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'^CHARACTER OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 In the work below alluded to, will be found a review of 
 a peculiar character, to say the least of it, upon the re- 
 cently published Biography of Thomas Jefferson. If one 
 were asked, what object the evangelical critic had in view, 
 it would be difficult to give a satisfactory answer ; if regard 
 were to be had to the character of the Journal, his own 
 declarations, and the nature of his performance. It would be 
 easy, a priori^ to determine what kind of an article a profes- 
 sor of the christian religion, (for such we are informed is 
 the author of the one in question,) would be disposed to 
 produce for insertion in a christian journal, upon the sub- 
 ject of the biography of a distinguished man, like the late 
 [^resident of the United States. One, too, who actually 
 eads the exposition of the Reviewer's intentions, as spread 
 •brth with some distinctness in an early stage of his pro- 
 gress, will find as little difficulty in conjecturing what will 
 be the nature of the scrutiny proposed to be instituted : 
 but, alas ! one who discharges the melancholy task, be it 
 spoken more in sorrow than in sarcasm, of following the 
 author in his observations, will find himself utterly con- 
 founded ] if, as has been said, consideration be had, at the 
 same time, to the actual character of the article, the mani- 
 festo of the critic's motives, and the peculiar nature of the 
 
 •* Article No, 1, in the "New-York Review and Quarterly Church Journal," 
 for March, 1837, being a Critique " upon the Life of Thomas Jefferson," by 
 George Tucker, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Vir- 
 
 ginia. 
 
medium through which oue and the other are submitted to 
 the pubHc. 
 
 The imagination of a man, hke the present writer, im- 
 pressed with a profound sense of the solemnity and purity 
 of the christian rehgion, and entertaining the same exahed 
 notion of those who have dedicated themselves to its 
 ministration, would have very httle difficulty in following 
 a clergyman, as he retires to his closet, with a book like the 
 Biography of Jefferson, for the purpose of performing tbnt 
 duty in reviewing it, which devolves upon him as tb^ 
 editor or the critic of a religious journal. Looking dovDi 
 from the height—far above the passions and prejudices of 
 worldly men— upon which his holy metier places him ; 
 regarding the frailties of the dead with something oi 
 the feeling of Sterne's recording angel, he would be^'dis- 
 tressed, if, in the discharge of his task, he should be 
 obliged to hold them up to the public indignation. Pao-e 
 by page^ would he anxiously follow the biographer, in his 
 effort to trace the chequered career of his subject; and 
 when some great thought was chronicled, or some great 
 deed which made an epoch in his life, and his country's 
 life, his bosom would swell with generous pride; while he 
 would not be the less affected with sorrow, when historic 
 truth compelled the recital of his moral imperfections. 
 Conscious how erring must be the nature that required the 
 warning voice from out Sinai's thunders, to keep it in the 
 path of virtue— taught by his own passions how strong is 
 the dominion of the Prince of Evil— a man himself, with 
 ail the little foibles of monality— homo— hu7}ia7ii 7iihil 
 alieunum*—heia\d of the great faith which has its orig'in 
 in the weaknesses of our race— he would judge human 
 actions with a humane and saddened spirit. Looking 
 neither to the public nor the private life— leaving the first 
 to history, and the second to his biographer— he would 
 
 * Terence. 
 
oiiiy regard the ciiaracter of the pubhshed opinions upon 
 the subjects of ethics and Christianity. These would be 
 the products of mature thought, and thrown upon the 
 world for consideration. They would be intended to in- 
 fluence the public mind upon these great topics, and it 
 would be but fair that they should be subjected to the ordeal 
 of reason and of argument. Should they be such as were 
 calculated to unsettle the foundations of public morality, 
 or strike at the structure of religion, he, as one of the de- 
 fenders of these high interests, would be bound to expose 
 their nature, and resist their influence. This done, his 
 obligations as the writer in a critical religious journal 
 would end, and he would lay down his pen, with the con- 
 sciousness of having done all that could be required of 
 him by the most zealous christian, or the sternest moralist. 
 Such is the manner and the spirit with which we should 
 think a professor of Christianity would notice the biogra- 
 phy of a distinguished public man. He ivoidd not set out 
 with a useless and unfeeling inquiry into the state of pub- 
 lic feeling respecting the illustrious dead, and the various 
 mutations which it has undergone, from his appearance 
 upon the world's stage, down to this moment, when the 
 curtain of death has long since removed him from public 
 observation. He would not profess to leave to other hands 
 the task of portraying his career as a statesman, and yet 
 under the miserable subterfuge of illustrating his personal 
 character, leave no great political act, or opinion of his 
 life unassailed. He would 7iot object to his biographer, that 
 be had written naught save eulogy^ or elaborate defence 
 of the moral defects of the deceased, and, with a proclaimed 
 design to correct his partiality ^ hunt assiduously through 
 his whole life in search of materials to blacken his reputa- 
 tion, and throw ridicule upon his character. He would 
 not abandon, with but one single exception, the only legiti- 
 mate objects of clerical criticism, and under the magnani- 
 mous determination of "stripping no one of their well- 
 
8 
 
 earned laurels to decorate" him whose life was under con- 
 sideration, leave no effort unmade which the odium Iheo- 
 logicum could suggest, or critical acumen devise, to destroy 
 his hold upon the affections of his countrymen. He would 
 not pass by, unanswered, the bold doubts upon the sub- 
 ject of the christian revelation, which his biographer says 
 had reached the world against his wishes, and yet attempt, 
 by a disingenuous argument, to snatch from his family 
 the consolation solemnly given them before his death, 
 that he belonged to one of the christian denomina- 
 tions. He would not publicly acknowledge himself under 
 obligations to the great dead, for services rendered his coun- 
 try in the darkest hour of her history, and yet heap taunt 
 upon taunt, sarcasm upon sarcasm, and argument upon 
 argument, to depreciate the merit of his public acts, 
 and hold him up to this and all coming ages as the great 
 arch demon of infidelity, and the American Machiavel in 
 politics and private life. No ! A pious man, a pro- 
 fessor of Christianity, would not thus treat, one would 
 suppose, the biography of a distinguished patriot. And 
 yet, we confess, with unaffected regret, such seems to be an 
 impartial sketch of the manner in which the Review is 
 executed, which we have found in the March number of 
 the " New- York Review and Quarterly Church Jour- 
 nal." 
 
 When we say that we have seen it with regret, we speak 
 of one only of the emotions with which the perusal of it 
 has been accompanied. The others were, astonishment 
 and indignant mortification, that the pages of a journal 
 dedicated to religion, and the pen of a hand consecrated to 
 its holiest offices, should have been thus lamentably pros- 
 tituted. When will the professors of the meek, forgiving reli- 
 gion of our Saviour properly appreciate the character of the 
 responsibilities they have so solemnly assumed ? When the 
 nature of the sacrifices with which they are presumed to 
 have sealed their compact with Him to whose services they 
 
are consecrate ? When the feelino^s, and thoughts, and 
 dispositions, with which they are expected by their great 
 Master to wahc through hfe, in the performance of their 
 vocation ? When will they feel that they, the accredited 
 ambassadors from the Great Power on High, are the repre- 
 sentatives not only of his sovereignty on earth, but of his 
 divine nature, and as such, false to their high trust, when 
 they mingle in the personal passions and conflicts of those 
 they come among? V¥hen will they understand, in all 
 its truth, that they are persons taken from among men, and 
 set apart for high purposes ; with nothing to do with this 
 world, but to prepare those who live in it, for transla- 
 tion to another ? These are questions which we often 
 ask ourselves^ with the profoundest emotion, but w e 
 have as yet received no satisfactory answer. Perhaps the 
 fault is ours. We may estimate too highly the capabihties 
 of man — we may have too exalted an idea of that religion 
 which was confirmed, with gracious condescerision, by the 
 interposition of divine power ; but we scarcely imagine 
 the Church Journal critic will consider us obnoxious to 
 censure for this. We have, indeed, a reverence for reli- 
 gion, v/hich it would be vain for us to attempt to demon- 
 strate by the use of any such language as we can control. 
 Our spirit sinks prostrate in utter humiUation at the idea 
 of its sublimity. Earth, with its vain show, passes away, 
 and we stand front to front, as it were, with all the eternal 
 grandeur of heaven. God is present to us in all his mighty 
 attributes of Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Immortality. 
 The stupendous scheme of christian revelation passes with 
 its mighty shadow. The universal guilt which preceded 
 it — the gloom of impending punishment — the incarnation 
 of divinity — descent upon earth — persecution, insult — and 
 the last act of the great tragedy, with all the dread para- 
 phernalia of Jews, gibbets, and malefactors. These are 
 the thoughts which sweep through our mind, filhng it with 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 feelings of unutterable solemnity, whenever the subject of 
 religion is mentioned in our presence. Its consolations 
 are necessary to us all, at some period of our lives. 
 Whether in the palace, or in the cottage ; whether born 
 to the humblest lot, or destined to the proudest career ; 
 whether happy, or taught the uses of sorrow. It fills us 
 with benevolence — teaches us to regard the frailties of 
 our fellow men with charity, calms our passions, and robs 
 us of our prejudices and animosities. Such is religion, 
 and such are its beautiful uses; but how badly illustrated 
 by the reverend gentleman who has furnished the world 
 with the critical article in the Quarterly Church Journal ! 
 " He has brought with him to pohtics nothing but its pas- 
 sions." Nothing of the spirit of religion, save that which 
 has so often lighted up the fires of persecution. Under 
 the surplice of the priest, there seems to have raged as 
 ano-ry passions as ever boiled beneath the mantilla of the 
 Spanish bravo. Charity, though so fervently inculcated by 
 our Saviour and St. Paul,* has shed none of its softening 
 influence over his nature. Justice has appealed in vain to 
 his heart, though upon earth, to preach up justice among 
 men. The feehngs of the living constitute no claim upon 
 his consideration. The pride of a nation is crushed, and 
 trampled upon with insulting mockery. The gratitude of 
 human bosoms for illustrious services is laughed to scorn. 
 The grave, whose sanctity is respected by the Pagan bar- 
 barian, is violated by this apostolic missionary of the 
 faith of civilized Christendom. With the sacred war-cry 
 of God and the Church on his lips, he has pursued his 
 illustrious victim through life with savage hostility. 
 Breathing naught but the holiest fervor of rehgion, he 
 has performed feats which would not have disgraced the 
 
 ♦ The greater part of the sermon on the mount is taken up in teaching the 
 importance of charity.— tide 18th chap. Ist Epis. to Corinthians— 5th and 6th 
 chap. Matthew. 
 
11 
 
 disciple of Odin, or Manitou. Fighting under the 
 cross of our Saviour, he has manifested a spirit 
 better becoming the crescent of the Mussuhxian. Cold- 
 blooded irony, and cutting taunt, not unworthy of Goethe's 
 Mephistophiles in his most mocking humor, stir up the 
 blood of the reader in this critical chef-d'oeuvre of the 
 pastor. Sentiments are scattered here and there, which 
 savor more of Paradise lost, than of Paradise to be 
 regaiiied. 
 
 "Study of revenge, immortal hate."* 
 
 Rendered delirious by a holy horror of deistical opin- 
 ions, he has furnished a striking illustration of the prmci- 
 ples of the atheist. With an anxious zeal for the religious 
 feelings of the rising generation, he has committed a most 
 flagrant outrage upon those of the generation with which 
 he is contemporary. For the wand of Peace, he has substi- 
 tuted " the two-edged sword" of the Psalmist, and wields it 
 he does with a vigor that would not have been vmbecom- 
 ing in the battle-axe of the Lion-Hearted. in his conflict with 
 the Saracen. War to the knife, appears to have been the fell 
 determination of this pious militant. Where we expected 
 the smile of compassion, our blood is chilled by the sneer 
 of revenge. Where the suggestion of kind humanity, there 
 the speculation of cold-blooded, unsympathizing hate. 
 Where the glow of patriotism, intensified by christian feel- 
 ing, there the mockery of the soulless sceptic, and the 
 insensible ingrate. The genius of Calvin and Cranmer,t 
 if it had not quailed in the presence of our religious war- 
 rior, would have bowed in undissembled homage to his 
 uncompromising spirit of hostility. Mary of England 
 would have delighted to have honored him v/ith a seat 
 
 * Milton. Speech of Satan. 
 
 t" Calvin burnt Servetus at Geneva— Cranmer brought Arians and Ana- 
 baptists to the stake."— Hume's His. of Eng. vol. iii. p. 538. 
 
12 
 
 side by side with Lord North,* around the funeral pyre 
 of Ridley, Latimer, and Hawkes.t He would have applied 
 the torch with an iron pulse, and composed an admirable 
 hymn in praise of the justice of her Catholic Majesty, to 
 be chaunted while the work was going on. 
 
 But, to be serious : what a piteous and melancholy spec- 
 tacle has he furnished, of the worst passions of the bigot ! 
 What a sad exhibition of the weakness of all human and 
 heavenly restraints, when opposed to some of the evil pro- 
 pensities of our nature ! What a preo;nant and portentous 
 commentary upon the spirit of Christianity ! All this we 
 say in a spirit of unaffected and untriumphing sorrow. 
 
 " It was the fate of Thomas Jefferson to be at once more 
 loved and praised by his friends, and hated and reviled by 
 his enemies, than any of his compatriots." Such is the 
 sentence we find in the Preface of the biographer of Mr, 
 Jefferson, made in a spirit of historic truth, and philosophi- 
 cal remark. It is an observation which would force itself 
 upon every one who should come to know the manner in 
 which Mr. Jefferson was regarded by his friends and foes, 
 and yet our political divine is very far from admitting the 
 equivocal compliment which it conveys. It is an observa- 
 tion, which every philosophical writer, investigating the 
 state of feeling among the contemporaries of a great man, 
 would make, as presenting a curious moral phenomenon, 
 not in itself a subject of honor, or infamy. It is a remark 
 which history has recorded of many distinguished per- 
 sonages, from Socrates and Aristides down to William Pitt 
 and Napoleon. Scarce any great man, whose appear- 
 ance and writings have formed an epoch in the his- 
 tory of the human mind, from Aristotle down to 
 Luther and Galileo, but has enjoyed the most ardent 
 
 *Q,ueen Mary's cliief a^'cni in the persecution of tlu^ rfforiijers. — Hume's 
 His. of Eng. 
 tProtestanis burnt at tin- stake. 
 
13 
 
 attachment of his friends, and the bitterest liostility of his 
 enemies. George Washington himself, we beg leave, in 
 opposition to our political divine, to say, constituted no 
 exception to this fate of the preeminently great. There 
 was a party in the United States, albeit unknown to him, 
 that hated Washington with as cordial a hate as ever ani- 
 mated the bosom of a High Churchman, against a dissent- 
 ing heretic. All this is true ; but who ever, in noticing the 
 lives of these distinguished men, took advantage of the fact, 
 to draw conclusions injurious to their fame ? — to indulge in 
 speculations as to the cause, as though token found, it must 
 necessarily be fatal to their characters ? 
 
 The peculiarity in the fate of Mr. Jefferson, it will be re- 
 collected, consists in having been, at the same time, more 
 loved im& more hated than any one of his compatriots; and 
 the holy critic sets outto investigate the cause of this singular 
 coexistence of opposite and extreme feelings. Now, it would 
 strike any man of common sense, that in prosecuting this in- 
 quiry, both feelings were equally important — the extreme 
 love, as well as the extreme hate. The circumstance of a man 
 enjoying the devoted affection of his friends, is not an 
 unusual one in the lives of good men ; and the privilege of 
 enjoying the special detestation of our enemies, is not so 
 uncommon a one that our reverend Reviewer will not 
 admit it, we think, to be illustrated by his own feelings 
 toward Mr. Jefferson. It is the contemporaneous existence 
 of the two feelings that constitute the phenomenon, and 
 an inquiry into it as such, one would certainly deem it as 
 important for the purpose, to discover the source of the 
 love, as the hate. And yet our pious philosopher, after 
 stating the fact in the endless variety of forms, half insinu- 
 ating, and half conjectural, so well known to the practised 
 advocate, (and which might almost induce one to believe 
 that he himself had been brought up to the bar, and only 
 now, like old Priam, when preparing for combat, put ou 
 
14 
 
 unaccustomed armor — arma din desiieta humeris*) — 
 after having enlarged and dwelt upon the question until it 
 assumes a portentous importance in the eyes of the reader — 
 after comparing the fate of Mr. Jefferson in this particular, 
 with one,t the blameless purity of whose nature was never 
 suspected by friend or foe, and with another,t whose image 
 is now held in sainted reverence by all his countrymen, 
 concludes his observations withouta single vjord as to the 
 cause of the peculiar affection which he enjoyed from 
 his friends ; and for the reason of the peculiar hatred, 
 assiunes that in progress of time, as his character became 
 better known, " less was discovered worthy of admira- 
 tion" ! What justification the reverend gentleman can 
 furnish for treating the subject in this disingenuous manner, 
 we know not, unless it may be that in his extreme anxiety 
 for the formation of his sentences, he loses sight of his 
 sentiments, and m the gratification of his passions, he for- 
 gets his philosophy. 
 
 The next portion of the biography which claims the 
 worthy pastor's consideration, is that in which allusion is 
 made to Mr. Jefferson's religious opinions. We are no 
 advocates, God knows, of the peculiar doctrines enter- 
 tained by this illustrious man upon the subject of Chris- 
 tianity, nor eire we the indiscriminate apologists of his 
 character ; but we see no reason why his memory should be 
 hunted down with unremitting rancor, because, in the 
 soUtude of his closet, his mind came to certain conclusions 
 about it ; and, in the confidence of epistolary intercourse, 
 he communicated them to an early and long-tried friend. 
 Still less do we see any reason why a pious man should 
 embrace the occasion afforded by such private expressions 
 of opinion, to charge another with " low trickery^ delibe- 
 rate falsehood^ and a demoniacal spirit oj prosely- 
 tism .'" Such is the eagerness of the critic to charge Mr. 
 
 VirgiL t Madison. t Washington. 
 
15 
 
 Jefferson with the latter crime, that he deems of no mo- 
 ment his biographer's assertion, that his letters npon this 
 subject were pubHshed contrary to his wishes. Now, we 
 are so simple minded as to imagine that this is the very 
 '•^jugulum causce,'' to use the pious gentleman's own ele- 
 gant Latinity. Upon the truth or the falsity of this asser- 
 tion, depends the criminality, or the innocence of "the 
 third President of the United States." We are at this day, 
 too far advanced in the science of mental philosophy to 
 hold a man criminal for the involuntary opinions of his 
 mind.* It is only when he publishes these opinions to the 
 world, and endeavors to disseminate them, that he renders 
 himself, if at all, obnoxious to censure. If Mr. Jefferson 
 then, confined his views of Christianity to his own bosom, 
 or communicated them in a half doubting, philosophical 
 spirit, to the sacred confidence of a friend, he is clearly not 
 liable to the rebuke of moral men, or the anathemas of 
 the christian clergy. 
 
 Perhaps the critic may deem equally unimportant 
 the truth of his assertion with regard to the nature of 
 Mr. Jefferson's conversations upon the subject of reli- 
 gion. We shall not imitate his courtesy of language, 
 and charge him with intentional misrepresentation ; 
 but we have spent many years of our life in the immediate 
 neighborhood of Mr. Jefferson — have dined at his table — 
 listened to his conversation — and we religiously declare 
 that we never heard from his lips any opinion upon reli- 
 gion, nor did we ever hear that he was in the habit of 
 expressing any to others. We know that up to the day of 
 his death, his views upon this great topic were the source 
 of mysterious conjecture among his neighbors. Doubts 
 were entertained, from what cause we know not, just as 
 they have been about Dr. Franklin and General Washing- 
 
 * Jesus Christ never condemned, censured, nor judged any man for his 
 errors of opinion. 
 
16 
 
 tori and others ; but his outward observance of the Sab- 
 bath, and his occasional appearance at the church of Mr. 
 Hatch, in the adjoining village of CharlottesviJle, were 
 very far from strengthening the opinions of those who 
 were disposed to attribute deistical principles to him. 
 
 The reverend gentleman's blood is now up, and he strikes 
 about him with reckless fury, which, like the scorpion's, 
 when begirt by fire, promises more injury to himself, than 
 to any body else. He next makes a charge, which, in can- 
 dor, I am forced to admit, he must have perceived to be 
 utterly destructive of the one respecting the zeal for pro- 
 sclytis7n^ if his faculties had been in iheir accustomed 
 state of acuteness. " In the last years of his life, when 
 questioned by any of his friends, he (Mr. J.) used to say 
 he was a Unitarian." Such is the assertion of the biogra- 
 pher, which the critic receives with the greatest thought- 
 lessness and inconsistency, and immediately lays down, 
 as a basis upon which to pile another pyramid of calumny. 
 Just urging home upon the ex-president the fiend-like crime 
 of innoculating others with his own bhghting infidelity, 
 he now, forsooth, charges him with the opposite and in- 
 consistent baseness of passing himself off for a member of 
 one of the christian denominations. One moment a Me- 
 phistophiles, coolly shutting out heaven from the view of 
 the unfortunate, and alluring him on to a fatal compact 
 with the Prince of Darkness, the next a worldly hypocrite, 
 claiming for himself the protecting mantle of a christian 
 sect ! Now, with Satan's banner unfurled over his head, 
 beating up recruits to the impious standard, now a hoary 
 dissembler, who, for temporal purposes, unrolls the fleur 
 de lis of the christian Unitarian. 
 
 Singular obliviousness and richness of imagination! 
 It matters not that the represention in one form is 
 inconsistent with his appearance in the other. They 
 equally in their turn answer the cherished purpose' 
 of defamation. The qualities may not harmonize — the* 
 
17 
 
 parts may not correspond. But it is of little moment to 
 the holy writer, who, only recollecting the license accorded 
 the poet and the painter, quite forgets the limit which the 
 king of Parnassus has assigned to such spirit of adventu- 
 rous genius. 
 
 "Nonut 
 Serpentes avibus geminenter, tigribus agni." — Horace. 
 
 But why does he pronounce, with such triumphant 
 boldness, that Mr. Jefferson was not a Unitarian, and 
 that he uttered a falsehood when he said he was ? Does 
 he really believe it, and does he really think that he has 
 demonstrated it conclusively? To admit the truth of the 
 latter part of the inquiry, would be paying a compliment 
 to his heart at the expense of his head, which, we take it, 
 would be a species which would not prove very accepta- 
 ble to his peculiar notions. When he affirms that mate- 
 rialism was a received doctrine of Mr. Jefferson, and 
 that therefore he could not have been a Unitarian, what 
 does he mean? Cau he be bold enough, in spite of all 
 that this great man has written, to step forth before the 
 world, and proclaim him an apostle of the brutalizing 
 materialism of Bolino^broke, Voltaire, Holbach, and Dide- 
 rot? — a denier of the immortality of the soul, who levels 
 his species to the same point in animal creation with the 
 beasts of the field — the destroyer of heaven, who, at the 
 same time disenchants this world — the fiend, who anni- 
 hilates the hope of happiness hereafter^ and thus makes 
 misfortune insupportable in this life ! Surely the pious 
 writer could not have believed this of Mr. Jefferson, and 
 we should be sorry, for the sake of human nature, to think 
 that he designed it to be believed by others — and yet he 
 says that materialism " was a received doctrine of Mr. 
 Jefferson." There is one explanation which may exonerate 
 him from the guilt of the intention, but he cannot be ad- 
 mitted to the benefit of it, unless he will acknowledge that 
 he is ignorant of that about which he has written, viz ; 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 the Unitarian's creed, or that knowing it, he has wilfully 
 misrepresented it. The materialism which Mr. Jefferson 
 professed, it is not difficult to get at. It is the materialism 
 of which he speaks in his letter to William Short, found in 
 page 13th of the Review, and in the fourth volume of his 
 correspondence. "The materialism of good works in 
 contradistinction to the spirituaUsm of faith." Such 
 is the dread materialism of the ex-president, and did not 
 our theological critic know that the Unitarian preached 
 the same doctrine? If he did not^ then has he "proved 
 that he was grossly ignorant of his tenets."* If he didj 
 then we must say, that to our minds there is something 
 exceedingly "disingenuous" — something "savoring" of the 
 littleness " of trick" — something which goes beyond the 
 littleness of trick, and swells into the magnitude of a worse 
 crime — in thus resisting Mr. Jefferson's claim to be consid- 
 ered a Unitarian, upon the ground of his entertaining this 
 doctrine. Thus inducing those who know nothing of the 
 peculiar principles of the Unitarian Church, to believe that 
 he was the propagator of the most demoralizing and 
 degrading system that ever disgraced human lips, or 
 was engendered in the madness of a demoniacal philosophy. 
 Again, surely the reverend gentleman cannot be serious in 
 his effort to exclude Mr. Jefferson from the church of 
 the Unitarian, because, in his various musings upon man's 
 moral nature, he questioned the wisdom of grief in the 
 moral economy, and, in the unrestrained freedom of phi- 
 losophical correspondence, communicated his doubts to 
 a friend. — (page 12.) 
 
 But admitting that Mr. Jefferson may, at one time of his 
 hfe, have differed with the Unitarians about the exact 
 character of Christ, whether an inspired prophet or not — 
 ignorant as we are now bound in charity to believe the 
 
 * Sparks' Inquiry into the Moral Tendency of Trinitarian and Unitarian 
 Doctrines— pp. 309, 10, and 11. 
 
19 
 
 reverend gentleman is, of their precise doctrines, would it 
 not have been more charitable, and equcdly reasonable, to 
 suppose, that in the solitude of old age, he had changed 
 his opinions, and had dragged himself within a christian 
 temple, to die, than that in the last days of his life, he 
 should have repeatedly uttered a deliberate falsehood from 
 the most dastardly motives ? How much more natural, a 
 conclusion this to predicate of the deserted statesman, and 
 the abandoned idol, (vide Reviewer's remarks, p. 7.) in the 
 cheerlessness of his last evenings. But, alas ! charity is a 
 stranger to the bosom of our pious critic, and probabilities 
 based upon moral physiology are not dreamt of in his 
 science ! 
 
 But admitting that Mr. Jefferson never w^as during his 
 life, nor at the time of his death, an Unitarian, why this 
 furious zeal and ungracious eagerness to snatch from his 
 family the consolation which the belief affords ? Why, 
 when he tells them before his death that he had prayed in 
 a christian church, and hoped for a christian's forgiveness^ 
 does the pious writer charge him with uttering a falsehood, 
 and thus cruelly lacerate their sensibilities'? 
 
 But he stops not here, nor with this. In the following page, 
 speakingof a memorandum in Mr. Jefferson's J. /^a respect- 
 ing some conversations which he had with Clarke and 
 Rush, upon tlie subject of General Washington's religious 
 opinions, he makes these observations : 
 
 " Nor does such a man endeavor to give currency to his 
 opinions by seeking to array in their support the influence 
 of high and honored names. And finally, if he be really 
 honest in his doubts, if the hatred of a had heart be not 
 mistaken for the perplexities of an embarrassed head, he 
 will scorn the baseness of leaving behind him a written 
 record, implicating the departed, and not to be used until 
 after his own death; so that when produced, the calumni- 
 ated will be past the power of denial, and the calum- 
 
20 
 
 iliator safe from the world's indignant expression of repro- 
 bation ! !"— p. 15. 
 
 What a compHcation of atrocities is here attributed in 
 a single paragraph, to a public benefactor, now in his 
 grave, by a minister of a religious sect ! What a fright- 
 ful cluster of crimes, black as night, has the hand of a 
 clergyman here furnished, to adorn the memory of arr 
 illustrious patriot ! ! 
 
 In the first sentence Mr. Jefferson is charged, in the eager- 
 ness of proselytism, of arraying the "influence of high and 
 honored names" in support of his infidel doctrines. In the 
 second, if any thing is intelligible save the ambition of 
 fine loriting^ his sincerity in these very abominable 
 doctrines is itself questioned — and he is accused of 
 attributing them to distinguished cotemporaries, not for 
 the purpose, but the instant before affirmed, of securing their 
 reception among men — but with the view of blasting their 
 fame in after ages, and thus gratifying " the hatred of a 
 bad heart" ! ! One moment, he paints him a furious infi- 
 del, with hot and unholy enthusiasm, advancing his fatal 
 principles under the cegis of great men's names — the next, 
 an unbeliever in his own damnable infidelity, ("not honest 
 in his doubts,") and attributing it to Washington and others 
 to satisfy the monstrous and immeasurable hate of his 
 dial)olical bosom. And this attribution, too, not during 
 their mutual lives, when the effect of such calumny might 
 have been grateful, if ever, to a spirit soured, as he says, 
 by personal jealousy, but reserved with cold-blooded vin- 
 dictiveness through many years, to be made known when 
 they were both in ilieir graves — the libeller and the libel- 
 led — and their souls perhaps before the judgment seat of 
 their God ! ! AH that private memoirs, or the annals of his- 
 tory, or our own experience tell us of revenge, fade into utter 
 insignificance by contrast with this act of the third Presi- 
 dent of the United States ! The genius of the poet, occu- 
 pied with the passion, never conceived any thing more 
 
21 
 
 atrocious ! The world has ever admired the lago of 
 Shakspeare, and thought nature could no farther go ; but 
 the revenge of the Lieutenant is tame when compared with 
 this of the author of the Declaration of Independence, 
 looking, as it does, beyond the grave for gratification, and 
 providing, with epicurean forecaste, for the pleasures of ano- 
 ther world ! How hot must be the pious critic's own pas- 
 sions, to have induced him to attribute such to others ! 
 How any being, with the humanity of our nature about 
 him, can deliberately charge another with such an inten- 
 tion, without evidence which no mind can resist, is incon- 
 ceivable to us, except upon the supposition of a hatred as 
 intense as that which he supposes to have prompted the 
 intention itself But how a christian, and a christian 
 minister, can essay to affix such an atrocity to the memory 
 of a man who devoted his whole life to his country, is, we 
 confess, scarcely comprehensible to us upon any supposi- 
 tion; or if upon any, upon such a one as respect to his 
 profession and ourselves prevents us fi cm alluding to. 
 Were not the different charges utterly c . litradictory 
 of each other, we shoulJ perhaps think it ^vOrth while 
 to stop for a moment to expose the absurdity and utter 
 groundlessness of this among others. Fortunately for 
 Mr. Jefferson's memory, they will but serve to furnish ano- 
 ther illt.stration of the intensity of the oditim theologicum, 
 or of the strange blunders into which a man of sense is 
 sometimes led by tha influence of his passions. 
 
 A few sentences after the Reviewer has made this accu- 
 sation against Mr. Jefferson, he goes on to make some ob- 
 servations as to the manner in which the calumny has 
 been given to the world. " Wilhngto insinuate," he says, 
 " that he, (General Washington,) was like minded with 
 himself, (Jefferson,) he yet shrinks from the responsibility 
 of an explicit declaration, and screens himself under the 
 convenient cover of " Dr. Rush tells me," &c. Now, 
 there are no remarks made any where by the reverend 
 
22 
 
 gentleman which more clearly show the spirit with which 
 he was actuated toward the memory of Mr. Jefferson, and 
 with which he sat down to write the article upon his life. 
 He seems utterly to forget the most material facts, and goes 
 on to draw his conclusions, and hurl his denunciations 
 without the slightest regard to them. What has Mr. 
 Jefferson done, and what is the crime imputed to him ? 
 While Secretary of State, and President of the United 
 States, he was in the habit, it seems, of recording his daily 
 conversations with the most distinguished men, for pur- 
 poses, it must be presumed, of future history, or private 
 memoir. The journal in which he kept these conversa- 
 tions, he termed his Ana. He made no use of it during 
 his life, and since his death it has been published by his 
 executor, whether with, or against his wishes, no human 
 being can pretend to say. In this journal are found some 
 observations which were made to him by Asa Clarke, and 
 Gouverneur Morris, upon the subject of General Washing- 
 ton's religious opinions. These are the facts. From the 
 saloon, then, it appears, he retires to his closet : and there, 
 as a historian, or curious observer of the characters of 
 men, he records a fact which he had just received upon 
 the credit of a distinguished gentleman respecting the sen- 
 timents of another, still more distinguished, and while 
 writing down the conversation, goes on as it were, thinking 
 aloud to himself, and states what he had heard from ano- 
 ther individual upon the same subject. Here is the whole 
 head and front of his offending — ^it hath this extent — 
 no more. Upon these facts as a basis the charitable critic 
 of the Church Journal proceeds to found two distinct ac- 
 cusations : that of cowardice, and falsehood in two ways — 
 suppression of the truth, as well as suggestion of that 
 which is false. "Mr. Jefferson was willing to accuse 
 General Washington of being an infidel," he says, "but 
 shrank from the responsibility of an explicit declaration of 
 the fact, and screened himself under the convenient cover 
 
23 
 
 of Dr. Rush, and others." How absurd is all this ! What 
 responsibility is there in making an « explicit declaration" 
 which is only to see the light when the author of it is dead, 
 as well perhaps as the person against whom it is made 1 
 The writer seems utterly to forget that this record concern- 
 ing General Washington was made in an Ajia reserved, if 
 for publication at all, for posthumous publication, and that 
 if Mr. Jefferson had been actuated by the fell hate and 
 desire of injury attributed to him— utterly regardless of 
 truth as he says he was— he would have stepped forth 
 from behind the screen of other men's names, and boldly 
 avowed the truth as of his own knowledge. He may be 
 disposed to get out of the difficulty by saying that he 
 alludes to a different species of responsibility, viz : moral 
 responsibihty. But surely our pious pastor is not so igno- 
 rant of the science of ethics as not to know that there is 
 as much moral turpitude in the suppression of the truth, 
 as there is in the declaration of the false ; and that there 
 consequently could have been no greater moral responsi- 
 bility in an explicit declaration of the fact of Washing- 
 ton's infidelity, than in adopting the hearsay evidence of 
 others about it, when, conscious as the critic says Mr. Jef- 
 ferson was, at the time, that it was utterly false ! Again, 
 says the Reviewer, " he had it in his power to speak, of his 
 own knowledge— why cite Mr. Morris r Incomprehensi- 
 ble forgetfulness a second time ! Can he not keep the fact 
 in his mind that the paper from which he extracts is a 
 contemporaneous record of the conversations of the day, 
 and not a biographical article of General Washington' 
 professing among other things, to explain the nature of his 
 religious sentiments. A mere memorandum made from time 
 to time, of what he heard, and not speculations after 
 death as to the character of his views respecting Christi- 
 anity. Had it been of the latter nature, it would have 
 been proper for him to have stated the results of his own 
 observations, if indeed they would have contradicted the 
 
24 
 
 testimony of Asa Clarke and Gouvemenr Morris. Had 
 they, on the other hand, been such as would have confirmed 
 it — notwithstanding the pious gentleman thinks " a noble 
 frankness should have prompted him to state the fact" — yet 
 as we think " there is no philanthropy in depriving a fel- 
 low creature of something, which, however doubtful, yet 
 imparts comfort to him who believes it," (page 15) — and 
 surely the name of Washington as an infidel would have 
 had this tendency ; it would have been better, it appears 
 to us, to have withheld such confirmation. 
 
 Again, the captious critic finds fault with Mr. Jefferson 
 for recording the conversations at all, which he had with 
 Mr. Morris ; and, forsooth, because it appears from the lan- 
 guage in which he alludes to Mr. Morris's declaration 
 upon this occasion, as well as from another part of his 
 Ana, that he did not give full credit to the intimacy which 
 he, (Mr. M.) claimed with General Washington, and that 
 he thought him a sanguine man, apt to believe every thing 
 true that he desired to be so. Now, all this proceeds from 
 the ever continuing forgetfulness of the character of the 
 Ana, and the invincible determination on the part of the 
 critic, to represent Mr. Jefferson as the public prosecutor 
 against General Washino^ton's fame. Mr. Jefferson was 
 not making out a case against Washington, to use lan- 
 guage which may be more familiar to the pious gentle- 
 man's ears. If he had, he probably would have reported 
 the testimony of Mr. Morris, without the language which 
 seems to diminish its claims to credibility. He would have 
 carefully abstained from any observation calculated to im- 
 pair his right to public confidence, and thus perhaps have 
 conclusively established the guilt of the first President 
 upon unexceptionable testimony. But this was not his 
 object. He did not desire to make the world believe that 
 Washington was an infidel. He wished to record facts, 
 such as they were communicated to him. He gave 
 the evidence upon which they rested, for better or for worse, 
 
25 
 
 and indifferent as a faithful chronicler whether it was re- 
 ceived or not, he did not hesitate to express his opinion 
 of the character of the witnesses by w^hich it was fur- 
 nished. This is the simple solution of a matter which 
 has afforded the malice of our Reviewer the richest mate- 
 rials of defamation. With his imagination disordered by 
 the fumes of a theological hate, he can see nothing in 
 every object but horns and a cloven foot. He cannot con- 
 ceive the possibility of a man sitting down to record facts 
 in a philosophical spirit of observation. Drawing his rea- 
 sons from his own nature, he deems such occupation 
 insipid to a man of spirit and sense, and at once proceeds 
 to animate him with rancorous hatred, and to present him 
 to the reader in all the appalHng features of a deliberate 
 slanderer. 
 
 The next subject in the biography which furnishes field 
 for the display of the critic's invective^ is Mr. Jefferson's 
 views respecting the University of Virginia. He denounces 
 him for " having designed to make this institution a place 
 " where the minds of young and unsuspecting youth were 
 " to be poisoned with the venom of atheism — where they 
 " were to be taught that the Sabbath was to be abolished— 
 '' that God Almighty was not the Lord of the universe — 
 " and where a deliberate attempt was to be made to over- 
 " throw the whole fabric of the christian religion," etc. — 
 (pp. 18, 19.) Now, can it be believed possible, that there is 
 not the slightest foundation for all this overwhelming mass 
 of accusation — this charge of conspiracy so gigantic against 
 the religion of half the world — this purpose so Satanic in its 
 conception and means of execution 7 Never did one word, 
 that we have ever heard, reach the ears of the public, 
 respecting the religious opinions which were to be tauo-ht 
 at the University ! Mr. Jefferson never contemplated the 
 establishment of a professorship in any way connected 
 with the subject of Christianity ; and in the original plan 
 embracing the different departments of the college, not 
 
26 
 
 one syllable is to be found upon the matter. Never in the 
 appointment of professors, was any inquiry made, that we 
 have known, in allusion to their peculiar principles of reli- 
 gion. Never in any of his various official and private 
 conversations with them, from the origin of the insti- 
 tution up to the day of his death, did we ever hear, 
 (and we were ourselves a student there for many years,) 
 that he had expressed any wish or desire, in any way con- 
 nected with his peculiar views upon the subject. So utterly 
 and entirely destitute of foundation is this whole fabric of 
 the pious writer's imagination, that even Mr. Jefferson's 
 ideas of Christianity were ever a matter of doubt among 
 the young men of the University ! 
 
 The reader will be astonished to learn that tlie sole justi- 
 fication for all that the critic has said upon this subject, 
 is to be found in a private coiijideiitial letter to Mr. Short,* 
 in which Mr. Jefferson takes occasion to animadvert with 
 some bitterness upon what he supposes to be the charac- 
 teristic spirit and practice of the different religious denomi- 
 nations, as displayed in their controversies with each other, 
 and in their denunciations of the appointment of Dr. 
 Cooper, to a professorship in a literary institution. A sim- 
 ple figure of speech, 'perhaps not in the best taste^ by 
 which to illustrate the power of public opinion, he denomi- 
 nates it " the Lord of the universe," is, what seems to his 
 alarmed and Gluixotic fancy, incontrovertible evidence of 
 a desimi to dethrone the God of the universe !t The 
 
 * Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 320. 
 
 tThe probability of Mr. Jefferson's having designed to have such doctrines 
 taught at the University of Virginia, as well as the character of his conversa- 
 tions upon the subject of religion, and his imputed proselyting spirit generally, 
 may be judged of correctly by reference to the following expressions, in a let- 
 ter of his to Mr. Adams, dated August 22d, 1813 : 
 
 "Very soon after my letter to Dr. Priestley, the subject being still in my 
 mind, I had leisure during an abstraction from business, for a day or two, while 
 on the road, to think a little more on it, and to sketch more fully than I had 
 done then, a syllabus of the matter which I thought should enter into the 
 
27 
 
 solution of the whole matter, and at the same time the 
 extent of Mr. Jefferson's criminahty upon this subject, will 
 be found in the simple fact, that, from an unwilhngness to 
 favor one sect more than another, religion was not incor- 
 porated in the original plan of the University. It is this 
 atrocious impartiality, which has kindled the towering in- 
 dignation of our pious warrior, and called down his anathe- 
 mas upon the memory of the unfortunate ex-president of 
 the United States. Religion was not excluded— nor was 
 it included in the University. All the different denomina- 
 tions were invited to preach, but none were invested with 
 the exclusive privileges of inculcating their peculiar doc- 
 trines from the lecture rooms of the college. It was not 
 intended to be an arena for the display of gladiatorial theo- 
 logy—with how much propriety, we willingly leave it to 
 the public to determine. What he means by ''■ the experi- 
 ment failing," we confess we do not understand, for reli- 
 gion has no farther connection with the University at this 
 moment, than it had upon the day when its halls were first 
 thrown open.* 
 
 We shall pass over with but one single remark the pious 
 critic's observations upon what he is pleased to term Mr. 
 Jefferson's standard of moral propriety. And it is this, 
 that we are astonished that any just man should be disen- 
 genuous enough to take advantage of an accidental ex- 
 pression, thrown out for the purpose of showing that no 
 
 work. I wrote to Dr. Rush, and there ended all my labor on the subject. 
 Himself and Dr. P. being the only depositories of my secret. The fate of my 
 letter to Dr. P., after his death, was a warning to me on that of Dr. Rush ; 
 and at my request, his family were so kind as to quiet me by returning my 
 original letter and syllabus. By this you will be sensible how much interest I 
 take in keeping myself clear of religious disputes before the public. Yet I 
 enclose it to you with entire confidence, free to be perused by yourself and 
 Mrs. A., but by no one else, and to be returned to me." 
 
 * Messrs. Madison, Monroe, Chapman Johnson, and other religious gentle- 
 men, were Trustees of the University with Mr. Jefferson. 
 
28 
 
 argument can be drawn against the existence of a moral 
 sense from the different estimation of the same act in dif- 
 ferent societies, and represent it as containing a full expo- 
 sition of views respecting the criterion of moral propriety.* 
 The reverend critic, finding the errors of the ex-president 
 upon metaphysics, however, alittle less easy of demonstration 
 than those in religion, nowbounds off, and goes slashing and 
 cutting away at his character in a general manner. He finds 
 him guilty of the horrible crime of sensitiveness to public 
 opinion, and to this u7ipardo7iahle iceakness attributes the 
 composition of the journal so often before alluded to — the 
 Ana ! Charges him, en passant^ with the Ittle peccadillo of 
 caUing God solemnly in attestation to conscious lies, and 
 ends by representing him in the humiliating character of a 
 second Nestor or Cicero, recounting to his listening coun- 
 trymen the tale of his exploits. As an American citizen, 
 proud of Mr. Jefferson's fame, the feeling pastor sheds tears 
 of mortification and regret at this voluntary self abase- 
 ment !— (pp. 22, 23.) 
 
 Having but a few pages back denounced the ex-presi- 
 dent, the reader will recollect, for foully slandering General 
 Washington, to gratify his malignant hatred, he now says, 
 alluding to the memoranda in his Ana^ that as " no rivalry 
 was to be apprehended" between them, he could sometimes 
 speak of him favorably — while he goes on to remark, one 
 fourth of all his malicious 07i dits are levelled against him 
 whom he supposed to be his most dangerous competitor for 
 the highest honors of his country ! Hamilton — Jefferson's 
 most dangerous competitor for the Presidency of the Uni- 
 ted States ! How well has our political divine read the 
 political annals of his country, and how profound are his 
 observations upon th^m ! But we forget. This is the 
 exact point in the Review at which the holy gentleman 
 
 * Vide page 20 of the Review. 
 
29 
 
 doffs his surplice, and puts on the civil dress of the politi- 
 cian. Here we greet him in a new character, and see his 
 genius under a ditFerent phasis. Here we find that the 
 natural strength of his abiUties is only surpassed by their 
 versatility, and that his excellence in one role, is only paral- 
 leled by the Protean facility with which he assumes other 
 characters, and ranges at will through the various depart- 
 ments of the critical drama. 
 
 We will not occupy any space with observations upon 
 the subject of the critic's allusion to the Mazzei letter, 
 satisfied that Mr. Jefferson's correspondence with Mr. 
 Van Buren, and the explanation of his biographer, 
 furnish a satisfactory defence from every charge, ex- 
 cept that of a too vague phraseology, and an exag- 
 gerated style, in which his morbid fears of Federalists — 
 like those of Mr. Burke upon the subject of the French 
 revolution — had led him to indulge. As for the letter to 
 Colonel Burr, an undue importance has been given to it, 
 we think, as well by the peculiar attempt on the part of 1/ 
 the biographer to explain it,* as by the remarks of the Re- 
 viewer in condemnation. To admit that it is not charac- 
 terized by the candor which marks the confessions of the 
 Catholic to his priest, or the young maiden to her lover, 
 is what we readily do ; but who ever looked for, or what 
 is more to the purpose, who ever found such, in the com- 
 munications of politicians or statesmen ? Volto sciolto, 
 pensieri stretti, is a maxim which having long regulated 
 the conduct of ministerial and diplomatic men in Europe, 
 was not, we beg leave to inform our critical censor, first 
 introduced into this country by Mr. Jefierson, nor has it 
 been repudiated since his death. However much we may 
 regret it, we cannot make it otherwise, and he who looks 
 for the same frankness between politicians and public men, 
 that ought to characterize the intercourse of private gentle- 
 
 * Vide Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. ii. p. 76. 
 
30 
 
 men, will only expose his own simplicity. " I had endea- 
 vored," says Mr. Jefferson, ^' to compose an administration 
 whose talent, integrity, names, and dispositions, should at 
 once inspire unbounded confidence in the public mind. 
 I lose you from the list."* Now that Colonel Burr at the 
 time this letter was written was considered by a large ma- 
 jority of the people of the United States, a man of talents 
 and integrity, there is conclusive evidence in the result 
 just then made known of the election for President and 
 Vice-President. He had received an equal number of 
 electoral votes with Mr. Jefferson himself! Whatever then 
 might have been Mr. Jefferson's private feelings toward 
 Colonel Burr, there was certainly no duplicity in desig- 
 nating him as one whose talents and integrity would 
 " inspire unbounded confidence in the public mind." He 
 does not allude, nor is there, singular enough to say, one 
 single word in the whole letter respecting his per- 
 sonal impressions, or individual sentiments toward Colonel 
 Burr. He is spoken of solely as one of those " gentlemen 
 who possessed the public confidence." As to his talents, 
 Mr. Jefferson admits, and it would have been folly in any 
 one to have denied that Colonel Burr possessed talents of 
 a very superior order, that might have made him eminently 
 useful in the service of his country. Hence the expres- 
 sion of his opinion as to his capacity " for rendering sub- 
 stantial service to the public." As to his confidence in 
 Colonel Burr's patriotism, and disposition to devote his 
 talents to the public good, there could have been no doubt 
 in Mr. Jefferson's mind even in 1806, as we find by a con- 
 versation which he had with Colonel Burr, the particulars 
 of which he has himself recorded, and which the Reviewer 
 has quoted in page 13 of his article. " I observed to him," 
 he says, " that I had a confidence if he were employed, that 
 
 * Correspondence, vol, iii. p. 444. 
 
31 
 
 he would use his talents for the public good." In the Ana 
 however, we find this observation respecting Colonel Burr • 
 "1 had never seen Colonel Burr till he came as a member 
 ot the Senate. His conduct very soon mspired me with 
 distrust. I habitually cautioned Mr. Madison against 
 trusting him too much. I saw afterward, that under 
 General Washington's and Mr. Adams' administration, 
 whenever a great military or diplomatic appointment was 
 to be made, he came post to Philadelphia, to show himself, 
 and m fact that he was always at market, if they wanted 
 him. He was told by Dayton, in 1800, that he might be 
 Secretary at War ; but this bid came too late. With" these 
 mipressions of Colonel Burr, there never had been an inti- 
 macy between us, and but little association. When I 
 destined him for a high appointment, it was out of respect 
 for the favor he had obtained with the republican party 
 by his extraordinary exertions and success in the New- 
 York election in 1800." 
 
 Now, between this and the preceding letter and conver- 
 sation, we confess we do not see the utter contradiction 
 and inconsistency which seems so apparent to the critic's 
 mmd. The - distrust" here meant was evidently nothing 
 more than doubts entertained respecting the strength of 
 his attachment to the democratic party, of which he, Colo- 
 nel Burr, and Mr. Madison were members, and hence the 
 assertion which soon follows in relation to his willingness 
 to have taken office under General Washington and Mr 
 Adams, and the attempt of Dayton to buy him over by the 
 offer of the Secretaryship of War. There can be no doubt 
 of the correctness of this interpretation, and the reverend 
 gentleman must have known it at the time he quoted the 
 different expressions for the purposes of abuse. Now, 
 between a disposition to abandon one party for the sake of 
 participating in the administration of the country through 
 the influence of another, and a determination to make use 
 of the power, when thus obtained, for the public good 
 
32 
 
 there is no necessary incompatibility. We are very far 
 from vindicating the too common crime of desertion of 
 party for the sake of office, but certainly the mere fact 
 is not irreconcilable with the most devoted patriotism, 
 and therefore Mr. Jefferson's distrust of Colonel Burr's 
 fidelity to the democratic party is not necessarily inconsis- 
 tent with the most decided expression of his belief, that if 
 employed he would devote his talents to the public good. 
 An ardent desire to be of service to your country, accom- 
 panied with a conviction that the party to which you be- 
 long will never furnish you with the means, might prompt 
 an individual to such a step. This was the justification 
 proffered by the celebrated Mr. Canning for his political 
 apostacy, and it has been thought a good one. But v/hether 
 it is or not, no one ever questioned his entire devotion to 
 the interests of England, though he had purchased the 
 control of her destinies by the voluntary abandonment of 
 the political party to which he stood pledged from his 
 youth. If this be correct reasoning, what becomes of the 
 charges of duplicity, dishonesty, and systematic deception, 
 which our pious Reviewer has poured forth, with such 
 friendly prodigality, upon the subject of this letter of Mr. 
 Jefferson to Colonel Burr ? 
 
 The next aspect in which our clergyman presents him- 
 self to the reader, is, oh ! fons lachrymorutn^ as another 
 Captain Bobadil, commentating with choice phrase upon 
 the celebrated custom of the " DuelloJ'' and expounding 
 with rare felicity the whole •' Code of Honor P In this most 
 warlike guise he makes an insidious attack upon Mr. Jef- 
 ferson's character as a man of courage, indulging in sneers 
 at his conduct during the invasion of Virginia by Arnold, 
 and hunting up old abortive movements of political and 
 personal foes in the Legislature of that State, for the pur- 
 pose of lending color to the insinuation. And yet, con- 
 scious that the subject is not becoming a " professor" of 
 religion, he attempts a miserable apology by saying that he 
 
33 
 
 should not have touched the question of courage at all, 
 but for " the fact that his biographer repelled the charge 
 of cowardice by the production of what he considered 
 equivocal proof of firmness of nerve." Now v^hat 
 wretched disingenuousness is all this, and how unworthy 
 a man of truth and piety ! Why, if this had been the 
 only reason, did he not confine himself to the question as 
 to what testimony, the giving, or the acceptance of a chal- 
 lenge furnishes of bravery ? Why allude in a contemptu- 
 ous manner to Mr. Jefferson's conduct when governor? 
 Why recall the recollection of the impeachment attempted 
 to be got up against him in the Legislature of Virginia, 
 and omit to say that it signally failed, and that a resolution 
 of entire approbation of his conduct was afterwards miani- 
 mously passed ]* 
 
 But why, above all things, did he not admit Mr. Jeffer- 
 son's willingness to afford this proof of courage, as asserted 
 by his biographer, and go on to argue its insufficiency to 
 sustain his inference? Why say that the fact of having 
 intended to send a cartel could come alone from 
 him, and consequently was not entitled to credence, 
 when he must have known, that Mr. Tucker could 
 have derived it as well from the " second" ; and most pro- 
 bably did 7 Why, to prove that Mr. Jefferson did not 
 design to send the challenge at all, does he distort the 
 biographer's language, and make him say that he aban- 
 doned the idea " because his second refused to bear his 
 challenge," when he in reality says, that he abandoned it 
 because his friend did not "second his purpose" ? (p. 33.) A 
 man who should apply to the reverend gentleman himself, to 
 bear a cartel to another, and should altogether relinquish 
 the intention of sending one, because the reverend gentle- 
 man, albeit somewhat belligerent, should decline this office 
 
 Tucker's Life—p. 156-7. 
 
 5 
 
34 
 
 of friendship, would be perhaps a coward. But a gentle- 
 man who consults a friend in whom he has confidencCj 
 and is by that friend persuaded that the cause does not 
 warrant an appeal to arms, or that some peculiar circum- 
 stances would render such a step highly unbecoming in 
 him — and in consequence revokes " his determination to 
 challenge" — may be as brave a man as ever stood in the 
 tented field. " It becomes not a professor" of Christianity 
 " to adduce such evidence" of cowardice as is furnished by 
 an unwillinorness to send a challeno-e to a mortal combat, 
 "Young men are ready enough to adopt the belief, that what 
 " the world calls wounded honor can only be healed by 
 " murder, and it is not necessary to countenance indirectly 
 '•their false notions," (p. 33.) by laboriously attempting to 
 despoil Mr. Jefferson of the honor of having designed to send 
 a cartel ; and thus indisputably admitting it to be an inten- 
 tion, the execution of which would have conferred some 
 renown, and afforded some proof of courage, and the omis- 
 sion to execute which reflects some disgrace, and exhibits 
 some timidity. The charge of cowardice is a very grave 
 one, and calculated seriously to diminish our respect for 
 any man, however great his mental or moral qualities. 
 The one against Mr. Jefferson rests entirely, it appears, upon 
 the fact of his retreat from Monticello at the approach of the 
 British, under Tarleton, during the war of the revolution. 
 Now, surely the pious gentleman could not have expected 
 him to have remained, and opposed, single handed, whole 
 troops of cavalry, flushed, too, with victory, and led on by the 
 Murat of the American war. It is of no avail to think of 
 those precedents which his classical learning suggests 
 to his recollection. The cases, if he will examine them 
 closely, he will find to vary materially in their circum- 
 stances. The valiant Roman* that he has read of in his 
 
 * Horatius Codes — Livv, lib. 2. 
 
35 
 
 Livy, who kept back the embattled hosts of Porsena with his 
 single arm, encountered them, he will recollect, upon a 
 bridge, and thus fought to immense advantage. Now there is 
 no such structure between Monticello and Charlottesville 
 upon which the author of the Declaration of Independence 
 could have posted himself to check the career of an ad- 
 vancing enemy. Great Peleus' son, who could alone turn 
 the tide of battle at will, was the conqueror of him, (this mo- 
 dern commentator upon chivalry cannot have forgotten.) who 
 possessed, according to the blind bard, the strength of two 
 degenerate men even of his days.* And recollecting how 
 much the human race has declined in vigor since the time of 
 Homer, Achilles, it is fair to presume, must have been more 
 than a match for six such modern heroes as Thomas Jeffer- 
 son. Thus the pious gentleman perceives the gross injustice 
 of founding any condemnation of the third President of the 
 United States, upon a comparison of his acts with the 
 heroism of the Roman and Grecian ages. But to speak 
 seriously, had Mr. Jefferson remained at Monticello, and 
 suffered himself to be taken prisoner, it would no doubt 
 have been highly acceptable to Colonel Tarleton and the 
 British nation, but it would have hardly won any other 
 fame for him than that of the most egregrious folly. 
 
 We now come to the critic's opinion of the peculiar cha- 
 racter of Mr. Jefferson's mind, but as our remarks are 
 already too much extended, we willingly leave the public 
 to judge of its justness by an examination of his works. 
 His reputation as a bold and lofty thinker, a profound 
 statesman, beautiful writer, and brilliant philosophical 
 genius, is acknowledged wherever the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, and the Notes on Virginia, have gone, and it is 
 
 A ponderous stone bold Hector heaved to throw. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise, 
 Such men as live in these degenerate days. — Iliad, Book xii. 
 
36 
 
 not likely will be much impaired by the criticisms of the 
 Church Journal clergyman. We shall, for the same rea- 
 son, pass over the remarks upon many of Mr. Jefferson's 
 notions upon government, the institutions of our country, 
 the currency, etc., and shall come directly to the last 
 serious attack upon his veracity as a man, and his reputa- 
 tion as the writer of the Declaration of Independence ; 
 and we must premise that we see no good reason why this 
 controversy should have ever originated. Mr. Jefferson, 
 it appears, is alleged by our critic to have been aware of 
 the existence of " the Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence" at the time he wrote the one of '76, and to have 
 borrowed from it four expressions : and he is indirectly 
 charged with falsehood in the letter which he wrote to Mr. 
 Adams in 1819, doubting its authenticity, and denying 
 that he had ever seen it.*— (p. 55.) Now, even did we 
 think Mr. Jefferson a much worse man than our pious 
 critic thinks him, we cannot for a moment suppose that he 
 would have deemed it necessary, as the author of the 
 Declaration of Independence, to have denied that he had 
 seen the Mecklenburg draft, and had taken from it the 
 alleged expressions, unless indeed — what we believe to be 
 the fact — he was compelled to do so by truth. Can any one 
 imagine that he could have seriously apprehended that the 
 immortal honor of having composed the greatest state 
 paper in the world, could be impaired by an acknowledg- 
 ment of having incorporated into it, from the Mecklenburg 
 Declaration, all that its most enthusiastic admirer could 
 suppose worthy of being stolen ? Again, who for a mo- 
 ment, that knows any thing of human nature, can think 
 that the man who had been President of this great repub- 
 lic, and had won for himself imperishable glory by a whole 
 life of devoted patriotism, would run the risk, in the even- 
 
 ♦ Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. ii. pp. 412-14. 
 
37 
 
 ing of his days, of being publicly branded as a liar, rather 
 than admit a plagiarism of four ordinary phrases in one of 
 his political productions ? The first of the expressions 
 which he is afiirmed to have taken, viz : — " dissolve the 
 political bands which have connected" — so far from hav- 
 ing the merit of beauty, has not even that of correctness. 
 We cannot dissolve a band — we can only cut it, or break 
 it, " Dissolving the political connection" — " absolving from 
 all allegiance" — "are and of right ought to be," three 
 other phrases in the two instruments which are quoted as 
 identical, the reader will be amazed to learn, constitute al- 
 most the entire hodrj of the celebrated original resolu- 
 tion of Independence^ onoved in the Convejition at Phila- 
 dcljjhia^ by Richard Henry Lee, of Yirginia. " Resolved, 
 " that these United Colonies are and of right ought to he 
 free and independent States ; that they are absolved from 
 all allegiance to the British crown ; and that all j)olitical 
 connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is 
 and ought to be totally dissolved," etc. etc.* 
 
 Now which, we ask our pious critic, is most probable, 
 that Mr. Jefferson borrowed these phrases from this resolu- 
 tion which called the Committee for draughting a Declara- 
 tion of Independence into existence, and was before him 
 when he commenced preparing the one which he after- 
 ward submitted, or that he took them from the celebrated 
 Mecklenburg original, which we shall presently show, it 
 is fair to presume, never went beyond the borders of North 
 Carolina? Mr, Lee, however, it is to be presumed, by a 
 parity of reason, will be said also to have borrowed from 
 the Mecklenburg decree. This must be proved for the 
 sake of consistency, and we hope our Reviewer and the 
 North Carolinians will look to it in their next article upon 
 the subject. 
 
 Vide Journals of Congress. 
 
38 
 
 " We pledge to each other our Uves, our fortunes, and 
 our sacred honor/' is the last of the celebrated duplicate 
 sentences. It is well enough, but is it not such an expres- 
 sion as might occur to many an eloquent man, when wishing 
 to dictate the most solemn oath, by which men in an hour 
 of intense interest and deep danger, could consecrate them- 
 selves to a sublime purpose ? In such a moment we should 
 naturally pledge every thing we consider most sacred. 
 First, our lives, as being a matter of the least moment to a 
 brave man. Secondly, our fortunes^ — and lastly, our sacred 
 honor as dearer than every thing else. Could not two per- 
 sons then have fallen upon this peculiar collocation of words 
 without previous consultation ? Is there any thing really 
 so unique in the idea, or so striking in the language, as to 
 render it impossible, and when found in the writings of two 
 individuals, to force the conclusion that one must have 
 taken it from the other ? We confess we think not. The 
 merit of the idea of a declaration of Independence, the 
 reader will recollect is not claimed by Mr. Jefferson. He 
 only desires the surpassing credit of having composed the 
 one which was actually adopted. We repeat then, does any 
 one suppose that this proud distinction could be affected by 
 an admitted plagiarism of the one wretched inaccuracy, 
 and the three common places from the meagre draft of the 
 Mecklenburg committee ? Or that Mr. Jefferson could have 
 entertained such an apprehension at the time he wrote the 
 unfortunate letter to Mr. Adams ? If he did not, then what 
 earthly motive, save the truth, could have prompted him to 
 the utterance of a denial so susceptible, by its very nature, 
 if false, of being demonstrated to be so to his endless shame 
 and infamy? Imagination could not conceive worse folly than 
 this, and yet our charitable critic attributes it to Thomas 
 Jefferson, " whom his worst enemy never charged with stu- 
 pidity," (p. 31,) and availing himself of the perhaps indiscreet 
 admission of his biographer, that one paper must have 
 been copied from the other, convicts him, as he supposes, 
 
39 
 
 with the most triumphant satisfaction of having know- 
 ingly uttered an infamous falsehood. This view of the 
 subject is conclusive to us, and renders it unnecessary 
 to examine the evidence upon the subject of the original 
 number of the Mecklenburg resolutions. We will only re- 
 mark, before quitting this point of the controversy, that it is 
 very strange when the subject of Independence was one of 
 such profound interest to all America — when Patrick 
 Henry had just electrified the people of Virginia by the first 
 public allusion to its necessity* — when men's minds were 
 agitated with it from Maine to Georgia — when the national 
 convention was convulsed with it for weeks — when a 
 committee of five of the most distinguished men of the colo- 
 nies, from Connecticut to Virginia, were appointed to draft 
 a declaration upon it — when the members themselves from 
 North Carolina were ignorant of this celebrated Mecklenburg 
 Declaration,t is it not strange, we add.th at Mr. Jefferson should 
 have been the only man who had seen, or had a copy of it? If 
 any one else had enjoyed this distinguished satisfaction, the 
 irresistible presumption is, as Mr. Adams says.t that it would 
 have rung from one end of the Union to the other, and been 
 thundered throuorh the Halls of Congress, into the ears of 
 the timid, and the undecided. And could Mr. Jefferson 
 have had the audacious boldness then to have borrowed from 
 such a paper and under such circumstances ? We leave 
 the reader to answer the question. But for the impeachment 
 of Mr. Jefferson's veracity, we should have never deemed it 
 necessary to have said a word upon the subject. For 
 resistance to the purpose for which it is professedly intro- 
 duced by the critic, viz. that of contesting Mr. Jefferson's 
 claim to originality as the author of the Declaration of In- 
 
 * Vide Wirt's Life of Henry. 
 
 i Vide Mr. Adams' letter to Mr. Jefferson, announcing its discovery. 
 
 t Same letter. 
 
4U 
 
 dependence, we should have thought one vjord said, 
 one word too much. His fame in this particular is 
 as little likely to be affected by conviction of having 
 borrowed the four phrases from the Mecklenburg com- 
 mittee, as Shakspeare's would be by the loss of a single 
 canto of the Venus and Adonis, or Milton's by one of his 
 Italian sonnets. 
 
 As to the resemblance between the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence and the Constitution of Virginia, or " to speak 
 more properly, the list of grievances prefixed to that in- 
 strument," we confess it is not at all wonderful, because, 
 indeed, they both proceed from the same pen. And 
 we must be permitted to say, that in nothing, is the noble 
 daring, or the modest assurance of our reverend friend, 
 more apparent than in this part of his article, where he 
 undertakes to contradict the positive assertion of the biog- 
 rapher of Jefferson, upon the strength of the siUiest and 
 weakest presumption, upon which a disciple of Duns 
 Scotus ever proceeded to form a conclusion. Mr. Tucker 
 says, that while the convention in Virginia was engaged in 
 framing a constitution, Mr. Jefferson, then in Philadelphia, 
 prepared one with a preamble, containing a list of the 
 grievances of the colonies, and sent it to his friend, Mr. 
 Wythe. That the former one was not adopted for reasons 
 which he states, but that the preamble (paper alluded to 
 by the critic) was. In opposition to this positive statement 
 of the biographer, the reverend gentleman presents this 
 most sapient paragraph. 
 
 " On the 11th of August, 1775, Mr. Jefferson was elected 
 " a delegate to Congress, for one year, by the convention of 
 " Virginia, and on the 20th of June, 1776, was re-elected 
 " for another year. The journals to which we have refer- 
 " red, show us that George Wythe also was elected with Mr. 
 " Jefferson, on both these occasions ; and as the list of mem- 
 " bers in the Virginia convention presents us at one time 
 " with the name of Mr. Edward Randolph, and at another, of 
 
41 
 
 "Mr. Prentiss; sitting for Mr. Wythe, we infer, iimt in 1776, 
 " while the Virginia constitution was under consideration, 
 " Mr. Wythe was in Philadelphia with Mr. Jefferson, at- 
 " tending to his duties in Congress ; if this be so, we do 
 " not perceive how the hst of grievances coidd have been 
 " transmitted to him in Virginia" ! He first takes it for 
 granted, that the " Wythe" alluded to by the biographer, 
 could have been no other than the George Wythe here 
 spoken of, (or if he admits the possibility of its being some 
 other person, he allows it no weight in the argument,) 
 when it might have been a half dozen others of the same 
 name. Having settled this matter thus summarily, he now 
 forsooth, from the fact of Mr. Wythe's having been a member 
 of both bodies at the same time, and of his having been 
 occasionally represented in his absence from the convention 
 of Virginia, by two of his friends, assumes that he ^mist 
 have been absent in Philadelphia at the time the Virginia 
 convention was under consideration, and therefore, could 
 not have received the preamble of Mr. Jefferson ! ! This 
 is the kind of logic with which our political divine pro- 
 ceeds to overthrow the unqualified declaration of a gentle- 
 man ! This is the species of reasoning he deems more 
 potent than fact ! This is the process by which he ex- 
 pects to erase the proud inscription of " Author of the 
 Declaration of Independence" from Mr. Jefferson's tomb- 
 stone, and to write deep in its stead, the epitaph of infamy ! 
 It certainly cannot be necessary to offer a word in refuta- 
 tion of such miserable trash. When our pious critic will 
 prove that it was the identical George Wythe then in Con- 
 gress, to whom the biographer alludes, and when he will 
 further prove that the said George Wythe was in Philadel- 
 phia at the time the alleged constitution and preamble were 
 transmitted by Mr. Jefferson to Virginia, then, we will un- 
 dertake to add something else to the evidence which his 
 biographer has already afforded of his having been the 
 author of the preamble, but not until then. We have now 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 done with the subject. We have followed the church 
 journal critic through his course of detraction. We have 
 endeavored to gather up all the venom which he has 
 dropped by the way. He has wreaked all his malice, and has 
 long since retired from the work of injury. His passions 
 are, perhaps, cool by this time, and we hope he sees 
 that in the heady current of his animosity, he has evinced a 
 spirit inconsistent with justice, and unbecoming a professor 
 of Christianity, We forbear saying aught more that can add 
 to the bitterness of his reflections. We only beg that he will 
 ponder well upon the following observations of a great man : 
 " Politics and the pulpit are terms that have but little 
 " agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church 
 '• save the healing voice of christian charity. The cause 
 " of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that 
 " of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit 
 " it their proper character to assume what does not belong 
 " to them, are for the greater part ignorant both of the 
 " character they leave, and the character they assume. 
 " Wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are 
 " so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, 
 " on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they 
 " have nothing of politics but the passions they excite. 
 " Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought 
 " to be given to the dissensions and animosities of mankind."* 
 
 Lest we may be thought to have expressed ourselves 
 with unwarrantable harshness, we shall be pardoned, we 
 hope, if before we conclude, we briefly and summarily call 
 the attention of the reader to the life and public services of 
 Mr. Jefferson, and the nature of the attack which has been 
 made against him. 
 
 In 1767, when the spirit of the revolution first displayed 
 itself, in the legislature of Virginia, in opposition to the 
 
 * Burke. 
 
43 
 
 Taxation Bill, of the Colonial Governor, Jefferson, then a 
 youth, and in the ^r^^ year of his public life, took the bold 
 step of signing a non-importation agreement, in company 
 with Washington, Randolph, Henry, and Lee. In the same 
 legislature, fifteen years before a voice had been raised in 
 condemnation even of the slave trade^ his great and humane 
 mind went so far beyond the age, as to lead him to make a 
 proposition for the gradual extinction of domestic slavery. 
 In 1773, when public indignation was aroused by the re- 
 moval of a citizen of Rhode Island to England for trial, 
 and Virginia took a leading part among her sister states in 
 the movements consequent upon the act — Jefferson took a 
 leading part in Virginia ; first suggested a committee of 
 correspondence to communicate with the other colonies, 
 and embodied his views in resolutions, and thus originated 
 that great measure, the origin of all the others, the great- 
 est, by universal acknowledgment, ever adopted by the 
 colonies, and one, the glorious distinction of which has been 
 the subject of rival claims by Massachusetts and Virginia. 
 In 1774, when the Boston Port Bill spread the flame of 
 discontent over the whole continent, and the idea of a ge- 
 neral Congress was adopted, and delegates elected, it was 
 Jefferson who drew up the instructions for those who 
 were sent from Virginia — -instructions which afterwards, 
 printed under the title of " a summary view of the rights of 
 British America," produced an effect which was powerfully 
 felt in England, as well as in the colonies. In 1775, he 
 prepared the justly celebrated answer to the conciliatory 
 propositions of the British government. Elected to the 
 national convention in the same year, he was appomted a 
 member of the committee to prepare a statement of the rea- 
 sons for taking up arms, and drew up the report. In 1776, 
 he drafted the Declaration of Independence. In 1777, he 
 assisted in framing the municipal code of his native state, 
 and was the author of the great fundamental and republican 
 measures for abolishing entails — the law of promageniture, 
 
44 
 
 the preference of males over females — separating the church 
 from state, establishing religious toleration, and founding 
 primary schools, and the university. To him, more than 
 any other man, are we indebted for the republican tendency 
 which was given to the administration ol this government 
 during the period of the first presidency. For at a time 
 when the great minds of Hamilton and Adams, looked with 
 distrust upon our infant constitution, by reason of its demo- 
 cratic character^ and the so id of Washington himself was 
 clouded with doubts, Jeiferson alone spoke withundoubting 
 confidence, and looked forward with unshaken faith to the 
 result of the great experiment. With the true prophetic 
 glance of genius, he penetrated the future, and saw the 
 great republic reposing safely beneath the sliade of the in- 
 stitutions, then ihe object of such anxious sohcitude. By 
 the influence of his talents and character, in the cabinet of 
 Washington, he may be said to have prevented this country 
 from being plunged into a war with Great Britain, to 
 gratify the mad enthusiasm of the friends of revolutionary 
 France. He administered the government while President, 
 with the most prosperous results, with the profoundest wis- 
 dom, and with the strictest accordance with true republican 
 principles; acquired the vast and invaluable" terrritory of 
 Louisiana, and kept his country in peace, and preserved its 
 honor inviolate at a time when the whole civilized world 
 echoed with the clang of arms. 
 
 It is this man — thus perilling his life and fortune 
 in earliest youth, in defence of his country's rights, 
 and afterwards devoting his whole life to her service — 
 crowned in succession with all the highest honors that 
 a grateful republic could confer — discharging with sa- 
 cred fidelity all his social obligations — passing the even- 
 ing of his days in philosophical thought — the oracle to 
 whom men looked in every danger that threatened our 
 infant government — the object of proud contemplation 
 and affectionate interest to two continents, and sinking into 
 
45 
 
 his grave with the accumulated and accumulating grati- 
 tude of millions — who has been dragged back before the 
 world, and charged by the clergyman of the Church Jour- 
 nal, with vanity, egotism, uncharitableness, inhumanity, 
 meanness, jealousy, fiend-like hate, hypocrisy, treachery, 
 falsehood, cowardice, alms-begging, and infidelity. " Whose 
 policy" he has stigmatized '• as the cunning of selfishness," 
 and "whose friendship the treachery of deceit." Between 
 the assumption of whose nature, and that of one, whom 
 he has described as possessing '• a devil's spirit linked to a 
 brute's propensities," and as not having " enough of man 
 left about him to make a christian out of," he has said that 
 one would long hesitate, if forced upon the hard alterna- 
 tive of choosing !* 
 
 As for the consequences to Mr. Jefferson's reputation, we 
 have but little fear. It is as safe from the eflfusions of clerical 
 hate as the fixed star from the influence of earth's noxious ex- 
 halations. Theriver of his fame is rolling rapidly on to poste- 
 rity, and it is as idle for the clergyman of the Church Jour- 
 nal to attempt to break its stream, as it would be for him to 
 stay Niagara in its course, and hurl back its waters. He has 
 erected for himself a monument broader and more im- 
 perishable than the largest of Egypt's kings. The Van- 
 dals of criticism cannot break it, nor stain its whiteness. It 
 is in the hearts of millions of grateful people. His fame 
 stands identified with the institutions of our country, and 
 should they be destined to overshadow the earth, it will be 
 coextensive. The grandeur of his genius is for ever 
 blended with the majesty of that period in the history of 
 the human mind, when the great truth of man's capacity 
 for self government was first discovered. Bacon's name is 
 not more indissolubly connected with the emancipation of 
 
 ♦Vide an article from the same hand upon Davis' Life of Burr, in the last 
 number of the New-Vork Review.— pp. 10, 183, 213. 
 
46 
 
 the human intellect from a false philosophy — Newton's 
 with the great revelation in natural science — Columbus' 
 with the discovery of this continent — than is that of 
 Thomas Jefferson, with the proudest epoch in the history 
 of human reason and human action. It stands, giving and 
 taking light. We plead guilty to the charge of veneration 
 for his memory, and that of our patriot forefathers. 
 We watched them as they lingered upon earth, with a 
 reverential respect, linked as they were with the history of 
 the sublime past, and the hopes of a bright futurity. And 
 when we heard of Jefferson, and Adams, and Monroe, de- 
 scending to their graves, it was with something of the same 
 feelino^ with which we may suppose the celebrated travel- 
 ler,* after crossing the equator, saw those stars go down 
 with which he had been famihar from his infancy. If 
 there is any human heart that €an take pleasure in soiling 
 their fair fame, we thank God it has nothing in common 
 with the one in our bosom. For our own part, we cherish 
 the recollection of their greatness with something of the 
 melancholy tenderness with which the lover dwells upon 
 the virtues of his lost mistress. We love to believe them 
 great. We love to look at them enshrouded in the glory 
 of their great deeds, and our imagination would fain lend 
 them additional splendor, to consecrate their memory. 
 We love to gaze at them, shining like stars in the milky 
 way of history, and should be sorry to have the brilliancy 
 of one tarnished, or taken from the constellation. 
 
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