T THOMAS JEFFERSON BY HON. HE FINAL debate on the resolution (Declaration of Independence) was postponed as we have seen, for nearly a month. In the meantime all who are conversant with the course of action of all deliberative bodies know how much is done by conversation among the members. It is not often, indeed, that prose13. xxii. lytes are made on great questions by public debate. On such questions opinions are far more frequently formed in private, and so formed that debate is seldom known to change them. Hence the value of out-ofdoor talent of chamber conversation, where objections candidly stated are candidly, calmly, and mildly discussed; where neither pride, nor shame, nor anger takes part in the discussion nor stands in the way of a correct conclusion; but where everything being conducted frankly, delicately, respectfully, and kindly, the better cause and the better reasoner are almost always sure of success. In this kind of service, as well as in all that depended on the power of composition, Mr. Jefferson was as much a master magician as his eloquent friend Adams was in debate. THOMAS JEFFERSON BY HON. JOHN B I STANCHFIELD IN HIS public life of upwards of forty years, covering the entire range of preferment from the humblest to the highest, two things stand out with great prominence; he never made a speech, he never waged a war he left the Presidency at the end of his second term with the admiration and affectionate regard of 14. i. seven millions of people. The free school, the free church and our free government are largely owing to his untiring zeal and industry. While the battle was raging in the House of Burgesses against the right of the first born male to inherit, his opponents, under the leadership of Pendleton, pleaded that the eldest son might at least take a double share: "Not," was Jefferson's reply, "until he can eat a double allowance of food and do a double allowance of work." "My purpose," said Jefferson afterwards, "was instead of an aristocracy of wealth to make an opening for an aristocracy of virtue and talent." THOMAS JEFFERSON BY HON. HENRY · J GEORGE EFFERSON is a pole star among political philoso phers because he based his politics on the eternal, self-evident, fundamental truths that all men are created equal and free and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inherent and unalienable rights, 16. i. among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. RESOLUTION-1809-ADOPTED BY THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF VIRGINIA S IR: We have to thank you (Thomas Jefferson) for the model of an administration conducted on the purest principles of Republicanism; for pomp and state laid aside; patronage discarded; internal taxes abolished; a host of superfluous officers disbanded, the monarchic maxim "that a national debt is a na17. 398 tional blessing" renounced, and more than thirtythree millions of our debt discharged; the native right to nearly one hundred millions of acres of our national domain extinguished; and without the guilt or calamities of conquest, a vast and fertile region added to our country, far more extensive than her original possessions. You carry with you the richest of all rewards, the recollection of a life well spent in the service of your country, and proofs the most decisive, of the love, the gratitude, the veneration of your countrymen. |