Moved by such impulses, and having "sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man," he entered, at an early age, upon his public career, destined to be long and eventful, and sustained throughout the character given of him on his first appearance in Congress in 1775, by John Adams,—"prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive"—"not even Samuel Adams was more so." From that time until the day of his death he gave his support, never for a moment diminished in zeal or sincerity, and varied only in its efficiency according to the positions he occupied and the influence they afforded for the purpose, to the great principle of "the equality of political rights" which Hamilton well described as "the foundation of pure Republicanism."
At the age of twenty-two—a period in Hamilton's life when his already teeming mind was meditating the establishment of institutions, and the adoption of measures to strengthen the Government, and to enable it to exercise what he deemed a salutary and necessary restraint upon the popular will, institutions and measures in the working of which, from their nature, none but moneyed men could be expected to participate—Jefferson was as actively and constantly employed in the Virginia House of Delegates, in concert with the earliest Revolutionary patriots of that State, in preparing her, as well as the hearts of the people, for the great movement then already the subject of confident anticipation with minds like theirs. There he remained until 1775, when he was appointed a delegate to the Continental Congress. Of his agency, whilst a member of that body, in preparing the Declaration of Independence, and in promoting its adoption, it is unnecessary here to speak. As soon as that noble work had been accomplished, he resigned his seat, accepted a reëlection to the State Legislature as the position in which, though less exalted, he could render more useful services to the cause, and the measures to which his exertions were there directed were in harmony with the spirit of the Revolution, and designed, as avowed by himself, "to eradicate every fibre of ancient or future aristocracy, and to lay a foundation for a government truly republican." The results of the joint labors of himself and his patriotic associates were:
1st. An act to prevent the further importation of slaves, a practice which he had denounced in the Declaration of Independence as a "piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers;"
2d. An act to abolish entailments;
3d. An act to abolish primogenitureship—a right which had vested in himself;
4th. An act for religious freedom; and
5th. A bill for general education.
These were not only appropriate but indispensable steps to lay a sure foundation for republican government, State as well as National. Most, if not all of the States, followed her lead, but to Virginia belongs the high merit of having been in this respect the first in the field, and to Jefferson a large share of that merit.
Such were the men who were by common consent placed at the respective heads of the two great parties in that national struggle which resulted in what has ever since been known as "the Civil Revolution of Eighteen Hundred," a name given to it by the victors on the assumption that, although the weapons were different, the principles which were involved in it and the spirit which achieved the triumph were akin to those which distinguished the Revolution by the sword. The knowledge that Hamilton preferred monarchical institutions to every other form, that John Adams, who was at the head of the Government, sympathized very cordially with that sentiment, and the belief that most of the leaders of the Federal party partook largely of the same feeling, and were only prevented from avowing the fact by their perception of its unpopularity, caused a wide-spread and sincere alarm on the side of the Republican party for the safety of republican government in the United States. This apprehension imparted a graver character to the contest than any other considerations could have produced, and called into vigorous action much of the spirit by which the minds of the masses had been influenced in the Revolutionary War. It served to weld the members of the old Anti-Federal party and the Republicans—between whom a concert of action had previously arisen—into a thorough union, which became permanent, because it was founded on a principle in which they heartily concurred, and which was of sufficient magnitude to absorb minor differences in their political views.
That Hamilton's settled opinion and preference were such as I have described is a point which has been, it is hoped, already too well established to admit, at this day, of an honest difference of opinion. He avowed them on the floor of the Convention in the presence of the assembled representatives, and this is equally clear, whether the sum of that declaration is tested by the copy of the speech which he himself delivered to Mr. Madison as a permanent record of his opinions, or by the notes for that speech now published by his son. He announced them to his political rival, Mr. Jefferson, in the presence of Mr. John Adams, and reaffirmed them to the former in a conversation obviously sought for the purpose of giving the form he desired to expressions of a less guarded character, and which were, under that impression, immediately reduced to writing by Mr. Jefferson, who, for the truth of his record, "attests the God that made him." He so thoroughly impressed his political coadjutor and most trusted friend—him to whom it was appointed to pronounce his eulogy at his funeral—Gouverneur Morris, with a sense of his devotion to monarchical institutions, that within six months after his death, Morris, writing to his friend Ogden, speaks of that devotion as "hobby" which Hamilton "bestrode to the great annoyance of his friends, and not without injury to himself;" also to Robert Walsh, the well-known editor of a leading Federal journal, in answer to inquiries on the subject, that "Hamilton hated republican government because he confounded it with democratical government, and he detested the latter because he believed it must end in despotism, and be in the mean time destructive to morality;" and that "he never failed on every occasion to advocate the excellence of, and his attachment to, monarchical government." It was in perfect keeping with the character of Hamilton that never, throughout his life, though constantly charged with entertaining such opinions, did he deny the imputation; he who denies it now must assume that Hamilton either did not know his own mind upon the subject, or that he had some motive for misrepresenting it, or that Mr. Jefferson deliberately falsified his repeated declarations, and that Gouverneur Morris was capable of misrepresenting his friend upon a point of so much importance when that friend had descended to his grave.