Southern Literature From 1579-1895 Part 6

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

~1743=1826.~

THOMAS JEFFERSON, the "Sage of Monticello," and founder of the University of Virginia, was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Virginia. He was educated at William and Mary College, and early developed a rare taste for study, music, and general culture. His is one of the greatest and most interesting figures in our history. He received and adorned all the positions in the gift of his fellow-citizens, from that of member of the State Legislature to that of President of the United States, which office he twice filled. He is considered the founder of the present Democratic party in politics; and he gained imperishable fame as the author of the Declaration of Independence. He spent five years in France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin as minister to that country, and he introduced into the United States the decimal system of currency.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ~Monticello, the Home of Thomas Jefferson, Albemarle County, Va.~]

His love for country life induced him to retire to Monticello, his place in Albemarle County, where he spent his declining years in planning and establishing the University of Virginia. His love of freedom in every possible form is shown in his plan for the University, which was, unlike most colleges of the times, to be under the patronage of no church, and the students were to be controlled like any community of citizens. He was also opposed to slavery. (_See his Notes on Virginia._)

He died at Monticello, July 4, 1826, on the same day with John Adams, just fifty years after the great event of their lives, the declaration of independence of the United States.

The following inscription was at his own request put upon his tombstone:

THOMAS JEFFERSON,

Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and Father of the University of Virginia.

WORKS.

Autobiography, Essays, Treatises, Letters, Reports, Messages, and Addresses, (9 volumes).

Jefferson's style as a political writer is considered a model: and every citizen of the United States should be well acquainted with the Declaration of Independence, which has been called by competent critics the most remarkable paper of its kind in existence.

His writings show a well trained mind, accustomed to observe closely and to delight in thought and truth and freedom. _See under George Tucker._ Consult also his Life, by Tucker, by Morse, by Sarah N.

Randolph, his great-grand-daughter, Memoirs by Thos. J. Randolph (1830).

POLITICAL MAXIMS.

Government has nothing to do with opinion.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to G.o.d. (_Motto on his seal._)

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS AT THE AGE OF TWENTY.

(_From a letter to John Page._)

Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I have steadfastly believed. The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes, which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the princ.i.p.al studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to a.s.sume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider whatever does happen must happen; and that by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burthen of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end, when we may deliver up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit. Such, dear Page, will be the language of the man who considers his situation in this life, and such should be the language of every man who would wish to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit.

Few things will disturb him at all; nothing will disturb him much.

SCENERY AT HARPER'S FERRY AND AT THE NATURAL BRIDGE.

(_From Notes on Virginia, written in 1781, published in 1801._)

[Ill.u.s.tration: ~Harper's Ferry.~]

The pa.s.sage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Patowmac, in quest of a pa.s.sage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pa.s.s off to the sea. The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion, that this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow afterwards, that in this place particularly they have been d.a.m.ned up by the Blue ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that continuing to rise they have at length broken over at this spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disrupture and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents of nature, corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing which nature has given to the picture, is of a very different character. It is a true contrast to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful, as that is wild and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smoothe blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pa.s.s through the breach and partic.i.p.ate of the calm below. . . . . . . . .

The Natural Bridge, the most sublime of nature's works, . . . is on the ascent of a hill, which seems to have been cloven through its length by some great convulsion. The fissure, just at the bridge, is, by some admeasurements, 270 feet deep, by others only 205. It is about 45 feet wide at the bottom, and 90 feet at the top; this of course determines the length of the bridge, and its height from the water.

Its breadth in the middle, is about 60 feet, but more at the ends, and the thickness of the ma.s.s, at the summit of the arch, about 40 feet. A part of this thickness is const.i.tuted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large trees. The residue, with the hill on both sides, is one solid rock of lime-stone.

The arch approaches the semi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of the ellipsis, which would be the cord of the arch, is many times longer than the transverse. Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have the resolution to walk to them, and look over into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head-ach.

If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable! The fissure continuing narrow, deep, and straight, for a considerable distance above and below the bridge, opens a short but very pleasing view of the North mountain on one side, and Blue ridge on the other, at the distance each of them of about five miles. This bridge is in the county of Rockbridge, to which it has given name, and affords a public and commodious pa.s.sage over a valley, which cannot be crossed elsewhere for a considerable distance. The stream pa.s.sing under it is called Cedar-creek.

ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS OPINION.

Compulsion makes hypocrites, not converts.

It is error alone that needs the support of government: truth can stand by itself.

ON THE DISCOURSES OF CHRIST.

Such are the fragments remaining to us to show a master-workman, and that his system of morality was the most benevolent and sublime that has ever been taught, and consequently more perfect than those of any of the ancient philosophy.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

(_From an Act Pa.s.sed in the a.s.sembly of Virginia, 1786._)

Well aware that Almighty G.o.d hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have a.s.sumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; . . . that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:

_Be it therefore enacted by the General a.s.sembly_, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER, MARTHA JEFFERSON.

(_Written in France, May 21, 1787._)

I write you, my dear Patsy, from the ca.n.a.l of Languedoc, on which I am at present sailing, as I have been for a week past,--cloudless skies above, limpid waters below, and on each hand, a row of nightingales in full chorus. This delightful bird had given me a rich treat before, at the fountain of Vaucluse. After visiting the tomb of Laura, at Avignon, I went to see this fountain--a n.o.ble one of itself, and rendered forever famous by the songs of Petrarch, who lived near it. I arrived there somewhat fatigued, and sat down by the fountain to repose myself. It gushes, of the size of a river, from a secluded valley of the mountain, the ruins of Petrarch's chateau being perched on a rock two hundred feet perpendicular above. To add to the enchantment of the scene, every tree and bush was filled with nightingales in full song. I think you told me that you had not yet noticed this bird. As you have trees in the garden of the Convent [_in Paris, where Martha was at school_], there might be nightingales in them, and this is the season of their song. Endeavor, my dear, to make yourself acquainted with the music of this bird, that when you return to your own country you may be able to estimate its merit in comparison with that of the mocking-bird. The latter has the advantage of singing through a great part of the year, whereas the nightingale sings but about five or six weeks in the spring, and a still shorter term, and with a more feeble voice, in the fall.

I expect to be in Paris about the middle of next month. By that time we may begin to expect our dear Polly [_the younger daughter, Maria_]

It will be a circ.u.mstance of inexpressible comfort to me to have you both with me once more. The object most interesting to me for the residue of my life, will be to see you both developing daily those principles of virtue and goodness which will make you valuable to others and happy in yourselves, and acquiring those talents and that degree of science which will guard you at all times against _ennui_, the most dangerous poison of life. A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity. The idle are the only wretched. In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what _ennui_ is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.

We are now entering the port of Toulouse, where I quit my bark, and of course must conclude my letter. Be good and be industrious, and you will be what I shall most love in the world. Adieu, my dear child.

Yours affectionately, TH. JEFFERSON.

JEFFERSON'S LAST LETTER, IN ANSWER TO AN INVITATION TO BE PRESENT AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, IN WASHINGTON.--TO MR. WEIGHTMAN, MAYOR OF WASHINGTON.