of sixteen millions, with immense wealth, 
 an ancient prestige, and the theoretical right upon 
 their side, but not wholly united as to either 
 the justice or the expediency of using force against 
 the Americans. In addition to these advantages, 
 the old country possessed the command of the 
 ocean. The odds were fearful ; but Washington 
 and the Americans having laid their hands to the 
 work, thought it wiser to persevere, and take their 
 chance of fortune, than to acknowledge error, or 
 prove false to the principle which they had made 
 the guiding-star of their conduct. His first great 
 duty as it impressed itself upon his mind was 
 to elevate the continental army, as regarded dis- 
 cipline and all soldierly qualities, to the same 
 efficiency as the British, a herculean labour, but
 
 76 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 one that did not daunt his courage, though it some- 
 times taxed his patience and his temper, and some- 
 times drew out of him ebullitions of wrath, and 
 oaths that were fearful to listen to. 
 
 Of the 12,000 men under Washington, nearly 
 9000 were from Massachusetts. The other 3000 
 were from Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, 
 and Khode Island, with a few from New York, 
 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. 
 They were encamped in separate bodies, each with 
 its own regulations and officers. Some had tents ; 
 some slept under trees, or in such barns and 
 other buildings as were contiguous to the camp ; 
 and all, as Washington complained, "were strong- 
 ly imbued with a spirit of insubordination, 
 which they mistook for independence." Having, 
 by official intercourse with the various generals 
 and colonels of this motley host, ascertained its 
 true value as a military force, he wrote to the 
 President of Congress the same John Hancock 
 who had once aspired to fill the post of com- 
 mander -in -chief representing its manifold de- 
 ficiencies, and urging the immediate appointment 
 of a commissary-general and other officers. Above 
 all things, he requested a supply of money, as 
 already he felt the greatest inconveniences for want
 
 WASHINGTON. 77 
 
 of a military chest. But his chief annoyance arose 
 from the rebellious and discontented spirit of his 
 officers and men. In another letter to Congress, 
 written after he had been four months in command, 
 he complained that half of the officers of the rank 
 of captain were inclined to retire, and that their 
 example operated injuriously upon the men. Vol- 
 unteers would not take service unless they were 
 personally acquainted with and approved of the 
 character, appearance, and sobriety of the colonel, 
 the lieutenant-colonel, and the captain. Connec- 
 ticut men would not act under Massachusetts 
 officers, or Ehode Islanders under any but a Ehode 
 Island commander. Three weeks after, the disgusted 
 General wrote a still more emphatic letter to Con- 
 gress. " I am sorry," he said, " to be necessitated 
 to mention to you the egregious want of public 
 spirit which prevails here. Instead of pressing to 
 be engaged in the service of their country, which I 
 vainly flattered myself would be the case, I find we 
 are likely to be deserted in a most critical time. Our 
 situation is truly alarming ; and of this General 
 Howe is well aware. No doubt, when he is rein- 
 forced, he will avail himself of the information." 
 
 Writing to his friend Joseph Eeed, who had 
 for a short time acted as his private secretary,
 
 78 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 he described his difficulties with greater bitter- 
 ness of heart. " Such dearth of public spirit," 
 he said, " and such want of virtue such jobbing 
 and fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantage 
 of one kind or another, in this great change of 
 military arrangement I never saw before, and I 
 pray God's mercy that I may never be witness to 
 again. What will be the end of these manoeuvres 
 is beyond my scan. I tremble at the prospect. 
 We have been till this time (November 28th) enlist- 
 ing about 3500 men. To engage these, I have 
 been obliged to allow furlough as far as fifty men 
 to a regiment; and the officers, I am persuaded, 
 indulge many more. The Connecticut troops will 
 not be prevailed upon to stay longer than their 
 term, saving those who have enlisted for the next 
 campaign, and are mostly on furlough. Such a 
 mercenary spirit pervades the whole, that I should 
 not be surprised at any disaster that may happen. 
 Could I have foreseen what I have experienced, and 
 am likely to experience, no consideration on earth 
 should have induced me to accept this command." 
 
 Washington, it has been alleged, had a pre- 
 judice against the New Englanders or " Yankees," 
 as they then were and still are called by the inhabi- 
 tants of the Southern and Western States and
 
 WASHINGTON. 79 
 
 neither understood nor admired their character. 
 " The common people here," wrote his friend and 
 admirer, General Greene, who was proud to serve 
 under him, " are exceedingly avaricious. Their 
 genius is commercial, from their long intercourse 
 with trade. The sentiment of honour, the true 
 characteristic of a soldier, has not yet got the better 
 of self-interest. His Excellency (General Washing- 
 ton) has been taught to believe them a superior 
 race of mortals, but finding them of the same 
 temper and disposition, passions and prejudices, 
 virtues and vices, as the common people of other 
 countries, they sank in his esteem." There was 
 one Yankee, however, in addition to General Greene, 
 for whom Washington had the highest respect 
 Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut, whom 
 he was accustomed to call " Brother Jonathan," and 
 to whose advice and opinion he was always inclined 
 to defer. Trumbull was a Puritan of the Donald 
 Cargill and Balfour of Burley type a wielder of 
 " the sword of the Lord and of Gideon " a political 
 and religious fanatic, who would strike hard for the 
 glory of God, on the principle of " Smite, and spare 
 not," but who, on all ordinary occasions when his 
 religious passions and prejudices were not excited, 
 was a pious, humane, and sensible man. Writing
 
 80 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 to Washington to encourage him in his perilous 
 career, Mr Trumbull said " Congress has with one 
 united voice appointed you to the high position you 
 fill The Supreme Director of all events hath 
 caused a wonderful union of hearts and counsels 
 to exist among us. Now, therefore, be you strong, 
 and very courageous. May the God of the armies 
 of Israel shower down the blessings of His divine 
 providence upon you ; give you wisdom and forti- 
 tude ; cover your head in the day of battle and 
 danger ; add success ; convince our enemies of their 
 mistaken measures, and that all their attempts to 
 deprive these colonies of their inestimable constitu- 
 tional rights and liberties are injurious and vain." 
 Washington's familiar epithet for this sturdy 
 Covenanter has become national ; and " Brother 
 Jonathan " stands for America, as " John Bull " 
 does for England. 
 
 The year 1775 produced no great change in the 
 military situation. It came to Washington's know- 
 ledge, towards its close, that General Howe, whom 
 he was anxious to attack and drive out of Boston, 
 was secretly fitting out a combined naval and mili- 
 tary expedition for some distant port. Washington 
 having reason to believe that the object of the ex- 
 pedition was New York, despatched General Lee to
 
 WASHINGTON. 81 
 
 place that city in a state of defence. After many 
 delays, and much opposition from his councils of 
 war, Washington, on the 4th of March 1776, took 
 possession of Dorchester Heights, which the army 
 had long been engaged in fortifying; and as the 
 position commanded Boston, the British, after thir- 
 teen days, evacuated the place. This was Washing- 
 ton's first real triumph a triumph, however, which 
 was followed by many serious reverses and humili- 
 ations. As soon as the British fleet, with the army 
 under General Howe, had put out to sea, Washing- 
 ton marched to New York, with the object of pre- 
 venting the enemy's landing. But New York was 
 by no means as zealous in the revolutionary cause as 
 New England, and Washington did not meet the pop- 
 ular support on which he had calculated ; and when 
 the British took easy possession of Long Island and 
 Staten Island on the 27th of August, he deemed it 
 prudent to evacuate New York, march through New 
 Jersey, and take up a position behind the Delaware. 
 Meanwhile a great event, in which Washington 
 had no share, had fixed upon America the attention 
 of the world. On the 2d of July a day for ever 
 memorable in the history of America, and of Europe 
 also, in which the act that was then consummated 
 was destined to play the part of leaven in the lump, 
 
 F
 
 82 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 and cause a fermentation to the old system of govern- 
 ment that has not even yet worked itself out the 
 American Congress, sitting with closed doors, decreed 
 by unanimous vote that " the United Colonies were, 
 and of right ought to be, free and independent States." 
 The people of Philadelphia though the discussions 
 of Congress were kept secret knew the solemn 
 nature of its deliberations, and gathered in large but 
 quiet crowds around the State House, to await the 
 tolling of a bell in the steeple that was to announce 
 to the city that the independence of the United States 
 had been finally asserted. The bell had been imported 
 from England twenty-three years previously, when 
 no thought of disaffection had entered the American 
 mind, and bore the significant, and, as it now ap- 
 peared, prophetic inscription from Holy Writ, " Pro- 
 claim liberty throughout all the land, and unto all 
 the inhabitants thereof." The inscription was held 
 to be of good omen, and when the circumstance was 
 made known throughout the Colonies, excited among 
 the religious population a feeling of pious satisfac- 
 tion and of cheerful hope. On the 4th of July the 
 Declaration was solemnly read to the people from 
 the steps of the State House, since called " Inde- 
 pendence Hall," and publicly proclaimed amid the 
 shouts and acclamations of the multitude.
 
 WASHINGTON. 83 
 
 " I believe that this day," wrote Mr Adams, " will 
 be celebrated by succeeding generations as their great 
 anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, 
 as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion 
 to Almighty God. It ought to be solemnised with 
 pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, 
 bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the 
 continent to the other, from this time forth for ever- 
 more." It needed no such prompting to set aside the 
 day for remembrance in America ; and even if the 
 time should ever arrive when civilised men shall 
 cease to express their joy at public events by the 
 barbarous noise of guns or the letting off of fire- 
 works, the 4th of July will not remain uncelebrated. 
 
 When the news of this decisive act arrived at 
 New York, and when bells had been rung and guns 
 fired in honour of the occasion, a mob of several 
 hundred people, chiefly boys and street blackguards, 
 such as in all countries and in all times are ready 
 for any work of destruction, gathered around a 
 leaden statue of King George III. that stood in 
 the centre of the " Bowling Green," and in view of 
 the batteries of the fort (now known as Governor's 
 Island), suddenly bethought themselves that as 
 monarchical rule had been abolished in America, 
 there was no reason why the statue of a king
 
 84 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 should affront the gaze of a Eepublican people. 
 Just as after the surrender of Napoleon III. at 
 Sedan, when the Paris mob vented its spite against 
 its monarch by breaking his bust in pieces, the 
 crowd of New York rushed upon and clomb up the 
 statue of George III., and, with savage joy in their 
 work, levelled it with the ground. It was afterwards 
 molten down and converted into bullets for the use 
 of the continental army. 
 
 Washington received in camp the official notifica- 
 tion of the Declaration of Independence, and on the 
 9th of July caused the proclamation to be read at 
 six o'clock in the evening at the head of each 
 brigade of the army. " The General hopes," he 
 said in his published order to the troops, " that this 
 important event will serve as a fresh incentive to 
 every officer and soldier to act with fidelity and 
 courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety 
 of the country depend, under God, solely on the 
 success of our arms ; and that he is now in the 
 service of a State possessed of sufficient power to 
 reward his merit, and advance him to the highest 
 honours of a free country." 
 
 The Declaration of Independence was originally 
 drawn up by Thomas Jefferson, a young Virginian 
 lawyer of great promise, which his after-years did
 
 WASHINGTON. 85 
 
 not belie. It was much modified in Committee as 
 regarded its phraseology, but not greatly as regarded 
 its spirit. The document merits all the praise that 
 has been bestowed upon it, for clear exposition, 
 logical argument, and noble assertion, though it 
 contained, unsuspected at the time, two sentences 
 pregnant with calamity and war. " We hold that 
 all men are created equal ; that they are endowed 
 by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; 
 that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness." To sow this formula was to sow 
 dragon's teeth ; and the armed men who sprang 
 from them, crimsoned with their blood the battle- 
 fields of the great Civil War. The second formula 
 that to secure their rights, Governments are 
 instituted amongst men, deriving their just powers 
 from tlie consent of the governed justified the South- 
 ern Secession, put the North into a logical dilemma, 
 and led to the commission of a wrong which its 
 after-success condoned but did not justify. Rebels 
 themselves in 1776, Jefferson and his countrymen 
 did not foresee that what had happened as against 
 Great Britain, might hereafter happen as against 
 themselves, and that in 1861 the Secession of the 
 Southern States might be as fairly justified by 
 their own arguments as the secession of the Colonies
 
 86 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 from the mother-country. Washington's position as 
 Commander-in- Chief, which had rendered necessary 
 the resignation of his seat in Congress, deprived him of 
 the honour of signing the great historical document. 
 Before abandoning New York, which was ren- 
 dered untenable by the British occupation of Long 
 Island and Staten Island, and the presence of the 
 main body of the British fleet under Admiral Lord 
 Howe in the beautiful bay, Washington wrote a 
 doleful letter to Congress, in which he suggested 
 that it might be better to burn down the city than 
 to leave it standing for the winter-quarters of the 
 enemy. " Our situation," he said, under date of 
 September 3d, " is truly distressing. The check our 
 detachment sustained on the 27th has dispirited too 
 great a proportion of our troops, and filled their 
 minds with apprehension and despair. The militia 
 are dismayed, intractable, and impatient to return. 
 Great numbers have gone off in some instances 
 almost by whole regiments. With the deepest con- 
 cern I am obliged to confess my want of confidence 
 in the generality of the troops. Our number of 
 men fit for duty is under 20,000. Till of late 
 I had no doubt in my own mind of defending 
 this place, nor would I have yet, if the men would 
 do their duty, but this I despair of."
 
 WASHINGTON. 87 
 
 Washington afterwards thought better of the 
 matter. New York was evacuated, and not burned ; 
 and the General, anxious, perplexed, sad at heart, 
 but not despairing of ultimate success, resolved to 
 make the best of his faint-hearted troops, to get rid 
 of the worst of them, and to supply the places of 
 the inefficient and cowardly by new and better 
 men. Before his retrograde movement was com- 
 pletely effected, an encounter of a detachment of 
 his forces with the British near Blooiningdale, on 
 Manhattan Island, a few miles above New York, 
 ended so disgracefully, that the usually calm and 
 phlegmatic man lost all command over himself. 
 At the first sound of the cannonade opened by the 
 British on his detachment, Washington rode from 
 Harlem Heights to see what was the matter. He 
 was met by a brigade of Connecticut men flying 
 from their posts in panic without firing a shot. 
 There were but sixty or seventy British and Hessians, 
 but their fears magnified them into as many hun- 
 dreds ; and they fled, says Washington Irving, in 
 <f headlong terror. Losing all self-command at the 
 sight of such dastardly conduct, Washington dashed 
 his hat upon the ground in a transport of rage, and 
 exclaimed, 'And these are the men with whom I am 
 to defend America ! ' In a paroxysm of passion "
 
 88 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 and the historian adds, despair, which never even in 
 the darkest moments entered this strong man's 
 mind " he snapped his pistols at some of them, 
 threatened others with his sword, and was so heed- 
 less of his own danger that he might have fallen 
 into the hands of the enemy, who were not eight 
 yards distant, had not an aide-de-camp seized the 
 bridle of his horse and absolutely hurried him 
 away." The incident led to no important result ; 
 and retiring to Dobb's Ferry, twenty -two miles 
 up the Hudson Eiver, he set himself to the 
 work of reorganisation. And a difficult work 
 he found it. The Connecticut militia dwindled 
 down from 6000 to 2000 men; the volunteers 
 from Delaware and Pennsylvania departed home- 
 wards, to the great disgust of Washington and of 
 his young friend and adjutant - general, Joseph 
 Reed. " When I look around," wrote the latter to 
 his wife, "and see how few of the number who 
 talked so loudly of death and honour are around 
 me, I am lost in wonder and surprise. Some of our 
 Philadelphia gentlemen, who came over on visits, 
 on the first cannon-shot went off in a most violent 
 hurry. Your noisy sons of liberty, I find, are ever 
 the quietest on the field." 
 
 Washington never had much faith in volunteers
 
 WASHINGTON. 89 
 
 who enlisted for a short period ; and every day that 
 passed over his head, diminished his confidence in 
 and respect for such soldiers. He finally resolved 
 to urge upon Congress the imperative duty of 
 enlisting troops for the whole duration of the war, 
 however long it might he ; and wrote a letter to 
 the President, setting forth the total inefficiency 
 and probable disastrous failure of the existing mili- 
 tary system the discontent, insubordination, and 
 waste that prevailed in all ranks of the service, 
 and the harassing duties, too often unavailing, that 
 it imposed upon officers who were really willing to 
 fight and die for their country. This letter produced 
 its effect ; and Congress passed an Act for the raising 
 of eighty-eight battalions, to be furnished by the 
 several States of the Confederacy, according to their 
 population and ability. The pay of the officers was 
 augmented. Each volunteer who engaged to serve 
 until the conclusion of the war was to receive a 
 bounty of twenty dollars and a grant of a hundred 
 acres of land. Those who enlisted for three years 
 only, were to receive the money without the land. 
 The States were authorised to send commissioners to 
 the army; to arrange with the Commander-in-Chief 
 the appointment of officers in their quotas ; and, in 
 default of the action of the States within a pre-
 
 90 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 scribed period, Washington was empowered to fill 
 up the vacancies. These measures produced the 
 good effect anticipated. But their operation was 
 slow. The end to be attained was yet far distant. 
 The road to be travelled was dark and stormy, 
 and encumbered by perils that, could they have 
 been foreseen, might have broken even the proud 
 spirit of Washington. The jealousy of subordinate 
 generals was not among the least of the troubles 
 before him, nor the meanest among the many 
 lions in his path. But he held on, always on the 
 point of throwing up his commission in disgust, but 
 never carrying into effect a purpose for which a 
 smaller-minded man would have found abundant 
 justification. 
 
 Abandoning the line of the Hudson, and the 
 State of New Jersey, sometimes called " the Jerseys," 
 Washington fell back behind the Delaware not 
 without incurring the reprobation of General Lee, a 
 subordinate in whose sagacity and energy he reposed 
 great confidence, who accused him in a letter to 
 Joseph Eeed, which in Eeed's absence was opened 
 by Washington, of fatal indecision, which the writer 
 held to be a greater disqualification for high com- 
 mand in great emergencies than stupidity, or even 
 the want of personal courage. Washington was
 
 WASHINGTON. 91 
 
 pained, but held his peace. He found means, how- 
 ever, to silence Lee and other cavillers for a while 
 by a second movement across the Delaware to 
 Trenton, where he surprised and thoroughly de- 
 feated a considerable force of Hessian auxiliaries 
 under Colonel Eahl. This done, he again crossed 
 the river to his old quarters, unwilling to try con- 
 clusions with the powerful force under Lord Corn- 
 wallis that was hastening forward to meet him. 
 
 But his victory, though it raised his own spirits 
 and those of his officers, did not reconcile the vol- 
 unteers to renewed service. The battle was fought 
 in the last week of December, and the term of 
 enlistment of some of his best and hardiest troops 
 expired with the year. It was with difficulty, and 
 chiefly by the promise of a new bounty of ten 
 dollars per man, that a considerable proportion of 
 these weary patriots were induced to serve for six 
 weeks longer. But there was not sufficient money 
 in the military chest to pay the mercenary soldiers, 
 who were not ashamed to haggle with their country 
 for cash in the day of its peril. Washington in 
 this emergency sent a special messenger post-haste 
 to his friend Eobert Morris, a banker at Phila- 
 delphia, setting forth the circumstances, and adding, 
 " If you could possibly collect a sum, if it were but
 
 92 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 one hundred, or one hundred and fifty pounds, it 
 would be of service." Such were the difficulties 
 that early beset and nearly proved fatal to the 
 cause of American Independence. 
 
 Yet if his men were but of poor material, Wash- 
 ington found consolation in the confidence of Con- 
 gress, and the hope that a better disciplined, less 
 mercenary, and more patriotic army might be ulti- 
 mately got together. On the 27th of December, 
 immediately after the defeat of Eahl, and perhaps 
 to some extent consequent upon that episode of 
 brighter fortunes, Congress invested him with all 
 but dictatorial power in military affairs, accompany- 
 ing the formal resolutions which it had passed with 
 a complimentary letter, which must have been as 
 pleasant as a gleam of sunshine after long-continued 
 storm. " Happy is it for this country," wrote the 
 Committee, " that the General of its forces can safely 
 be intrusted with the most unlimited power, and 
 that neither personal security, liberty, nor property 
 will be in the least degree endangered." Washing- 
 ton's reply was dignified and statesmanlike. After 
 thanking Congress for the honour conferred upon 
 and the responsibilities intrusted to his keeping, he 
 said, " that instead of thinking himself freed from 
 civil obligations by this mark of confidence, he
 
 WASHINGTON. 93 
 
 should constantly bear in mind that, as the sword 
 was the last resource for the preservation of their 
 liberties, so it should be the first thing to be laid 
 aside when those liberties were established." 
 
 General Howe was puzzled at the defeat of his 
 Hessian auxiliaries ; and expressed his amazement 
 that these old-established regiments of a people who 
 made war their profession, should lay down their 
 arms to a ragged and undisciplined militia. Fate, 
 and Washington's extreme caution, had more amaze- 
 ment of the same kind in store for the British 
 commander though at that particular moment it 
 was possible that Washington was as much amazed 
 as himself. But Washington at that time, and to 
 the close of his military career, was the tool of 
 circumstances ; and, as Napoleon said of the English 
 at Waterloo, never knew when he was beaten. He 
 never planned rebellion ; he threw off his allegiance 
 to his sovereign with regret ; he never exactly knew 
 what he was doing ; was in constant imminency of 
 failure and collapse ; and finally won the cause of 
 America, less by his own prowess, and that of his 
 sullen and uncertain army, than by the aid of 
 France ; and last, and very certainly not least, the 
 loss of patience of the British Government, and 
 its slowly formed but fully matured conviction, that
 
 94 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the allegiance of the American provinces was not 
 worth purchasing at the cost which it entailed. 
 
 To narrate all the incidents of Washington's 
 military operations, until success finally crowned 
 his efforts, is not within the purpose of this book. 
 It must suffice to state briefly that the campaign of 
 1777 did not commence until the early summer, 
 and that it was but partially favourable to the 
 American cause. General Gates, a rival of Wash- 
 ington, who secretly intrigued to supplant him in 
 the chief command, was at the head of an army of 
 upwards of 10,000 men, and gained a victory over 
 General Burgoyne, whom he forced to capitulate. 
 Burgoyne's army had been reduced by capture, 
 death, and the desertion of Canadian and loyalist 
 American auxiliaries, to less than half the force 
 opposed to him. By this capitulation by the 
 terms of which the British were allowed to retire 
 with the honours of war, and on the sole condition 
 of not again serving against the provinces the 
 Americans gained a serviceable train of artillery, 
 7000 stand of arms, and a large quantity of 
 clothing, tents, and military stores. Washington, 
 at the head of the main army, was less fortunate. 
 He was twice defeated once at Brandywine, and 
 the second time at Germantown. The latter mis-
 
 WASHINGTON. 95 
 
 fortune led to the occupation of the city of Phil- 
 adelphia by the British, and to the retreat of Wash- 
 ington to Valley Forge. 
 
 Here he entrenched himself and established his 
 winter-quarters, under circumstances the reverse of 
 cheerful. He had, it is true, the support of a 
 majority in Congress, which stood loyally by him ; 
 and the aid, countenance, and friendship of General 
 Lafayette, at the head of a French contingent. But 
 the country was losing heart ; his soldiers, though 
 of better stuff than the Yankee militia, on whom he 
 had so long and so reluctantly been compelled to 
 place his main reliance, were inadequately supplied 
 not only with blankets to protect them from the 
 severe winter of America, but with ordinary clothes, 
 and sometimes even with rations, though these when 
 distributed were of the coarsest kind. And for 
 surplusage of unfavourable fortune, a powerful cabal 
 was formed against him by three of his principal 
 subordinates, including the victorious General Gates, 
 with the view of having him removed from the 
 command. But Congress had faith in the Com- 
 mander -in -Chief, and sent a commission to the 
 camp to hear all complaints, and to investigate 
 all Washington's plans for the entire remodelling 
 of the army. The commission remained at Valley
 
 96 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Forge for three months ; and finding, as all generals 
 and all nations, if not all commissions, have at all 
 times discovered, that money is the main sinew of 
 war, it prevailed upon Congress to increase the pay 
 and the allowances of the officers, and to grant a 
 gratuity of eighty dollars to every non-commissioned 
 officer and soldier who should serve until the con- 
 clusion of the war. 
 
 At the same time, Baron Steuben, a Prussian 
 officer who had learned his business under the 
 Great Frederick, undertook the difficult task of 
 disciplining the rough American army on the Prus- 
 sian model. But as the Baron spoke little or no 
 English, his progress for a while was not rapid ; 
 and his commands to the men had to be con- 
 veyed through his aide-de-camp, Major Walker, 
 who acted as interpreter. On one occasion, the 
 raw militiamen having exhibited unusual stupidity 
 or obstinacy, and the Baron having exhausted all 
 his copious stock of German and French oaths in 
 swearing at them, suddenly broke out with the 
 polyglot objurgation " Viens, mon ami Walker ! 
 Sacre ! God dam ! Durnmer Eseln and Pumper- 
 uickelen ! I can curse no more les sacre*s badauds 
 et gauches ! God dam ! " By degrees, however, 
 the army got into better training. The increased
 
 WASHINGTON. 97 
 
 bounty had an admirable effect ; while the ratifica- 
 tion of a defensive treaty with France, which arrived 
 in camp early in the spring, not only greatly grati- 
 fied the men, but still more greatly tended to inspire 
 a bold determination on the part of the public to 
 prosecute the war with unflagging vigour. 
 
 The campaign of 17*78 opened far more favour- 
 ably for the Americans than that of the preceding 
 year. An unaccountable dilatoriness and remissness 
 paralysed the operations of the British commander, 
 in consequence of which Washington found himself 
 able to abandon the line of the Delaware, and to 
 march upon that of the Hudson. Though in this, 
 as in other movements, he seemed scarcely to gain 
 ground, yet he never really lost any ; but with 
 that constant and perpetual dripping which wears 
 away the stone, he was exhausting the resources 
 and almost the hopes of the enemy. Lord Carlisle, 
 one of the commissioners deputed by the British 
 Government, after the surrender of Burgoyne, to 
 visit America with the view of arranging a com- 
 promise, was far more impressed with the blunders 
 of his own countrymen than with the genius or 
 the success of the Americans. It was said by 
 General Gates, and repeated by the smaller fry of 
 Washington's detractors, that heaven had evidently 
 
 G
 
 98 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 foreordained the triumph of the American cause, 
 or it never could have held up its head so long as 
 it had done in face of the incompetency and in- 
 decision of Washington. Lord Carlisle, writing 
 home to his friend George Selwyn, formed an equally 
 unfavourable estimate of the conduct of the Eng- 
 lish. " Everything," he said, " is upon a great scale 
 on this continent. The rivers are immense ; the 
 climate violent in heat and cold ; the prospects 
 magnificent ; the thunder and lightning tremendous. 
 We have nothing on a great scale with us but our 
 blunders, our misconduct, our losses, and our disgraces" 
 On the 13th of July, Washington received a de- 
 spatch from Congress informing him of the arrival 
 of a French fleet on the coast, instructing him to 
 concert measures with Admiral the Count D'Estaing 
 for offensive operations against the British by sea 
 and land, and empowering him to call on the 
 Northern States, from New Hampshire to New 
 Jersey, both inclusive, for quotas of militia. The 
 French fleet was composed of twelve ships of the 
 line and six frigates, with a land force of 4000 
 men. The intention of the Admiral was to enter 
 the Bay of New York by Sandy Hook and the 
 Narrows, and to attack the British fleet under Lord 
 Howe a force much inferior to his own ; and in
 
 WASHINGTON. 99 
 
 case of success, to bombard New York from the 
 sea, while Washington co-operated from the land. 
 This enterprise, however, was abandoned, as was a 
 subsequently proposed attack upon Ehode Island. 
 In the meanwhile, the British fleet had been largely 
 reinforced by a squadron under Admiral Byron, and 
 the strength of the two navies was nearly equalised. 
 The French fleet, however, did nothing ; it suffered 
 from violent storms, as well as from the indecision 
 of its commander. Its arrival had excited American 
 hopes to so high a pitch, that its inactivity and 
 failure created a mingled feeling of despondency 
 and anger. The winter of 1778 found Washington 
 engaged in the occupation and defence of the New 
 England States ; while the British, farther south, oc- 
 cupied New Jersey. Washington retired into winter 
 quarters in December, and protected the line of the 
 Hudson. 
 
 The year 1779 was unfruitful of military events. 
 The English and the Americans during all that time 
 accomplished little beyond keeping a watch upon 
 each other's movements. In 1780 a new French 
 naval and military armament was despatched to 
 America, and arrived off Newport in Ehode Island 
 in July, under Admiral De Grasse and General the 
 Count De Kochambeau ; but the superiority of the
 
 100 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 British at sea was so great as to prevent the exe- 
 cution of the plans of the combined French and 
 American forces. The year was unmarked by mili- 
 tary events of any supreme importance, though 
 rendered memorable in American annals by the 
 defection or treason of " Benedict Arnold," a man 
 whose name to this day is never pronounced in the 
 United States without execration, and as the syn- 
 onym of all that is base, unpatriotic, and treacher- 
 ous ; and by the hanging as a spy of the brave 
 British officer, Major Andr^ a deed of questionable 
 severity, that remains as great a blot upon the 
 otherwise fair fame of Washington as the execution 
 of the Due d'Enghien remains upon that of the 
 first Napoleon. Had the American commander 
 been chivalrous enough to have acceded to the 
 request of the doomed man, that he might meet the 
 fate of a soldier and not that of a felon, the stain 
 would have been less conspicuous, and impartial 
 history might have recorded of Washington that he 
 was not only a man with a brain to think and a 
 hand to execute, but with a heart not altogether 
 incapable of mercy and kind feeling. 
 
 The war continued to drag on its weary length, 
 with the usual episodes of disaffection and insub- 
 ordination among Washington's too scanty armies,
 
 WASHINGTON. 101 
 
 until July 1781, when he was joined at Dobb's Ferry, 
 on the Hudson, by the French army under Eocham- 
 beau. The French Government not only sent men, 
 but, what was equally valuable to the mercenary 
 and discouraged militia of the States, money to 
 the extent of six millions of livres, or 240,000 
 sterling, with a promise of further subsidies in case 
 of need. 
 
 An unsuccessful attempt against New York, 
 which was still held by the British and protected 
 by the British fleet, decided Washington to trans- 
 fer the seat of war farther south, and trust to 
 the co-operation of the French fleet under Admiral 
 De Grasse to effect a landing on the shores of the 
 Chesapeake. The result of these continued manoeu- 
 vres was almost the only gleam of real success that 
 had cheered the mind of Washington since the 
 commencement of the war. On the 14th of Sep- 
 tember, along with Rochambeau and his faithful 
 Lafayette, and aided by 3000 French put ashore 
 by the Count De Grasse, he established his head- 
 quarters at Williamsburg, in Virginia. Lord Corn- 
 wallis, with a British force of greatly irferior num- 
 bers, advanced to Yorktown, and took possession 
 of it unopposed. The move was fatal to the British 
 arms, and decisive of the campaign. On the 30th
 
 102 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 of September, Washington, fully informed of the 
 numerical weakness of Cornwallis, advanced with 
 his French allies, and completely invested the place. 
 With a French fleet in the York Eiver in front 
 of the town, and with the American and French 
 armies on all other sides, the position of Cornwallis 
 was desperate, unless he could be relieved. No 
 relief was at hand. On the 6th of October 
 the first parallel of the siege was opened at a 
 distance of only 600 yards from the enemy. On 
 the afternoon of the 9th, all being ready, Wash- 
 ington himself put the match to the first gun, and 
 a furious cannonade immediately followed, which 
 was maintained for several days, and but feebly 
 responded to by the British. To surrender to the 
 despised "continental rabble," even though they 
 were aided by trained French soldiers, was galling 
 to the pride of Cornwallis. Seeing the impossibility 
 of effectual resistance without help from New York, 
 the British commander devised a plan of escape by 
 the river ; but it was defeated by an unexpected 
 storm of wind and rain. His fortifications were 
 tumbling in ruins ; the incessant cannonade had 
 half destroyed the town ; his men suffered from 
 sickness and want of food ; and on the 1 7th he 
 proposed a cessation of hostilities for twenty-four
 
 WASHINGTON. 103 
 
 hours, that two officers of each army might meet to 
 settle terms for the surrender of Yorktown. Corn- 
 wallis demanded conditions much more favourable 
 than Washington felt himself at liberty to grant. 
 
 Ultimately, on the 19th, no succour being prob- 
 able, Cornwallis surrendered with his whole force 
 as prisoners of war. The officers were allowed 
 to retain their side-arms both officers and sol- 
 diers their private property. The men were to 
 be retained in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsyl- 
 vania, and to receive the same rations as Ameri- 
 can soldiers. The officers were to be allowed 
 to return to Europe on parole, or to retire to 
 Canada and other British possessions in America. 
 The whole force that surrendered amounted to 7073 
 men. Lord Cornwallis was sad at heart ; still sad- 
 der he was when he learned in due time that on 
 the very day of his capitulation Sir Henry Clinton, 
 the British Governor of New York, had sailed to his 
 relief with twenty-live ships of the line, fifty-two 
 gun-ships, and eight frigates, and a military force 
 of 7000 of his best troops. Sir Henry arrived off 
 the capes of Virginia five days after all was over 
 with Cornwallis. After hovering about the en- 
 trance of the Chesapeake for another five days, dur- 
 ing which he learned all the unhappy particulars
 
 104 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 of the British discomfiture, he returned to New 
 York. 
 
 The British power in America never made any 
 real head against this calamity. Congress, and 
 indeed the whole American people of the thirteen 
 States, were exuberant in the expression of their 
 delight. Thanks were unanimously voted to Wash- 
 ington, De Eochambeau, and De Grasse ; and it 
 was decreed that a marble column, commemorative 
 of the alliance between France and the United 
 States, and the victory achieved by their associated 
 arms, should be erected in Yorktown. And after 
 the fashion of the King of Prussia at Sedan, the 
 Almighty was solemnly praised for the signal dis- 
 comfiture of Great Britain. The Liberal party in 
 England received the news with mingled feelings of 
 joy and regret, in which, however, the joy predomi- 
 nated, because it was thought the American victory 
 prefigured the speedy close of a war which was fast 
 becoming distasteful to all parties. The British 
 Premier, Lord North, was greatly troubled. When 
 the news was announced to him in Downing Street, 
 he is reported to have stretched forth his arms 
 wildly, and exclaimed, as he paced up and down 
 the official apartment, " Oh God ! it is all over ! " 
 
 And it was all over in effect, though the war still
 
 WASHINGTON. 105 
 
 continued with the languid force of a ball that was 
 wellnigh spent. Washington remained on the de- 
 fensive, resorting to the offensive whenever he found 
 or could make a fair opportunity to strike a blow 
 with advantage. But the details of his small defeats 
 and small successes between the surrender of Corn- 
 wallis and the conclusion of peace with Great 
 Britain, may safely be left to the voluminous his- 
 tories of the United States, wherein they are duly 
 recorded. Negotiations for peace were commenced 
 in 1782 ; the French forces were withdrawn ; active 
 hostilities almost entirely ceased ; and Washington, 
 towards the close of the year, withdrew into winter 
 quarters at Newburgh, on the Hudson. On the 
 20th of January 1783 a general treaty of peace 
 was signed at Paris ; but the news did not arrive 
 in America until the 23d of March, when it was 
 received simultaneously by Congress and by General 
 Washington in welcome letters from the Marquis 
 De Lafayette. A few days afterwards, Sir Guy 
 Carleton, who had succeeded to the chief command 
 of the British force in America, officially notified 
 that he was ordered to proclaim a cessation of 
 hostilities by sea and land. 
 
 Great were the rejoicings of the Americans 
 except among that large and influential party who
 
 106 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 were sometimes called Tories, but who called them- 
 selves Loyalists and United Empire Loyalists. Many 
 of these resolved to return " home," as they fondly 
 called England; but the greater number departed 
 with Sir Guy Carleton's army on the evacuation of 
 New York, and betook themselves to Canada, or the 
 other faithful British provinces, where their descend- 
 ants still remain, and glory in the old title that their 
 grandfathers assumed. 
 
 On the 8th of June, preparatory to laying down 
 his commission, Washington addressed a letter to 
 each of the governors of the thirteen States on the 
 subject of the dissolution of the army, and the 
 future policy of a Union that was now as inde- 
 pendent in fact as it had long been in theory. 
 " The great object," he said, " for which I had the 
 honour to hold an appointment in the service of 
 my country being accomplished, I am now prepar- 
 ing to return to that domestic retirement which, it 
 is well known, I left with the greatest reluctance, 
 a retirement for which I never ceased to sigh 
 through a long and painful absence, and in which, 
 remote from the noise and trouble of the world, 
 I meditate to pass the remainder of my life." He 
 had a presentiment that the success of America in 
 the great struggle against the mother-country might
 
 WASHINGTON. 107 
 
 produce dangers to liberty and prosperity as great, 
 though of a different kind, as those which might 
 have followed upon failure ; and he did not hesi- 
 tate, in eloquent language, to warn his countrymen. 
 Describing the condition of the people of America 
 as that of "sole lords and proprietors of a vast 
 tract of continent, comprehending all the various 
 soils and climates of the world, and abounding with 
 all the necessaries and conveniences of life," and 
 congratulating them as the acknowledged possessors 
 of absolute freedom and independence, he added 
 " This is the time of their political probation ; this 
 is the moment when the eyes of the whole world 
 are turned upon them ; this is the moment to 
 establish or ruin their national character for ever." 
 
 Lest they should allow the mutual jealousies and 
 fancied conflicting interests of thirteen sovereign 
 States to prevent a complete union, or allow the 
 interference of any European Powers among them 
 for the subservience of European objects, he specially 
 recommended four things to their earnest consid- 
 eration. The first was the establishment of an " in- 
 dissoluble union," and the perfect obedience of the 
 several States to the constitutionally elected Federal 
 heads ; second, a sacred regard to public justice in 
 the payment of all debts contracted for the pro-
 
 108 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 secution of the war ; third, the establishment of a 
 national militia, as the palladium of their security, 
 and the first effectual resort in case of hostility; 
 and fourth, a disposition among the people of the 
 United States to forget local prejudices and policies, 
 to make mutual concessions, and to sacrifice indi- 
 vidual advantages to the interests of the community. 
 He made no mention of or allusion to negro 
 slavery, which few Americans at that time and in 
 which few Washington was not included thought 
 to be other than a healthful and advantageous 
 institution for all parties. But before the close of 
 his life and his official career, this unconsidered 
 seed of evil had cropped above the soil, though it 
 gave but few indications of the upas-tree into 
 which it was destined to expand. 
 
 At noon on the 23d of December, in presence 
 of a brilliant assemblage of spectators, Washington 
 formally resigned his military command, and yielded 
 up his commission to Congress. He was no orator, 
 but he spoke n this occasion with much dignity 
 and feeling. " I consider it," he said, " an indis- 
 pensable duty to close this last solemn act of my 
 official life by commending the interests of our 
 dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, 
 and those who have the superintendence of them
 
 WASHINGTON. 109 
 
 to His holy keeping. Having finished the task 
 assigned to me, I retire from the great field of 
 action ; and bidding an affectionate farewell to this 
 august body, under whose orders I have long acted, 
 I here offer my commission, and take my leave of 
 all the employments of public life." The President, 
 on receiving the commission, bore testimony to 
 Washington's arduous, patient, and unselfish services. 
 " You retire," he said, " with the blessings of your 
 fellow-citizens ; but the glory of your virtues will 
 not terminate with your military command it will 
 continue to animate remotest ages." Many of the 
 ladies present .at this great historical scene were 
 affected to tears, and some among the sterner sex 
 were not ashamed to betray the like honourable 
 emotions. 
 
 Next morning Washington took his departure 
 for his estate at Mount Yernon feeling, as he him- 
 self wrote to his friend De Witt Clinton, eased of a 
 load of care, and hoping " to spend the remainder 
 of his days in cultivating the affections of good men, 
 and in the practice of the domestic virtues." He 
 was once again a farmer and a country gentleman 
 having nothing to occupy his mind but his crops, 
 his negroes (he had no tenantry), his sports on land 
 and water, the exercise of a liberal hospitality, and
 
 110 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the re-establishment of a fortune that had been 
 sensibly impaired by his unpaid devotion to public 
 affairs during all the best years of his life. His 
 aged mother was still alive to glory in the greatness 
 and the virtues of her son ; but the friend of his 
 youth, his first patron and employer, Lord Fairfax, 
 was no longer in the land of the living. The old 
 lord was stanch throughout the war in his allegi- 
 ance to Great Britain, and deplored the conduct 
 of the Americans, and of their general, whose 
 character, nevertheless, he did not cease to respect. 
 He was in his ninety-second year when the news 
 arrived of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, and the 
 consequent downfall of British power. The blow 
 was too much for his failing strength to bear. He 
 sat silent for a while, and then called for the negro 
 slave who acted as his valet. " Carry me to bed, 
 Ire," said the old lord " carry me to bed ! It is 
 high time that I should die ! " These were the 
 last articulate words of the good old Cavalier, who 
 died a few day afterwards, sincerely mourned by 
 Washington and all the inhabitants of Virginia, 
 who respected his sturdy loyalty, although they did 
 not share it. 
 
 During the next six years Washington's time was 
 wholly employed in congenial and quiet pursuits.
 
 WASHINGTON. Ill 
 
 He was visited by his friend Lafayette ; he made 
 tours of business to his old surveying-grounds on 
 the Ohio and Kanawaha rivers ; he kept open house 
 when at home at Mount Vernon, for the most 
 eminent of his American friends, and for distin- 
 guished foreigners who sought his acquaintance ; 
 took special interest in the political and internal 
 affairs of his own State of Virginia ; devoted atten- 
 tion to the encouragement of popular education, and 
 for the civilisation of the Indians ; and accepted the 
 office of delegate to the National Convention which 
 was charged with the duty of drawing up the first 
 constitution of the United States. He was not 
 without great and grave anxiety for the stability of 
 the Union which he had been so main an instru- 
 ment in establishing; and the correspondence which 
 he maintained on the subject with the statesmen 
 whom he ranked among his friends, betrays in every 
 page his alarm lest his countrymen should not be 
 fitted for the quiet enjoyment of republican but 
 constitutional liberty. The " Sovereign " States, as 
 they called themselves, were each jealous of the 
 creation of a Federal or Central power, which Wash- 
 ington held to be essential if the Union was to 
 guard itself effectually against foreign attack 
 especially against England. It is true that George
 
 112 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 III. had sensibly, as well as magnanimously de- 
 clared, that "as he had been the last man in his 
 dominions to acknowledge the independence of the 
 United States, so he would be the last man to raise 
 a finger against it." But the King was not the Gov- 
 ernment, and the King might soon die ; and there 
 was a general feeling in America that the Old 
 Country might at some time or other be engaged 
 in hostilities against the New. 
 
 In a letter, dated 1785, to James Warren of 
 Massachusetts, Washington expressed his doubts and 
 fears. " The Confederation," he said, " appears to ine 
 to be little more than a shadow without the sub- 
 stance, and Congress a nugatory body their ordi- 
 nances being little attended to. To me it is a 
 solecism in politics, indeed it is one of the most 
 extraordinary things in nature, that we should con- 
 federate as a nation, and yet be afraid to give the 
 rulers of that nation (who are creatures of our own 
 making, appointed for a limited and short duration, 
 and who are amenable for every action, and may be 
 recalled at any moment, and are subject to all the 
 evils which they may be instrumental in producing) 
 sufficient powers to order and direct the affairs of 
 the same. By such policy as this, the wheels of 
 Government are clogged, and our brightest prospects,
 
 WASHINGTON. 113 
 
 and that high expectation which was entertained of 
 us by the wondering world, are turned into aston- 
 ishment ; and from the high ground on which we 
 stood, we are descending into the vale of confusion 
 and darkness." 
 
 In another letter of the same year, to John Jay, at 
 that time Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he was even 
 more despondent as to the fitness of the Americans 
 for a republican form of government. " We have 
 probably," he wrote, " had too good an opinion 
 of human nature in forming our Confederation. 
 Experience has taught us that men will not adopt 
 and carry into execution measures the best calcu- 
 lated for their own good, without the intervention 
 of coercive power. I do not conceive we can exist 
 long as a nation without lodging somewhere a power 
 which will pervade the whole Union in as ener- 
 getic a manner as the authority of the State Govern- 
 ments extends over their several States. To be 
 fearful of investing Congress, constituted as that 
 body is, with ample authority for national purposes, 
 appears to me the very climax of popular absurdity 
 and madness." 
 
 But while thus dubious of the people, he did not 
 share the opinions of those who believed that the 
 establishment of a monarchy would be a cure for 
 
 H
 
 114 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the evil. " I am told," he continued in the same 
 letter to Mr Jay, " that even respectable characters 
 speak of a monarchical form of government without 
 horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence 
 acting is often but a single step. But how irre- 
 vocable and tremendous ! What a triumph for our 
 enemies to verify their predictions ! What a tri- 
 umph for the advocates of despotism to find that 
 we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that 
 systems, founded on the basis of equal liberty, are 
 merely ideal and fallacious ! Would to God that 
 wise measures may be taken in time to avert the 
 consequences we have but too much reason to ap- 
 prehend ! " 
 
 An insurrection in the now orderly and conser- 
 vative, but then very riotous and troublesome, 
 State of Massachusetts lent force and poignancy to 
 all Washington's misgivings. The discontent grew 
 out of mercantile distress, the pressure of newly 
 imposed taxation, and the disorders incident to 
 large issues of paper money, which had been neces- 
 sary during the progress of the War of Independ- 
 ence. The principles of the insurgents were 
 summed up in one sentence by General Knox, the 
 Secretary at War : " They are determined to annihi- 
 late all debts, public and private, and to issue an
 
 WASHINGTON. 115 
 
 unlimited supply of unfunded paper money, which 
 shall be legal tender in all cases whatever." Biot- 
 ous and armed assemblages, brought together for 
 the purpose of overawing the State Government, 
 had been so frequent, and, as time wore on, so for- 
 midable, that it had been found necessary to call 
 out the militia, fully armed, to keep order. In 
 view of these circumstances, Washington wrote to 
 Colonel Humphreys of Newhaven, in Connecticut : 
 " What, gracious God ! is man, that there should be 
 such inconsistency and perfidiousness in his con- 
 duct ? It was but the other day that we were 
 shedding our blood to obtain the constitutions under 
 which we now live constitutions of our own choice 
 and making ; and now we are unsheathing the sword 
 to overturn them ! The thing is so unaccountable 
 that I hardly know how to realise it, or to persuade 
 myself that I am not under the illusion of a dream." 
 It was under the influence of fears and feelings 
 like these that Washington took part in the delib- 
 erations of the Convention, which sat with closed 
 doors for a period of nearly four months. The 
 result was a Constitution such as Washington 
 desired and approved, but which was far from 
 giving satisfaction to the country, and more espe- 
 cially to that large party whose shibboleth was
 
 116 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 " State Rights," as opposed to " Federalism," or 
 the concentration of too much power in the hands 
 of the general Government. Only three of the 
 thirteen States to which it was submitted for 
 ratification accepted it unanimously ; five others by 
 a bare majority, and with an expressed proviso 
 of amendments which they specified ; while two 
 States, North Carolina and Rhode Island, rejected 
 and refused to abide by it. Even the Federalists 
 were not wholly satisfied, thinking that the powers 
 confided to the Central Government were not ade- 
 quate to preserve order, and prevent civil strife or 
 disunion ; while the adherents of State sovereignty 
 and State rights saw in the document the prepara- 
 tion for and the seed of a nascent despotism. The 
 ratification of the instrument by nine States out of 
 the thirteen was necessary to its validity ; and as 
 the separate Conventions assembled at different 
 times, a year elapsed before the final decision. 
 
 During all this period an active correspondence 
 was carried on between Washington and his polit- 
 ical friends, in which, though nothing was overtly 
 said, much was covertly thought on the subject 
 of the Presidency. Washington, with all his 
 unaffected modesty, could not but feel that his 
 military services, and the universal respect enter-
 
 WASHINGTON. 1 1 7 
 
 tained for his character and abilities, pointed him 
 out to his countrymen as one who might command 
 a nomination for the Presidency, if he would con- 
 sent to fill the office. He had, it is true, declared 
 that his retirement from public life was final ; but 
 everybody knew that such decisions were not irre- 
 vocable, and that their true meaning might resemble 
 that concealed under a young lady's negative, which 
 only required a proper amount of importunity to be 
 converted into an affirmative. The possibility, and 
 indeed the probability, that such pressure would be 
 applied at the appointed time, must have been con- 
 stantly present to his mind, though he seems to have 
 taken especial care, while the Constitution remained 
 under discussion, not to betray to the public that 
 his thoughts wandered in that direction. 
 
 The necessary ratification of the Constitution was 
 received by Congress in September 1788, and an 
 Act was immediately passed appointing the first 
 Wednesday in January 1789 to elect the electors, 
 who, in their turn, were to elect the President and 
 Vice - President. Washington's name was almost 
 simultaneously brought forward in every State of 
 the Union ; and as in these circumstances reticence 
 to his friends and correspondents was not necessary, 
 he unburthened his mind freely to all whom he
 
 118 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 admitted to his esteem. In answer to Colonel 
 Henry Lee, he wrote : " Notwithstanding that my 
 advanced period of life" (he was only in his fifty- 
 seventh year), " my increasing fondness for agricul- 
 tural amusements, and my growing love of retire- 
 ment, augment and confirm my decided predilection 
 for the character of a private citizen, yet it would be 
 no one of these motives, nor the hazard to which my 
 former reputation might be exposed, nor the terror 
 of encountering new fatigues and troubles, that 
 would deter me from an acceptance, but a belief 
 that some other person who had less pretension, 
 and less inclination to be excused, could execute 
 all the duties fully as satisfactorily as myself." 
 To Alexander Hamilton he wrote : " If I should 
 receive the appointment, and if I should be pre- 
 vailed upon to accept it, the acceptance would be 
 attended with more difficulty and reluctance than 
 ever I experienced in my life." To his old friend 
 and comrade-in-arms, General Lafayette, he wrote : 
 " If I know my own heart, nothing short of a con- 
 viction of duty will induce me again to take an 
 active part in public affairs. And in that case, 
 if I can form a plan for my own conduct, my 
 endeavours shall be unremittingly exerted, even at 
 the hazard of former fame or present popularity,
 
 WASHINGTON. 119 
 
 to extricate my country from the embarrassments 
 in which it is entangled through want of credit ; 
 and to establish a general system of policy, which, 
 if pursued, will ensure permanent felicity to the 
 Commonwealth. I think I see a path clear and 
 direct as a ray of light, which leads to the attain- 
 ment of that object. Nothing but harmony, honesty, 
 industry, and frugality are necessary to make us a 
 great and happy people. Happily the present pos- 
 ture of affairs, and the prevailing disposition of my 
 countrymen, promise to co-operate in establishing 
 those four great and essential pillars of public felicity." 
 Whatever his other correspondents may have 
 thought of the matter, Lafayette could have no 
 doubt of "Washington's acceptance, after the receipt 
 of a letter such as this. There were no other can- 
 didates who had even the shadow of success against 
 him ; and on the 4th of March, Washington, who 
 had been unanimously elected the first and the 
 last time that ever such an extraordinary compli- 
 ment was paid to the public spirit and private 
 worth of an American " the Father of his coun- 
 try," as he now began to be called, became unoffi- 
 cially aware of the honour that had been con- 
 ferred upon him. It was not until fifty days 
 afterwards on the 14th of April that Congress
 
 120 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 was in a position to notify the fact officially to 
 Washington himself, and to John Adams, formerly 
 Minister of the United States in Paris, who had 
 been elected to the honorary and all but nominal 
 office of Vice-President. On the 16th of April 
 the new President leaving Mrs Washington to 
 follow shortly afterwards departed from his farm 
 at Mount Vernon for New York, which was at that 
 time the seat of the Federal Government. An 
 entry in his diary recorded the fact : " About ten 
 o'clock this day (April 16th) I bade adieu to Mount 
 Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity ; 
 and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and 
 painful sensations than I have words to express, 
 set out for New York with the best disposition to 
 render service to my country in obedience to its 
 call, but with less hope of answering its expecta- 
 tions." His progress all the way was what is 
 commonly called an " ovation." Guns were fired ; 
 bells rang merry chimes ; flags were displayed from 
 steeple, tower, and house-top ; triumphal arches were 
 erected ; girls robed in white garments strewed 
 flowers upon his way; the people shouted and 
 cheered, and fussy civic dignitaries presented con- 
 gratulatory addresses at every town and city through 
 which he passed. On his arrival at Elizabethtown
 
 WASHINGTON. 121 
 
 Point, whence he was to proceed through the Kill 
 van Kull to New York, a committee of both Houses 
 of Congress was in waiting to receive him. He 
 and his cortege, which like a snowball had gained 
 volume in rolling, embarked on board of a state 
 barge specially constructed for the occasion, manned 
 by thirteen pilots, one for each State in the Union, 
 and all arrayed in white uniform. Several other 
 gaily decorated barges of less imposing construction, 
 crowded with civic and other officials, accompanied 
 by their wives and daughters, followed, and flashed 
 along the smooth waters of the Kill and the beau- 
 tiful bay of New York, to the sound of instrumental 
 bands, playing "Yankee Doodle " and other excellent 
 airs, to the appointed landing-place near the Bat- 
 tery. New York was then a small city, but it 
 poured forth almost its whole population to welcome 
 the chief magistrate. He was received on landing 
 by the Governor of the State, and by the muni- 
 cipality of the city, and escorted on foot to the 
 rendezvous prepared for his reception. Washington 
 was of too cold and too wise a temperament to be 
 unduly elated on this or on any other occasion. 
 He wrote in his diary the same evening : " The 
 display of boats which attended and joined us on 
 this occasion, some with vocal and some with
 
 122 FOUNDERS OF. THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 instrumental music on board, the decoration of the 
 ships, the roar of cannon, and the loud acclama- 
 tions of the people which rent the skies as I passed 
 along the wharves, rilled my mind with sensations 
 as painful (considering the reverse of this scene, 
 which may be the case after all my labours to do 
 good) as they are pleasing." 
 
 It had been a matter of anxious and sometimes 
 of acrid debate among American politicians to dis- 
 cover a proper title for the President, and a proper 
 ceremonial to be observed, so that his high station 
 should receive befitting honour. John Adams, the 
 Vice-President, who had been accustomed to official 
 etiquette by his long residence at the most aristo- 
 cratic and splendid Court in Europe that of the 
 1 Tuileries was of opinion that the President should 
 be addressed as his " Highness," and that the cere- 
 monial of his Court, and of all his official life, should 
 be as nearly regal as it was possible to make it. 
 Thomas Jefferson who was an ultra-Republican in 
 practice and in theory, and would have abolished the 
 silly title of Esquire, and the more sensible of " Mr," 
 if the innovation had been possible was for calling 
 the President the " President," and nothing more, and 
 for depriving the office of any factitious dignity, and 
 of all form and ceremonial whatsoever, except such
 
 WASHINGTON. 123 
 
 as would be employed in the family of the humblest 
 citizen towards the head and father of the household. 
 Washington, who was an aristocrat by nature, by 
 education, and by the habit of military command, 
 inclined more towards the views of Adams in this 
 not very important matter than to those of Jeffer- 
 son. A compromise between the two extremes was 
 soon effected. The President became " His Excel- 
 lency " instead of " His Highness " ; and a not very 
 stringent code of etiquette was adopted, of which 
 the principal proviso was, that the President might 
 invite, but was never to be invited and that his 
 invitations to dinners or balls, whenever he chose 
 proper to issue them, should be looked upon as 
 " commands," as such missives are usually consid- 
 ered when issued by European sovereigns. 
 
 His inauguration, and the administration of the 
 oath of office, took place on the 30th of April, amid 
 rejoicings similar to those which had greeted his 
 arrival ten days previously. Washington, in private 
 communion with himself in his regularly kept diary, 
 bore steadily in mind the great truth that all 
 popularity, however deeply rooted it may appear, 
 is fickle and precarious. " I greatly fear," he wrote, 
 " that my countrymen will expect too much from 
 me. I fear, if the issues of public measures should
 
 124 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 not correspond with their sanguine expectations, 
 that they will turn the extravagant, and I might 
 almost say undue praises, which they are heaping 
 upon me at this moment, into equally extravagant, 
 though I will fondly hope unmerited praises." It 
 may be remarked that even to himself Washington 
 would not admit that the praises were wholly 
 undue a good opinion of himself which was as 
 useful to him during his term of office as it was 
 certainly well founded. 
 
 Washington as a statesman had almost as many 
 difficulties to contend with as those which he had 
 confronted as a soldier ; and these difficulties 
 sprang from the same source, and were more largely 
 due to the temper of his own people than to any 
 foreign enemies or opponents. The measures that 
 chiefly occupied his time and that of Congress 
 during the four years of his first term of office, 
 were those necessary for the common defence of 
 the States against possible foreign aggression, for 
 the naturalisation of immigrants, for the establish- 
 ment of a uniform system of currency, weights, and 
 measures, for the encouragement of agriculture, 
 manufactures, and commerce, for the promotion 
 of science and literature, and for the support of 
 public credit. The last topic was the one which
 
 WASHINGTON. 125 
 
 involved the most acrimonious discussion, and 
 envenomed to the greatest degree the animosity 
 of rival factions. The question of the funding of 
 the debt and the establishment of a National Bank, 
 that appears so simple and elementary, nearly split 
 the new Union asunder before it was finally 
 cemented, and created controversies and antagon- 
 isms that lasted long after Washington had been 
 gathered to his fathers, and far into the lifetime 
 of the succeeding generation. The ultra-Democrats 
 and Republicans, with Jefferson at their head, con- 
 sidered a National Bank to be not only an aristo- 
 cratic and quasi feudal institution, but one of which 
 the establishment would act with fatal effect upon 
 the liberties of the country. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, one of the most remarkable 
 men perhaps, next to Washington himself, the 
 most remarkable man which the American revol- 
 ution had produced, took the opposite side. He 
 was at the head of the " Federal," as Jefferson was 
 at that of the " Union " party ; and the war upon 
 the subject waged furiously both in and out of the 
 Cabinet, Washington himself inclining strongly to- 
 wards the views of Hamilton. The National Bank 
 was ultimately established, with a capital of ten 
 millions of dollars, or two millions sterling, of which
 
 126 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 eight millions were to be held by individuals, and 
 two millions by the Government. The discussions 
 on this as on other topics that proved almost equally 
 irritating, lasted into the fourth year of Washington's 
 Presidency. He had not given universal satisfaction, 
 and had never expected to do so ; but as his term 
 drew near to its natural close, a very general feeling 
 of anxiety was felt and expressed in all the States 
 of the Union as to the choice of a successor. Even 
 those who considered themselves powerful, able, 
 and popular enough to aspire to the office Jeffer- 
 son and Hamilton among the number thought it 
 their duty to abstain from pushing their claims, and 
 to urge upon Washington the propriety, the expe- 
 diency, and, in short, the paramount duty, of con- 
 senting to be put in nomination a second time. 
 Washington was coy as before, and with greater 
 reason. Power and its exercise, which had neces- 
 sarily brought him into collision with parties 
 in whose opinions he could not agree, and whose 
 schemes he could not advance, had impaired 
 his pristine popularity. In addition to this, he 
 had assumed a certain amount of pomp and cere- 
 monial, such as driving about in a carriage-and- 
 four, and sometimes in a carriage-and-six ; and in 
 enshrouding himself from the intrusion on his
 
 WASHINGTON. 127 
 
 privacy of the unauthorised and unknown vulgar, 
 who, on the plea of political, wished to establish a 
 social equality, against which his cold and exclusive 
 nature revolted. 
 
 Taking advantage of these circumstances, his 
 enemies and no man, however pure-minded and 
 virtuous, can attain power without creating them 
 represented that he was not at heart a Ee- 
 publican ; that his tastes and manners were aris- 
 tocratic ; and that he not only had leanings 
 towards the establishment of a monarchy, but would 
 gladly have placed upon his own brow the royal 
 crown of America. Nothing could be falser than 
 the last of these allegations, however much of truth 
 there might be in the charge of aristocratic hauteur, 
 and of a splendour of outward show in his official 
 life, distasteful to the austere school of Eepublicans. 
 Washington was goaded out of his usual meekness 
 at the charge of royal ambition. " I," he said, 
 " who would rather live quietly at my farm of 
 Mount Vernon than be emperor of the world, to 
 be accused of wanting to make myself a king ! " 
 It was too disgusting, too much for his philosophy 
 to bear ; and he relieved his mind by more than 
 one oath, in the most emphatic vernacular. But, 
 secure in conscious rectitude, he learned to treat
 
 128 FOUNDEES OF THE AMERICAN KEPUBLIC. 
 
 the accusation with contempt, and consented to be 
 nominated for a second term of office. All moderate 
 and sensible men rallied around him, and he was 
 duly re-elected. 
 
 His second term was stormier than the first, no 
 less in the domestic than in the foreign policy of 
 the Union. He had scarcely been reinstalled a 
 month, when the Eevolution in France, which owed 
 much of its early impetus, if not its origin, to the 
 successful revolution and example of America, 
 reached an unexpected crisis. Not only Washing- 
 ton, but the ultra-Democratic Jefferson, his Secretary 
 of State or Foreign Minister, was scandalised at the 
 excesses of the French Jacobins, justly fearing that 
 their follies and crimes would discredit republican- 
 ism all over the world. The news that more par- 
 ticularly disquieted Washington, and conjured before 
 his mind a vision of troubles for the Union, and for 
 himself as its chief magistrate, was the declaration 
 of war against Great Britain by the French Eepub- 
 lic, which arrived in New York in April 1793. 
 The American people were greatly excited. They had 
 not forgiven the King and Government of Great 
 Britain for the protracted opposition to the Inde- 
 pendence of the United States ; and as the war was 
 between a monarchy which had been their foe, and
 
 WASHINGTON. 129 
 
 a republic which was their friend and imitator, the 
 public feeling was strong in favour of France. The 
 unreasoning and impulsive mob, not content with 
 barren sympathy, were for an immediate declaration 
 of an alliance with France ; and desperate specula- 
 tors and adventurers began to fit out privateers in 
 all the great seaports of the Union, to prey upon 
 British commerce. Washington was alarmed and 
 indignant. He sympathised with France ; but he 
 would not plunge his country into an unjust war 
 with Great Britain. He hastened from Mount 
 Vernon, where he was enjoying a few days of 
 repose, and summoned a Cabinet Council to meet 
 at Philadelphia. It was unanimously resolved 
 that the President should issue a proclamation of 
 neutrality, forbidding the citizens of the United 
 States to take part in any hostilities on the seas, 
 or to carry to either of the belligerents any articles 
 deemed contraband of war by the usages of civil- 
 ised nations. 
 
 This wise and necessary measure created much 
 dissatisfaction, and did more to diminish the al- 
 ready waning popularity of the President than any 
 previous or future act of his official life. The pro- 
 clamation was declared to be a royal edict, a daring 
 assumption of monarchical power, and a shameless 
 
 I
 
 130 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 manifestation of hostility to France and partiality 
 for England. In the midst of the ferment of 
 opinion thus excited, a pert, conceited, and silly 
 young man, named Genet the " Citizen Genet," as 
 he called himself arrived in America, as ambassador 
 from the French Eepublic. He landed at Charleston, 
 in South Carolina, where, instead of proceeding at 
 once to present his credentials to the President, he 
 remained for several days engaged in efforts, by no 
 means unsuccessful, to induce the leading mer- 
 chants and shipowners to fit out privateers against 
 Great Britain. Mr Jefferson, the Secretary of 
 State, had previously received and communicated to 
 the President information from the American Min- 
 ister at Paris, that Genet had been furnished by his 
 Government with 300 blank commissions for pri- 
 vateers, to be given clandestinely to such Americans 
 as might be inclined to accept them. He found 
 the people of Charleston well inclined to the ad- 
 venture the contiguity of that port to the West 
 Indies having familiarised them with the profitable 
 extent of the British trade with those islands. 
 When at last he had accomplished what he could 
 at Charleston, he left that city and proceeded by 
 land to Philadelphia. His progress all the way 
 was a triumphal one. He was everywhere received
 
 WASHINGTON. 1 3 1 
 
 with addresses of welcome, and escorted in and out 
 of the towns and cities by public and civic pro- 
 cessions. The head of this young ambassador, who 
 was described by Hamilton as " a busy man rather 
 than a man of business," was wellnigh turned by 
 these manifestations of popularity before he arrived 
 at Philadelphia. In this city the climax of his 
 preposterous welcome was attained, to the sore 
 annoyance of the President, who saw in the excited 
 state of public feeling a possibility of entanglement 
 in the wars of Europe, with which he conscientiously 
 believed the United States had, and ought to have, 
 nothing to do. 
 
 The capture of a British ship, the Grange, in 
 American waters, by one of Genet's privateers, and 
 of several others on the ocean by the same agencies, 
 brought matters to a crisis. The British Minister 
 demanded a restitution of the prizes. Washington 
 and his Cabinet were unanimously of opinion that 
 restitution should be made of the Grange ; but 
 with regard to the vessels captured on the high 
 seas, there was a difference of opinion, and the 
 case was reserved for the decision of the Courts of 
 Justice. 
 
 Genet, who had the worst of all faults possible 
 in an ambassador impulsiveness and a deplorable
 
 132 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 excess of zeal was indignant, and wrote a series 
 of injudicious and insulting letters to the Secretary 
 of State, and in other ways kept up an agitation 
 which was mischievous in the extreme, and as 
 likely by its consequences to embroil the United 
 States with France as with Great Britain. Wash- 
 ington did not endure the nuisance of Citizen 
 Genet in a kindly or patient spirit, and fretted 
 over the worry so much as to affect his health. 
 " The President is not well," wrote Jefferson to 
 his friend Madison in June. " He is extremely 
 hurt at the attacks made upon him in the public 
 papers. I think he feels these things more than 
 any other person I ever met with. I am extremely 
 sorry to see it." But the annoyances caused by the 
 , fussy Genet were more serious than those caused by 
 the press. Another British ship, the Little Sarah, 
 was captured by a French privateer, and brought 
 into Philadelphia, where she was manned with a 
 crew of 120 men of whom nine - tenths were 
 Americans and fitted out and armed as a privateer, 
 under the name of the Little Democrat. The Gov- 
 ernment, on deliberation, resolved to prevent the 
 departure of this vessel. Citizen Genet was furious. 
 He appealed to the Government to reverse its deci- 
 sion. He met with a courteous but firm refusal.
 
 WASHINGTON. 133 
 
 He then threatened to appeal to the people of the 
 United States against their Government, and made 
 use of other improper menaces. 
 
 Washington at last lost temper with this jack- 
 anapes, and unburdened his mind to Jefferson on the 
 subject. " Is the Minister of the French Republic 
 to set the acts of this Government at defiance with 
 impunity ? and to threaten the Executive with 
 an appeal to the people ? What must the world 
 think of such conduct ? and of the Government of 
 the United States in submitting to it ? " The 
 Little Democrat ultimately managed to put to sea 
 and escape, no doubt with the connivance of the 
 subordinate authorities charged with the duty of 
 preventing her, but greatly to the anger of the 
 President. The result was, that Washington deter- 
 mined to get rid of the Citizen Genet, once and 
 for ever ; and instructions were sent to the American 
 Minister at Paris, courteously asking the French 
 Government to recall M. Genet, and appoint some 
 more acceptable person in his place. The request 
 was agreed to, but not before Washington and his 
 Cabinet had resolved, in case of refusal, to supersede 
 Genet's functions, to deprive him of his privileges, 
 arrest his person, and ship him off to his native 
 country. Luckily his supersedure by his own
 
 134 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Government was received just in time to prevent 
 recourse to this extreme measure. 
 
 Nor was the Federal Government much happier 
 in its relations with Great Britain than with France. 
 It is always the fortune of great Powers who are 
 neutral in great wars to offend both belligerents, 
 and to be accused of an injurious want of sym- 
 pathy, if no more flagrant offence can be surmised 
 or invented against them. Washington was too 
 wise and prudent a man to willingly give Great 
 Britain the slightest cause of just complaint ; and 
 though the privateer question, and the energy with 
 which the British Government made captures of the 
 privateers under French colours that were fitted out 
 from American ports, brought matters to the extreme 
 of irritation throughout the United States, Wash- 
 ington defied unpopularity in his attempt, happily 
 successful, to do right alike to France, the old ally, 
 and to Great Britain, the ancient opponent, of the 
 United States. Though his military and political 
 character were both attacked and it was declared 
 that he was neither a soldier nor a statesman he 
 held on the even tenor of his way, supported by his 
 Cabinet, not unpained by the gross ingratitude of 
 his countrymen, but allowing no signs of his anger 
 and disappointment to publicly escape him.
 
 WASHINGTON. 135 
 
 The domestic matter that troubled his adminis- 
 tration almost as much as Citizen Genet's insolence 
 and the difficulties with Great Britain, was a 
 popular insurrection in Pennsylvania that was 
 known as "The Whisky Eebellion," and at one 
 time assumed very formidable dimensions. It was 
 said of the English by Lord Castlereagh, that they 
 had an ignorant impatience of taxation ; and the 
 same charge might have been brought with equal 
 truth against the Americans in the earlier stages 
 of their national independence. An excise duty 
 upon alcoholic liquors which had been rendered 
 necessary for the maintenance of public credit, was 
 highly obnoxious to the people, both for its novelty 
 and its directness, and excited such particular 
 animosity in the west of the great State of Penn- 
 sylvania, that it was found impossible to collect the 
 revenue. The Excise officers were opposed in the 
 execution of their duty by bands of armed men. 
 The militia called out to oppose these predatory 
 gangs were overpowered by superior force, and the 
 agitation rose to such a height that the Whisky 
 rebels at last found themselves to be 7000 strong. 
 
 Washington was annoyed and indignant. " If 
 the laws," he said, " are thus to be trampled 
 upon with impunity, and a minority (and* a small
 
 136 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 one too) is to dictate to the majority, there is 
 an end put at one stroke to Eepublican Govern- 
 ments." On the 7th of August 1794 he issued 
 a proclamation warning the insurgents to disperse, 
 and declaring that if tranquillity were not restored 
 within three weeks next ensuing, an adequate mili- 
 tary force would be employed to compel submis- 
 sion to the law. And to prove that he meant no 
 idle threats, he made requisitions on the governors 
 of the four contumacious States to provide an 
 army of 12,000 afterwards augmented to 15,000 
 men, for the restoration of order. The insurgents 
 were slow to be convinced; and ultimately, in Octo- 
 ber, Washington took the command of the army, and 
 marched into Western Pennsylvania. 
 
 The leaders of the insurrection had possibly 
 failed to convince themselves that Washington was 
 in earnest. At last convinced of their mistake, they 
 surrendered without striking a blow, and craved the 
 clemency of the Government. After due time and 
 the imprisonment of some of the chief instigators 
 who, however, were not subjected to any severer 
 punishment the troops were withdrawn ; and the 
 Whisky Eebellion, that at one time threatened to 
 spread to other parts of the Union, became a thing 
 of the past and a portion of American history.
 
 WASHINGTON. 137 
 
 It was happily suppressed without effusion of blood, 
 which it might not have been had the President 
 been less prompt, less vigorous, and less determined 
 to perform his duty, however unpopular. 
 
 As Washington's second term drew towards its 
 close, a desire for his re-election was again expressed. 
 But it met with little support, as it was well known 
 to Washington's friends that his resolution to retire 
 into private life was final, imperative, and irrev- 
 ocable. He had often said, with evident truth and 
 fervency, that he had had but one regret in having 
 allowed himself to be put in nomination a second 
 time, and that that regret had endured during the 
 whole four years, and would last him to the end of 
 his life. Under these circumstances, other candi- 
 dates were selected, and the ultimate choice fell 
 upon John Adams for President, and Thomas Jeffer- 
 son for Vice-President. 
 
 Washington employed such scanty leisure as 
 the cares of State and the superior attractions 
 of his farm allowed him, in drawing up an ela- 
 borate Farewell to his countrymen, a legacy of 
 wisdom to succeeding ages. He warned the people 
 of the danger of disunion, of the impolicy of 
 mingling in the disputes of Europe, and pointed 
 out for their avoidance the growth of sectional
 
 138 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 jealousy and animosity among them, as if, though he 
 mentioned no word of slavery, the sunset of life 
 had given him the " mystical lore " to see the coin- 
 ing event which, sixty-six years afterwards, deluged 
 his native Virginia in blood. The whole document 
 is pervaded by a melancholy spirit, as if he all but 
 despaired of the successful establishment of a 
 Republican Government ; but it sank deep into the 
 hearts of the succeeding generations, and did the 
 good service to the nation which it was intended 
 to perform. 
 
 Such a man as Washington could not be allowed 
 to retire from public life without proper manifesta- 
 tions of grateful respect and good wishes from both 
 Houses of Congress, and from all the public bodies 
 of the Union. " May your own virtue," said the 
 address of the House of Eepresentatives, " and a 
 nation's prayers obtain the happiest sunshine for the 
 decline of your days, and the choicest of future 
 blessings. For our country's sake, and for the sake 
 of republican liberty, it is our earnest wish that 
 your example may be the pride of your successors, 
 and thus, after being the ornament and safeguard 
 of the present age, become the patrimony of our 
 descendants." There was but one dissentient a 
 Mr Giles from Virginia, who declared that he did
 
 WASHINGTON. 139 
 
 not regret the President's retirement ; that he could 
 not conscientiously eulogise either his wisdom or 
 his firmness, inasmuch as, in his opinion, the 
 President's want of both of these qualities had 
 conducted the foreign affairs of the nation to a 
 calamitous crisis, not yet at an end. Mr Giles 
 had his say to himself, though there were not 
 wanting newspapers, both in the North and the 
 South, which re-echoed and approved his sentiments. 
 
 Washington did not live long to enjoy his well- 
 earned repose. For nearly two years he was as 
 happy as he desired, and in his own way. He 
 superintended his farm and estates, planned and 
 executed improvements, superintended his domestic 
 affairs, and looked after the interest and career of 
 Mrs Washington's children and grandchildren he 
 had no family of his own and of his numerous 
 nephews and nieces. He was even called upon to 
 leave his retirement to take the nominal command 
 of the army of the United States, in view of an 
 approaching rupture with Great Britain, which was 
 happily averted. 
 
 On the 12th of December 1799, he unfortu- 
 nately caught cold in a storm of mingled snow, 
 rain, and hail, to which he was exposed when riding 
 around his farm. He refused on his return home
 
 140 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 to change his clothes, treating the exposure as a 
 thing of no account, against which he had been well 
 protected by his greatcoat. He was seized with 
 bronchitis during the night, and on the following 
 morning, by his own desire, before the doctor who 
 had been summoned had arrived, he was bled in the 
 arm by the overseer of his estate. Three physicians 
 were called in, and more bleeding was resorted to ; 
 and the result of the ill-advised phlebotomy was 
 the death of the patient on the third day, not from 
 his malady, but from his doctors. His last words 
 were, " 'Tis well ! " 
 
 The grief of the nation was great and sincere. 
 
 The voice of cavil and detraction was hushed upon 
 
 his grave ; and the United States, for the first time, 
 
 . and possibly for the last, were of one mind as regards 
 
 the merits and services of a great American citizen. 
 
 By his will Washington gave freedom to his 
 slaves. As a statesman and a philosopher, and to 
 some extent a philanthropist, he had long been of 
 opinion that slavery was wrong. He wrote in 
 1786, thirteen years before his death, to his friend 
 Mr J. F. Mercer, that he never would purchase 
 another slave, " it being among my first wishes," he 
 said, " to see some plan adopted by which slavery 
 may be abolished bylaw." In 1797 he wrote to his
 
 WASHINGTON. 141 
 
 nephew : " I wish from my soul that the Legislature 
 of this State [Virginia] could see the policy of a 
 gradual abolition of slavery. It might prevent 
 much future mischief." The words were prophetic, 
 though it will not fail to be remarked by all im- 
 partial students of American history, especially of 
 that tremendous chapter of it which records the great 
 Civil War under President Lincoln, that Washing- 
 ton never admitted or hinted that any right to 
 deal with the difficult question was inherent in 
 the Federal Government. It was for Virginia, as 
 for any other State, to deal with it at its pleasure. 
 The United States had no control or jurisdiction. 
 
 The world has done ample justice to the char- 
 acter of Washington. His own countrymen, after 
 death had put its solemn seal upon his career and 
 services, did him more than justice, and all but 
 idolised his memory. He was not great in the 
 highest sense of the word. He was not brilliant. 
 He was not even successful, except by aids which 
 he could not have anticipated, and which it would 
 have been better for the self-love of his country if 
 he had never accepted. He wore out evil fortune 
 mainly by the incapability, which he shared with 
 the English, from whom he sprang, of never know- 
 ing when he was beaten, and by the dogged perti-
 
 142 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 nacity and perseverance which are characteristics 
 of the race. He was essentially a good man ; and 
 though subject to occasional fits of violence, was 
 cautious, prudent, just, honourable, unwearied in 
 the pursuit of the right, and inflexible in his 
 adherence to it when discovered. He was a man 
 of his age a little in advance of it, perhaps, but 
 never so much in advance of it as to incur the 
 reproach of being rash, impracticable, or Utopian. 
 Living, he attracted but little love as little as 
 Aristides the Just ; but dead, he commanded the 
 admiration of Europe and the affectionate venera- 
 tion of America, as one " who was first in war, first 
 in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
 
 143 
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 
 
 JOHN ADAMS, when elected to the Vice-Presidency 
 in 1788, was past the prime of life; and eight 
 years afterwards, when the suffrages of his country- 
 men placed him in the chair of Washington, he had 
 almost completed the mystic multiple of seven times 
 nine, the "grand climacteric." His career was very 
 different from that of his predecessor. It was the 
 fortune of the one to win his laurels at home, under 
 the eyes of his countrymen ; that of the other, 
 to establish his reputation by diplomatic services 
 abroad. The one was a man of the sword, the 
 other of the pen. The talents of Washington were 
 
 not brilliantly developed until his later manhood. 
 
 i 
 
 The genius of Adams shone forth in his early youth. 
 When Washington, at twenty-three, was a subordi- 
 nate in the service of Great Britain never dreaming 
 that the time could possibly come when he should 
 rebel against his sovereign Adams, at twenty,
 
 144 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 when there was no ill-feeling between the Colonies 
 and the mother-country, and no grievance large 
 enough to form the subject of complaint, was look- 
 ing far into the future, and beholding events invisible 
 to other eyes. In a letter, still preserved, addressed 
 to his friend Nathan Webb, written when he was 
 at college, he predicted that the French would be 
 expelled from the American continent ; that the 
 Colonies would assert their independence ; that they 
 would become a great naval Power, able to contest 
 the supremacy of the seas ; that the force of all 
 Europe combined could not prevail against them ; 
 and that in less than a century the population 
 would exceed that of Great Britain. The prophecy 
 would have been remarkable if uttered by a grey- 
 headed philosopher who had passed a long life in 
 the study of men and history ; but coming sharp 
 and well-defined from the brain of a boy, it was 
 little short of marvellous. 
 
 John Adams was a descendant of one of the early 
 Puritans who first colonised New England, and was 
 bora at Quincy, in the township of Braintree, in 
 Massachusetts, on the 19th of October 1735. His 
 father was a man in good circumstances ; and the 
 boy exhibiting at a very early age a strong love of 
 reading, and a readiness for the acquisition of know-
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 145 
 
 ledge, it was determined to give him the best educa- 
 tion which America could afford. It was evident 
 to all who watched his early years that he was 
 quite able to educate himsSlf, even had there been 
 none to usher him through the gates of the great 
 temple of knowledge. 
 
 He received his first instruction in the rudiments 
 of classical literature from Mr Marsh, of Braintree, 
 a gentleman who, in an after-time, had the good 
 fortune to train the early years of two of the most 
 distinguished statesmen whom the United States 
 ever produced, Daniel Webster, the most eloquent 
 of Americans ; and the late Josiah Quincy of 
 Boston. 
 
 John Adams was admitted a student of Harvard 
 College in 1755, and graduated with distinction 
 four years afterwards. It was then, as it is now, 
 the practice of the young men of America who 
 aspire to take part in political life, to choose the 
 law as their profession. John Adams, like others, 
 saw that the law was the great avenue to distinction, 
 and was admitted to the Bar in 1758. He imme- 
 diately commenced practice in Braintree, and early 
 secured a fair share of business. But Braintree was 
 too narrow a field for his ambition ; and after play- 
 ing the part of rural attorney and advocate for 
 
 K
 
 146 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 eight years, he removed into Boston at that time 
 the principal port of the Colonies. 
 
 The change was for his advantage : business 
 flowed in upon him ; and he rapidly became, by 
 all but universal consent, the leading man in his 
 profession. During his first year's residence, he 
 published anonymously in the ' Boston Gazette ' 
 a series of papers, in which he exposed the 
 oppressive character of the canon and feudal 
 laws. These papers were afterwards republished 
 in London a rare compliment, at the time, to 
 an American author. In the same year, when 
 the smouldering discontent of the colonists first 
 broke out into a blaze, under the operation of 
 the obnoxious Stamp Act, Adams, as was to have 
 been expected from a man who had so early fore- 
 seen the future independence of the Colonies, did 
 not hesitate to throw himself, heart and soul, into 
 the movement. He soon became conspicuous among 
 his people for the vigour with which, by voice and 
 pen, he denounced the conduct of the British 
 Ministry in its attempt to tax the Americans with- 
 out their consent. " The proper time," said Lord 
 North in England, " to exert our right of taxation, 
 is when the right is denied. To temporise is to 
 yield ; and the- authority of the mother - country,
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 147 
 
 if it is now unsupported, will have to be relinquished 
 for ever. A total repeal [of the Stamp Act] cannot 
 be thought of until America is prostrate at our 
 feet." 
 
 On the veiy day in which the ill-judged measure 
 thus ominously supported was passed by the British 
 Parliament, a fatal riot took place in Boston, of 
 which the results very greatly exasperated the pre- 
 existent ill-feeling. The populace of the city in- 
 sulted a portion of the British garrison while under 
 arms in the streets ; the soldiers resented ; and a 
 general scene of confusion ensued. The first rioters 
 were put to flight, pursued by the military ; the 
 alarm-bell was rung ; a large crowd gathered around 
 the Custom-House, threatening to burn it to th 
 ground, and pelted with stones and brickbats the 
 troops employed to protect it. Before the tumult 
 could be quelled, the soldiers had found it necessary 
 for their own protection to fire into the crowd. 
 Four persons were killed and several wounded. 
 This unfortunate occurrence received the magnilo- 
 quent name of the Boston Massacre, and excited 
 much unreasonable and unjust indignation against 
 the military, who had not only acted in self-defence 
 under circumstances of cruel provocation, but in 
 strict execution of their duty. The public anger,
 
 148 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 however, was so great, that in order to allay the 
 excitement, or turn it into a safer channel, the 
 authorities of Massachusetts directed the prosecu- 
 tion for wilful murder of the officers in command of 
 the British troops. 
 
 Looking around for the highest legal talent in 
 the colony to undertake their defence, the incul- 
 pated gentlemen fixed at once upon Mr Adams. 
 The lawyer and the politician had different interests 
 in the question, and Mr Adams took time to con- 
 sider. The lawyer triumphed, and, at the obvious 
 risk of his popularity, he undertook the defence. 
 His zeal, his eloquence, his abilities, and his learn- 
 ing were not able to procure the acquittal of his 
 clients ; but he succeeded in persuading the jury 
 'that the offence was of no deeper dye than man- 
 slaughter. This verdict, though it fell short of 
 expectation, had the anticipated effect. It allayed 
 the public excitement, which gradually cooled down, 
 or fed itself upon the other aliments which were 
 only too abundant at the time. The legal profes- 
 sion justified the conduct of Mr Adams ; and his 
 fellow-citizens speedily forgot the circumstances, or 
 only remembered them to approve the courage of an 
 advocate who would not permit his political con- 
 victions to interfere with his professional honour.
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 149 
 
 In the year 1773 he was nominated by the 
 House of Assembly as a member of the Council of 
 State for the colony ; but the British Governor, Air 
 Hutchinson, put his veto upon the appointment. 
 He was again nominated in 1774, with the like 
 result, from the adverse action of the new Governor, 
 General Gage. But a higher office, over which 
 British Governors had no authority, was conferred 
 upon him by his fellow-citizens. He was one of 
 five gentlemen selected by Massachusetts to repre- 
 sent its interests and wishes at the General Con- 
 gress of the thirteen colonies, which met at Phila- 
 delphia on the 26th of October. The assembling 
 of this great historical body was the virtual com- 
 mencement of the revolution that established, after 
 long struggles, the independence of America. Mr 
 Adams played a prominent part in all its delibera- 
 tions, and became conspicuous for the audacity with 
 which he braved all the power of the British Gov- 
 ernment to coerce the Americans. 
 
 In 1775, when in his fortieth year, and in full 
 and lucrative practice at the Bar, he was offered the 
 Chief-Justiceship of his native colony. This office 
 he felt bound to decline, chiefly, if not solely, upon 
 the ground that the proper execution of its duties 
 would have rendered necessary his withdrawal from
 
 150 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 political life a sacrifice which he did not feel him- 
 self strong enough to incur. In this Congress Mr 
 Adams made the acquaintance and friendship of 
 many eminent men, struggling, like himself, in the 
 great cause which he had at heart, and who, like 
 himself, in after-years became Presidents of the 
 Eepublic. The proceedings of this Congress excited 
 marked attention in England ; and the great Lord 
 Chatham, to whose eloquent support and sympathy 
 American liberty owed more than the Americans 
 have ever yet acknowledged, declared that, although 
 he had studied and admired the history of the free 
 States of antiquity, the master States of the world, 
 yet he had never seen surpassed the solidity of 
 reasoning, the force of sagacity, and the wisdom of 
 Conclusion displayed by this illustrious body. 
 
 In 1776 matters had reached such a crisis that 
 the Colonies convinced themselves that the time had 
 come for the declaration of their independence. It 
 fell to the lot of the second Congress, of which, as 
 of the first, Mr Adams was a distinguished member, 
 to take this irrevocable step. To Mr Lee, of Vir- 
 ginia, was assigned the honour of proposing, and to 
 Mr Adams, of Massachusetts, of seconding, this mo- 
 mentous resolution. To five members Mr John 
 Adams, Dr Benjamin Franklin, Mr Eoger Sherman,
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 151 
 
 Mr R. R. Livingston, and lastly, Mr Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, a greater in peace than Washington was in 
 war was confided the task of drawing up the 
 document which was to declare to AmenV.fl.Tia, to 
 Europe, to the world, and to present and all future 
 time, the reasons which had induced the Colonies to 
 throw off their allegiance, to sever the ties of con- 
 sanguinity and friendship, and to take their place as 
 free and independent States in the great comity of 
 Christendom. Some of the merit of suggestion in 
 this memorable State paper is doubtless due to 
 Adams, Franklin, and other members of the Com- 
 mittee ; but it was essentially, when it appeared 
 before the world, the work of the master-mind of 
 Thomas Jefferson. His impress and superscription 
 were visibly upon it ; his purpose and phraseology 
 pervaded it ; and it received from his hands the 
 most minute, careful, and anxious revision in its 
 every word and sentence. The debates in Congress 
 on this great subject were secret and unreported ; 
 but the fact is recorded, on the authority of Jeffer- 
 son, who never bestowed unmerited praise, that 
 Adams was " the Colossus of the debates. 
 
 Adams himself, in after-life, was neither so 
 generous nor so just as Jefferson in appreciation of 
 the merits of a great fellow-labourer. He declared
 
 152 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 that there was not a single new or unhackneyed 
 idea in the Declaration of Independence ; that the 
 substance of it was contained in the Declaration of 
 Eights and in the Journals of Congress of the year 
 1774 ; and that the essence of the whole document 
 was contained in a pamphlet by James Otis of 
 Boston, and printed at the expense of that city, 
 before the Congress assembled. 
 
 Against this charge the good-natured Jefferson 
 defended himself without bitterness denied that 
 he had ever seen Otis's pamphlet, and admit- 
 ting the want of novelty in the arguments, many 
 of which were to be found in Locke's Essay 
 on Government, and were as old as Greece and 
 Eome, declared that he had considered it no part 
 of his duty to invent new ideas, and to bring for- 
 ward no sentiment or argument which had ever 
 been used before. But the charge of Adams was 
 an after -thought ; for while the document was 
 under the consideration of Congress, where it met 
 with very formidable opposition from an able and 
 compact minority, he was constantly on his feet, 
 warding off attacks, disposing contemptuously of 
 unimportant criticisms, defending the document as 
 a whole and in all its parts, and doing battle for it, 
 as was said at the time, like a wild animal fighting
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 153 
 
 for its young. He originally made an objection 
 himself to the word " tyranny," as applied to the 
 conduct of George III., contending that this was to 
 make the King personally responsible for the acts of 
 his Ministry ; but he waived it in deference to the 
 opinion of Jefferson, and the obnoxious charge was 
 not only retained, but several times reiterated. 
 Jefferson, in defending himself against an imputa- 
 tion which sprang from the ill temper rather than 
 from the convictions of Adams, made no greater 
 accusation against his crotchety friend than that 
 of deficient memory, adding, " This, however, I will 
 say for Mr Adams, that he supported the Declara- 
 tion with zeal and ability, fighting fearlessly for 
 every word of it." 
 
 Though his speeches have not been preserved, 
 the tradition of Congress was, that he spoke fear- 
 lessly and well, and fully merited the magnanimous 
 praise of Jefferson. His most celebrated speech 
 was one delivered on the last day of the discussions 
 on the Declaration of Independence, of which the 
 heads and the principal passages were preserved, 
 and has come down to posterity, perhaps not 
 exactly as he spoke it, but as it emerged in an after- 
 time from the alembic of the mind of Daniel 
 Webster, just as the speeches of the early days of
 
 154 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 parliamentary reporting in England emerged from 
 the mind of the great Dr Johnson. 
 
 " Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish," he 
 said, " I give my hand and my heart to this vote. 
 It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed 
 not at independence. But there's a Divinity which 
 shapes our ends. The injustice of England has 
 driven us to arms ; and, blinded to her own interest 
 for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till inde- 
 pendence is now within our grasp. We have but 
 to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, 
 should we defer the Declaration ? Is any man so 
 weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with 
 England, which shall leave either safety to the 
 country and its liberties, or safety to his own life 
 and his own honour ? Are not you, sir, who sit in 
 that chair is not he, our venerable colleague near 
 you, are you not both already the proscribed and 
 predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? 
 Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are 
 you, what can you be, while the power of England 
 remains, but outlaws ? If we postpone independ- 
 ence, do we mean to carry on or to give up the 
 war ? Do we mean to submit to the measures of 
 Parliament, Boston Port Bill and all ? Do we 
 mean to submit and consent that we ourselves shall
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 155 
 
 be ground to powder, and our country and its rights 
 trodden down in the dust ? I know we do not 
 mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we 
 intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever 
 entered into by men that plighting, before God, of 
 our sacred honour to Washington, when, putting 
 him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as 
 the political hazards of the time, we promised to 
 adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes 
 and our lives ? 
 
 " I know there is not a man here who would not 
 rather see a general conflagration sweep over the 
 land, or an earthquake sink it, than allow one jot 
 or tittle of that plighted faith to fall to the ground. 
 For myself, having, twelve months ago, in this 
 place, moved that George Washington be ap- 
 pointed commander of the forces raised, or to be 
 raised, for defence of American liberty, may my 
 right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue 
 cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or 
 waver in the support I give him. The war, then, 
 must go on. We must fight it through. And if 
 the war must go on, why put off longer the Dec- 
 laration of Independence ? That measure will 
 strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. 
 The nations will then treat with us, which they can
 
 156 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 never do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects 
 in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain 
 that England herself will sooner treat for peace 
 with us on the footing of independence, than con- 
 sent, by repealing her Acts, to acknowledge that her 
 whole conduct towards us has been a course of 
 injustice and oppression." 
 
 The uncertain temper and dictatorial moods of 
 Adams, added to the fact that he was a "Yankee" and 
 Puritan, rendered him unpopular in Congress among 
 the delegates from the Southern States. He admits 
 in his Autobiography that he was regarded with 
 suspicion by the wealthy and conservative classes, 
 both in and out of Congress though he had not suf- 
 ficient self-knowledge to be aware, or sufficient can- 
 dour to admit, that his self-assertion was too aggres- 
 sive, and his propensity to quarrel about trifles too 
 strong, to render him a beloved friend, a comfort- 
 able colleague, or even an agreeable companion. 
 But he was a born orator, and spoke the sentiments 
 of the great bulk of his countrymen ; and as such, 
 he naturally became a power in the new State, and 
 acquired the respect, if not the admiration, of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 Within three months after the Declaration of 
 Independence, Congress appointed foreign commis-
 
 JOHX ADAMS. 157 
 
 sioners to several of the European States. Benja- 
 min Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Giles Deane 
 were nominated as commissioners to France, to 
 negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce. Jef- 
 ferson declined the mission. 
 
 The practice of Adams at the Boston Bar had 
 somewhat diminished in consequence of the great 
 amount of time which he had devoted to public busi- 
 ness ; and when, in 1777, he was offered the post of 
 commissioner to Paris which Jefferson had refused, 
 he willingly accepted the offer and its emoluments. 
 He had been married for about twelve years to a 
 lady of the Scriptural name of Abigail a strong- 
 minded person of puritanical stock, and of consider- 
 able literary ability. His eldest son, John Quincy, 
 who lived to be President of the United States, and 
 who was at this time in his eleventh year, accom- 
 panied him to Paris. They remained until June 
 1779, when they returned to America. Mr 
 Adams was shortly afterwards appointed Min- 
 ister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain though it 
 was very doubtful if the British Government would 
 consent to receive him to negotiate, if possible, 
 a treaty of peace and commerce. He once more 
 set out for Paris in a French frigate, accompanied 
 by his wife and young John Quincy. No satis-
 
 158 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 factory progress having been made on the long 
 and weary road which was to lead at last to the 
 recognition of American independence by Great 
 Britain, and finding in consequence nothing to do 
 in France, and no probability of being listened to 
 by, or even tolerated in, England, Adams applied 
 for another mission, and was accordingly accredited 
 to the Hague, where he arrived in July 1780. 
 
 Here he remained for upwards of two years, acting 
 as financial agent of the United States for the whole 
 of Europe, having a general authority from Con- 
 gress to borrow on American credit whatever sums 
 might be requisite for the support of his own and 
 other missions, and for all ordinary and necessary 
 expenses, as well as for the payment of interest due 
 in Europe on the public debt. Towards the end of 
 1782 he was ordered to proceed to Paris, to co- 
 operate with Dr Franklin and the other commis- 
 sioners in the negotiations for peace with the 
 mother - country. The weariness of the British 
 people with the war, the growing strength of the 
 Opposition in Parliament, and finally, the surrender 
 of Cornwallis at Yorktown, all betokened that the 
 end so long pursued in America was close at hand. 
 A treaty of peace between France and Great Britain 
 was signed at Paris, and the independence of the
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 159 
 
 United States was formally acknowledged in 1783. 
 John Adams, glad of the opportunity to visit the 
 home of his ancestors, passed over into England, 
 where he remained for several months, a careful 
 student of the public and private life of the people. 
 He held at this time no official appointment in 
 England, for he was still nominally Minister to the 
 Netherlands. 
 
 On the 7th of May Congress resolved that a 
 Minister Plenipotentiary should be appointed to 
 act in conjunction with Mr Adams at the Hague, 
 and Dr Franklin in Paris, in negotiating treaties of 
 commerce with foreign nations. The appointment 
 was offered to Mr Jefferson, and accepted ; and the 
 two friends for such they had remained, lukewarm- 
 ly perhaps on the side of Adams, as befitted his 
 temperament and training ; cordially on that of 
 Jefferson, as befitted his more genial nature were 
 destined to meet after a long separation, and to 
 renew their early intimacy. Immediately on arrival 
 at Paris, the new Minister called upon Dr Franklin ; 
 and the colleagues despatched a joint note to Mr 
 Adams, to summon him to their deliberations. 
 Their stay in the French capital was more agreeable 
 to Jefferson than to Adams : the former was French 
 in his ideas and sympathies ; while Adams, with his
 
 160 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 puritanic notions, and with the general bent of his 
 mind, felt himself more at home among the English. 
 The progress of the negotiations was slow. The 
 Count de Vergennes, on the part of France, thought 
 it advisable to leave the matter to the course of 
 legislative action in both countries. The King of 
 Prussia was more willing, and agreed to the basis 
 of a treaty, which was in due time concluded ; 
 while Denmark and the Netherlands listened fa- 
 vourably to the proposals. In the meanwhile Dr 
 Franklin, who had grown old and infirm, obtained 
 the long-sought permission to return home, and Mr 
 Jefferson was appointed sole Minister in his place. 
 In February 1785, Mr Adams received a similar 
 commission to the Court of St James's, and left 
 .France in May to enter upon the fulfilment of new 
 and more congenial duties. On the 2d of June 
 he was presented to King George III. He appears 
 to have been well satisfied with his reception, for 
 he wrote home to Mr Jay, the Secretary of State, 
 that " the King, in his opinion, was the most 
 accomplished courtier in his dominions, and pos- 
 sessed all the affability of Charles II., with all the 
 domestic virtues of Charles I." But this was when 
 the novelty was most novel, and before its first fresh 
 gloss had been worn off by usage and familiarity ;
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 161 
 
 for at a later period of the same year, and after he 
 had been six months in London, he again wrote to 
 Mr Jay : " So much of the King's time is consumed 
 in small-talk, that he is in all the affairs of society 
 and government as weak, as far as I can judge, as 
 we always understood him to be in America. He 
 is also as obstinate as [the devil]. He has a pleasure 
 in his own will and way, without which he would 
 be miserable. He has an habitual contempt of 
 patriots and patriotism, and takes a delight in 
 mortifying all who have any reputation for such 
 qualities." Perhaps the King agreed with the 
 great lexicographer Dr Johnson, that "patriotism 
 was the last resource of a scoundrel." 
 
 Jefferson was not so favourably impressed by the 
 King as Adams had been on his first visit. Having 
 settled with his colleague on a summary form of a 
 commercial treaty to be offered to Great Britain, 
 he came over from Paris to London for the purpose 
 of presenting it to the Marquis of Carmarthen, the 
 then Foreign Secretary. Both Ministers attended 
 the royal levee, and were presented to the King 
 and Queen. Jefferson has left upon record that 
 nothing could be more ungracious than their notice 
 of Mr Adams and himself, and that the King 
 turned his back upon both of them. The Marquis 
 
 L
 
 162 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN EEPUBLIC. 
 
 of Carmarthen was equally cold and distant, and 
 confirmed Jefferson in the belief that the King and 
 the Government looked upon them and their mission 
 with equal aversion. Adams, whose vanity was at 
 times wholly irrepressible, went still further, and 
 entered in his diary, apropos of a great ball at the 
 French ambassador's, at which he met many political 
 and fashionable celebrities, his conviction that he 
 was wholly out of place among them. The Marquis 
 of Lansdowne and the Earl of Harcourt entered into 
 affable conversation with him ; but as regards the 
 rest, there was an awkward timidity, which he 
 accounted for in a manner very gratifying to his 
 sense of his own importance. "These people" he 
 wrote, " cannot look me in the face. There is con- 
 $cious guilt and shame in their countenances when they 
 look at me. They feel that they have behaved ill, and 
 that I am sensible of it." Mr Adams is represented 
 at this time as a fat, podgy man, about the medium 
 height, with a bald head, and a fussy, consequential 
 manner ; and it is just possible that the expression 
 on the faces of the English lords and ladies, which 
 he interpreted into a sense of sharne, was nothing 
 but a sense of the ludicrous, or a painful struggle to 
 avoid laughing. 
 
 While Mr Jefferson was in England, he and Mr
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 163 
 
 Adams visited Stratford-upon-Avon and other places 
 of note. At Stratford-upon-Avon, each of the two 
 Ministers " cut a chip, according to custom, from 
 Shakespeare's chair"; and Adams entered in his 
 diary the not very brilliant idea that " Painting and 
 Sculpture would be thrown away upon Shakespeare's 
 fame." At Worcester he turned aside to visit the 
 famous battle-field, and became unusually excited 
 by standing on such "holy ground." The people 
 in the neighbourhood appeared so "ignorant and 
 careless," that he was provoked to make a set 
 speech to them of the purest " buncombe." " Do 
 Englishmen," he asked, indignantly, " so soon forget 
 the ground where liberty was fought for ? Tell 
 your neighbours and your children that this is holy 
 ground, much holier than that on which your 
 churches stand. All England should come on a 
 pilgrimage to this hill once a -year." Adams 
 thought his speech a very appropriate one, and 
 records that " the rustics " were much pleased with 
 it. Possibly they were much amused as Jefferson, 
 who was present, cannot but have been, though, like 
 a wise man, he said nothing. 
 
 The diplomatic duties of his various foreign 
 missions were not very onerous, and made no large 
 demands upon the time and attention of the
 
 164 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Minister. To occupy a leisure that to a man of 
 his literary tastes would have been intolerable, he 
 wrote an elaborate ' Defence of the "Constitution and 
 Government of the United States,' which was pub- 
 lished in three volumes in 1787. During his 
 residence in England he remodelled this work, 
 which, with many additions, omissions, and emenda- 
 tions, was republished in 1794, under the title of 
 'A History of the Principal Eepublics of the World.' 
 This work was designed to prove, by ample induc- 
 tion from ancient and modern history, that the 
 great safety of the American Eepublic lay in strict 
 adherence to Federalism and centralisation of power, 
 as opposed to the decentralising action of State 
 rights. In these opinions he was diametrically 
 opposed to Jefferson, and laid himself open to, and 
 speedily incurred, the charge of monarchism. 
 
 When it was known in America that General 
 Washington was willing to serve his country in 
 peace as well as in war, and that he would not only 
 accept the office of President if elected, but that his 
 election would in all probability be unanimous, 
 there was, though so early in the history of the 
 United States, so much jealousy between North and 
 South, that it was thought advisable to associate a 
 Northern Vice-President with a Southern President.
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 165 
 
 The idea recommended itself to all moderate men ; 
 and although the South chafed somewhat at the 
 compulsion of conferring office upon a "Yankee," 
 the name of Mr Adams grew into favour, and he 
 was ultimately adopted as the national candidate. 
 Thirteen years earlier, when the revolt of the 
 Colonies was at fever-heat, this sectional antagonism 
 had not betrayed itself; and the fervent orator, 
 Patrick Henry of Virginia, declared that all America 
 was thrown into one mass, and that the distinction 
 between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, 
 and New Englanders had ceased to exist. " I," he 
 exclaimed, "am not a Virginian, but an American !" 
 But this feeling was not permanent, and in the 
 year of the Declaration of Independence, in view 
 of the violent passions excited by the discordant 
 interests, real or supposed, of the two great divisions 
 of the Confederacy, Mr Adams declared that "it 
 required more serenity of temper, a deeper under- 
 standing, and more courage than fell to the lot of 
 Marlborough, to ride on the whirlwind." 
 
 In 1787, when the Constitutional Convention 
 assembled, the growing spirit of sectionalism had 
 been largely developed, and the Southern jealousy 
 of New England found frequent, and often violent, 
 expression. " If the government is to be lasting,"
 
 166 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 said Colonel Main of Virginia, " it must be founded 
 in the confidence and affection of the people, and 
 must be so constructed as to obtain these. The 
 majority will be governed by their interests. The 
 Southern States are in the minority in both Houses. 
 Is it to be expected that they will deliver them- 
 selves bound hand and foot to the Eastern [New 
 England] States, and enable them to exclaim, in the 
 words of Cromwell on a certain occasion, ' The Lord 
 hath delivered them into our hands ' ? " 
 
 Whatever jealousy of a similar kind might have 
 existed in the North and East, was suppressed out 
 of deference to General Washington, and the South 
 accepted the nomination of Mr Adams almost as 
 cordially as the North accepted that of Washington. 
 Adams was at his post in London when first informed 
 of the honour intended for him an honour which 
 neither at that time, nor during the eight years that 
 he enjoyed it, he very highly appreciated. He con- 
 sidered the position alike beneath his talents and 
 his services. " My country," he wrote, " has in its 
 wisdom conferred upon me the most insignificant 
 office that ever the invention of man contrived or 
 his imagination conceived." It had, however, one 
 chance of promotion and power the succession 
 to the Presidency, should the President die during
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 167 
 
 his incumbency. This chance occurred thrice in 
 American history, but never offered itself to John 
 Adams. 
 
 But if he thought little of the Vice-Presidency, 
 he thought much of the dignity of the Presidency, 
 and would, if he could have had his own way, have 
 surrounded it with much of the regal splendour to 
 which he had been accustomed in England and 
 France. In this respect the sympathies and pre- 
 judices of his countrymen did not go along with 
 him, as was abundantly proved during the eight 
 years' administration of Washington, when the 
 comparatively modest state which he assumed drew 
 down upon him the imputation of aristocratic, if 
 not monarchical, display. 
 
 Mr Adams never reconciled his mind to the 
 station that he consented to occupy though he 
 tolerated it in the anticipation, fully realised in 
 due time, that it would serve as a stepping- 
 stone to the higher office to which his ambition 
 had always pointed. To occupy a mind natur- 
 ally active, and to while away the tedium of a 
 position in which, as he complained, he could 
 neither do good nor evil, he commenced a second 
 literary work, and wrote a series of " Discourses on 
 Davila," which he published in Fenno's ' Gazette
 
 168 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 of the United States.' The work was an analysis 
 of Davila's History of the Civil Wars of Prance in 
 the sixteenth century, and its object was to warn 
 his countrymen by French example of the dangers 
 to be apprehended from powerful factions contend- 
 ing against each other in an ill-balanced form of 
 government. The work was not a success. Its 
 object was wholly mistaken ; and he was a second 
 time charged, principally in the South, with advo- 
 cating monarchy, or labouring to prepare the way 
 for the establishment of an hereditary Presidency. 
 To counteract the anticipated evil effect of this 
 publication, Mr Jefferson and his friends, strong 
 for State rights as opposed to Federalism, repub- 
 lished Paine's ' Rights of Man,' and disseminated 
 it broadcast over the country. 
 
 The French Eevolution of 1789 filled Jefferson 
 with delight, and Adams with dismay. And when 
 events culminated in the execution of Louis XVI. 
 and Marie Antoinette, Adams wrote from Phila- 
 delphia to his wife Abigail at Braintree : " The 
 Queen of France is no more ! When will these 
 savages be satisfied with blood ? No prospect of 
 peace in Europe ; therefore, none of internal har- 
 mony in America." In the same letter he wrote 
 of Washington. " His position," he said, " is highly
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 169 
 
 responsible and very distressing. The anti-Feder- 
 alists and the Frenchified zealots have nothing now 
 to do, that I can conceive of, but to ruin his char- 
 acter, destroy his peace, and injure his health. He 
 supports all their attacks with firmness, and his 
 health appears to be very good." It is evident, 
 however, notwithstanding all the drawbacks to the 
 comforts of, and all the annoyances which Wash- 
 ington experienced in, the Presidential chair, that 
 Mr Adams would have been very well pleased to 
 sit in it. 
 
 Though Washington, as President, took little 
 interest in the two related questions of the slave- 
 trade and of domestic slavery ; and though Mr 
 Adams, as Vice-President, could have had but little 
 influence on either subject, even if disposed to exer- 
 cise it, these great matters, partially obscured by 
 the superior importance of foreign politics, and the 
 fiscal hardships resulting from the pressure of the 
 public debts, were by no means left in abeyance. 
 The Northern and Eastern States had the greatest 
 objection and aversion to the African slave-trade, 
 and a weaker objection to the existence of negro 
 slavery in the South, but had a political far more 
 than a philanthropic or Christian repugnance to 
 either. The two questions were fully debated
 
 170 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMEEICAN KEPUBLIC. 
 
 in the Convention of 1787, and foreshadowed 
 though none foresaw or could have imagined it 
 at the time the disruption of seventy-four years 
 later. From the period of the adoption of the 
 amended Constitution until the outbreak of the 
 great Civil War, there was continual antagonism, 
 more or less violent, between the South and the 
 North, not upon the slave-trade, for that was 
 abolished after a certain time by mutual and almost 
 unanimous consent, but upon the question of State 
 rights as opposed to Federalism or centralisation, 
 and upon that of negro slavery as opposed to the 
 rights of man. In these disputes the New England 
 States were for the most part the aggressors ; and 
 both sections, whenever either felt itself damaged 
 or aggrieved by the pretensions of the other, raised 
 the cry of secession and disruption of the Union. 
 
 It became generally known in the autumn of 
 1796 that General Washington imperatively refused 
 to be put a third time in nomination. Mr Adams, 
 who had long made his calculations and perfected 
 his preparations for bringing his own claims before 
 his countrymen, began to work with all the vigour 
 demanded by the circumstances. The South was 
 in favour of Jefferson, New England was in favour 
 of Adams, and a large party in New York and the
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 171 
 
 Middle States inclined in the same direction, less 
 from love of Adams than from a feeling, to use a 
 common colloquialism, that " turn and turn about 
 was fair-play," and that a Southern President hav- 
 ing been in office for eight years, it was just as 
 well and expedient that a Northern man should 
 supply his place. The question at issue was not 
 only between South and North, but between State 
 rights and Federalism. Parties were too evenly 
 balanced to give either of them a strong assurance 
 of victory ; but as there were many candidates in 
 the field, there was the possibility of a party pre- 
 ponderating at the last moment, by the wasting or 
 " scattering " of votes upon those who had no chances. 
 The Federalists or Northern party nominated John 
 Adams for President, and Thomas Pinckney for Vice- 
 President. The Eepublicans, as they were then 
 called or Democrats, as they are called now 
 nominated Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The 
 other candidates were Samuel Adams, Oliver Ells- 
 worth, John Jay, and George Clinton, and five 
 others of less note. On the final declaration, the 
 votes in the Electoral College stood, for Mr Adams, 
 71 ; for Mr Jefferson, 60 ; for Mr Pinckney, 59 ; for 
 Mr Burr, 30. Mr Adams received the entire vote 
 of New England, as well as of New York, New
 
 172 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Jersey, and Delaware ; one from Pennsylvania, seven 
 from Maryland, and one each from Virginia and 
 North Carolina. Mr Jefferson received the entire 
 votes of South Carolina and Georgia, and of the two 
 new States of Kentucky and Tennessee, that since 
 the conclusion of the war had been admitted into 
 the Union ; fourteen from Pennsylvania, twenty 
 from Virginia, four from Maryland, and eleven from 
 South Carolina. 
 
 In consequence of these numbers, which no 
 one had anticipated to fall as they had fallen, the 
 two highest on the list were severally declared 
 President and Vice-President. The demarcation 
 between Northern and Southern politics was clearly 
 defined. Though both were represented in the new 
 Government, Federalism and the North were 
 triumphant in the person of the President, and 
 Republicanism and the South virtually defeated in 
 the person of the Vice-President, who, though 
 nominally the second person in the State, had no 
 more power or influence over the policy of his 
 superior than he could have exercised in his private 
 capacity and in all probability, not half as much. 
 
 Adams was exultant, Jefferson resigned. "As 
 regards this office " (the Vice-Presidency), Jefferson 
 wrote to his friend Madison, " it is the only one in
 
 JOHX ADAMS. 173 
 
 the world about which I am unable to decide whether 
 I would rather have it or not have it. ... I can 
 have no feelings which would revolt at a secondary 
 position to Mr Adams. I am his junior in life, I was 
 his junior in Congress, his junior in the diplomatic 
 line, his junior lately in our civil government. . . . 
 I agree with the Eomans, that the general of to-day 
 should be the soldier of to-morrow if necessary." 
 Jefferson knew his own strength, made no com- 
 plaints, and on this, as on every other occasion, 
 resolved to bide his time. 
 
 On the 8th February 1797, the votes for 
 President and Vice-President having been officially 
 opened and declared in the presence of both Houses 
 of Congress, it became the duty of the Vice-President, 
 who ex officio acts as president or chairman of the 
 Senate, to proclaim that John Adams (himself) and 
 Thomas Jefferson had been duly elected President 
 and Vice-President. The joy of Adams broke out 
 irregularly in the form of a prayer that formed no 
 portion of the official programme : " And may the 
 Sovereign of the universe, the Ordainer of civil 
 government on earth for the preservation of liberty, 
 peace, and justice among men, enable them both to 
 discharge the duties of those offices with conscien- 
 tious diligence, punctuality, and perseverance."
 
 174 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 On the 4th of March the new President and Vice- 
 President took the oaths of office, in presence of the 
 Senate and of the retiring President, who was under 
 no obligation to attend the ceremony. In his 
 inaugural address he eulogised the Constitution, and 
 declared that when he first saw it in a foreign land, 
 he approved of it as " better adapted to the genius, 
 character, situation, and relations of this nation and 
 country than any which had ever been proposed or 
 suggested ; that it was not then, nor had been 
 since, any objection to it in his mind, that the 
 Executive and Senate were not more permanent ; " 
 that he never had a thought of " promoting any 
 alteration in it but such as the people themselves, 
 in the course of their experience, should see and 
 feel to be necessary or expedient." He asked, 
 " What other form of government could so well 
 deserve the esteem and love of the people ? " What 
 that was " essential, any more than mere ornament 
 and decoration, could be added to this by robes and 
 diamonds ? " or whether " authority could be more 
 amiable and respectable when it descended from 
 accidents, or institutions established in remote 
 antiquity, than when it sprang fresh from the hearts 
 and judgments of an honest and enlightened 
 people ? "
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 175 
 
 He paid a warm tribute to the public services 
 of his illustrious predecessor. He declared himself 
 in favour of peace and a rigid neutrality between 
 the belligerent powers of Europe, and expressed 
 his " personal esteem for the French nation, 
 formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among 
 them, and a sincere desire to preserve the friend- 
 ship which had been so much for the honour and 
 interest of both nations." 
 
 This inaugural did not give unqualified satisfac- 
 tion to the Federalists, by whom it was stigmatised 
 as temporising, as a playing of fast and loose, and 
 as a lure to catch the favour of his opponents. 
 But Adams himself, on the day of its delivery, 
 whatever might have been his feelings in an after- 
 time, was delighted with it, and at the effect it 
 produced, or seemed to have produced, on the 
 assemblage. His mind was radiant with satisfac- 
 tion, and with the sweet fulfilment of hopes that 
 had been long deferred. " The leave-taking of 
 Washington on this memorable occasion was affect- 
 ing. There was," he wrote to his wife, " scarcely 
 a dry eye but Washington's ; and all agreed that, 
 taken all together, it was the sublimest thing ever 
 seen in America." 
 
 The popularity of Jefferson, so superior to his
 
 176 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 own, was displeasing to Adams. Like a king, he 
 desired to have no rival near his throne, and his 
 first thought seems to have been how best to re- 
 move Jefferson from a too close intimacy with his 
 councils. The relations between the United States 
 and the French Eepublic were, and had for some time 
 previously been, so unsatisfactory as to justify the 
 prominent mention which had been made of them 
 in the new President's inaugural address. Adams 
 disliked the French, and hated their Eevolution ; 
 Jefferson admired the people, and entirely approved 
 the great events of 1789, and all which had sprung 
 from them. Would it not be well that Mr Jefferson 
 should accept a mission to Paris, in order, if pos- 
 sible, to bring about a better understanding between 
 the two Eepublics ? Mr Adams has left on record 
 his own account of the transaction : 
 
 " I sought and obtained an interview with Mr 
 Jefferson. With this gentleman I had lived on 
 terms of intimate friendship for five-and-twenty 
 years, had acted with him in dangerous times and 
 arduous conflicts, and always found him assiduous, 
 laborious, and, as far as I could judge, upright and 
 faithful. Though by this time I differed with him 
 in opinion concerning the practicability and success 
 of the French Eevolution and some other points,
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 177 
 
 I had no reason to think that he differed materially 
 from me with regard to our national Constitution. 
 I did not think that the rumbling noise of party 
 calumny ought to discourage me from consulting 
 men whom I knew to be attached to the interest of 
 the nation, and whose experience, genius, learning, 
 and travels had eminently qualified them to give 
 advice. I asked Mr Jefferson what he thought of 
 another trip to Paris, and whether he thought the 
 Constitution and the people would be willing to 
 spare him for a short time. 
 
 " ' Are you determined to send to- France ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes.' 
 
 " ' That is right,' said Mr Jefferson ; ' but without 
 considering whether the Constitution will allow it 
 or not, I am so sick of residing in Europe that I 
 believe I shall never go there again ! ' 
 
 " I replied, ' I own I have strong doubts whether 
 it would be legal to appoint you ; but I believe no 
 man could do the business so well.' " 
 
 Jefferson has also left a record of this remarkable 
 proposal : 
 
 " The President found me alone in my room, and 
 shutting the door himself, he said he was glad to 
 find me alone, for that he wished a free conver- 
 sation with me. He entered immediately on an 
 
 M
 
 178 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 explanation of the situation of our affairs with 
 France, and the danger of rupture with that nation 
 a rupture which would convulse the attachments 
 of this country ; that he was impressed with the 
 necessity of an immediate mission to the Directory ; 
 that it would have been the first wish of his heart 
 to have got me to go there, but that he supposed 
 it was out of the question, as it did not seem justi- 
 fiable for him to send away the person destined to 
 take his place in case of accident to himself, nor 
 decent to remove from competition one who was a 
 rival in the public favour." 
 
 Mr Adams had evidently his doubts, and would 
 as evidently have been highly gratified if it had 
 been in Mr Jefferson's power to remove them. But 
 Mr Jefferson was too strict in his adherence, both 
 to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, even 
 had his personal feelings inclined him to the accept- 
 ance of the mission, to be lured from the line of 
 duty by the tempting offer. Mr Adams no sooner 
 saw that his " friend " was inflexible, and that he 
 was right, than he, too, came round to Mr Jeffer- 
 son's opinion, and found abundant reasons against 
 the appointment, which had so lately seemed good 
 in his eyes. He had grand ideas of his own power 
 and dignity ideas which he was very slow to
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 179 
 
 abandon. In his own mind he was a king de facto, 
 though temporarily, and thought that the nomina- 
 tion of the second person in his realm as ambassador 
 to a foreign nation would be much too great a com- 
 pliment to bestow. He was the sun ; and the moon 
 (Jefferson) shone with a light which, though but the 
 reflection of his own, was a light superior to any 
 other in the Presidential heavens. 
 
 " If we wish not to be degraded in the eyes of 
 foreign nations," he wrote to General Knox, "we 
 must not degrade ourselves. What would have 
 been thought in France if the King had sent Mon- 
 sieur his eldest brother as an envoy ? What of 
 the King of England, if he had sent the Prince of 
 Wales ? Mr Jefferson is in essence in the same 
 condition. He is the first prince in the country, 
 and the heir-apparent to the sovereign authority 
 quoad hoc." 
 
 In a subsequent letter to Mr Gerry, he continued 
 to harp upon the same magnificent string, glorifying 
 the Vice-President through his superior luminary, 
 the President. " I expected," he wrote, " that Mr 
 Jefferson would refuse the mission. Indeed I made 
 a great stretch, in proposing it, to accommodate the 
 feelings, views, and prejudices of a party. I would 
 not do it again, because, upon more mature reflection,
 
 180 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 I am decidedly convinced of the impropriety of it. 
 . . . "We cannot make foreign nations respect our 
 nation or its government if we place before their 
 eyes the persons, answering to the first princes of 
 the Government, in the low and subordinate char- 
 acter of a Foreign Minister. It must be a piti- 
 ful country, indeed, in which the second man of the 
 nation will accept of a place upon the footing with 
 the corps diplomatique, especially Envoy ' Such a one,' 
 Ambassador ' Such a one,' and Plenipotentiary ' Such 
 a one.' The nation must hold itself very cheap 
 that can choose a man one day to hold its second 
 office, and the next send him to Europe to dance 
 attendance at levees and drawing-rooms, among the 
 common major-generals, simple bishops, earls, and 
 barons, but especially among the common trash of 
 envoys, ambassadors, and ministers plenipotentiary!" 
 The vain man's head was turned by the fulness 
 of his new-blown majesty. When he was playing 
 second to the great Washington, he was a discon- 
 tented nobody not a prince at all, but the humble 
 occupant of the most insignificant office that the 
 wit of man ever devised. Circumstances were 
 altered. He who had been elected as second to the 
 great John Adams was like the heir-apparent of a 
 throne, and not to be confounded with such common
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 181 
 
 people as the aristocracy of Europe or the trash of 
 the diplomatic service. 
 
 With these quasi regal notions influencing his 
 conduct, it was not surprising that Mr Adams 
 should endeavour to act a kingly part between con- 
 tending parties in his realm. Forgetting that he 
 was the elected President of a party, and that the 
 party expected his allegiance, and the bestowal of 
 office on his political friends, he attempted to be 
 impartial, as a king should be, and to bestow his 
 favours equally upon his friends and his opponents. 
 The experiment was unsafe, and proved fatal to his 
 reputation and his usefulness. Washington, like 
 himself, was a Federalist ; and though Washington's 
 Cabinet was composed of somewhat incongruous 
 materials, only kept in working harmony by their 
 respect for Washington himself, Adams retained 
 that Cabinet without possessing any portion of the 
 power over the members which Washington had 
 wielded. The result was foreseen, and the elements 
 of disintegration in his councils soon manifested 
 themselves. But foreign rather than domestic 
 affairs were for the first few months of his Presi- 
 dency sufficient to tax the utmost powers of his 
 statesmanship. The war between Great Britain and 
 France at least that portion of it which was waged
 
 182 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 upon the ocean was highly injurious to American 
 commerce ; and the United States, in endeavouring 
 to carry out a policy of strict neutrality between 
 the combatants, suffered the usual fate of neutrals 
 in great wars, and displeased both parties. John 
 Adams knew the power of Great Britain too well, 
 and was at heart too sincere an admirer of the 
 people and of their institutions, not to look upon 
 another war with that country as the greatest of 
 calamities, and not to desire its avoidance by every 
 means consistent with honour. At the same time, 
 he knew equally well that it would be a sore blow 
 to the prestige of Kepublicanism if the two 
 Eepublics, so recently established in the Old World 
 and the New, were to be entangled in a war which 
 a -little patience and good feeling on both sides 
 might prevent. 
 
 The difficulties with France had first arisen 
 under Washington's administration. In November 
 1796, M. Adet, the French Minister, had addressed 
 a letter to the American Secretary of State recapit- 
 ulating various complaints against the Government 
 of the United States, denouncing the insidious pro- 
 clamation of neutrality and the wrongs growing out 
 of it. He had, moreover, sent this letter to the 
 newspapers, with the object, as Washington sup-
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 183 
 
 posed, of producing an effect on the approaching 
 Presidential election, and of favouring the candida- 
 ture of Mr Jefferson. Washington was never 
 ungrateful to the French Monarchy for the aid it 
 had given to American independence, but he owed 
 no gratitude to the French Republic, and was not 
 the man to yield to any insolent or unjust demands 
 which France or any other country might put for- 
 ward. " I have always," he said, " given it as my 
 decided opinion, that no nation had a right to inter- 
 meddle in the internal concerns of any other ; and 
 that if this country could, consistently with its 
 engagements, maintain a strict neutrality, and 
 thereby preserve peace, it was bound to do so, by 
 motives of policy, interest, and every other con- 
 sideration that ought to actuate a people situated as 
 we are, already deeply in debt, and in a convales- 
 
 in ourselves." 
 
 As Mr Munroe, the United States Minister, was 
 supposed to have misunderstood or failed to act 
 up to his instructions, he was recalled, and Mr 
 Pinckney appointed as his successor. "Washington, 
 by this time, was out of office, and Mr Adams, 
 who inherited and approved his foreign policy, 
 learned that the French Directory had refused
 
 184 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 to receive the new Minister, and ordered him to 
 leave the country. The excitement in America was 
 great, and rendered much more violent than it might 
 have been by the systematic efforts of an anti- 
 British and pro-Gallican party to provoke a war 
 between what they called their " natural enemy " 
 and the United States. 
 
 Under the circumstances, Mr Adams convened 
 a special session of Congress. He addressed to the 
 Senate on its assembling a very spirited speech, in 
 which he designated the address of M. Barras, the 
 President of the French Directory, as more offensive 
 than the refusal to receive the American Minister, 
 and studiously marked with indignities towards the 
 Government of the United States. He complained 
 of the French Directory for evincing an evident 
 desire to separate the American people from their 
 Government, to persuade them that they had 
 different interests and affections. Such attempts, 
 he said, ought to be repelled with a decision suffi- 
 cient to convince France and the world that the 
 Americans were not a degraded people, humiliated 
 under " a colonial spirit of fear and sense of 
 inferiority, and regardless of national honour and 
 character." Though France was thus aggressive, he 
 relied upon negotiations to prevent further evil ; and
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 185 
 
 in the meanwhile, in case of accident, he strongly 
 recommended Congress to provide effectual means of 
 defence, and for the vindication of the national 
 honour. Washington, in his retirement at Mount 
 Vernon, fully approved of the President's policy, and 
 consented at a somewhat later time, as already 
 recorded in our sketch of his life and career, to 
 reassume, in view of the possible danger, the post 
 of Commander-in-Chief an acceptance which in 
 itself, as Adams took pains to assure him, was worth 
 the services of an additional army. 
 
 The storm blew over, and the United States 
 avoided war both with France and Great Britain, 
 but not without leaving behind, in the excited 
 passions of the pro-Gallican and the pro- Anglican 
 parties, a feeling of bitterness against the well- 
 meaning President, who had disappointed them 
 both, and thought more of his country than of the 
 factions that might have ruined it. The necessity 
 of providing for a war that it might not have been 
 possible to avert with honour, increased the domestic 
 difficulties of the Administration. Fears of the crea- 
 tion of a standing army, and the powers that might 
 be exercised by the President as its Commander-in- 
 Chief, were everywhere excited ; while the passage 
 of Alien and Sedition Laws, and the prosecutions
 
 186 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 instituted under them, added fuel to the flame of 
 discontent which faction, as is its wont, took care 
 to fan. It was chiefly, however, in the South, 
 where Mr Adams had never been popular, and 
 where the opposition to centralism was keenest, 
 that these discontents were most general. Two 
 eminent men did their best to turn the agitation 
 to their own account, and had their reward on 
 a future day by election to the Presidency. 
 
 In the Legislature of Virginia a series of resolu- 
 tions were introduced declaratory of State rights, 
 and condemnatory of the alien and sedition laws, as 
 having the tendency and the intention of changing 
 the character of the Government from a confedera- 
 tion of Free States into a unity of States and 
 a national Government. These resolutions were 
 drawn up by Mr Madison. In Kentucky similar 
 resolutions were carried, and though not actually 
 drawn up, were sketched and inspired by Mr 
 Jefferson. These resolutions affirmed, far more 
 distinctly than those of the Virginian Legislature 
 had done, the separate rights of the States. They 
 declared, " that whensoever the general Government 
 assumes and delegates powers not expressly con- 
 ferred upon it by the terms of the Union, its acts 
 are unauthoritative, void, and of no force ; that each
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 187 
 
 State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, 
 its co-States forming as to itself the other party ; 
 that the Government created by this compact was 
 not made the exclusive and final judge of the extent 
 of the power delegated to it, since that would have 
 made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the 
 measure of its powers ; that, as in all other cases of 
 a compact among parties having no common judge, 
 each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as 
 well of the infractions as of the mode and measure 
 of redress." 
 
 In these pregnant sentences lay the whole doc- 
 trine that was, in after-years, brought forward to 
 vindicate the secession of the Southern States, and 
 to justify those States in resisting by force of 
 arms the attempt of the Northern and Western 
 States to compel their return to a Union that had 
 become repugnant, and which they judged to be 
 disadvantageous. 
 
 The doctrine was not novel. It was warmly 
 and pertinaciously asserted in all the debates on 
 the Federal Constitution so early as 1787, before 
 the first President had been elected, and was never 
 abandoned, either in the South or the North, though 
 suffered at times to rest unmentioned. Whenever 
 a dispute more than usually violent arose between
 
 188 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the sections, the weaker section threatened secession. 
 The threat was always the proof that the party 
 which had recourse to it was losing ground, and 
 was always held as a rod in terrorem over the head 
 of the dominant faction, to warn it not to push its 
 advantages too far. During seventy-five years it 
 was like the cry of " wolf " raised by the shepherd- 
 boy in the fable, a cry often reiterated, with 
 the result that quiet people refused to believe in 
 it. But the wolf came, nevertheless, and played 
 more havoc in the fold, from 1861 to 1865, than 
 the worst alarmists ever imagined to be pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Mr Ellsworth, in the debates on the Constitution, 
 expressed the whole Southern idea when he said : 
 " Under a national Government we should par- 
 ticipate in the national security, but that was all. 
 What he wanted was domestic happiness in his 
 own States. The national Government could not 
 descend to the local objects on which this depended. 
 It could only embrace objects of a general nature. 
 He turned his eyes, therefore, for the preservation 
 of his rights to the State Government." So anxious 
 was he that there should be no mistake on a subject 
 that appeared so vital, that he moved the omission 
 of the obnoxious word " national " from the Federal
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 189 
 
 Constitution ; and it was struck out accordingly by 
 unanimous consent. 
 
 It is in the nature of the puritanic mind to be 
 aggressive to be despotic to sink or to swim ! 
 The old formula that the earth belongs to the 
 saints ; that we are the saints, and that therefore 
 we must rule the earth, was no idle doctrine in the 
 hearts of the men who came over in the Mayflower 
 to colonise New England. Neither did its force 
 greatly diminish in the minds of their descendants, 
 as Washington often painfully discovered during 
 the long and weary years in which he fought the 
 all but hopeless fight of Independence. The ela- 
 tion of the Federalists in having elected Mr Adams 
 a President, if not of their own stamp entirely, 
 at least of their party and section often betrayed 
 itself in a manner that was highly disagreeable to 
 the South. 
 
 In 1798, in the second year of Mr Adams's 
 incumbency, Mr Jefferson complained, in a letter to 
 John Taylor of Virginia, that the South " was com- 
 pletely under the saddle of Massachusetts and Con- 
 necticut, who rode it very hard, cruelly insulting its 
 feelings, as well as exhausting its strength and 
 substance. Their natural friends, the three other 
 Eastern States, join them from a sort of family pride,
 
 190 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN EEPUBLIC. 
 
 and they have the art to divide certain other parts of 
 the Union, so as to make use of them to govern the 
 whole." Still the grievances were not so serious 
 as to drive Mr Jefferson to approve, although he 
 thought of secession as a remedy. His correspon- 
 dent had hinted that Virginia and North Carolina 
 might form a Confederacy of their own, and enjoy 
 a separate existence. " Seeing," wrote Jefferson, 
 " that we must have somebody to quarrel with, 
 I would rather keep our New England associates 
 for that purpose than see our bickerings transferred 
 to others. They are circumstanced within such 
 narrow limits, and their population is so full, that 
 they will soon be in the minority ; and they are 
 marked, like the Jews, with such perversity of 
 character, as to constitute, from this circumstance, 
 the natural division of our parties." 
 
 Mr Adams was quite aware of the ill feeling. 
 Speaking of the second Congress, he wrote : " I 
 have found this Congress like the last. There is 
 a strong jealousy of New England, and of Massa- 
 chusetts in particular ; " and in the life of Gouverneur 
 Morris it is stated, " that during the administration 
 of Mr Adams, Virginia was almost in open revolt 
 against the national authority, merely because a 
 Yankee, and not a Virginian, was President."
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 191 
 
 The objections of Jefferson and the great party 
 which had made him Vice-President, and which 
 hoped to make him President, were not wholly 
 confined to the consolidation of power in the hands 
 of the North, but to its consolidation in any hands 
 whatever. " Our country," he wrote, at a time when 
 the United States all lay on the Atlantic side of 
 the Ohio, and did not cover a tithe of their present 
 area, " is too large to have all its affairs directed by 
 a single Government ; and I verily believe that if 
 the principle were to prevail of a common law being 
 in force in the United States, it would become the 
 most corrupt Government on the face of the earth. 
 What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, 
 speculating, plundering, office-building, and office- 
 hunting would be produced by our assumption of 
 all the State powers into the hands of the General 
 Government ! " Jefferson as well as Adams could 
 look into the future. They were both political pro- 
 phets, and the prophecies of both were abundantly 
 fulfilled. 
 
 During the administration of Mr Adams, the seat 
 of Government was at Philadelphia ; but at a very 
 early period after the adoption of the Constitution, 
 it was resolved to transfer it to the new city, on the 
 banks of the Potomac, which was named in honour
 
 192 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN EEPUBLIC. 
 
 of Washington. This transfer was not effected with- 
 out some difficulty and many intrigues ; for New 
 York, Baltimore, Annapolis, Philadelphia, and other 
 cities, were candidates for the profitable honour of 
 lodging the Executive and the Legislature. There 
 was a strong party in favour of Germantown, in 
 Pennsylvania ; and a bill fixing the seat of Govern- 
 ment at that place was actually agreed upon by 
 both Houses, but afterwards failed on account of an 
 informal amendment, which proved fatal to it. In 
 June 1790, during the first Presidency of General 
 Washington, an Act was finally passed for establish- 
 ing the Federal capital on the river Potomac, at 
 some place between the mouths of the eastern 
 branch and the Connogocheaque. The uncouth 
 name of this little river excited much amusement, 
 and the press of all the great cities teemed with 
 jokes and squibs. In one of them, a Philadelphian 
 servant-girl represented her master's indignation at 
 the proposed removal, and hopes that the represen- 
 tatives of the people 
 
 " may die in a stall, 
 
 If they leave us in debt for our Federal Hall ; 
 In fact, he would rather saw timber or dig, 
 Than see them removing to Connogocheaque, 
 Where the houses and kitchens are yet to be framed, 
 The trees to be felled, and the streets to be named."
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 193 
 
 Though Mr Adams took up his official residence 
 in Washington, that city of the grandest promise 
 and, until lately, of the meanest performance, and 
 lived in it for a few months in woful discomfort, it 
 was not until the last week of his Presidential tenure 
 that Congress organised a Government, partly muni- 
 cipal, partly congressional, for the city and the neu- 
 tral district of Columbia, half of which was ceded by 
 the State of Maryland and half by that of Virginia, 
 for the purpose. In the Federal capital the Federal 
 law was supreme ; and in this small territory, great 
 in its pretensions and in its hopes of the future, 
 the first real victory of nationalism against the 
 co-operated Federalism of State Eights was first 
 secured. Mrs Adams, who was a smart letter- 
 writer, and fond of displaying her literary powers, 
 wrote an account to her daughter in November 
 1800, a few months before her husband was re- 
 luctantly compelled to retire into private life, of her 
 experiences in the embryo city, and the unfinished 
 palace of the Presidents : 
 
 " I arrived here on Sunday last, and without 
 meeting any accident worth noticing, except losing 
 ourselves when we left Baltimore, and going eight 
 or nine miles on the Frederic Eoad, by which means 
 we were obliged to go the other eight through the 
 
 N
 
 194 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 woods, where we wandered two hours without rind- 
 ing a guide or the path. Fortunately, a straggling 
 black came up with us, and we engaged him as a 
 guide to extricate us out of our difficulty; but woods 
 are all you see from Baltimore until you reach the 
 city, which is only so in name. Here and there is 
 a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed 
 among the forests, through which you travel miles 
 without seeing any human being." 
 
 Her account of the President's official residence 
 is equally entertaining : 
 
 " The house is upon a grand and superb scale, 
 requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep 
 the apartments in proper order, and perform the 
 ordinary business of the house and stables. The 
 lighting the apartments, from the kitchen to parlours 
 and chambers, is a tax ; and the fires we are obliged 
 to keep, to secure us from daily agues, is another 
 cheering comfort ! If they will put me up some 
 bells (there is not one hung through the whole 
 house, and promises are all you can obtain !), and let 
 me have wood enough to keep fires, I design to be 
 pleased. I could content myself almost anywhere 
 for three months ; but, surrounded with forests, can 
 you believe that wood is not to be had, because 
 people cannot be found to cut and cart it ? . .
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 195 
 
 We have not the least fence, yard, or other conve- 
 nience without ; and the great unfinished audience- 
 room I make a drying-room of, to hang up the 
 clothes in." 
 
 Mr Adams, as became his superior dignity as a 
 man and a philosopher, cared for none of these 
 things. Provided he could but continue to be 
 President, he would have been delighted with much 
 inferior accommodation, or no accommodation at all. 
 
 During the last year of his administration, 
 a young politician appeared in Kentucky, whose 
 opinions for many years gave a bias to public 
 affairs, and laid the basis of an agitation destined 
 to convulse and almost to destroy the Union. This 
 was Mr Henry Clay, who, in the Legislature of the 
 new State, whence he had immigrated from his 
 native Virginia, declared the deep hostility of a 
 respectable minority to the institution of slavery, 
 and his support of a proposition for its safe and 
 gradual abolition. He did not propose to emancipate 
 any living slaves, but to decree that all slaves born 
 after a certain date should be free on arriving at a 
 certain age, and that their masters in the interval 
 should cause such education to be given to them as 
 should fit them for the exercise of the duties of 
 citizenship. Neither North nor South was quite
 
 196 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 ripe for the proposal ; and the young statesman, 
 destined to be great hereafter, incurred nothing but 
 obloquy for his premature wisdom. 
 
 Mr Adams had always that high opinion of his 
 own merits which justified him in his own mind 
 for aspiring to re-election. But it was not to be. 
 He met the fate of the impartial politician of whom 
 the poet sang, who placed all his glory in modera- 
 tion, and was consequently distrusted by both parties 
 accused of Toryism by the Whigs, and of Whiggism 
 by the Tories. He was put in nomination at the 
 usual time ; and although the whole of the New 
 England States condoned his offences and gave 
 him their undivided vote, New York and nearly the 
 whole South went against him, and the Democratic, 
 anti-Federal, State Eight, and Southern nominee, 
 Mr Jefferson, was elected in his stead. Mr Adams 
 did not take his defeat in good part ; and his per- 
 sonal mortification was greatly increased by the 
 public rejoicings that everywhere, except in New 
 England, were the result of his opponent's triumph. 
 It was not merely his own defeat it was the 
 crushing discomfiture of his party, and led to their 
 exclusion from power, with but slight intervals, for 
 more than half a century. 
 
 It was the leaning of Mr Adams towards Great
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 197 
 
 Britain, his aristocratic notions, and liis supposed 
 respect for monarchy as an institution, that im- 
 paired during his Presidency the popularity that he 
 had won in his earlier years, when in the first Con- 
 gress he had thundered in favour of the Declaration 
 of Independence, and denounced the injustice of the 
 mother-country. An unfortunate sentence in one 
 of his public addresses, which stated that " he once 
 had the honour of standing in the presence of the 
 King of England," was made the most of by his 
 enemies ; and he never afterwards regained any 
 large share of public favour beyond the bounds of 
 his native State. Within those limits, however, 
 he always maintained a high place in public estima- 
 tion, and regained in retirement any portion of it 
 which he may have lost when he was in power. 
 
 A recent biographer of Jefferson (Dr Eandall) 
 speaks of him as " glorious, delightful, honest John 
 Adarns ! the American John Bull ! the comic uncle 
 of an exciting drama ! Every playgoer knows well 
 the fiery old gentleman who goes blustering about 
 the stage, grasping his stick till it quivers, throw- 
 ing the lovers into a terrible consternation, hurry- 
 ing on the catastrophe which he is most solicitous 
 to prevent, pluming himself most of all upon his 
 sagacity, while he alone is blind to what is passing
 
 198 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 under his nose ! Such is something like the impres- 
 sion left upon the minds of those familiar with the 
 characters of this period, respecting the man who, 
 as Franklin well said, was always honest, often great, 
 and sometimes mad. Mr Adams, however," the same 
 writer observes, " should not be wholly judged by 
 his administration. None of the men of the Revo- 
 lution came out of the storm and stress of that era 
 quite unscathed. In the revolutionary period, this 
 high-mettled game-cock appeared to glorious advan- 
 tage, made a splendid show of fight, animated the 
 patriotic heart, and gave irresistible impetus to the 
 cause. But he was ludicrously unfitted to preside 
 with dignity and success over a popular Govern- 
 ment, which must do everything with an eye to its 
 effect upon the people. His own Cabinet intrigued 
 against him. They regarded Hamilton as their real 
 chief ; and Hamilton, far more than Adams, was 
 the influencing mind of the Government. One 
 who would understand and like John Adams must 
 read his Diaries and Letters which, of all the 
 writings of that time, are the most human and 
 entertaining." 
 
 Washington, who was not only desirous, but over- 
 joyed, to retire from the fatigues and responsibilities 
 of office, did his successor the honour to attend at
 
 JOHX ADAMS. 199 
 
 his inauguration, and to be an actor in the pageant. 
 Mr Adams was not magnanimous enough to forgive 
 Mr Jefferson for his triumph. Still more, he was 
 so uncourteous as to exhibit his displeasure and 
 disappointment in the face of the world, by osten- 
 tatiously refusing to be present when his successor 
 was sworn into office. He and Mrs Adams took 
 leave of the White House and of the city in the 
 early morning of the day of inauguration. So far 
 from acting a part in the ceremony of his rival's 
 exaltation, he would not even permit his eyes to 
 behold it. 
 
 Mr Adams never returned to public life. He 
 was in his sixty-sixth year ; and if he could not be 
 continued in the highest office, he would not, at 
 that age, accept a lower position. He retired to 
 his birthplace in Massachusetts ; learned to forgive 
 Mr Jefferson, with whom he renewed epistolary 
 correspondence ; and devoted his abundant leisure 
 to the pursuits of literature, and mainly to th e 
 writing of his Autobiography a book in which he 
 did full justice to himself, and no injustice of any 
 sensible amount to his coadjutors or his enemies. 
 His life was prolonged far beyond the ~ ordinary 
 span ; and for more than a quarter of a century 
 after he had ceased to be President, he continued
 
 200 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 to be more or less of a power in the State, and one 
 whose opinion and advice were sought by younger 
 politicians. In the year 1813, when he was ap- 
 proaching his seventy-eighth year, Jefferson, who 
 had reached threescore and ten, and had ceased to 
 be President five years previously, wrote to his old 
 predecessor to remind him that they were fast be- 
 coming the only survivors of the 'signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence, and that " they, too, 
 must go ere long." The friends and to some 
 extent foes during a transitory period never again 
 met; but their correspondence was both frequent 
 and cordial on all the great political questions that 
 every now and then surged up to trouble the 
 thoughts of statesmen, and fill them with fears for 
 tKe stability of the Union, on which so many hopes 
 and such mighty interests were based. 
 
 The house of Mr Adams at Quincy was the 
 resort of all the political and literary celebrities 
 of New England, and sometimes of those of New 
 York and Pennsylvania ; but the Southern people 
 seldom ventured so far North, and when they did 
 venture, seldom found much congeniality of taste 
 or sentiment among people whom they disliked as 
 Puritans and " Yankees." 
 
 Mrs Adams took her full share, as became an
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 201 
 
 authoress of repute and a " strong-minded woman," 
 in all the political and literary questions that inter- 
 ested her husband and his friends. One who 
 visited the couple in 1816, when Mr Adams was 
 eighty-two, has left a description of them. " Mr 
 Adams," he says, " shook as if palsied, but the mind 
 and the heart were evidently sound. His spirits 
 seemed as elastic as a boy's. He joked, laughed 
 heartily, and talked about everybody and every- 
 thing with the most complete abandon. He seemed 
 to be a vast encyclopedia of written and unwritten 
 knowledge, which gushed out on every possible 
 topic, mingled with lively anecdotes and sallies of 
 wit." 
 
 The same visitor described Mrs Adams as " an 
 elderly and stately female. A cap of exquisite 
 lace surrounded features still exhibiting intellect 
 and energy, though they did not wear the appear- 
 ance of ever having been beautiful. Her dress was 
 snowy white, and there was that immaculate neat- 
 ness in her appearance which gives to age almost 
 the sweetness of youth. With less warmth of 
 manner and sociableness than Mr Adams, she was 
 sufficiently gracious, and her occasional remarks 
 betrayed intellectual vigour and strong sense." 
 
 Mr Adams was accused during his Presidency of
 
 202 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 wishing to render the office hereditary in his family. 
 The charge had no other foundation than his admira- 
 tion of constitutional liberty, with the power of 
 Parliament at a maximum, and that of the sovereign 
 at a minimum, as in Great Britain, which, more 
 than the liberty of French or American republican- 
 ism, was the liberty of which his judgment approved. 
 But though nothing which he did, or could have 
 done, brought about the result which his enemies 
 accused him of favouring, he lived to see his son 
 elected to the Presidency, after the office had been 
 filled with credit and efficiency by such great states- 
 men as Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. 
 
 Mrs Adams died in 1818, and it was not until 
 
 1825 that this great honour devolved upon the 
 family. Mr Adams was by this time close upon 
 ninety, and no longer in the full possession of his 
 bodily or mental faculties, so that the satisfaction 
 wholly denied to the mother was partially denied 
 to the father. He knew that his son had been 
 elected to the Presidency ; but his mind, as far as 
 the world could discover, was not sufficiently clear 
 to derive enjoyment from the new lustre thus shed 
 upon the name. 
 
 The end was fast approaching. The 4th of July 
 
 1826 was the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 203 
 
 of Independence. Adams and Jefferson were still 
 alive venerable but decrepit old men the one in 
 his ninety-first, the other in his eighty-third year. 
 It had been resolved, some months previously, 
 that the day should be celebrated all over the 
 United States with more than ordinary rejoicings, 
 and to this end it was determined that Mr 
 Adams, Mr Jefferson, and all the other patriots 
 then living who had signed the memorable docu- 
 ment, should be invited by the Mayor of Washing- 
 ton to attend the celebration in the Federal city. 
 Mr Jefferson was able, ten days before the great 
 anniversary, to write a long and eloquent letter, ex- 
 pressive of his regret that the state of his health 
 compelled him to decline the invitation. Mr 
 Adams was all but unconscious less from positive 
 disease than from gradual decay when the letter 
 reached him. 
 
 The day was celebrated with all the noisy de- 
 monstrations of artillery and fireworks, all the 
 shouts of the multitude, all the ringing of bells, 
 all the flaunting of banners, all the declamation of 
 frothy oratory, and all the soberer utterances of 
 true patriotism, with which it always has been, and 
 probably always will be, celebrated in America. 
 But though none but the members of two families
 
 204 FOUNDERS OE THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 knew it at the time, it was celebrated in a manner 
 which none could have anticipated in a manner 
 that was awful to the witnesses, and which, when 
 afterwards made known to the public, sent a thrill 
 of excitement through the country. On that day, 
 amid the noise, the uproar, and the splendour of the 
 jubilee, Adams and Jefferson both expired at their 
 homes, the one in Virginia, the other in Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 Mr Adams in the morning was awakened from 
 his usual comatose sleep by the merry peals of the 
 bells. He had long been so unconscious of what 
 passed around him, that he was asked, with but 
 faint hopes of a coherent reply, if he knew what the 
 bells were ringing for ? A gleam of intelligence 
 shot into his fading eyes as the question was re- 
 peated, and he answered faintly, " Oh yes ! it is the 
 4th of July the glorious Fourth ! " He paused 
 , for a while, and added, " God bless it ! God bless 
 you all ! " This was in the early morning, and he 
 again sank into unconsciousness, until about noon, 
 when he rallied and said, " It is a glorious day." 
 There was again a pause, and he said, " Jefferson 
 yet survives ! " These were his last articulate 
 words ; and at six in the afternoon he calmly 
 .expired. At the time he spoke, Jefferson had gone
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 205 
 
 before him on the road appointed for all living, and 
 the old old man was the survivor by several hours 
 of his younger contemporary. Even in death it 
 seemed as if the old vanity, or self-appreciation, 
 whichever it may be most charitable to call it, had 
 gleamed through his mind : " Great will be the loss 
 when I depart ; but let my country be comforted, 
 Jefferson still survives." 
 
 The city of Boston, proud of its distinguished 
 son, convened a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, on 
 the 2d of the following month, to commemorate the 
 services of the two departed patriots. The orator 
 of the day was Daniel Webster, who, being him- 
 self a native of Massachusetts, gave the palm of 
 precedence to the merits and virtues of his great 
 fellow-citizen. He rendered ample justice to Jef- 
 ferson ; but as befitted the expectations of his 
 partial audience, he exalted Adams to still higher 
 rank among the great and good men whom his 
 country had produced. Death had thrown the 
 kindly veil of forgetfulness over the little foibles 
 and faults to which all who live are liable, and 
 had crowned his head with that aureole of saint- 
 ship which surrounds the virtues of the dead when 
 their virtues only survive in the popular memory, 
 and stand no more as impediments in the path of
 
 206 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the living. As far as the tribute to John Adams 
 was involved, the oratory of Webster greatest 
 orator of his day was not so much a commemora- 
 tion as an apotheosis. " Alas ! " he said, quoting 
 his friend Josiah Quincy who on the 4th of 
 July delivered in the same hall the anniversary 
 address " when we were all hoping that the sound 
 of a nation's joy rushing from our cities might yet 
 break the silence of his aged ear, and that the rising 
 blessings of grateful millions might yet visit with 
 glad light his decaying vision, his vision was at 
 that very moment closing for ever. Alas ! " con- 
 tinued Mr Webster, " the silence which was then 
 settling on that aged ear was an everlasting silence ! 
 For lo ! in the very moment of our festivities, his 
 fr.eed spirit ascended to God who gave it. Human 
 aid and human solace terminated at the grave, or 
 we would gladly have borne him upwards on a 
 nation's outspread hands, accompanied with the 
 blessings and the prayers of millions." 
 
 Posterity out of the boundaries of New Eng- 
 land has not wholly ratified the verdict, or placed 
 the name and services of John Adams on the high 
 pedestal where Mr Webster would have been con- 
 tent that they should remain for ever. All admit 
 his abilities, his honesty, and his patriotism ; but
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 207 
 
 it is only Massachusetts that ranks him among 
 the demi-gods. As a young man he was among 
 the greatest, if he were not the very greatest, of his 
 country. As a man of middle age he did not attain 
 the high standard which his youth led his contem- 
 poraries to predict. He was a respectable, a useful, 
 a zealous public servant, and an average diplomatist, 
 with small opportunities of distinction, which he 
 made the most of. In later life, and when he had 
 attained the highest summit of his ambition, and 
 wielded, as far as a President could wield, the desti- 
 nies of his country, he offended the party by whose 
 suffrages he was elected, and never conciliated in 
 any appreciable degree the party that had opposed 
 him. The adopted of Federalism, he threw back 
 the cause of the Federalists for sixty years. " Whom 
 the gods love, die young," said the ancients. Per- 
 haps, and most probably, if John Adams had died 
 immediately after the Declaration of Independence, 
 his name, next to that of Washington, might have 
 stood highest and brightest in the long muster-roll 
 of American worthies.
 
 208 
 
 THOMAS JEFFEESON. 
 
 THE name of Thomas Jefferson stands clear and 
 bold on the page of American history : a man of 
 strong convictions and unflinching courage ; ever 
 anxious to discover the right, and ever fearless to 
 uphold it. The rebellion of the Colonies was essen- 
 tially democratic in its origin, its progress, and its 
 results ; but no true democrat arose to shape the 
 future Eepublic upon the broad principles of popu- 
 lar liberty, until Jefferson put the impress of his 
 genius upon the Declaration of Independence. 
 When Washington and the earlier patriots only 
 sought for a redress of grievances, and never 
 dreamed of severing the connection of the Colonies 
 with the Crown, Jefferson saw that the only effec- 
 tual remedy was independence, and the only possi- 
 ble form of Government in the New World Eepub- 
 licanism. He held this faith when he stood alone ; 
 he held it until all America agreed with him.
 
 THOMAS JEFFEESON. 209 
 
 Washington lost heart at times Jefferson never. 
 The soldier, in the solitude of his tent on the field, 
 foiled or impeded at every turn by the apathy, dis- 
 content, or incapacity of the men with whom he had 
 to deal, more than once despaired of the fortunes of 
 his country ; the philosopher, in the silence and 
 seclusion of his study, never allowed the possibility 
 of failure to enter into his thought. The soldier 
 was an aristocrat, and had small faith in the multi- 
 tude ; the philosopher, though born an aristocrat, 
 was a man of the people, and never doubted either 
 the justice of their cause or the certainty of its 
 triumph. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, in the 
 county of Albemarle in Virginia, on the 2d of April 
 1743, the third child, but eldest son, of Peter 
 Jefferson a planter of fair estate by his wife, 
 Jane, a daughter of John Randolph, also a planter. 
 The Jefferson family were among the earliest set- 
 tlers in the Old Dominion, arriving from the foot of 
 Snowdon in Wales, at a time when the whole popu- 
 lation of Virginia, exclusive of the Indians, scarcely 
 exceeded 600. They were proud of their descent 
 from the ancient Britons, and no less proud of the 
 Keltic element in their blood, which they strength- 
 ened by a Scottish intermarriage. Peter Jefferson is 
 

 
 210 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 described as having been a man of gigantic stature 
 and herculean strength, rough in his manners and 
 simple in his appearance, as a backwoodsman should 
 be ; but a scholar and a gentleman, well read in the 
 contemporary English literature of Pope, Swift, and 
 Addison, and still more familiar with Shakespeare 
 and the early poets and dramatists. He was a 
 " muscular Christian " when the phrase was unin- 
 vented, and thought that a man owed as much 
 duty in this world to that divine structure the body, 
 as to the diviner essence the soul. To maintain the 
 strong mind in the strong body was his constant 
 aim as regarded himself ; and with his force of 
 character it was not likely that he would pursue, or 
 allow to be pursued, a different course in the edu- 
 cation of his son. 
 
 Under his father's direction, and inspired by his 
 example and companionship, the young Jefferson 
 was taught to ride, to row, to swim, to hunt, and 
 to shoot ; and in the evenings, when the family 
 assembled in the common room, he was instructed 
 in arithmetic, mathematics, and music, and taught 
 to keep accounts. He wrote a clear and beauti- 
 ful hand, and acquired those habits of regularity 
 and system for which the son afterwards became 
 more noted than his father. The elder Jefferson,
 
 THOMAS JEFFEKSON. 211 
 
 the strong good man, however, was not destined for 
 length of days, and died in his forty-ninth year, 
 leaving his son Thomas, then fourteen, to the care 
 of his mother, who does not appear to have been a 
 person well fitted for the responsibility. During 
 his last illness, he repeatedly expressed the wish 
 that his son should receive " a thorough classical 
 education," and in his own old age Jefferson re- 
 marked to one of his grandsons that if he had to 
 decide whether he had derived the greatest pleasure 
 and advantage from the estate which his father had 
 left him, or from the education which he had given 
 and recommended, he should decide in favour of the 
 education. 
 
 He remained at the boarding-school of the Rev. 
 Mr Maury, within fourteen miles of Shadvvell, for 
 two years after his father's death. During this 
 time he never forgot his father's precepts or exam- 
 ple, either as to intellectual or to physical exercise! 
 He made rapid progress in his studies, passed the 
 leisure hours of the day in pedestrian excursions, 
 and the leisure of his evenings in the study of the 
 violin, on which instrument he soon became a pro- 
 ficient, and with which he solaced himself to the 
 latest years of his life. 
 
 At the age of seventeen, in accordance with
 
 212 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 his own wish, and without solicitation from his 
 mother, he entered the College of "William and 
 Mary, at Williamsburg in Virginia. On his way 
 thither from the paternal plantation, he stopped at 
 Hanover to spend the Christmas holidays with his 
 father's friend, Colonel Dandridge, at whose hospi- 
 table house a large party was assembled. On this 
 occasion he made the acquaintance, speedily to 
 ripen into friendship, of a young man named Pat- 
 rick Henry, seven years older than himself, who 
 was destined to be his associate and colleague in 
 the early events of the coming Revolution, and to 
 enrol his name among the most illustrious in Amer- 
 ican history. The young man had dissipated a 
 good estate by bad management and bad luck in 
 business, was uncouth in his manners and in his lan- 
 guage, was without money, or a profession by which 
 to earn it ; but full of life, vigour, genius, and confi- 
 dence in his own mental resources. 
 
 Three months after Jefferson's arrival at College, 
 he received a visit from his new friend, who in- 
 formed him that " in the meantime " he had studied 
 law, and had come to the capital to obtain licence 
 to practise. The preparation was short, but Henry 
 received his licence, and became not only one of 
 the most eminent statesmen and orators, but, strange
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 213 
 
 to say, one of the most successful lawyers in Amer- 
 ica. It is not chicanery that succeeds in a new 
 country, but strong common-sense, and of that in- 
 valuable commodity the young aspirant had more 
 than the usual allowance. 
 
 Jefferson, in a letter which he wrote in the last 
 year of his presidency to a favourite grandson, 
 described the life which he led at school and college 
 as an example for the youth to follow. " When I 
 recollect," he said, " that at fourteen years of age the 
 whole care and direction of myself was thrown on my- 
 self, without a relation or friend qualified to advise 
 or guide me," which says little for his mother, " and 
 recollect the various sorts of bad company with which 
 I associated from time to time, I am astonished I 
 did not turn off with some of them, and become as 
 worthless to society as they were. But I had the 
 good fortune to become acquainted very early with 
 some characters of high standing, and to feel the 
 incessant wish that I could become what they were. 
 Under temptations and difficulties, I asked myself 
 what those great men would do in my situation ? 
 what course is it that would insure their approba- 
 tion ? I am certain that this mode of deciding on my 
 conduct tended more to correctness than any powers 
 of reasoning which I possessed. . . . From the
 
 214 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 circumstances of my position, I was often thrown 
 into the society of horse-racers, card-players, fox- 
 hunters, as well as of scientific and professional 
 men, and many a time have I asked myself in the 
 enthusiastic moment of the death of the fox, the 
 victory of the favourite horse, or the issues of a 
 great question eloquently argued at the bar, or in 
 the great council of the nation, which of these 
 kinds of reputation I should prefer ? That of a 
 horse-jockey, a fox-hunter, an orator, or the honest 
 advocate of my country's rights ? " 
 
 Among the great men whose names he cited to 
 his grandson as having influenced his early life, was 
 Dr Small, a Scotsman (and it is noted by his bio- 
 graphers that all his preceptors were of that nation), 
 professor of mathematics, and ad interim professor 
 of moral philosophy. Between teacher and pupil 
 a friendship, very rare under similar disparity of 
 age, was speedily formed, and Jefferson became the 
 chosen companion of the professor's leisure, and 
 gained from constant social intercourse with him and 
 his friends instruction more valuable than could be 
 imparted by public teachings. He never, during 
 the whole course of a long life, forgot the benefits 
 he derived from the worthy doctor, or spoke of him 
 but in terms of enthusiastic gratitude, as one who
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 215 
 
 had not only shaped his public career, but qualified 
 him to pursue it with honour. 
 
 Jefferson had a love for mathematics, music, and 
 the study of languages, which are often associated 
 in minds of unusual intellectual power. In addi- 
 tion to a deep acquaintance with the Greek and 
 Roman classics, he read with facility in French, 
 German, Italian, and Spanish; and when Macpher- 
 son's Ossian was first published, he sent to Scotland 
 for Gaelic grammars and dictionaries, in order that 
 he might study the language, and read Ossian in 
 the original. " He was not ashamed to own that 
 he thought this rude bard of the North the greatest 
 poet that had ever existed." It does not appear 
 that his enthusiasm was long-lived ; that he made 
 any progress with the Gaelic ; or that his admira- 
 tion of Ossian was not mainly due to the prompt- 
 ings of the Scottish professor whom he so highly 
 venerated. When he had attained his nineteenth 
 year, and had finally made up his mind as to 
 the choice of a profession, Dr Small gave up his 
 appointment in the university and returned to his 
 native land, having previously procured from his 
 intimate friend, Mr George Wythe, the ablest and 
 most successful lawyer in the Colony, the admission 
 of his favourite pupil to that gentleman's office as
 
 216 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 a law student. Jefferson was of that class of men 
 who, whenever they find anything to do, do it 
 thoroughly, and was as exemplary in the dry study 
 of the law as he had been in the more attractive 
 study of the classics. 
 
 Always fonder of the society of his seniors than 
 of his juniors, he recorded with satisfaction in the 
 evening of his life that when a student in his teens, 
 he often made one of a partie carrte at dinner, 
 of which the other three were the English Gover- 
 nor Mr Fauquier, Mr Wythe, his future master 
 and partner, and Dr Small, his preceptor. To the 
 conversation of these gentlemen, in their convivial 
 intercourse at the dinner-table, he admits that he 
 was greatly indebted for knowledge of the world. 
 During all his life, he was a good talker and listener. 
 He had the art of extracting from every one with 
 whom he conversed the special knowledge which 
 such person possessed whether he were a politi- 
 cian, a lawyer, a soldier, a sailor, a mechanic, 
 a gardener, or an ostler, a white man or a negro ; 
 and he had also the method as well as the in- 
 dustry to record in his note-book every fact which 
 he thus gleaned, so that if it wholly escaped his 
 memory it could be referred to in case of need. 
 Mr Fauquier, who was the darling of the Virginians
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 217 
 
 during his governorship, was in some respects a 
 dangerous companion. He was an inveterate gam- 
 bler the only defect in an otherwise admirable 
 character. But Jefferson was both too young and 
 too prudent, and the Governor himself too much 
 of a gentleman, to allow the one to be tempted 
 or the other to be the tempter into vice or dissipa- 
 tion. 
 
 Unlike his friend Patrick Henry, who thought 
 three months' study of the law sufficient, Jefferson 
 devoted five years to it in Mr Wythe's office, 
 and at the end of that time, being in his twenty- 
 fourth year, was admitted to the Bar. He was not, 
 however, so wholly engrossed with law as to neglect 
 his music, his mathematics, his languages, or his 
 long daily walks ; or not, as is the nature of ardent 
 young men, to fall, or fancy that he fell, in love. 
 The baptismal name of the lady who enthralled his 
 boyish heart was Rebecca, and he celebrated her 
 charms, in songs and verses, under the more 
 romantic appellation of Belinda. But nothing came 
 of his verses or his wooing ; and Eebecca Burwell 
 married a more favoured suitor, somewhat abruptly 
 to Jefferson's mind, though he was too wise a youth 
 to break his heart at the disappointment. 
 
 His practice at the Bar was successful, and his
 
 218 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 career would doubtless have been as brilliant as was 
 possible in a young colony, if he had given his 
 whole mind to so jealous and exacting a mistress. 
 His fees were small, though his business was large, 
 and as he always kept an accurate account of his 
 incomings and outgoings, it is easy to trace how 
 steady was his progress. In his first year of 
 practice he was engaged in 6 8 causes ; in his second, 
 in 115 ; in his third, in 198 ; and so on, until his 
 eighth year at the Bar, when his causes amounted to 
 337. His average annual income for his whole 
 term of practice was 3000 dollars, or 600, a sum 
 about equivalent to 1000 in the present day. 
 But his heart was not wholly in the law ; he had 
 his plantation and his negro slaves to attend to. 
 More than all, the discontents that rapidly ripened 
 into revolution, made such demands upon his time 
 as to leave his business with but a partial hold 
 upon his energies. 
 
 It was while he was yet a student in Mr Wythe's 
 office, that the first rumble of the distant thunder- 
 clouds of war was heard. In 1764, the year when he 
 attained his majority, news arrived in Virginia that 
 the British Parliament had passed an Act declaratory 
 of its right to tax the Colonies. The Virginian Legis- 
 lature, then in session, and of which Patrick Henry,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 219 
 
 the broken merchant who had mastered the 
 mysteries of law in three months, was a mem- 
 ber, addressed a remonstrance to the King and 
 Parliament, denying the right, and earnestly though 
 respectfully deprecating its enforcement. Parliament 
 paid no heed to this or to any other remonstrances 
 from the Colonies, and in point of fact had already 
 passed the Stamp Act before many of the remon- 
 strances had reached London. The younger genera- 
 tion of Virginians were indignant; and Patrick 
 Henry, afterwards called by Burke "the Demos- 
 thenes of the Forest," took the lead among them. 
 
 It was the last day of the session of 1765, when 
 the news arrived that the Stamp Act had received 
 the royal signature. Patrick Henry was in his 
 place ; paper was not abundant, and tearing out a 
 blank page from an old volume of Coke upon 
 Lyttleton, over which he had been poring to supple- 
 ment his scanty legal knowledge, and to while away 
 the time while a drowsy speaker was holding forth 
 upon a subject of no importance, he hastily drew 
 up a series of resolutions, which he presented for the 
 consideration of the House. They set forth the 
 proposition that the colonists brought with them 
 to America all the rights of British subjects ; that 
 the taxation of the people by themselves or their
 
 220 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 representatives in Parliament was the distinguishing 
 characteristic of British freedom ; that all power to 
 levy taxes in the Colonies lay in the several legis- 
 lative bodies of the said Colonies ; and that any 
 attempt to vest such power in any other persons 
 or bodies whatsoever, had a manifest tendency to 
 destroy British as well as American freedom. 
 
 Jefferson was present at the door of the lobby 
 of the House of Burgesses, and heard the speech 
 with which his friend prefaced his resolutions. He 
 described it as a splendid display of oratory the 
 equal of which he never heard from any other man 
 " the speech of one who spoke as Homer wrote." 
 The resolutions were carried by a majority of one 
 only ; but they had such an effect on Jefferson's mind, 
 . already predisposed, as to impel him to take his first 
 great leap into the stormy ocean of political strife, 
 from which he never again emerged. His admiration 
 of Henry's oratory was possibly enhanced by the fact 
 that he himself was unfitted by weakness of voice to 
 excel as a public speaker. He addressed an audi- 
 ence in a speech seldom comprising more than a few 
 sentences, and in a tone scarcely louder than that 
 of ordinary conversation. His thoughts flowed more 
 freely from his pen than from his tongue ; and 
 knowing where his strength as well as his weakness
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSOJT. 221 
 
 lay, he wisely refrained from emulating the oratori- 
 cal fervour which he admired so highly. 
 
 In the year 1769, having been previously ap- 
 pointed a Justice of the Peace, he was elected a 
 member of the House of Burgesses. The House, 
 shortly after assembling, passed a series of resolu- 
 tions in which Patrick Henry's fine Roman hand 
 was distinctly apparent which were not considered 
 respectful to the British Crown, in the matter of 
 the obnoxious Stamp Act, and of a recommendation 
 made in the British Parliament that persons accused 
 of treason in the Colonies should be transported to 
 England for trial. Lord Botetourt, the new Governor, 
 was so highly displeased at the tone and temper of 
 the resolutions, that he summarily dissolved the 
 House. The indignant majority immediately ad- 
 journed to the " Apollo," the long room of the 
 Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, where they forth- 
 with formed themselves into an association, with 
 power to add to their number, pledging themselves, 
 during the continuance of the Act for raising a 
 British revenue in America, not to import, purchase, 
 or consume a variety of articles of British mer- 
 chandise, which they enumerated. Among the 
 signatures to this document were those of George 
 Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson.
 
 222 FOUNDERS. OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Many members of the minority failed to be re- 
 elected to the next Legislative Assembly ; but no 
 member of the anti-British majority was rejected 
 by the constituencies. 
 
 Mr Jefferson, though so young a man, was pros- 
 perous enough in his profession and in the produce 
 of his plantation to build himself a new and more 
 commodious house than his father's, in which he 
 had continued to reside at Shadwell, along with 
 his mother, a brother, and two unmarried sisters. 
 But before his new mansion at Monticello was 
 completed, his old house was destroyed by fire in 
 the absence of the family. In this calamity, his 
 father's library to which he had made many 
 additions his father's papers, and most of his own, 
 were consumed. A negro slave was despatched to 
 Williamsburg with the evil tidings. He knew 
 his master's weaknesses, and kept his most con- 
 solatory news to the last. " De old house is burned 
 to um ground, massa ! " " But were none of my 
 books saved ? " inquired Jefferson. " Nary one," 
 said the negro, grinning as only negroes can. 
 " That's bad news, indeed ! " " Not so bery bad, 
 massa ; we saved um fiddle ! " 
 
 Two years afterwards, Monticello having been 
 completed and furnished with a new and more ex-
 
 THOMAS JEFFEKSON. 223 
 
 tensive library than that destroyed, Mr Jefferson 
 took into it that best of all adornments and treasures 
 a beautiful, accomplished, and affectionate wife. 
 Being in his twenty-ninth year, he wooed and won 
 Martha Skelton, six years younger than himself, 
 daughter of John Wayles, a successful lawyer of 
 good property, and widow of Bathurst Skelton, a 
 planter. The lady was not only young and hand- 
 some, and unencumbered with a family, but she was 
 an excellent manager and woman of business a 
 great attraction in the eyes of so methodical a man 
 as Jefferson ; but, better still, she loved music, sang 
 well, played the spinet and the harpsichord, and 
 admired and extolled her lover's performances 
 on his favourite violin. The marriage was in all 
 respects a happy one, and was blessed with a 
 progeny of five daughters and one son. The son 
 and two daughters died in their infancy, and only 
 one daughter arrived at mature age. 
 
 Political events had long been hastening to a 
 catastrophe, which Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, 
 and Patrick Henry had long had the sagacity to 
 foresee. The passage of the Boston Port Act, with 
 the object of punishing that city for the transgres- 
 sion of the few citizens who had boarded the 
 English tea-ships in the harbour, and thrown the
 
 224 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 obnoxious commodity into the sea, to prevent its 
 being taxed by the British Government, was as 
 much resented by Virginia as by Massachusetts. 
 Jefferson, Henry, and three other members of the 
 House of Burgesses, under conviction, as Jefferson 
 relates in his Memoirs, of the necessity of arousing 
 the Virginians from the comparative lethargy into 
 which they had fallen, resolved that the appoint- 
 ment of a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, 
 to avert from the Colonies the evils of civil war, 
 and to turn the hearts of the British King and 
 Parliament to moderation and justice, would be a 
 certain mode of awakening all classes to the im- 
 portance of the crisis. Such an observance in 
 Virginia, so much in accordance with the puritanic 
 notions of their suffering fellow-colonists in Massa- 
 chusetts, would serve to unite both North and South 
 in the one great object of resistance. So Jefferson 
 and his colleagues thought; and they accordingly 
 " cooked up " (the phrase is Jefferson's own) a 
 resolution, somewhat modifying the puritanic for- 
 mulas, and waited next morning upon one Mr 
 Nicholas, " whose grave and religious character was 
 more in unison than their own with the tone of the 
 resolution," and asked him to propose it in the 
 House of Burgesses. Mr Nicholas readily agreed,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 225 
 
 and moved it on the very same day, when it passed 
 without a dissentient. The Earl of Dunmore, who 
 had succeeded Lord Botetourt as Governor, imitated 
 the example set by his predecessor, and sent a curt 
 message of six lines to the House, summarily dis- 
 solving it, on the ground that the wording of its 
 resolution was an insult to the King and the Par- 
 liament of Great Britain. As before, the members 
 adjourned to the "Apollo," entered into an association 
 of their whole number, in which they were joined 
 by several clergymen and eminent citizens, pledging 
 themselves never to purchase tea or any other 
 article taxed, or attempted to be taxed, by Great 
 Britain ; declaring that in their opinion an attack 
 upon one colony was an attack upon all ; and recom- 
 mending a conference of the leading men of all the 
 colonies, to consider the propriety of holding an 
 annual Congress for the discussion of grievances. 
 The day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer was 
 duly observed throughout Virginia, and Jefferson 
 wrote that the effect " was like a shock of elec- 
 tricity, arousing every man, and placing him erect 
 and solidly on the centre." 
 
 A Convention of the colony having been resolved 
 upon, to organise and represent public opinion, Mr 
 Jefferson was elected as the delegate of his native 
 
 p
 
 226 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 county of Albemarle. He was prevented from 
 attending by a severe attack of dysentery, which 
 confined him to his house. He had prepared an 
 elaborate " draught of instructions " to be presented 
 to that body, for the guidance of the delegates who 
 were to be appointed to the General Congress, 
 which afterwards met at Philadelphia. These in- 
 structions were written in great haste, with a 
 number of blanks, and with some inaccuracies and 
 uncertainties of historical facts, which he neglected 
 at the time, knowing that they could be readily 
 corrected at the meeting. When at the last 
 moment he found himself unable to attend per- 
 sonally, he caused two copies to be made one 
 of which he sent to Mr Peyton Eandolph, the 
 President of the Convention, and the other to 
 Patrick Henry. The fate of the document was 
 remarkable. " Whether," says Mr Jefferson in his 
 Memoirs, " Mr Henry disapproved the ground 
 taken, or was too lazy to read it (for he was the 
 laziest man in reading I ever knew), I never 
 learned; but he communicated the paper to no- 
 body." Peyton Eandolph informed the Conven- 
 tion that he had received such a document from 
 a member who was prevented by sickness from 
 attending ; and he laid it on the table for perusal.
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 227 
 
 It was read generally by the members, approved by 
 many, though thought too bold for the then state 
 of things. But they printed it in pamphlet form, 
 under the title of " A Summary View of the 
 Eights of British America." It found its way to 
 England was taken up by the Opposition inter- 
 polated a little by Edmund Burke, so as to make 
 it answer Opposition purposes, and in that form 
 ran rapidly through several editions. 
 
 The document thus singularly cast upon the 
 world, without an author's name though the 
 author never denied but exulted in his produc- 
 tion was the boldest proclamation of American 
 wrongs, and the loudest defiance of the British 
 Government, that had yet emanated from the 
 Colonies. It did not find rapid acceptance "the 
 leap proposed," as Jefferson remarked, " being too 
 wide for the great mass of the citizens to take." 
 But they reasoned themselves up to it by degrees, 
 as each successive mail from Great Britain brought 
 them news of the obstinacy of the Administration. 
 There was no mincing the matter in these cele- 
 brated " Instructions," which became in the end 
 instructions for the people, rather than for their 
 representatives as at first intended. They went 
 fearlessly over the whole ground of dispute and
 
 228 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 difference, and spoke of the King and his authority 
 in a manner that shocked the loyal, and made the 
 timid ask themselves whether the author were not 
 damaging his cause by his vehemence. He repre- 
 sented to the King that these, his " States " (it was 
 the first time in American history that this word 
 was used instead of Colonies) had often indi- 
 vidually made humble applications to the throne 
 to obtain redress of wrongs, without even receiving 
 the courtesy of an answer ; and hoping that their 
 collective application not penned in the language 
 of servility, as if they were asking favours, but 
 demanding rights would obtain the respectful 
 acceptance to which they were entitled from one 
 " who was no more than the chief officer of the 
 people, appointed by the laws, and intrusted with 
 definite powers, to assist in working the great 
 machine of Government, erected for their use, and 
 consequently subject to their superintendence." He 
 went on to remind the King of the fate which 
 had befallen the Stuarts for their treasonable prac- 
 tices, and to enumerate the various aggressions and 
 encroachments of King and Parliament in restrict- 
 ing the free commerce of the States in controlling, 
 and, in some instances, prohibiting, interior manu- 
 factures ; and especially accusing the King of
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 229 
 
 negligently or wilfully refusing his assent to 
 measures duly passed by the local legislatures ; and, 
 "for the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for 
 no conceivable reasons at all, vetoing laws of 
 the most salutary tendency." 
 
 But viewed in the light thrown upon the sub- 
 ject by all the aftercourse of American affairs 
 until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, 
 Jefferson's declarations in this State paper, with 
 reference to negro slavery and the slave-trade, 
 and the blame fairly attachable to the British 
 Government for introducing and endeavouring to 
 perpetuate slavery, are such as to reflect the 
 highest honour on his statesmanship, and to mark 
 him out, in this as in other respects, as a man far 
 in advance of his time. " The abolition of domestic 
 slavery is," he said, " the great object of desire in 
 these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced 
 in their infant state. But previous to the enfran- 
 chisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to 
 exclude all further importation from Africa. Yet 
 our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibiting, 
 and by imposing duties which might amount to a pro- 
 hibition, have been hitherto defeated by his Majesty's 
 negative thus preferring the immediate advantages 
 of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of
 
 230 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the American States, and to the rights of human 
 nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice." 
 Jefferson was not only thus far in advance of 
 British public opinion on one great question of 
 the future, but quite as far in advance of it on 
 another that of Free Trade. In his eloquent 
 peroration, after disclaiming any wish of separa- 
 tion from the mother -country, provided justice 
 were done, he said : " We are willing on our part 
 to sacrifice everything which reason can ask, to the 
 restoration of the tranquillity for which all must 
 wish. On their part (the British Government) let 
 them name their terms ; but let them be just, and 
 accept of every commercial preference it is in our 
 power to give, for such things as we can raise for 
 their use or they make for ours. But let them 
 not think to exclude us from going to other 
 markets, to dispose of those commodities which 
 they cannot use, nor to supply those wants which 
 they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed 
 that our properties within our own territories shall 
 be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but 
 our own. The God who gave us life gave us 
 liberty at the same time. The hand of force may 
 destroy, but cannot disjoin them. This is our last, 
 our determined resolution ! "
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 231 
 
 The instructions to the delegates appointed by 
 Virginia to the great Philadelphia Congress of the 
 same year, which were carried in Jefferson's en- 
 forced absence, were very much milder in tone and 
 language, although Jefferson was not so obstinately 
 wedded to his own ideas as not to confess that 
 possibly the preference given to the tamer and more 
 courteous document was wise under the circum- 
 stances. But Jefferson's resolutions coming back 
 from England with the impress of British accept- 
 ance upon them, and the great name of Edmund 
 Burke as their supposed author or, if not their 
 author, their editor and approver had a more 
 powerful effect on American opinion than could 
 have been anticipated. 
 
 Patrick Henry's oratory wrought in the same di- 
 rection. In the second Virginia Convention (1775), 
 of which Jefferson was a member, he received a 
 greater number of votes than any other nominee. 
 The separation between the Moderates, who did not 
 wish to take the irrevocable leap and break with 
 the mother-country, and the fiery spirits, who saw 
 no remedy but Independence, grew wider and wider. 
 Henry, with the impulsiveness of his character, 
 made up his mind to bring affairs to a crisis, and 
 pledge Virginia to resistance. For this purpose he
 
 232 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 moved that the colony be immediately put into a 
 state of defence, and that certain members be a 
 committee to prepare a plan for embodying, arming, 
 and disciplining such a number of men as might be 
 sufficient for that purpose. Henry introduced this 
 resolution in one of his most fervid bursts of semi- 
 Irish, semi-Saxon declamation, the leading idea and 
 peroration of which were in words familiar to every 
 American schoolboy : " We must fight, sir. I repeat 
 it we must fight An appeal to arms and to the 
 Lord of hosts is all that is left to us." Jefferson 
 seconded the resolution, which was carried by a 
 decided majority, and was appointed one of the 
 committee to carry it into effect. 
 
 An opportunity for fighting occurred much sooner 
 than was anticipated, though fortunately, perhaps, 
 for Patrick Henry, his wish to avail himself of it 
 was overridden by cooler heads than his own. In 
 pursuance, as was the opinion of the time, of a pre- 
 concerted scheme for disarming all the colonies, the 
 commander of a British man-of-war, lying in the 
 James River, acting under the orders of Lord Dun- 
 more, sent a party of armed men into Williamsburg, 
 and forcibly carried off all the gunpowder in the 
 public magazine, except a few barrels, which were 
 left with the supposed intention of blowing up the
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 233 
 
 building. While the public mind was greatly 
 excited by this circumstance, news arrived of the 
 battle of Lexington. The discontented spirits of 
 Virginia could no longer restrain themselves, and 
 several hundreds of men flew to arms. The volun- 
 teers of the county of Albemarle assembled at 
 Charlotteville, and addressed a message to Colonel 
 Washington, in which they offered, if he approved, 
 to march upon Williamsburg, to enforce the return 
 of the public property (the gunpowder seized by 
 Lord Dunmore's orders), or " perish in the attempt." 
 As they did not make the attempt, it has been 
 conjectured that Washington, whose reply has not 
 been preserved, counselled inaction as the better 
 policy. Patrick Henry, however, was less prudent, 
 and desired to precipitate a conflict which Washing- 
 ton was anxious to avoid. Calling together the 
 Independent Military Company of the county of 
 Hanover, of which he was captain, Henry marched 
 upon Williamsburg. His numbers increasing at 
 every step, at last amounted to nearly 5000 men. 
 The Moderates, as well as the Loyalists, were 
 alarmed ; and Lord Dunmore, thoroughly awakened 
 to the seriousness of the crisis, took measures of 
 defence, sent Lady Dunmore and family to the 
 protection of the Fowey man-of-war, at anchor in
 
 234 FOUNDERS. OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the river, and ordered the sailors and marines, under 
 the command of Captain Montague, ashore, to aid 
 the loyal inhabitants in repelling aggression. Either 
 his lordship apprehended defeat, or had misgivings 
 as to the legality of his act in seizing the gun- 
 powder, for he sent a messenger to Patrick Henry, 
 who was then sixteen miles from Williamsburg, at 
 the head of his little army, with a bill of exchange 
 for the value of the property. At this triumph 
 for such it was Henry's volunteers began to dis- 
 band, and an armed collision was avoided. 
 
 In England the state of public opinion, as influ- 
 enced by the Opposition, was growing so favourable 
 to the Colonial cause, that the Prime Minister (Lord 
 North) deemed it advisable to try the effect of con- 
 ciliation. But his conciliation left the principle at 
 issue exactly where it stood. He still insisted on 
 the theoretical right of Great Britain to tax the 
 Americans, which was the very point that Americans 
 of every shade of politics, except the ultra-loyalists, 
 had determined to resist at every hazard. He con- 
 sequently failed in the attempt to bring about a 
 better understanding. To Jefferson was confided, 
 on the part of the Legislature of Virginia, the task 
 of replying to the Minister; and he accordingly 
 prepared a paper, which the House of Burgesses
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 235 
 
 adopted with but slight modifications. After setting 
 forth all the reasons which induced Virginia to 
 persist in her original demands, and to make com- 
 mon cause with the sister colonies, he concluded 
 by saying : " We [the Virginians] have exhausted 
 every mode of application which our invention 
 could suggest as proper and promising. We have 
 decently remonstrated with Parliament. It has 
 added new injuries to the old. We have wearied 
 our King with supplications. He has not deigned to 
 answer us. We have appealed to the native honour 
 and justice of the British nation ; their efforts in our 
 favour have hitherto been ineffectual. What, then, 
 remains to be done ? That we commit our injuries 
 to the even-handed justice of that Being who doeth 
 no wrong, earnestly beseeching Him to illuminate 
 the councils and prosper the endeavours of those 
 to whom America has confided her hopes." 
 
 When Jefferson shortly afterwards took his seat 
 in Congress, he found that his reputation as the 
 author of so many admirable State papers had 
 preceded him. He was the youngest member but 
 one, and had no oratorical power. But he had an 
 old head upon young shoulders, and a mastery of 
 diction and of logic with his pen, which more than 
 atoned for all his deficiencies as a speaker. He was
 
 236 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 cordially welcomed by the more ardent spirits, and 
 with curiosity, if not respect, by the more moderate 
 politicians. John Adams was particularly struck 
 by his talents and his manner. " Though a silent 
 member in Congress," he afterwards wrote, " he was 
 so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon com- 
 mittees and in conversation, that he soon seized upon 
 my heart." Five days after Congress had assembled, 
 he was placed upon the committee charged with the 
 duty of drawing up a " declaration of the causes of 
 taking up arms." It was believed at the time, and 
 for more than a quarter of a century afterwards, 
 that this document was mainly the work of John 
 Dickinson of Philadelphia; but Jefferson, in his 
 autobiography, claimed all the essential parts of it 
 as his own. The declaration was adopted by Con- 
 gress, and largely circulated in Great Britain and 
 the colonies. 
 
 When the second Congress assembled in 1776, 
 it was evident to nearly all America that no further 
 negotiation was possible with the mother-country 
 except at the point of the sword. At the com- 
 mencement of the year when this conviction was 
 beginning to spread, and when even the timid and 
 those who loved England the most were becoming 
 reconciled to it a pamphlet was published, which
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 237 
 
 did more than any similar work had ever done in 
 any country to stimulate public opinion, convince 
 the wavering, strengthen the weak, and create a 
 general adhesion, almost amounting to unanimity, 
 to the principles it enunciated and the course of 
 proceeding which it recommended. This was 
 " Common-Sense," by Thomas Paine, an English- 
 man, who some years previously had been induced 
 to settle in America by the recommendation of Dr 
 Franklin. Its effect was instantaneous. " Its tone, 
 its manner, its Biblical allusions," says Dr Eandall, 
 the biographer of Jefferson, "its avoidance of all 
 openly impassioned appeals to feeling, and its un- 
 answerable common-sense, were exquisitely adapted 
 to the audience to whom it was addressed." 
 
 John Adams somewhat disparaged the work ; 
 but Jefferson was loud in approval. Edmund 
 Burke, in an address to the electors of Bristol, 
 spoke of it as " the celebrated pamphlet which 
 prepared the minds of the American people for 
 independence." The Legislature of Pennsylvania 
 voted Paine 500 for his pamphlet, and the 
 other colonies vied with each other to do him 
 honour. Congress was not sitting at the time ; but 
 when it assembled, public opinion in and out of that 
 body had become riper for decisive action than the
 
 238 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 most sanguine could have anticipated. The memor- 
 able Declaration of Independence was the first fruit 
 of its labours a document which is alone sufficient 
 to perpetuate the name of Thomas Jefferson, and to 
 cover it with glory in the estimation of his country- 
 men. It came from his mind, clear, shapely, 
 complete, as Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, 
 and received no essential additions or important 
 alterations from other hands, except such slight 
 verbal modification as added little or nothing to its 
 essential symmetry, its force, or its perspicuity. John 
 Adams and Benjamin Franklin, as members of the 
 committee intrusted with the task of preparing it, 
 had the right of revision. But they found no scope 
 for any important criticism. Dr Franklin suggested 
 the substitution of the words " absolute despotism " 
 for " arbitrary, power " ; and recommended that the 
 phrase, " foreign mercenaries to invade and deluge 
 us with blood," should be altered to "invade and 
 destroy us " ; and made a few other emendations 
 which Jefferson adopted. Mr Adams substituted 
 for the words " his present Majesty," the " present 
 King of Great Britain," and made a few other 
 alterations equally trivial. Thus the body as well 
 as the soul of the document was Jefferson's alone, 
 and there were none who could claim or contest
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 239 
 
 with him the credit of its authorship. Never- 
 theless, the gad-flies and mosquitoes who always 
 buzz about celebrity, anxious to sting for the grati- 
 fication of their own malevolence, discovered that 
 Jefferson was indebted not only for many of the 
 ideas, but for much of the phraseology, to the 
 English pamphlet of Edmund Burke ! . Jefferson 
 was much amused by the accusation, and allowed 
 the little critics to revel unmolested in the mire 
 of their own spite, without taking the trouble to 
 contradict them. 
 
 He had at this time, in addition to his public 
 business, many important private affairs that de- 
 manded his attention. His household at Monticello 
 including his own family, his mother, his sister, 
 and the whites in his employ numbered thirty- 
 four persons. In addition to these, he had to 
 manage on his estate, by himself or his agents, no 
 less than eighty-three slaves. There was also his law 
 business, so that altogether he had irons enough in 
 the fire to have justified him, had he been so inclined, 
 in abandoning the thankless cares and duties of pub- 
 lic life. But, like the tiger who has tasted human 
 blood, and never afterwards reconciles itself to tamer 
 food, he had drunk of the intoxicating draught of 
 politics in a perilous time, and could not content
 
 240 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 himself with the milk-and-water of domesticity. 
 His heart as well as his intellect was in the strife, 
 and he decided to abandon law rather than the 
 cause of his country in the crisis of its fortunes. 
 It was well for America perhaps not so well for 
 himself that such was his determination. 
 
 Nevertheless, after the adoption of the Declaration 
 of Independence, and its enthusiastic proclamation 
 in all the colonies, he declined a renomination to 
 Congress and a foreign mission. To his mind, as 
 to that of all other Americans of the time, the first 
 allegiance of a citizen was due to his own State. 
 He was an American, it is true ; but he was more 
 particularly a Virginian. The Union of the States 
 seemed to him who had so much to do in framing 
 it to be but a partnership, of which the main 
 object and sole justification was to prevent and 
 resist foreign aggression, especially that of Great 
 Britain, of which alone there was at that time the 
 slightest probability. For all domestic purposes he 
 considered the State to be supreme. The Union 
 was a bridge of many arches to cross the stream of 
 foreign enmity, and the destruction of any one of 
 them would bring down the whole edifice. Such 
 was then the view of all native-born Americans, and 
 such continued to be the view of the great Demo-
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 241 
 
 cratic party, of which Jefferson was the founder, 
 until the outbreak of the Civil War of 1861 ad- 
 ministered to the principle the rude shock from 
 which it has not yet recovered, and possibly never 
 may. But with these views clear in his mind, Jeffer- 
 son, partly for the convenience of attending to his 
 home affairs, withdrew from Federal or Union 
 politics for nearly three years, after the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, and mainly devoted himself 
 to those of Virginia. His friend, Patrick Henry, 
 was now Governor of the State, appointed by the 
 people in succession to Lord Duninore, the last 
 British and royalist Governor ; and he and Jeffer- 
 son had thus constant opportunities of meeting 
 and of working together. 
 
 Elected a member of the House of Delegates, 
 Jefferson became the avowed and active leader of 
 the Reform party, and advocated and introduced a 
 variety of measures, which, by their boldness, startled 
 the feudal and conservative sections of the House. 
 He prepared Bills for " the abolition of the laws of 
 entail and primogeniture," and for " a general revision 
 of the laws of Virginia," both of which excited violent 
 opposition, but were ultimately carried. He also 
 introduced measures for the disestablishment of the 
 Episcopal Church, formerly the Church of England, 
 
 Q
 
 242 FOUNDERS OF THE AMEEICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 and for placing all religious sects on the same foot- 
 ing of freedom and equality ; and two measures 
 still more remarkable for their time, in which public 
 opinion declined to follow him, but which were 
 nevertheless destined to be partially successful, 
 though not until after many years. The first 
 related to the education of the people, the second 
 to the abolition of negro slavery, on both of which 
 great and essential measures of public wisdom he 
 towered in clearness and breadth of view far above 
 all his contemporaries. To provide for the better 
 education of the people, he prepared three Bills 
 for " the more general diffusion of knowledge," for 
 " amending the constitution of the College of William 
 and Mary," and for " establishing a public library." 
 -The first of these Bills might serve as a model in our 
 day, did the religious differences of the British 
 people permit, for the establishment of a system 
 more truly national than that so recently carried 
 under the auspices of Mr Forster, or than any that 
 timid politicians or arrogant theologians would con- 
 descend to discuss. 
 
 Mr Jefferson broadly laid down the principle 
 that it was the " duty " of the State to provide 
 for the proper education of the children of all 
 its citizens who were too poor to educate their
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 243 
 
 progeny themselves ; and in accordance with this 
 fundamental idea, prepared a project whereby such 
 instruction was to be assured for three years certain 
 to every child of Virginia. The peculiarity of his 
 scheme was, that after instruction of the children 
 for the proposed term, at the public expense, in 
 reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the reading of 
 such books as would make them acquainted with 
 the main facts of Grecian, Eoman, English, and 
 American history, there should be an annual exam- 
 ination by the overseer or school inspector sworn 
 to act without favour or affection who should 
 select a pupil of at least two years' standing, of the 
 best and most promising talent and disposition. 
 This pupil was to be sent to the grammar-school of 
 the district, to be there boarded and educated at the 
 expense of the State for at least one year. Among 
 the pupils thus selected a further choice was to be 
 made at a stipulated time, and those on whom the 
 choice fell, after examination, were to be denomi- 
 nated " seniors," and eligible to remain for four 
 years on the public foundation. From these 
 " seniors," the visitors were annually to select one, 
 and send him to the College of "William and Mary, 
 to be boarded, clad, and educated for three years 
 further at the expense of the State by this means
 
 244 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 securing all the advantages of a collegiate education 
 for the child of the poorest citizen, provided such 
 child had merit and ability enough to pass the re- 
 quired examinations. 
 
 His opinions on the question of negro slavery 
 were too much in advance of the prejudices of his 
 age to be accepted. He did not propose to give 
 the then existing generation of slaves, ignorant and 
 demoralised by their slavery, the liberty which he 
 thought they were unable to turn to beneficial ac- 
 count, and which, in his opinion, would only have 
 been the liberty to be neglected, to starve, and to 
 die uncared for, like wild animals whose labour 
 was valueless to man ; but he proposed to pass 
 an Act for the emancipation of all the children of 
 slaves born after a certain time, and providing for 
 the maintenance of such children by their parents 
 or their masters, until their arrival at the age of 
 fourteen. They were then to be brought up at 
 the public expense, to tillage and handicraft, fitting 
 them to earn their own livelihood by wages, the 
 females to the age of eighteen, the males to the 
 age of twenty-one. After this time they were to 
 be " deported " under proper guidance to such terri- 
 torial possessions of the United States as might 
 be available, provided with arms, implements of
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 245 
 
 husbandry, seed, and farm stock. They were then 
 to be organised into independent communities and 
 republics, under magistrates of their own race, and 
 under the protection of the United States. 
 
 " Nothing," he afterwards said in relation to this 
 subject, " is more certainly written in the Book of 
 Fate, than that these people [the negroes] are to be 
 free ; nor is it less certain that the white and the 
 black races cannot live together in the same gov- 
 ernment. Nature, habit, and opinion have drawn 
 indelible lines of distinction between them. It is 
 still in our power to direct the process of emanci- 
 pation and deportation, peaceably and in such 
 slow degree as that the evil shall wear off insensi- 
 bly, and the place of the negroes be filled pari passu 
 by free white labourers. If, on the contrary, slavery 
 be left to itself, our human nature must shudder 
 at the prospect before us." Happy would it have 
 been for the United States if these sage counsels 
 had been followed ; still happier for the negroes, 
 emancipated by the great Civil War, which has 
 given them a liberty for which they are unsuited, 
 and which may yet lead to what Jefferson called 
 a " deletion " of the race, by a servile war of which 
 the premonitory symptoms are only too apparent. 
 
 Jefferson, in eloquent words, denounced the slave-
 
 246 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 trade with all the fiery indignation he could summon 
 into his pen in the first rough draft of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. He only committed the fault 
 of attributing to George III. personally the acts for 
 which the British Government and Parliament, 
 and the public opinion of the time, were mainly 
 responsible. " He " (the King), said the document, 
 " has waged cruel war against human nature itself, 
 violating the most sacred rights of life and liberty 
 in the persons of a distant people who never offend- 
 ed him, captivating and carrying them into slavery 
 in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death 
 in the transportation thither. This piratical war- 
 fare, this opprobrium of infidel powers, is the war- 
 fare of the Christian King of Great Britain, deter- 
 mined to keep open a market where men should 
 be bought and sold. He has prostituted his nega- 
 tive for suppressing every legislative attempt to 
 prohibit or restrain this miserable commerce. And 
 that this assemblage of horrors might want no 
 fact of distinguished cruelty, he is now excit- 
 ing those very people to rise in arms amongst us, 
 and to purchase that liberty of which he has de- 
 prived them by murdering the people on whom he 
 first obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes 
 committed against the liberties of one people, with
 
 THOMAS JEFFEESOJT. 247 
 
 crimes which he urges them to commit against the 
 lives of another." 
 
 This passage, directed against the foreign slave- 
 trade more than against domestic slavery, was un- 
 fortunately expunged by the House, partly perhaps 
 for the reason that it accused the King of Great 
 Britain of guilt for which he was not personally 
 responsible, and partly because there was no suffi- 
 cient evidence to show that either he or his Govern- 
 ment had incited the slaves to rise in insurrection 
 against their masters. It would have been better 
 had the passage been amended and corrected, in- 
 stead of being expunged altogether. 
 
 In June 1779, Patrick Henry having served 
 for three years as Governor of Virginia, Jefferson 
 was elected in his stead. The events of these years 
 in Virginia relate more to the personal history of 
 George Washington, and to the progress of mili- 
 tary operations against the British, than to the 
 career of Thomas Jefferson. While in office, Wash- 
 ington always found in him a steady supporter, and 
 one infinitely more ready to aid and comfort him 
 in his arduous duty, against odds that at times 
 seemed wellnigh insurmountable, than to join the 
 ranks of the dissatisfied, and of those who clam- 
 oured for a change of military chieftainship, when-
 
 248 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 ever the progress of hostilities seemed to be unfav- 
 ourable. 
 
 But the office of Governor of a State, con- 
 tinually exposed to the warlike operations of the 
 British, was neither a sinecure nor a bed of roses. 
 Thrice during this term, the State was in danger of 
 hostile occupation by the troops of Benedict Ar- 
 nold, the American traitor, and of the British gen- 
 erals, Phillips and Cornwallis, besides being harried 
 by the cavalry of the dashing Colonel Tarleton a 
 man who was as much hated by the Virginians as 
 Claverhouse was by the Scottish Covenanters, and 
 for the same reasons. Once Jefferson himself had 
 a very narrow escape from capture by a detach- 
 ment of Tarleton's horse in his own house of Mon- 
 ticello. One of his plantations, called Elk Hill, 
 was occupied for ten days by that ruthless soldier. 
 The owner, forewarned of the enemy's approach, had 
 time to remove some portions of his effects ; but 
 Tarleton destroyed all the growing crops of corn 
 and tobacco, burned all the barns, let loose all the 
 stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs, carried off' all the 
 horses capable of service, and, as Jefferson com- 
 plained, " cut the throats of all that were too 
 young for military purposes." He also broke down 
 all the fences, converted the place into an absolute
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 249 
 
 waste, and carried off thirty slaves. " Had this been 
 to have given them freedom," said Jefferson, "he 
 would have done right ; but he only assigned them 
 to inevitable death from small-pox and putrid fever, 
 then raging in his camp. This," he added, " I after- 
 wards knew to be the fate of twenty-seven of them. 
 What became of the other three I never learned." 
 And worse than these losses and privations, and 
 the hardships inflicted upon his wife, now grown deli- 
 cate in health, and forced to remove from place to 
 place with her young family for safety from a mar- 
 auding soldiery, was the discontent, fast ripening 
 into ingratitude and formal complaint against his 
 administration, of the Legislature and people of 
 his beloved and sorely harassed Virginia. The 
 Legislature, summoned to meet at Charlotteville, 
 alarmed at the approach of the redoubtable, and at 
 times almost omnipotent, Tarleton, adjourned to 
 Staunton, west of the Blue Eiclge mountains. Nor 
 were the members in the estimation of the majority 
 safe even at this place. On a false alarm of Tarle- 
 ton's approach, they adjourned sine die in a panic, 
 leaving power to the Speaker to convene them 
 " when and where he pleased." A cry was raised 
 that in such a state of affairs a dictator would be of 
 more value to the State than a constitutional gover-
 
 250 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 nor and a timid House of Assembly ; and Patrick 
 Henry was distinctly pointed out as the man for the 
 emergency. One Mr Gary of Ampthill, a relation 
 of Mr Jefferson, hinted that any such dictator would 
 be more likely to receive the dagger of Brutus than 
 the support of the public. The very thought, in 
 the opinion of Jefferson, was treason against the 
 people and against mankind, and would be trump- 
 eted through the world as a proof of the inability 
 of a republican form of Government in times of 
 public danger to shield the State from harm. The 
 idea never took the shape of a formal proposition to 
 the Legislature ; but towards the close of Jefferson's 
 career as Governor, and when he had positively de- 
 clined a renomination, the malcontents put forward 
 a young member to make a series of charges 
 against him in reference to his official conduct, and 
 to demand a public inquiry. Jefferson's friends, 
 instead of opposing, expressed their willingness to 
 meet the inquiry on every particular. Their 
 promptitude somewhat disconcerted his opponents. 
 No vote was taken, and the subject was adjourned 
 by general consent. The charges resolved them- 
 selves into five : first, that he had not, when ad- 
 vised by General Washington, put the country into 
 a proper state of preparation and defence ; second,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 251 
 
 that during successive invasions he did not use all 
 available means of resistance; third, that he too 
 much consulted his personal safety ; fourth, that he 
 iguominiously flew from Monticello at the near 
 approach of Tarleton's dragoons ; and fifth, that he 
 abandoned the office of Governor as soon as it be- 
 came one of difficulty and danger. All these 
 charges came to nothing; the young member, a 
 Mr Nicholas, was not present to bring them for- 
 ward at the appointed time. Mr Jefferson refuted 
 them seriatim, and the House of Delegates unani- 
 mously passed a vote of thanks to him for his im- 
 partial and upright administration, declared the 
 charges against him to be wholly unfounded, and 
 placed this public avowal upon record, to obviate 
 all future and remove all former censure. But 
 although Mr Jefferson was thus triumphant, the 
 accusation rankled in his mind, and gave him a 
 distaste for public life, which it took a long time 
 to remove, and infused a tincture of bitterness into 
 his thought. 
 
 During these ungracious discussions in his native 
 State, the Federal Congress uninfluenced by the 
 calumnies against the author of the Declaration of 
 Independence nominated him to act in concert 
 with Mr Adams and Dr Franklin on behalf of the
 
 252 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 United States at the proposed Congress of Vienna. 
 He respectfully declined the appointment, partly 
 because the charges against him were at the time 
 in abeyance, partly because he was disheartened at 
 the treatment he had received, and partly perhaps 
 chiefly on account of the increasing illness of his 
 wife, to whom he was devotedly attached. Many 
 attempts were made by his political friends to in- 
 duce him to alter his determination, but without 
 effect ; and some went so far as to deny the right of 
 a man so able and so eminent to withdraw from 
 public life when the State required his services. 
 
 But he was not to be shaken even by the flattery 
 conveyed in the reproof, and remained quietly at 
 home, reading, writing, and fiddling, working in his 
 .garden, and sitting at the bedside of his wife, to 
 administer to her the medicines which she preferred 
 to take from his hand., She had borne children 
 too rapidly for her delicate health, and died in Sep- 
 tember 1782, four months after having given birth 
 to her sixth child, a daughter, that only survived 
 two years. His eldest daughter, Martha, after- 
 wards Mrs Eandolph, described how, for four 
 months during which her mother lingered, her 
 father was never beyond call, and passed most of 
 his time at her bedside, or in a small room adjoin-
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 253 
 
 ing. A moment before the closing scene, he was 
 led from the room almost in a state of insensibility 
 by his sister, who with great difficulty got him 
 into the library, where he fainted. He kept his 
 room for three weeks, during which he walked 
 about almost incessantly night and day, only lying 
 down occasionally when nature was exhausted. 
 When at last he was able to leave his room, he 
 rode out on horseback, and rambled about the 
 mountains in the least frequented roads. In those 
 melancholy wanderings his daughter was his con- 
 stant companion, a solitary witness to many a 
 violent burst of grief. 
 
 As is usual with fervent natures when bereaved 
 of those they love, he found a relief to his heart in 
 increased love for those still left to him, as well as 
 in mental occupation. An accidental fall from his 
 horse, a few months before his wife's death, having 
 confined him to the house for several weeks, he 
 commenced a series of replies to inquiries, statis- 
 tical and others, which had been put to him, in 
 reference to the soil, climate, and productions of 
 Virginia, by the French Secretary of Legation at 
 Washington. To the completion of this work 
 afterwards published under the title of ' Notes on 
 Virginia ' he applied himself, after Mrs Jefferson's
 
 254 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 death, with redoubled assiduity. He also commenced 
 an anxious examination of the state of affairs on 
 his plantations, and found what he expected that 
 his private means had greatly suffered by his devo- 
 tion to the business of the State. For two years 
 he found ample employment in setting right what 
 was wrong; in looking into his accounts of profit 
 and loss ; in reforming and retrenching ; in exam- 
 ining, along with his farm bailiffs and overseers, 
 into the management of every part of his estates ; 
 but always managing to spare time for the pursuits 
 of literature and music, which he loved, and never 
 wholly losing sight of the political world which he 
 had temporarily abandoned. 
 
 In May 1784, he was for the third time ap- 
 pointed by Congress, notwithstanding his previ- 
 ous refusals, to a European mission, and was 
 associated with Franklin and Adams in the nego- 
 tiation of treaties of commerce with foreign na- 
 tions more especially with France. The belief 
 that he could be useful, together with the urgent 
 entreaties of friends and former political asso- 
 ciates, and particularly the desire to give his 
 daughters a European education without being sepa- 
 rated from them, induced him at last to forego his 
 purpose of abandoning public life. His mind being
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 255 
 
 made up, he completed his arrangements with un- 
 usual rapidity, and arrived in Paris within two 
 months after acceptance of the mission. 
 
 His career in the French capital was the pleas- 
 antest episode of his public life. Dr Franklin, in 
 his snuff-coloured suit, his shoe and knee buckles, 
 his quaint manners and agreeable conversation, was, 
 and had long been, the favourite in the brilliant 
 circles of French society, and in the gay Court that 
 dreamed not of the evil days that were coming, 
 nor thought what influence the sympathy of the 
 old French monarchy for the American Eepublic 
 was doomed to exercise upon the whole current of 
 European thought and politics. But popular as 
 Franklin was, Jefferson not only rivalled but out- 
 stripped him in the race of fame and fashion. The 
 literati, the philosophers, the wits, the poets, the 
 musicians, the painters as well as the fair 
 ladies who reign supreme in fashionable circles 
 all found in the celebrated American a man with 
 whom it was a pleasure to converse, and to whose 
 intimacy it was an honour to be admitted. Jeffer- 
 son knew how to "be all things to all men," and 
 was an admirable listener as well as talker. His 
 modesty was only surpassed by his merit ; and it 
 was noticed of him, not without secret approval,
 
 256 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 though possibly with open wonder, by the fast men 
 and women of the day for the " fast " are of all 
 epochs and of all countries that claim to be civilised 
 that the least spoken or acted indelicacy caused 
 him to blush like a boy who had never been at 
 school. 
 
 The prevalent ideas of religion, which owed 
 so much of their scepticism and cynicism to 
 the teachings of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, 
 found in Jefferson not only an apt pupil but even 
 a master ; for he had thought out for himself in 
 America, from his boyhood upwards, a system of 
 theology more akin to Platonism than to modern 
 Christianity. Though not a scoffer, like Voltaire, 
 he took so little trouble to conceal his opinions that 
 he drew upon himself the accusation of atheism. 
 But in those days, as to a certain extent in our 
 own, the essential difference between atheism and 
 theism was never admitted by those who assume 
 the monopoly of orthodoxy ; and Jefferson's alleged 
 atheism, which he indignantly denied, was con- 
 tinually charged against him, after his return to 
 America, to injure his public character and over- 
 weight him with unpopularity in the political 
 race. But in the congenial society of the French 
 capital, where ultra - scepticism was the fashion,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 257 
 
 and where the Abbe* de Talleyrand thought it 
 necessary to explain to the English ambassador, 
 Lord Gower, that neither he nor the Archbishop of 
 Paris was a Christian, the accusation either of 
 deism or of atheism would have done him no 
 harm, and consequently no one thought it worth 
 while to make it. But it was the political rather 
 than the religious debdcle of thought, the ominous 
 rumblings of the approaching earthquake, that was 
 to throw down so much that was good along with 
 so much that was evil in France, that attracted 
 the leading spirits of the French capital to Dr 
 Franklin in the first instance, and to Mr Jefferson 
 in the second. 
 
 The rising men of France considered the inde- 
 pendence of America as due in a great measure 
 to French support, as it unquestionably was, and 
 looked with admiration upon the stand which the 
 Americans had made in support of a principle, no 
 doubt vital in itself, but trivial in comparison with 
 the oppressions, exactions, and every form of cor- 
 ruption and misgovernment which France, without 
 exhibiting the courage of resistance, had endured 
 for ages. Not only officers who had served under 
 Lafayette, Rochambeau, and L'Estaing in America, 
 but the younger scions of the noblesse who had 
 
 R
 
 258 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 never stirred from home, and knew not what aid 
 they were rendering to the downfall of their own 
 order by advocating the rights of man after the 
 American fashion, thronged the evening receptions 
 of Franklin and Jefferson. It was the leavening of 
 the lump, and produced a fermentation greater and 
 more violent than the philosophers foresaw. 
 
 It was not in Jefferson's nature to do things by 
 halves, or give semi -assent to great principles ; and 
 he had not been many months in Paris before he 
 applied to the events occurring around him the 
 same sharp scrutiny that he had given to those of 
 his own country, and clearly defined .to himself 
 the shape and the direction of the revolution that 
 he saw not only to be inevitable, but of near 
 approach. The republicanism of which he was the 
 apostle at home, he preached to his intimates 
 abroad. He seems to have loved the French people, 
 and appreciated the many admirable traits in their 
 character, while wondering at the patience they 
 had so long exhibited under misgovernment which 
 would, ages before, have driven the Anglo-Saxons 
 to rebellion. Feudalism and all its results, hered- 
 itary aristocracy and monarchy, laws of entail and 
 primogeniture, class privileges and monopolies, he 
 held in equal abhorrence, but reserved for monarchy
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 259 
 
 the expression of his deepest dislike. The extrav- 
 agance of his animadversions against kings often 
 bordered upon the ludicrous, especially when he 
 alarmed himself, as he often did, with the idea 
 that a large party in the United States would 
 willingly supersede republicanism by a hereditary 
 monarchy after the British fashion. 
 
 He wrote to General Washington in August 1788 
 a letter on the alarming state of affairs in France, in 
 which he spoke of " the evil passions of kings and of 
 those who would be kings." On the same day he 
 wrote to another correspondent : " So much," in ref- 
 erence to French affairs, " for the blessings of having 
 kings, and magistrates who would be kings ! From 
 these events our young Republic may learn useful 
 lessons : never to call a foreign Power to settle their 
 differences ; to guard against hereditary magistrates ; 
 to prevent their citizens from being so established 
 in wealth and power as to be thought worthy of 
 alliance by marriage with the sisters, nieces, and 
 cousins of kings ; and, in short, to besiege the 
 throne of Heaven with eternal prayers to extirpate 
 from creation this class of human lions, tigers, and 
 mammoths called kings. From whom, let him perish 
 who does not say, ' Good Lord, deliver us ! " In 
 another letter of the same year, he declared that
 
 260 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 " no race of kings had ever presented above one 
 man of common -sense in twenty generations!" 
 But these violent denunciations, and many others of 
 a similar kind that are scattered through his cor- 
 respondence, were intended more for home than for 
 foreign use. 
 
 The amended constitution of the United States 
 was under discussion. Jefferson, who would cer- 
 tainly have been elected a member of the Conven- 
 tion had he not been abroad in France, could not 
 reconcile himself to complete silence on the subject, 
 apprehensive as he was of the efforts of the Federal 
 party to establish something like a hereditary chief- 
 magistracy, and a legislative peerage, which he 
 considered to be involved in the appointment of 
 life - senators. He was even opposed to the re- 
 eligibility of the President to a second term of 
 office, and would have reduced the term from 
 four to three years. Monarchism was, in fact, 
 his bdte noire his favourite aversion the red 
 flag by the waving of which before his eyes 
 any athlete in the tauromachia of politics could 
 drive this fine bull frantic. Yet, notwithstanding- 
 all his hatred of kings, whether it were real or 
 assumed, he had no very hard words to launch 
 against poor Louis the Sixteenth, when the throne
 
 THOMAS JEFFEKSON. 261 
 
 of France was tossed about on the waves of revolu- 
 tion like a cork upon the billows. In describing 
 in his Memoirs the taking of the Bastille, the 
 declaration of the Eepublic, and the execution of 
 the King and the Queen, he dwelt not only with- 
 out severity but almost with favour on the King's 
 character, and made more ample allowance for the 
 appalling difficulties of his position than any writer 
 of the time. 
 
 " The King," he said, in reference to the events of 
 1789, "was now become a passive machine in the 
 hands of the National Assembly, and had he been 
 left to himself, he would have willingly acquiesced 
 in whatever they should devise as best for the nation. 
 A wise constitution would have been formed, hered- 
 itary in his line, himself placed at its head, with 
 powers so large as to enable him to do all the good 
 of his station, and so limited as to restrain him 
 from its abuse. This he would have faithfully 
 administered, and more than this I do not believe 
 he ever wished. But he had a queen of absolute 
 sway over his weak mind and timid virtue, and of 
 a character the reverse of his in all points. This 
 ' angel,' so gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of 
 Burke, with some smartness of fancy, but no sound 
 sense, was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant
 
 262 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of 
 pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or 
 perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gambling 
 and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois, 
 and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in 
 the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into 
 action the reforming hand of the nation ; and her 
 opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness, and 
 dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillotine, drew 
 the King on with her, and plunged the world into 
 crimes which will for ever stain the pages of modern 
 history. I have ever believed that had there been 
 no queen, there would have been no revolution. 
 No force would have been provoked, nor exercised. 
 The King would have gone hand in hand with the 
 wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by 
 the increased lights of the age, wished only, with 
 the same pace, to advance the principles of their 
 social constitution. The deed which closed the 
 mortal course of these sovereigns I shall neither 
 approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say 
 that the first magistrate of a nation cannot commit 
 treason against his country, or is unamenable to its 
 punishment ; nor yet, that where there is no written 
 law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our 
 hearts, and a power in our hands, given for righteous
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 263 
 
 employment in maintaining right and redressing 
 wrong. Of those who judged the King, many 
 thought him wilfully criminal, many that his exist- 
 ence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict 
 with the horde of kings, and that it were better 
 that one should die than all. I should not have 
 voted with this portion of the Legislature. I should 
 have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harm 
 out of her power, and placed the King in his station, 
 investing him with limited powers, which I verily 
 believe he would have honestly exercised, according 
 to the measure of his understanding." 
 
 When, on the motion of the Vicomte de Noailles, 
 the brother-in-law of Lafayette, the National Assem- 
 bly abolished all privilege of classes in the State, Jef- 
 ferson, who in the Legislature of his native Virginia 
 had introduced and carried a series of similar 
 measures, was highly gratified with the contagion of 
 his example. " Thus," he wrote, " went down at one 
 sweeping blow all the abusive privileges of feudal- 
 ism, the tithes and casuals of the clergy, all provin- 
 cial privileges, and, in fine, the feudal regimen 
 generally." As if in acknowledgment of the fact 
 that the American revolution was the parent of that 
 in France, and that the example set by the authors 
 of the Declaration of Independence was stimulating
 
 264 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the French to establish their nascent liberties on as 
 broad and lasting a foundation, the committee of 
 the National Assembly appointed to draw up a 
 constitution, officially invited Mr Jefferson to attend 
 and assist in their deliberations. This was an ex- 
 traordinary request to make to a foreigner, as well 
 as a very high compliment ; but Mr Jefferson, with 
 a prudent eye to the effect which his compliance 
 might have had on his political character at home, 
 excused himself " on the obvious consideration, that 
 his mission was to the King as chief magistrate of 
 the nation ; that his duties were limited to the 
 concerns of his own country, and forbade him to 
 intermeddle with the internal transactions of that in 
 which he had been received in a specific character 
 only." 
 
 But the Marquis de Lafayette who, at this 
 early period of the revolution, deceived himself with 
 the hope that he could safely ride the political 
 whirlwind was too fresh from his American battle- 
 fields, and too fully imbued with the principles he 
 had imbibed from the teachings of Washington and 
 Jefferson, not to desire the participation of the 
 latter in the great work of constitution - making, 
 that might, he thought, be as successful in the 
 Old World as in the New. If Jefferson would not,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 265 
 
 or could not decently, lend his formal aid to the 
 business in hand, might he not help informally ? 
 Lafayette thought that he might, and wrote a note 
 to the American Minister, to say that on the fol- 
 lowing day he should bring a party of six or eight 
 friends, "to ask a dinner of him." Jefferson wrote 
 back to assure Lafayette and his friends of a hearty 
 welcome. The Marquis came at four o'clock, the 
 then fashionable hour of dinner in Paris, and 
 brought with him Barnave, Lameth, and four other 
 members of the National Assembly, whom he de- 
 scribed as leading patriots of honest but divergent 
 opinions. 
 
 The cloth having been removed, and wine 
 placed on the table after the American man- 
 ner, the Marquis introduced the subject of their 
 friendly conference by summarily reminding the 
 gentlemen present of the unsatisfactory state of 
 affairs in the National Assembly, of the danger in- 
 curred by the disagreement of the patriots among 
 themselves, and the probability that in consequence 
 the aristocratic party would carry everything before 
 them. Though he also had his opinion, he was 
 ready to sacrifice it to that of his brethren in the 
 patriotic cause ; and whatever was agreed upon, 
 he at the head of the national force would maintain.
 
 266 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Jefferson records that the discussions lasted for six 
 hours, during all which time he was "a silent wit- 
 ness to a coolness and candour of argument un- 
 usual in the conflicts of political opinion ; to a 
 logical reasoning and chaste eloquence disfigured 
 by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and 
 truly worthy of being placed in parallel with the 
 finest dialogues of antiquity as handed down to us 
 by Xenophon, Plato, or Cicero. The result was, 
 that the King should have a suspensory veto 
 on the laws ; that the Legislature should be com- 
 posed of a single body only, to be chosen by the 
 people. This concordat decided the fate of the 
 constitution." But as Jefferson had been in a 
 manner entrapped into taking a part though he 
 says it was a silent one in this great historical con- 
 ference, he thought it his duty to explain next 
 morning to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the 
 Count de Montmorrin, in what manner he had be- 
 come involved. The Count already knew all that 
 had passed, and paid Mr Jefferson the compliment 
 of saying, " that so far from being displeased at the 
 use made of his house on the occasion, it was his 
 earnest wish that Mr Jefferson would often assist 
 at such conferences, being convinced that he would 
 be useful in moderating the warmer spirits, and
 
 THOMAS JEFFEKSON. 267 
 
 promoting a wholesome and practicable reformation 
 only." 
 
 The influence that Mr Jefferson might thus have 
 exercised on French politics he was not destined to 
 employ, and the mighty Revolution, in which he 
 took so warm and almost paternal an interest, knew 
 him and his counsels no more. His private affairs 
 in Virginia required his presence after a long 
 absence, as his estates and plantations, exceed- 
 ing ten thousand acres in extent, were suffering 
 from the neglect or malfeasance of the overseers to 
 whom he was compelled to entrust their manage- 
 ment. In June 1789, General Washington in- 
 formed the Senate of the United States that he had 
 granted Mr Jefferson leave of absence from his post 
 in Paris, and in September the American Minister 
 bade farewell to Lafayette and all his French 
 friends, with the expectation of returning towards 
 the middle of the following year. 
 
 He took with him the most pleasing recollections 
 of the French people of all classes, of the hospitali- 
 ties, graces, and amenities of the rich and the learned 
 of Paris, and a feeling strong in his mind that, next 
 to being an American, the best thing in the world 
 was to be a Frenchman. It was his desire to return 
 to a position which he had enjoyed so long and
 
 268 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 appreciated so highly ; but it was one that was not 
 destined to fulfilment. His own country claimed 
 his services, and he never again beheld either 
 France or Europe. On leaving France, accom- 
 panied by his two daughters, he passed a few 
 weeks in England, where he does not appear to 
 have had, or to have cared to have, many friends 
 or acquaintances, and arrived off the Capes of the 
 Chesapeake, after a passage of nearly two months, 
 in the packet-ship Clermont, bound from London 
 to Norfolk in Virginia, and which put in for him 
 at Cowes in the Isle of Wight. 
 
 The voyage was of fair average for the time, and 
 unattended with danger until the moment of arrival. 
 When off the Capes of the Chesapeake, the vessel 
 lay in a thick fog for three days, when the captain, 
 seeing no chance of a pilot, determined to run in at 
 a venture. The risk was great, but it was success- 
 fully accomplished, though not without a smart col- 
 lision with a brig coming out of Norfolk, which tore 
 away a part of the rigging. Two hours after Jeffer- 
 son and his daughters had landed, the Clermont, on 
 board of which they had left all their luggage, was 
 discovered to be on fire. Luckily, however, their 
 effects, including his valuable historical papers, 
 were rescued from the flames. After short delays,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 269 
 
 and a few visits paid to friends on the line of 
 route, the party arrived at Monticello on the 23d 
 of December 1789. 
 
 The overseers on the plantations and the negro 
 slaves had received notice of the great event, 
 and gave him a reception such as the tenants 
 on great English estates were accustomed in the 
 olden time to give their landlords after long ab- 
 sence, or on attaining majority, or on occasion of 
 a marriage, or the birth of an heir to the family 
 honours. The relations between the Virginia 
 planters of Jefferson's day and their slaves were 
 generally of a paternal character. The planter 
 was the patriarch, and the slaves, especially those 
 of pure African blood, looked up to him as the 
 visible representative of power and beneficence. 
 He was their king, their lawgiver, their benefactor, 
 their friend, their father, their physician ; and if 
 hardship were inflicted or wrong done by overseer 
 or underling, he was the Judge of Appeal, who was 
 sure to do them justice. Jefferson was too great 
 an enemy of slavery to deal harshly with the 
 slaves whom it was his misfortune to possess, and 
 whom he could not emancipate, however willing to 
 do so, in opposition to a force of public opinion 
 that would have made an end of his public, and
 
 270 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 possibly of his private life, had he dared to brave 
 it. The negroes at that time had not learned that 
 wrong was done them, and no white apostles had 
 appeared among them to excite insurrection against 
 their masters. Jefferson was personally as kind- 
 hearted a man as ever lived, and his negroes knew 
 it, and lavished upon him, on those rare occasions 
 when his public duties allowed him to come among 
 them, an amount of affection which no white and 
 free labourers ever exhibit, or perhaps are capable 
 of exhibiting, to their employers. His daughter 
 Martha afterwards described the scene. When the 
 carriage arrived at Shadwell Mr Jefferson's birth- 
 place the negroes determined to draw it up the 
 mountain-side by hand to Monticello. " When the 
 door was opened they received him in their arms 
 and bore him to the house, crowding round and 
 kissing his hands and feet, some blubbering and 
 crying, some laughing. It seemed impossible to 
 satisfy their anxiety to touch him and the earth 
 which bore him." This ebullition of feeling was by 
 no means unusual, and at all times the negroes 
 were most devoted in their attachment to him. 
 " They believed him," says his daughter, " to be one 
 of the greatest, and they knew him to be one of 
 the best of men, and the kindest of masters." They
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 271 
 
 spoke to him freely in all their difficulties, and he 
 watched over them in sickness and in health, in- 
 terested himself in all their concerns, ever showing 
 esteem for the good, and indulgence to them all. 
 
 On his way from Norfolk to Monticello, Mr 
 Jefferson received a communication from General 
 Washington which influenced the whole course of 
 his future life, involved him anew and more 
 violently in the vortex of politics, and rendered 
 his dream of ease a dim possibility of the future, 
 rather than a present possession. He was offered 
 the high position of Secretary of State ; and after 
 much earnest thought and many misgivings, he 
 accepted it. 
 
 On the 19th of February 1801, Jefferson wrote 
 to his son-in-law, Mr Eandolph, that exactly after 
 a week's balloting, ten of the States had recorded 
 their votes in his favour for the Presidency of the 
 United States, in succession to Mr Adams that 
 four States voted for Aaron Burr. The opposition 
 of the minority to Jefferson had been violent and 
 protracted ; but his great celebrity, and the eminent 
 services he had rendered to the Republic, if it were 
 only for drawing up the masterly Declaration of 
 Independence, were too great to be ignored in those 
 early days, when personal distinction and public
 
 272 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 achievements for the national good or the national 
 renown were passports as unhappily for America 
 they have ceased to be in the present time to the 
 love and favour of the people, and to the highest 
 honour in their power to bestow. 
 
 It is not the object of these pages to narrate the 
 history of the United States after they had become 
 independent of Great Britain, thanks to the efforts 
 of Washington, Jefferson, and their great, though less 
 celebrated and possibly less illustrious compeers, 
 Benjamin Franklin and others ; or much might be 
 said of Jefferson's cautious and successful states- 
 manship and prudent management of public affairs 
 during his first Presidency, from 1801 to 1805. 
 It was during his first occupation of the Presi- 
 dential chair that Louisiana was purchased from 
 the Trench a purchase which Jefferson highly 
 approved, if he did not originate. Burr, who was 
 Jefferson's competitor for the Presidency, was not 
 a popular man. His unpopularity was afterwards 
 amply justified by a disgraceful private and public 
 career ; and Jefferson's victory was therefore hailed 
 with enthusiasm by all and they were the great 
 and overwhelming majority who desired that the 
 Presidential office should be reserved for respectable 
 men, especially if the respectable men were pos-
 
 THOMAS JEFFEESON. 273 
 
 sessed of brilliant talents and capacity. Great re- 
 joicings were held in all the principal cities of the 
 Union ; and a song written for the occasion, of 
 which the chorus was " Jefferson and Liberty," 
 took possession of the fancy, or perhaps the heart, 
 of the multitude, and was heard on every side ad 
 nauseam, until its constant repetition partook of 
 the character of a public nuisance. The new 
 President gave such general satisfaction in his high 
 office, that he was elected for a second term in 
 1805, and would probably have been re-elected to 
 a third term in 1809, if he had been disposed to 
 accept the burdensome honour, and the still more 
 burdensome responsibility. But his mind on the 
 subject had long been made up. In a letter 
 written to an intimate friend in January 1805, 
 after his election to the second term, and but two 
 months previous to his inauguration, he wrote : 
 
 " My opinion originally was, that the President 
 of the United States should be elected for seven 
 years, and be for ever afterwards ineligible. I 
 have since become sensible that seven years is too 
 long to be irremovable, and that there should be a 
 peaceable way of withdrawing a man midway when 
 he is doing wrong. The service for eight years, 
 with the power to remove at the end of the first 
 
 s
 
 274 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 four, comes nearly to my principle as corrected by 
 experience ; and it is in accordance with that, that 
 I am determined to withdraw at the end of my 
 second term. The danger is, that the indulgence 
 and attachments of the people will keep a man in 
 the chair after he has become a dotard, that re- 
 election through life shall become habitual, and 
 that election for life will follow. General Wash- 
 ington set the example of voluntary retirement 
 after eight years, and I shall follow it. ... I 
 had determined to declare this intention; but I 
 have consented to be silent, on the opinion of 
 friends who think it best riot to put a continuance 
 of office out of my power, in defiance of all cir- 
 cumstances. There is but one circumstance which 
 could engage my acquiescence in a third election 
 to wit, such a division about a successor as might 
 bring in a monarchist. But that circumstance is 
 impossible. While, therefore, I shall make no 
 public declaration of my purpose, I have freely 
 let it be understood in private conversation. In 
 this I am persuaded that my friends generally will 
 approve of my views. And should I, at the end of 
 my second term, carry into retirement all the favour 
 which I acquired in the first, I shall feel the con- 
 solation of having done all the good in my power,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 275 
 
 and expect with more than composure the ter- 
 mination of a life no longer valuable to others, or 
 of importance to myself." 
 
 Jefferson's second inauguration took place in 
 1805, on the customary day, the 4th of March, 
 when he was in the sixty-second year of his age. 
 The inaugural address which he delivered on the 
 occasion was only remarkable for the pathetic para- 
 graph with which it concluded : 
 
 " In entering upon the duties to the exercise of 
 which my fellow-citizens have again called me, I 
 have no fear that any motives of interest will lead 
 me astray. I am sensible of no passions which can 
 seduce me knowingly from the paths of justice ; 
 but the weakness of human nature, and the limits 
 of my own understanding, may produce errors of 
 judgment injurious to your interests. I shall need, 
 therefore, all the indulgence I have hitherto expe- 
 rienced ; and the want of it will certainly not 
 lessen with increasing years. I shall need, too, the 
 favour of that Being in whose hands we are, who 
 led our forefathers, as He led Israel of old, from 
 their native land, and planted them in a country 
 overflowing with all the necessaries and comforts of 
 life, who has covered our infancy with His pro- 
 vidence, and our riper years with His wisdom and
 
 276 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join 
 with me in supplication that He will so enlighten 
 the minds of your servants, guide their counsels, 
 and prosper their measures, that whatever they may 
 do shall result in your good, and secure to you 
 peace with, and the friendship and approbation of, 
 all the nations of the world." 
 
 A few days before the expiration of his second 
 term of office, addresses poured in upon him from 
 all parts of the country, expressive of the highest 
 approval of his administration, and his wise conduct 
 of public affairs. But that which pleased him most 
 of all was an address voted by an overwhelming 
 majority of the Legislature of his native State of 
 Virginia, on the 6th of February less than a 
 month before the installation of his destined suc- 
 cessor, Mr Madison. " "We have to thank you," 
 said the gratifying document, " for the model of an 
 administration conducted on the purest principles 
 of republicanism, for pomp and state laid aside, 
 patronage discarded, internal taxes abolished, a host 
 of superfluous officers disbanded, the monarchic 
 maxim that a national debt is a national blessing 
 renounced, and more than thirty-three millions of 
 our debt discharged, and, without the guilt and 
 calamities of conquest, a vast and fertile region
 
 THOMAS JEFFEKSON. 277 
 
 added to our country, far more extensive than her 
 original possession, bringing along with it the Missis- 
 sippi and the port of New Orleans, the trade of the 
 West to the Pacific Ocean, and, in the intrinsic 
 value of the land itself, a source of permanent and 
 almost inexhaustible revenue. . . . How blessed 
 will be the retirement into which you are about to 
 go ! How deservedly blessed it will be ! You carry 
 with you the richest of all rewards, the recollec- 
 tion of a life well spent in the service of your 
 country, and proofs the most decisive of the love, 
 the gratitude, and the veneration of your country- 
 men. That your retirement may be as happy as 
 your life has been virtuous and useful; that our 
 young men may see in the happy close of your days 
 an additional inducement to form their minds on the 
 model of yours, is the devout and earnest prayer 
 of your fellow - citizens who compose the General 
 Assembly of Virginia." 
 
 Jefferson, thankful to be free of the heavy re- 
 sponsibilities of the Presidential office, attended as 
 a spectator the inauguration of Mr Madison, and 
 two days afterwards set out on his return to his 
 farms, his plantations, his library, and his dearly 
 beloved violin, at Monticello, which he reached in 
 the middle of March. He wrote to Madison on
 
 278 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the 17th an account of the journey, which he 
 declared to have been very fatiguing, over roads 
 which were so trying to wheel-carriages that he 
 found it more comfortable to ride on horseback, 
 which he had done for eight hours, during as thick 
 and disagreeable a snowstorm as he had ever 
 witnessed. He was now in his sixty-seventh year, 
 and felt no inconvenience from his ride except 
 fatigue a result which gave him " more confidence 
 in his vis vitce than he had ever before entertained." 
 His personal appearance at this time has been 
 described by his biographer, Dr Eandall, who wrote 
 his life in three large volumes. " Jefferson was 
 6 feet 2 1 inches in height. His movements were 
 unrestrained, swinging, and bold. Calm authority 
 sat in his eye, and lurked in the firm intonations 
 of his voice. In a crowd, or in any situation, 
 he at once attracted notice. He was recognised by 
 high and low as a leader of men. The impression 
 which his looks conveyed was that of great firm- 
 ness and gentleness combined, of powerful energy 
 in perfect repose. His conversation was always 
 pleasing to the listeners, though he made no 
 effort at sustained brilliancy, and he utterly lacked 
 wit." 
 
 In 1810, Jefferson, in a letter to the great Polish
 
 THOMAS JEFFEKSON. 279 
 
 patriot Kosciusko, thus described his course of life 
 at his farm at Monticello : 
 
 "My mornings are devoted to correspondence. 
 From breakfast to dinner I am in my workshop, 
 my garden, or on horseback among my farm-labour- 
 ers. From dinner to dark I give to society and 
 recreation with my neighbours and friends ; and 
 from candle-light to early bed-time I read. My 
 health is perfect, and my strength considerably re- 
 inforced by the activity of the course I pursue. I 
 talk of ploughs and harrows, of seeding with my 
 neighbours, and of politics, too, if they choose, with 
 as little reserve as the rest of my fellow-citizens. 
 I feel the blessing of being able to say and do 
 what I please without being responsible to any 
 mortal. A part of my occupation, and by no 
 means the least pleasing, is the direction of the 
 studies of such young men as ask me for it. 
 They have the use of my library, and make a part 
 of my society. In advising the course of their 
 reading, I endeavour to keep their attention fixed 
 on the main objects of all knowledge the freedom 
 and happiness of mankind ; so that, coming to bear 
 a share in the councils of the country, they will 
 learn to keep in view the sole objects of all legiti- 
 mate government."
 
 280 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Jefferson, during his quiet retirement, had few 
 troubles to contend with but one of them afflicted 
 him greatly. In removing his effects from Wash- 
 ington, a large trunk, sent round by water for the 
 sake of economy, was broken open by robbers on 
 the Jame river, and its contents, valueless to the 
 thieves, were thrown into the stream. He was par- 
 ticularly fond of philology, and had spent thirty 
 years in collecting and making vocabularies of the 
 various Indian tribes, which were not then so nearly 
 extirpated as they have since become. He had 
 fifty of such vocabularies in manuscript, which were 
 all thrown into the river, destroyed or lost, with 
 the exception of a very few leaves, that were after- 
 wards discovered in the mud of the river. What 
 -made the loss harder to bear, was the fact that 
 many of the dialects, of which the records thus 
 destroyed and to all appearance preserved by a 
 hand well competent for the task had become 
 extinct, and that others were fast perishing with 
 the tribes that had employed them. The loss was 
 irreparable, and Jefferson never ceased to lament it 
 during the remainder of his life. 
 
 A letter preserved by Dr Randall, and written 
 by one of the granddaughters of Jefferson some 
 years after his death, gives so interesting a picture
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 281 
 
 of this great Cincinnatus of the Western world, that 
 no sketch of the life and character of the philoso- 
 pher, the scholar, and the statesman would be com- 
 plete without it : 
 
 " With regard to the tastes and wishes which he 
 carried with him into the country, his love of read- 
 ing alone would have made leisure and retirement 
 delightful to him. Books were at all times his 
 chosen companions, and his acquaintance with many 
 languages gave him great power of selection. He 
 read Homer, Virgil, Dante, Corneille, Cervantes, as 
 he read Shakespeare and Milton. In his youth he 
 had loved poetry; but by the time I was old enough 
 to observe, he had lost his taste for it, except for 
 Homer and the great Athenian tragics, which he 
 continued to the last to enjoy. He went over the 
 works of -ZEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, not 
 very long before I left him. Of history he was 
 very fond, and this he studied in all languages, 
 though always, I think, preferring the ancients. In 
 fact, he derived more pleasure from his acquaint- 
 ance with Greek and Latin than from any other re- 
 source of literature ; and I have often heard him 
 express his gratitude to his father for causing him 
 to receive a classical education. I saw him more 
 frequently with a volume of the classics in his
 
 282 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 hands than with any other book. Still he read 
 new publications as they came out, never missed 
 the new number of a review, especially of the 
 ' Edinburgh,' and kept himself acquainted with what 
 was being done, said, or thought in the world from 
 which he had retired. He loved farming and gar- 
 dening, the fields, the orchards, and his asparagus- 
 beds. Every day he rode through his plantation 
 and walked in his garden. In the cultivation of the 
 last he took great pleasure. Of flowers, too, he was 
 very fond. One of my early recollections is of the 
 attention which he paid to his flower-beds. He 
 kept up a correspondence with persons in the large 
 cities, particularly, I think, in Philadelphia, for the 
 purpose of receiving supplies of roots and seeds, both 
 for his kitchen and flower garden. I remember 
 well when he first returned to Monticello, how im- 
 mediately he began to prepare new beds for his 
 flowers. He had these beds laid off on the lawn, 
 under the windows, and many a time I have run 
 after him when he went out to direct the works, 
 accompanied by one of his gardeners, generally 
 Wormley, armed with spade and hoe, whilst he him- 
 self carried the measuring-line. I was too young 
 to aid him, except in a small way, but my sister, 
 Mrs Bankhead, then a young and beautiful woman,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 283 
 
 . . . was his active and useful assistant. I remem- 
 ber the planting of the first hyacinths and tulips, 
 and their subsequent growth. The roots arrived, 
 labelled each one with a fancy name. There was 
 Marcus Aurelius and the King of the Gold Mine, 
 the Eoman Empress and the Queen of the Ama- 
 zons, Psyche, the God of Love, &c. Eagerly, and 
 with childish delight, I studied this brilliant nomen- 
 clature, and wondered what strange and surprisingly 
 beautiful creations I should see rising from the 
 ground when spring returned, and these precious 
 roots were committed to the earth, under my grand- 
 father's own eye, with his beautiful granddaughter 
 Anne standing by his side, and a crowd of happy 
 young faces, of younger grandchildren, clustering 
 round to see the progress, and inquire anxiously the 
 name of each separate deposit. Then when spring 
 returned how eagerly we watched the first appear- 
 ance of the shoots above ground. Each root was 
 marked with its own name written on a bit of stick 
 by its side ; and what joy it was for one of us to 
 discover the tender green breaking through the 
 mould, and run to grandpapa to announce that we 
 really believed Marcus Aurelius was coming up, or 
 the Queen of the Amazons was above ground ! With 
 how much pleasure, compounded of our pleasure
 
 284 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 and his own, on the new birth, he would imme- 
 diately go out to verify the fact, and praise us for 
 our diligent watchfulness ! Then when the flowers 
 were in bloom, and we were in ecstasies over the 
 rich purple and crimson, or pure white, or delicate 
 lilac, or pale yellow of the blossoms, how he would 
 sympathise in our admiration, or discuss with my 
 mother and elder sister new groupings and combina- 
 tions and contrasts ! Oh, these were happy moments 
 for us and for him ! " 
 
 Jefferson's declining years were harassed and over- 
 clouded by pecuniary difficulties not brought upon 
 him by personal or family extravagance, or by his 
 mismanagement of his own or his paternal resources, 
 but by his good-natured folly in becoming security 
 for a lifelong friend, in whom he trusted, not 
 wisely but too well, and too much. But though 
 Jefferson, like all other men who have made them- 
 selves eminent in political contests, and the inevit- 
 able animosities engendered in the antagonisms of 
 public life especially in such gigantic crises as 
 those which accompanied and followed the birth of 
 the young Eepublic had made many and powerful 
 enemies, he had made a greater number of equally 
 and more powerful friends. These latter were eager 
 to come to his rescue, and offers of assistance poured
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 285 
 
 in upon him from all quarters; but all of these 
 that were of a private nature he respectfully but 
 positively declined. Those of a public nature he 
 gratefully accepted. From New York the sum of 
 8500 dollars was forwarded ; from Philadelphia, 
 5000 dollars; from Baltimore, 3000 dollars; and 
 from other less important cities, considerable sums, 
 and large in proportion to their wealth and popula- 
 tion. A scheme of a lottery for his benefit, pro- 
 posed by some of his friends, but never thoroughly 
 approved by himself, was brought forward only to 
 be abandoned. " Mr Jefferson," says his biographer, 
 Dr Randall, " had the inexpressible satisfaction of 
 believing that his debts would be paid ; that his 
 hearthstone would descend to his children ; and that 
 his family would be left independent. Happily he 
 died in that delusion." 
 
 To the permanent disgrace of his contemporaries 
 and colleagues many of the latter being powerful 
 and rich the grave had only closed over the 
 remains of the great patriot, when his goods and 
 chattels, and the whole of his landed property, were 
 sold by public auction to clear off his liabilities ; 
 and his unmarried daughter was left without a place 
 in which to lay her head. Kings, it has been 
 observed, are too often ungrateful ; but Democracies
 
 286 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 and Eepublics are quite as often forgetful of the 
 merits and necessities of their greatest benefactors. 
 
 Mr Jefferson had been a sufferer for many years 
 from severe chronic diarrhoea a malady which, with 
 over-sensitive delicacy, he concealed from his family, 
 and which he endeavoured to conceal from his medi- 
 cal attendants. The weakness thus occasioned, which 
 would have told severely upon him, even if he had 
 been a younger man, told with crushing force upon 
 him as he approached fourscore, and which, com- 
 bined with other infirmities and old age, proved fatal 
 at eighty-two. In the spring of 1826 his strength 
 became seriously impaired, his appetite diminished, 
 and the little food he was able to take failed to 
 afford him adequate nutrition. His mind, however, 
 retained all its usual energy and lucidity. He knew 
 himself to be fast failing, and was quite resigned to 
 death, though in the month of June in that year 
 he had a lingering hope that death would not 
 strike him until after the 4th of July the anni- 
 versary of the Independence of the United States 
 which he had done more than any man, Washington 
 alone excepted, to secure and establish. On the 
 3d of July, wrote Dr Dunglison, the physician who 
 attended him, his slumbers were evidently those of 
 approaching dissolution. He slept until evening,
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 287 
 
 and on awaking, thought the night had passed, and 
 said faintly, " This is the 4th of July." On learning 
 that the day had not arrived, he quietly sank to 
 sleep again, but woke several times in a state of 
 semi-consciousness, which lasted until fifty minutes 
 past noon on the anticipated 4th when he 
 breathed his last, without a sigh or a struggle. 
 Thus his wish was gratified, and his life was pro- 
 longed to the memorable 4th, rendered still more 
 memorable that day by the fact that the great 
 Republic, of which he was one of the founders, 
 then completed the fiftieth year of its inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 This circumstance was well calculated to operate 
 powerfully and pathetically on the imagination of 
 the American people. The event, impressive in 
 itself, was rendered still more impressive by the 
 death, on the same day, of John Adams, his firm 
 friend and predecessor in the Presidential chair. 
 The circumstances have been already recorded in 
 the life of that statesman (see p. 204), and were 
 commented upon in all the pulpits of the land on 
 the following Sunday, in terms befitting the singular 
 solemnity of the occasion. 
 
 Thus lived and thus died the great Thomas 
 Jefferson a man who, taken all in all, was the
 
 288 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 most remarkable man of his age and country, and 
 towered high above all his contemporaries, Washing- 
 ton himself not excepted. Washington did more than 
 Jefferson, but he worked physically and successfully; 
 while Jefferson, with a far higher range and capacity 
 of mind, worked intellectually and often unsuccess- 
 fully. All his ideas were in advance of his time. Had 
 his plans for the gradual abolition of slavery been 
 adopted, as they ought to have been, and would have 
 been if his contemporaries had been half as wise and 
 far-seeing as he was, they would have prevented the 
 stupendous Civil War that from 1860 to 1865 im- 
 perilled the existence of the Eepublic, and rendered 
 impossible the false issues that led to it, the shed- 
 ding of the brave blood which was poured out like 
 .water on both sides during that fratricidal struggle, 
 not for liberty, as has been asserted, but for power 
 and dominion, and the right of the North to play 
 against the South the part attempted to be played, 
 but without success, by George III. and his 
 Ministers against the unwilling colonies. Neither 
 Washington nor Jefferson, nor the leading Southern 
 statesmen of their day, upheld slavery for the love 
 they bore it, or maintained it except temporarily, 
 and with the greatest regret and compunction, as an 
 evil to be eradicated in due time ; but the means to
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 289 
 
 accomplish which, with safety to all whose interests 
 were involved directly or indirectly in its continu- 
 ance, even to the unhappy negroes themselves, 
 whose very existence might be imperilled by sudden 
 freedom, were not apparent to anybody Jefferson 
 alone excepted. It is a common error, and a cruel 
 calumny, to assert that the Southern States in the 
 late war took up arms for the sole purpose of main- 
 taining negro slavery. The real motive power of the 
 war was the denial of the Southern States that the 
 Northern States had any right to meddle with the 
 question except within their own boundaries ; that 
 as the Northern States had abolished negro slavery, 
 one by one, in the exercise of their undoubted 
 rights as States, Massachusetts at one time ; New 
 York at another ; Pennyslvania, and all the rest, at 
 such times as suited their own convenience and 
 supposed interest, and the will of their several legis- 
 latures, all sovereign in the matter, the same rights 
 belonged to each State of the South, which would, 
 in all likelihood, have abolished the pernicious insti- 
 tution when the time was ripe, if they had not been 
 goaded into obstinacy by what they considered the 
 illegal interference of the North, in matters which 
 were for the decision of the South alone. 1 Mr 
 
 1 The whole question ultimately turned upon a side issue, and was 
 T
 
 290 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Jefferson as befitted the author of the immortal 
 Declaration of Independence, which contains the 
 noble words, that " all men " were born free and 
 equal was an enemy of slavery, either of the 
 white man or the black, and was with all his heart 
 and mind desirous of its abolition in America, 
 immediate, if that were possible; gradual, if im- 
 mediate emancipation were impossible or even 
 greatly dangerous, as he proclaimed in his early 
 manhood, when he was not in possession of power 
 or office, and which he reiterated more emphatically 
 
 not wholly due to philanthropic or humanitarian, but mainly to 
 political motives. Politically, the North disapproved of slavery ; 
 socially, it disapproved of the negro. The new States that were 
 carved out of the great and almost illimitable Western territories of 
 the Union were colonised by the overflow of Northern men and by 
 European emigrants, and negro slavery was not permitted in them. 
 The Southern slave States did not furnish emigrants to the West, and 
 were consequently, in default of their occupation of new territories, 
 in danger of being continually outvoted and rendered powerless in 
 the great Congress of the nation. As the North, for political 
 reasons, extended the area of free States westwards to the Pacific 
 Ocean, so the South, for political reasons, and for the conserva- 
 tion of the equipoise between the two great sections of the Repub- 
 lic, was desirous of creating States southwards in Texas, and to the 
 west of what was called Mason and Dixon's line of latitude, in 
 which negro slavery should be permitted. To this arrangement 
 the North objected not so much for love of the negro, as for love 
 of political ascendancy. Hence the war, and hence the abolition of 
 negro slavery by Mr Lincoln as a war measure, and not as one of 
 Christian justice and enlightened philanthropy.
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 291 
 
 and more solemnly after he had twice served as 
 chief magistrate, and consequently spoke with more 
 than common authority and experience. In May 
 1826, less than three months before his death, he 
 wrote to a friend and relative on the subject of 
 slavery and some others, upon which he had been 
 accused of changing his opinions as he grew older. 
 " My sentiments have been forty years before the 
 public. Although I shall not live to see them con- 
 summated, they will not die with me ; but, living 
 or dying, they will ever be in my most fervent 
 prayer." 
 
 Jefferson's views on the subject of slavery were 
 unhappily without effect on the minds of his coun- 
 trymen. They were far in advance of the public 
 opinion of his time when first promulgated in 1784 ; 
 but they nevertheless influenced to a larger extent 
 than is generally admitted the opinion of the Nor- 
 thern States, as they one by one in their own 
 time, and to suit their own pleasure and con- 
 venience abolished the slavery which they had 
 learned to consider wrong, not perhaps altogether 
 without the leaven of the selfish consideration that 
 in the North free labour was profitable, and slave 
 labour was unprofitable, for the reason that it was 
 far more costly than free labour. In the Northern
 
 292 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 States labour was only remunerated while the lab- 
 ourer was able and willing to work ; in the South 
 the labourer was maintained at considerable cost 
 during his infancy, as well as in his senile decrepi- 
 tude, when his labour was without any value. 
 
 Mr Jefferson was also in advance of the public 
 opinion of the great majority of his countrymen, 
 who entertained feelings of hostility and ill-will 
 against the British nation, and against Englishmen 
 especially, for the part that the British Government 
 had taken in resistance to the liberty and indepen- 
 dence of the American colonies. Jefferson did not 
 blame the British people for the unwise policy of 
 their Government, but constantly, and on every con- 
 venient occasion, urged upon the Americans the 
 desirability and the duty of maintaining friendly, 
 and indeed cordial, relations with their brothers 
 on the other side of the Atlantic. In this respect 
 also the opinions of Jefferson have at length begun 
 to prevail more largely than ever among his country- 
 men, and help to strengthen the estimation in which 
 his memory is held by all right-minded men on 
 both sides of the Atlantic.
 
 293 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 THE part played by Benjamin ^Franklin in the 
 establishment of the Independence of the United 
 States was eminently great, if not remarkably 
 brilliant. While there was something patrician in 
 the birth, education, conduct, and public services 
 of Washington, and Jefferson, and Adams, his 
 fellow-labourers in the work, Benjamin Franklin 
 was wholly plebeian in origin, and in his avoca- 
 tions for the greater part of his early life. But 
 such mighty plebeians, and such men of undoubt- 
 ed genius as he in later life proved himself to be, 
 in literature, in science, and in statesmanship, the 
 world has rarely seen. He was born in Boston, 
 Massachusetts, in 1706, the son of a tallow- 
 chandler in very humble circumstances, but a man 
 of decided opinions in religion and politics, and of 
 very considerable ability. Franklin in his child- 
 hood developed a great love for reading, and books
 
 294 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 of travel and adventure at sea being more abundant 
 than any other in his father's scanty library, the 
 boy's thoughts took a seaward turn, as is customary 
 with boys of an enterprising spirit, eager to see 
 what the world may be like beyond the boun- 
 daries of their native town or village. But as his 
 access to a wider range of literature was facilitated 
 in due time, his enthusiasm for a sea-life gradually 
 diminished, and his tastes took a more intellectual 
 turn. He had an elder brother established in 
 Boston as a master - printer, and to him he was 
 apprenticed by his father. The brothers, however, 
 did not agree. The elder brother was too severe, 
 and the younger too proud and independent to 
 endure control which he considered to be unreason- 
 able, if not unjust. He finally broke through the 
 covenants of his indenture of apprenticeship, to the 
 great displeasure and annoyance of his brother, who 
 resolved that the illegality of the act should be 
 made known to alL the master-printers in Boston 
 and the neighbourhood, so as to prevent the young 
 man from obtaining employment at any of their 
 offices. His efforts in this direction were success- 
 ful, and Benjamin left Massachusetts and emigrated 
 to New York then a comparatively small city 
 where he obtained work, though not without diffi-
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 295 
 
 culty, in the office of aii obscure printer, a German, 
 named Keimer. He was then only seventeen years 
 of age; but like Lady Macbeth, as described by 
 her husband, he was of "undaunted mettle," and 
 confident in his own strength and resources. He 
 worked for Keimer during a year and a half at 
 miserable wages, on which, however, he managed 
 to subsist without running into debt. At the end 
 of this time he was induced by the representations 
 of a friend or perhaps he was no better than an 
 acquaintance, to whom the name of friend was not 
 strictly applicable to try his fortune in London. 
 He obtained employment as a compositor at an 
 office in Great Wild Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 where he set an example of temperance and abstin- 
 ence from alcoholic drinks to his fellow-workmen, 
 which they ridiculed and sometimes resisted. The 
 case or desk at which he worked at this office is 
 still preserved in London. He remained in Eng- 
 land for little more than a twelvemonth, when 
 he was induced by a Mr Denham, a well-to-do 
 merchant in Philadelphia, to return to America 
 and establish himself in that city, as clerk or secre- 
 tary to that gentleman. He retained that employ- 
 ment until the death of Mr Denham, which occurred 
 in 1727, when Franklin had just passed his twenty-
 
 296 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 first year. Finding no chance of gaining a liveli- 
 hood in Philadelphia, or any other career open to 
 him, he returned to his old business of compositor, 
 and served with his former master, Keimer, at New 
 York, for two years, at wages somewhat higher than 
 he had previously earned, but still not over liberal. 
 But liberal or scanty, he made them sufficient, 
 acquiring reputation and credit in the meantime, 
 and making friends on every side. The result was, 
 that he was enabled to set up business in Phila- 
 delphia in a small way, and to marry a young 
 woman whose acquaintance he had made before his 
 journey to London. 
 
 From this time forward his career was one of 
 slowly growing but steady prosperity. He established, 
 edited, and printed ' Poor Robin's Almanack ' 
 a publication which speedily became celebrated all 
 over America, and attained a large and remunera- 
 tive sale. It was continued for more than twenty- 
 five years with increasing success, and recommended 
 itself to the taste of the multitude by the homely 
 wisdom, as well as the plain and homely language, 
 of the proverbs and maxims of thrift, prudence, and 
 domestic economy, which formed the staple of the 
 literature which it provided, not only for the in- 
 struction but for the amusement of its readers.
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 297 
 
 Franklin appeared as an author in other directions 
 especially by his pamphlets on public affairs. His 
 style was broad, simple, and plain without any 
 trace of affectation or any attempts at " fine writ- 
 ing " resembling in these respects that of the once 
 celebrated and still remembered William Cobbett. 
 " His style," says an American admirer, " was 
 adapted to all tastes and comprehensions. The 
 scholar admired its compact and nervous simplicity ; 
 the uneducated fancied the limpid diction was like 
 that which they themselves used in their ordi- 
 nary familiar intercourse. It united the charac- 
 teristics of Bunyan and Defoe with some of those 
 of Swift and Addison. There was an obvious and 
 all-pervading common-sense in its propositions ; its 
 illustrations were so inimitably apt and telling ; its 
 poigrMnt but easily understood wit so surely ex- 
 posed every weak point of an adversary, so surely 
 carried the derisive laugh of the multitude along 
 with it, that it may well be doubted whether a 
 more effective popular writer, on a class of subjects 
 appealing to the understanding on the practical affairs 
 of human life, was ever written in the English 
 language." 
 
 As his pecuniary means increased, he became an 
 influential, and made himself a useful, citizen of the
 
 298 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 growing city of Philadelphia, in which his home 
 was for the future to be fixed. He was the first to 
 propose and the strongest to support the establish- 
 ment of a public library. He originated the first 
 Fire Insurance Company in Philadelphia ; organised 
 measures for an Academy, which afterwards ex- 
 panded into a University; headed a public sub- 
 scription for, and afterwards obtained a grant from 
 the Legislature of Pennsylvania to endow, the first 
 hospital ever established in the city ; and made 
 himself conspicuous either in purse or person in 
 the furtherance of every work of public usefulness 
 and philanthropy. 
 
 In the year 1747 he was elected one of the 
 representatives of Philadelphia in the Legislative 
 Assembly of Pennsylvania his first appearance in 
 the public life of politics in which, on a still 
 larger scale, he afterwards played so distinguished 
 a part. He spoke but seldom in the Assembly. 
 He was a doer, not a talker ; and on the rare occa- 
 sions when his voice was heard, his remarks they 
 could not be called speeches were few and short, 
 but always to the point. He made no pretensions 
 to oratory, which he looked upon, when studied 
 with the view of creating an effect, with some- 
 thing like contempt. In this respect he was of the
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 299 
 
 opinion of a very rich and philanthropic Scotsman 
 in Philadelphia, whose purse was always open for 
 charitable and patriotic purposes, who, being ap- 
 pealed to for a subscription to aid in the endow- 
 ment of a Chair of Elocution in the University of 
 Pennsylvania, replied, in broad Scotch, to a deputa- 
 tion which waited upon him for the purpose : " Na, 
 na ! I'll no gi'e a dollar no a red cent even to 
 help in the establishment of such a pernicious in- 
 stitution. I consider the gift of the gab the curse 
 of all free countries, especially of England and 
 America ! " 
 
 During the time that Franklin sat in the Assem- 
 bly, a somewhat bitter controversy was raised by the 
 heirs of the great William Penn, the founder of the 
 State of Pennsylvania, who claimed immunity from 
 the payment of all State taxes on the ground of the 
 public services of their ancestor. Franklin opposed 
 their claim with all his characteristic energy ; and 
 made himself so conspicuous by his antagonism to 
 a demand which he asserted to be absurd, as well 
 as selfish, unjust, and unpatriotic, that he was soon 
 looked upon as the leader of the anti-Penn move- 
 ment. The question assumed such dimensions, that 
 the Assembly thought it desirable to send a dele- 
 gate to London to plead the cause of the people of
 
 300 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Pennsylvania against the heirs of Penn before the 
 Privy Council, with whom the ultimate decision 
 rested. They made choice of Franklin for the 
 honourable post ; and he went to London, pursuant 
 to his instructions, and pleaded the cause so suc- 
 cessfully, that it was decided that the estates of 
 the Penn family were equally liable with those of 
 all the other citizens and inhabitants of the State, 
 and were therefore adjudged to pay their fair share 
 of the public burdens. The result gave such 
 satisfaction to his Philadelphia!! friends, that 
 Franklin was requested to remain in London until 
 further orders, as agent - general for the colony. 
 Three other of the colonies Massachusetts, Mary- 
 land, and Georgia shortly afterwards intrusted 
 him with similar functions in their behalf, each of 
 them paying him a salary. In this responsible 
 position he remained for five years in London, 
 during which time literary and scientific honours 
 were bestowed upon him by many learned bodies. 
 He was chosen a member of the Eoyal Society, 
 Foreign Associate of the Academic des Sciences 
 of Paris, and appointed D.C.L. or LL.D. by the 
 Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and St Andrews. 
 It was not, however, wholly to his literary fame that 
 these honours were attributable. His scientific at-
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 301 
 
 taiuments especially in the knowledge and appli- 
 cation of electricity had made him famous in 
 every country of Europe. He was known and 
 honoured as the most eminent and able man that 
 America had yet produced. He bore his honours 
 meekly, while accepting them as his due ; and on 
 his return to America, found that his countrymen 
 were as ready as foreigners to greet him with well- 
 merited acclamations. 
 
 He was a second time appointed the agent- 
 general of Pennsylvania in London, and while 
 acting in that capacity, in 1766, was examined 
 at the bar of the House of Commons in relation to 
 the Stamp Act, of which he was a strenuous oppo- 
 nent. The Stamp Act sowed the first seeds of the 
 unhappy estrangement, soon to take a revolutionary 
 shape, which occurred between the colonies and 
 the mother-country. Franklin observed the first 
 symptoms of the coming rupture, and endeavoured 
 to act the part of peacemaker. But his efforts 
 were unfruitful; and the rude rebuffs which he 
 experienced from men in office during his second 
 mission to England somewhat soured his usually 
 placid temper, until ultimately he became as 
 vigorous an opponent of the British connection as 
 he had formerly been its warm friend.
 
 302 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 In the House of Lords, shortly after Franklin's 
 return to America, the great Lord Chatham replied 
 to an insinuation of the Earl of Sandwich, that his 
 conciliatory views with regard to the dissatisfied 
 colonies had been inspired by Benjamin Franklin. 
 His lordship, while asserting that his plans and 
 opinions were entirely his own, spoke of Franklin 
 in highly eulogistic terms. " If," said his lordship, 
 " I were the first Minister of this country, and had 
 the care of settling this momentous business, I 
 should not be ashamed of publicly calling to my 
 assistance a person so perfectly acquainted with 
 the whole of the affairs of America, as the gentle- 
 man alluded to. He is one, I am pleased to say, 
 whom all Europe holds in high estimation from his 
 knowledge and wisdom, and ranks with our Boyles 
 and Newtons an honour, not to the English 
 nation only, but to human nature." Edmund 
 Burke, in the House of Commons, spoke in simil- 
 arly laudatory terms of the character of the dis- 
 tinguished American, stating "that his life had 
 brightened every hour it continued." 
 
 But though an opponent of the immediate 
 separation of the colonies from Great Britain, he 
 was too acute and far -sighted a student of life 
 and history, not to foresee the day when such
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 303 
 
 separation would become inevitable. Three months 
 before the final outbreak which led to the famous 
 incident of the destruction of the tea in the har- 
 bour of Boston, he wrote to Mr Winthrop, an 
 influential inhabitant of that city : " According to 
 the Boston newspapers, there appears to be some 
 violent spirits among them who are in favour of an 
 immediate rupture. I hope that a spirit of pru- 
 dence will govern the country, and enable it to 
 avoid a struggle, under the operations of which the 
 colonies might be crushed, and prevent their 
 recovering their former position for a whole cen- 
 tury. As among friends every affront given or 
 received does not necessitate a duel, so among 
 nations a war is not required for the redress of 
 every wrong or encroachment. At present, accord- 
 ing to my notions, it will suffice if we assert our 
 rights on every proper occasion." 
 
 Not that he ever recognised the right of Great 
 Britain to levy taxes, but always opposed the 
 exercise of what he called illegal tyranny. In 
 a letter to Lord Kames, dated in April 1767, he 
 wrote : " I have passed a considerable portion of 
 my life in England, and there formed so many 
 relations of friendship, that I love and esteem 
 this country, and form many sincere wishes for
 
 304 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 its prosperity. I desire, therefore, to see the 
 establishment of a union with the colonies, which 
 I look upon as the condition of her prosperity. As 
 regards America, if such a union do not appear to 
 me the less evident, America may at present suffer 
 under the weight of the arbitrary power of Great 
 Britain, and might suffer for a long time from 
 separation. Scotland and Ireland are in a different 
 position. Surrounded by the sea, they cannot in- 
 crease sufficiently in population, in wealth, or in 
 power, as England can. But with an immense 
 territory, favoured by nature with all the advan- 
 tages that can result from soil and climate, with 
 great navigable rivers and lakes, America cannot fail 
 to become a great, populous, and powerful country. 
 From this time forward, a shorter period than is 
 generally anticipated, she will be capable of shaking 
 off the fetters that bind her, perhaps of binding 
 some of them on those who placed them upon her. 
 . . . There still remains among the American 
 people so much respect, veneration, and love for 
 Great Britain, that if Great Britain will only treat 
 us prudently and with due regard to our rights and 
 privileges, she may govern us easily for several 
 centuries, without force, and nearly without ex- 
 pense. But I do not observe in America the neces-
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 305 
 
 sary amount of wisdom, and I deplore the absence 
 of it." 
 
 To avoid the necessity of taxing the colonies 
 without their consent, Franklin, as early as 1754, 
 proposed to Governor Shirley of Massachusetts a 
 plan for authorising and enabling them to elect and 
 send members to the British Parliament. It was 
 a long and able State paper, but not altogether 
 original ; for nearly a hundred and twenty years 
 previously, in 1637, seventeen years after the land- 
 ing of the pilgrims of the Mayflower, the magis- 
 trates of Connecticut proposed a confederation of 
 all the colonies, to be followed, when completed, 
 by the sending of members to represent them in 
 Westminster. 
 
 After Franklin's return to America, the anti- 
 British agitation had assumed a formidable shape, 
 and had divided the colonies into two irreconcilable 
 parties the enemies and the friends of the King 
 of England and of the British connection. Frank- 
 lin's side was taken, and, although the fires of his 
 youthful activity burned somewhat dimly in 1775, 
 when he was upwards of sixty-eight years of age, 
 he engaged in the cause which he had espoused 
 with an ardour which many more youthful com- 
 petitors might have envied. The very day after 
 
 u
 
 306 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 his return from London he was elected a member 
 of the first Congress, then about to meet in Phila- 
 delphia that very Congress which afterwards 
 voted the separation of the thirteen colonies from 
 Great Britain, and their erection into thirteen inde- 
 pendent States. In this crisis, to Franklin's great 
 sorrow and permanent distress of mind, his only 
 son took the side of the British, and made himself 
 as conspicuous as a loyalist as his father was as a 
 unionist. Franklin's sorrow deepened into anger. 
 He ceased to hold any communication with his 
 son, and never forgave him for his partisanship 
 until a few days before his death, when the for- 
 giveness which he expressed appears to have been 
 nominal rather than real, and to have dwelt less in 
 his heart than upon his lips, or at the point of his 
 pen, when he wrote of it. 
 
 Franklin's son William, born in 1731, was a 
 man of some distinction and public service. He 
 was appointed by Lord Fairfax in 1763 as Governor 
 of New Jersey, and acted in that capacity until the 
 dispute between the colonies and the mother-country 
 had become so embittered, that no Governor ap- 
 pointed by royal authority could be permitted to 
 hold his place. In 1775 William Franklin was 
 declared to be an enemy of his country, and sent
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 307 
 
 as a prisoner to a fort in Connecticut, where he 
 remained for nearly three years. During his 
 imprisonment, in 1777, he applied to General 
 Washington for permission to visit his wife, who 
 was lying dangerously ill a few miles distant from 
 his place of captivity. Washington referred the 
 request to Congress, who refused it. Mrs William 
 Franklin, who died the year afterwards, attributed 
 as long as she lived this hard refusal to the in- 
 fluence of her husband's father. The suspicion, 
 under the circumstances, was not altogether un- 
 natural, but appears to have been wholly unfounded. 
 A tablet erected to the memory of this lady in St 
 Paul's Church, New York, records that, compelled 
 to part from the husband whom she loved, and 
 despairing of the soothing hope of ever seeing him 
 again, she sank under the accumulated burden of 
 that and other sorrows. 
 
 While the rough draft of the Declaration of 
 Independence was under the consideration of Con- 
 gress, Franklin sat next to Jefferson, and noticed 
 that he writhed a little under the acrimonious 
 criticisms to which it was subjected by some of 
 the hypercritical, as well as some of the really 
 judicious members of that assembly. But none 
 of the criticisms attacked the spirit or substance,
 
 308 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 but merely the occasional phraseology, of the im- 
 mortal document. But Jefferson nevertheless winced 
 under it ; and Franklin, with a view of distracting 
 his attention and amusing him, told him that he 
 made it a rule, whenever it was in his power, to 
 avoid becoming the draftsman of any document 
 that was to be passed under verbal review by any 
 public body whatever. " When I was a journey- 
 man printer," said he, " one of my companions, 
 who had served out his time as an apprentice, 
 resolved to set up in business for himself, not as a 
 printer, but as a hatter. His first concern was to 
 set up a handsome signboard, with a proper in- 
 scription. He composed it in these words : ' John 
 Thompson, hatter ; makes and sells hats for ready 
 money,' with the picture of a hat subjoined. He 
 thought he would submit the inscription to his 
 friends for their approval or amendment. The first 
 man he showed it to thought the word hatter tauto- 
 logous, because it was followed by the words ' makes 
 hats,' which sufficiently showed that he was a hat- 
 ter. It was struck out. The next person observed 
 that the word makes might as well be omitted, 
 because his customers would not care who made 
 the hats : if the hats were good and to their mind, 
 they would buy, by whomsoever they were made.
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 309 
 
 He struck it out accordingly. A third person said 
 he thought the words for ready money were useless, 
 as it was not the custom of the place to sell on 
 credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. 
 The words were expunged, and the inscription now 
 stood, ' John Thompson sells hats.' Sells hats ? said 
 his next friend. Why, nobody expects that you 
 will give them away ! What, then, is the use of 
 those words ? ' Sells hats ' was therefore obliterated. 
 The signboard was ultimately reduced to the name 
 John Thompson, with the painted figure of the hat 
 subjoined." * 
 
 Towards the end of the year 1776, when the 
 Declaration of Independence was published for the 
 admiration and astonishment of the world, Franklin 
 was appointed envoy to Paris, where, in 1778, in 
 conjunction with Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, his 
 brother Ministers, he negotiated with the French 
 
 1 Apropos of this anecdote, it may be recorded that the pedestal 
 of the statue of General Sir Charles James Napier, that now stands 
 in Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, originally bore the inscription, 
 "Erected by public subscription of all classes, civil as well as 
 military." I objected, in a published letter, that "if the statue 
 were erected by public subscription, all classes subscribed to it, 
 and that if all classes subscribed, there must have been civil and 
 military men among them. " The criticism found its way into all 
 the London newspapers, and the words " of all classes, civil as 
 well as military," were ultimately deleted. C. M.
 
 310 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN EEPUBLIC. 
 
 Government a treaty of alliance, offensive and de- 
 fensive, between France and the United States. 
 The treaty stipulated that should war arise between 
 France and England, neither the United States nor 
 France should make truce or peace with Great 
 Britain without the consent of the other, nor either 
 of them lay down their arms until the independence 
 of the United States was formally recognised and 
 established. 
 
 " It would be difficult," says the Count de 
 Segur, in his ' Memoires,' " to express with what 
 cordiality, with what favour, were received in 
 France, in the bosom of an ancient monarchy, these 
 envoys of a people who were in insurrection against 
 their sovereign. Their simplicity of dress, and un- 
 .affected but dignified demeanour, contrasted with 
 the magnificence and artificial formalities of Paris 
 and Versailles, gave them the antique air, which 
 seemed to transport within our walls, in the midst 
 of the over-refined and senile civilisation of the 
 eighteenth century, some of the sage contemporaries 
 of Plato. Even before they were officially received 
 by the Government, they were visited daily and 
 eagerly by the most distinguished people of the 
 Court and the capital, as well as by all the savans, 
 the philosophers, and celebrated literary men."
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 311 
 
 This important treaty was unanimously ratified 
 by Congress, and enthusiastically approved and 
 applauded by the American people. Its promul- 
 gation was celebrated by public rejoicings through- 
 out the whole of the thirteen " States," no longer 
 " colonies." Washington, who was still at Valley 
 Forge with his army, set apart a day for a grand 
 military parade in honour of the occasion. " The 
 army," says Washington Irving, in his life of the 
 national hero, "was assembled in its best array. 
 There were solemn thanksgivings by the chaplains 
 at the head of each brigade, a national discharge of 
 thirteen guns (one for each State of the Union), a 
 general feu de joie, and shouts of the whole army 
 Long live the King of France ! Long live all 
 friendly European Powers ! Huzza for the Ameri- 
 can States ! A banquet succeeded, at which 
 Washington dined in public with all the officers 
 of his army, attended by a band of music. Patriotic 
 toasts were given, and heartily cheered. ' I never 
 was present,' wrote a spectator, ' where there was 
 such unfeigned and perfect joy as was discovered 
 in every countenance.' " 
 
 After the signature and ratification of this treaty, 
 which was the crowning achievement of his life, 
 Franklin, who had now attained his seventy-second
 
 312 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 year, remained in Paris for five years, and retained 
 during that time the influential and brilliant position 
 which he occupied in the French capital, and might 
 have retained it as long as he lived, till, in 1785, 
 the increasing infirmities of age, and his desire to die 
 at home among his own people, induced him to ask 
 the President to recall him. His residence in Paris 
 was both a diplomatic and a social success. He 
 was a universal favourite among the courtly circles 
 amid which his life was spent. To be an American 
 in Paris in those days was to possess a passport to 
 everybody's goodwill ; and Franklin, in his plain 
 costume, his snuff-coloured coat, his blue worsted 
 stockings, his simple manners, his transparent bon- 
 liommie, his quaint, dry humour, and his skill as 
 a raconteur of jokes and good stories, rendered him 
 the American par excellence. He was loved, though 
 often laughed at ; and, notwithstanding the smiles 
 that his harmless and sometimes assumed eccentrici- 
 ties provoked, was esteemed and respected by 
 everybody. The leading politicians of the day 
 esteemed him for his successful statesmanship ; the 
 Republican party then in the throes of the 
 nascent liberty which they afterwards brought forth 
 amid blood and tears admired him for the liberty 
 which he had so greatly helped to secure for the
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 313 
 
 American people; the learned bodies looked up 
 to him with veneration for his brilliant scientific 
 attainments ; and the leaders of fashionable society, 
 more especially the ladies, admired him for the 
 charm of his conversation. But it was not female 
 society alone that he fascinated by his talk. Presi- 
 dent Madison, who only made his acquaintance 
 after his final departure from Paris, wrote in after 
 years : " Franklin's conversation was always a feast 
 to me. I never passed half an hour in his company 
 without hearing some anecdote or some observation 
 worth remembering." 
 
 He had earned his leisure by his long and eminent 
 public services, but he was not suffered to enjoy it 
 undisturbed. Shortly after his return to Phila- 
 delphia, he was elected President of the Supreme 
 Executive Council of the city; and two years after- 
 wards was appointed delegate from the State of 
 Pennsylvania in the Convention appointed to revise 
 and amend the Articles of Union, and to draw up 
 a Constitution. The Convention sat for upwards of 
 four months from May until September under 
 the presidency of General Washington. Difficulties 
 and serious differences of opinion on vital points 
 arose, as had been foreseen, within the first week 
 of its meeting, and increased in acerbity as the
 
 314 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 discussions proceeded. Three of the thirteen States 
 declined originally to send delegates, or to be other- 
 wise represented in the deliberations ; though ulti- 
 mately, and at the last moment, they consented to 
 take part though they did not cordially agree 
 in what was enacted by this, the most important 
 public body, next to that which voted the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, which had ever assembled in 
 America. 
 
 It was asserted many times during his long 
 career that Dr Franklin had renounced Christianity 
 in his youth, and never believed in its historical 
 truth, its supernatural origin, or its dogmas. How- 
 ever this may have been, it is certain that he 
 always believed in and asserted its great funda- 
 mental doctrine of love to God and to mankind, 
 and the duty of loving your neighbour as yourself, 
 and of doing as you would be done by. Yet he 
 never paraded his religious views before the public. 
 But towards the close of his life he departed from 
 his usual reticence, for, during the stormy sittings 
 of the Convention, he was so painfully impressed 
 with the wide and apparently irreconcilable differ- 
 ences that prevailed among the delegates, and the 
 serious consequences which they seemed to threaten, 
 that he invoked with much solemnity the influence
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 315 
 
 of prayer to Almighty God to calm and to enlighten 
 their councils. " In the situation of this Conven- 
 tion," he said, in the course of a short and im- 
 pressive speech, " which is groping, as it were, in 
 the dark to find political truth, and scarcely able 
 to see it when presented, how has it happened that 
 we have never once thought of applying to our 
 Heavenly Father to illuminate our understandings ? 
 In the beginning of our contest with Great Britain, 
 when we were sensible of danger, we offered daily 
 prayers to Him to grant us His divine protection. 
 Our prayers were heard, and they were graciously 
 answered. I have lived a long time ; and the 
 longer I live, the more convincing proofs I have of 
 the truth that God governs the affairs of men. 
 We have been assured in the sacred writings that, 
 except the Lord build the house, they labour in 
 vain that build it. I firmly believe this ; and I 
 as firmly believe that, unless God aid us, we shall 
 succeed in this political building no better than the 
 
 V 
 
 builders of the Tower of Babel. We shall be 
 divided by our little partial local interests ; our 
 projects for union will be confounded, and we our- 
 selves shall become a byword and a reproach to the 
 nations down to future ages. And, what is worse, 
 mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate in-
 
 316 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 stance despair of establishing government by human 
 wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest." 
 
 At the close of his speech he moved that hence- 
 forth prayers imploring the assistance and blessings 
 of Heaven should be offered up in the Convention 
 every morning before the commencement of busi- 
 ness, and that one or more of the clergy should be 
 requested to officiate. This proposition was not 
 favourably received or acted upon, from an appre- 
 hension that, as the Convention had not hitherto 
 invoked the aid of Heaven at the daily com- 
 mencement of its deliberations, the adoption of re- 
 ligious services at so late a period, and as a mere 
 after-thought, would create uneasiness in the public 
 mind with regard to the issue, concerning which 
 much disquietude was already felt. This incident 
 whatever may be thought of the action of the 
 Convention ought to relieve Franklin's memory 
 of the charge of irreligion so often brought against 
 him, though it may not dispose of the charge that 
 Franklin disbelieved in the divine origin of 
 Christianity. 
 
 At last all the various articles and sections of 
 the Constitution having passed, either with or without 
 amendments, a committee of five was appointed on 
 the 8th of September to revise the style of and
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 317 
 
 arrange the articles agreed to by the Convention. 
 Their report did not give entire satisfaction, and 
 Mr Kandolph, one of the delegates from Virginia, 
 expressed the pain he felt at differing from the body 
 of the Convention, on the close of the great and 
 awful subject of the future constitution of the 
 Union. Anxiously wishing for some accommodat- 
 ing expedient which would relieve him from his 
 embarrassments, he submitted a proposition that 
 another general Convention should be asked to 
 decide on any amendments that might be offered 
 by the delegates. This proposition was strongly 
 opposed by Mr Charles Pinckney of South Caro- 
 lina. " Nothing but confusion and contrariety," he 
 said, " will spring from the experiment of a second 
 Convention. The States will never agree in their 
 plans, and the delegates, coming together under the 
 discordant impressions of their constituents, will 
 never agree." He was not without objections to the 
 draft. He objected, in the first place, to the con- 
 temptible weakness and dependence of the Execu- 
 tive ; and in the second, to the power of a majority 
 
 States. Washington threw the great weight of his 
 name, authority, and influence on the other side ; 
 and the proposal of Mr Eandolph for a new Con-
 
 318 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 vention was ultimately negatived, and the Constitu- 
 tion as it stood was ordered to be engrossed. 
 
 When this document in its final form was read 
 on the 17th of September, Franklin rose and 
 addressed the Convention. " I confess," he said, 
 "that there are several parts of this constitution 
 which I cannot at present approve. But I am not 
 sure that I shall never approve them. For, having 
 lived long, I have experienced many instances of 
 being obliged, by better information or fuller con- 
 sideration, to change opinions even on important 
 subjects which I once thought to be right. The 
 older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own 
 judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment 
 of others. Holding these sentiments, I agree to 
 this Constitution, with all its faults, if there be 
 such, because I think a general Government neces- 
 sary for us. There is no form of Government but 
 what may be a blessing to the people if well 
 administered ; and I believe further that this is 
 likely to be well administered for a course of years, 
 and that it can only end in despotism, as other 
 forms of Government have done before it, when the 
 people shall become so corrupted as to need a 
 despotism, from being unfit for any other." Dr 
 Franklin concluded his effective speech, unadorned
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 319 
 
 in its eloquence, as Sir Robert Peel more than half 
 a century afterwards declared the eloquence of 
 Richard Cobden to be, by expressing the hope that, 
 " for their own sakes, as a part of the people, and 
 for the sake of posterity, the delegates would act 
 heartily and unanimously in recommending the Con- 
 stitution for the approval of Congress." 
 
 Several other delegates supported the appeal of 
 Franklin, but without effect. Three members, whose 
 objections to the proposed Constitution were of an un- 
 compromising character Colonel Mason, Governor 
 Randolph, and Mr Gerry remained recalcitrant, 
 and absented themselves while the other delegates 
 affixed their signatures. Franklin, with the view, 
 no doubt, of making apparent a unanimity which 
 was not real, proposed that the members should 
 sign the instrument in the following form : " Done 
 in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States 
 present, this 17th day of December, in the year of 
 our Lord 1787, and of the Independence of the 
 United States, the 12th." The words, "the States 
 present" savoured somewhat of Jesuitry; but they 
 served their purpose, and deceived nobody. 
 
 Franklin played no conspicuous part after this 
 in public affairs, though he still continued to take 
 an interest in and make himself useful in the civic
 
 320 FOUNDERS OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 affairs of Philadelphia, where his venerable and' 
 picturesque appearance, his long white hair, his 
 healthful countenance, and his plain attire, were 
 familiar to everybody. 
 
 Franklin died at his house in Philadelphia on 
 the 17th of April 1790, at the advanced age of 
 eighty-four years and three months, mourned and 
 respected, not only by his own countrymen for his 
 eminent public services, but by foreign nations for 
 the variety of his attainments and the brilliancy 
 and usefulness of his career. Five days afterwards, 
 James Madison, who had served the high office of 
 President, moved in Congress. " that the House [of 
 Eepresentatives] being informed of the decease of 
 Benjamin Franklin, a citizen whose native genius was 
 not more an ornament to human nature than the 
 various exertions of it were precious to science, to 
 freedom, and to his country, do resolve, as a mark of 
 veneration due to his memory, to wear the custom- 
 ary badge of mourning for one month." In Paris, 
 where he was so well known and highly appreciated 
 and beloved, Mirabeati in the National Assembly, 
 Condorcet in the Academie des Sciences, and 
 Larochefoucauld before the "Society of 1789," paid 
 eloquent tributes of respect to the genius and char- 
 acter of the great American plebeian. Mirabeau,
 
 BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. 321 
 
 when the news of his death arrived in Paris on the 
 18th of June 1791, said in the Assembly : "Frank- 
 lin is dead. The genius which gave freedom to 
 America, and shed torrents of light upon Europe, 
 is returned to the bosom of the Divinity. The 
 sage whom two worlds claim for his services to 
 science and the history of empires, holds most un- 
 doubtedly an elevated rank among the human 
 species." He concluded by proposing that the 
 National Assembly should wear mourning for three 
 days, which, being seconded by General Lafayette 
 and M. de Larochefoucauld, was carried unani- 
 mously. "All things considered," says Mr Eives, 
 formerly American Minister in Europe, "Franklin 
 was perhaps the most remarkable man of his age. 
 Born in comparative obscurity, bred to a mechanical 
 employment, without patronage, and without educa- 
 tion, except that which by a marvellous husbanding 
 of his time and mental resources he bestowed upon 
 himself, he came to stand before kings and Parlia- 
 ments and learned assemblies in the native majesty 
 of superior intellect and genius. The great and the 
 wise of all lands did him homage. The friend and 
 correspondent of Hume, of Eobertson, of Kames, of 
 Buffon, Vergennes, Condorcet, and Larochefoucauld, 
 courted and flattered by Voltaire, honoured by the 
 
 x
 
 322 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 warm and cordial applause of Chatham and Burke, 
 elected by an eager rivalry of adoption into all the 
 learned societies of Europe, as well as of his own 
 country, his blended services to science and freedom 
 were immortalised in that pregnant line of classical 
 antithesis, which the genius of Turgot annexed in- 
 separably to his name 
 
 Eripuit ccelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis." 
 
 To this eloquent and well-deserved eulogium 
 nothing need be added.
 
 323 
 
 JAMES MADISON. 
 
 JAMES MADISON, the fourth President of the United 
 States, played no very great or leading part in the 
 struggle that freed the North American colonies 
 from the yoke of the mother - country ; but the 
 influence which he brought to bear on the consolida- 
 tion of the newly acquired liberties of the New 
 World, and the drawing up of the constitution, was 
 of the highest value and importance. He was the 
 youngest of the five great men to whom the United 
 States were mainly indebted for their liberty and 
 the establishment of their independence upon a 
 basis firm enough to defy all possible attack from 
 without ; and only vulnerable, as all human institu- 
 tions are, from inherent rottenness and corruption. 
 Against the inroads and growth of these, Madison 
 and Jefferson, and their colleagues in the mighty 
 work, took such precautions in settlement of the 
 articles of union, and in the provisions of the con-
 
 324 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 stitution, as have reduced to a minimum the dan- 
 gers which beset all human governments, whether 
 republican or autocratic. 
 
 James Madison was born in March 1751, the 
 son of a large landed proprietor in Orange County, 
 Virginia, who held the position of " County Lieuten- 
 ant," equivalent in dignity and influence to that of 
 Lord Lieutenant in England. He never, however, 
 took any very decided part in politics, being too 
 exclusively engrossed with the management of his 
 plantations, of which he possessed several, situated 
 at considerable distances from each other, to spare 
 time for public affairs. 
 
 The young Madison received the rudiments of his 
 education at the paternal home in Montpelier, and 
 was in due time sent to Princeton College. Here 
 he became the favourite pupil of Dr Wotherspoon, 
 an eminent Scotsman, who had emigrated to Vir- 
 ginia. He remained for three years with this ac- 
 complished preceptor, and received a sound classical 
 and general education. He returned home at the 
 age of twenty with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, 
 not a scholar merely, though his scholastic acquire- 
 ments were highly creditable to his talents and 
 industry, but a keen politician, taking an enlight- 
 ened interest in all the public questions of the time.
 
 JAMES MADISON. 325 
 
 The action of Governor Gage in Massachusetts on 
 the 19th of April 1775, in destroying some military 
 stores at Concord in that State, on the pretext that 
 they were about to be employed by the colonists in 
 hostile operations against the constituted authorities, 
 and a similar outrage in Virginia on the following 
 day, excited considerable indignation whenever the 
 events became known. The almost simultaneous 
 attack ordered by Lord Dunmore, the Governor of 
 Virginia, on the powder-magazine at Williamsburg, 
 was universally believed to have been prearranged 
 with his brother Governor in Massachusetts. By 
 his lordship's directions, a party of marines from 
 the British sloop of war, the Magdalen, lying in the 
 James Eiver, landed at Williamsburg under cover 
 of the night, and took forcible possession of between 
 fifteen and twenty barrels of gunpowder, which they 
 conveyed to their vessel. As soon as information 
 of what had been done reached Fredericksburg, a 
 meeting of the Independent Light Horse Company 
 of the town was held, at which it was resolved to 
 march upon Williamsburg on the 29th, in order to 
 recover the gunpowder, and to protect the remainder 
 of the military stores in the magazine. Invitations 
 to the independent companies of all the neighbour- 
 ing towns and counties were forwarded, with the
 
 326 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMEKICAN EEPUBLIC. 
 
 result that six hundred horsemen declared them- 
 selves in readiness to join the movement. The 
 crisis looked so serious that the venerable Eandolph 
 Peyton, late speaker of the Virginian Legislature, 
 and president of the Continental Congress, became 
 alarmed, and wrote to the leaders of the movement, 
 advising that they should proceed no further in the 
 business, inasmuch as Lord Dunmore had given 
 " full assurance " that due satisfaction should be 
 given to the colonial authorities for the outrage that 
 had been committed. A meeting of the principal 
 people was hastily summoned, at which it was re- 
 solved to adjourn indefinitely the further considera- 
 tion of the subject ; but, " considering the just rights 
 and liberty of America to be greatly endangered by 
 the violent and hostile proceedings of an arbitrary 
 Ministry, and being firmly resolved to resist such 
 attempts at the utmost hazard of their lives and 
 fortunes, they pledged themselves to each other to 
 be in readiness at a moment's warning to reassemble, 
 and by force of arms to defend the law, the liberty, 
 and the rights of Virginia, and of any sister colony, 
 from unjust and wicked invasion." This spirited 
 declaration, instead of concluding with the custom- 
 ary formula of " God save the King," appended to 
 the usual proclamations of the Governor, ended with
 
 JAMES MADISON. 327 
 
 the significant, and, under the circumstances, the 
 minatory words, " God save the liberties of America." 
 This was one of the earliest mutterings of the popu- 
 lar storm that was so soon to burst over the col- 
 onies ; nor was it the only warning to the Governor, 
 nor the only lesson he received from the outraged 
 colonists. Within a week after these proceedings, 
 Mr Patrick Henry, at the head of the Independent 
 Company of Hanover, marched towards Williams- 
 burg, to demand compensation for the gunpowder 
 which had been wrongfully seized, or in default " to 
 make reprisals upon the King's property, of suffi- 
 cient value to replace the powder." Lord Dunmore, 
 averse from pushing matters to an extremity, and 
 conscious that his action had been illegal, very 
 reluctantly yielded to the threat, and ordered the 
 Eeceiver-General of the Colony to send Mr Henry 
 his bill of exchange for 330, the estimated value 
 of the powder. Mr Henry gave his receipt in due 
 form for the amount, and immediately disbanded 
 his force, and returned with his comrades in triumph 
 to their homes, meeting wherever they passed an 
 enthusiastic reception from the people. 
 
 It was upon this occasion that young Mr Madison 
 took the first prominent step in a political career 
 that was destined to be so memorable and dis-
 
 328 FOUNDEES OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 tinguished. He was charged by a meeting, of which 
 his father was chairman, to draw up an address of 
 thanks to Captain Patrick Henry and his brave 
 companions for their successful exertions in exact- 
 ing redress from Governor Dunmore, which he 
 signed along with ten other citizens. This curt but 
 emphatic document concluded with the words, that 
 the signatories gave it as their opinion that the blow 
 struck originally at the government of Massachus- 
 etts (and afterwards at that of Virginia) was a 
 hostile attack on every one of the colonies, and a 
 sufficient warrant for a resort to such acts of violence 
 and reprisal as may be expedient for the security 
 and welfare of the American people. 
 
 During the twelvemonth next ensuing, the breach 
 between the Colonies and the mother-country con- 
 tinued to widen. A continental Congress had been 
 summoned to meet at Philadelphia, which had 
 unanimously resolved to put all the colonies in a 
 state of defence, and the great George Washington 
 was appointed to command " all the forces raised and 
 to be raised in defence of American liberty." Mr 
 Madison was not a member of that Congress ; but in 
 May 1776 he was elected, being then in his 
 twenty-fifth year, as a delegate to the Virginia Con- 
 vention, charged with the duty of instructing the
 
 JAMES MADISON. 329 
 
 Congress, to draw up the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 On the same day and by the same act by which 
 the Convention pronounced its decision in favour of 
 the independence of the Colonies, a committee was 
 unanimously appointed to prepare a Declaration of 
 Eights, and such a plan of Government as would be 
 most likely to maintain peace and order in the State 
 of Virginia. A committee of twenty-eight members, 
 among whom was Mr Madison, was appointed for 
 the purpose. The leading spirit of the committee 
 was Mr George Mason, whose original draught of 
 the Declaration, in fourteen articles, is still preserved. 
 It received during its consideration a few verbal 
 and not very important alterations, the most impor- 
 tant of which was one proposed by Mr Madison. 
 The last article of the fourteen related to the all- 
 important subject of religious liberty, and set forth 
 that " as religion, or the duty which man owes to 
 his Creator, and the manner of his discharging it, 
 can be directed only by reason and conviction, not 
 by force or violence, all men should enjoy the 
 fullest toleration in its exercise." Mr Madison 
 strongly objected to the word " toleration," on the 
 ground that it implied the possession of superior 
 power, and that it granted as a favour and a boon
 
 330 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 that which was an inherent and indefeasible right. 
 He therefore proposed to strike out the words, 
 that " all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in 
 the exercise of religion," and to substitute, " that all 
 men are equally entitled to the free exercise of 
 religion, according to the dictates of conscience." 
 The amendment, after some discussion, was finally 
 agreed to. This was the first great legislative 
 triumph achieved by the young statesman, but not 
 the last ; and procured for him the applause of many 
 of the leading spirits of the time, both in America 
 and in the mother-country. 
 
 In the year 1777 he was chosen by the first 
 ballot of the two Houses of the Virginian Legis- 
 lature to the Council of State, a body which con- 
 sisted of eight members, which participated with the 
 Governor in the exercise of all executive powers, 
 and without whose advice he could perform no 
 official act. He was elected without his know- 
 ledge or consent, a rare honour to fall to the lot of 
 so young and so modest a man. Captain Patrick 
 Henry was then the Governor of Virginia, and in 
 the second year of his incumbency, and a man 
 considerably older than Mr Madison. The Gover- 
 nor knew no language but English, and the ser- 
 vices of Mr Madison, who had an adequate know-
 
 JAMES MADISON. 331 
 
 ledge of French, were often called into requisition 
 as an interpreter among the French officers who 
 had volunteered into the military service of Vir- 
 ginia, or followed the Marquis de Lafayette in their 
 enrolment under the banners of General Washington. 
 These adventurous volunteers were mostly, like 
 Lafayette himself, young sprigs of aristocracy, with- 
 out the slightest knowledge of the democratic 
 observances that were necessary in a popular Ke- 
 public ; and Madison, in after - life, used often to 
 relate how amused he was to have to translate for 
 Governor Henry letters addressed to him as " Son 
 Altesse Eoyale, Monsieur Patrick Henry, Gouverneur 
 de I'tftat de Virginie." 
 
 In December 1779, Mr Madison, then twenty- 
 eight years of age, was chosen by the General 
 Assembly of Virginia to represent that State in 
 the Congress of the confederation, the supreme and 
 central authority, on which depended the conduct of 
 the war against Great Britain, the establishment 
 and recognition of American Independence, and all 
 the collective interests of the thirteen confederated 
 colonies, now claiming to be sovereign States. It 
 possessed the powers of peace and war, conducted 
 foreign negotiations, received ambassadors and min- 
 
 o o * 
 
 isters, appointed diplomatic agents as well as all
 
 332 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 civil and military officers of the higher grades 
 employed in the service of the United States, exer- 
 cised a general superintendence and control over 
 the operations of the war, determined the amount 
 and description of the land and sea forces to be 
 raised by the several States, and fixed the sums 
 of money to be contributed by each for the common 
 defence. It was at the same time declared to be a 
 fundamental canon of the confederacy that " each 
 State should retain its sovereignty, freedom, and 
 independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and 
 right, which was not by the articles of this con- 
 federation expressly delegated to the United States 
 in Congress assembled." 
 
 " Nothing," says Mr W. C. Eives, the author of 
 the uncompleted history, in three large volumes, of 
 ' The Life and Times of James Madison,' " could have 
 been more gloomy and discouraging than the aspect 
 of public affairs when Mr Madison entered upon his 
 national career. The main body of the American 
 army was still in winter quarters at Morristown, 
 and almost on the verge of dissolution, from the 
 combined effect of short supplies of food and cloth- 
 ing, short terms of enlistment, and the spirit of 
 dissatisfaction, approaching to mutiny, which those 
 causes naturally produced. These brave men were
 
 JAMES MADISON. 333 
 
 by turns and for weeks together without meat or 
 without bread, and in the extremity of their dis- 
 tresses could not always be restrained from ir- 
 regular modes of supplying their wants, which the 
 law of self-preservation seemed to excuse if not to 
 justify." 
 
 On the 20th of March, Mr Madison took his 
 seat in this Congress that met at Philadelphia ; and 
 on the 27th he wrote to Mr Jefferson, who had 
 been elected Governor of Virginia in succession to 
 Mr Patrick Henry : " Among the various conjunc- 
 tions of alarms and distress which have arisen in 
 the course of the Eevolution, it is with pain 
 I affirm to you that no one can be singled out 
 more truly critical than the present. Our army is 
 threatened with an immediate alternative of dis- 
 banding or living on free quarters. The public 
 treasury is empty, and public credit exhausted. 
 Congress is complaining of the extortion of the 
 people, and the people of the improvidence of Con- 
 gress, and the army of both. . . . These are 
 the outlines of the picture of our public situation. 
 I leave it to your own imagination to fill them up. 
 As things now stand, if the States do not vigor- 
 ously proceed in collecting the old money, and 
 establishing funds for the credit of the new, we
 
 334 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 are undone ; and let them be ever so expeditious 
 in doing this, still the intermediate distress to our 
 army, and hindrance to public affairs, are a sub- 
 ject of melancholy reflection. General Washington 
 writes that a failure of bread has already com- 
 menced in the army, and that for anything he sees 
 to the contrary, it must inevitably increase. Meat 
 they have only for a short season ; and as the 
 whole dependence is on provisions now to be pro- 
 cured, without a shilling available for the purpose, 
 and without credit for a shilling, I must confess 
 that I look forward with the most painful appre- 
 hensions." 
 
 The dark clouds lifted at last. The arrival of 
 powerful reinforcements from France, under Generals 
 Lafayette and Eochambeau, and of the Count de 
 Grasse with a French fleet in the Chesapeake, filled 
 American statesmen with hope and courage. Affairs 
 speedily took a turn for the better ; and the sur- 
 render at Yorktown, in October 1871, of the 
 British army, under the Marquis of Cornwallis, 
 gave the revolted colonies for the first time the 
 well-founded hope almost approaching to a cer- 
 tainty that they would be finally triumphant, and 
 that their independence was virtually secured. 
 
 The colonies, during their long and arduous
 
 JAMES MADISON. 335 
 
 struggle, had always commanded the sympathy and 
 support of a large and influential portion of the 
 British people, not only out of Parliament, but in 
 the House of Lords and Commons ; and had per- 
 haps no such obstinate enemy as the King himself, 
 and such of his Ministers as agreed with him upon 
 the merits, or yielded their opinions to his for the 
 sake of his favour, and for the enjoyment of the 
 offices which depended upon it. 
 
 After the surrender of the Marquis of Cornwallis, 
 the war still lingered, amid the growing impatience 
 of the British nation ; but it was not until after a 
 series of military events which it is no part of the 
 purpose of these pages to describe that peace was 
 finally declared in 1783, and that Sir Guy Carleton, 
 the British commander in New York, received in- 
 structions from the British Government to evacuate 
 that city. On the 18th of October in that year, the 
 Congress of the United States issued a proclama- 
 tion discharging the troops who had been enlisted 
 for the war, and returning to the whole army the 
 thanks of the country for their long, eminent, and 
 faithful services. " In the progress of an arduous 
 and difficult war," said the impressive document, 
 "the armies of the United States have displayed 
 every military and patriotic virtue, and are not
 
 336 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 less to be applauded for their fortitude aDd mag- 
 nanimity in distress, than for a series of heroic and 
 illustrious achievements, which exalt them to a 
 high rank among the most zealous and successful 
 defenders of the rights and liberties of mankind." 
 At the same time a second proclamation, either 
 wholly drawn up by Mr Madison or largely in- 
 spired by him, was issued for the appointment of 
 a day of public thanksgiving to Divine Providence 
 for bringing to so auspicious and glorious an issue 
 a contest which at its commencement had apparently 
 been so unequal. The document impressively and 
 eloquently set forth that the Almighty " had been 
 pleased to conduct the American people in safety 
 through all the perils and vicissitudes of the war ; 
 that He had given them unanimity and resolution 
 to adhere to their just rights ; that He had raised 
 up a powerful ally [France] to assist them." And 
 then, looking forward to the future, it invoked the 
 same divine aid " to give wisdom to the councils of 
 the nation ; to inspire the people with an earnest 
 regard for the national honour and interest; to 
 enable them to improve the days of prosperity by 
 every good work, and to be lovers of peace and 
 tranquillity; to bless them in their husbandry, 
 their commerce, and navigation ; to smile upon
 
 JAMES MADISON. 337 
 
 their seminaries and means of education ; to cause 
 pure religion and virtue to flourish amongst them ; 
 to give peace to all nations ; and to fill the world 
 with His glory." 
 
 With the expiry of the legal term of this Con- 
 gress, Mr Madison's public career came to a tem- 
 porary close. At the age of thirty-two, in Decem- 
 ber 1783, he retired to his father's estate, and 
 devoted himself to the legal and other studies which 
 had been interrupted by his public duties. But 
 though he studied law assiduously, he never was 
 called upon to practise it professionally, mainly for 
 the reason that he did not depend upon it for sub- 
 sistence, and was quite contented to live the life of 
 a planter or country gentleman, looking after his 
 crops and governing his slaves, to whom, in prin- 
 ciple, he would gladly have given their freedom, had 
 public opinion or the imperative force of circum- 
 stances allowed him to do so. He was too eminent 
 a man, and his public services had been too valu- 
 able and conspicuous, to allow him to indulge for a 
 long time in the expectation that he would not be 
 once again summoned to take part in public affairs. 
 He was not therefore surprised that, at the annual 
 election to the House of Delegates for the State of 
 Virginia, he was chosen to represent his native 
 
 Y
 
 338 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 county in that body. This occurred in April 1784, 
 or little more than six months after his retirement 
 from the higher and more influential sphere of 
 Congress. 
 
 During three years he took an active part in 
 all the politics of his State, without ceasing, how- 
 ever, to take an enlightened interest in those of 
 the whole confederacy. At the end of that term, 
 during which he could not legally sit in the general 
 Congress, he was once again elected to that body. 
 There was still much difficult and embarrassing 
 work to be done in the consolidation, not so much 
 of the liberty or the independence of the States, 
 as of their stable and cordial union. The separatist 
 spirit was still powerful and aggressive, and many, 
 if not all, of the States thought much more highly 
 of their separate rights, as independent, self-sustain- 
 ing, and self-governing commonwealths, than of their 
 duties and liabilities as component parts of a great, 
 powerful, and united nation. This was the great 
 danger that now and for long afterwards confronted 
 the statesmen of the Union, and all who desired to 
 weld and fuse it into a strong homogeneous power 
 and nationality, formidable in its unity against the 
 whole world. So early as 1783, the New England 
 States which had been mainly colonised by the
 
 JAMES MADISON. 339 
 
 Puritans and the Pilgrim Fathers, who had brought 
 with them in the Mayflower their spiritual pride 
 and intolerance, and their sturdy spirit of indepen- 
 dence had begun to talk of establishing a separate 
 confederacy, without the admission of New York, 
 Pennsylvania, or any of the Southern States. This 
 feeling had not diminished in the progress of 
 time; and in 1786, as Mr Eives records in his 
 life of Madison, the dissatisfaction of these States 
 with the Federal Union had grown to such a height, 
 " that, according to the testimony of a distinguished 
 contemporary actor having the best opportunities of 
 information, a project was actually matured for their 
 withdrawal and formation into a separate con- 
 federacy." Mr Fisher Ames, a leading man of the 
 time, publicly proclaimed his want of faith in his 
 countrymen, proclaiming that they were too cor- 
 rupt and too democratic for liberty, and that the 
 States were too extensive for union. 
 
 The discontent of a large portion of the people 
 of Massachusetts found a leader in the autumn of 
 1786, in the person of one Captain Shay, who had 
 served under Washington in the army of Independ- 
 ence, who got together a considerable force, with the 
 object of establishing a separate Eastern Confeder- 
 acy m et armis. He expressed his determination to
 
 340 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 attack the arsenal at Springfield, and seize the arms 
 and ammunition that were there stored in very 
 considerable quantities. Affairs looked so threaten- 
 ing that Congress instructed General Knox, the 
 Secretary of War, to proceed to Springfield at the 
 head of a sufficient force, and take such measures as 
 he deemed necessary for the safety of the Federal 
 powder-magazine at that place. 
 
 A Committee of Congress on the 21st of Oc- 
 tober reported, "that from the facts stated in 
 the letter from the Secretary of War, and other 
 authentic information, it appeared that a dan- 
 gerous insurrection had taken place in various 
 parts of the State of Massachusetts, which was 
 rapidly extending its influence ; that the insur- 
 gents had already, by force of arms, suppressed 
 the administration of justice in several counties ; 
 that though the Legislature of the said State was in 
 session, it would undoubtedly defeat the object of 
 the Federal interposition, should a formal applica- 
 tion be made for the same ; and that it consequently 
 appeared to the Committee that the aid of the 
 Federal power was necessary to stop the progress of 
 the insurgents." The Committee added, " that there 
 was the greatest reason to believe that, unless 
 speedy and effectual measures were taken to defeat
 
 JAMES MADISON. 341 
 
 their designs, the insurgents would possess them- 
 selves of the arsenal at Springfield, subvert the 
 Government and not only the Commonwealth of 
 Massachusetts to a state of anarchy and confusion, 
 but probably involve the United States in the 
 calamities of a civil war." 
 
 Additional troops were needed for the purpose ; 
 but the Committee, apprehensive that if the pur- 
 pose were openly avowed, a very ill feeling would 
 be created all over the Union, applied for the neces- 
 sary increase to Congress, on the plea that the 
 troops were needed as they partially were for 
 hostilities against the Indians on the western fron- 
 tiers of the Union, who were giving the settlers 
 considerable trouble. The troops asked for were 
 accordingly raised; and a portion of them were 
 despatched under General Lincoln to Springfield. 
 Shay attacked the arsenal, but was repulsed with 
 considerable loss in killed and wounded, and the 
 capture of 150 prisoners. 
 
 The rebellion for such it was never took col- 
 lective form after this defeat, but continued in 
 detached efforts in various parts of Massachusetts, 
 and lasted with more or less violence for several 
 months. Many of the insurgents, dreading the 
 penalties of the law if they were captured, took
 
 342 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 refuge in the adjoining States of Connecticut, Ver- 
 mont, and New Hampshire, the authorities of which 
 refused to deliver them up on the demand of the 
 legal authorities of Massachusetts. 
 
 General Washington was very painfully im- 
 pressed by the Massachusetts rebellion, and the 
 sympathy which it excited in several other States ; 
 and wrote a letter to Mr Madison on the subject, 
 in which he said : " How melancholy is the reflec- 
 tion, that in so short a time we should have made 
 such large strides towards fulfilling the prediction 
 of our transatlantic foes, that if we were but left 
 to ourselves, our Government would soon dissolve ! 
 . . . What stronger evidence can be given of the 
 want of energy in our Government than these dis- 
 orders ? If there is not power in it to check them, 
 what security has a man for life, liberty, and pro- 
 perty ? To you, I am sure, I need add nothing on 
 this subject." Mr Madison, in his diary of the 
 proceedings of Congress,, under date of February 
 1787, stated "that all the members agreed that 
 the Federal Government in its existing shape was 
 inefficient, and could not last. The members for 
 the southern and middle States were generally 
 anxious for some republican organisation of the 
 system which should preserve the Union, and im-
 
 JAMES MADISON. 343 
 
 part due energy to its Government. Mr Binghain 
 of Philadelphia alone avowed his wishes that the 
 Confederacy might be divided into several distinct 
 confederacies, on the ground that its great extent 
 and various interests were incompatible with a 
 single Government." 
 
 A Convention met in 1787 to consider the vital 
 and growing question of a real union of the States, 
 and the affirmation on a basis too firm to be shaken 
 of the central or Federal power. Of this import- 
 ant body, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and 
 Madison were members, and all of them lent their 
 talents, influence, and energy to the Federal or 
 Union cause. Mr Madison felt very strongly on 
 the subject. In a letter to Judge Pendleton, ad- 
 dressed to him a few days before taking his seat, he 
 expressed his fears that if the Convention did not 
 agree to a remedy, the propensity towards the es- 
 tablishment of a monarchy, which already existed, 
 would grow and strengthen ; and that the bulk of 
 the people would probably prefer the lesser evil of 
 a partition of the Union into three more practic- 
 able and energetic confederacies, to the downfall of 
 a republican form of Government, in favour of a 
 monarchy. " At present," he said, " no money is paid 
 into the public treasury ; no respect is paid to the
 
 344 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Federal authority ; not a single State complies with 
 the requisitions made upon it ; some of them pass 
 the requisitions over in silence, and others positively 
 reject them. The payments ever since the peace 
 have been decreasing, and of late have fallen short 
 of the pittance necessary for the civil list of the 
 Confederacy. It is not possible that a Government 
 can last long under these circumstances." 
 
 This Convention, as has already been recorded 
 in these pages, in the narratives of the part taken 
 by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin 
 respectively, was as much indebted to Madison as 
 to any of these for the happy issue of its labours 
 in the establishment of the constitution of the 
 United States. Under that constitution the States 
 prospered until the great Civil War of 1861-1865 
 1 placed it for a while in abeyance ; only to be 
 restored, with some modifications, on the defeat of 
 the Southern confederacy in 1865. These modifi- 
 cations confirmed by legal enactment the abolition of 
 negro slavery, decreed without legal or constitutional 
 authority, and solely as a war measure by President 
 Lincoln, and introduced a few other amendments, 
 having for their only objects the strengthening of the 
 central authority, and the curtailment of the State 
 rights which, pushed to their logical conclusions, had
 
 JAMES MADISON. 345 
 
 justified and might hereafter justify the secession of 
 any State or States from the Federal Government. 
 
 In those early days of the Bepublic, before the 
 first President had been elected, and the constitu- 
 tion finally established, eminent public service 
 either in the camp or the cabinet was not held to 
 be a disadvantage to the candidate who aspired to 
 the highest office in the gift of the people. On the 
 contrary, it was a passport to their favour, as was 
 proved by the successive elections of Washington, 
 Adams, and Jefferson, and as was proved at a later 
 time on two memorable but exceptional occasions. 
 The first was when Abraham Lincoln, who was 
 elected to the Presidency in 1861, on account of his 
 harmless mediocrity, was nominated a second time 
 for his safe though not brilliant talents as a states- 
 man. The second occurred when the same distinc- 
 tion was conferred on General Grant, as an ac- 
 knowledgment of his victorious campaign against 
 the South in the Civil War, and who received on 
 two separate occasions the suffrages of the nation. 
 The services of Mr Madison in Congress, during the 
 early struggles of the Colonies against King George 
 III. and the Ministry and Parliaments of the 
 mother - country, were too conspicuous to be ig- 
 nored by an appreciative country, and in 1809
 
 346 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 he succeeded Mr Jefferson in the Presidency, ob- 
 taining 122 votes out of a total of 176. 
 
 He gave such general satisfaction during his 
 incumbency, that he was elected to a second 
 term in 1813. His tenure of office during eight 
 years was chiefly memorable for the war declared 
 by the United States against Great Britain, on the 
 question of the rights of neutrals, which the Ameri- 
 can Government and people held to have been 
 unjustifiably invaded. Mr Madison was personally 
 opposed to the war having reason, as he thought, 
 for believing that the British Ministry had resolved 
 to revoke the Orders in Council which had given 
 so much offence to the American people, had time 
 been allowed, and more patience and management 
 exhibited. But passions had been excited, and vio- 
 lent counsels prevailed. The moderate and peace- 
 able opinions of the President were overruled, and 
 war was declared. It lasted with varying fortunes 
 until 1815, without producing any tangible results, 
 except a few barren victories first on one side 
 and then on the other leading to no ulterior con- 
 sequences of any great importance, except the cre- 
 ation of national animosities that it required the 
 lapse of more than a generation to soften, but not 
 to extinguish.
 
 JAMES MADISON. 347 
 
 The most notable incidents of the war were the 
 naval engagements between the Chesapeake, an 
 American, and the Shannon, a British man-of-war, 
 in Hampton Eoads, off the mouth of the Chesa- 
 peake, in which, after a hard-fought battle, the 
 victory remained with the Shannon. On board of 
 the American ship 48 men were killed and 98 
 wounded ; the British loss amounted to 24 killed 
 and 59 wounded. The American captain was 
 fatally wounded, and died of his injuries five days 
 afterwards, at Halifax, in Nova Scotia. 
 
 Still more notable and deplorable was the attack 
 upon the city of Washington in August 1814, by a 
 British force of 5000 men believed by the Ameri- 
 cans to be 10,000 under the command of General 
 Ross. The American force, under General Winder, 
 was badly commanded and ill-disciplined. " There 
 were no funds," says Ingersoll, an American historian, 
 "though the city banks proffered a few hundred 
 thousand dollars of their depreciated and in a few 
 days destined to be inconvertible paper currency. 
 There were no rifles nor flints enough : American 
 gunpowder was inferior to English. There was not 
 a cannon mounted for the defence of the seat of 
 Government ; not a regular soldier in the city ; not 
 a fortress, breastwork, or military fortification of any
 
 348 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 kind within twelve miles. The neighbouring mi- 
 litia of Maryland and Virginia were worn down by 
 mortifying and disastrous service, routed and dis- 
 heartened. The proportion of regular troops all 
 of them mere recruits, never tried in fire 'Was like 
 that of coin to paper in the wretched currency, 
 so small an infusion of the precious metal that 
 there was scarcely any substance to rely upon." 
 
 At the first notification of the approach of a Brit- 
 ish force of well-disciplined troops, the utmost alarm 
 prevailed in Washington, and in the councils of the 
 President and the Administration. The Secretary of 
 the Navy, fearing that they might fall into the hands 
 of the enemy, set fire to a new sloop-of-war with 
 ten guns, afloat on the Potomac, to a new schooner, 
 to a large frigate on the stocks, and to a vast quan- 
 tity of stores and machinery. On the appearance in 
 Pennsylvania of great numbers of affrighted fugi- 
 tives, flying from Bladensburg and Georgetown 
 before the advancing British, a panic seized upon 
 Washington. Mr Madison fled in all haste across 
 the Potomac, but secured some of the most precious 
 Cabinet papers, some clothing, and other important 
 articles, including a full-length portrait of General 
 Washington which adorned the principal public room 
 of the White House. The city, before the arrival
 
 JAMES MADISON. 349 
 
 of the British, was plundered by gangs of escaped 
 slaves and other ruffians, and much damage was 
 done. But the damage, great as it was, was small 
 in comparison with that inflicted by the British. 
 General Eoss sent forward a flag of truce, with a 
 view of negotiating for the ransom and consequent 
 preservation of the public buildings and other pro- 
 perty. General Eoss himself accompanied the party 
 bearing the flag ; but the party was fired upon from 
 the windows of one of the houses in the avenue, 
 and the General's horse was shot under him and 
 killed. Every thought of accommodation or truce 
 was now dispelled. The furious soldiery broke 
 into the house from which the shots were fired, put 
 all the people they found inside to the sword, and 
 afterwards set the place on fire. Nothing stopped 
 their fury after this until they had burned down 
 the Capitol, with the valuable library of Congress, 
 the War Office, and every other public building 
 that was pointed out to them. The Americans 
 themselves, fearing pursuit, set fire by order, it 
 was said, of Mr Madison to the two ends of the 
 long wooden bridge over the Potomac. 
 
 The third most memorable incident of this un- 
 happy war was the defeat of the British forces 
 under General Pakenham at New Orleans, on the
 
 350 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 8th of January 1815, by General Jackson, who was 
 afterwards elected to the Presidency, mainly in con- 
 sequence of the reputation he had acquired by this 
 victory. Jackson was the first of the grossly 
 illiterate Presidents, a rough, a rowdy, a duellist, 
 a profane swearer, and a fire-eater, without any 
 pretensions to culture or refinement, but an honest 
 and straightforward man, with no false pretence or 
 affectation about him. He had an abundance of 
 the uncommon quality known as common - sense. 
 For the possession of this quality, but principally 
 by his defeat of a British general in the unhappy 
 second war between the mother-country and her 
 proud offshoot, he acquired the favour and support of 
 the electoral body at a time of political excitement. 
 At the close of his second presidential term, when 
 he was succeeded by Mr Monroe, Mr Madison was 
 glad to retire to his patrimonial estate and farm at 
 Montpelier, in his native county of Orange, in 
 Virginia. He was weary of the buffetings of 
 politics and the animosities of party strife, that 
 were alien to his gentle and peaceable nature, and 
 only too happy to devote himself to the amenities 
 of congenial society, and the cultivation and the 
 consequent improvement of his private fortune, 
 which had suffered from his long devotion to the
 
 JAMES MADISON. 351 
 
 public service. He managed to find time for the 
 study of natural history, of which he had always 
 been particularly fond. He also recommenced the 
 study of law in which he was no mean proficient 
 and of literature, which he had never wholly 
 neglected, even in the midst of engrossing public 
 business. He was temporarily summoned, in 1829, 
 after nearly twelve years of seclusion, to serve 
 as a member of the Convention that met to revise 
 the constitution of the State of Virginia ; and also 
 acted as Hector of the University of that State. 
 But the infirmities of age were pressing severely 
 upon him ; and after serving for a few months in 
 the Convention, he finally returned to his estates, 
 and steadfastly refused all future participation in 
 public affairs whether local or general in Vir- 
 ginia or in Washington. But though he lived a 
 retired, he by no means endured a lonely life. 
 His house at Montpelier was the resort of all the 
 celebrated men of his time, more especially of the 
 leading politicians of his own party. His conver- 
 sation was particularly fascinating, not only for its 
 wit and humour, and the fund of anecdote at his 
 command, but for his reasoning and argumentative 
 power, and his sound, temperate, and comprehen- 
 sive views upon public affairs, and all the leading
 
 352 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 questions of the time. He died in 1836, in the 
 eighty-fifth year of his age, being survived by his 
 wife a general favourite in all society to whom 
 he had been united for forty-two years. He left 
 no family, but a reputation second to that of no 
 statesman or public functionary of his age and 
 country, Washington and Jefferson alone excepted. 
 
 With these remarks may be concluded the person- 
 al history of the five principal founders of the Inde- 
 pendence of the United States, each differing from 
 the other in character, acquirements, and achieve- 
 ments, but none differing from his fellows in 
 zeal and utility in the building up of the great 
 edifice of American liberty, which already begins to 
 overshadow the world.
 
 353 
 
 THE DANGEKS OF ULTKA-DEMOCKACY. 
 
 IN tracing the lives and the work of the five great 
 men who were mainly instrumental in founding 
 the Eepublic of the United States, and who en- 
 deavoured so to shape its laws and mould its 
 destinies as to secure for it not alone an independ- 
 ence able to withstand all probable attack, but a 
 stability equal, if not superior, to that of the oldest 
 empires and monarchies of Europe and Asia, we 
 have shown that their work was one of the most 
 difficult recorded in history. But when they rested 
 from their labours, they each and all entertained 
 doubts, misgivings, or fears of the durability of the 
 apparently splendid edifice of democratic liberty 
 which they had reared for the world's wonder. 
 The independence of the thirteen colonies, or, as 
 they afterwards called themselves, " States," was 
 not secured without painful and long - continued 
 struggles, which, without the aid of France, then 
 
 z
 
 354 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 engaged in a war with Great Britain, might, after 
 all, have proved abortive. The union which they 
 formed amongst each other was not established on 
 such a firm and satisfactory basis as to allay 
 jealousies, prevent all future animosities, dissen- 
 sions, and disagreements, or to reconcile conflicting 
 ideas and interests. The opinions of these five men 
 were by no means in complete accord, and were 
 shared, in their several degrees of divergency, by 
 large classes of the people. Unanimity was impos- 
 sible ; but compromise, difficult though it appeared 
 during many stages of the parturition, was attain- 
 able. And it was attained, with more or less willing 
 adhesion, on the part of all the thirteen States. 
 
 The form of the future Government presented 
 no difficulty of choice. A kingdom or an empire 
 was impossible, and, if possible, would have 
 been impolitic and unwise. The man did not 
 exist out of whom the Americans could have 
 fashioned either a king or an emperor, unless it 
 were George Washington, whom nineteen out of 
 twenty Americans would have refused to acknow- 
 ledge in either of those capacities, and who was, 
 besides, much too wise, prudent, and far-seeing a 
 statesman to accept the perilous and uncertain re- 
 sponsibility. A Dictator might have been more
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTBA-DEMOCRACY. 355 
 
 easily found ; but the bold ambition and the high 
 genius necessary in the man who would strive for 
 the dictatorship, and be able to retain it, were non- 
 existent. Even the materials of a Cromwell were 
 wanting. Washington, if he had been a younger 
 and more ambitious man, might have afforded a 
 not very distant approximation to the character. 
 Even a Eepublic on the model of the republics 
 of antiquity and of the middle ages was not pos- 
 sible, on account of the absence of the aristocratic 
 element in American society that element which 
 formed the main ingredient of all the ancient de- 
 mocracies. There was but one form of aristocracy 
 in America, and that was the aristocracy of colour 
 by the unwritten laws and usages of which every 
 white citizen was a virtual aristocrat, compared with 
 his dark-skinned brother. 
 
 Each of the thirteen original States was of neces- 
 sity a pure democracy, after it had thrown off the 
 yoke of Great Britain ; and it was absolutely neces- 
 sary that the union of those States should rest on a 
 democratic, and indeed on an ultra-democratic basis. 
 The democratic form of government is theoretically 
 the best, wisest, and most natural that a people or 
 a nation can establish. Government by the people 
 and for the benefit of the people is the perfection of
 
 356 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 civilisation ; but it is necessary before such a gov- 
 ernment can be established, if any length of life is 
 to be expected for it, that the people, in the broadest 
 sense of the word, should be virtuous and intelli- 
 gent. Virtue and intelligence, notwithstanding the 
 old classical assertion that the voice of the people 
 is the voice of God, are not found to a conspicuous 
 extent among the multitudes of any nation. The 
 hewers of wood and the drawers of water may be 
 virtuous in their degree, and as far as the sordid 
 and engrossing cares of their hard lives will permit ; 
 but intelligent in any high sense of the word in- 
 telligent from education and the cultivation of their 
 noblest faculties of mind they never have been in 
 any age or country, and in all probability never 
 will be, notwithstanding all the efforts which the 
 church, the chapel, the college, and the school 
 board may empirically employ to make them so. 
 In a new country, such as the British Colonies 
 were when the colonists revolted against British 
 rule, sparsely peopled by the pioneers of civilisa- 
 tion, who had to struggle hard with nature for the 
 means of subsistence, and with the Eed Indians, 
 the legitimate possessors of the soil, for their 
 lives and safety, the ruder virtues of humanity 
 flourished more vigorously than they could have
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCKACY. 357 
 
 done in the crowded cities of the old world. In- 
 telligence born of necessity, and the sharpening of 
 the faculties by contact with the wilderness, fitted 
 them for self-government, and made republicans of 
 them naturally. A Eepublic was thus, not theo- 
 retically alone, but practically, the best, even 
 although it might not have been the only form 
 of government which they could establish. The 
 greatest danger which such a republic either in- 
 herited or incurred, lay in the probability, if not 
 in the certainty, that, with the progress of time 
 and the increase of population, the primitive virtue 
 would disappear, and that the intelligence still 
 existent would be perverted to base uses by the 
 struggle for existence and the desperate and im- 
 moral competition for wealth and position, the 
 invariable concomitant of an over-ripe and over- 
 populous civilisation. 
 
 The founders of the American Eepublic were 
 aware of these dangers, and did their best to 
 provide against them, by recognising the thirteen 
 small republics to be each complete in itself, and 
 therefore easily governed, and setting themselves 
 resolutely against the plan, which found consider- 
 able favour at the time, of consolidating the thirteen 
 into one, and calling the consolidation a " Union,"
 
 358 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 and not a sole entity. The first idea, however, 
 was not that of " Union," but of " Confederation." 
 But the name found no support among the people. 
 
 One party not led by Washington, but of which 
 Washington was the most illustrious and influen- 
 tial, and Alexander Hamilton the most eloquent 
 adherent desired to nationalise and to concentrate 
 authority, so that the several commonwealths should 
 not only be one and indivisible against the outer 
 world, but one and indivisible among themselves, 
 in other words, that the congeries and agglomera- 
 tion of republics, each self-existent and self-gov- 
 erned, should become one great Eepublic, and be as 
 much a unit as France or England, Spain or Eussia. 
 It is true that the very name or designation of the 
 'new power described a different political fabric; for 
 in a nationality, properly so called, there can be 
 but one State, and not many States. This dis- 
 crepancy, however, between the fact and the desig- 
 nation, did not appear very formidable, and the 
 statesmen and philosophers of those days reconciled 
 themselves to the only name that was then possible 
 for the new Commonwealth, and trusted to the 
 future to make practically right what might be 
 theoretically wrong. 
 
 The opposite party the true founders of repub-
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 359 
 
 licanism in America, led by the illustrious Jeffer- 
 son, as great a man in his sphere as Washington 
 insisted that the centralisation of power was in- 
 compatible with liberty ; that the thirteen States 
 were even then too large to be well governed from 
 one centre ; that each State was a true republic, 
 with its own constitution, its own legislature, and 
 its own method of administering its own affairs. 
 The Washingtonians, Federalists, and Centralisers so 
 far prevailed as to supersede the temporary confed- 
 eration by what was called " a more perfect union." 
 This new compact was by turns approved and 
 attacked by all parties, as whim or necessity sug- 
 gested. It was tolerated rather than beloved, and 
 held its ground after a certain unstable fashion, till 
 the election of Mr Lincoln a period of seventy- 
 three years. 
 
 From the very first the friends of these conflict- 
 ing principles were at variance, and on more than 
 one occasion the upholders of the rights of the 
 several States and commonwealths that claimed to 
 be supreme within their own boundaries, and called 
 themselves Democrats, was at issue with the Wash- 
 ingtonians and Federalists, who called themselves 
 Republicans, and would have established what was 
 virtually an autocracy, and not a democracy, if
 
 360 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 their idea of the one Eepublic, paramount to the 
 thirteen commonwealths, found acceptance. Thus, 
 as has been truly said, the founders of the Eepublic 
 and the people of their day went wrong from the 
 beginning. They started upon a treacherous basis, 
 inasmuch as the contracting parties had opposite 
 designs as to the results of their agreement, and 
 conflicting notions as to their intentions in acceding 
 to it. The one party thought republican liberty 
 was secured by unlimited local and limited central 
 action ; the other imagined that a central Govern- 
 ment in any shape was a point gained, and that 
 time and opportunity might be relied upon to in- 
 crease its authority, and eventually to fuse into one 
 grander nationality than the sun had ever shone 
 upon, the incongruous and widely-extended com- 
 monwealths of the Atlantic seaboard, and eventually 
 the still more incongruous and more widely-extended 
 populations that sooner or later would extend to the 
 Pacific, and overflow the whole of the North Ameri- 
 can continent. 
 
 The idea was splendid and inspiriting. What 
 mattered it to those who indulged it, and would have 
 given it form and substance, if its realisation could 
 only be achieved by the sacrifice of the republican 
 liberty on which the whole scheme was founded ?
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTKA-DEMOCEACY. 361 
 
 Nothing. They accepted all contingencies ; and for 
 the sake of unity, the first place among the nations, 
 and the consequent power to overawe Europe, would 
 have yielded everything to the central power which 
 they created. 
 
 The disruption of the Union in order that the 
 rights or desires of any one State, or any com- 
 bination of States, might prevail over the central 
 authority of the Republic was continually threat- 
 ened, and always possible from the earliest period. 
 In 1803, when the Central Government purchased 
 Louisiana from the French and incorporated it with 
 the Union, Mr Josiah Quincy a very eminent citi- 
 zen of Massachusetts, and member of Congress 
 advocated in that assembly the repudiation of the 
 transaction, and contended that Massachusetts had 
 a right to withdraw from the Union, for the rea- 
 sons, among others, that its people had been taxed, 
 without their consent, to pay their share of the 
 purchase-money, and that it extended the area of 
 negro slavery. At the Hartford Convention in 
 1814, when the whole of the New England and 
 several of the other Northern States were vehe- 
 mently opposed to the continuance of the war with 
 Great Britain, a far more serious disruption of the 
 Federal compact was threatened. New York and
 
 362 FOUNDERS OF THE AMEEICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the New England States comprising Massachu- 
 setts, Connecticut, Ehode Island, Vermont, and New 
 Hampshire suffered greatly in their foreign trade 
 by the blockade instituted and rigidly maintained 
 by Great Britain, and complained that their ships 
 remained idle in their harbours and rotted in their 
 wharves in consequence. The Convention loudly 
 and all but unanimously expressed its determina- 
 tion to secede from the Union, unless the Central 
 Government agreed to a peace with the mother- 
 country ; and the disaffection expressed by the dele- 
 gates extended all over the Northern States, and 
 might have produced the disruption which was 
 threatened, if the war had not been happily ter- 
 minated, for European rather than for American 
 , reasons. 
 
 But a far greater danger threatened the Union 
 seventeen years afterwards, when a formidable at- 
 tack was made upon the State Democracies and 
 the rights claimed and hitherto exercised by all 
 the States including the eleven additional ones 
 that had joined the Union since the Declaration 
 of Independence. General Andrew Jackson, twice 
 elected to the Presidency, was the functionary 
 under whose auspices the attack was made. He 
 was a man of the lowest class, born among the
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 363 
 
 dregs of the people, with none of the education, 
 the feelings, or the manners of a gentleman, or 
 even of an ordinary shopkeeper. But he was brave, 
 resolute, honest, and well-intentioned; and he ac- 
 quired the goodwill and extorted the admiration of 
 his countrymen by his defeat of a small British 
 force at New Orleans during the war of 1814. He 
 was a profane swearer, a bully, and a drunkard ; 
 but a good soldier, an able commander, and an 
 upright, if not an able magistrate. He was scarcely 
 for three months together, during his busy and 
 rough life, out of a street brawl or a duel ; always 
 went about armed carried his life, as it were, in 
 the hollow of his hand and was ready at all times 
 to risk it against the meanest of his foes for the 
 smallest offences. He was commonly known as 
 " Old Hickory " a name given to him by the vul- 
 garest of the people, from the toughness of his 
 character hickory being the hardest wood grown 
 in the American forests. 
 
 He was celebrated for three predominating and 
 rampant aversions a hatred of debt, of paper- 
 money, and of Great Britain. His hatred of Great 
 Britain was partly founded upon the prejudices in- 
 herited with his Irish blood, but mainly upon jeal- 
 ousy of its supremacy among the nations of the
 
 364 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 world. The object of his love was the union of 
 the States not because such union was conducive 
 to the liberty of the American people, but be- 
 cause he thought, if firmly maintained, it would 
 in the course of time spread itself over the whole 
 North American continent from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific, from the Arctic zone to the Isthmus 
 of Panama ; and not only over the continent, 
 which included Canada, but over the West India 
 Islands, including Cuba, the possession of which 
 is still the dearest wish of the American heart. 
 In this respect he was in complete sympathy 
 with the popular passion and ambition of his 
 contemporaries, a passion and an ambition which 
 the lapse of time seems to have strengthened, 
 and which has been but partially satisfied by the 
 results of the war which the " Union " wantonly 
 provoked against Mexico, and which resulted in the 
 annexation of Texas on its southern border a 
 country as large as France and of California, the 
 richest jewel in the splendid tiara of the Eepublic. 
 
 General Jackson had no respect for the rights 
 of the States, which were supposed and declared to 
 be each sovereign and independent within their 
 own boundaries, if those rights seemed to him to 
 be hostile to the designs of the Union in its col-
 
 THE DANGEES OF ULTEA-DEMOCRACY. 365 
 
 lective capacity. The Vice-President the cele- 
 brated Mr Calhoun was a man of a different 
 character, and had political ideas entirely at vari- 
 ance with those of his superior. Consequently, after 
 a very short tenure of the office, he resigned the 
 Vice-Presidency in favour of a seat in the Senate. 
 To the other three objects of his hatred, General 
 Jackson speedily added a fourth in the person of 
 Mr Calhoun. 
 
 Up to the year 1828 during the first term of 
 General Jackson as President the expenditure of 
 the Central Government, which was wholly distinct 
 from that of the several States, had been so small, 
 the revenue so large, and the surplus so consider- 
 able, that Federal statesmen had much difficulty in 
 devising a means for disposing of it to the satisfac- 
 tion of the people. The surplus, and consequently 
 unnecessary revenue, was derived from the heavy 
 duties levied by the Protectionists on foreign goods 
 not, as they said, for purposes of revenue, but 
 for the encouragement of native industries. The 
 Protectionists quite satisfied with the working of 
 their principle proposed to continue it in full 
 operation, and to devote the large accruing revenues 
 to distribution, pro rata, among all the States in 
 proportion to their population. The Free-Traders
 
 366 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 who were preponderant in all the Southern States, 
 which were purely agricultural, and had few or no 
 manufactures objected to a protective system, of 
 which the Northern States reaped all the real or 
 supposed advantages ; and proposed, instead of divid- 
 ing the surplus revenue, to prevent all surplus for 
 the future by reducing the import duties to the low- 
 est rates which would produce a merely sufficient 
 revenue, to meet the small expenses of the Central 
 Government. Upon this point issue was joined 
 throughout the whole Union, General Jackson 
 being strong for Protection, his former Vice-Presi- 
 dent being equally strong for Free Trade. The 
 Congress declared itself in favour of Protection 
 though not disinclined to a modification of its 
 stringency by a reduction of the tariff provided 
 the principle of the duty of the Central Govern- 
 ment to protect and encourage native industry 
 were affirmed. 
 
 Mr Calhoun, unlike General Jackson, was a man 
 of education and culture, a trained lawyer and 
 statesman, a master of language, both with the 
 tongue and the pen, an acute logician, in his man- 
 ners and conversation a gentleman, and a natural 
 aristocrat neither a rowdy himself nor an associate 
 of rowdies, such as was the President ; and when
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 367 
 
 Mr Calhoun, in the Senate, made himself the 
 mouthpiece of the Free Trade party, the antagonism 
 between him and the President became violently 
 personal as well as political. 
 
 The question at issue was formally introduced 
 into Congress in December 1831. Long debates 
 ensued, which lasted for seven months. In the 
 summer of 1832, the measure for continuing the 
 protective duties, vehemently opposed by Mr Cal- 
 houn and by the Southern members, aided by a 
 few Northern men, was passed by both Houses in 
 the Senate by a majority of 32 against 16 ; and in 
 the House of Eepresentatives by 129 against 65. 
 The result did not astonish but greatly incensed 
 the whole of the agricultural South ; and early in 
 the autumn of that year, the State Legislature of 
 South Carolina passed an Act calling for a convention 
 of the whole people, to take into consideration what 
 they thought to be the unconstitutional action of 
 the Washington Congress, and to recommend the 
 course that the State Legislature should in conse- 
 quence pursue. The Convention met in November, 
 and agreed to the memorable " Ordinance of Nulli- 
 fication," which was passed unanimously amid shouts 
 of bewildering excitement every man present pledg- 
 ing, by solemn oath, his life and sacred honour in its
 
 368 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 support. This ordinance consisted of five decrees 
 or parts: 
 
 " That the tariff law of 1828, and the amendment 
 to the same of 1832, were null, void, and no 
 law, nor binding upon this State, its officers, or 
 citizens. 
 
 "That no duties enjoined by that law, or its 
 amendment, should be paid, or permitted to be 
 paid, in the State of South Carolina, after the 1st 
 day of February 1833. 
 
 " That in no case involving the validity of the 
 expected nullifying Act of the Legislature, should 
 an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States 
 be permitted. No copy of proceedings should be 
 allowed to be taken for that purpose. Any attempt 
 to appeal to the Supreme Court "might be dealt 
 with as for a contempt of the Court " from which 
 the appeal was taken. 
 
 " That every office-holder in the State, whether of 
 the civil or the military service, and every person 
 hereafter assuming an office, and every juror, should 
 take an oath to obey this ordinance, and all Acts of 
 the Legislature in accordance therewith or suggested 
 thereby. 
 
 " That if the Government of the United States 
 should attempt to enforce the tariff laws then exist-
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 369 
 
 ing, by means of its army or navy, by closing the 
 ports of the State, or preventing the egress or ingress 
 of vessels, or should in any way harass or obstruct 
 the foreign commerce of the State, then South Caro- 
 lina would no longer consider herself a member of 
 the Federal Union ; the people of this State would 
 thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all 
 further obligation to maintain or preserve their 
 political connection with the people of the other 
 States, and would forthwith proceed to organise 
 a separate Government, and do all other acts 
 and things which sovereign and independent States 
 may of right do." 
 
 Mr Hayne, the then Governor of South Carolina, 
 went even beyond the Convention in his zeal for 
 the democratic rights of his native State, and in 
 the boldness of the language in which he asserted 
 his determination to uphold them. " I recognise," 
 he said, " no allegiance as paramount to that which 
 the citizens of South Carolina owe to the State of 
 their birth or their adoption. I publicly declare, 
 and wish it to be distinctly understood, that I hold 
 myself bound by the highest of all obligations to 
 carry into full effect, not only the ordinance of 
 the Convention, but every Act of the Legislature, 
 and every judgment of our own Courts, the enforce- 
 2 A
 
 370 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 ment of which may devolve upon the Executive. 
 I claim no right to revise their acts. It will be 
 my duty to execute them, and that duty I mean to 
 the utmost of my power faithfully to perform." 
 He went even further than this, and declared that 
 " if the sacred soil of Carolina should be polluted 
 by the footsteps of an invader, or be stained with 
 the blood of her citizens, shed in her defence, he 
 trusted in Almighty God that no son of hers, native 
 or adopted, who had been nourished at her bosom, 
 or been cherished by her bounty, would be found 
 raising a parricidal arm against her ; and that even 
 should she stand alone in the great struggle for 
 constitutional liberty, encompassed by her enemies, 
 there would not be found, in the wide limits of 
 the State, one recreant son who would not fly to 
 the rescue, and be ready to lay down his life in her 
 defence. South Carolina," he added, " could not be 
 drawn down from the proud eminence on which 
 she had placed herself, except by the hands of her 
 own children. She asked but a fair field, and no 
 more. Should she succeed, it would be glory 
 enough for her to have led the way in the noble 
 work of reform. And if, after making these efforts, 
 due to her own honour and the greatness of the 
 cause, she were destined utterly to fail, the bitter
 
 THE DANGEES OF ULTRA-DEMOCEACY. 371 
 
 fruits of that failure, not to herself alone, but to 
 the entire South, and to the whole Union, would 
 attest her virtue." 
 
 The remaining States of the South did not pos- 
 sess at this time a statesman of the high calibre, 
 the courage, and the eloquence of Mr Calhoun, to 
 defend the cause of Free Trade and State rights 
 against Protection and the despotism of the Congress 
 at Washington. Giving South Carolina their fullest 
 sympathy, those States gave nothing else, and left 
 it to fight the battle unaided, apparently deeming 
 the struggle to be more praiseworthy than help- 
 worthy. The South Carolinians were thoroughly 
 in earnest. The young and middle-aged, even the 
 old men, enrolled themselves enthusiastically as 
 volunteers, and submitted themselves to daily drill, 
 to be in readiness at a day's or an hour's notice to 
 support their determination by force of arms. The 
 ladies busied themselves in preparing blue cockades 
 and badges, with the real or imitation palmetto 
 leaf, the State emblem, to be worn in the caps 
 or on the bosoms of the volunteers. Everything 
 presaged the arbitrament of war, if President 
 Jackson and the congressional majority which sup- 
 ported him resolved to push matters to that ex- 
 tremity. The ladies all wore the nullification
 
 372 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 badge, and placed it on the breasts of their 
 children ; and even the negro slaves who acted 
 as nurses, and the negro slaves who worked in the 
 cotton or rice plantations, displayed the badge 
 of hostility to the Central Government. The 
 truculent General Jackson was not alarmed at 
 these threatening manifestations; but the majority 
 that had supported his views, both in the Senate 
 and in the House of Eepresentatives, were fear- 
 ful of provoking such an outburst of wrath in 
 the whole South as would in all probability have 
 produced a violent disruption of the Union from 
 causes which would not have estranged the sym- 
 pathies of Europe, but, on the contrary, would have 
 commanded them, more especially in Great Britain. 
 A Southern Confederacy was even at that time de- 
 bated ; and the idea took such root as to lead to 
 the striking of a medal in commemoration of nulli- 
 fication and of State rights, bearing on one side 
 the head of John C. Calhoun, and on the other 
 the inscription, " First President of the Southern 
 Confederacy." 
 
 General Jackson was resolved to support the 
 action of Congress, and lay in wait for the com- 
 mission of some act on the part of Mr Calhoun 
 that might, by the aid of any unscrupulous lawyer
 
 'THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 373 
 
 to be found in Washington or the Northern States, 
 be construed into treason ; and swore with pro- 
 fane oaths not only at the times, which were 
 by no means infrequent, when his brain was in- 
 flamed by raw whisky, but in the early morning, 
 when he was sober that if he were found guilty, 
 he would have John C. Calhoun hung " as high as 
 Haman." "By the Eternal!" he said, "if this 
 kind of thing goes on, our country will be like a 
 bag of meal with both ends open. I'll tie up the 
 ends of the bag, and save the country. By the 
 God of heaven ! I will uphold the laws. They are 
 trying me too much." 
 
 These were his private utterances ; but, as was 
 to be expected from the fact that he had cooler 
 heads in his counsels, his public utterances were 
 more dignified, though equally resolute. Mi- 
 Livingstone, who acted as his Secretary of State, 
 drew up by his advice and inspiration a proclama- 
 tion, addressed to the whole of the American people, 
 which stated his firm determination to uphold the 
 action of the central power, and to crush by force 
 if necessary the opposition of South Carolina. The 
 Governor of South Carolina immediately issued a 
 counter-proclamation, in which he denounced the 
 doctrines of the President as specious, false, and
 
 374 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 pernicious, and tending to uproot the principle 
 on which the voluntary union of the several States 
 was founded, thus destroying the liberties not only 
 of the States, but of their individual citizens, and 
 which would lead infallibly, if not successfully 
 resisted, to "the establishment of a CONSOLIDATED 
 EMPIRE, one and indivisible, the worst of all 
 despotisms." 
 
 Mr Calhoun may or may not have been dis- 
 heartened by the unwelcome discovery of the fact 
 that the other States of the South displayed no 
 inclination to support him, otherwise than by brave 
 resolutions and flatulent speeches. At all events, 
 whatever may have been the reason, he favoured in 
 the Senate, of which he still continued to be a 
 member, an attempt to compromise the difficulty. 
 By that compromise which was at last effected 
 the great question of the right of any State to dis- 
 agree with, or, if need were, to oppose the decrees of 
 the Central Government, was adjourned, but not 
 settled. The eminent senator, Mr Clay, whose 
 name and character were highly respected both in 
 the North and the South, and whose influence in 
 the South was second only to that of Mr Calhoun, 
 introduced a Bill providing that the protective 
 duties at that time in force should every two years be
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 375 
 
 reduced by one-tenth until the year 1842, when all 
 duties ad valorem should be reduced to twenty per 
 cent, or as much lower as the then sitting Congress 
 should determine. With some difficulty Mr Cal- 
 houn was induced to support this measure. South 
 Carolina acquiesced with an ill grace, contented 
 more or less to adjourn for ten years the final 
 settlement of the right of nullification, and the 
 consequent right of secession from the Union, which 
 sought m et armis to impose its will on an indepen- 
 dent and recalcitrant community. The President 
 disapproved of this compromise, and would have 
 vetoed it, as he might legally have done, had he not 
 been overpersuaded by cooler heads than his own. 
 During the remainder of his life he cherished a 
 vindictive and unchristian animosity against Mr 
 Calhoun. Being asked by the Rev. Dr Edgar, his 
 spiritual comforter, on his deathbed in 1845, what 
 he would have done with Mr Calhoun and the 
 other nullifiers in South Carolina, if they had pro- 
 ceeded to violence, the old man sprang suddenly up 
 in his bed, his fading eyes flashing with momentary 
 fire, and exclaimed, " Hung them up, sir, as high as 
 Haman ! They should have been a terror to evil- 
 doers for all time, and posterity would have pro- 
 nounced it to be the most meritorious act of my life."
 
 376 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 This vital question of State rights was not only 
 held in special favour by the South, but by the 
 North. The abolition of negro slavery by .Great 
 Britain in 1835, accompanied by the handsome 
 compensation of 20,000,000 sterling to the slave- 
 proprietors in the West Indies, gave an immense 
 impetus to the question in the Northern States. 
 The enemies of negro slavery were a small but 
 powerful and growing sect, and never lacked zealous 
 and eloquent supporters in the pulpit and on the 
 platform, and to a certain though not great extent, 
 in the press. In the Northern States the free labour 
 of white men was found to be cheaper and more 
 effective than the enforced labour of the blacks ; 
 and hard work in the fields was not forbidden by 
 the climate, as it was generally in the South, to all 
 white-skinned workmen. In one phrase a fav- 
 ourite with all commercial people slavery in the 
 North " did not pay." One by one the Northern 
 States, for this great commercial reason, strength- 
 ened and supported in a minor degree by reasons of 
 religion and philanthropy, as well as by the purely 
 philanthropic and non-commercial example of Great 
 Britain, set about the task of emancipating the 
 negroes. 
 
 The North, however, was not by any means unani-
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 377 
 
 mous in undertaking the great work, nor was the ac- 
 tion of the States simultaneous. Every State that 
 resolved upon the emancipation of the black labour- 
 ers acted on its own voluntary determination, and by 
 the legal agency of its own legislature as a free, 
 sovereign, and independent State without asking 
 for or expecting the co-operation of any other. 
 The small State of Ehode Island, called affec- 
 tionately " little Ehody " by its people, first moved 
 in the matter, without waiting for the example 
 of Great Britain, or even for the Declaration of 
 Independence, and led the way in 1*775, by 
 enacting that all children thereafterwards born 
 of slave mothers within its boundaries should be 
 free. Massachusetts followed suit in 1780, as did 
 the great State of Pennsylvania. Connecticut, with- 
 out manumitting its actual slaves, decreed that all 
 the children of slave mothers, born after the 1st of 
 March 1784, should be free. New York abolished 
 slavery in 1783 ; New Hampshire, nine years after- 
 wards, in 1792 ; while New Jersey, only separated 
 from New York by the Hudson river, did not see 
 its way to abolition until 1820. It must be said, 
 however, in the interests of truth, that although 
 religion and philanthropy, as well as the meaner 
 considerations of economic science, prompted these
 
 378 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 and other Northern States, there were not wanting 
 among them a class of selfish and hard-hearted 
 slave-owners, who took timely advantage of what 
 they knew to be inevitable, by sending all their 
 young and able-bodied slaves into the South, and 
 selling them to the best available advantage. The 
 abolitionists in these Northern States, not contented 
 with doing the right thing in the right way, were 
 unhappy because the Southern States did not imi- 
 tate their example, and instituted a zealous pro- 
 paganda for the coercion of the South. They 
 forgot or ignored the fact that the economic 
 elements of the problem to be worked out were not 
 identical in the two geographical sections of the 
 Eepublic. 
 
 Meanwhile a new and highly important element 
 in the case was yearly assuming larger and more 
 important dimensions. The free Northern States 
 were continually receiving new partners in dominion, 
 by immigration from Europe, and by the invasion of 
 the unoccupied and fruitful territories of the great 
 West by the young and adventurous spirits of the 
 earlier settlements of the Atlantic seaboard, who 
 found the homes of their fathers too narrow for 
 their enterprise, their ambition, and their earth- 
 hunger. The thirteen original States had grown
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTKA-DEMOCRACY. 379 
 
 into twenty or thirty, and the new-comers were 
 free of the burden or guilt as they considered 
 it of negro slavery. These magnificent accretions 
 strengthened the pre-existent sentiment of the people 
 of the thirteen older States which had found 
 favour with "Washington, Hamilton, and the Federal 
 party and impressed them with the splendid idea 
 of the advantages that would attend the establish- 
 ment of one great, glorious, undivided Republic, 
 extending over all the continent, and possessed 
 of resources, agricultural and mineral, far superior 
 to those of Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, 
 or Germany, or any other of the European 
 monarchies. And this natural growth of the 
 area of the Northern States naturally impressed 
 on the minds of the statesmen of the South that 
 the South ought also to expand, and that its 
 " manifest destiny " was, per fas aut nefas, to in- 
 vade, to conquer, and to possess Mexico and the 
 West Indies, an idea which, in the course of time, 
 was resolutely acted upon, and led to the forcible 
 acquisition of Texas and California. 
 
 The Abolitionist and Anti-slavery party at this 
 crisis took up the idea once entertained by the 
 Free Trade party in the South, and, arguing that 
 their political partnership with the slave States
 
 380 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 rendered them participators in the guilt of slavery, 
 which they were powerless to abolish, imposed upon 
 them the duty of separation. The idea was present 
 during many long years in the minds of the lead- 
 ing publicists and people of the North; and was 
 expressed in 1848 in emphatic language by Mr 
 W. H. Seward, afterwards the Secretary of State 
 in Mr Lincoln's administration during the War of 
 Secession, in a speech or lecture delivered at Balti- 
 more. He declared to an auditory in that border 
 city all whose sympathies were in favour of 
 the South his firm conviction that the separation 
 of North and South was both desirable and inevit- 
 able, and that, come when it would, the people of 
 both sections would afford the world "a splendid 
 example of the inherent excellence and utility of 
 republican and democratic freedom, and at the same 
 time read a lesson of peace to the corrupt and 
 rotten monarchies and empires of Europe, by separ- 
 ating amicably, by mutual agreement, and without 
 the shedding of a drop of blood." 
 
 Mr Seward published the speech in a pamphlet 
 three or four years afterwards, little dreaming that 
 on this very question time and the course of events 
 would transform the peaceable philanthropist and 
 liberal statesman into the most truculent and
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 381 
 
 bloodthirsty administrator that his country had ever 
 seen. 
 
 Mr Horace Greeley, the celebrated editor of the 
 ' New York Tribune,' who exercised a powerful influ- 
 ence over the Anti-slavery and Republican party of 
 the North and West, openly and persistently advo- 
 cated separation. In lines that were continually 
 recited in speeches and writings by the abolitionists, 
 he described the American flag as a " flaunting He " 
 and " a blood-stained rag," that ought to be torn 
 down from every battlement and steeple in the 
 North, and that should be hoisted half-mast high in 
 sign of its degradation in every American ship on 
 the ocean. He advocated the independence of the 
 Northern States, or any portion of them; or if 
 independence were not attainable, their incorpora- 
 tion with Canada, and a return to their allegiance 
 to the " Old Country " anything rather than 
 continuance in a union with the Southern States, 
 that maintained and endeavoured to extend negro 
 slavery. 
 
 The Northern States, however, were not unani- 
 mous on the subject of slavery or the desirability 
 of its abolition. Their leading statesmen cared more 
 for protection to native industry, and high, if not 
 absolutely prohibitive, duties upon all the rnanu-
 
 382 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 factured goods that Great Britain and Europe could 
 supply, than for the freedom of men with black 
 skins, whom they were willing to recognise as men, 
 but wholly unwilling to recognise as brothers having 
 equal political and social rights as themselves. Pro- 
 vided that the Southern members of the House of 
 Eepresentatives and the Senate of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment would cease their agitation in favour of 
 the lowering of the duties on foreign manufactured 
 goods to the minimum that would produce a 
 revenue, they were willing to lend all their influ- 
 ence in favour of Southern slavery. 
 
 With a view to the success of this object, they 
 entered into an immoral contract with the cele- 
 brated Daniel Webster, beyond all comparison the 
 most eloquent and powerful orator then existent in 
 America. Webster was an Abolitionist at heart ; 
 but he was a man of luxurious and extravagant 
 habits, encumbered by a load of debts, and needy 
 as well as greedy in the extreme. For a large 
 annual salary, in addition to the payment of all his 
 actual debts, he sold his advocacy and his soul to 
 the Northern manufacturers, and fought the battle 
 of Protection, not wisely but too well, in Congress ; 
 and fought, at the same time, in the same assembly, 
 with equal unwisdom, and with superior eloquence,
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 383 
 
 the battle of the slave-owners against the Abolition- 
 ists. He continued to fight it with unflinching 
 courage and zeal until he died broken-hearted. In 
 spite of the mercenary and corrupt bargain, which 
 it was suspected rather than known that he had 
 made, by selling the birthright of his conscience for 
 a mess of pottage, his death was mourned through- 
 out all America. The people remembered his mar- 
 vellous eloquence, but did not remember his equally 
 marvellous venality ; and every pulpit and platform 
 in the land rang with expressions of condolence and 
 regret at his death. 
 
 One only voice was raised in his denunciation, 
 that of Theodore Parker of Boston, a Unitarian 
 preacher of great power and popularity, who 
 launched against his memory a tremendous phi- 
 lippic, which has seldom been surpassed, or even 
 equalled, in the annals of political warfare. 
 
 Mr Webster, though the most eminent corrup- 
 tionist of his day, by no means stood alone in polit- 
 ical dishonesty. The old patriarchal virtue was 
 not wholly extinguished in the Southern States, 
 of which the white inhabitants were the descend- 
 ants of the early heroes of the War of Independence. 
 Their ranks had received very few if any accretions 
 from the large European immigration of Irishmen and
 
 384 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Germans that continued to pour into the Northern 
 and the recently settled Western States. The new- 
 comers were ignorant of, or wholly misunderstood, 
 the foundations on which American liberty rested ; 
 and knowing nothing of the thoroughly and essen- 
 tially democratic self - government of the several 
 States, thought only of the greatness of the Union, 
 and of their own newly-acquired importance and 
 weight in the social and political scale, and as com- 
 ponent parts, however poor and mean in worldly 
 circumstances, of the sovereign people. 
 
 Mr Fisher Ames, a thoughtful New Englander, 
 foresaw the dangers likely to arise from the growing 
 number of the States and Territories, and from the 
 character of the alien races that invaded them in 
 search of farms, security, and freedom, and declared, 
 in memorable words, that the country was "too 
 big for union, too sordid for patriotism, and too 
 democratic for liberty." Year after year the offices 
 in the gift of the President and the Central Govern- 
 ment increased in number, and the candidates 
 increased disproportionately in every State of the 
 Union. Political services to the total, or almost 
 total, exclusion of merit were the sole qualifi- 
 cations for Presidential favour ; a result that was 
 due to the pernicious doctrine broached by General
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 385 
 
 Jacksou, who maintained that to " the victors be- 
 longed the spoils." This doctrine is still in force, 
 though condemned by all thinking Americans, for 
 the reason that, however useful and efficient these 
 wrongly-appointed State officials may prove to be, 
 they are expelled from office at the end of four 
 years, along with the Presidents who appointed 
 them, to make room for the friends of the incom- 
 ing President, who claim, as their predecessors did 
 before them, an indefeasible right to the " spoils." 3 
 
 1 President Lincoln, a man of strong common-sense, singleness 
 of mind, and sturdy honesty, saw the evils of this system, and 
 would have remedied it had it been in his power. He sometimes 
 told, with great gusto, when he unbent among his intimate friends, 
 an anecdote in proof of the unconquerable thirst for the ' ' spoils " 
 that afflicts the venal intriguers, high and low, who pull the dirty 
 wires of which the successful manipulation often elects a previously 
 obscure man to the Presidency. 
 
 "I hadn't been settled a week in the White House," said the 
 good, plain man, "when I was visited by a strong, hearty, dirty- 
 looking fellow from Kansas, I think, he said who gave me a 
 powerful grip of the hand, and informed me that he had made 
 me President. 'Many people have told me the same thing,' said 
 I ; ' but how did you make me the President, if you really did 
 so ? ' ' My vote carried my State in your favour, and my State 
 carried your election ; therefore I made you President. And I 
 want you to do something for me in return ! ' ' But what do 
 you expect me to do ? ' I asked him. ' I want you to give me the 
 Embassy to London or Paris,' he replied. 'Impossible,' said I; 
 'both embassies have been filled up already.' 'Well, then,' said 
 he, ' I have no objection to Vienna or Berlin ! ' ' Bespoke, 
 
 2 B
 
 386 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 There never was a time between the great 
 " Nullification " alarm in 1832, until the election 
 of Mr Lincoln in succession to Mr Buchanan in 
 
 bespoke,' said I. 'It's rather hard,' said he ; 'but I'll take Con- 
 stantinople, if you've nothing better to give me.' 'All the 
 embassies have been filled up long ago," said I. 'The Collector- 
 ship of Customs at New York would suit me capitally,' said he, 
 turning a quid of tobacco in his mouth ; ' or if that be disposed of, 
 I would accept the collectorship at Boston or elsewhere. ' ' Utterly 
 useless to expect a collectorship anywhere,' said I. 'It's cussed 
 hard, ' said he, ' after I have made you President, that I can't 
 get anything for my trouble. Can you give me a lighthouse ? ' 
 ' Nary a lighthouse,' said I. ' Nor a post-office ? ' ' Nary a post- 
 office. ' ' Well, Mr President, all I can say is, that it is an infernal 
 shame that you can't give me anything at all. Can you loan me 
 twenty dollars?' 'I have parted with my last dollar,' said I, 
 'and can't do it.' 'Well,' he rejoined, 'though I'm greatly dis- 
 appointed, I'm not proud. Can you give me an old coat, or an old 
 pair of boots ? ' I found him an old pair of boots, with which he 
 -went away ; and I afterwards learned that he had pawned them at 
 a liquor-store for half a bottle of whisky." 
 
 A kindred story found currency and favour among the cynics of 
 the Northern States during the earlier months of the War of 
 Secession in 1862. The Federal army had been defeated by the 
 Confederates at Bull Run, and made a somewhat precipitate retreat, 
 which excited much unfavourable comment at the time. " It is 
 quite a mistake," said a Northern politician, who doubtless wished 
 well to the Confederates, " to say that our army was defeated at 
 Bull Run. The fact is, that a rumour circulated in the ranks that 
 several vacancies had unexpectedly occurred in the New York 
 Custom-house. The report no sooner reached the ears of the 
 officers than they turned towards New York, in order to be first 
 in the field as candidates ; and the whole army, filled with the 
 same hopes, followed them."
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 387 
 
 1860, when the cry of secession was unheard. 
 During the interval it was not so much the 
 question of Free-trade as that of Negro Slavery 
 that created the antagonism between the two sec- 
 tions, although the question of the prohibitory 
 tariff was never wholly lost sight of. The per- 
 sistent agitation, kept up by the press, the platform, 
 and the pulpit in the North, on the subject of 
 negro slavery, together with the refusal of the 
 Northern people in many afterwards celebrated 
 cases to surrender to their Southern masters the 
 fugitive slaves that had sought and found refuge 
 in the New England States, by what was called 
 the " Underground Eailway," kept alive the dis- 
 content in the South as well as in the North 
 and West. The unwise abrogation of what was 
 known as the " Missouri Compromise," which sought 
 to prevent the extension of the slave-holding 
 area beyond the geographical limits of the lati- 
 tude of that State, added fuel to the flame of 
 agitation, and rendered the North more aggressive 
 and the South more defiant than they had pre- 
 viously been. 
 
 In 1857, when the State of Kansas was not 
 only theoretically but actually the battle-ground of 
 the supporters and the opponents of the extension
 
 388 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 of slavery into any of the territories that might 
 afterwards become States of the Union, the ques- 
 tion of disruption was openly discussed by the 
 chief members of the Democratic and Kepublican 
 parties. 
 
 Mr Buchanan, the elect of the Democrats, occu- 
 pied the Presidential chair; and the Republicans, 
 having little or no hope of electing a President 
 of their party to succeed him, spoke more loudly 
 of the necessity of a disruption than the oppos- 
 ing faction, who were quite contented with the 
 Union as it stood, if they could but be masters 
 of it, and rule it on Free-Trade and Pro- Slavery 
 principles. Besides, their party were in the ma- 
 jority, which was composed of the whole voting 
 power of the South, and supported by a very large 
 and influential section in the older States of the 
 North, being only in a minority in the newer States 
 of the North and North-West, where the immigrants 
 from Europe, and especially from Germany and 
 Scandinavia, were mainly in favour of the Repub- 
 lican party, and more or less allied in feeling with 
 the Abolitionists. The Democratic party was, in 
 fact, too reliant on its undoubted strength, and too 
 contemptuous of the supposed weakness of the 
 opposite party, to claim from impartial history the
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 389 
 
 praise of prudent management of its resources, or 
 of the wise generalship that sees and calculates the 
 strength of its adversary in order to defeat him. 
 
 At the Presidential election of 1860 it com- 
 mitted the suicidal folly of allowing itself to be 
 divided into three sections, who each put forward 
 a candidate, instead of concentrating its forces 
 upon one. Its opponents, who were weaker 
 numerically, were wiser, and united in support of 
 an unknown and very humble man, whose name 
 had scarcely been heard of beyond the limits of the 
 State of Ohio, and was not held in great estimation 
 even there, except by a very few who knew the 
 sterling worth of his character, and the solid honesty 
 that had marked his career. The three candidates 
 whom the Democratic party foolishly allowed to fight 
 the battle of State Eights and old-fashioned Amer- 
 ican liberty in their behalf, were Messrs Douglas, 
 Bell, and Breckenridge the latter being the actual 
 Vice-President of the time under Mr Buchanan. At 
 the final declaration of the poll, the numbers stood 
 as follow : 
 
 Mr Douglas, . . . . 1,375,157 
 
 Mr Bell, . . , . . 590,631 
 
 Mr Breckenridge, . . 847,953 
 
 amounting in all to 2,813,741 votes cast by the
 
 390 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Democrats. On the opposite side the numbers were 
 for the single candidate, 
 
 Mr Abraham Lincoln, . 1,866,452 
 
 This was nearly a million less than the total 
 votes cast by the Democrats, but nearly half a 
 million more than were cast for Mr Douglas, the 
 highest on the list of his opponents. Thus Mr 
 Lincoln, though he was the elect of the minority, 
 succeeded legally to the Presidential chair. Thereof 
 sprung woes innumerable to his unhappy country, 
 and a civil war, unsurpassed in its magnitude in any 
 free country. 
 
 Mr Lincoln, though a Federalist, a Eepublican, 
 and an Abolitionist, was not an enemy of State 
 Eights, which he justly considered to be the true 
 foundation of American liberty. He was often 
 urged by some of his supporters, during the first 
 three years of the war, to issue an edict or pro- 
 clamation against negro slavery, in order to gain 
 the sympathies of Europe, which, during that time, 
 inclined to the Southern side. He invariably re- 
 fused, stating that he might issue an edict against 
 the moon or a comet with equal effect ; that 
 the abolition of slavery concerned the Southern 
 States alone, and that it was for them to deal with 
 the evil in their own time, in their own way, and
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEM OCRACY. 391 
 
 by the legal action of the several States, as the 
 New England and other Northern States had done. 
 This was the contention of the whole Democratic 
 and State Eights party of the North, but was 
 steadily opposed by the Eepublicans and Aboli- 
 tionists, as inconsistent with their favourite project 
 of creating a great Republic, one and indivisible, to 
 rise upon the ruins of the small separate republics 
 that formed an unstable and incohesive Union, 
 which had been in continual danger of disruption 
 ever since its establishment. 
 
 The inevitable conflict, that unfortunately cul- 
 minated in one of the most sanguinary wars of 
 modern times, was hastened by two incidents the 
 one of Northern, the other of Southern origin. The 
 first was the daring invasion of Harper's Ferry, in 
 Virginia, by a mad enthusiast named John Brown, 
 who thought at the head of a handful of negroes, 
 and a few white comrades as crazy as himself to 
 provoke a rising of the slaves in Virginia, and of 
 all the Southern States, against their owners. John 
 Brown's followers were speedily overpowered by 
 the local authorities, and Brown himself brought to 
 trial for high treason against the sovereign State 
 of Virginia. 
 
 Being found guilty, he was hanged, meeting his
 
 392 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 fate bravely like an apostle, and not like a madman, 
 and was forthwith elevated by his white admirers 
 and sympathisers throughout the whole North to 
 the honours of martyrdom, almost of canonisation. 
 His memory was enshrined in a song, afterwards 
 sung by countless thousands of black and white 
 abolitionists, to a popular hymn tune, borrowed 
 from the chapels and conventicles: 
 
 " John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, 
 But his soul is marching on." 
 
 The second incident was of more immediate and 
 fearful consequence. It gave the signal for the 
 outbreak of the war which, before it occurred, 
 might possibly have been averted, but which, in 
 the highly inflammable temper of the Abolitionist 
 and Union party, then became inevitable. The 
 Southern leaders virtually commenced hostilities, 
 when General Eipley, the officer in command of 
 the small military force of South Carolina, attacked 
 Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, and, in 
 the inflated language of the day, "fired the heart 
 of the whole North" by directing his shots against 
 the " sacred flag of the Union," which the zealous 
 abolitionist, Horace Greeley, had called " a polluted 
 rag," and causing it to be hauled down ignomini-
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 393 
 
 ously from the -walls of the fortress, which the 
 South Carolinians claimed as their own, though it 
 was erected for Federal and not for State purposes. 
 
 The action on the part of the South was planned 
 and deliberate, but it had the effect on the Northern 
 mind of a torch applied to a powder - magazine, 
 and caused an instantaneous explosion of wrath 
 in the Republican party, shaking the edifice of 
 American liberty to its very foundations. The 
 war thus inaugurated cost the Union, before it was 
 concluded, upwards of five hundred millions sterling 
 (500,000,000), a sum which would have paid 
 for the manumission of the slaves twenty times 
 over, with compensation to the slave-owners, such 
 as Great Britain had given to the West Indian 
 proprietors, a compensation which would have been 
 all the more glorious because unattended by human 
 suffering and the horrible bloodshed and countless 
 miseries that are the inevitable concomitants of war, 
 even when waged in the most righteous of causes. 
 
 The time has come when the whole truth should 
 be told, not alone as to the real origin, but as to 
 the conduct of this unfortunate and needless war. 
 The North had for years done its best to provoke 
 not war, but secession ; and the South, in like 
 manner, had continually insisted upon its right to
 
 394 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 dissolve a partnership which it found unprofitable, 
 distasteful, and oppressive. But it was the South 
 and not the North which, at the last moment, 
 inaugurated what might otherwise have been a 
 peaceful and legal separation, by an act of war ; 
 while the attack upon Fort Sumter cannot be con- 
 sidered by impartial history as anything but a 
 rash and unwise appeal to the ultima ratio 
 long erroneously considered to be the favourite 
 argument of desperate and ambitious kings and 
 emperors, but which the event in America proved, 
 not for the first time in the world's history, to 
 be equally a favourite with ambitious democracies. 
 But though it must be conceded that the Southern 
 States provoked the war, it must be conceded, at 
 the same time, that they provoked it in defence 
 of what they considered to be their freedom and 
 independence, and that the North, in accepting the 
 challenge, accepted it for purposes of mastery and 
 dominion, and violent coercion of an unwilling 
 brother having equal rights with itself. 
 
 Mr Seward, the Secretary of State, who virtually 
 wielded more autocratic power than the President, 
 was ever sanguine as to the success of the Northern 
 arms. He had predicted and recommended, many 
 years previously, as we have already seen, the
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 395 
 
 peaceable and bloodless disruption of a Union dis- 
 tasteful to both of the great sections which com- 
 posed it; but no sooner had the signal-gun been 
 fired against Fort Sumter, than he became as fierce 
 an enthusiast for war as he had been previously 
 zealous for peace, and rendered himself conspicuous 
 for his truculence amid the many truculent states- 
 men of his party. He underrated the powers of 
 resistance possessed by the South and the powers 
 of aggression possessed by the North ; and was never 
 weary of predicting that the North would end the 
 war by the conquest of the South in " ninety days " 
 at the furthest. The phrase of " ninety days " 
 became proverbial, even after nine times ninety 
 days had passed in sanguinary battles, leaving the 
 South still unconquered and defiant. 
 
 The South fought under disadvantages for which 
 its own unreasoning pride and indomitable self- 
 reliance were responsible. All its soldiers were 
 volunteers, enthusiastic in the cause, and fought 
 without resort to the aid of foreigners and paid 
 mercenaries. It was too proud to accept the 
 aid of its slaves, of whom it might have easily 
 raised an army of 200,000 fighting men, brave, 
 and trained to obedience, if it had but promised 
 them freedom at the close of the war as the
 
 396 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 reward of their services. But this course, though 
 often urged upon the Southern leaders, and which, 
 if adopted, would have secured them the sym- 
 pathy of all Europe, and converted many of the 
 European enemies of slavery into friends, was uni- 
 formly rejected. It was not from mistrust of the 
 fidelity of the negroes that the South remained 
 deaf to all recommendation and remonstrances on 
 this vital subject, but from unconquerable pride, 
 and a rooted faith, entertained by the meanest white 
 citizen, that independence would lose its value if 
 it were acquired either in whole or in part by 
 negro auxiliaries. While the South thus know- 
 ingly restricted the ranks from which it could 
 recruit its defenders having no aid from the 
 , copious immigration from Europe, of which it never 
 had any large share, and which the strict blockade 
 of its coasts rendered impossible, even if it had been 
 desirable, the North was able to draw almost ad 
 libitum upon the superabundant population of the 
 Old World for mercenary soldiers. By an all but 
 reckless amount of bounty money, which it offered 
 to every Irish, German, or other needy immi- 
 grant who landed at New York or Boston, it secured 
 what promised to be a limitless supply of fighting 
 men. The bounty that commenced at 100 dollars
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 397 
 
 a man, went on increasing as the struggle pro- 
 ceeded, until 200, 300, and even as much as 500 
 dollars, or 100, was freely offered. But though 
 the North expended its money, it did not secure 
 the service of a fourth part, or even of one-half, of 
 the men for whose fighting powers it had paid so 
 lavishly. 
 
 Civil war in the best of cases generally produces 
 more scoundrels than it kills a fact of which 
 the North, during the years 1863 and 1864, 
 had ample proof in the enormous prevalence of 
 what was called " bounty jumping." By the opera- 
 tion of this system of State robbery, an im- 
 migrant who had received his 100, 200, or 500 
 dollars in one town, district, or division of the 
 country, made his way in all haste to another, and 
 received the bounty money a second, third, or even 
 tenth time. A systematic villain of this class fell 
 tardily into the hands of justice during the height 
 of the war in 1864, and was shot in New York, 
 after proof that he had received the bounty money 
 no less than seventeen times, and had " jumped " it 
 sixteen times, until at the seventeenth he was 
 " jumped " into eternity by operation of the law 
 which he had so often outraged. General Grant, 
 under whose relentless strategy the war was brought
 
 398 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 to a close in 1865, knew the all but limitless 
 resources of men on which he could rely while the 
 bounty system remained in force. He felt that he 
 could have managed to outnumber the Southern 
 legions even if one-half of the men receiving the 
 bounty had been " jumpers " ; and boasted that, in 
 his sanguinary encounters with General Lee, he 
 could afford to lose ten men, while Lee could 
 scarcely afford to lose one. The Democratic party 
 in the North which never ceased to sympathise 
 covertly with the South during the whole course of 
 the struggle had no better name to bestow upon 
 the ruthless General than the " Butcher," under 
 which cognomen the more outspoken journals of 
 New York and other cities persisted in designat- 
 ing him. Thus the Southern States were defeated, 
 after a gallant struggle, by the overwhelming su- 
 periority of the numbers opposed to them, and 
 by their own obstinacy in refusing all help from 
 the negro auxiliaries, who would have been most 
 willing to support their cause for the gift of their 
 freedom, or for that of their unborn children, even 
 if manumission had been withheld from them in 
 their own persons. 
 
 The government of the people by the people and 
 for the people, has been for ages considered by
 
 THE DANGERS OF TJLTEA-DEMOCKACY. 399 
 
 sanguine believers in the innate goodness and wis- 
 dom of mankind to be the best of all possible forms 
 of government ; but neither poets nor philoso- 
 phers have ever strictly defined what they meant by 
 the " people " who were to form the ideal democracy. 
 When pressed upon the subject, they have been 
 forced to admit that their ideal democracy excluded 
 one - half of mankind in the persons of women, 
 and another large portion in the persons of all 
 the youth of both sexes who were under twenty-one 
 years of age. Nor were these the only restrictions, 
 comprehensive as they were, which kept the so- 
 called democracy within comparatively narrow 
 bounds. From the governing classes were rigidly 
 excluded convicted criminals, lunatics, idiots, and 
 habitual paupers, maintained at the cost of the 
 general community. It follows, from a due con- 
 sideration of these facts, that a true democracy, in its 
 widest sense, never did and never will exist in any 
 age or country, and that no form of government 
 whether it be democratic or aristocratic can be 
 established or maintained without large restrictions. 
 Liberty itself, if it be true liberty, cannot exist 
 without restraint of law, or it would speedily de- 
 generate into licence, and consequently into an- 
 archy. In other words, a democracy is really an
 
 400 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 aristocracy in the occult and unavowed estimate of 
 those who constitute it, inasmuch as the males of 
 full age, and in adequate possession of their mental 
 faculties, consider themselves to be the best for the 
 purposes of governing the greater portion of their 
 fellow-citizens. Were all the males of full age wise, 
 temperate, calm, and judicious, unswayed by passion, 
 prejudice, and inordinate self-interest, and knew what 
 was best for the State, for themselves, and for their 
 fellow-citizens, without distinction of sex, rank, or 
 worldly circumstances, good government would be the 
 result, and the need of the strong arm of extraneous 
 authority to maintain peace and order would be 
 wholly unnecessary. But this state of things is non- 
 existent anywhere ; and among the multitude in all 
 countries whether the form of government be free 
 and constitutional, or autocratic and despotic the 
 mass of mankind cannot justly be accredited with 
 political wisdom or unselfish virtue. The hard and 
 engrossing toil which is their inevitable lot ; the 
 desperate competition for the means of bare sub- 
 sistence which, as their numbers increase, is forced 
 upon them by natural causes, against which it is 
 in vain to struggle ; and the ignorance of high 
 State policy, which the conditions of their daily 
 existence prevent them from conquering by in-
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 401 
 
 telligent study and enlarged experience, all these 
 causes combine to render them unfit for the govern- 
 ment of their wiser fellow-citizens. 
 
 The greatest worshippers of the people, in the 
 widest sense of the word, cannot claim for the vast 
 majority counted by heads, and man for man 
 the purity of motive and the high intelligence that 
 should rule a great nation. They cannot claim for 
 them even the adequate comprehension of their own 
 true interests, or assert, if they would hope to be 
 believed, that either in theological or in commercial 
 matters they would not and do not strive to enforce 
 their will against that of the possibly wiser minority 
 who do not agree with them. The will of a bigoted 
 and cruel majority led, in Europe and in America, 
 to the burning of witches, and to the relentless 
 persecution of dissentients from established doctrine ; 
 and to a tyranny, a self-seeking, and a corruption, 
 on the part of the arrogant, the needy, and the 
 greedy, that form the majority the imperium 
 in imperio in all countries, and more especially 
 in countries that are supposed to be free, and whose 
 opinions find expression in newspapers, caucuses, 
 and in public meetings, where fluent oratory, 
 rather than sound common -sense and cogent 
 reasoning, sways the passions and flatters the preju- 
 
 2 c
 
 402 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 dices of the multitude. In all widely extended or 
 ultra-democracies such as the United States are, 
 and as Great Britain threatens to become at no 
 distant period the power of popular speakers, 
 endowed with what is vulgarly but emphatically 
 called " the gift of the gab," is on the increase, and 
 bids fair to supersede wise, silent, or ineloquent 
 statesmanship, both in legislative assemblies and 
 in the caucuses that strive to override them. 
 
 Another evil, in addition to that of ignorance of 
 the art of and object of governments, which neces- 
 sarily prevails among the great bulk of an ultra- 
 democracy, composed for the most part of poor 
 and struggling men, is that of their subserviency to 
 mere wealth, and the preference of rich men over 
 men who are eminent for their genius or their 
 public virtues. To the mob of voters who are 
 ever nattered and carried away by the ornate and 
 bewildering eloquence of professional talkers the 
 man who is known to be rich, and the manufacturer 
 who employs hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of 
 workpeople, has a chance infinitely greater of 
 securing their votes than falls to the lot of the 
 purest saint or the greatest intellectual giant who 
 might solicit their suffrages. But greater even 
 than the most consummate master of language, or
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 403 
 
 the most powerful possessor of large realised wealth, 
 is the successful soldier the conquering general, 
 the hero of some great victory over a foreign or 
 domestic enemy. In the estimation of the rank 
 and file of all widely extended democracies, he 
 stands supreme above all possible competitors ; and 
 if circumstances are favourable, he develops into the 
 Autocrat or the Emperor, and the destroyer of the 
 liberties of his country. Ultra-democracy produced 
 a Bonaparte in France, and twice elevated to the 
 Presidential chair in the United States an Andrew 
 Jackson and a Ulysses Grant, whose principal if 
 not only pretensions to the support of their country- 
 men were derived from their military achievements ; 
 and whose claims, such as they were, proved suffi- 
 cient to render nugatory these which were founded 
 upon the culture, experience, and wise statesmanship 
 of the vastly superior men who were opposed to them. 
 Force and money far surpass public virtue, in the 
 estimation of the multitude in all countries, as 
 qualifications for the highest office in their gift. 
 
 The wealth which an ultra-democracy greatly 
 reverences, the members of an ultra-democracy will 
 do their best to acquire honestly if they can; but 
 if honesty is difficult, inopportune, and slow or un- 
 certain of fructification, they will acquire it by the
 
 404 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 contrary method, and at the expense, if occasion 
 offers, of the country which their suffrages help 
 to govern, and of which they are virtually the 
 masters. 
 
 The corruption of American officials of all but the 
 highest class that only includes the President, the 
 Judges of the Supreme Court, and a few others that 
 may be counted on the fingers of both hands is 
 proverbial. The members of the several State 
 Legislatures, and of the Washington Congress, are 
 composed for the most part of men to whom the 
 salaries of membership are an essential object, with- 
 out which few of them could pay their way. It 
 cannot with justice, or even propriety, be said of 
 them all that they are open to corrupt influences, and 
 accessible to bribes, either in cash or in kind ; but it 
 cannot be denied that, as a rule, men who are poorly 
 paid for legislative work are naturally liable to pecu- 
 niary temptation, and often too weak or too unprin- 
 cipled to resist it. The shameful leniency displayed to 
 criminals by popularly elected judges is notorious in 
 every State of the Union, though more extensively 
 prevalent in New York and the Northern and West- 
 ern States, that absorb for the most part the stream 
 of European immigration, than in the older States 
 of the Union, where the land is preoccupied, and
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTEA-DEMOCEACY. 405 
 
 farms are not easily obtainable, as in the South and 
 in the small States of New England. To apply to 
 a man engaged in any honest business or profes- 
 sion a well-to-do farmer, merchant, shopkeeper, 
 lawyer, or medical practitioner the opprobrious 
 epithet of a politician, is to insult him as much 
 as if he were called a swindler or a scoundrel. The 
 pursuit of politics as a profession is generally, 
 though in many cases unjustly, considered in 
 America what Dr Johnson more than a hundred 
 years ago in England declared " patriotism " to be, 
 the last resource of a scoundrel. 
 
 If any justification of the well-merited odium 
 into which professional politicians have fallen 
 in America were needed, the evidence, in glaring 
 superabundance, of unblushing corruption, is ready 
 to the hand of any one who chooses to inquire, in 
 the Eeport of the House of Eepresentatives, issued 
 at Washington in December 1861, a few months 
 after the commencement of the great Civil War. The 
 Eeport is that of " the special committee appointed 
 to inquire into all the facts and circumstances con- 
 nected with contracts and agreements by or with 
 the Government, showing all of its operations in 
 suppressing the rebellion." It was resolved by the 
 House that 5000 copies of the Eeport, with.
 
 406 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 all the evidence on which it was founded, and 
 10,000 extra copies of the Report without the 
 evidence, should be printed and circulated. The 
 Eeport and evidence fill a closely printed volume 
 of 1109 pages. A copy of it lies before me as I 
 write one of several hundred which were bound 
 and distributed gratuitously by a leading citizen of 
 New York, a lover of rational liberty and of honest 
 government, who gave it the alliterative and sug- 
 gestive title of ' Political Purification Portrayed.' 
 At this period the Federal Government was 
 greatly in need of steam-vessels, and was willing 
 to pay somewhat in excess of the fair market price 
 for such commodities, in consideration of the ex- 
 treme urgency of the public service. An agent 
 named Starbuck, appointed by, and supposed to be 
 acting for the benefit of, the Government, and to 
 be paid by a commission of 2 1 per cent on the pur- 
 chases he effected, acquired on his own account, on 
 the pretence that they were required in his private 
 business, two steamers for the sum of 6500 dollars. 
 He sold them, within a few days, to the Government 
 for 14,500 dollars, on which latter sum he had the 
 effrontery to demand, and the conscience to receive 
 without blushing, a percentage of 2| per cent, or 
 3625 dollars, or nearly 700, in addition to the
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 407 
 
 8000 dollars which he had already surcharged the 
 Government. " It is proper to state," says the Eeport, 
 p. 20, " that after this testimony was taken by the 
 Committee, it was by them laid before the United 
 States District Attorney in New York, and such 
 steps were taken as resulted in the refunding by 
 Starbuck of 6166 dollars (more than 3000) of 
 the money thus obtained. The ships themselves 
 were found, when delivered at the Navy Yard, to 
 be totally unfit for the service for which they were 
 required, and the Government was again subjected 
 to a further expense of several thousand dollars in 
 repairs, and a delay of several weeks in their use." 
 
 The purchasing of vessels for the needs of the 
 State, in its sore emergency, was taken in May from 
 the heads of the Navy Department in Brooklyn and 
 the port of New York, and transferred to Mr G-. D. 
 Morgan, a wholesale grocer in that city, and brother- 
 in-law of a member of the Federal Government, the 
 Secretary of the Navy. The following extract will 
 show how the new arrangement worked to the disad- 
 vantage of the Government, and that it was no more 
 preventive of peculation and robbery, under the 
 management of so high an official, than the isolated 
 case in the hands of Mr Starbuck had proved itself 
 to be.
 
 408 FOTODERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 " Although the Committee," says the Eeport, p. 23, 
 "have occasion at this time more particularly to call 
 attention to the remarkable arrangement which existed 
 between the Secretary of the Navy and Mr Morgan, as to 
 the compensation he was to receive for his services, they 
 desire to notice, in passing, a single instance of deception 
 practised upon Mr Morgan in the sale to him of a new 
 vessel, the ' Stars and Stripes/ which had been afloat less 
 than two months. This vessel cost its owners but 
 $35,000 to build her, had earned, under a charter to the 
 United States, in that two months $15,000 nett, and 
 was then sold to Mr Morgan for $55,000, making a 
 clear profit to her owners of $34,400. This was done 
 by making Mr Morgan believe that it cost $60,000 to 
 build her. It is difficult to see how such a deception 
 could have been practised upon a man of the acknow- 
 ledged business capacity and shrewdness of Mr Morgan, 
 except that he had been called to a service in which he 
 had had no experience, and was ignorant, from any per- 
 sonal knowledge, of the cost of the article he was sent 
 out to purchase. 
 
 " The Committee quote from the testimony, not only to 
 show how easy it is to practise, even upon men other- 
 wise shrewd, when dealing in matters of which they have 
 no personal knowledge, but also to expose the shameful 
 manner in which the character of members of Congress 
 and other officials is traded upon. Mr Benedict, one of 
 the owners of the ' Stars and Stripes,' testifies as follows 
 (p. 333) : 
 
 " Question. Do you know anything about the steamer 
 ' Stars and Stripes ' ?
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 409 
 
 " Answer. Yes, sir ; I was a stockholder and director 
 in the company that owned her. 
 
 " Question. "What has become of her 1 
 
 " Answer. She was sold to the United States Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 " Question. For how much 1 
 
 "Answer. $55,000. 
 
 " Question. Through whom was the purchase made 1 
 
 " Answer. I cannot tell. The business was done by the 
 president of the company, C. S. Bushnell. He was the 
 president of the N"ew Haven Propeller Company, which 
 owned the ' Stars and Stripes.' 
 
 " Question. When was the sale made 1 
 
 " Answer. I cannot tell exactly. I think it must have 
 been about the last of July. The reason I think so is 
 that the Treasury notes in which we received our pay 
 were dated the 6th of August. 
 
 " Question. Had the ' Stars and Stripes ' been previous- 
 ly chartered to the Government 1 
 
 "Answer. Yes, sir. 
 
 " Question. For how much ? 
 
 " Answer. At $10,000 for thirty days; and it was 
 optional for the Government to keep her or not at $9000 
 a-month after the expiration of that time. 
 
 " Question. What was the original cost of that boat 1 
 
 " Answer. About $35,000. 
 
 " Question. And how much was she sold for 1 
 
 " Answer. $55,000. We considered that we built her 
 cheap. She was a very excellent vessel. 
 
 " Question. Who were the parties that made the nego- 
 tiation with the president of your company 1
 
 410 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 " Answer. To tell the plain truth, the company knew 
 little about it. The president always declined to tell us 
 much about it. 
 
 " Question. What idea had the directors in relation to 
 the transaction ? 
 
 " Answer. The directors thought, at least, that it was 
 pretty heavy share. 
 
 " Question. He intimated that he had to pay large 
 sums in Washington to effect the sale? 
 
 " Answer. He said distinctly that he did not himself 
 get a copper of the $8000. We did not like to believe 
 it, but he asserted it over and over again. He said that 
 his relations to the persons to whom he was obliged to 
 pay this money were such, that he could not and would 
 not reveal their names. He finally so far succeeded in 
 satisfying the stockholders, that they agreed to pay him 
 the $8000. 
 
 . " Question. After paying him that sum, your company 
 received the $47,000 for the boat 1 
 
 " Answer. Yes, sir. 
 
 " Question. With which the stockholders were very 
 well satisfied? 
 
 " Answer. Yes, sir. 
 
 " Question. They would have been satisfied to have got 
 $35,000? 
 
 " Answer. I think they would. 
 
 " Question. What assistance did he represent that he 
 was obliged to get? 
 
 " Answer. He stated to us that it was impossible to
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTKA-DEMOCRACY. 411 
 
 approach the heads of department at Washington without 
 letters of introduction, and that it was necessary to get 
 men of influence to approach them. 
 
 " Question. Did he represent that he was obliged to pay 
 for letters of introduction ? 
 
 " Answer. He said he was obliged to pay persons in 
 Washington for their influence. 
 
 '' Question. More than one person? 
 
 " Answer. He spoke of persons. 
 
 " Question. Did he speak of having to pay for the 
 influence of persons residing in Washington? 
 
 " Answer. No, sir ; he spoke as if they were members of 
 Congress, or ex-members, or something of that kind, whom 
 he paid for their influence. I will not say positively 
 whether he spoke of ex-members. 
 
 " Question. And he stated that he was obliged to pay 
 out this entire $8000 ? 
 
 " Answer. Yes, sir ; at least he stated that this two 
 and a half per cent to Morgan was to be taken out of it. 
 
 " Question. But beyond that he gave you no informa- 
 tion to whom it was paid ? 
 
 " Answer. None whatever. 
 
 " Question. Upon what ground, then, did the stock- 
 holders, after he refused to give them that information, 
 vote to aUow him 88000? 
 
 " Answer. He told them a long story about the matter. 
 He satisfied them that he could not approach the Govern- 
 ment directly, that it was necessary to have assistance, 
 and that in all probability he had spent this money." 
 
 Enough, and perhaps more than enough, has been
 
 412 FOUNDEKS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 quoted to show the scandalous corruption that 
 prevailed at a time of public danger and calamity, 
 when all good citizens should have been zealous to 
 support the Government. The report emphatically 
 condemned the whole of this particular transac- 
 tion which was only a sample of many others that 
 were similar by the statement that the Committee 
 did not " find anything less to censure in it, from the 
 fact that this transaction between the Secretary 
 of the Navy and Mr Morgan was one between 
 brothers-in-law, a family arrangement which re- 
 flects great discredit upon the public service." 
 
 Similar extortions, effected by similarly dishonest 
 means, were exposed by the Committee, with regard 
 to the purchase of arms, ammunition, horses, mules, 
 and military stores of all kinds a mere recapitu- 
 lation of which would weary and disgust the 
 reader. It may suffice to state that, at a time 
 when the military forces of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment, of whom a large portion were Irish and 
 German mercenaries, who had enlisted for the sake 
 of the enormous bounty money that was given to 
 them raw recruits, and growing lads, unable to 
 bear the hardships of the campaign amounted and 
 approximated to 500,000 men in the field and in 
 the military hospitals, pay and rations were drawn for
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 413 
 
 710,000 ! Into whose pockets this enormous plun- 
 der found its way whether they were military men, 
 or whether they were legislators or ex-legislators, 
 was never known, and cannot now be investigated ; 
 though it may well be suspected that they were all 
 " politicians " in the American sense of the word. 
 
 Popular elections in all free countries, Great 
 Britain not excepted, are commonly, if not inevit- 
 ably, attended by practices more or less corrupt 
 especially when the constituencies, whether large or 
 small, are composed, for the most part, of men 
 condemned to daily manual labour and sordid en- 
 grossing pursuits, without leisure, taste, or opportun- 
 ity for the acquisition of political knowledge. There 
 is seldom a time in America when an election of 
 some kind or other is not proceeding, under the 
 manipulation of a local " caucus," that regulates 
 the action of the voters who elect the candidates, 
 who are nominated but who are not allowed to 
 nominate themselves for office in the several States, 
 or in the more important Legislature of the Con- 
 gress at Washington. Of all these multifarious 
 elections, the chief and most engrossing is that for 
 the Presidential office, which takes place every four 
 years, and which, it may be said without exaggera- 
 tion, engrosses the attention of party managers, and
 
 414 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 distracts the attention of men of business, for at 
 least two years out of the four. It is felt by most 
 Americans to be in itself and in its preliminaries 
 a nuisance in all its stages, more especially in its 
 last, to say nothing of the cost of time, of atten- 
 tion, and of labour imposed upon busy men by 
 these constantly recurring contests. Their cost in 
 money is enormous. The money is wrung from 
 the reluctant pockets of party men of both politi- 
 cal factions throughout the whole vast extent of the 
 Union from Maine to Florida, and from Massa- 
 chusetts and Khode Island to California and Oregon. 
 Uninformed Americans, who talk of the exorbitant 
 expenses and the splendid Civil List necessary to 
 maintain a constitutional or other monarch in 
 befitting state and dignity, as compared with the 
 modest stipend allowed to the Chief Magistrate of 
 their vast Eepublic, forget how much it cost to 
 elect him. The cost may be surmised, but has 
 never yet been accurately though it has often been 
 approximately estimated, at an amount every four 
 years greatly in excess of the Civil List for the 
 same period of the British Sovereign. Publicity 
 in all free countries where a newspaper press is in 
 flourishing existence, is a highly expensive luxury. 
 The number of newspapers in the United States
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 415 
 
 may be roughly designated as " legion " ; and every 
 one of them expects to receive the advertisements 
 of one or both of the candidates, Democratic and 
 Republican, for the coveted Presidency. As news- 
 paper proprietors throughout the United States 
 generally, if not invariably, combine the business 
 of general printers with the literary and political 
 business of journalism, the number of bills, placards, 
 and printed appeals to the public which are affixed 
 to the walls, and lavishly distributed through the 
 post-office, may be counted by millions during the 
 two years that the election is virtually in progress. 
 The very large sums thus to be disbursed find their 
 way into the pockets of innumerable prosperous and 
 unprosperous journals throughout the Union, and 
 influence more or less the opinions of their pro- 
 prietors and writers. 
 
 The hire and lighting of public rooms in every 
 one of the large cities and in the great majority 
 of the smaller towns and villages for the pur- 
 poses of public meetings, constitutes another large 
 item of expense which has to be provided for. 
 To this must be added the very considerable sums 
 paid for the hire of bands of music that, as the 
 day of election approaches, parade the streets of 
 the great cities at all hours, to keep up the spirits
 
 416 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 of the candidate's friends, and proportionately to 
 discourage his opponents by the noise and blare 
 of his pretensions. The raising of this money is 
 one of the greatest scandals of the political life of 
 America. Voluntary offerings for the maintenance 
 of the cause, by its rich or ambitious friends, no 
 doubt contribute large sums to the fund ; but the 
 great bulk of the money is raised by a compulsory 
 assessment upon the salaries of every official, great 
 or small, who has owed his place to his party, 
 under the penalty, in case of refusal, of expulsion 
 from its ranks. The same assessment is made upon 
 the " outs " as is made upon the " ins " ; for the 
 " outs " invariably expect to be the " ins " if the 
 candidate be successful and hopes must pay as 
 well as realisations. Such is the law of the " wire- 
 pullers " who conduct unseen, but by no means 
 unfelt, the political destinies of the Eepublic. 
 
 These assessments are made by the irresponsible 
 and self-appointed leaders of each party, on a scale 
 varying from five to ten, or even twenty, per cent 
 of the annual income of the offices, however humble 
 or however elevated such offices may be. To the 
 victors belong the spoils, is the immoral doctrine 
 laid down by General Jackson, which is accepted as 
 truth by all parties. The victors who enjoy the
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 417 
 
 spoils for four years are expected and compelled, 
 by agencies more powerful than the law itself to 
 contribute out of the " spoils " a stipulated per- 
 centage to the support of the party that achieved 
 the victory for them, and that expect to achieve 
 it again by the same efforts. The evil, is widely 
 spread and keenly felt, not only by the immediate 
 sufferers, but by a very large portion of the 
 thoughtful men in America, who hold themselves 
 aloof from professional politics as they would from 
 the plague, and who think that, in the public 
 interest, place-holders should be appointed for life, 
 or during good behaviour, as they are in other 
 countries. This much-needed reform has not yet 
 found wide acceptance among the ultra-democracy 
 whether it be of the Eepublican or the Demo- 
 cratic party though it forms what is called a 
 " plank " in the platform of the smaller body of 
 truly independent men who do the thinking of the 
 Eepublic. 
 
 The great and fundamental error of ultra-democ- 
 racy in all countries and especially in the United 
 States is, that it teaches and allows the power of 
 voting to be a right with which a man is born, and 
 not a privilege to be acquired by him, or conceded 
 
 to him, not for his own benefit, but for that of the 
 2 D
 
 418 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 community. In Great Britain though, under the 
 influence of Eadical doctrinaires and unscrupulous 
 and ignorant demagogues, we are rapidly approach- 
 ing to manhood suffrage, with an extension to 
 womanhood suffrage in due time the inherent 
 right of any one to vote is not acknowledged. 
 
 Manhood and womanhood suffrage would be 
 excellent if men and women were invariably good 
 and wise, and knew the true interest of the State 
 as well as their own ; and the Americans act upon 
 the supposition that, as far as adult men are con- 
 cerned, they are all philosophers, statesmen, and 
 patriots. But we have not yet arrived at that 
 faith in Great Britain. We still think it wise and 
 expedient to deny that the exercise of the voting 
 power is anything but a privilege to be conferred 
 on certain conditions for the benefit of the public 
 and not of the individual, and to be withheld in 
 like manner for satisfactory and adequate public 
 reasons. Law cannot say that the good and wise 
 alone shall vote in the government of their fellows, 
 because Law is utterly unable to distinguish and to 
 declare who are the good and the wise, and to grant 
 them privileges accordingly. But Law can take 
 cognisance of physical if not of intellectual facts, 
 and can decree that, if a man occupies a house and
 
 THE DANGEKS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 419 
 
 pays annual rent for it, and contributes according 
 to his means, directly or indirectly, to the necessary 
 expenses of the Government which protects him in 
 his life and liberty, he is, though perhaps neither 
 a very good nor a very wise man, entitled to the 
 privilege of helping to elect a representative to act 
 on his behalf in the councils of the State. 
 
 In giving him this privilege, the State makes 
 him one of the trustees of the national interest. 
 In so doing, it confers no inalienable right upon 
 him, but merely endows him with a privilege which 
 he may forfeit if he becomes a pauper or a criminal, 
 or ceases to be a householder and a contributor to 
 the national revenues. It is not so under the 
 system of what is sometimes called Universal, but 
 that ought to be called Manhood, suffrage, which 
 is established in America and France, and is 
 gradually extending itself into Great Britain. To 
 teach the people whether white or black that 
 the suffrage is a right which it is unjust and 
 tyrannical to withhold from them, is to instil into 
 the minds of the ignorant and needy among 
 them that it is a right which they may turn 
 to pecuniary and other personal advantage at the 
 expense of the men of a superior class in society 
 who are so eager in asking for its exercise in their
 
 420 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 favour. The corruption that springs from this source 
 is by no means peculiar to the United States ; but 
 it may be stated with perfect truth, and without 
 exaggeration, that it is much more prevalent in 
 that country, where the suffrage is unrestricted 
 except by sex and nonage, insanity and crime 
 than it is in countries where the suffrage is a 
 privilege that may be earned, and that may also 
 be forfeited. 
 
 One of the foremost dangers to the stability of 
 the American Union, and to the perpetuation of 
 the public liberties, springs from the acknowledg- 
 ment of the rights of millions of black men to 
 the suffrage. Before the close of the great 
 Civil War in 1865, when Abraham Lincoln, 
 as a measure of expediency, or, as he deemed it, 
 of military necessity, abolished slavery by a 
 stroke of his pen, the negro population of the 
 Southern States amounted to less than four millions, 
 and of the Northern and Western States to less than 
 half a million. In 1884, the negroes in the Southern 
 States numbered upwards of seven millions. The 
 negro population all over the United States is cal- 
 culated to increase at the rate of thirty-five per 
 cent in ten years, and the white population, in- 
 clusive of the European immigration, at the rate of
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCKACY. 421 
 
 less than twenty-eight per cent during the same 
 period. In the three southern States of South 
 Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the negro 
 population amounts to 56.4 per cent of the whole, 
 and the white population only to 43.6. In other 
 southern States the negro majority is not quite so 
 large ; but if to the three States above named are 
 added Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 
 and Alabama, the census gives the proportion of 
 blacks to whites as 48.8 per cent, or nearly one- 
 half that promises to be more than one-half when 
 the next returns are taken. 
 
 Of the 7,000,000 of negroes all the adult males 
 among whom are entitled to the privilege of voting 
 no less than 6,000,000 or upwards are unable to 
 read or write. Should the present rate of increase 
 be maintained both among the white and black 
 races, the negroes in the South will form a large 
 majority, and in the course of a century will con- 
 siderably outnumber the white people in the whole 
 Union, unless immigration from Europe which is 
 not likely should maintain the now existing pre- 
 ponderance. In any case, the white Americans 
 if they do not wish to be governed by a majority of 
 black citizens, enjoying equal political privileges and 
 powers with themselves will have to consider
 
 422 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 whether manhood suffrage, irrespective of race and 
 colour, is the form of ultra-democratic government 
 that will suit their idea of liberty, or conduce to 
 the stability of the institutions on which they pride 
 themselves. The germs of a war of races one of 
 the most hideous of all possible wars may be con- 
 cealed beneath the voting power now unwisely 
 granted to an ignorant and but slightly teachable 
 population. 
 
 Another great and more immediate danger arises 
 from the venality of the multitude, and from the 
 constantly recurring nuisance of popular elections 
 especially that for the Presidential office, which 
 every four years renders a political convulsion and 
 a revolution far more imminent than thoughtful 
 Americans like to confess. But perhaps the 
 greatest danger of all lies in the ingrained, in- 
 appeasable, unconquerable desire of the people of 
 the Northern and Western sections, aggravated and 
 intensified by the conquest of the Southern States, 
 to make the Eepublic one and indivisible, and 
 to minimise, and ultimately to abolish, State 
 Eights, so dear to the hearts and the judgment of 
 the founders of the original Union in the days of 
 Washington. The desire is for ascendancy and 
 dominion rather than for liberty, a passion which
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 423 
 
 is the vice of all great democracies. The extent of 
 their territories, the magnitude of their revenues, 
 the rapid growth of their population, and the 
 marvellous development of their wealth and enter- 
 prise, open their eyes to the perception of the 
 fact that they dwarf in these respects all the old 
 States of Europe except Great Britain, which, in 
 these respects, only keeps pace with her vigorous 
 American offshoot by the vastness of her dominions 
 in Canada, Asia, Africa, and Australia. 
 
 Great Britain is the first power in the world, and 
 the United States desire to become so vice the 
 mother-country relegated into the second rank. 
 This, disguise it as they may, is the leading 
 passion in American hearts a passion which can- 
 not be gratified until the Eepublic becomes " one 
 and indivisible." It was more to indulge this 
 passion for unity of dominion, as we think has 
 been made apparent in these pages, than for any 
 innate love of the negro, or any real abhorrence of 
 the immoral and cruel system which enslaved 
 him, that they ignored State Eights the real 
 corner-stone of their liberty, if they would but 
 know and confess it that they waged war upon 
 and ultimately conquered the South, by dint of 
 superior wealth and numbers. The question of
 
 424 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 negro slavery is dead and buried, never more to 
 be revived; but other questions remain, and will 
 be developed in due time to cause political con- 
 flict, that may not perhaps admit of peaceful con- 
 clusions. The material interests of California and 
 Oregon on the one side of the continent, and of 
 Massachusetts and New Hampshire on the other, 
 are not the material interests of Louisiana and 
 the Carolinas ; and the battle of a high prohibitive 
 tariff, for the protection of native industry, may 
 be fought out to as dire conclusions as were im- 
 minent under the guiding hand of Mr Calhoun in 
 South Carolina in 1832, and as are still imminent 
 between the manufacturing and the agricultural 
 interests in the two great sections of the Union. 
 And should civil strife arise on this question, or 
 any other of equal importance, and disunion be 
 again threatened as in the case of negro slavery 
 the passion for dominion will once more assert it- 
 self, unless the darling object of American ambition 
 be abandoned, and the Americans learn that liberty 
 is better worth having than the subjugation of a 
 brother. 
 
 It has become proverbial to assert, as we have 
 already observed in these pages, that " war is a game 
 which, were their subjects wise, kings would not play
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 425 
 
 at." But ancient and modern history alike teach us 
 that the game is one which unbridled democracies, 
 when their passions are stirred or the lust of dominion 
 gets the mastery over them, are as ready to play as 
 ever kings have been. The American Democracy has 
 more than once tasted the blood of conquest, and 
 enjoyed its flavour. It provoked, in the last gene- 
 ration, a war with Mexico, and wrested large pro- 
 vinces from that State : one province, that of Texas, 
 as extensive as France ; and California, another not 
 quite so large, but of far greater value. It has 
 expressed, on more than one occasion when its 
 passions were excited or its cupidity was aroused, a 
 desire to annex Canada, even at the risk of a war 
 with Great Britain; and still cherishes the wish, 
 and awaits the opportunity, to pick a quarrel with 
 Spain for the possession of Cuba, and with Great 
 Britain for the possession of the West India Islands. 
 The greed of territory, that receives a certain amount 
 of pabulum in the creation of new States in the vast 
 and as yet thinly-peopled territories that stretch 
 between the western slopes of the Eocky Mountains 
 and the Pacific Ocean is gratified but not satiated. 
 When these embryo commonwealths are digested 
 and assimilated, as they will be in a few years, 
 the pampered and uuappeased appetite will turn
 
 426 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 with hungry ferocity to weak and unoffending 
 Mexico, with all the greater intensity because the 
 expansion northwards of the mighty Eepublic will 
 be stopped by unconquerable Canada. 
 
 The absorption of Mexico is not likely to lead to 
 any European complications that would render dif- 
 ficult or impossible the aggression of the American 
 Union. But the case of Cuba is far different, and 
 may involve other European countries besides Spain. 
 An attack upon this island, in addition to its 
 other attractions in American eyes, has in those 
 of the North which conquered the South, on the 
 plea of its maintenance of negro slavery the charm 
 of a new crusade for the abolition of that pernicious 
 institution. Cuba, while it remains a Spanish 
 colony, may support slavery ; but as a conquered 
 State, finally annexed to the American Union, the 
 doom of slavery within its borders would be pro- 
 nounced by the President for the time being, 
 supported by the Washington Legislature, amid the 
 sympathies of Great Britain and France, and of 
 all Europe, Eussia not excepted. The subject has 
 long been familiar to the American mind as one 
 that demands action, and that will most certainly 
 receive it, sooner or later if not in the present 
 generation, in the next
 
 THE DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCRACY. 427 
 
 All other questions that imperil the peace and 
 the liberty of the American people sink into in- 
 significance compared with the growing lust of 
 dominion, and the tendency to the concentration of 
 political power at the expense of the free local 
 governments. This is the latent and inherent 
 disease in the system, which, unchecked, must 
 inevitably lead to the downfall of the ultra-democ- 
 racy that knows not how to restrain itself, and 
 that, in the day of some overwhelming calamity, 
 will seek and find a master or tyrant, and a 
 restrainer. Such has been in all ages and in all 
 countries the doom of an unbridled Democracy. 
 Such must be its doom in America, unless its 
 people take warning in time, and learn to profit 
 by the bitter experience of the past, and shape 
 the present and the future in such a manner as to 
 prove to all men that a brighter and more beneficent 
 era has dawned upon the world in a new hemi- 
 sphere than ever shed light upon the old. But 
 this dream of a possible Utopia afar off, will not 
 blind the eyes of thoughtful observers in other 
 countries to the superior advantages and greater 
 safety of a wise liberty, guarded and fenced around 
 by the prudent restraint which separates liberty 
 from licence ; and that, if it cannot eradicate popular
 
 428 FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 ignorance, can at all events render it innocuous, 
 by denying it political privileges and power over 
 the fate and fortunes of wiser people, and of the 
 great country to which both the wise and the 
 foolish belong.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 " A Summary View of the Rights of 
 British America," 227. 
 
 Abolition of negro slavery by Great 
 Britain, effect of, in the Northern 
 States, 376. 
 
 ADAMS, JOHN, proposes Washington 
 for commander-in-chief, 65 ; elected 
 first Vice-President, 120; a predic- 
 tion by, in early life, 144 ; his early 
 life, ib. ; admitted to the Bar in 
 1758, 145 ; removes to Boston, and 
 contributes to ' Boston Gazette,' 
 146; defends the British officers 
 charged with murder, 148 ; ap- 
 pointed member of General Con- 
 gress, 149 ; seconds the resolution 
 declaring their independence, 150 ; 
 ungenerous treatment of Jefferson, 
 151 ; his defence of the Declaration 
 of Independence, 154 et seq.; his un- 
 popularity in the South, 156 ; ap- 
 pointed commissioner to Paris, 157 ; 
 minister plenipotentiary to Great 
 Britain, ib.; financial agent at the 
 Hague, 158 ; appointed minister at 
 St James's, 160; his opinion of 
 the Court, 161 ; his irrepressible 
 vanity, 162 ; nominated Vice-Presi- 
 dent, 166 ; dismay at French Revol- 
 ution, 168 ; elected President, 171 ; 
 his exultation, 172 ; inaugural ad- 
 dress, 174 ; jealousy of Jefferson, 
 176 ; and plan to get rid of him, 177 ; 
 grand ideas of his position, 178 et 
 seq. ; contrasted with Washington, 
 181 ; his speech against the French 
 Directory, 184 ; predicts a corrupt 
 government of the future, 191 ; nom- 
 inated a second time as President, 
 196; cause of his defeat, ib.; his un- 
 courteous conduct to Jefferson, 199 ; 
 his private life, 200 ; singular coinci- 
 dence at his death, 204. 
 
 Adams, Mrs, her account of the official 
 residence, 194. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, candidate for Presi- 
 dentship, 171. 
 
 Adet, M., French minister, denounces 
 American neutrality, 182. 
 
 African slave-trade, aversion to, by 
 north and east States, 169. 
 
 Alien and Sedition laws passed, 185. 
 
 American sympathy with Republican 
 France, 128. 
 
 Ames, Fisher, on the dangers from 
 the growing number of States, 
 384. 
 
 Amusing story by Franklin, 308. 
 
 Andre, Major, hanged as a spy, 100. 
 
 Army, standing, dislike to, in America, 
 185. 
 
 Arnold, Benedict, his defection or trea- 
 son, 100. 
 
 Barre, Colonel Isaac, denounces the 
 Stamp Duties in the House of Com- 
 mons, 33. 
 
 Bernard, Mr, Governor of Massachu- 
 setts, 44. 
 
 Boston citizens forbid the landing of 
 the tea, 51 ; they board the ships and 
 throw the tea into the harbour, 52 ; 
 the "Boston Port Bill," 53; city 
 evacuated by the British, 81; the 
 "massacre," 147. 
 
 Botetourt, Lord, Governor of Virginia, 
 46; dissolves House of Burgesses. 
 221. 
 
 " Bounty jumping," 397. 
 
 Brandywine, defeat of Washington at, 
 94. 
 
 British and French boundary disputes, 
 16. 
 
 Bunker's Hill, battle of, 72. 
 
 Burgoyne, General, capitulates to Gen- 
 eral Gates, 94. 
 
 Burke, his estimation of Benjamin 
 Franklin, 302. 
 
 Burr, Aaron, nominated for Vice- 
 President, 171. 
 
 Calhoun, John C., Vice-President un- 
 der General Jackson, 365 ; his op- 
 position to Protection, 367 ; General 
 Jackson's threats against, 373. 
 
 Canada, desire of United States to an- 
 nex, 425. 
 
 Carlisle, Lord, his commission to
 
 430 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 America, 97 ; his estimate of the 
 
 British army, 98. 
 Carleton, Sir Guy, proclaims cessation 
 
 of hostilities, 105. 
 Central Government, American dislike 
 
 to, 116. 
 Centralisation of power favoured by 
 
 Washington, but opposed by Jeffer- 
 son, 358. 
 
 Chatham, Lord, his opinion of pro- 
 ceedings of Congress, 150 ; on Benja- 
 min Franklin, 302. 
 Chesapeake and Shannon, engagement 
 
 between the, 347. 
 Civil War in America, the real motive 
 
 for the, 289, note ; its cost, 893 ; 
 
 disadvantages under which the South 
 
 fought, 895 ; immense, resources of 
 
 the North, 396 ; high bounties paid, 
 
 Kb.; peculation and robbery daring, 
 
 406 et seq. 
 Clay, Henry, his objections to slavery, 
 
 195 ; introduces Bill for reduction of 
 
 duties, 374. 
 Clinton, George, nomination of, as 
 
 President, 171. 
 Clinton, Sir Henry, fails to relieve 
 
 Lord Corawallis, 103. 
 Colden, Lieutenant-Governor of New 
 
 York, 37. 
 Colonies, their proposed representation 
 
 at Westminster, 305. 
 ' Common Sense,' by Thomas Paine, 
 
 237 ; effect of its publication, ib. 
 Confederacy of Virginia and North 
 
 Carolina proposed, 190. 
 Congress at New York demands repeal 
 
 of Stamp Act, 36. 
 Connecticut troops, panic among, at 
 
 New York, 87. 
 
 Convention of the Colony formed, 225. 
 Conway, General, his Bill for repeal of 
 
 Stamp Act, 41. 
 Cornwallis, Lord, takes Yorktown, 
 
 101 ; surrenders with his whole 
 
 force, 103. 
 Corrupt government predicted by 
 
 Adams and Jefferson, 191. 
 Criminals, leniency to, by popularly 
 
 elected judges in America, 404. 
 Cuba, American designs against, 364, 
 
 425. 
 
 DANGERS OF ULTRA-DEMOCEACY, THE, 
 353 et seq. 
 
 De Grasse, Admiral, arrives off Rhode 
 Island, 99. 
 
 Deane, Giles, nominated commissioner 
 to France, 157. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 4th July 
 1776, 82 ; effect of news at New 
 York, 83 ; drawn up by Jefferson, 
 Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, 
 
 and R. R. Livingston, 84, 150, 151 ; 
 defence of, by John Adams, 152 et 
 seq. ; almost entirely the production 
 of Jefferson, 238 ; trivial alterations 
 by Adams and Franklin, ib. 
 
 Democratic form of government, 355 ; 
 virtue and intelligence necessary in 
 the people, 356 ; some of the evils of 
 ultra-democracy, 402. 
 
 ' Discourses on Davila,' by John 
 Adams, 167. 
 
 Dumnore, Earl of, Governor of Vir- 
 ginia, dissolves House of Burgesses, 
 225 ; carries off gunpowder from 
 Williamsburg, 232, 825. 
 
 Eastern Confederacy, formation of, 
 threatened, 339. 
 
 Ellsworth, Oliver, nominated as Presi- 
 dent, 171 ; on right of secession, 188. 
 
 Elocution, a Scotsman's objection to 
 encouragement of, 299. 
 
 Fabian policy adopted by Washington, 
 70. 
 
 Fairfax, Hon. William, 9. 
 
 Fairfax, Lord, friendship with Washing- 
 ton, 9 et seq.; his love of field sports, 
 12 ; Greenway Court, 13 ; a contrib- 
 utor to the ' Tatler,' 14. 
 
 Fanueil Hall, convention held in, 44. 
 
 " Federal " party, the, 125. 
 
 Federal Union formed, 62 ; enlistment 
 of troops, &c., ordered, 63. 
 
 Federalists or Northern party, 171. 
 
 Fort Duquesne, failure of attack on, 
 by Major Grant, 24 ; evacuated, and 
 taken possession of by Washington, 
 25 ; named Fort Pitt, 26. 
 
 Fort Sumter attacked by General Rip- 
 ley, 392. 
 
 France, waning of her power in Amer- 
 ica, 24; sends fleet to assist Wash- 
 ington's army, 98; combined naval 
 and military armament despatched 
 to America by, 99 ; army under Ro- 
 chambeau joins Washington, 101 ; 
 withdraws her forces, 105 ; declara- 
 tion of war against Great Britain, 
 128 ; treaty of peace with Great 
 Britain, 158 ; declines to receive Mr 
 Pinckney as minister from United 
 States, 184; sells Louisiana to Amer- 
 ica, 272. 
 
 FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, appointed agent 
 of Pennsylvania to England, 32 ; ex- 
 amined at Bar of the House, 40, 301 ; 
 his humble origin, 293 ; his life as a 
 printer, ZQietseq.; success of 'Poor 
 Robin's Almanack,' 296; his style 
 as an author, 297 ; his usefulness in 
 Philadelphia, 298 ; elected to Legis- 
 lative Assembly, ib.; agent-general
 
 INDEX. 
 
 431 
 
 in London for Pennsylvania, Massa- 
 chusetts, Maryland, and Georgia, 
 300 ; foreign degrees conferred upon 
 him, ib.; Chatham's estimation of, 
 302 ; two important letters from, 
 303 ; elected member of first Con- 
 gress, 306; a sympathetic story by, 
 308 ; appointed envoy to France, 
 309 ; a treaty negotiated by, 310 ; his 
 popularity in Paris, 312; appointed 
 delegate to the Convention, 313 ; his 
 religious views, 314 ; speech in Con- 
 vention, 318 ; his death, 320 ; tributes 
 of respect from France, ib.; eulo- 
 gium of, by Mr Rives, 321. 
 
 Franklin, William, takes the side of 
 the British, 306; appointed Gover- 
 nor of New Jersey, ib. ; imprisoned 
 for three years, 307. 
 
 Free Trade, advanced views on, held 
 by Jefferson, 230. 
 
 Free-Traders c. Protectionists, 365. 
 
 French and British boundary disputes, 
 16. 
 
 Fundamental errors of ultra -democracy, 
 417. 
 
 Gage, General, shut up in Boston, 70. 
 
 Gates, General, a rival of Washington, 
 94 ; defeats General Burgoyne, ib. 
 
 General Congress held at Philadelphia, 
 57 ; Lord Chatham's opinion of, 58 ; 
 resolutions passed, 59 ; enlistment 
 of troops ordered, 63 ; unanimously 
 declare the Independence of the 
 States, 82 ; Constitution adopted 
 and ratified, 115, 117. 
 
 Genet (" Citizen Genet"), ambassador 
 from French Republic, 130; com- 
 missions American privateers, ib. ; 
 is recalled to France, 133. 
 
 George III. on the right of taxation, 
 49 ; his change of opinion, 112. 
 
 Gennantown, defeat of Washington at, 
 94 ; agreed on as seat of government, 
 192. 
 
 Gerry, Mr, Adams's letter to, 179 ; his 
 opposition to the Constitution, 319. 
 
 " Gift of the gab," a Scotsman's objec- 
 tion to, 299. 
 
 Giles, Mr, Virginia, 138. 
 
 Government transferred to Washing- 
 ton, 191. 
 
 Grange, a British ship, captured by 
 Genet's privateers, 131. 
 
 Grant, General, as President, 345. 
 
 Grant, Major, failure of his attack npon 
 Fort Duquesne, 24. 
 
 Granville Administration, Stamp-Du- 
 ties imposed by, 32. 
 
 Great Britain, abolition of negro slavery 
 by, its effect in the Northern States, 
 376. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, his influence with 
 anti-slavery party, 381; advocates 
 separation of North and South, ib. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, head of the 
 "Federal" party, 125. 
 
 Harper's Ferry, invasion of, by John 
 Brown, 391. 
 
 Hartford Convention, 1814, 361 ; New 
 England States threaten to secede 
 from the Union, 362. 
 
 Hayne, Mr, Governor of South Caro- 
 lina, 369 ; on State Rights, 370. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, friendship with Jef- 
 ferson, 212 ; his short legal studies, 
 ib. ; the " Demosthenes of the For- 
 est," 219 ; resolutions proposed by 
 him, ib. ; in Virginian Legislature, 
 34, 219 ; proposes arming the_ colo- 
 nists, 232 ; marches on William'sburg 
 with militia, 233, 327; appointed Gov- 
 ernor of Virginia, 241; howaddressed 
 by the French auxiliaries, 331. 
 
 Hessian auxiliaries under Colonel 
 Rahl defeated, 91. 
 
 " His Highness " proposed as the title 
 of the President, 123 ; " His Excel- 
 lency" adopted, ib. 
 
 ' History of the Principal Republics in 
 the World,' by John Adams, 164. 
 
 Howe, Major-General, 71. 
 
 Humphreys, Colonel, of Newhaven, 
 Connecticut, letter from Washington 
 to, 115. 
 
 " Hyperion " used for tea in America, 
 48. 
 
 Inaugural address of John Adams, 174. 
 
 Independence, Declaration of. See 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 " Independence," first cry of, in Amer- 
 ica, 44. 
 
 Insurrection in Massachusetts, 114. 
 
 Jackson, General, defeats General 
 Pakenham at New Orleans, 349 ; 
 his rowdy character, 350 ; first of the 
 grossly illiterate Presidents, ib. ; at- 
 tacks State Democracies, 362 ; his 
 hatred of Britain, 363 ; and of Cal- 
 houn, 365 ; his threats against him, 
 373, 375 ; a pernicious doctrine 
 broached by, 384. 
 
 Jay, John, nomination as President,171. 
 
 JEFFERSON, THOMAS, nominated for 
 President, 171 ; elected Vice-Presi- 
 dent, 172 ; his broad views of Re- 
 publicanism, 208; early life, 210; 
 friendship with Patrick Henry, 212; 
 life at school and college, 213 ; study 
 of languages, &c., 215 ; as a law stu- 
 dent, 216 ; success at the bar, 218 ; 
 his unfitness for public speaking,
 
 43: 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 220 ; elected member of Virginian 
 House of Burgesses, 221 ; his house 
 and books burned, but "We saved 
 urn, fiddle ! " 222 ; his marriage, 223 ; 
 "Draught of Instructions" framed 
 for Convention, 226 ; effect of the 
 publication of "Instructions," 227; 
 views of Free Trade, 230 ; his reply 
 to Lord North, 234 ; in Congress, 236; 
 the Declaration of Independence, 
 238; declines renomination to Con- 
 gress and a foreign mission, 240 ; 
 advaneed views on education, ib. ; 
 elected Governor of Virginia, 247 ; 
 charges against him for incapacity, 
 250 ; nominated as representative at 
 Congress of Vienna, 252 ; appointed 
 to a European mission, 254 ; his 
 popularity in France, 255 ; letters on 
 French affairs, 259 et seq. ; a political 
 dinner-party, 265 ; returns to Amer- 
 ica, 267 ; characteristic reception at 
 home, 270 ; appointed Secretary of 
 State, 271 ; elected President, ib.; 
 elected a second time, 273 ; his inaug- 
 ural address, 275 ; address from 
 Legislature of Virginia, 276 ; a pic- 
 ture of his country life, 281 et seq. ; 
 pecuniary difficulties, 284 ; his death, 
 287; far-seeing views, 288; feelings 
 towards Britain, 292. 
 Judges in United States popularly 
 elected, 404. 
 
 Kames, Lord, letter from Franklin to, 
 on the right of levying taxes, 303. 
 
 Kentucky, resolutions affirming separ- 
 ate rights of the States passed, 186. 
 
 Knox, General, Secretary at War, 114 ; 
 letter from John Adams to, 179. 
 
 Kosciusko, letter from Jefferson to, on 
 his domestic life, 279. 
 
 Lafayette, General, letter from Wash- 
 ington to, 118; a political dinner- 
 party, 265. 
 
 Lee, General, accuses Washington of 
 indecision, 90 ; letter from Washing- 
 ton to, 118. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, as President, 345'; 
 on the thirst for the " spoils," 385, 
 note; how his election was suc- 
 cessful, 389. 
 
 Livingston, Mr R. R., member of Gen- 
 eral Congress, 150; Secretary of 
 State, 373. 
 
 "Little Sarah," captured by French 
 privateer, 132. 
 
 Long Island and Staten Island taken 
 possession of by the British, 81. 
 
 Lords, House of, its indignation at 
 Boston Convention, 45. 
 
 Louisiana purchased from French, 272. 
 
 MADISON, JAMES, letter from Jefferson 
 to, 172; State rights resolutions 
 drawn up by, 186 ; elected fourth 
 President, 323 ; educated at Prince- 
 ton College, 324 ; first political step, 
 328 ; a delegate to the Virginian 
 Convention, ib. ; elected to Virginian 
 Council of State, 330 ; elected mem- 
 ber of Congress, 331 ; letter on the 
 state of the Army, 333 ; proposes a 
 day of thanksgiving for conclusion 
 of the war, 336; retires to private 
 life, 337 ; again elected to Congress, 
 338 ; his views on Federal union, 343 ; 
 succeeds Mr Jefferson in the Presi- 
 dency, 346; elected a second time, 
 ib. ; his flight from Washington on 
 approach of the British troops, 349 ; 
 retires to his estate at Montpelier, 
 350; his pleasant society, 351; his 
 death, 352. 
 
 Main, Colonel, of Virginia, defence of 
 Southern States by, 166. 
 
 Marsh, Mr, of Braintree, instructor of 
 John Adams, Daniel Webster, and 
 Josiah Quincy of Boston, 145. 
 
 Mason, Colonel, his opposition to the 
 Constitution, 319. 
 
 Mason, Mr George, his "Articles of 
 Association, "47; his original draught 
 of the Declaration, 329. 
 
 Massachusetts first objects to taxes, 
 32 ; proposes General Congress of all 
 the colonies, 44; insurrection in, 114; 
 rebellion in, led by Captain Shay, 
 339 ; attacks the arsenal at Spring- 
 field, and is repulsed, 341 ; letter 
 from Washington on, 342. 
 
 Mercer, J. F., letter from Washington 
 to, on slavery, 140. 
 
 Mexico, war wantonly provoked 
 against, 364, 425. 
 
 "Missouri Compromise," unwise abro- 
 gation of, 387. 
 
 Morgan, G. D., agent for purchasing 
 vessels for Federal Government, 407; 
 report on his management, 408 et 
 seq. 
 
 Mount Vernon, the residence of Wash- 
 ington, 27 ; style of living at, ib. 
 
 Munroe, Mr, United States minister to 
 France, recalled, 183. 
 
 Napier, Sir Charles James, the inscrip- 
 tion on his statue, 309, note. 
 
 " National," the word struck out from 
 Federal Constitution, 189. 
 
 National Assembly of France invites 
 Jefferson to assist in deliberations, 
 264. 
 
 National Bank established, 125. 
 
 Negotiations for peace commenced, 
 105 ; and concluded, ib.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 433 
 
 Negroes, their increase in the Southern 
 States, 420 ; a danger to the Amer- 
 ican Union, ib. 
 
 Neutrality, proclamation of, by Amer- 
 ica, 129. 
 
 New England States threaten to secede 
 from the Union, 339, 3"2. 
 
 New Orleans, defeat of British troops 
 under General Packenham at, 349. 
 
 North and South, jealousy between, 
 164, 170, 190. 
 
 North, Lord, repeals all import duties 
 in America except on tea, 48 ; re- 
 ceives news of surrender at York- 
 town, 104 ; tries ' to conciliate the 
 colonists, 234. 
 
 Northern States, why they objected to 
 slavery, 291. 
 
 ' Notes on Virginia,' by Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, 253. 
 
 " Ordinance of Nullification," 367. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, of Boston, his phil- 
 ippic against DanieJ Webster, 383. 
 
 Peace, negotiations for, commenced, 
 105 ; general treaty signed at Paris, 
 fo. 
 
 Penn, William, his heirs claim exemp- 
 tion from taxes, 299; opposed by 
 Franklin, 300. 
 
 Pennsylvania sends Franklin to Eng- 
 land as agent of the colony, 32. 
 
 Pinckney, Thomas, nominated for 
 Vice-President, 171 ; appointed Min- 
 ister to France, 183; Directory de- 
 cline to receive him, 184. 
 
 Pitt, Mr, opposes the Stamp Act in 
 House of Commons, 39. 
 
 'Political Putrefaction Portrayed,' a 
 Report, 406. 
 
 'Poor Robin's Almanack,' by Frank- 
 lin, 296. 
 
 President's title, "His Highness" or 
 "His Excellency," 123. 
 
 Presidential election, its cost, 414; 
 compulsory assessment for, 416 ; a 
 constantly recurring danger, 422. 
 
 Privateers, commissions granted for, by 
 France to American vessels, 130. 
 
 Protectionists v. Free-Traders, 365. 
 
 Randall, Dr, biographer of Jefferson, 
 his opinion of Adams, 197 ; on per- 
 sonal appearance of Jefferson, 278. 
 
 Randolph, Mr, his opposition in the 
 first Convention, 317 et seq. 
 
 " Rebellion, The Whisky," 135. 
 
 Republican or Southern party, 171. 
 
 Rhode Island, first to free its slaves, 
 377. 
 
 " Rights of British North America, a 
 Summary View of," 227. 
 
 2 
 
 Ripley, General, attacks Fort Sumter, 
 392. 
 
 Rives, W. C. , his eulogium on Ben- 
 jamin Franklin, 321 ; his ' The Life 
 and Times of James Madison,' 332. 
 
 Rochambeau, French army under, joins 
 Washington, 101. 
 
 Rutledge, Mr, South Carolina, 60. 
 
 Secession, the right of, declared by 
 Virginia and Kentucky, 186; Mr 
 Ellsworth's views on, 188. 
 
 Sedition and Alien Laws passed, 185. 
 
 Segur, Count de, on the American en- 
 voys to France, 310. 
 
 Seward, W. H., considers separation of 
 North and South inevitable, 380 ; 
 change in his opinions, 395 ; his 
 "ninety days" prediction, ib. 
 
 Shannon and Chesapeake, engagement 
 between the, 347. 
 
 Sherman, Mr Roger, member of Gen- 
 eral Congress, 150. 
 
 Slave-trade denounced by Jefferson, 
 245. 
 
 Slavery, Washington's opinion of, 140 ; 
 abolition of, proposed by Jefferson, 
 229, 242 et seq.; Jefferson's advanced 
 views on, 291; "did not pay" in the 
 North, 376; gradually abolished in 
 Northern States, 377. 
 
 Small, Dr, his influence on Jefferson. 
 215. 
 
 South Carolina, "Ordinance of Nullifi- 
 cation" passed by, 367; volunteers 
 enrolled by, 371. 
 
 South and North, jealousy between, 
 164. 
 
 Southern Confederacy debated, 372; 
 and medal struck, ib. 
 
 Southern States opposed to Protection, 
 366. 
 
 Stamp Act, riots occasioned by, 37. 
 
 Starbuck, agent for Federal Govern- 
 ment, 406 ; his percentages, 407. 
 
 State Democracies in danger, 362. 
 
 "States" first used in American his- 
 tory, 228. 
 
 Steuben, Baron, and the American 
 militia, 96. 
 
 Strict neutrality, difficulties of, 182. 
 
 Surplus revenue, dangers from, 365. 
 
 Tarleton, Colonel, his dashing raids in 
 
 Virginia, 248. 
 Taylor, John, of Virginia, letter to, on 
 
 Northern aggression, 189. 
 Tea ships, New York and Philadelphia 
 
 refuse to receive them, 50 ; boarded 
 
 in Boston harbour, and contents 
 
 thrown into the sea, 52. 
 "To the victors belong the spoils," 
 
 the doctrine of General Jackson, 385. 
 

 
 434 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Townsend, Mr Charles, propose* new 
 taxes on the Colonies, 48. 
 
 Trenton, defeat of llesaian auxiliaries 
 at, 91. 
 
 Trumhull, Jonathan, governor of Con- 
 necticut, 79 ; original of " Brother 
 Jonathan," 80. 
 
 ULTRA -DEMOCRACY, TBF. DA so IKS OK, 
 353 et teq. 
 
 " Underground Railway," 387. 
 
 " Union r> party, the, 125. 
 
 United Colonies declared independent, 
 82 ; independence of, formally ac- 
 knowledged in 1783, 150; truops 
 disbanded by, 835; growing liurt of 
 dominion by, 427. 
 
 Vergennrfl, Count de, his prophecy 
 regarding America, 30. 
 
 Virginia Legislature passes resolution* 
 against the taxation, 4'i; resolution 
 declaratory of State Rights intro- 
 duced in, 186. 
 
 Voting, power of, a pririltge, not a 
 right, 417. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, his sagacious 
 policy, 31. 
 
 War between Great Britain and United 
 States on the rights of neutrals, 340 ; 
 President Madison opposed to it, ib. ; 
 opposed by New England States, 
 3(51. 
 
 Ward, General Artemns, 63. 
 
 Warn M, James, Massachusetts, letter 
 from Washington to, 112. 
 
 Washington, Augustine, 3 ; his family 
 hfctory, 4. 
 
 WASHINGTON, GEORGE, 1; friendship 
 with the Fairfax family, ; appointed 
 public surveyor, 13; adjutant-gen- 
 eral of militia, 16 ; his unsuccessful 
 wooing, 22 ; marriage with Mm 
 Curtis, 25; elected member of House 
 of Burgesses of Virginia, 29; his 
 " Articles of Association," 47 ; elect- 
 ed conunander-in-chief, 66; his opin- 
 ion of the army, 77; first real 
 triumph, 81; retreats from New 
 York, 86 ; a disgraceful panic among 
 his troops, 87 ; demands the enlist- 
 ment of troops, 89 ; is invested with 
 
 almost dictatorial powers, 92; de- 
 feated at Brandywine and at Oer- 
 mantown, 94 ; unsuccessful attempt 
 against New York, 101 ; Cornwall!* 
 surrenders to him, 103 ; his letter to 
 the governors of the thirteen State*, 
 106 ; resigns his commission to Con- 
 gress, 108; six years of domestic 
 life, 110 ft *q. ; doubts of the Con- 
 federation, 113; his name brought 
 forward as first President, 117 ; let- 
 ters to his friends on the election, 
 118 ; unanimously elected H niMsjsjt. 
 119; triumphal progress towards 
 New York, 120 et </.; bts difficulties 
 as a statesman, 124 ; charged with 
 royal ambition, 127; his emphatic 
 disclaimer, ib.; re-elected President, 
 128 ; issues proclamation of neutral- 
 ity, 129; irritation at " CitUen 
 Genet," 130 et tg.; demands his 
 recall, 133; difficulties with priva- 
 teering, 134; close of his second 
 term of office, 137 ; farewell to his 
 countrymen, ib.; his death, 140; 
 his will frees his slaves, ib.; 
 character, 141 ; letter on 
 chusvtts rebellion, 348, 
 
 Washington, Laurence, 3 ; his early 
 life, 5; leaves for Barbadoea, 17; 
 his death, 18. 
 
 Washington, seat of government 
 changed to, 191 ; attacked by the 
 British, 347 ; Americans set fire to 
 their vessels and stores, 3,48^ panic 
 
 ' in the city, ib.; flag of truce Brad on, 
 349; the Capitol and other public 
 buildings burned down, ib. . 
 
 Webb, Nathan, singular letter from 
 John Adams to, 144. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, his oration at the 
 death of President Adams, Ml; 
 an Abolitionist, 382; his venality, 
 883. 
 
 " Whisky Rebellion." the, 135. 
 
 Williamsburg, gunpowder carried off 
 from, 232, 325. 
 
 Winthrop, Mr, letter from Franklin to, 
 303. 
 
 Yorktown, the surrender of, 103 ; bow 
 the news was received in 
 104. 
 
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