Class 
 
 Book 
 
 Goipglit]^?- 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
The Rev. Thomas J Davis 
 
 Rector of the Church of the Resurrection 
 1850—1872 
 
 Rector Emeritus 1872—1886 
 
A SKETCH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIFE, CHARACTER, 
 
 AND 
 
 PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON, 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE AID HE 
 
 RENDERED IN ESTABLISHING OUR 
 
 INDEPENDENCE AND 
 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 THOMAS J. DAVIS, 
 
 EMERITUS RECTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION, 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFl iiXFIN^GER, 
 
 624, 626 & 62S Market Street. 
 1876. 
 
ESS 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 
 
 CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 Selheimer &, Ftloore, Printers, 
 •iOl Chestnut Street. 
 
TO 
 
 THE GREA ^ AMERICAN PEOPLE, 
 
 In commemoration of the part take?t by Thomas 
 Jefferson m establishing their Independence 
 and a Republican form of 
 Governme7it, 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. X^ 
 
 vii 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IT has frequently occurred to the mind of the writer 
 of this biographical sketch, that the very import- 
 ant part enacted by Thomas Jefferson in devising, 
 supporting, and securing the independence of these 
 United States, was not so generally known and under- 
 stood by a great portion of our countrymen as it should 
 be, or as they would desire ; much of the patriotism, 
 tact, persistence, and devotion evinced by Jefferson 
 having been lost sight of in the general admiration 
 of military and other heroes more conspicuously con- 
 nected with the great contest for liberty. 
 
 Being in possession, therefore, of some facts and 
 incidents relating to that epoch hitherto unpublished, 
 the writer has compiled this small volume for the pur- 
 pose of extending information upon the subject, and 
 with the earnest hope that, through it, the character 
 of this great man may be presented in its true light, 
 and that appreciation of his eminent services be ob- 
 tained which they so justly merit. 
 
 Philadelphia, June i, 1876. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Birth, Boyhood, and Early Associates of Thomas Jefferson. 13 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Education and Accomplishments — Study of Law — The 
 "Stamp Act Bill." 19 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 Admission to the Bar — Representative in the House of 
 Burgesses 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 First Steps towards Independence — Formation of a "Com- 
 mittee of Correspondence and Inquiry " by the Colonies 
 — -Dissolution of the House of Burgesses by Tord Dun- 
 more 37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The "Boston Port Bill" — Proposed Congress of Deputies 
 from the Colonies — Code of Instructions for Delegates 
 to Congress — The Effect produced in England 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Instructions for the Virginia Delegates to the General Con- 
 gress prepared by Jefferson 59 
 
 xi 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 The Virginia Convention — Unison of the Colonies, and 
 Lord North's futile attempts to destroy it — Rejection of 
 Overtures from Lord North by the Virginia Legislature... 98 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 Jefferson in the Continental Congress — Declaration of the 
 Causes for taking up Arms, as drafted by Jefferson — Its 
 Publication to the Army by General Washington, and 
 General Proclamation by the Ministers of Religion 108 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Answer of Congress to Lord North's conciliatory Proposi- 
 tions, prepared by Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Lee, 
 as a Committee 117 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Letters of Jefferson to a Friend in England 1 29 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Drafting and Final Adoption of the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence — Original Draft as prepared by Thomas Jefferson. 144 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Formation and Establishment of a new Code of Laws 
 adapted to the Republican Form of Government 166 
 
/ 
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Jefferson's birth and boyhood. 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON was born in 
 Albemarle County, Virginia, on the 
 farm called Shadwell, adjoining Monticello, 
 on the second day of April, a. d. 1743. 
 His ancestors, as far back as they can be 
 traced, were respectable, and among the 
 early settlers in Virginia, having emigrated 
 from Wales. Peter Jefferson, the grand- 
 father of Thomas, was the first of whom we 
 have any information worthy of notice. He 
 had three sons, viz., Thomas, Field, and 
 Peter. 
 
 This third son, Peter Jefferson, had much 
 of the sturdy qualities of his father, viz., in- 
 difference to the hereditary honors and dis- 
 tinctions which had hitherto decided rank 
 2 13 
 
14 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 and influence In society; whence democracy 
 arose In Virginia In conflict with arlstoc- 
 racy. He was a self-educated man, en- 
 dowed by nature with strong Intellectual 
 powers, with a thirst for knowledge. He 
 rose steadily by his own exertions, and 
 acquired considerable distinction in the 
 colony of Virginia. 
 
 He was commissioned, jointly with Joshua 
 Fry, to define the boundary line between 
 Viroinia and North Carolina, and subse- 
 quently to construct a map of Virginia. 
 
 He Intermarried in 1739 with Jane Ran- 
 dolph, who could trace her pedigree back 
 in England and Scotland many genera- 
 tions. He died in August, 1757, leaving 
 his widow with six daughters and two sons, 
 of whom Thomas was the elder. 
 
 To both sons he left large estates. To 
 Thomas, the Shadwell lands, where he was 
 born, including Monticello. But the moth- 
 er of Thomas Jefferson survived the year 
 1 ']']6 and the Declaration of Independence, 
 written by her son and adopted by Con- 
 gress on the 4th of July, which he always 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I5 
 
 called his birthday, and kept the day of 
 his natural birth concealed as long as he 
 lived. And here we begin with Jefferson's 
 biography. When he had attained the age 
 of five years, he was sent by his father to 
 the English school for four years, and then 
 he was transferred to the Latin, where he 
 continued for five years under the tuition 
 of the Rev. Mr. Douglass, from Scotland, 
 and with him he acquired a thorough 
 knowledge of the rudiments of the Greek, 
 Latin, and French languages. 
 
 About this time his father died, leaving 
 him an orphan, fourteen years of age, with- 
 out a relative or friend competent to ad- 
 vise or direct him as his father had done. 
 But, unlike that of most young men or boys 
 of his age, his character was too well 
 moulded and formed to turn aside from 
 the path in which he had been trained. 
 Whence his course was to continue on- 
 ward and upward. 
 
 This we learn from his advice which he 
 subsequently gave to his own grandson, 
 left under similar circumstances, to whom 
 
l6 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 he wrote thus : " Safety must rest on your- 
 self. A determination never to do what is 
 wrong, prudence, and good-humor will go 
 far towards securing to you the estimation 
 of the world. When I recollect that at 
 fourteen years of age the whole care and 
 direction of myself was thrown on myself 
 entirely, without a relative or friend quali- 
 fied to advise or guide me, 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. 
 
 " I had the good fortune to become ac- 
 quainted, very early, with characters of 
 very high standing, and to feel the inces- 
 sant wish that I could ever become what 
 they were. Under temptations and diffi- 
 culties I would ask myself, what would Dr. 
 Small, Mr. Wythe, or Peyton Randolph do 
 in this situation ? 
 
 " I am certain that this mode of decid- 
 ing on my conduct tended more to its cor- 
 rectness than any reasoning powers I pos- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1/ 
 
 sessed. Knowing the even and dignified 
 line they pursued, I could never doubt for a 
 moment which of these two courses would 
 be In character for them ; whereas, seeking 
 the same object through a process of moral 
 reasoning, and with the judicial eye of 
 youth, I should often have erred. From 
 the circumstances of my position, I was 
 often thrown into the company of horse- 
 racers, card-players, fox-hunters, scientific 
 and professional men, and of dignified men ; 
 and many a time have I asked myself, in 
 the enthusiastic moment of the death of a 
 fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the Issue 
 of a question elegantly argued at the bar 
 or the great council of the nation, which of 
 these kinds of reputation should I prefer 
 — that' of a horse-jockey, a fox-hunter, an 
 orator, or the honest advocate of my 
 country's rights ? 
 
 " Be assured, my dear Jefferson, that 
 these little returns unto ourselves, this 
 self-searching habit, is not trifling nor use- 
 less, but leads to the prudent selection 
 and steady pursuit of what Is right." 
 
 2* B 
 
l8 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Now from these Instructions, written by 
 Mr. Jefferson to his grandson, we may 
 readily judge of the foundation principles 
 planted by the Rev. Mr. Douglass during 
 the five years he was under his tuition, and 
 by his father before his death. And how 
 well they accord with the Divine precept : 
 "Train up a child in the way he should 
 go, and when he is old he will not depart 
 from it." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Jefferson's accomplishments. 
 
 AFTER the death of his father, Thomas 
 Jefferson was placed under the in- 
 struction of the Rev. Mr. Maury, with a 
 view to complete his classical preparation 
 for college. And now he began to feel 
 the charms of ancient learning, and was 
 animated, as well as deeply interested, in 
 the study of the classics. 
 
 The studies and advantages of ancient 
 learning were remarkably congenial to his 
 spirit. They seemed to touch the finest 
 susceptibilities of his nature, and from them 
 he acquired that classical elegance which 
 afterwards flowed from his pen, and the 
 oriental imagery with which his writings 
 abound. 
 
 He continued with Mr. Maury two years, 
 and then (1760), at the age of seventeen, 
 
 19 
 
20 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 he entered the college of William and 
 Mary. While in college he was remark- 
 able for his solidity and sprightliness, and 
 his faculties were even and well balanced. 
 His course was not marked by any eccen- 
 tricities, but by a remarkable constancy of 
 pursuit with inflexibility of purpose. 
 
 Mathematics were his favorite studies. 
 In that science he was unsurpassed, and 
 also distinguished himself in all the branches 
 of education in the established course of 
 his alma mater, graduating two years after 
 his admission, at the age of nineteen. But 
 his studies and diligent pursuit of knowl- 
 edge did not stop there. To his devotion 
 to philosophy and science, he united an ex- 
 quisite taste for the fine arts. 
 
 He made himself so well acquainted with 
 architecture, painting, and sculpture, that 
 he was accounted one of the best critics of 
 the age. And he had an uncommon pas- 
 sion for music. His hours of relaxation 
 were passed in exercising himself in his 
 skill upon the violin, for which he had an 
 early and extravagant fondness. And, 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 21 
 
 what was most remarkable, his taste for 
 the ancient classics strengthened contin- 
 ually, so that It was said of him that he 
 scarcely passed a day, In after-life, without 
 reading a portion of them. 
 
 He could read and speak French fluent- 
 ly, and the Italian and Spanish languages 
 quite familiarly. He made himself master 
 of the Anglo-Saxon language, as root of 
 the English, and likewise an element of 
 legal philology. 
 
 But, In the formation of his character, 
 *'it was," says he, "my great good fortune, 
 and what probably fixed the destinies of 
 my life, that Dr. William Small, of Scot- 
 land, was then professor of mathematics. 
 A man profound In most of the useful 
 branches of science, with a happy talent of 
 communication, correct and gentlemanly 
 manners, and a large and liberal mind. 
 And he, most happily for me, became soon 
 attached to me, and made me his daily com- 
 panion when not engaged In the school. 
 And from his conversation I got my first 
 views of the expansion of science, and of 
 
22 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 the system of things in which we are 
 placed. 
 
 " Fortunately, the philosophical chair be- 
 came vacant soon after my arrival at col- 
 lege, and he was appointed to fill it /^r 
 interim. And he was the first who ever 
 gave in that college regular lectures in 
 Ethics, Rhetoric, and Belles-Lettres." 
 
 Mr. Jefferson acknowledged himself also 
 indebted to Gov. Fauquier, by whom he 
 was favored with particular attention and 
 intimacy while in college, and whom he re- 
 garded, with the exception of an extrava- 
 gant fondness for gambling, as being every- 
 thing that could have been wished for by 
 Virginia under the royal Government. 
 
 But, among all Jefferson's acquaintances, 
 none were held by him in so high estima- 
 tion as George Wythe, who was, as it were, 
 a second father to him. And, therefore, 
 this gentleman deserves a passing notice. 
 
 George Wythe was born about the year 
 1727, of respectable parentage, on the 
 shores of the Chesapeake. But, unlike 
 that of Jefferson, his education was neg- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 23 
 
 lected by his parents, and he also had led 
 an idle and voluptuous life until the age 
 of thirty. But, by a remarkable effort, he 
 became the best Latin and Greek scholar 
 in the State, and also of the highest legal 
 attainments. He was elected to the House 
 of Delegates, called the House of Burgesses, 
 and was subsequently sent to Congress in 
 1775 ; was one of the signers of the Decla- 
 ration of Independence, and also Chancellor 
 of the State until his death in 1806. And 
 it was with this famous George Wythe that 
 Jefferson studied law. " And there were 
 giants in those days." Wherefore Jeffer- 
 son, with his finished education and manly 
 discipline, entering the pursuit of legal 
 knowledge, would not neglect, nor fail to 
 improve this opportunity to make the high- 
 est attainments in the science and knowl- 
 edge of law, and so commend himself to 
 the affections and liveliest interest of his 
 great preceptor. 
 
 And he also would not, and did not, fail 
 to be proud of such a pupil. 
 
 Whence their friendship and ambition 
 
24 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 \^were mutual; both were stimulated with 
 \the highest ambition to excel in the attain- 
 ment of knowledge and skill in the legal 
 profession. And Jefferson is said to have 
 acquired such a universal facility of neat- 
 ness and order in business, that he was 
 able to fill every office with the hundred 
 hands of the fabulous Briareus. 
 
 But whilst thus enthusiastically engaged 
 in the pursuit of legal knowledge, and his 
 mind filled with the hicrhest ambition of 
 intellectual greatness, a very remarkable 
 incident occurred in the House of Burgess- 
 es, viz., the celebrated speech of Patrick 
 Henry on the memorable Sta7np Act Bill in 
 1765. This incident produced such a re- 
 markable effect on Jefferson's mind, and 
 formed such an epoch in his life and 
 character, that it will be proper to give a 
 brief sketch of Patrick Henry, and this in- 
 cident, in the history of Jefferson. 
 
 Patrick Henry was some seven years the 
 senior of Jefferson. Of the early life and 
 history of Patrick Henry but little is known. 
 He had but little education, was unsuccess- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 25 
 
 ful In all that he undertook, perhaps for the 
 want of early training or lacking In stability 
 and perseverance, and so he finally drifted 
 into the determination to engage In the 
 legal profession. And for this It would 
 seem Nature had formed him, at least It 
 proved so in the sequel ; for it was said of 
 him that he neither read nor studied the 
 science of law, but being naturally endowed 
 with an uncommon power of speech, with 
 an indomitable will and an undaunted cour- 
 age, without being able to pass an exami- 
 nation, he so Importuned his examiners that 
 they, moved with compassion, admitted him 
 to the bai^ ; nevertheless he proved to be 
 the right man In the right time and place. 
 
 The oppressive Stamp Act had become 
 notorious and very grievous, producing 
 great dissatisfaction among the people in 
 both Church and State. And Henry, with 
 his good common sense, espoused the 
 cause of the people, and so became their 
 spokesman and advocate, saying, " We the 
 people," and delivered them from the 
 church oppression ; and they in turn, with 
 3 
 
'\ 26 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ^y grateful hearts, now elected him their rep- 
 \ resentative to the House of Burgesses, 
 \ which convened in Williamsburg, 1765. 
 '-A Hitherto we have known nothing in re- 
 gai*d to Jefferson's civil or political views. 
 He was bred and educated a gentleman, 
 havinor received a finished education. Asso- 
 ciated with and highly esteemed by the 
 most learned and distinguished gentlemen 
 of \^irginia, he was now engaged in the 
 study of law under the direction of Mr. 
 George Wythe. And no man in Virginia 
 left a character more venerated than 
 George Wythe ; and he held no man in 
 higher estimation than Mr. Jefferson. So 
 now we resume his biography, and begin 
 with his civil and political character. 
 
 While the discussion of the Stamp Act 
 was proceeding, it engaged the attention 
 of Mr. Jefferson, and he was induced to 
 leave his studies to hear the debates. 
 Standing in the lobby-door of the hall, he 
 was captivated by the overwhelming elo- 
 quence of the orator of Nature, as Patrick 
 Henry was afterwards called. It engaged 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 2/ 
 
 all the faculties of his mind in union with 
 the warmest affections of his heart. To 
 him it mattered not what others thought, 
 for he always thought and acted for himself, 
 and according to the understandinor and 
 convictions of his own mind. And so exqui- 
 site was his delight, that the emotions cre- 
 ated at that time remained forever fresh in 
 his recollection. Wherefore, in after-life, 
 he was always wont to say, " Patrick Henry 
 appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote." 
 
 In the midst of his speech, Henry ex- 
 claimed, with a voice of thunder and the 
 look of a god, ''CcBsar had his Brutus, 
 Chmdes the First his Cromwell, and George 
 
 the Third " "Treason!" cried the 
 
 Speaker ; and " treason " echoed from 
 every part of the house. 
 
 Henry finished his speech with the firm- 
 est emphasis, " may profit by their example. 
 If this be treason, make the most of it." 
 Such was Jefferson's notion of an honest 
 advocate of his country's rights. And this 
 feeling and sentiment accorded so well with 
 his own that they forever remained with 
 
28 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 him, and they animated him with all their 
 freshness during life. 
 
 And by reason of his great knowledge 
 as a scholar, high attainments in the legal 
 profession, also in the management of state 
 affairs, and the rights of man ; and especially 
 in his civil and political relations, his history 
 must now partake mainly of that character. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 JEFFERSON AS A REPRESENTATIVE. 
 
 f N 1766, at the age of twenty-three, Jef- 
 X ferson was admitted to the bar, and 
 inducted into the practice of law under the 
 auspices of his learned preceptor and friend, 
 Mr. George Wythe, bringing with him the 
 highest legal attainments, well systematized 
 in his mind, and ready for use at a moment's 
 warning. But his professional character 
 was brief. It is impossible to say what 
 would have been his standing as a lawyer, 
 if his practice at the bar had been pursued 
 in time of peace. He was not a public 
 speaker, and perhaps he never could have 
 become a popular orator. Why it was so, 
 has always been a matter of surprise to 
 those who have seen his eloquence on paper, 
 or have heard him in conversation, wherein 
 he always evinced eloquence of the highest 
 order. But as a public speaker he lacked 
 3* 29 
 
30 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 volume and copiousness of voice; yet in all 
 probability this defect would have been 
 overcome in a measure by culture, and 
 practice at the bar. 
 
 In 1768, at the age of twenty-five, Mr. 
 Jefferson was chosen a representative in 
 the House of Burgesses, and took his seat 
 in that body, composed of the best and 
 ablest men of Viroinia. And althouofh a 
 new member, and the youngest in the 
 house, he introduced a bill for the permis- 
 sion of the emancipation of slaves. 
 
 This bill was, at the time, the most un- 
 popular act that he could have done, and 
 showed beyond doubt that he was philan- 
 thropic, but strictly honest and sincere. 
 For he was himself a slave-holder, and 
 probably the largest in the house. Whence 
 no improper nor popular motives can be 
 ascribed to him for this act. It was purely 
 philanthropic, and accorded with the prin- 
 ciples which he subsequently expressed in 
 the Declaration of Independence. Whence 
 it was the key-note of his high moral sense 
 and religious duty to do unto all others as 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 3I 
 
 he would be done by. And it likewise 
 plainly manifested his views of the civil 
 and political rights and the duties of those 
 chosen or appointed to make good and 
 wholesome laws for the good government 
 of the people ; as also for the rulers and 
 governors in the just administration of the 
 laws. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson, as his father had been, was 
 a model of true and genuine democracy. 
 And so being chosen to represent the peo- 
 ple, it was to do that which was just and 
 right for the good of all, whatever might 
 be their state and condition. 
 
 African slavery had been introduced into 
 Virginia, not by the will of the people, but 
 by the British Government, with the royal 
 sanction, to promote that kind of commerce 
 for its own interest. And the owners of 
 the slaves, for the same reason, were pro- 
 hibited from setting them free, because it 
 served to increase the revenue for the 
 Crown. 
 
 It was plainly Jefferson's object, there- 
 fore, to strike at the root of so much evil. 
 
32 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 This he did from a high sense of duty, a? 
 the representative of the people ; not as 
 a partisan, or because the people had so 
 instructed him, but rather because, by his 
 knowledge and capacity, he was bound in 
 principle to legislate as an honest man for 
 that which he knew and believed was just 
 and right. And all subsequent history 
 shows the depth, wisdom, and foresight, as 
 well as the soundness, of his principles in 
 this first act of his public life, and from 
 which he never swerved. Whence, from 
 this view, we are to trace the whole course 
 of his public life ; for he was sui generis. 
 
 The Stamp Act was repealed by the 
 force of Patrick Henry's resolution in the 
 Virginia Legislature. But it was followed 
 by others still more grievous and oppres- 
 sive, and all equally unconstitutional. But 
 that upon which all others were based was 
 the Declaratory Act of a right in the British 
 Parliament to tax the colonies in all cases 
 whatsoever. Whence others followed, such 
 as the quartering of large bodies of British 
 troops in the principal towns of the colo- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 33 
 
 nies at the expense of, and to the incessant 
 annoyance of, the inhabitants ; the dissolu- 
 tion in rapid succession of the Colonial 
 Assemblies ; the total suspension of the 
 legislative power in New York ; the im- 
 position of duties on all teas, glass, paper, 
 and all other articles of the most necessary 
 use ; and finally, of commissioners armed 
 with unlimited powers of exacting arbitrary 
 customs. 
 
 Whence these despotic measures were 
 met by all the colonies with a sort of retali- 
 ation, as it was found to be oppressive; and 
 thence arose a feeling of sympathy among 
 the colonies, and this increased more and 
 more, so that finally they united in the 
 Declaration of Independence on the 4th of 
 July, 1776. 
 
 And from the part which Thomas Jeffer- 
 son performed in Virginia, and his sympa- 
 thies therein with and for the other colo- 
 nies, makes this union of the colonies a 
 very important part of his political biogra- 
 phy. 
 
 These resolutions of the Lords and Com- 
 c 
 
34 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 mens arrived in America May, 1769. And 
 the House of Burgesses of Virginia was 
 then in session, of which Mr. Jefferson was 
 still a member. And, notwithstanding that 
 these resolutions were mainly directed 
 against Massachusetts, it was nevertheless 
 regarded by all the colonies, and especially 
 by Virginia, as being too flagrant to pass 
 without rebuke and resistance. 
 
 Whence they were no sooner made 
 known to the House of Burgesses, than Mr. 
 Jefferson proposed the adoption of counter- 
 resolutions, making common cause with 
 Massachusetts and all the American colo- 
 nies as a whole, and thereby to form. If 
 possible, a union of all British America ; de- 
 claring that they, and they alone, had the 
 right to tax themselves in all cases what- 
 soever. Wherefore, these resolutions were 
 no sooner adopted, and entered upon the 
 journals of the house, than the members 
 were summoned to the presence of the 
 Governor, Lord Botetourt, to receive the 
 sentence of dissolution. 
 
 He said, " Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 35 
 
 of the House of Representatives, I have 
 heard of your resolves, and augur ill of 
 their effects. You have made it my duty 
 to dissolve you, and you are accordingly 
 dissolved." 
 
 Thereupon, Jefferson, Henry, and the 
 two Lees, with others, retired to a room in 
 the Raleigh Tavern, the principal hotel in 
 Williamsburg ; formed themselves into a 
 voluntary convention, and drew up articles 
 of association against the use of any mer- 
 chandise imported from Great Britain ; 
 and this they signed, recommending it to 
 the people. Whence this may be consid- 
 ered the first step approaching dissolution 
 and independence. 
 
 So popular was this movement, that at 
 the call by the Governor for another meet- 
 ing of the Legislature, all those who had 
 signed these articles of agreement were 
 re-elected without a single exception. 
 Wherefore the force thus given to this 
 heroic sympathy with Massachusetts car- 
 ried it home to the hearts of all the patriots 
 of every colony, and the importation agree- 
 
36 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ment became general, and even popular. 
 All the luxuries and many of the comforts 
 were cheerfully dispensed with for colonial 
 
 terty, among all ages and ranks of both 
 se^s. 
 
 There was in Virginia, and also in Mary- 
 land, an anti-revenue Covwiiftee of Vigilance 
 established in every county to see that it 
 was not violated ; and there was at that 
 time a perfect union of sympathy not only 
 in Virginia, but in all the colonies both 
 north and south. 
 
 Beyond this no further measures were 
 taken, but all stood firm in the stand thus 
 far made ; for the time had arrived for 
 patient endurance, vigilance, and a well- 
 directed plan for future operations, which 
 may be more easily imagined than de- 
 scribed. It was a fearful state of suspense, 
 which came upon the colonies like an in- 
 cubus. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST STEPS TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 DURING this time, Jefferson and his as- 
 sociates were not idle ; they neither 
 slumbered nor slept, but they were wide 
 awake with the " wisdom of the serpent and 
 the harmlessness of the dove." The people 
 elected annually the same members to the 
 Legislature, and beyond endurance and pa- 
 tient watchfulness nothing occurred of spe- 
 cial notice until the nth of March, 1773, 
 when we learn, by a private manuscript 
 left by Mr. Jefferson, that this patient endur- 
 ance was somewhat changed by an adroit 
 movement of his own among his confiden- 
 tial friends and reliable patriots. 
 
 The whole scheme having been already 
 conceived, digested, and matured in his own 
 mind, Mr. Jefferson invited his four confi- 
 dential friends, viz., Patrick Henry, Richard 
 
 4 Z7 
 
38 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and Dab- 
 ney Carr, to meet him in a private room at 
 the Raleigh Tavern, to deHberate upon the 
 momentous concerns of all British Amer- 
 ica ; and so this little conclave had the dis- 
 tinoruished merit of oriorinatinor the most 
 fundamental engine of colonial strength and 
 resistance that had ever been devised, to 
 wit, the com7mttees of the diffej^ent colonies, 
 whereby a Colonial Congress was brought 
 about. 
 
 When Jefferson and his four confidential 
 friends were convened, he made known to 
 them his plan, which was heartily approved ; 
 and he was requested to put it in the form of 
 resolutions, which he did, thus : " Be it re- 
 solved that a standing Committee of Cor- 
 respondence and Inquiry be appointed, to 
 consist of eleven persons, to wit, the Hon- 
 orable Peyton Randolph, Robert C. Nich- 
 olas, Richard Bland, Richard H. Lee, Ben- 
 jamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick 
 Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archi- 
 bald Cary, and Thomas Jefferson, Esqs. ; any 
 six of whom to be a committee, whose busi- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 39 
 
 ness it shall be to obtain the most early and 
 authentic intelligence of all such acts and 
 resolutions of the British Parliament, or 
 proceedings of administration, as may re- 
 late to or affect the British colonies in 
 America ; and to keep up and maintain a 
 correspondence and communication with 
 our sister colonies, respecting these Impor- 
 tant considerations ; and the result of such 
 of their proceedings from time to time, to 
 lay before this house. 
 
 ''Resolved, That it be an instruction to the 
 said committee that they do, without delay, 
 inform themselves particularly of the princi- 
 ples and authority on which was constituted 
 a Court of Inquiry, said to have been lately 
 held in Rhode Island, with powers to trans- 
 port persons accused of offences committed 
 in America, to places beyond the sea, to be 
 tried." 
 
 These resolutions meeting the approba- 
 tion of the other four, Mr. Jefferson was 
 urged to present them before the House 
 of Burgesses the next morning ; but he 
 modestly declined, and suggested that they 
 
40 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 should be presented by his friend and 
 brother-in-law, Dabney Carr, who was a 
 member of the house, and it would afford 
 him an opportunity of making his debiU. 
 It was accordingly agreed that Mr. Carr 
 should move them, after which they retired 
 to their lodcrinofs. 
 
 This movement Mr. Jefferson always re- 
 garded as the first step towards the union 
 of the colonies, and their ultimate indepen- 
 dence. As late as 1816, at the age of sev- 
 enty-three, he alludes to it thus in a letter 
 to a son of Dabney Carr: "I remember 
 that Mr. Carr and myself, returning home 
 together, and conversing on the subject by 
 the way, concurred in the conclusion that 
 that measure [Committees of Correspond- 
 ence] must inevitably beget the meeting 
 of a Congress of Deputies from all the 
 colonies, for the purpose of uniting all in 
 the same principles and measures, for the 
 maintenance of our rio^hts." 
 
 The resolutions were accordingly brought 
 forward in the House of Burgesses the next 
 morning by the young Mr. Carr, who failed 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 41 
 
 not to exhibit on that occasion his great 
 worth and talent, whom Jefferson thus 
 graphically describes : 
 
 " Mr. Carr was a handsome and dignified 
 person, engaging in manners, rich in imagi- 
 nation, and cogent in reasoning ; firm and 
 undaunted in the cause of liberty. And, 
 having presented the resolutions to the 
 house, he advocated their adoption with a 
 speech that was overwhelming and irre- 
 sistible. So ably and forcibly did he speak, 
 that he electrified the whole assembly. 
 And, for once, it was said that the genius 
 of Patrick Henry stood rebuked before 
 him. 
 
 "The members flocked around him, 
 greeted him with praises, and congratulated 
 themselves on the accession of such a cham- 
 pion to their cause of liberty. And the 
 resolutions havine been read a second 
 time, were agreed to by the house, nemhie 
 contradicente!' 
 
 And it was " Resolved, that the Speaker 
 of this House do transmit to the Speakers 
 of the different Assemblies of the British 
 
42 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 colonies on the continent copies of the 
 said resolutions, and desire that they will 
 lay them before their respective assemblies, 
 and request them to appoint some person 
 or persons of their respective bodies to 
 communicate, from time to time, with the 
 said committee." And no sooner had the 
 House of Burgesses passed these reso- 
 lutions, than they were dissolved by the 
 Governor, Lord Dunmore. But this dis- 
 solution of the house had the effect to give 
 a popular Impulse in favor of the resolu- 
 tions. 
 
 Wherefore, this committee assembled the 
 next morning and proceeded to business. 
 A circular letter, prepared by Mr. Jefferson, 
 was adopted and forwarded to the Speakers 
 of the other colonies, with the resolutions 
 adopted by Virginia, and they were trans- 
 mitted by express. By this opportune 
 movement a Colonial Conoress was brouofht 
 about, and thence also arose the form of 
 government adopted by the United States. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BOSTON PORT BILL. 
 
 BUT a melancholy event occurred about 
 two months after the passage of these 
 resolutions, viz., Dabney Carr was called 
 to pay the debt of nature, which was not 
 only a heavy infliction upon Mr. Jefferson, 
 but also a grievous loss to him and his 
 friends, and to the cause of liberty, and for 
 this Mr. Carr was deeply lamented. 
 
 Concerning him, Mr. Jefferson thus wrote 
 in a letter to a grandson of Mr. Carr : " I 
 well remember the pleasure expressed in 
 the countenance and conversation of the 
 members generally on this debut of Mr. 
 Carr, and the hopes they conceived, as well 
 from the talents as the patriotism mani- 
 fested. His character was of a high order: 
 a spotless integrity, sound judgment, hand- 
 
 43 
 
44 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 some imagination, enriched by education 
 and reading ; quick and clear in his con- 
 ceptions, of correct and ready elocution 
 impressing every hearer with the sincerity 
 of the heart from which it flowed. His 
 firmness was inflexible in whatever he 
 thought was right. But when no moral 
 principle stood in the way, never had man 
 more of the milk of human kindness, of in- 
 dulgence, of softness, of pleasantry in con- 
 versation and conduct. The number of his 
 friends, and warmth of their affection, were 
 proofs of his worth, and of their estimate 
 of it." 
 
 And now, as has been anticipated, the 
 recommendations of the Virginia Le^is- 
 lature were responded to by all the other 
 colonies, and Committees of Correspond- 
 ence were appointed. By these means a 
 direct and vioforous communication was 
 established. Wherefore, from the reciprocal 
 interchange of opinions, they became united 
 in what constituted their common rights, 
 and also a determination to resist oppres- 
 sion ; wherefore a union was thus being 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 45 
 
 formed of all the colonies. For they all 
 saw plainly and inevitably that the crisis 
 had arrived to decide the great constitu- 
 tional question — whether or not taxation 
 could be imposed without representation, 
 which was the great principle for which Mr. 
 Jefferson contended, and whence it was 
 finally established for all time to come. 
 
 But the intelligence of this spirited and 
 united determination of all the colonies 
 for popular rights so exasperated the 
 British Government, that they determined 
 to quash it at once. And so they had 
 recourse to the measure known as the 
 Boston Port Bill, which was to take effect 
 from and after the first day of June, 1774, 
 whereby was fixed the irrevocable sen- 
 tence of dismemberment from the British 
 empire, and hastened also the combination 
 of all the colonies to form a union and com- 
 munion with each other. And now, what 
 was worthy of all praise, Massachusetts 
 stood firm with Spartan fortitude, singing 
 psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, with 
 an appointed day of fasting and prayer. 
 
46 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Numerous copies of this act of the British 
 Pariiament were issued, and to make a deep 
 impression, they were printed on mourning 
 paper. 
 
 In May, 1774, while the Virginia Legisla- 
 ture was In session, this news of Massachu- 
 setts was received ; and Mr. Jefferson being 
 still a member of the House of Burgesses, 
 he a<ialn rallied those with whom he had 
 previously conferred, that they might con- 
 sult and determine what should be done. 
 And strange as it may seem to some, but 
 wise, prudent, and judicious to others, they 
 aereed to take the same course with Mas- 
 sachusetts, viz., that Virginia, also, unite in 
 the appointment of a day of general fasting 
 and prayer throughout the colony. And 
 the day fixed upon was the first day of June, 
 on which the Port Bill was to take effect. 
 
 The form of proclamation was drawn up 
 by Thomas Jefferson, much after that of the 
 New England proclamations, with great so- 
 lemnity, calling upon the people and their 
 rulers to assemble on the appointed day, 
 devoudy to Implore the Divine Interposi- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 47 
 
 tion ; and, that it might be well received by 
 the house, the next morning, May 24th, 
 Mr. Jefferson and his associates went to 
 Robert C. Nicholas, a very grave and re- 
 ligious man, who, being pleased with it, 
 moved it with so much solemnity, that it 
 was carried without opposition. 
 
 This order of the house for a oeneral 
 fast had no sooner fallen under the jealous 
 eye of Lord Dunmore, than he made his 
 appearance before the House of Burgesses, 
 and said : " Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of 
 the House of Burgesses : I have in my 
 hand a paper published by order of your 
 house, conceived in such terms as reflect 
 highly upon His Majesty and the Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain, which makes it nec- 
 essary to dissolve you, and you are dis- 
 solved accordingly ; " and with this dissolu- 
 tion of the House of Burgesses, the au- 
 thority of the British Government virtually 
 ceased in the colony of Virginia. 
 
 On the first day of June, 1 774, as set apart 
 by the proclamation, all classes, with great 
 solemnity, kept the fast. All kinds of busi- 
 
48 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ness were suspended, the bells were tolled 
 with the funeral knell, the ministers were 
 arrayed in their long, black gowns, heading 
 the procession of the people, and addressed 
 them from their pulpits, with appropriate 
 discourses, thereby endeavoring to fortify 
 them, and exhorted them to do their duty 
 in that state of life in which it had pleased 
 God to place them. 
 
 The House of Burgesses, also composed 
 of the best men of Virginia, having been 
 dissolved by the British Governor, the 
 highest indignation was openly expressed, 
 and the representatives repaired to the 
 " Apollo," and there organized themselves 
 into an independent convention, unani- 
 mously denouncing the revenue system of 
 Great Britain, and declaring that an attack 
 on any colony to compel submission should 
 be reo^arded as an attack on all British 
 America. They also now instructed the 
 Committee of Correspondence to urge 
 upon all the other colonies the expediency 
 of appointing deputies to meet in Congress 
 annually, at such place as should be con- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 49 
 
 venlent, to devise and direct, from time to 
 time, the measures required for the gen- 
 eral interest. 
 
 To this end, the following declaration 
 was drawn up by Mr. Jefferson, and unani- 
 mously approved, viz., " An association 
 signed by eighty-nine members of the late 
 House of Burgfesses. 
 
 "We, His Majesty's most dutiful and 
 loyal subjects, the late representatives of 
 the good people of this country, having 
 been deprived, by the sudden interposition 
 of the executive part of this government, 
 from giving our countrymen the advice we 
 wished to convey to them in a legislative 
 capacity, find ourselves under the hard 
 necessity of adopting this, the only method 
 we have left, of pointing out to our country- 
 men such measures as, in our opinion, are 
 best fitted to secure our dear riorhts and lib- 
 erty from destruction by the heavy hand 
 of power now lifted against North America. 
 
 " With much grief we find that our duti- 
 ful applications to Great Britain for the 
 security of our just, ancient, and constitu- 
 5 D 
 
50 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 tlonal rights, have been not only disre- 
 garded, but that a determined system is 
 formed, and pressed, for reducing the in- 
 habitants of British America to slavery, by 
 subjecting them to the payment of taxes 
 imposed without the consent of the people 
 or their representatives. And that, in pur- 
 suit of this system, we find an act of the 
 British Parliament, lately passed, for stop- 
 ping the harbor and commerce of the town 
 of Boston, in our sister colony of Massachu- 
 setts Bay, until they the people submit to 
 the payment of such unconstitutional taxes ; 
 and which act most violently and arbi- 
 trarily deprives them of their property in 
 wharves erected by private persons, at their 
 own great and proper expense ; which act 
 is, in our opinion, a most dangerous at- 
 tempt to destroy the constitutional liberty 
 and rights of all North America. 
 
 '' It is further our opinion, that as tea, on 
 its importation into America, is charged 
 with a duty imposed by Parliament, for the 
 purpose of raising a revenue without the 
 consent of the people, it ought not to be 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 5I 
 
 used by any person who wishes well to the 
 constitutional rio-hts and liberties of British 
 America. And whereas the India Company 
 have ungenerously attempted the ruin of 
 America, by sending many ships loaded 
 with teas into the colonies, thereby intend- 
 ing to fix a precedent in favor of arbitrary 
 taxation, we deem it highly proper, and do 
 accordingly recommend it strongly to our 
 countrymen, not to purchase or use any 
 kind of East India commodity whatsoever, 
 except saltpetre and spices, until the griev- 
 ances of America are redressed. 
 
 " We are further clearly of opinion, that 
 an attack made on one of our sister colo- 
 nies, to compel submission to arbitrary 
 taxes, is an attack made on all British 
 America, and threatens ruin to the rights 
 of all, unless the united wisdom of the 
 whole be applied. And for this purpose,, 
 it is recommended to the Committee of 
 Correspondence, that they communicate 
 with their several corresponding commit- 
 tees, on the expediency of appointing 
 deputies from the several colonies of 
 
52 LIFE OP' THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 British America, to meet in general Con- 
 gress, at such place, annually, as shall be 
 thought most convenient ; there to deliber- 
 ate on those general measures which the 
 united interests of America may from time 
 to time require. 
 
 '' A tender regard for the Interests of our 
 fellow-subjects, the merchants and manu- 
 facturers of Great Britain, prevents us from 
 going further at this time ; most earnestly 
 hoping that the unconstitutional principle 
 of taxing the colonies without their consent, 
 will not be persisted in, thereby to compel 
 us, aeainst our will, to avoid all commercial 
 Intercourse with Britain. 
 
 " Wishing them and our people free and 
 happy, we are their affectionate friends, the 
 late representatives of Virginia." 
 
 And this meeting of the representatives 
 did not leave their seats In the '' Apollo," 
 till they had arranged for the preliminary 
 meeting for the choice of their deputies 
 to the proposed Congress of all the colo- 
 nies. 
 
 They passed resolutions to meet at 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 53 
 
 Williamsburg- on the first day of August 
 ensuing, to take further considerations for 
 the state of the colony of Virginia ; and 
 then, having adjourned, they returned to 
 their homes, and were universally greeted 
 with applause, and commended for the 
 course they had pursued, and for what 
 they had done. Whence the resistance to 
 the British Government was now popular. 
 
 The Committee of Correspondence to 
 form a general Congress, met the day after 
 this adjournment, Mr. Jefferson in the chair, 
 and they prepared letters according to their 
 instructions, and despatched them by mes- 
 sengers, first to Massachusetts, whose Legis- 
 lature was then in session, and in like 
 manner to all the colonies as their Legis- 
 latures met; and accordingly, by all the 
 colonies, delegates were chosen, none send- 
 ing less than two nor more than seven. 
 Philadelphia, being a convenient central 
 point, was designated the place to meet on 
 the 5th of September ensuing. 
 
 And according to the resolutions by the 
 representatives of Virginia, the people of 
 5* 
 
54 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 the several counties elected delegates to 
 meet on the first day of August, in the 
 "Apollo," at Williamsburg, to make choice 
 of their delegates to the Colonial Con- 
 gress, and to pass resolutions also as a 
 basis on which to form a union of the colo- 
 nies. This was the first Legislature in Vir- 
 ginia chosen by the people without the call 
 of the Governor. And it was composed of 
 the best men in the colony; such as Wash- 
 ington, Randolph, Pendleton, Wythe, Henry, 
 the Lees, Nicholas, Bland, Harrison, Jeffer- 
 son, etc. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson, before leaving home to 
 meet in this convention of the Viro^inia 
 Legislature, prepared a code of instruc- 
 tions for the delegates who should be chosen 
 to meet in general Congress at Philadel- 
 phia on the 5th of September, i 774. They 
 were drawn up in haste, leaving blanks to 
 be filled as occasion should require, etc. 
 But on his way thither he was taken sud- 
 denly ill, and was unable to attend. Where- 
 fore, he caused two copies to be for- 
 warded, one to Patrick Henry, and an- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 55 
 
 Other to Peyton Randolph, whom he pre- 
 sumed would be chairman of the conven- 
 tion. But, for reasons not known, Henry 
 failed to present his copy, wherein Jefferson 
 was disappointed. The other copy was 
 laid on the table of the convention by 
 Peyton Randolph, as the proposition of a 
 member who was prevented from attend- 
 ance by sickness on the road. 
 
 The paper was read, nevertheless, with 
 great avidity by the members; and although 
 they considered it too strong for the pres- 
 ent state of things, yet they were so deeply 
 impressed with its profound and luminous 
 exposition of the rights and wrongs of the 
 colonies, that they caused it to be published 
 in pamphlet form, under the title of "A 
 Summary View of the Rights of British 
 America." A copy of it having found its 
 way to England, it was taken up by the 
 Whigs in Parliament, and, being somewhat 
 interpolated by Mr. Burke to suit the pur- 
 poses of opposition there, it passed rapid- 
 ly through several editions. 
 
 Whence this drew upon Mr. Jefferson 
 
56 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 the hottest displeasure of the British Gov- 
 ernment. It is impossible to conjecture 
 what would have been his fate if he had 
 fallen into their hands, or American inde- 
 pendence had failed. 
 
 For this act he was particularly marked 
 in a bill of attainder that had been com- 
 menced in the British Parliament against 
 Hancock, Adams, Patrick Henry, Peyton 
 Randolph, "and Thomas Jefferson, as au- 
 thor of a proposition to the convention 
 of Viroinia, for the address to the kinor in 
 which was maintained that there was in 
 right no link of union between England' 
 and the colonies, but that of the same 
 kincr ; and that neither the Parliament, nor 
 any other functionary of that government, 
 had any more right to exercise authority 
 over the colonies than over the electorate 
 of Hanover ; yet expressing, in conclusion, 
 an acquiescence in reasonable restrictions 
 of commerce, for the benefit of Great 
 Britain, a conviction of the mutual advan- 
 tages of union, and a disavowal of the wish 
 for separation." 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 5/ 
 
 Hence the plain inference is, that at this 
 time, viz., the ist of August, 1774, Mr. 
 Jefferson, at the age of thirty-one, was far 
 in advance of all others, either in England 
 or America, in respect to the legitimate 
 and constitutional rio-hts of the American 
 colonies. 
 
 In England, Messrs. Burke, Chatham, 
 Wilkes, Fox, and others of the opposition, 
 Whig members of the House of Commons, 
 who advocated the constitutional rights of 
 the American colonies, nevertheless con- 
 ceded the authority of Parliament over the 
 colonies for the purpose of commercial 
 regulations, and denied only the right for 
 raising revenue. 
 
 As yet no man in America denied this 
 right of Parliament in all cases whatso- 
 ever, except Mr. Jefferson and his friend 
 George Wythe, who agreed with him that 
 Parliament had no right to tax the colonies 
 in any case whatsoever, without the right 
 of representation. 
 
 This view originated with Mr. Jefferson 
 himself, which he always maintained; and it 
 
58 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 was finally so settled In the Declaration of 
 Independence, 1776. 
 
 And what is also worthy of notice in 
 these instructions, Mr. Jefferson substi- 
 tuted the word " state " for " colony." And 
 this will not be thought a small circum- 
 stance, seeing that in the Declaration of 
 Independence the word "states" was made 
 a subject of much cavil. And with these 
 remarks I will now let the communication 
 speak for itself 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INSTRUCTIONS TO DELEGATES. 
 
 INSTRUCTIONS by Jefferson for the 
 \lrginla delegates to the Continental 
 Congress, August ist, 1774. — ''Resolved, 
 That it be an instruction to the said depu- 
 ties, when assembled in General Congress, 
 with the deputies from the other states of 
 British America, to propose to the said 
 Congress that an humble and dutiful ad- 
 dress be presented to His Majesty, beg- 
 ging leave to lay before him, as Chief 
 Magistrate of the British empire, the united 
 complaints of His Majesty's subjects in 
 America ; complaints which are excited by 
 many unwarrantable encroachments and 
 usurpations, attempted to be made by the 
 Legislature of one part of the empire upon 
 the rights which God and the laws have 
 given equally and Independently to all. 
 
 59 
 
 I 
 
60 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 "To represent to His Majesty that these, 
 his states, have often individually made 
 humble application to his Imperial throne, 
 to obtain, through his intervention, some 
 redress of their injured rights ; to none of 
 which was ever even an answer conde- 
 scended. Humbly to hope that this, their 
 joint address, penned in the language of 
 truth, and divested of those expressions of 
 servility which would persuade His Majesty 
 that we are asking favors and not rights, 
 shall obtain from His Majesty a more re- 
 spectful acceptance ; and this His Majesty 
 will think we have reason to expect, when 
 he reflects that he is no more than the 
 chief officer of the people, appointed by the 
 laws, and circumscribed with definite pow- 
 ers, to assist in working the great machine 
 of government, erected for their use, and 
 consequently subject to their superintend- 
 ence ; and in order that these, our rights, 
 as well as the invasions of them, may be 
 laid more fully before His Majesty, to take 
 a view of them from the origin and first 
 settlement of these countries. 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 6l 
 
 "To remind him that our ancestors, before 
 their emigration to America, were the free 
 inhabitants of the British dominions in 
 Europe, and possessed a right, which 
 nature has given to all men, of departing 
 from the country in which chance, not 
 choice, has placed them, of going in quest 
 of new habitations, and of there establish- 
 ing new societies, under such laws and 
 regulations as to them shall seem most 
 likely to promote public happiness. That 
 their Saxon ancestors had, under this uni- 
 versal law, in like manner left their native 
 wilds and woods In the north of Europe, 
 had possessed themselves of the island of 
 Britain, then less charged with inhabitants, 
 and had established there that system of 
 laws which has so long been the glory and 
 protection of that country. Nor was ever 
 any claim of superiority or dependence 
 asserted over them by that mother country 
 from which they had migrated ; and were 
 such a claim made, it is believed His Majes- 
 ty's subjects in Great Britain have too firm 
 a feeling of the rights devised to them from 
 
62 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 their ancestors, to bow down the sover- 
 eignty of their state before such visionary 
 pretensions. And it is thought that no 
 circumstance has occurred to distinguish, 
 materially, the British from the Saxon emi- 
 gration. 
 
 "America was conquered, and her settle- 
 ments made and firmly established, at the 
 expense of individuals, and not of the 
 British public. Their own blood was spilt 
 in acquiring lands for their settlement, 
 their own fortunes expended in making 
 that setdement effectual. For themselves 
 they fought, for themselves they con- 
 quered, and for themselves alone they 
 have the riorht to hold. No shillinor was 
 ever issued from the public treasures of 
 His Majesty, or his ancestors, for their 
 assistance, till of very late times, after the 
 colonies had become established on a firm 
 and permanent footing. That then, indeed, 
 having become valuable to Great Britain 
 for her commercial purposes, his Parlia- 
 ment was pleased to lend them assistance 
 against an enemy who would fain have 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 63 
 
 drawn to herself the benefits of their com- 
 merce, to the great aggrandizement of her- 
 self, and the danger of Great Britain. Such 
 assistance, and in such circumstances, they 
 had often before given to Portugal and 
 other allied states, with whom they carry on 
 a commercial intercourse. Yet these states 
 never supposed, that by calling in her aid, 
 they thereby submitted themselves to her 
 sovereignty. Had such terms been pro- 
 posed, they would have rejected them with 
 disdain, and trusted for better to the mod- 
 eration of their enemies, or to a vigorous 
 exertion of their own force. We do not, 
 however, mean to underrate those aids, 
 which to us were doubtless valuable on 
 whatever principles granted ; but we would 
 show that they cannot give a title to that 
 authority which the British Parliament would 
 arrogate over us ; and that they may amply 
 be repaid, by our giving to the inhabitants 
 of Great Britain such exclusive privileges 
 in trade as may be advantageous to them, 
 and at the same time not too restrictive 
 to ourselves. That settlement having been 
 
64 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 thus effected in the wilds of America, the 
 emigrants thought proper to adopt that 
 system of laws under which they had 
 hitherto lived in the mother country, and 
 to continue their union with her, by sub- 
 mitting themselves to the same common 
 sovereign, who was thereby made the cen- 
 tral link, connecting the several parts of 
 the empire thus newly multiplied. 
 
 " But that not long were they permitted, 
 however far they thought themselves re- 
 moved from the hand of oppression, to 
 hold undisturbed the rights thus acquired 
 at the hazard of their lives and loss of their 
 fortunes. A family of Princes was then on 
 the British throne, whose treasonable crimes 
 against their people brought on them, after- 
 wards, the exertion of those sacred and 
 sovereign rights of punishment, reserved 
 in the hands of the people for cases of ex- 
 treme necessity, and judged by the consti- 
 tution unsafe to be delegated to any other 
 judicature. While every day brought 
 forth some new and unjustifiable exertion 
 of power over their subjects on that side the 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 65 
 
 water, It was not to be expected tliat those 
 here, much less able at that time to oppose 
 the designs of despotism, should be ex- 
 empted from injury. 
 
 " Accordingly, this country, which had been 
 acquired by the lives, the labors, and for- 
 tunes of individual adventurers, was by 
 these Princes, at several times, parted out 
 and distributed among the favorites and 
 followers of their fortunes ; and by an as- 
 sumed right of the Crown alone, were 
 erected into distinct and independent gov- 
 ernments ; a measure which, it is believed, 
 His Majesty's prudence and understand- 
 ing would prevent him from imitating at 
 this day ; as no exercise of such power, of 
 dividing and dismembering a country, has 
 ever occurred in His Majesty's realm of 
 England, though now of very ancient stand- 
 ing; nor could it be justified or acquiesced 
 under there, or in any other part of His 
 Majesty's empire. 
 
 "That the exercise of a free trade with 
 
 all parts of the world, possessed by the 
 
 American colonists as of natural right, and 
 6* . E 
 
66 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 which no law of their own had taken away 
 or abridged, was next the object of unjust 
 encroachment. Some of the colonies hav- 
 ing thought proper to continue the adminis- 
 tration of their orovernment in the name and 
 under the authority of His Majesty, King 
 Charles the First, whom, notwithstanding 
 his late deposition, by the commonwealth of 
 England, they continued In the sovereignty 
 of their state, the Parliament, for the com- 
 monwealth, took the same in high offence 
 and assumed upon themselves the power of 
 prohibiting their trade with all other parts of 
 the world, except the island of Great Britain. 
 "This arbitrary act, however, they soon 
 recalled, and by solemn treaty entered Into 
 on the twelfth day of March, 1651, between 
 the said commonwealth by their commis- 
 sioners, and the colony of Virginia by their 
 House of Burgesses, it was expressly stipu- 
 lated by the eighth article of the said treaty, 
 that they should have ' free trade, as the 
 people of England do enjoy, to all places 
 and with all nations, according to the laws 
 of that commonwealth.' But that, upon 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 67 
 
 the restoration of His Majesty, King Charles 
 the Second, their rights of free commerce 
 fell once more a victim to arbitrary power ; 
 and by several acts of his reign, as well as 
 of some of his successors, the trade of the 
 colonies was laid under such restrictions as 
 show what hopes they might form from the 
 justice of a British Parliament, were its 
 uncontrolled power admitted over these 
 states. History has informed us that bodies 
 of men, as well as individuals, are sus- 
 ceptible of the spirit of tyranny. A view 
 of these acts of Parliament for regulation, 
 as it has been affectedly called, of the 
 American trade, if all other evidences were 
 removed out of the case, would undeniably 
 evince the truth of this observation. Be- 
 sides the duties they impose on our articles 
 of export and import, they prohibit our 
 going to any markets northward of Cape 
 Finisterre, in the kingdom of Spain, for the 
 sale of commodities which Great Britain 
 will not take from us, and for the purchase 
 of others with which she cannot supply us ; 
 and that for no other than the arbitrary pur- 
 
68 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 pose of purchasing for themselves, by a 
 sacrifice of our rights and interests, certain 
 privileges in their commerce with an allied 
 state, who, in confidence, that their exclu- 
 sive trade with America will be continued, 
 while the principles and power of the Brit- 
 ish Parliament be the same, have indulged 
 themselves in every exorbitance which 
 their avarice could dictate, or our necessi- 
 ties extort ; have raised their commodities 
 called for in America, to the double and 
 treble of what they were sold for ; before 
 such exclusive privileges were given them, 
 and of what better commodities, of the 
 same kind, would cost us elsewhere ; and, 
 at the same time, give us much less for 
 what we carry thither, than might be had 
 at more convenient ports. That these acts 
 prohibit us from carrying, in quest of other 
 purchasers, the surplus of our tobaccos, re- 
 maining after the consumption of Great 
 Britain is supplied ; so that we must leave 
 them with the British merchant, for what- 
 ever he will please to allow us, to be by 
 him reshipped to foreign markets, where 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 69 
 
 he will reap the benefits of making sale of 
 them for full value. 
 
 ''That to heighten still the idea of Parlia- 
 mentary justice, and to show with what 
 moderation they are like to exercise power, 
 where themselves are to feel no part of Its 
 weight, we take leave to mention to His 
 Majesty certain other acts of the British 
 Parliament, by which they would prohibit 
 us from manufacturing, for our own use, the 
 articles we raise on our own lands, with our 
 own labor. By an act passed in the fifth 
 year of the reign of his late Majesty, King 
 George the Second, an American subject 
 is forbidden to make a hat for himself, of 
 the fur which he has taken, perhaps on his 
 own soil ; an instance of despotism, to 
 which no parallel can be produced In the 
 most arbitrary ages of British history. By 
 one other act, passed in the twenty-third 
 year of the same reign, the iron which we 
 make, we are forbidden to manufacture ; and 
 heavy as that article is, and necessary in 
 every branch of husbandry, besides com- 
 mission and Insurance, we are to pay freight 
 
JO LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 for it to Great Britain, and freight for it 
 back again, for the purpose of supporting, 
 not men, but machines in the island of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 *' In the same spirit of equal and impartial 
 legislation, is to be viewed the act of Par- 
 liament, passed in the fifth year of the same 
 reign, by which American lands are made 
 subject to the demands of British creditors, 
 while their own lands were still continued 
 unanswerable for their debts ; from which 
 one of these conclusions must necessarily 
 follow, — either that justice is not the same 
 thincr In America as in Britain, or else that 
 the British Parliament pay less regard to it 
 here than there. But that we do not point 
 to His Majesty the injustice of these acts, 
 with intent to rest on that principle, — the 
 cause of their nullity, — but to show that ex- 
 perience confirms the propriety of those 
 political principles which exempt us from 
 the jurisdiction of the British Parliament. 
 The true ground on which we declare these 
 acts void Is, that the British Parliament has 
 no right to exercise authority over us: that 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 7I 
 
 these exercises of usurped power have not 
 been confined to instances alone in which 
 themselves were interested, but they have 
 also intermeddled with the regulation of the 
 internal affairs of the colonies. The act of 
 the 9th of Anne, for establishing a post- 
 office in America, seems to have had little 
 connection with the British convenience, ex- 
 cept that of accommodating his Majesty's 
 ministers and favorites with the sale of a 
 lucrative and easy office. That thus we have 
 hastened through the reigns which preceded 
 His Majesty's, during which the violations 
 of our rights were less alarming, because 
 repeated at more distant intervals, than 
 that rapid and bold succession of Injuries, 
 which is likely to distinguish the present 
 from all other periods of American history. 
 Scarcely have our minds been able to 
 emerge from the astonishment into which 
 one stroke of parliamentary thunder has 
 involved us, before another more heavy and 
 more alarming is fallen on us. Single acts 
 of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental 
 opinion of a day; but a series of oppres- 
 
72 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 slons, begun at a distinguished period, and 
 pursued unalterably through every change 
 of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, 
 systematical plan of reducing us to slavery. 
 ''That the act passed in the fourdi year 
 of His Majesty's reign, entitled 'An act (Act 
 for granting certain duties.)' One other act 
 passed in the fifth year of his reign, entitled 
 'An act (Stamp Act.)' One other act passed 
 in the sixth year of his reign,entitled ' An act 
 (Act declaring the right of Parliament over 
 the colonies.)' And one other act passed in 
 the seventh year of his reign, entitled ' An 
 act (Act for granting duties on paper, etc.),' 
 form that connected chain of parliamentary 
 usurpations which has already been the sub- 
 ject of frequent applications to His Majesty, 
 and the Houses of Lords and Commons of 
 Great Britain ; and no answers having yet 
 been condescended to any of these, we 
 shall not trouble His Majesty with a repe- 
 tition of the matters they contained. But 
 that one other act, passed in the same sev- 
 enth year of his reign, having been a pecu- 
 liar attempt, must ever require peculiar 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 73 
 
 mention. It is entitled 'An act (/\ct sus- 
 pending Legislature of New York). 
 
 "One free and independent Legislature 
 hereby takes upon itself to suspend the 
 powers of another, free and independent 
 as itself; thus exhibiting a phenomenon 
 unknown In nature, the creator and creature 
 of its own power. Not only the principles 
 of common sense, but the common feelings 
 of human nature must be surrendered up, 
 before His Majesty's subjects here can be 
 persuaded to believe that they hold their 
 political existence at the will of a British 
 Parliament. Shall these oovernments be 
 dissolved, their property annihilated, and 
 their people reduced to a state of nature 
 at the imperious breath of a body of men 
 whom they never saw, in whom they never 
 confided, and over whom they have no 
 powers of punishment or removal, let their 
 crimes against the American public be ever 
 so great ? Can any one reason be assigned 
 why one hundred and sixty tliousand elect- 
 ors In the island of Great Britain should 
 give law to four millions in the states of 
 
74 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 America, every individual of whom is equal 
 to every individual of diem in virtue, in 
 understanding, and bodily strength ? Were 
 this to be adm.itted, instead of being a free 
 people, as we have hitherto supposed, and 
 mean to continue ourselves, we should sud- 
 denly be found the slaves, not of one, but 
 of one hundred and sixty thousand tyrants; 
 distinguished, too, from all others, by this 
 singular circumstance, that they are removed 
 from the reach of fear, the only restrain- 
 ing motive which may hold the hand of a 
 tyrant. 
 
 '* That by an act to discontinue in such 
 manner, and for such time, as are therein 
 mentioned, the landing and discharging, 
 lading or shipping of goods, wares, and 
 merchandise, at the town and within the 
 harbor of Boston, in the province of Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay, in North America, which 
 was passed at the last session of the British 
 Parliament, a large and populous town, 
 whose trade was their sole subsistence, was 
 deprived of that trade, and involved in 
 utter ruin. Let us, for a while, suppose the 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 75 
 
 question of right suspended, in order to 
 examine this act on principles of justice. 
 An act of ParHament had been passed, im- 
 posing duties on teas, to be paid in America, 
 against which act the Americans had pro- 
 tested as inauthoritative. The East India 
 Company, who, till that time, had never sent 
 a pound of tea to America on their own 
 account, step forth on that occasion, the 
 asserters of parliamentary right, and send 
 hither many shiploads of that obnoxious 
 commodity. The masters of their several 
 vessels, however, on their arrival in America, 
 wisely attended to admonition, and returned 
 with their cargoes. In the province of New 
 England alone, the remonstrances of the 
 people were disregarded, and a compliance, 
 after being many days waited for, was flatly 
 refused. 
 
 " Whether in this the master of the vessel 
 was governed by his obstinacy or his in- 
 structions, let those who know say. There 
 are extraordinary situations which require 
 extraordinary interpositions. An exas- 
 perated people, who feel that they possess 
 
^6 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 power, are not easily restrained within 
 limits strictly regular. A number of them 
 assembled in the town of Boston, threw the 
 tea into the ocean, and dispersed without 
 doing any other act of violence. If in this 
 they did wrong, they were known, and were 
 amenable to the laws of the land ; against 
 which, it could not be objected that they 
 had ever, in any instance, been obstructed, 
 or diverted from their regular course, in 
 favor of popular offenders. They should, 
 therefore, not have been distrusted on this 
 occasion. 
 
 ** But that ill-fated colony had formerly 
 been bold in their enmities aoainst the 
 house of Stuart, and were now devoted to 
 ruin, by that unseen hand which governs 
 the momentous affairs of this great empire. 
 On the partial representations of a few 
 worthless ministerial dependants, whose 
 constant ofhce it has been to keep that 
 government embroiled ; and who, by their 
 treacheries, hope to obtain the dignity of 
 Bridsh knighthood, without calling for a 
 party accused, without asking a proof, with- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. // 
 
 out attempting a distinction between the 
 guilty and the innocent, the whole of that 
 ancient and wealthy town is in a moment 
 reduced from opulence to beggary. Men 
 who had spent their lives in extending the 
 British commerce, who had invested in that 
 place the wealth their honest endeavors 
 had merited, found themselves, and their 
 families, thrown at once on the world for 
 subsistence by its charities. Not the hun- 
 dredth part of the inhabitants of that town 
 had been concerned in the act complained 
 of; many of them were in Great Britain, 
 and in other parts beyond sea, yet all were 
 involved in one indiscriminate ruin by a 
 new executive power unheard of till then, 
 that of a British Parliament. A property 
 of the value of many millions of money 
 was sacrificed to revenge, not to repay, 
 the loss of a few thousands. This is ad- 
 ministering justice with a heavy hand in- 
 deed ! 
 
 *' And when is this tempest to be arrested 
 in its course ? Two wharves are to be 
 opened again when His Majesty shall think 
 
78 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 proper ; the residue which hned the exten- 
 sive shores of the bay of Boston, are for- 
 ever interdicted the exercise of commerce. 
 This Htde exception seems to have been 
 thrown In for no other purpose, than that 
 of setting a precedent for Investing His 
 Majesty with legislative powers. If the 
 pulse of his people shall beat calmly under 
 this experiment, another and another will 
 be tried, till the measure of despotism be 
 filled up. It would be an insult on common 
 sense, to pretend that this exception was 
 made in order to restore its commerce to 
 that great town. The trade which cannot 
 be received at two wharves alone, must, of 
 necessity, be transferred to some other 
 place ; to which it will soon be followed by 
 that of the two wharves. Considered In 
 this lieht, It would be an insolent and cruel 
 mockery at the annihilation of the town of 
 Boston. By the act for the suppression of 
 riots and tumults In the town of Boston, 
 passed also in the last session of Parlia- 
 ment, a murder committed there, Is, If the 
 Governor pleases, to be tried In the Court 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, 79 
 
 of King's Bench, In the island of Great 
 Britain, by a jury of Middlesex. The wit- 
 nesses, too, on receipt of such a sum as the 
 Governor shall think it reasonable for them 
 to expend, are to enter into cognizance to 
 appear at the trial. This is, in other words, 
 taxing them to the amount of their recog- 
 nizance ; and that amount may be whatever 
 a Governor pleases. For who does His 
 Majesty think can be prevailed on to cross 
 the Atlantic, for the sole purpose of bear- 
 ing evidence to a fact? His expenses are 
 to be borne, indeed, as they shall be esti- 
 mated by a Governor ; but who are to feed 
 the wife and children whom he leaves be- 
 hind, and who have had no other subsist- 
 ence but his daily labor ? Those epidemical 
 disorders too, so terrible in a foreign cli- 
 mate, is the cure of them to be estimated 
 among the articles of expense, and their 
 danger to be warded off, by the almighty 
 power of a Parliament ? And the wretched 
 criminal, if he happened to have offended 
 on the American side, stripped of his 
 privilege of trial by peers of his vicinage, 
 
8o LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 removed from the place where alone full 
 evidence could be obtained, without money, 
 without counsel, without friends, without 
 exculpatory proof, is tried before judges 
 predetermined to condemn. The cowards 
 who would suffer a countryman to be torn 
 from the bowels of their society, in order 
 to be thus offered a sacrifice to parliamen- 
 tary tyranny, would merit that everlasting 
 infamy now fixed on the authors of the 
 act! A clause, for a similar purpose, had 
 been introduced into an act passed in the 
 twelfth year of His Majesty's reign, en- 
 titled, ' An act for the better securing and 
 preserving His Majesty's dockyards, maga- 
 zines, ships, ammunition, and stores ; ' 
 against which, as meriting the same cen- 
 sures, the several colonies have already 
 protested. 
 
 " That these are the acts of power as- 
 sumed by a body of men foreign to our 
 constitutions, and unacknowledged by our 
 laws ; against which we do, on behalf of 
 the inhabitants of British America, enter 
 this our solemn and determined protest. 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 8l 
 
 And we do earnesdy entreat His Majesty, 
 as yet the only mediatory power between 
 the several states of the British empire, to 
 recommend to his Parliament of Great Brit- 
 ain, the total revocation of these acts, which, 
 however nugatory they be, may yet prove 
 the cause of further discontents and jeal- 
 ousies among us. 
 
 " That we next proceed to consider the 
 conduct of His Majesty as holding the ex- 
 ecutive powers of the laws of these states, 
 and mark out his deviations from the line 
 of duty. By the constitution of Great Brit- 
 ain, as well as of the several American 
 states. His Majesty possesses the power 
 of refusing to pass Into a law any bill 
 which has already passed the other two 
 branches of the Legislature. His Majesty, 
 however, and his ancestors, conscious of 
 the impropriety of opposing their single 
 opinion to the united wisdom of two 
 Houses of Parliament, while their proceed- 
 ings were unbiased by Interested princi- 
 ples, for several ages past have modestly 
 declined the exercise of this power In that 
 
S2 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 part of his empire called Great Britain ; 
 but, by change of circumstances, other prin- 
 ciples than those of justice simply, have 
 obtained an influence on their determina- 
 tions. The addition of new states to the 
 British empire has produced an addition 
 of new, and sometimes opposite, interests. 
 It is now, therefore, the great office of His 
 Majesty to assume the exercise of his neg- 
 ative power, and to prevent the passage of 
 laws, by any one Legislature of the empire, 
 which might bear injuriously on the rights 
 and interests of another. Yet this will not 
 excuse the wanton exercise of this power, 
 which we have seen His Majesty practise 
 on the laws of the American Legislatures. 
 For the most trifling reasons, and some- 
 times for no conceivable reason at all, His 
 Majesty has rejected laws of the most salu- 
 tary tendency. The abolition of domestic 
 slavery is the great object of desire in those 
 colonies where it was, unhappily, introduced 
 in their infant state. But previous to the 
 enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it Is 
 necessary to exclude all further importa- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. Si, 
 
 tions from Africa. Yet our repeated at- 
 tempts to effect this, by prohibitions, and by 
 imposing duties wliich might amount to a 
 prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by 
 His Majesty's negative ; thus preferring the 
 immediate advantages of a few British cor- 
 sairs to the lasting interests of the Amer- 
 ican states, and to the rights of human 
 nature, deeply wounded by this infamous 
 practice. Nay, the single interposition of 
 an interested individual against a law, was 
 scarcely ever known to fail of success, 
 though in the opposite scale were placed 
 the interests of a whole country. That 
 this is so shameful an abuse of a powder, 
 trusted with His Majesty for other purposes, 
 as, if not reformed, would call for some le- 
 gal restrictions. 
 
 " With equal inattention to the necessi- 
 ties of his people here, has His Majesty per- 
 mitted our laws to lie neglected in England 
 for years, neither confirming them by his 
 assent, nor annulling them by his negative ; 
 so that such of them as have no suspending 
 clause, we hold on the most precarious of 
 
84 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 all tenures — His Majesty's will; and such 
 of them as suspend themselves till His Ma- 
 jesty's assent be obtained, we have feared 
 might be called into existence at some future 
 and distant period, when time and change of 
 circumstances shall have rendered them de- 
 structive to his people here ; and to render 
 this grievance still more oppressive. His Ma- 
 jesty, by his instructions,has laid his govern- 
 ors under such restrictIons,that they can pass 
 no law of any moment, unless it have such 
 suspending clause ; so that^ however imme- 
 diate may be the call for legislative inter- 
 position, the law cannot be executed till it 
 has twice crossed the Atlantic, by which 
 time the evil may have spent its whole 
 force. 
 
 " But in what terms reconcilable to ma- 
 jesty, and at the same time to truth, shall 
 we speak of a late instruction to His Ma- 
 jesty's Governor of the colony of Virginia, 
 by which he is forbidden to assent to any 
 law for the division of a county, unless the 
 new county will consent to have no repre- 
 sentative in assembly ? That colony has as 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 85 
 
 yet affixed no boundary to the westward ; 
 their western counties, therefore, are of in- 
 definite extent. Some of them are actually 
 seated many hundred miles from their east- 
 ern limits. 
 
 '' Is it possible, then, that His Majesty can 
 have bestowed a sinorle thouoht on the sit- 
 uation of those people, who, in order to ob- 
 tain justice for injuries, however great or 
 small, must, by the laws of the colony, at- 
 tend their county court at such a distance, 
 with all their witnesses, monthly, till their 
 litio^ation be determined ? Or does His Ma- 
 jesty seriously wish, and publish it to the 
 world, that his subjects should give up the 
 glorious right of representation, with all the 
 benefits derived from that, and submit them- 
 selves to be absolute slaves of his sovereign 
 will ? Or is it rather meant to confine the 
 legislative body to their present numbers, 
 that they may be the cheaper bargain, when- 
 ever they shall become worth a purchase? 
 
 " One of the articles of impeachment 
 against Tresilian, and the other judges 
 of Westminster Hall, in the reign of Rich- 
 
S6 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ard the Second, for which they suffered 
 death, as traitors to their country, was that 
 they had advised the King that he might 
 dissolve his Parliament at any time ; and 
 succeeding kings have adopted the opinion 
 of these unjust judges. Since the establish- 
 ment, however, of the British constitution, 
 at the glorious revolution, on its free and 
 ancient principles, neither His Majesty nor 
 his ancestors have exercised such a power 
 of dissolution in the island of Great Britain. 
 And when His Majesty was petitioned by the 
 united voice of his people, there to dissolve 
 the present Parliament, who had become 
 obnoxious to them, his ministers were heard 
 to declare, in open Parliament, that His Ma- 
 jesty possessed no such power by the con- 
 stitution. But how different their language, 
 and his practice here ! To declare, as their 
 duty required, the known rights of their 
 country; to oppose the usurpation of every 
 foreign judicature ; to disregard the impe- 
 rious mandates of a minister or governor, 
 have been the avowed causes of dissolving 
 Houses of Representatives in America. But 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 8/ 
 
 if such powers be really vested In His Ma- 
 jesty, can he suppose they are there placed 
 to awe the members from such purposes 
 as these ? When the representative body 
 have lost the confidence of their constituents; 
 when they have notoriously made sale of 
 their most valuable rights ; when they have 
 assumed to themselves powers which the 
 people never put into their hands, then, 
 indeed, their continuing in office becomes 
 dangerous to the state, and calls for an ex- 
 ercise of the power of dissolution. Such 
 being the causes for which the represent- 
 ative body should and should not be dis- 
 solved, will it not appear strange to an 
 unbiased observer, that that of Great Brit- 
 ain was not dissolved, while those of the 
 colonies have repeatedly incurred that sen- 
 tence? 
 
 " But your Majesty, or your governors, 
 have carried this power beyond every limit 
 known or provided for by the laws. After 
 dissolving one House of Representatives, 
 they have refused to call another; so that, for 
 a great length of time, the Legislature pro- 
 
88 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 vided by the laws has been out of existence. 
 From the nature of thnigs, every society 
 must, at all times, possess within itself the 
 sovereign power of legislation. The feel- 
 ings of human nature revolt ao^-ainst the 
 
 o o 
 
 supposition of a state so situated as that it 
 may not, in any emergency, provide against 
 dangers which perhaps threaten immediate 
 ruin. While those bodies are in existence, 
 to whom the people have delegated the 
 powers of legislation, they alone possess 
 and may exercise those powers ; but when 
 they are dissolved by the lopping off one 
 or more of their branches, the power re- 
 verts to tlie people, who may use it to un- 
 limited extent, either assemblino- tocrether 
 in person, sending deputies, or in any other 
 way they may think proper. We forbear 
 to trace consequences further; the dangers 
 are conspicuous with which this practice is 
 replete. 
 
 " That we shall, at this time, also, take 
 notice of an error in the nature of our 
 land-holdings, which crept in at a very 
 early period of our settlement. The in- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 89 
 
 troduction of the feudal tenures into the 
 klno-dom of Enorland, though ancient, is 
 well enoucrh understood to set this matter 
 in a proper light. In the earlier ages of 
 the Saxon settlement, feudal holdings were 
 certainly altogether unknow^n, and very few, 
 if any, had been introduced at the time of 
 the Norman conquest. Oar Saxon ances- 
 tors held their lands, as they did their 
 personal property, in absolute dominion, 
 disencumbered with any superior, answer- 
 ing nearly to the nature of those posses- 
 sions which the feudalists term allodial. 
 William the Norman first introduced that 
 system generally. The lands which had be- 
 lono^ed to those who fell in the battle of 
 Hastings, and in the subsequent insur- 
 rection of his reign, formed a considerable 
 proportion of the lands of the whole king- 
 dom. These he granted out, subject to 
 feudal duties, as did he also those of a 
 great number of his new subjects, who, 
 by persuasion or threats, were Induceci to 
 surrender them for that purpose. But 
 still, much was left in the hands of his 
 
QO LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Saxon subjects, held of no superior, and 
 not subject to feudal conditions. These, 
 therefore, by express laws, enacted to ren- 
 der uniform the system of military defence, 
 were made liable to the same military du- 
 ties as if they had been feuds ; and the 
 Norman lawyers soon found means to sad- 
 dle them, also, with all the other feudal 
 burdens ; but still they had not been sur- 
 rendered to the King ; they were not de- 
 rived from his grant, and, therefore, they 
 were not holden of him. A general prin- 
 ciple, indeed, was introduced, that * all lands 
 in England were held either mediately or 
 immediately of the Crown ; ' but this was 
 borrowed from those holdings which were 
 truly feudal, and only applied to others for 
 the purpose of illustration. Feudal hold- 
 ings were, therefore, but exceptions out of 
 the Saxon laws of possession, under which 
 all lands were held in absolute right. These, 
 therefore, still form the basis or ground- 
 work of the common law, to prevail where- 
 soever the exceptions have not taken place. 
 '' America was not conquered by William 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 9I 
 
 the Norman, nor its lands surrendered to 
 him, or any of his successors. Possessions 
 there are, undoubtedly, of the allodial na- 
 ture. Our ancestors, however, who mi- 
 grated thither, were laborers, not lawyers. 
 The fictitious principle, that all lands belong 
 originally to the King, they were early per- 
 suaded to believe real, and accordingly 
 took erants of their own lands from the 
 Crown. And while the Crown continued to 
 grant for small sums, and on reasonable 
 rents, there was no inducement to arrest 
 the error, and lay it open to public view. 
 But His Majesty has lately taken on him 
 to advance the terms of purchase, and of 
 holding to the double of what they were ; 
 by which means, the acquisition of lands 
 being rendered difficult, the population of 
 our country is likely to be checked. It is 
 time, therefore, for us to lay this matter be- 
 fore His Majesty, and to declare that he 
 has no right to grant lands of himself. 
 From the nature and purpose of civil insti- 
 tutions, all the lands within the limits which 
 any particular society has circumscribed 
 
92 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 around itself, are assumed by diat society, 
 and subject to their allotment ; this may be 
 done by themselves assembled collectively, 
 or by their Legislature, to whom they may 
 have delegated sovereign authority. And 
 if they are allotted in neither of these ways, 
 each individual of the society may appro- 
 priate to himself such lands as he finds 
 vacant, and occupancy will give him title. 
 
 '' That, in ordc^r to enforce the arbi- 
 trary measures before complained of. His 
 Majesty has, from time to time, sent among 
 us large bodies of armed forces, not made 
 up of the people here, nor raised by the 
 authority of our laws. Did His Majesty 
 possess such a right as this, it might swallow 
 up all our other rights, whenever he should 
 think proper. But His Majesty has no 
 right to land a single armed man on our 
 shores. And those whom he sends here 
 are liable to our laws, for the suppression 
 and punishment of riots, routs, and un- 
 lawful assemblies ; or are hostile bodies 
 invadine us in defiance of law. When, in 
 the course of the late war, it became ex- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 93 
 
 pedient that a body of Hanoverian troops 
 should be brought over for the defence of 
 Great Britain, His Majesty's grandfather, 
 our late sovereign, did not pretend to in- 
 troduce them under any authority he pos- 
 sessed. Such a measure would have given 
 just alarm to his subjects of Great Britain, 
 whose liberties would not be safe, if armed 
 men of another country and of another spirit 
 might be brought into the realm at any time, 
 without the consent of their Legislature. 
 He, therefore, applied to Parliament, who 
 passed an act for that purpose, limiting 
 the number to be brought in, and the time 
 they were to continue. In like manner is His 
 Majesty restrained in every part of the 
 empire. He possesses, indeed, the exec- 
 utive power of the laws in every state ; 
 but they are the laws of the particular 
 state, which he is to administer within that 
 state, and not those of any one within the 
 limits of another. Every state must judge 
 for itself the number of armed men which 
 they may safely trust among them, of whom 
 they are to consist, and under what restric- 
 
94 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 tlons they are to be laid. To render these 
 proceedings still more criminal against our 
 laws, instead of subjecting the military to 
 the civil power, His Majesty has expressly 
 made the civil subordinate to the military. 
 But can His Majesty thus put down all law 
 under his feet? Can he erect a power 
 superior to that which erected himself? 
 He has done it, indeed, by force ; but let 
 him remember that force cannot eive riorht. 
 " That these are our orrievances which we 
 have thus laid before His Majesty, with that 
 freedom of language and sentiment which 
 becomes a free people, claiming their rights, 
 as derived from the laws of nature, and not 
 as the orift of their Chief Mamstrate. Let 
 
 o o 
 
 those flatter who fear ; It Is not an Ameri- 
 can art. To give praise where It is not due, 
 might be well from the venal, but would 111 
 beseem those who are asserting the rights 
 of human nature. They know, and will 
 therefore say, that kings are the servants, 
 not the proprietors, of the people. Open 
 your breast, sire, to liberal and expanded 
 thought. Let not the name of George the 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 95 
 
 Third be a blot on the page of history. 
 You are surrounded by British counsellors, 
 but remember that they are parties. You 
 have no ministers for American affairs, be- 
 cause you have none taken from among us, 
 nor amenable to the laws on which they 
 are to give you advice. It behooves you, 
 therefore, to think and to act for yourself 
 and your people. The great principles of 
 right and wrong are legible to every reader; 
 to pursue them requires not the aid of 
 many counsellors. The whole art of gov- 
 ernment consists in the art of being honest. 
 Only aim to do your duty, and mankind 
 will give you credit where you fail. No 
 longer persevere in sacrificing the rights of 
 one part of the empire to the inordinate 
 desires of another ; but deal out to all 
 equal and impartial right. Let no act be 
 passed by any one Legislature, which may 
 infringe on the rights and liberties of an- 
 other. This is the important post in which 
 fortune has placed you, holding the balance 
 of a great, if a well poised empire. This, 
 sire, is the advice of your great American 
 
96 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 council, on the observance of which may 
 perhaps, depend your feHcity and future 
 fame, and the preservation of that harmony 
 which alone can continue, both to Great 
 Britain and America, the reciprocal advan- 
 tao^es of their connection. It is neither our 
 wash nor our interest to separate from her. 
 We are willing, on our part, to sacrifice 
 everything which reason can ask, to the 
 restoration of that tranquillity for which all 
 must wish. On their part let them be ready 
 to establish union on a generous plan. Let 
 them name their terms, but let them be just. 
 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 sup- 
 ply. 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 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 97 
 
 hand of force may destroy, but cannot dis- 
 join them. This, sire, is our last, our de- 
 termined resolution. And that you will be 
 pleased to interpose with that efficacy which 
 your earnest endeavors may insure to pro- 
 cure redress of these our areat orievances, 
 to quiet the minds of your subjects in Brit- 
 ish America against any apprehensions of 
 future encroachment, to establish paternal 
 love and harmony through the whole em- 
 pire, and that that may continue to the latest 
 ages of time. Is the fervent prayer of all 
 British America." 
 
 9 G 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION. 
 
 THE Convention of Virginia, meeting 
 at Williamsburg, August ist, 1774, 
 from which Mr. Jefferson was absent by 
 sickness on his way thither, besides pub- 
 lishing Mr. Jefferson's communication in 
 pamphlet form for distribution, elected the 
 Congressional delegates to the number of 
 seven, viz., Peyton Randolph, Richard H. 
 Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, 
 Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, and 
 Edmund Pendleton ; and transacted such 
 other business as was necessary, and 
 pledged themselves to make common 
 cause with the people of Boston, break- 
 ing off all commercial communications with 
 the mother country until the grievances 
 complained of should be redressed. Hav- 
 ing elected Peyton Randolph the chairman, 
 or, in case of his death, Robert C. Nicholas, 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 99 
 
 he was empowered on any future occasion, 
 that might in his opinion require it, to 
 reconvene the several delegates of the 
 colony at such time and place as he might 
 judge proper ; this action of the colony 
 showed conclusively that they were de- 
 termined that Virginia should continue in- 
 dependent of the British Government. 
 
 The first General Congress of the colo- 
 nies assembled the 5th of September, 1774, 
 at Carpenters' Hall, in Philadelphia. They 
 organized for business by choosing Pey- 
 ton Randolph, of Virginia, president, and 
 Charles Thompson, of Pennsylvania, sec- 
 retary. Delegates were in attendance 
 from every province except Georgia, and 
 numbered .fifty-five. Jefferson was not 
 chosen among the delegates from Virginia. 
 Why it was so does not appear ; and it will 
 be useless to inquire, seeing that he makes 
 no allusion to it, and history is likewise si- 
 lent. It was doubtless by reason of his sick- 
 ness, which would prevent his attendance. 
 As the proceedings of that body belong to 
 general history, no reference will be made 
 
100 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 to it, in connection with Mr. Jefferson, until 
 he shall become a member of it. Its first 
 session terminated on the 2d of October, 
 1774, to meet again, at the same place, on 
 the loth of May ensuing. 
 
 It was a time of sorrow. Hitherto, 
 Great Britain had been honored, revered, 
 and dignified, by all the American colonies, 
 with the time-honored appellation of the 
 mother cozmtry. Not only because that 
 there was traced the long line of their 
 ancestors, but also, in many instances, their 
 parents, relatives, and highly esteemed 
 friends. Wherefore, there were many ties 
 and strong feelings of love and sympathy 
 too dear not to be deeply and keenly felt. 
 And it was only where and when reason, 
 with a sound judgment, animated and forti- 
 fied by those sterling virtues which always 
 characterize the noble and the brave, that 
 these feelings gave way ; and happily it 
 was for America, and the cause of freedom 
 to mankind, that our fathers possessed 
 these noble virtues in a high degree. 
 
 In the interim, by the adjournment of the 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. lOI 
 
 General Congress of the colonies, the pop- 
 ular Convention of Virginia re-assembled, 
 upon invitation of Peyton Randolph, on the 
 20th of March (1775), to deliberate further 
 on the condition of public affairs in regard 
 to matters about to be presented by the 
 British Government. And, fortunately, Mr. 
 Jefferson was still a member thereof; for 
 never was his presence more needed. A 
 great crisis was now pending, which was to 
 try the wisdom and fortitude of all the 
 colonies, and, happily, Virginia was the 
 first to assemble ; and on her devolved the 
 first action to defeat and render abortive 
 one of the deepest and most subtle 
 schemes that could be devised. 
 
 The British Government, perceiving her 
 dilemma by the union of the colonies, 
 sought to evade and defeat it by a trick in 
 diplomacy. Frederick North, better known 
 as Lord North, in 1767 was appointed 
 Chancellor of the English Exchequer; and 
 by reason of his great ability, and profound 
 art and subtlety in the management of the 
 affairs in England at that time, he was in 
 9* 
 
I02 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 1770 made first Lord of the Treasury, and 
 he now, in this critical emergency, united 
 all his art, skill, and ability to frustrate, 
 prevent, or defeat this union and combin- 
 ation of the American colonies. To do 
 this, he, with great subtlety, acted out the 
 old maxim, " Divide and conquer." Art- 
 fully concealing all knowledge and convic- 
 tion of the union formed and established 
 by the American colonies, and of the 
 meeting of the Congress in Philadelphia 
 on the 5th of September, 1774; likewise, 
 with most profound dissimulation, he pro- 
 posed, as an act of great clemency, to each 
 of the colonies separately, a proposition 
 whereby each colony might be restored to 
 favor, and resume Its former relations 
 with the Crown and Parliament of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Fortunately for this, the popular Con- 
 vention of Virginia had assembled the 
 second time, on the 20th of March (1775), 
 agreeably to its provisions, by the call of 
 Peyton Randolph, its chairman. And al- 
 though he was also chairman of the general 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. IO3 
 
 Convention in Philadelphia, he felt that it 
 was his bounden duty to remain chairman 
 of the Virginia Convention until this ques- 
 tion should be fully settled there. And 
 therefore Thomas Jefferson was chosen to 
 fill his place in the General Congress, to 
 meet on the loth of May ensuing, in 
 Philadelphia. But Mr. Jefferson was also 
 prevailed on to retain his seat in the Vir- 
 ginia Convention till this proposition of 
 Lord North should have been settled, 
 which he consented to do. Much indigna- 
 tion was felt by some of the Virginia mem- 
 bers, at this subtle attempt of Lord North, 
 and fears were entertained lest some faint- 
 hearted ones, or those strongly attached to 
 the mother country, should suffer them- 
 selves to be 7nisled. And whilst it was 
 most wise and judicious that the proposi- 
 tion should be received, it was also ex- 
 ceedingly important that it should be wisely 
 and judiciously considered, and its real 
 design fully and ably exposed. And it 
 was for this reason that Mr. Jefferson was 
 urged by Peyton Randolph to retain his 
 
104 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 seat in the Virginia Assembly, and to afford 
 this opportunity of receiving this communi- 
 cation, notwithstanding that Virginia had 
 on the 24th of May, 1774, renounced all 
 allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain, 
 and was now holding its second popular 
 Assembly ; and likewise, in this second 
 session, had passed a resolution that the 
 colony of Virginia be immediately put into 
 a state of defence ; that a committee be 
 appointed to prepare a plan for embody- 
 ing and disciplining such a number of men 
 as would be sufficient for the purpose. Yet 
 to meet and defeat this subtle overture of 
 the Crown, by Lord North, the General 
 Assembly summoned by Governor Dun- 
 more on the first day of June, 1775, was 
 obeyed. And when the Assembly met. 
 Lord Dunmore, with a mighty flourish of 
 his graces, informed the house that His 
 Majesty, in the plenitude of his royal con- 
 descension, had extended the olive branch 
 to his discontented subjects in America ; 
 and had opened the door of reconcilia- 
 tion upon such terms as demanded their 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. IO5 
 
 grateful consideration and prompt accept- 
 ance. 
 
 This olive branch, however, proved to be 
 the measures contrived by Lord North 
 to prevent the union of the colonies, and 
 bring them back to their allegiance to the 
 British Government under this provision, 
 viz.. That should any colony propose to 
 contribute its proportion towards providing 
 for the common defence, which proportion 
 was to be disposable by Parliament ; and 
 also to defray the amount of its own civil 
 list, — such colony accepting this proposi- 
 t;ion should be approved by the general 
 Government, and exempted from all taxes 
 except those for the regulation of com- 
 merce. And to meet this proposition, a 
 committee of twelve of the strongest mem- 
 bers of the Virginia Legislature was ap- 
 pointed, including Mr. Jefferson, who, as 
 usual, was requested to prepare an answer ; 
 which he did as follows : " These, my 
 lord, are our sentiments on this important 
 subject, which we offer only as an indi- 
 vidual part of the whole empire. Final 
 
I06 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 determination we leave to the General 
 Coneress now sittinor, before whom we 
 
 O <-> ' 
 
 shall lay the papers your lordship has com- 
 municated to us. For ourselves, we have 
 exhausted every mode of application which 
 our invention could suggest as proper and 
 promising. We have decently remon- 
 strated with Parliament ; they have added 
 new injuries to the old ; we have wearied 
 our King with supplications ; he has not 
 deigned to answer ; we have appealed to 
 the native honor and justice of the British 
 nation — their efforts in our favor have 
 hitherto been ineffectual. What then re- 
 mains to be done ? That we commit our 
 injuries to the even-handed justice of that 
 Being who doeth no wrong, earnestly be- 
 seechino- Him to illuminate the councils, 
 and prosper the endeavors of those to 
 whom America hath confided her hopes ; 
 that through their wise directions, we may 
 again see reunited the blessings of liberty, 
 prosperity, and harmony with Great Brit- 
 ain." 
 
 And this was reported to the house, 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 10/ 
 
 though with some reluctance, by some 
 members of the committee, and severely 
 criticised in the house. But by the aid of 
 Randolph, Mr. Jefferson carried it through 
 the house. And it was thus fortunate that 
 the Viroinia Legislature was in session, 
 and the first to answer this overture by 
 His Majesty, through his subtle and art- 
 ful minister, Lord North. And equally 
 fortunate, that it preceded Mr. Jefferson's 
 going to the Continental Congress. Thus 
 ended the regal assembly in Virginia. It 
 adjourned on the 24th of June, 1774. 
 Wherefore, now began the fulfilment of 
 John Wilkes' prediction, made in the 
 House of Parliament in the preceding 
 February, in his condemnation of the British 
 Government. " If you persist," said he, 
 "in your resolution, all hope of reconcili- 
 ation is extinct. The Americans will 
 triumph. The whole continent of North 
 America will be dismembered from Great 
 Britain, and the wide arch of the raised 
 empire fall. But I hope the just ven- 
 geance of the people will overtake the 
 authors of these pernicious counsels." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 JEFFERSON IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON, having now 
 just passed his thirty-second year, 
 leaves the dehberations of the Virginia 
 Legislature for the first time, to supply the 
 place of Peyton Randolph, who (though 
 chairman of the Continental Congress) was 
 unwilling to be absent from Virginia at this 
 time. And Lord Dunmore was so much 
 alarmed at the decision of the Virginia 
 Legislature, that he fled for refuge on 
 board one of the British ships of war, and 
 declared he would never return, unless 
 they closed in with the conciliatory propo- 
 sition of Lord North. Nevertheless, he did 
 return ; but they would never afterwards 
 receive him nor respect his authority. 
 It will now be proper to remark, that as 
 
 early as 1773, at the meeting of the House 
 
 108 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. IO9 
 
 of Burgesses in Virginia, Mr. Jefferson 
 conceived the idea, and matured the plan, 
 with four of his associates, to form a Gen- 
 eral Congress of delegates from all the 
 colonies, as not only best, but, indeed, the 
 only plan for resisting British oppression, 
 and to establish and secure the constitu- 
 tional rlohts of the American colonies. 
 
 o 
 
 And now, after a long course of events, Mr. 
 Jefferson took his seat in that honorable 
 body, the Colonial Congress, to supply the 
 vacancy of Peyton Randolph, its chairman, 
 on the 2 1 St of June, 1775. His fame had 
 preceded him ; he brought with him a high 
 reputation for literature, science, and talent 
 for composidon. "Writings of his," says 
 John Adams, " were handed about, remark- 
 able for their peculiar felicity of expression." 
 And again he said, " he seized upon my 
 heart." And from all that we can learn, 
 these feelings of Mr. Adams were duly 
 appreciated and fully reciprocated by Mr. 
 Jefferson. John Adams was seven years 
 the senior of Jefferson, and John Hancock, 
 who was the* president of the Continental 
 
no LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Congress after Randolph, was six years his 
 senior, and Samuel Adams three, all of 
 whom were then representatives of Massa- 
 chusetts, from Boston. They were all 
 genial spirits, of one heart and mind in the 
 spirit of freedom and American indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 Six weeks had now elapsed since the 
 Continental Congress met the second time, 
 during which Mr. Jefferson felt it his duty 
 to continue his seat in Virginia, as has 
 been already stated, to meet, baffle, and 
 defeat the design of Lord North, and, if 
 possible, to effect a permanent union of all 
 the colonies. And now, on the 24th of 
 June, three days after he had taken his 
 seat in General Congress, the committee 
 which had been appointed to prepare a 
 declaration of the causes of taking up 
 arms brought in their report. And this 
 report being disapproved by a majority of 
 the house. It w^as recommitted ; and, singu-. 
 lar to say, Mr. Jefferson and M^. Dickin- 
 son were added to the committee. 
 
 But what Is likewise remarkable, this 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. Ill 
 
 committee requested Mr. Jefferson, who 
 had been only three days a member of 
 that body, to execute the draft. He mod- 
 estly declined, but, on being pressed by 
 strong solicitations, he consented. 
 
 And so, havin-o- brousfht his draft from 
 his study, he presented it to the committee, 
 and, as was expected, it proved too strong 
 for Mr. Dickinson, who was a celebrated 
 Philadelphia lawyer, and a great politician ; 
 also distinguished both as a writer and a 
 speaker. And he not only wished, but did 
 also his uttermost to effect, a reconciliation 
 with the mother country under the propo- 
 sition made by Lord North. Whence it 
 was doubtless the expectation, if not the in- 
 tention, that, by adding Messrs. Jefferson 
 and Dickinson to the committee, the whole 
 matter would be fully and ably discussed. 
 But in this respect Mr. Dickinson had 
 greatly the advantage, seeing Mr. Jefferson 
 was not a public speaker ; and at that time, 
 also, the public sympathy was, except in 
 Virginia, strongly in Mr. Dickinson's favor. 
 Whence, with his enthusiastic efforts and 
 
112 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 great ability as a speaker, he checked all 
 progress for the time being. For Con- 
 gress, believing Mr. Dickinson to be an 
 honest man, and having this great tide of 
 influence in his favor, showed him great 
 indulgence, as they requested him to take 
 the paper and remodel it according to his 
 own views. This was vox popitli vox Dei, 
 Wherefore he did so ; preparing a new 
 statement, and retained only the last four 
 paragraphs, and the last half of the pre- 
 ceding one of Mr. Jefferson's draft. 
 
 This statement of his, however, met with 
 but little favor by a large minority of the 
 house ; yet, for the sake of harmony, till 
 they could do better, they were reconciled, 
 and let it pass unanimously. And the vote 
 having passed, and all further observation 
 on it out of order ; yet Mr. Dickinson was 
 so delighted, that he could not refrain from 
 expressing his satisfaction ; and concluded, 
 saying, " There is but one word, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, in the paper which I disapprove, and 
 that is the word Congress ;'' on which Ben 
 Harrison rose, and said, " There is but one 
 
 I 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. II3 
 
 word In the paper, Mr. President, of which 
 I approve, and that Is the word Coii- 
 gressT It was, nevertheless, a great attain- 
 ment. A unity was now formed, and 
 thereby a soHd foundation was laid, on 
 which to build that superstructure of the 
 union of all the colonies, not only to refuse, 
 but likewise to resist, the delusive scheme 
 of Lord North, and ultimately to bring- 
 about the same stand which had already 
 been taken by Virginia. Wherefore, It is 
 justly proper here to record, that the por- 
 tion of Mr. Jefferson's draft which Mr. 
 Dickinson retained in his draft, written by 
 permission of Congcess to suit himself, and 
 In which the word Congrress v/as all that he 
 disapproved, must now receive attention. 
 The following is a copy left by Mr. Jeffer- 
 son of that return of his draft. " We are 
 reduced to the alternative of choosing an 
 unconditional submission to the tyranny of 
 irritated ministers, or resistance by force. 
 The latter is our choice. We have counted 
 the cost of this contest, and find nothing so 
 dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honor, jus- 
 
 10* H 
 
114 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 tice, and humanity forbid us tamely to sur- 
 render that freedom which we received 
 from our gallant ancestors, and which our 
 innocent posterity have a right to receive 
 from us. We cannot endure the Infamy 
 and guilt of resigning succeeding genera- 
 tions to that wretchedness which Inevitably 
 awaits them, If we basely entail hereditary 
 bondage upon them. Our cause Is just. 
 Our union Is perfect. Our Internal re- 
 sources are great ; and, If necessary, foreign 
 assistance Is undoubtedly attainable. We 
 gratefully acknowledge, as signal Instances 
 of the Divine favor towards us, that His 
 providence would not permit us to be called 
 into this severe controversy until we were 
 grown up to our present strength, had been 
 previously exercised In warlike operations, 
 and possessed of the means of defending 
 ourselves. With hearts fortified with these 
 animating reflections, we most solemnly, 
 before God and the world, declare, that, exert- 
 ing the utmost energy of those powers which 
 our beneficent Creator hath graciously be- 
 stowed on us, the arms we have been com- 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. II5 
 
 pelled by our enemies to assume, we will, 
 in defiance of every hazard, with unabating 
 firmness and perseverance, employ for the 
 preservation of our liberties; being with 
 one mind resolved to die freemen, rather 
 than to live slaves. 
 
 "Lest this declaration should disquiet the 
 minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in 
 any part of the empire, we assure them, that 
 we mean not to dissolve that union which has 
 so long and so happily subsisted between 
 us, and which we sincerely wish to see re- 
 stored ; necessity has not yet driven us into 
 that desperate measure, or induced us to 
 excite any other nation to war against them. 
 We have not raised armies with ambitious 
 designs of separating from Great Britain, 
 and establishing independent states. We 
 fight not for glory or for conquest. We 
 exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle 
 of a people attacked by unprovoked ene- 
 mies, without any imputation, or even sus- 
 picion of offence. They boast of their 
 privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no 
 milder conditions to us than servitude or 
 death. 
 
Il6 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ''In our own native land, in defence of the 
 freedom that is our birthright, and which 
 we ever enjoyed until the late violation of 
 it — for the protection of our property, ac- 
 quired solely by the honest industry of our 
 forefathers and ourselves, against violence 
 actually offered, we have taken up arms. 
 We shall lay them down when hostilities 
 shall cease on the part of the aggressors, 
 and all dano^er of their beinor renewed shall 
 be removed, and not before. 
 
 " With an humble confidence on the mer- 
 cies of the Supreme and impartial Judge 
 and Ruler of the universe, we most devoudy 
 implore His divine goodness to protect us 
 happily through this great conflict ; to dis- 
 pose our adversaries to reconciliation on 
 reasonable terms, and thereby to relieve the 
 empire from the calamities of civil war." 
 
 This declaration was published to the 
 army by General Washington, and pro- 
 claimed from the pulpit, with great so- 
 lemnity, by the ministers of religion. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 REPLY TO LORD NORTH's PROPOSITION. 
 
 ON the 22d of July, (1775,) Congress 
 took into consideration the cele- 
 brated proposed conciliatory proposition of 
 Lord North. It was a grave as well as a 
 difficult question to settle, and now suf- 
 ficient time had elapsed for it to have been 
 thoroughly weighed, examined, and its true 
 import seen. In a word, it was now not 
 only proper, but absolutely necessary, that 
 it should be met firmly, specifically, and 
 absolutely. And to this end. Congress 
 decided to make choice of a committee 
 elected by ballot ; the number of votes 
 which each received should decide his 
 situation on the committee ; which resulted 
 in the following order : Dr. Franklin, Mr. 
 Jefiferson, John Adams, and Richard H. 
 
 Lee. This settled the question of the fit- 
 
 117 
 
Il8 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 test persons to perform this most arduous 
 and difficult task. And it has ever been 
 admitted that a stronger and more wise 
 and judicious selection could not have been 
 made. The answer which Mr. Jefferson 
 had given to this proposition made by 
 Lord North, when presented to the Vir- 
 ginia Legislature by the British Governor, 
 Dunmore, was doubtless well known ; and 
 therefore, by his election as second on this 
 committee, plainly manifested the feeling 
 of Congress. But as a still further proof 
 and confirmation of this, the committee 
 chosen requested Mr. Jefferson to prepare 
 the present report ; and he accordingly con- 
 sented, and also, as was his practice, re- 
 tained a copy thereof for his own use, as 
 he did of all his reports, and the amend- 
 ments or corrections, and therefore they 
 form the principal part of this biographical 
 sketch. The report written by Mr. Jeffer- 
 son, and approved by the committee, was 
 also adopted by Congress as follows : 
 
 "That the colonies of America are entitled 
 to the sole and exclusive privilege of giving 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. II9 
 
 and granting their own money ; that this 
 involves a rio^ht of deHberatlne" whether 
 they will make any gift, for what purpose 
 it shall be made, and what shall be its 
 amount ; that it is a hio-h breach of this 
 privilege, for any body of men, extraneous 
 of their constitutions, to prescribe the pur- 
 pose for which money shall be levied on 
 them ; to take to themselves the authority 
 of judging of their conditions, circum- 
 stances, and situations ; and of determining 
 the amount of the contributions to be levied ; 
 and that, as the colonies possess a right 
 of appropriating their gifts, so are they 
 entitled, at all times, to inquire into their 
 application, to see that they are not wasted 
 among the venial and corrupt, for the pur- 
 pose of undermining the civil rights of the 
 givers, nor yet be diverted to the support 
 of standing armies, inconsistent with free- 
 dom, and subversive of their quiet. 
 
 " To propose therefore, as this resolution 
 does, that the moneys given by the colonies 
 shall be subject to the disposal of Parlia- 
 ment alone, is to propose that they shall 
 
120 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 relinquish this right of inquiry, and put it 
 in the power of others to render their gifts 
 ruinous, in proportion as they are hberal. 
 
 *'That this privilege of giving or with- 
 holding our moneys is an important barrier 
 against the undue exertion of prerogative, 
 which, if left altogether without control, 
 may be exercised to our great oppression ; 
 and all history shows how efficacious is its 
 intercession for redress of grievances and 
 re- establishment of rights, and how im- 
 provident it would be to part with so 
 powerful a mediator. 
 
 "We are of opinion, that the proposi- 
 tion contained in this resolution is un- 
 reasonable and insidious. Unreasonable ; 
 because, if we declare we accede to it, we 
 declare, without reservation, we will pur- 
 chase the favor of Parliament, not know- 
 ing, at the same time, at what price they 
 will please to estimate their favor. In- 
 sidious ; because individual colonies having 
 bid and bidden again, till they find the 
 avidity of the seller too great for all their 
 powers to satisfy, are then to return into 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 121 
 
 opposition divided from dieir sister colonies, 
 whom the minister will have previously de- 
 tached, by a grant of easier terms, or by 
 an artful procrastination of a definitive 
 answer. 
 
 ''That the suspension of the exercise of 
 their pretended power of taxation, being 
 expressly made commensurate with the 
 continuance of our gifts, these must be 
 perpetual to make that so. Whereas no 
 experience has shown that a gift of perpetual 
 revenue secures a perpetual return of duty, 
 or of kind disposition. On the contrary, the 
 Parliament itself, wisely attentive to the 
 observation, is in the established practice 
 of granting its supplies from year to year 
 only. 
 
 " Desirous and determined as we are, 
 to consider, in the most dispassionate view, 
 every seeming advance towards a recon- 
 ciliation made by the British Parliament, let 
 our brethren of Britain reflect what would 
 have been the sacrifice to men of free 
 spirits, had even fair terms been proffered, 
 as these insidious proposals were, with 
 
122 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 circumstances of insult or defiance. A 
 proposition to give our money, accom- 
 panied with large fleets and armies, seems 
 addressed to our fears rather than to our 
 freedom. With what patience could Britons 
 have received articles of a treaty from any 
 power on earth, when borne on the point 
 of a bayonet by military plenipotentiaries ? 
 We think the attempt unnecessary to raise 
 upon us, by force or by threats, our pro- 
 portional contributions to the common de- 
 fence, when all know, and themselves ac- 
 knowledge, we have fully contributed, 
 whenever called upon to do so, in the 
 character of freemen. 
 
 "We are of the opinion it is not just 
 that the colonies should be required to 
 oblige themselves to other contributions, 
 while Great Britian possesses a monopoly 
 of their trade. This of itself lays them 
 under heavy contribution. To demand, 
 therefore, additional aids, in the form of a 
 tax, is to demand the double of their equal 
 proportion. If we contribute equally with 
 other parts of the empire, let us equally 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I23 
 
 with them enjoy free commerce with the 
 whole world ; but while the restrictions on 
 our trade shut to us the resources of wealth, 
 is it just we should bear all other burdens 
 equally with those to whom every resource 
 is open ? 
 
 " We conceive that the British Parlia- 
 ment has no ricrht to intermeddle with our 
 provisions for the support of civil govern- 
 ment or administration of justice. The 
 provisions we have made are such as 
 please ourselves, and are agreeable to 
 our own circumstances. They answer the 
 substantial purposes of government and 
 of justice ; and other purposes than these 
 should not be answered. We do not mean 
 that our people shall be burdened with 
 oppressive taxes, to provide sinecures for- 
 the idle or the wicked, under color of pro- 
 vidine for a civil list. While Parliament 
 pursue their plan of civil government with- 
 in their own jurisdiction, we also hope to 
 pursue ours without molestation. 
 
 " We are of opinion the proposition is 
 altogether unsatisfactory ; because it im- 
 
124 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ports only a suspension of the mode, not 
 a renunciation of the pretended right to 
 tax us ; because, too, it does not propose 
 to repeal the several acts of Parliament, 
 passed for the purposes of restraining the 
 trade, and altering the form of government 
 of one of our colonies ; extending the 
 boundaries and changing the government 
 of Quebec ; enlarging the jurisdiction of 
 the courts of admiralty and vice-admiralty; 
 taking from us the right of a trial by jury 
 of the vicinage, in cases affecUng both life 
 and property ; transporting us into other 
 countries, to be tried for criminal oftences; 
 exempting, by mock trial, the murderers of 
 colonists from punishment; and quartering 
 soldiers on us in times of profound peace. 
 Nor do they renounce the power of sus- 
 pending our own Legislatures, and legislat- 
 ing for us themselves, in all cases whatso- 
 ever. On the contrary, to show they mean 
 no discontinuance of injury, they pass acts, 
 at the very time of holding out this propo- 
 sition, for restraining the commerce and 
 fisheries of the Provinces of New Enrfand ; 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 125 
 
 and for interdicting the trade of other 
 colonies with all foreign nations, and with 
 each other. This proves unequivocally 
 they mean not to relinquish the exercise 
 of indiscriminate legislation over us. 
 
 " Upon the whole, this proposition seems 
 to have been held up to the whole world 
 to deceive It Into a belief that there was 
 nothing in dispute between us but the 
 mode of levying taxes ; and that the Parlia- 
 ment having been now so good as to 
 give up this, the colonies are unreason- 
 able. If not perfectly satisfied. Whereas, 
 In truth, our adversaries still claim a right 
 of demanding, ad libitum, and of taxing 
 us themselves, to the full amount of their 
 demand. If we do comply with it. This 
 leaves us without any thing we can call 
 property; but, what Is of more Importance, 
 and what. In this proposal, they keep out 
 of sight, as If no such point was now In 
 contest between us, they claim a right to 
 alter our charters, and establish laws, and 
 leave us without any security for our lives 
 or liberties. 
 
126 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ''The proposition seems also to have 
 been calculated, more particularly, to lull 
 into fatal security our well-affected fellow- 
 subjects on the other side of the water, 
 till time should be given for the operation 
 of those arms which a British minister 
 pronounced would, instantaneously, re- 
 duce the cowardly sons of America to un- 
 reserved submission. But when the world 
 reflects how inadequate to justice are these 
 vaunted terms ; when it attends to the 
 rapid and bold succession of injuries which 
 during a course of eleven years have been 
 aimed at the colonies ; when it reviews the 
 pacific and respectful expostulations which 
 during that whole time were the sole arms 
 we opposed to them ; when it observes 
 that our complaints were either not heard 
 at all, or were answered with new and ac- 
 cumulated injuries; when it recollects that 
 the minister himself, on an early occasion, 
 declared ' that he would never treat with 
 America till he had brought her to his 
 feet ; ' that an avowed partisan of ministry 
 has, more lately, denounced against us the 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 12/ 
 
 dreadful sentence, ' del enda est Carthago ;' 
 and that this was done in presence of a 
 British Senate, and being unreproved by 
 them, must be taken to be their own senti- 
 ments, especially as the purpose has already, 
 in part, been carried into execution, by 
 their treatment of Boston and burnincr of 
 Charlestown ; when it considers the ereat 
 armaments with which they have invaded 
 us, and the circumstances of cruelty with 
 which these have commenced and prosecu- 
 ted hostilities ; when these things, we say, 
 are laid together, and attentively con- 
 sidered, can the world be deceived into an 
 opinion that we are unreasonable ? or can 
 it hesitate to believe, with us, that nothing 
 but our own exertions may defeat the 
 ministerial sentence of death or abject sub- 
 mission ? " 
 
 Mr. Jefferson having put to silence the 
 ignorance of foolish men, and thoroughly 
 unmasked the subtlety of the British Gov- 
 ernment, in the scheme devised by Lord 
 North, and thereby showed that an "honest 
 man was the noblest work of God," all the 
 American colonies were now brought to 
 
128 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 see more clearly their real state and con- 
 dition, and to bring all further consider- 
 ations of adjustment to a close, as it had 
 been already done in Virginia ; and to 
 establish that adjustment permanently by a 
 declaration of independence, and establish 
 a form of government commensurate with 
 the true spirit of independence. 
 
 On the ist of August, (1775,) Congress 
 adjourned to meet again on the 5th of 
 September. For what specific object is 
 not mentioned. The time for which Mr. 
 Jefferson was elected to serve now closed ; 
 he had been in Congress but little over a 
 month, and, although the youngest member 
 thereof, having just passed his thirty-second 
 year, was chosen next to the sage philoso- 
 pher and statesman, Dr. Franklin, in the 
 election of the committee to consider the 
 proposals of Lord North, and by that com- 
 mittee chosen to do that for which it had 
 been constituted; while Franklin was twenty- 
 three years his senior, and the first chosen 
 on the committee, which exhibits an instance 
 of superiority in Mr. Jefferson's ability not 
 to be found in the pages of history. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 LETTERS TO A FRIEND. 
 
 AFTER Mr. Jefferson's arduous and 
 incessant labors, first in the Virginia 
 Leoislature, and then in Cono-ress, his re- 
 turn to his quiet and pleasant home, Monti- 
 cello, was to him a most delightful change, 
 — a rest to both body and mind, and, we 
 may also add, rest to his soul, for having 
 discharged so ably and faithfully his duty 
 towards God and his duty towards his 
 neighbor. And now, being freed from 
 those weighty^ responsibilities and cares, 
 his calm reflections would naturally turn to 
 the past, the present, and the future, to un- 
 fold itself in its true character. This is 
 manifest from a letter which he penned on 
 the 25th of August, 1775, just four weeks 
 from the adjournment of Congress, to his 
 
 old friend from whom, in his youth, he had 
 I 129 
 
130 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 received so much valuable instruction, and 
 who, by reason of the troubles in Virginia, 
 had thouorht it safe for him to return to 
 Enoland. 
 
 " Dear Sir: — I am sorry the situation of 
 our country should render it not eligible to 
 you to remain longer in it. I hope the re- 
 turninor wisdom of Great Britain will, ere 
 long, put an end to this unnatural contest. 
 There may be people to whose tempers 
 and dispositions contention Is pleasing, and 
 who, therefore, wish a continuance of con- 
 fusion ; but to me it is, of all states but one, 
 the most horrid. My first wish is a resto- 
 ration of our just rights; my second, a re- 
 turn of the happy period when, consistently 
 with duty, I may withdraw myself totally 
 from the public stage, and pass the rest of 
 my days In domestic ease and tranquillity, 
 banishing every desire of ever hearing 
 what passes in the world. Perhaps (for 
 the latter adds considerably to the warmth 
 of the former wish), looking with fondness 
 towards a reconciliation with Great Britain, 
 I cannot help hoping you may be able to 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I3I 
 
 contribute towards expediting this good 
 work. I think it must be evident to your- 
 self, that the ministry have been deceived 
 by their officers on this side of the water, 
 who (for what purpose, I cannot tell) have 
 constantly represented the American oppo- 
 sition as that of a small faction, in which 
 the body of the people took little part. 
 This, you can inform them, of your own 
 knowledge, is untrue. They have taken it 
 into their heads, too, that we are cowards, 
 and shall surrender at discretion to an 
 armed force. The past and future opera- 
 tions of the war must confirm or undeceive 
 them on that head. I wish they were 
 thoroughly and minutely acquainted with 
 every circumstance relative to America, as 
 it exists in truth. I am persuaded this 
 would go far towards disposing them to 
 reconciliation. Even those in Parliament 
 who are called friends to America, seem to 
 know nothing of our real determinations. 
 I observe they pronounced in the last 
 Parliament diat the Congress of 1774 did 
 not mean to insist rigorously on the terms 
 
132 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 they held out, but kept something in reserve 
 to give up; and in fact, that they would give 
 up everything but the article of taxation. 
 Now the truth is far from this, as I can 
 affirm, and put my honor to the assertion. 
 Their continuance in this error may, per- 
 haps, produce very ill consequences. The 
 Congress stated the lowest terms they 
 thought possible to be accepted, in order to 
 convince the world they were not unreason- 
 able. They gave up the monopoly and regu- 
 lation of trade, and all acts of Parliament 
 prior to 1764, leaving to British generosity 
 to render these, at some future time, as 
 easy to America as the interest of Britain 
 would admit. But this was before blood 
 was spilt. I cannot affirm, but have reason 
 to think, these terms would not now be ac- 
 cepted. I wish no false sense of honor, no 
 ignorance of our real intentions, no vain 
 hope that partial concessions of right will 
 be accepted, may induce the ministry to 
 trifle with accommodation, till it shall be 
 out of their power ever to accommodate. 
 If, indeed, Great Britain, disjoined from her 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I33 
 
 colonies, be a match for the most potent 
 nations of Europe, with the colonies thrown 
 into their scale, they may go security. But 
 if they are not assured of this, it would be 
 certainly unwise, by trying the event of 
 another campaign, to risk our accepting a 
 foreign aid, which, perhaps, may not be 
 obtainable, but on condition of everlasting 
 avulsion from Great Britain. This would 
 be thought a hard condition to those who 
 still wish for reunion with their parent 
 country. I am sincerely one of those, and 
 would rather be in dependence on Great 
 Britain, properly limited, than on any nation 
 upon earth, or than on no nation. But I 
 am one of those, too, who, rather than sub- 
 mit to the rights of legislating for us, as- 
 sumed by the British Parliament, and which 
 late experience has shown they will so 
 cruelly exercise, would lend my hand to 
 sink the whole island in the ocean. 
 
 " If undeceiving the minister, as to mat- 
 ters of fact, may change his disposition, it 
 will perhaps be in your power, by assist- 
 ing to do this, to render service to the 
 
134 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 whole empire at the most critical time 
 certainly that it has ever seen. Whether 
 Britain shall continue the head of the 
 greatest empire on earth, or shall return 
 to her original station in the political scale 
 of Europe, depends, perhaps, on the resolu- 
 tions of the succeedinor winter. God send 
 they may be wise, and salutary for us all. 
 I shall be glad to hear from you as often 
 as you may be disposed to think of things 
 here. You may be at liberty, I expect, to 
 communicate some things, consistently with 
 your honor and the duties you will owe to 
 a protecting nadon. Such communication 
 among individuals may be mutually bene- 
 ficial to the contending parties. On this 
 or any future occasion, if I affirm to you 
 any facts, your knowledge of me will en- 
 able you to decide on their credibility ; if I 
 hazard opinions on the dispositions of men, 
 or other speculative points, you can only 
 know they are my opinions. My best wishes 
 for your felicity attend you wherever you 
 go; and believe me to be, assuredly, your 
 friend and servant." 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I35 
 
 Mr. Jefferson was again elected by the 
 Virginia Legislature, in August, 1775, to 
 the Continental Congress, to meet in Phila- 
 delphia on the 5th of September. But as 
 nothing occurred or was done to call forth 
 the productions of his pen, we have no 
 history of their proceedings at that session. 
 But whilst there, he again addressed, on 
 November the 29th, the following letter to 
 his much revered English friend : 
 
 " Dear Sir. ... It is an immense mis- 
 fortune to the whole empire, to have a 
 king of such a disposition at such a time. 
 We are told, and everything proves it true, 
 that he is the bitterest enemy we have. 
 His minister is able, and that satisfies me 
 that ignorance or wickedness somewhere 
 controls him. In an earlier part of this 
 contest, our petitions told him that from 
 our king there was but one appeal. The 
 admonition was despised, and that appeal 
 forced on us. To undo his empire, he has 
 but one truth more to learn — that after 
 colonies have drawn the sword, there is 
 but one step more they can take. That step 
 is now pressed upon us by the measures 
 
136 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 adopted, as If they were afraid we would 
 not take it. Believe me, dear sir, there is 
 not in the British empire a man who more 
 cordially loves a union with Great Britain 
 than I do. But, by the God that made me, 
 I will cease to exist, before I yield to a con- 
 nection on such terms as the British Parlia- 
 ment propose ; and in this I think 1 speak 
 the sentiments of America. We want 
 neither inducement nor power to declare 
 and assert a separation. It is will alone 
 which is wanting ; and that is growing 
 apace under the fostering hand of our king. 
 One bloody campaign will probably decide 
 everlastingly our future course. I am sorry 
 to find a bloody campaign is decided on. 
 If our winds and waters should not com- 
 bine to rescue their shores from slavery, 
 and General Howe's reinforcement should 
 arrive in safety, we have hopes he will be 
 inspired to come out of Boston and take 
 another drubbing ; and we must drub him 
 soundly, before the sceptered tyrant will 
 know we are not mere brutes to crouch 
 under his hand, and kiss the rod with which 
 he deio-ns to scourtre us. Yours, etc." 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I37 
 
 The spirit and character of this com- 
 munication shows m.ost clearly and con- 
 clusively that a mighty change had taken 
 place in the state of affairs and the con- 
 ditions of our relation with the mother 
 country, from the 25th of August and 29th 
 of November, 1775. In which time Jeffer- 
 son's reply to Lord North's proposition, 
 and adopted by Congress on the ist of 
 August, had excited the British ministry, 
 and Parliament of Great Britain, to their 
 highest indignation and spirit of revenge ; 
 and which was being met by the American 
 colonies wath a stern resolution to resist. 
 Hence there is a corresponding marked 
 difference in the first and the last letter of 
 Mr. Jefferson's in that brief space of time, 
 as evinced in the spirit and character of 
 his first and second letters ; but of which 
 we have no history given concerning it. 
 
 Although the popular Convention of 
 Virginia, in June, 1775, rejected the propo- 
 sition of Lord North, declarinor itself in- 
 dependent of Great Britain, and likewise 
 providing an armed force for the defence 
 
138 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 of the colony ; yet they took no measures 
 for its government beyond that of its 
 legislature. And this being assembled in 
 Williamsburg, on the 6th of May, 1776, 
 after electinor their delegates to Coneress, 
 among whom was Thomas Jefferson, they 
 likewise took action to establish an inde- 
 pendent form of government. This sub- 
 ject was brought forward by Col. Archibald 
 Cary, a man of herculean stature and force 
 of character, on the 15th of May. Where- 
 upon a committee of thirty-four was ap- 
 pointed, including Col. George Mason, 
 who was requested to draw^ up a declara- 
 tion of rights, with a preamble and con- 
 stitution for Virginia. 
 
 Now, although Mr. Jefferson had taken 
 his seat, with the other delegates, in the 
 Colonial Congress; yet looking upon Vir- 
 ginia as the stronghold of American Inde- 
 pendence, and not knowing exactly how 
 the Legislature was progressing, he drew 
 up a declaration of rights and constitution 
 for Virginia, which he transmitted to his 
 friend George Wythe. But it did not 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1 39 
 
 arrive before the constitution prepared by 
 Col. George Mason had passed, and was 
 adopted by the committee of the whole, it 
 being- then too late for further action. 
 Nevertheless, Jefferson's preamble and 
 some of his modifications were adopted ; 
 which accounts for the resemblance found 
 therein to the Declaration of Independence. 
 The constitution and declaration of Amer- 
 ican rights in Virginia were adopted unan- 
 imously on the 29th of June, 1776, and was 
 thus the first establishment of self-govern- 
 ment, by a written compact, in the western 
 continent, and perhaps in the whole world. 
 And it likewise formed a model for all the 
 other states, as they successively recovered 
 themselves from the present monarchy. 
 
 This was a capital success, and did much 
 towards securing the independence of all 
 the colonies, and the formation of state 
 governments. It was so regarded by Mr. 
 Jefferson at the time; as we may justly 
 infer from a letter which he wrote in 1824, 
 about two years before his death, to Major 
 John Cartwright, an English friend, who 
 had left the English service previous to 
 
T40 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 1774, and become a warm advocate for the 
 American colonies. "Virginia, of which I 
 am myself a native and resident, was not 
 only the first of the states, but, I believe I 
 may say, the first of the nations of the 
 earth which assembled its wise men" peace- 
 ably together, to form a fundamental con- 
 stitution, to commit it to writing and place 
 it among their archives, where every one 
 should be free to appeal to its text. But 
 this act was very imperfect. The other 
 states as they proceeded successfully to 
 the same work, made successive improve- 
 ments, and several of them, still further cor- 
 rected by experience, have, by conventions, 
 still further amended their first forms. My 
 own state has gone so far with its premiere 
 cbauche ; but it is now proposing to call a 
 convention for amendment. Among the 
 other improvements, I hope they will adopt 
 the subdivision of our counties into wards. 
 The former may be estimated at an average 
 of twenty-four miles square; the latter 
 should be about six miles square each, and 
 would answer to the hundreds of your 
 Saxon Alfred. In each of these might be : 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I4I 
 
 I. An elementary school. 2. A company 
 of militia with its officers. 3. A justice of 
 the peace and constable. 4. Each ward 
 should take care of their own poor. 5. 
 Their own roads. 6. Their own police. 
 7. Elect within themselves one or more 
 jurors to attend the courts of justice. 
 And 8. Give in at their Folk-house, their 
 votes for all functionaries reserved to their 
 election. Each ward would thus be a 
 small republic within itself, and every man 
 in the state would thus become an acting 
 member of the common ofovernment, trans- 
 acting in person a great portion of its 
 rights and duties, subordinate indeed, yet 
 important and entirely within his com- 
 petence. The wit of man cannot devise a 
 more solid basis for a free, durable, and 
 well administered republic." 
 
 In this connection it is proper to state 
 also, that the colony of Virginia, while de- 
 claring itself an independent state, and 
 having appointed a committee to form a 
 constitution for its own government, like- 
 wise adopted the following resolution of in- 
 structions to her delegates in Congress : 
 
142 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ''Resolved, unanimously ,\}iS2X the delegates 
 appointed to represent this colony in Gen- 
 eral Congress, be instructed to propose to 
 that respectable body to declare the united 
 colonies free and independent states, ab- 
 solved from all allegiance to or dependence 
 upon the Crown or Parliament of Great 
 Britain ; and that they give the assent of 
 this colony to such declaration, and to 
 whatever measures may be thought proper 
 and necessary by the Congress, for forming 
 foreicrn alliances, and a confederation of the 
 colonies, at such time, place, or manner as to 
 them shall seem best. Provided, that the 
 power of forming government for, and the 
 regulation of, the internal concerns of each 
 colony, be left to the respective colonial 
 Legislatures." This was highly com- 
 mended, and superinduced other colonies 
 to take the same step. 
 
 During this time. May, 1776, the Vir- 
 ginia deleoates in Congress were not idle, 
 nor slow to advance the same views, and 
 in the same spirit, as were expressed in the 
 Virginia resolutions. And the intelligence 
 of this auspicious document was received 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I43 
 
 with a feeling of approbation throughout 
 the colonies by a large majority, and 
 became the slo^nal for like manifestations 
 by other legislatures ; wherefore, a majority 
 of the representatives was soon Instructed 
 to do likewise. Nevertheless, a large mi- 
 nority still clung to the supposed ties which 
 bound them in conscience and honor to the 
 parent government. But most opportunely 
 for removing this, the parent government, 
 by an act of Parliament, declared the colo- 
 nies In a state of rebellion, and out of the 
 protection of the British Crown. Whence 
 they now plainly perceived that Great Brit- 
 ain had herself declared them indepen- 
 dent, and no longer under her protection. 
 Wherefore, the colonies were all brought 
 to see, and think, and feel that their only 
 safety was by a union and combination 
 amonof themselves. 
 
 Now, by a remarkable coincidence. Con- 
 gress, on the 15th of May (the same day 
 on which the Virginia Legislature adopted 
 her Instructions to her delegates), recom- 
 mended the several colonies to establish 
 independent governments of their own. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 ON the 28th of May, upon motion of 
 Mr. Jefferson, Congress resolved 
 " that an animated address be pubHshed, to 
 impress the minds of the people with the 
 necessity of now stepping forward to save 
 their country, their freedom, and their 
 property." Being appointed chairman of 
 the committee upon this resolution, he pre- 
 pared the address, which was conceived 
 and expressed in a manner that carried 
 conviction and courage to the breast of 
 every man who had a just conception of 
 the sad state of affairs. The delegates 
 from Virginia were the first to receive in- 
 structions, which arrived early in June ; and 
 they immediately held a conference to ar- 
 range the preliminaries for acting upon 
 
 them. Richard H. Lee, being the oldest in 
 
 144 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I45 
 
 the delegation, and happily endowed with 
 extraordinary powers of eloquence, was 
 designated to make the introductory mo- 
 tion, and the yth of June was ordered 
 as the day. Accordingly, on that day, he 
 rose from his seat and moved that Con- 
 gress should declare, "That these united 
 colonies are and of right ought to be free 
 and independent states; that they are ab- 
 solved from all alleo^iance to the British 
 crown, and that all political connection be- 
 tween them and the state of Great Britain 
 is and ought to be totally dissolved ; that 
 measures should be immediately taken lor 
 procuring the assistance of foreign powers, 
 and a confederation formed to bind the 
 colonies more closely together." 
 
 The proposition was deferred to the next 
 day, when the members were ordered to 
 attend punctually at ten o'clock. 
 
 And so, on Saturday, June 8th, Con- 
 gress proceeded to take the subject into 
 consideration, and it was referred to the 
 committee of the whole, into which they 
 resolved themselves during that day, and 
 
 i^ K 
 
146 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Monday the loth was spent in warm and 
 vehement debates. 
 
 Messrs. Dickinson and Wilson, of Penn- 
 sylvania, Robert Livingston, of New York, 
 and Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, 
 and others opposed it. Mr. Jefferson, John 
 and Samuel Adams, Lee, Wythe, and others, 
 supported it ; and it was very fully and 
 ably discussed pro and con ; and the heads 
 of the arguments were preserved by Mr. 
 Jefferson, which, though interesting at that 
 time, can be of little interest at the pres- 
 ent. But from the strength of opposition, 
 it was deemed impolitic to press it at that 
 time. Nevertheless, that this might occa- 
 sion as little delay as possible, a committee 
 was appointed to prepare a Declaration of 
 Independence, on the same plan as was 
 adopted to meet the proposition of Lord 
 North, viz., those receiving the highest 
 number of votes ; and of these, the one 
 havinor the hiofhcst to be the head of the 
 committee. Mr. Jefferson having the high- 
 est, was the head, and the others in order 
 were John Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I47 
 
 Sherman, and Robert Livingston. The 
 committee unanimously soHcited Mr. Jeffer- 
 son to prepare the draft of the Declara- 
 tion. 
 
 Jefferson drew it accordingly, but before 
 submitting it to the committee, he commu- 
 nicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and 
 Mr. Adams, with a view to avail himself 
 of the benefit of their criticisms. And they 
 approved it, but suggested two or three 
 verbal alterations, that might soften some- 
 what the original phraseology. The com- 
 mittee unanimously approved it, and it was 
 reported to Congress on Friday, the 28th 
 of June, when it was read and ordered to 
 lie on the table. 
 
 On Monday, the ist of July, the house 
 resolved itself into a committee of the 
 whole, and resumed the consideration of 
 the preliminary motion, viz.. To declare the 
 united colonies free and independent 
 states, etc. It was debated again through 
 the day, and finally carried in the affirm- 
 ative by the votes of New Hampshire, 
 Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
 
148 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North 
 Carolina, and Georgia; South Carolina and 
 Pennsylvania voted against it. Delaware 
 had but two members^ present, and they 
 were divided. The delegates from New 
 York declared they were for it themselves, 
 and were assured their constituents were 
 for it, but that their instructions having 
 been drawn near a twelvemonth before, 
 when reconciliation was still the general 
 object, they were enjoined by them to do 
 nothing which should impede that object. 
 They, therefore, thought themselves not 
 justifiable in voting on either side, and 
 asked leave to withdraw from the question ; 
 which was granted them. Then the com- 
 mittee rose and reported their resolution 
 to the house. 
 
 Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, then 
 requested the determination might be put 
 off to the next day, as he believed his col- 
 leagues, though they disapproved of the 
 resolution, would then join in it for the 
 sake of unanimity. The ultimate decision 
 by the house was accordingly postponed 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I49 
 
 to the next clay, July 2cl, when it was again 
 moved, and South Carolina concurred in 
 voting for it ; and, in the meantime, a third 
 member from Delaware in favor of it ar- 
 rived, and turned the vote of Delaware for 
 it ; and members of a different sentiment 
 from Pennsylvania also attending that 
 morning, changed her vote. So, finally, 
 the members from New York, though for 
 it, were allowed to withdraw, for the want 
 of instructions to do so. The Convention 
 of New York on the 9th of July approved 
 of it. 
 
 Congress proceeded on the 2d of July 
 to consider the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, which had been reported on the 
 28th of June and ordered to lie on the 
 table, The debates were again renewed 
 with great violence, even greater than 
 before; but in these Mr. Jefferson took no' 
 part. Among the advocates for the declara- 
 tion, Mr. Jefferson himself considered John 
 Adams the ablest and the best ; and thirty 
 years after he called him "our Colossus on 
 the floor. Not graceful nor elegant, not 
 13* 
 
150 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 always fluent in his public address, he yet 
 came out with a power, both of thought 
 and expression, which moved us from our 
 seats." And he assigned to John Adams 
 the pre-eminent '$>\2X\or\, prhmis inter pm^es. 
 There were a few slio^ht alterations made 
 and some parts stricken out, principally 
 those having reference to African slavery ; 
 reflecting upon the British Government for 
 introducing it; and those interested with 
 them in the slave - trade, as also those 
 wishing that traffic to be perpetuated. And 
 w^hile these changes were being made, the 
 good-humored Dr. Franklin, sitting near 
 Mr. Jeft'erson, and seeing him agonized 
 under the strictures, comforted him with 
 the following anecdote. 
 
 " I have made it a rule, whenever it is in 
 my power, to avoid becoming the draughts- 
 man of papers to be reviewed by a public 
 body. I took my lesson from an incident 
 which I will relate to you. When I was a 
 journeyman printer, one of my companions, 
 an apprentice hatter, having served out his 
 time, was about to open a shop for himself. 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I5I 
 
 His first concern was to have a handsome 
 sign-board, with a proper inscription. He 
 composed it in these words, ' John Thomp- 
 son, hattei% makes and sells hats for ready 
 money' with the figure of the hat subjoined. 
 But he thouofht he would submit it to his 
 friends for their amendments. 
 
 *' The first he showed it to, thought the 
 word hatter tautologous, because followed 
 by the words makes hats, which shows he 
 was a hatter ; it was struck out. The next 
 observed that the word snakes might as 
 well be omitted, because his customers 
 would not care who made the hats ; if good, 
 and to their minds, they would buy, by 
 whomsoever made. He struck it out. A 
 third said he thought the words for ready 
 7noney were useless, as it was not the cus- 
 tom of the place to sell on credit ; every 
 one who purchased expected to pay. They 
 were parted with, and the inscription now 
 stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.' 'Sells 
 hats!' says his next friend; 'Why, nobody 
 will expect you to give them away. What 
 then is the use of the word?' It was 
 
152 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Stricken out, and hats followed, the ratHer, 
 as there was one painted on the board ; so 
 his inscription was reduced ultimately to 
 'John Thompson,' with the figure of the hat 
 subjoined." 
 
 Mr. Jefferson kept a copy of the original 
 draft, as also of all the changes and amend- 
 ments, July 4th, 1776. Yet it is useless to 
 give any of them. I think it proper to give 
 the original draft, as written by Mr. Jeffer- 
 son, also approved by all the committee, 
 and reported to the house. The following 
 is as it came from their hands. 
 
 The Declaradon of Independence as it 
 was written by Thomas Jefferson, and 
 unanimously approved by the committee. 
 Whereupon it was reported to Congress 
 on Friday, the 28th of June, and ordered to 
 be laid on the table. 
 
 "When, in the course of human events, 
 it becomes necessary for one people to dis- 
 solve the political bands which have con- 
 nected them with another, and to assume, 
 among the powers of the earth, the sepa- 
 rate and equal station to which the laws of 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I53 
 
 nature and of nature's God entitle them, a 
 decent respect to the opinions of mankind 
 requires that they should declare the causes 
 which impel them to the separation. 
 
 " We hold these truths to be self-evident : 
 that all men are created equal ; that they 
 are endowed by their Creator with inherent 
 and unalienable rights ; that among these 
 are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness. That to secure these rights, govern- 
 ments are instituted amono- men, deriving 
 their just powers from the consent of the 
 governed ; that whenever any form of gov- 
 ernment becomes destructive of these ends, 
 it is the right of the people to alter or 
 abolish it, and to institute new government, 
 laying its foundation on such principles, 
 and organizing its powers in such form, as 
 to them shall seem most likely to effect 
 their safety and happiness. Prudence, in- 
 deed, will dictate that governments long 
 established should not be changed for light 
 and transient causes ; and accordingly all 
 experience hath shown that mankind are 
 more disposed to suffer, while evils are suf- 
 
154 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ferable, than to right themselves by abolish- 
 ing the forms to which they are accustomed. 
 But when a long train of abuses and usur- 
 pations, begun at a distinguished period, 
 and pursuing invariably the same object, 
 evinces a design to reduce them under 
 absolute despotism, it is their right, it is 
 their duty, to throw off such government, 
 and to provide new guards for their future 
 security. 
 
 " Such has been the patient sufferance 
 of these colonies ; and such is now the ne- 
 cessity which constrains them to expunge 
 their former systems of government. The 
 history of the present King of Great Brit- 
 ain is a history of unremitting injuries and 
 usurpations, among which appears no soli- 
 tary fact to contradict the uniform tenor 
 of the rest, but all have in direct object 
 the establishment of an absolute tyranny 
 over these states. To prove this, let facts 
 be submitted to a candid world, for the 
 truth of which we pledge a faith yet un- 
 sullied by falsehood. 
 
 " He has refused his assent to laws the 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I55 
 
 most wholesome and necessary for the 
 pubHc good. 
 
 " He has forbidden his governors to pass 
 laws of Immediate and pressing Import- 
 ance, unless suspended in their operation, 
 till his assent should be obtained ; and 
 when so suspended, he has utterly neg- 
 lected to attend to them. 
 
 " He has refused to pass other laws for 
 the accommodation of large districts of 
 people, unless those people would re- 
 linquish the right of representation In the 
 legislature — a right inestimable to them, 
 and formidable to tyrants only. 
 
 "He has called together legislative bodies 
 at places unusual, uncomfortable, and dis- 
 tant from the depository of their public 
 records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing 
 them into compliance with his measures. 
 
 " He has dissolved representative houses 
 repeatedly and continually, for opposing, 
 with manly firmness, his Invasions on the 
 rights of the people. 
 
 " He has refused, for a long time after 
 such dissolutions, to cause others to be 
 
156 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 elected ; whereby the legislative powers, 
 incapable of annihilation, have returned to 
 the people at large, for their exercise ; the 
 state remaining, in the meantime, exposed 
 to all the dangers of invasion from with- 
 out, and convulsions within. 
 
 " He has endeavored to prevent the 
 population of these states ; for that pur- 
 pose obstructing the laws for naturaliza- 
 tion of foreigners, refusing to pass others 
 to encourage their migration hither, and 
 raising the conditions of new appropria- 
 tions of lands. 
 
 " He has suffered the administration of 
 justice totally to cease in some of these 
 states, by refusing his assent to laws for 
 establishing judiciary powers. 
 
 "He has made our judges dependent on 
 his will alone for the tenure of their offices, 
 and the amount and payment of their 
 salaries. 
 
 " He has erected a multitude of new 
 offices, by a self-assumed power, and sent 
 hither sv/arms of new officers to harass 
 our people, and eat out their substance. 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I57 
 
 " He has kept among us, In times of 
 peace, standing armies and ships of war 
 without the consent of our legislatures. 
 
 " He has affected to render the military 
 independent of, and superior to, the civil 
 power. 
 
 " He has combined with others to sub- 
 ject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our 
 constitution, and unacknowledged by our 
 laws ; eivinor his assent to their acts of 
 pretended legislation for quartering large 
 bodies of armed troops among us : for 
 protecting them, by a mock trial, from 
 punishment for any murders which they 
 should commit on the inhabitants of these 
 states ; for cutting off our trade with all 
 parts of the world ; for imposing taxes on 
 us without our consent ; for depriving us 
 of the benefits of trial by jury ; for trans- 
 porting us beyond seas, to be tried for 
 pretended offences ; for abolishing the free 
 system of English laws in a neighboring 
 province ; establishing therein an arbitrary 
 ofovernment, and enlargflng^ Its boundaries, 
 so as to render it at once an example and 
 14 
 
158 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 fit instrument for Introducing the same 
 absolute rule Into these states ; for taking 
 away our charters, abolishing our most 
 valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, 
 the forms of our orovernments ; for sus- 
 pending our own legislatures, and de- 
 claring themselves invested with power to 
 legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 
 
 " He has abdicated crovernment here, 
 withdrawing his governors, and declaring 
 us out of his allegiance and protection. 
 
 *' He has plundered our seas, ravaged 
 our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed 
 the lives of our people. 
 
 *^ He is at this time transporting large 
 armies of foreign mercenaries to complete 
 the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, 
 already begun with circumstances of cruelty 
 and perfidy, unworthy the head of a civil- 
 ized nation. 
 
 *' He has constrained our fellow-citizens, 
 taken captive on the high seas, to bear 
 arms against their country, to become the 
 executioners of their friends and brethren, 
 or to fall themselves by their hands. 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1 59 
 
 '• He has endeavored to brlncr on the 
 inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless 
 Indian savages, whose known rule of war- 
 fare is an undistinguished destruction of all 
 ages, sexes, and conditions of existence. 
 
 " He has Incited treasonable insurrec- 
 tions of our fellow-citizens, with the allure- 
 ments of forfeiture and confiscation of our 
 property. 
 
 '' He has urged cruel war against human 
 nature itself, violating its most sacred 
 rights of life and liberty, in the persons of 
 a distant people who never offended him ; 
 captivating and carrying them into slavery 
 in another hemisphere, or to incur miser- 
 able death in their transportation thither. 
 This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of 
 Infidel powers, is the warfare of the CJuis- 
 tiaii king of Great Britain. Determined 
 to keep open a market where men should 
 be bought and sold, he has prostituted 
 his negative for suppressing every legisla- 
 tive attempt to prohibit or to restrain this 
 execrable commerce. 
 
 " And that this assemblage of horrors 
 
l60 - LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 mieht want no fact of distinoulshed die, he 
 is now exciting those very people to rise 
 in arms among us, and to purchase that 
 Hberty, of which he has deprived them, by 
 murdering the people on whom he also 
 obtruded them — thus paying off former 
 crimes committed against the liberties of 
 one people, with crimes which he urges 
 them to commit against the lives of another. 
 
 " In every stage of these oppressions, 
 we have petitioned for redress in the most 
 humble terms. Our repeated petitions 
 have been answered only by repeated 
 injuries. 
 
 " A prince, whose character is thus 
 marked by every act which may define a 
 tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people 
 who mean to be free. Future ages will 
 scarcely believe that the hardiness of one 
 man adventured, within the short compass 
 of twelve years only, to lay a foundation 
 so broad and so undisguised for tyranny 
 over a people fostered and fixed in prin- 
 ciples of freedom. 
 
 " Nor have we been wanting in attentions 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. l6l 
 
 to our British brethren. We have warned 
 them, from time to time, of attempts by 
 their legislature to extend a jurisdiction 
 over these our states. We have reminded 
 them of the circumstances of our migra- 
 tion and settlement here ; no one of which 
 could warrant so strange a pretension ; 
 that these were effected at the expense of 
 our own blood and treasure, unassisted by 
 the wealth or the strength of Great Britain ; 
 that in constituting, indeed, our several 
 forms of government, we had adopted one 
 common king, thereby laying a foundation 
 for perpetual league and amity with them ; 
 but that submission to their Parliament 
 was no part of our constitution ; nor ever 
 in idea, if history may be credited. And 
 we appeal to their native justice and 
 magnanimity, as well as to the ties of our 
 common kindred, to disavow these usurpa- 
 tions, which were likely to interrupt our 
 connection and correspondence. 
 
 ''They, too, have been deaf to the voice 
 of justice and consanguinity, and when occa- 
 sions have been given them, by the regular 
 
 14* L 
 
l62 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 course of their laws, of removing- from their 
 councils the disturbers of our harmony, 
 they have, by their free election, re-estab- 
 lished them in power. At this very time, 
 too, they are permitting their chief magis- 
 trate to send over not only soldiers of our 
 common blood, but Scotch and foreign 
 mercenaries to invade and destroy us. 
 
 ''These facts have given the last stab to 
 agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids 
 us to renounce forever these unfeeling 
 brethren. We must endeavor to forget 
 our former love for them, and hold them, 
 as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies 
 in war, in peace friends. 
 
 " We micrht have been a free and a 
 great people together ; but a communica- 
 tion of grandeur, and of freedom, it seems, 
 is below their dignity. Be it so, since they 
 will have it. The road to happiness and to 
 glory is open to us too. We will tread it 
 apart from them, and acquiesce in the 
 necessity which denounces our eternal 
 separation. 
 
 "We, therefore, the representatives of 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 163 
 
 the United States of America, in General 
 Congress assembled, do, in the name and 
 by the authority of the good people of 
 these states, reject and renounce all alle- 
 giance and subjection to the kings of 
 Great Britain, and all others who may, 
 hereafter, claim by, through, or under them. 
 We utterly dissolve all political connection 
 which may heretofore have subsisted be- 
 tween us and the people or Parliament of 
 Great Britain : and finally, we do assert and 
 declare these colonies to be free and inde- 
 pendent states, and that as free and inde- 
 pendent states., they have full power to 
 levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, 
 establish commerce, and to do all other 
 acts and things which independent states 
 may of right do. And for the support of 
 this declaration, we mutually pledge to 
 each other our lives, our fortunes, and our 
 sacred honor." 
 
 This is a copy of the original draft of 
 Jefferson's declaration, and unanimously 
 approved by the committee ; and most 
 ably defended by John Adams, to whom 
 
164 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Jefferson, in 1823, wrote thus: "The gen- 
 eration which commences a revolution 
 rarely completes it. Habituated from their 
 infancy to passive submission of body and 
 mind to their kings and priests, they are 
 not qualified, when called on, to think and 
 provide for themselves ; and their inexpe- 
 rience, their ignorance, and bigotry, make 
 them instruments often, in the hands of the 
 Bonapartes and Iturbides, to defeat their 
 own rights and purposes. This is the 
 present situation of Europe and Spanish 
 America. 
 
 " But it is not desperate. The light which 
 has been shed on mankind by the art of 
 printing, has eminently changed the con- 
 dition of the world. As yet, that light has 
 dawned on the middling classes only of the 
 men in Europe ; the kings and the rabble, 
 of equal ignorance, have not yet received 
 its rays ; but it continues to spread, and 
 while printing is preserved, it can no more 
 recede than the sun return on his course. 
 A first attempt to recover the right of self- 
 government may fail, so may a second, a 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 165 
 
 third, etc. But as a younger and more in- 
 structed race comes on, the sentiment be- 
 comes more and more intuitive, and a 
 fourth, a fifth, or some subsequent one of 
 the ever-renewed attempts, will ultimately 
 succeed. In France, the first effort was 
 defeated by Robespierre, the second by 
 Bonaparte, the third by Louis XVIII. and 
 his holy allies ; another is yet to come, and 
 all Europe, Russia excepted, has caught the 
 spirit ; and all will attain representative 
 government, more or less perfect." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 JEFFERSON EFFECTS FURTHER REFORMS. 
 
 WITH the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence was accomplished the great 
 object for which Mr. Jefferson was induced 
 to leave the Legislature of Virginia, and 
 become a member of the Continental 
 Congress. And it is always pleasant to 
 return home when the object for which 
 home was left shall have been accom- 
 plished. And so now he signified to the 
 Virginia Legislature his determination to 
 return. Nevertheless, they re-elected him 
 for another term. But on the receipt of this 
 intelligence, though gratifying as it was to 
 be thus honored, he immediately addressed 
 another letter to the Legislature, adhering 
 to his original resolution, as follows : " I 
 am sorry the situation of my domestic 
 affairs renders it indispensably necessary 
 
 1 66 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 167 
 
 that I should solicit the substitution of some 
 other person here in my room," etc. This 
 was a good and sufficient reason. But in 
 his private memoranda he adds, " I knew 
 that our Legislature, under the regal 
 government, had many very vicious points 
 which urgently required reformation ; and 
 I thought I could be of more use in for- 
 warding that work. I therefore returned 
 from my seat in Congress,"etc. 
 
 Whence in this private memoranda we 
 have a powerful historical reason for re- 
 signing his seat in Congress, and his re- 
 turning to Virginia. It evinces most clearly 
 his distinctiveness and true patriotic charac- 
 ter as a statesman and politician. As the 
 seeds of liberty and Independence were 
 first sown In Virginia, and the first-fruits 
 matured and gathered there, It was there 
 also that It should be preserved and culti- 
 vated with the greatest care. Whence It 
 was for this reason, doubtless, that Mr. 
 Jefferson thought, or saw, as he expressed 
 it in his memoranda, " that the laboring 
 Oar was really at home." 
 
l68 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 This view of Jefferson's character was 
 also corroborated by the following incident, 
 viz., the singular mark of distinction con- 
 ferred on him by Congress. He had been 
 absent from Philadelphia but a few days, 
 when he received the appointment of 
 Congress to France, in conjunction with 
 Dr. Franklin, to negotiate treaties of 
 alliance and commerce with that oovern- 
 
 o 
 
 ment. 
 
 Silas Deane, then in France acting as 
 agent for procuring military supplies, and 
 for sounding the disposition of that govern- 
 ment towards America, was joined with 
 them in this commission. This appoint- 
 ment was made on the last day of Sep- 
 tember, 1776, and more importance was 
 attached to the successful issue of this 
 transaction than to any other yet meditated. 
 But this he also declined for the reasons 
 before stated. Jefferson had not yet at- 
 tained the middle of his thirty-fourth year, 
 when he retired from Concrress to his seat 
 
 o 
 
 in the Virginia Legislature, from which he 
 had been absent about nine months. And 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 169 
 
 although the youngest in Congress except 
 one, he had achieved a very high and 
 honorable character as a scholar, a gentle- 
 man, and a patriot, scarcely equalled and 
 certainly never surpassed. 
 
 No member in that honorable body 
 served on more committees, executed 
 more business, or gave greater satisfaction. 
 Whence this will account for the honor and 
 distinction conferred on him as joint com- 
 missioner with Dr. Franklin, to negotiate 
 an alliance with France, thus associating 
 him, a young man of thirty- three, with the 
 venerable philosopher of seventy, who was 
 the most distinguished civil character in 
 America. But sensible as he was of this 
 high honor, his determination was not 
 changed. Jefferson's just and high appre- 
 ciation of the honor conferred on him by 
 Congress, in the appointing of him coadju- 
 tor with Franklin, will be best expressed 
 in his reply. 
 
 Williamsburg, October ii, 1776. 
 
 "Honorable Sir: — Your favor of the 
 30th, together with the resolutions of Con- 
 
I/O LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 gress, of the 26th ultimo, came safe to 
 hand. It would argue great Insensibility 
 in me, could I receive with Indifference so 
 confidential an appointment from your 
 body. My thanks are a poor return for 
 the partiality they have been pleased to 
 entertain for me. No cares for my own 
 person, nor yet for my private affairs, would 
 have Induced one moment's hesitation to 
 accept the charge. But circumstances very 
 peculiar in the situation of my family, such 
 as neither permit me to leave, nor to carry 
 it, compel me to ask leave to decline a ser- 
 vice so honorable, and, at the same time, so 
 important to the American cause. The 
 necessity under which I labor, and the 
 conflict I have undergone for three days, 
 durlnor which I could not determine to dls- 
 
 o 
 
 miss your messenger, will, I hope, plead 
 my pardon with Congress ; and I am sure 
 there are too many of that body to whom 
 they may, with better hopes, confide this 
 charge, to leave them under a moment's 
 difficulty In making a new choice. I am,( 
 sir, with the most sincere attachment to 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I7I 
 
 your honorable body, and die great cause 
 they support, their and your most obedient, 
 humble servant." 
 
 This answer to Congress is similar to the 
 one he sent to the Virginia Legislature, 
 whence his reasons, in his private memo- 
 randa, for remaining in the Virmnia Legris- 
 lature remain unchanged, and to his labors 
 there we will now turn our attention. 
 
 Each of the American colonies was more 
 or less distinctive in its organization ana 
 form of government. But Virginia may, 
 without an invidious distinction, be called 
 queen of the American colonies. It was 
 settled by a grant from Queen Elizabeth, 
 in the latter part of her reign, to Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, and thence received its name in 
 honor of the queen. Sir Walter was born 
 in 1552, in Devonshire, educated at Oxford, 
 and served with ereat merit and distinction 
 in the army of the French Protestants, 
 and accompanied his half-brother. Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert, in a voyage to Amer- 
 ica ; and in 1582 he attracted the atten- 
 
1/2 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 tion of Queen Elizabeth by an act of gal- 
 lantry worthy of notice. Seeing the queen 
 had to pass over a wet spot, he threw his 
 cloak on the muddy ground for her to walk 
 upon, and thenceforth he stood in high 
 favor with the queen. 
 
 He made his settlement in Virginia by a 
 grant from Queen Elizabeth. But after 
 her death, he was for a mere pretext 
 brought to trial for treason ; and though 
 condemned to die, he was not executed, 
 but confined in the tower for twelve years, 
 during which he wrote his history of the 
 world. But subsequently he was brought 
 to the block in 1618. The colony of \'ir- 
 ginia was settled by Englishmen of high 
 standing in favor of the government, in 
 both church and state, and also with strict 
 fidelity to the Crown ; among whom were 
 the ancestors of George Washington. 
 These settlers, having purchased large 
 tracts of land, were called planters, from 
 whom was derived a large revenue to the 
 Crown and the government, in both church 
 and state, the same as in England ; except 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1/3 
 
 they were not allowed the right of repre- 
 sentation. But in all other respects the 
 oath of allegiance and law of entails 
 established and preserved the same distinc- 
 tions in society as that of England. The 
 first born son, whatever might be his tal- 
 ents or capacity, was heir and successor to 
 his father ; and this class constituted what 
 was known as the aristocracy ; whilst all 
 the rest of the family formed the second 
 class, called plebeians, or the plebeian 
 ranks, and independent yeomanry ; and 
 finally the lowest class was that of the 
 overseers of the slaves. Although these 
 distinctions were firmly established, and 
 patiently endured, until the revohUion, yet 
 the grievous oppressions of the govern- 
 ment having fallen upon all without dis- 
 tinction, the aristocracy united with the 
 democracy in resistance even unto the re- 
 bellion ; in most instances taking but little 
 thought of the change which independence 
 would bring about. Whence, while the 
 united struggle against oppression was 
 progressing, that state of things finally 
 15^ 
 
174 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 prevailed to bring about the revolution in 
 all its fulness — not only a new nation, 
 but likewise a new form of government, 
 viz., that of the people, without distinction 
 except personal worth or merit. 
 
 This change Mr. Jefferson had foreseen, 
 and with remarkable sagacity had given 
 shape to the affairs in Virginia to bring 
 about this government of the people. Even 
 w^hilst he was in Congress, he had aided in 
 many ways the formation of a state consti- 
 tution, and a settled form of government in 
 its legislative and administrative power; 
 but, as yet, the judiciary remained un-^ 
 chano^ed ; wherefore to this he now di- 
 rected his whole and entire attention. 
 
 By birth and fortune Mr. Jefferson be- 
 longed to the aristocracy ; but his habits 
 and intellectual tastes revolted from the 
 indulgent and voluptuous habits and lives 
 of many of that class ; and his political 
 principles and sympathies also drew him 
 strongly to the independent yeomanry, with 
 whom his father and grandfather preferred 
 to associate. He had, therefore, all along 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I75 
 
 determined, at a proper time, to overthrow 
 the English law of entails, which he re- 
 garded as the keystone of this pernicious 
 oligarchy of the ancient dominion, where- 
 by not talents or virtue, but rather a 
 hereditary wealth and fortune, regardless 
 of virtue or talents, prevailed. And with 
 this determination, Jefferson took his seat 
 in the Virginia Legislature on the 7th of 
 October, 1776. On the opening day of the 
 session, and on the nth, he obtained leave 
 to bring in a bill for the establishment of 
 the courts of justice. The proposition was 
 referred to a committee, of which he was 
 chairman. He drafted the ordinance, and\ 
 submitted it to the committee, by whom it; 
 was approved, and reported to the house,' 
 and in the ordinary course unanimously 
 adopted. This divided the state into coun- 
 ties, with the three distinct grades of courts, 
 viz., county, superior, and supreme, similar 
 to that subsequently adopted by the United 
 States, irriperatively requiring reference to 
 a jury as required in all courts of law. 
 And on the 12th of October, he brought in 
 
1/6 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 the bill for abolishlnof the law of entails. 
 This was a cardinal measure, and prepared 
 the way for laying the foundation of a 
 sound government. It met with strong 
 opposition, headed by Edmund Pendleton, 
 the speaker of the house, whose personal 
 influence was great, and whose ability in 
 debate was of a high order. 
 
 But after a severe contest, the bill finally 
 passed, and thus was broken up the heredi- 
 tary aristocracy, and the distinct orders of 
 nobles and plebeians, forming one republic, 
 wherein the civil, political, and religious 
 rights and institutions should be distinct 
 from, and yet act in harmony with, each 
 other. And for this history had as yet 
 formed no model. Whence that which we 
 Americans have since enjoyed resulted 
 from the judicious attention and persever- 
 ing labors of Mr. Jefferson on the dissolu- 
 tion of monarchy, and the formation of 
 our Republican Government; in securing 
 and preserving all these relations in peace 
 and harmony, beyond any thing of which 
 history can boast. 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. IJ'J 
 
 In his own writings 'he thus expressed 
 himself. "When I left Congress in 1776, 
 it was in the persuasion that our whole 
 code must be reviewed, adapted to our re- 
 publican form of government ; and now 
 that we had no neeatives of councils, orov- 
 ernors, and kings, to restrain us from doing- 
 right, that it should be corrected in all its 
 parts, with a single eye to reason, and the 
 good of those for whose government it 
 was formed." 
 
 On the 5th of November, 1776, by a 
 resolution of Mr. Jefferson, a committee of 
 five persons was appointed, viz., Jefferson, 
 Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, George 
 Mason, and Thomas L. Lee, to revise, alter, 
 amend, repeal, or introduce all or any of 
 the said laws, to form the same into bills, 
 and report them to the next meeting of the 
 General Assembly. The committee having 
 settled the general principles on which to 
 execute the labor, Messrs. Mason and Lee, 
 not being lawyers, excused themselves ; 
 and it was therefore divided thus — the 
 whole common law, and the statutes to the 
 
 M 
 
1/8 LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 f9urth of James I., were assigned to Mr. 
 Jefferson. The British statutes from that 
 time were assigned to Mr. Wythe ; and the 
 Virginia laws to Mr. Pendleton. And this 
 committee of revisors, amidst all the cares, 
 perplexities, and labors of the revolution, 
 completed within two years their herculean 
 labors, in the month of February, 1779. 
 And this code, the major part of which 
 was prepared by Mr. Jefferson himself, was 
 brought within the compass of one hundred 
 and twenty-six bills, providing for the civil, 
 political, and religious rights and enjoy- 
 ments as proclaimed in the Declaration of 
 Independence. 
 
 The autumn of 1776, in which Mr. Jeffer- 
 son returned to Virginia, was the darkest 
 and most dismal period of the revolution. 
 When he arrived in Virginia, he found it 
 in a state of distraction. The courage of 
 the people had fallen into a temporary 
 panic and despondency ; and in this con- 
 fusion there were some who proposed to 
 make Patrick Henry, the Governor, a dic- 
 tator. Whether he desired it, or would have 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. I/Q 
 
 accepted it, does not fully appear. But 
 there is reason to suspect that he would 
 have accepted it. Colonel Archibald Gary, 
 meeting the step-brother of Henry in the 
 lobby of the house, said to him, '' I am told 
 your brother wishes to be dictator. Tell 
 him from me, that the day of his appoint- 
 ment shall be the day of his death — for he 
 shall feel my dagger in his heart before the 
 sunset of that day." And from this we 
 may judge concerning Jefferson's motives 
 for returning to Virginia, and likewise 
 award to him the merit, so justly due, for 
 the establishment in Virginia, in the short 
 space of three years, of the principles of 
 freedom, good government, and the enjoy- 
 ment of life, liberty, and the pursuits of 
 happiness. As he could ahvays furnish 
 fuel for the fire when necessary, so also 
 could he apply the wet blanket when the 
 flames were to be extinguished. 
 
 THE END. 
 
liMiilliii^ 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 011 838 437 4