Jefferson's manners were simple, his dress was plain, he was accessible to everybody, he was boundless in his hospitalities, he cared little for money, his opinions were liberal and progressive, he avoided quarrels, he had but few prejudices, he was kind and generous to the poor and unfortunate, he exalted agricultural life, he hated artificial splendor, and all shams and lies. In his morals he was irreproachable, unlike Hamilton and Burr; he never made himself ridiculous, like John Adams, by egotism, vanity, and jealousy; he was the most domestic of men, worshipped by his family and admired by his guests; always ready to communicate knowledge, strong in his convictions, perpetually writing his sincere sentiments and beliefs in letters to his friends,--as upright and honest a man as ever filled a public station, and finally retiring to private life with the respect of the whole nation, over which he continued to exercise influence after he had parted with power. And when he found himself poor and embarrassed in consequence of his unwise hospitality, he sold his library, the best in the country, to pay his debts, as well as the most valuable part of his estate, yet keeping up his cheerfulness and serenity of temper, and rejoicing in the general prosperity,--which was produced by the ever-expanding energies and resources of a great country, rather than by the political theories which he advocated with so much ability.
On his final retirement to Monticello, in 1809, after forty-four years of continuous public service, Jefferson devoted himself chiefly to the care of his estate, which had been much neglected during his presidential career. To his surprise he found himself in debt, having lived beyond his income while president. But he did not essentially change his manner of living, which was generous, though neither luxurious nor ostentatious. He had stalls for thirty-six horses, and sometimes as many as fifty guests at dinner. There was no tavern near him which had so much company. He complains that an ox would all be eaten in two days, while a load of hay would disappear in a night, Fond as he was of company, he would not allow his guests to rob him of the hours he devoted to work, either in his library or on his grounds. His correspondence was enormous,--he received sixteen hundred and seven letters in one year, and answered most of them. After his death there were copies of sixteen thousand letters which he had written. His industry was marvellous; even in retirement he was always writing or reading or doing something. He was, perhaps, excessively fond of his garden, of his flowers, of his groves, and his walks. Music was, as he himself said, "the favorite passion of his soul." His house was the largest in Virginia, and this was filled with works of art, and the presents he had received. But his financial difficulties increased from year to year. He was too fond of experiments and fancy improvements to be practically successful as a farmer.
One of his granddaughters thus writes of him: "I cannot describe the feelings of veneration, admiration, and love that existed in my heart for him. I looked upon him as a being too great and good for my comprehension. I never heard him utter a harsh word to any one of us. On winter evenings, as we all sat round the fire, he taught us games, and would play them with us. He reproved without wounding us, and commended without making us vain. His nature was so eminently sympathetic that with those he loved he could enter into their feelings, anticipate their wishes, gratify their tastes, and surround them with an atmosphere of affection."
Thus did he live in his plain but beautiful house, in sight of the Blue Ridge, with Charlottesville and the university at his feet. He rode daily for ten miles until he was eighty-two. He died July 4, 1826, full of honors, and everywhere funeral orations were delivered to his memory, the best of which was by Daniel Webster in Boston.
Among his papers was found the inscription which he wished to have engraved on his tomb: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." He does not allude to his honors or his offices,--not a word about his diplomatic career, or of his stations as governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, or President of the United States. But the three things he does name enshrine the best convictions of his life and the substance of his labors in behalf of his country,--political independence, religious freedom, and popular education.
The fame of Jefferson as author of the Declaration of Independence is more than supported by his writings at different times which bear on American freedom and the rights of man. It is as a writer on political liberty that he is most distinguished. He was not an orator or speech-maker. He worked in his library among his books, meditating on the great principles which he enforced with so much lucidity and power. It was for his skill with the pen that he was selected to draft the immortal charter of American freedom, which endeared him to the hearts of the people, and which no doubt contributed largely to cement the States together in their resistance to Great Britain.
His reference to the statute of Virginia in favor of religious freedom illustrates another of his leading sentiments, to which he clung with undeviating tenacity during his whole career. He may have been a freethinker like Franklin, but he did not make war on the religious beliefs of mankind; he only desired that everybody should be free to adopt such religious principles as were dear to him, without hindrance or molestation. He was before his age in liberality of mind, and he ought not to be stigmatized as an infidel for his wise toleration. Although his views were far from orthodox, they did not, after all, greatly differ from those of John Adams himself and the men of that day who were enamoured with the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau. At that time even the most influential of the clergy, especially in New England, were Arminians in their religious creed. The eighteenth century was not a profound or religious epoch. It was an age of war and political agitations,--a drinking, swearing, licentious, godless age among the leaders of society, and of ignorance, prejudice, and pharisaic formalities among the people. Jefferson's own purity and uprightness of life amid the laxity of the times is an unquestionable evidence of the elevation of his character and the sincerity of his moral and religious beliefs.
The third great object of Jefferson's life was to promote popular education as an essential condition to the safety of the republic. While he advocated unbounded liberty, he knew well enough that it would degenerate into license unless the people were well-informed. But what interested him the most was the University of Virginia, in whose behalf he spent the best part of his declining years. He gave money freely himself, and induced the legislature to endow it liberally. He superintended the construction of the buildings, which alone cost $300,000; he selected the professors, prescribed the course of study, was chairman of the board of trustees, and looked after the interests of the institution. He thought more of those branches of knowledge which tended to liberalize the mind than of Latin and Greek. He gave a practical direction to the studies of the young men, allowing them to select such branches as were congenial to them and would fit them for a useful life. He would have no president, but gave the management of all details to the professors, who were equal in rank. He appealed to the highest motives among the students, and recognized them as gentlemen rather than boys, allowing no espionage. He was rigorous in the examinations of the students, and no one could obtain a degree unless it were deserved. While he did not exclude religion from the college, morning prayers being held every day, attendance upon religious services was not obligatory. Every Sunday some clergyman from the town or neighborhood preached a sermon, which was generally well attended. Few colleges in this country have been more successful or more ably conducted, and the excellence of instruction drew students from every quarter of the South. Before the war there were nearly seven hundred students, and I never saw a more enthusiastic set of young men, or a set who desired knowledge for the sake of knowledge more enthusiastically than did those in the University of Virginia.
Although it is universally admitted that Jefferson had a broad, original, and powerful intellect, that he stamped his mind on the institutions of his country, that to no one except Washington is the country more indebted, yet I fail to see that he was transcendently great in anything. He was a good lawyer, a wise legislator, an able diplomatist, a clear writer, and an excellent president; but in none of the spheres he occupied did he reach the most exalted height. As a lawyer he was surpassed by Adams, Burr, and Marshall; as an orator he was nothing at all; as a writer he was not equal to Hamilton and Madison in profundity and power; as a diplomatist he was far below Franklin and even Jay in tact, in patience, and in skill; as a governor he was timid and vacillating; while as a president he is not to be compared with Washington for dignity, for wisdom, for consistency, or executive ability. Yet, on the whole, he has left a great name for giving shape to the institutions of his country, and for intense patriotism. Pre-eminent in no single direction, he was in the main the greatest political genius that has been elevated to the presidential chair; but perhaps greater as a politician than as a statesman in the sense that Pitt, Canning, and Peel were statesmen. He was not made for active life; he was rather a philosopher, wielding power by his pen, casting his searching glance into everything, and leading men by his amiability, his sympathetic nature, his force of character, and his enlightened mind. The question might arise whether Jefferson's greatness was owing to force of circumstances, or to an original, creative intellect, like that of Franklin or Alexander Hamilton. But for the Revolution he might never have been heard of outside his native State. This, however, might be said of most of the men who have figured in American history,--possibly of Washington himself. The great rulers of the world seem to be raised up by Almighty Power, through peculiar training, to a peculiar fitness for the accomplishment of certain ends which they themselves did not foresee,--men like Abraham Lincoln, who was not that sort of man whom Henry Clay or Daniel Webster would probably have selected for the guidance of this mighty nation in the greatest crisis of its history.
AUTHORITIES.