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as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether, and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before. Had Mr. Adams been so restrained, Congress would have lost the benefit of his bold and impressive advocations of the rights of Revolution. For no man's confident and fervent addresses, more than Mr. Adams', encouraged and supported us through; the difficulties surrounding us, which, like the ceaseless action of gravity, weighed on us by night and by day. Yet, on the same ground, we may ask what of these elevated thoughts was new, or can be affirmed never before to have entered the conceptions of man?

Whether, also, the sentiments of Independence, and the reasons for declaring it, which makes so great a portion of the instrument, had been hacknied in Congress for two years before the 4th of July, '76, or this dictum also of Mr. Adams be another slip of memory, let history say. This however, I will say for Mr. Adams, that he supported the Declaration with zeal and ability, fighting fearlessly for every word of it. As to myself, I thought it a duty to be, on that occasion, a passive auditor of the opinions of others, more impartial judges than I could be, of its merits or demerits. During the debate, I was sitting by Doctor Franklin, and he ob served that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criticisms on some of its parts; and it was on that occasion, that by way of comfort, he told me the story of John Thomson, the hatter, and his new sign.

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Timothy thinks the instrument the better for having a fourth of it expunged. He would have thought it still better, had the other three fourths gone out also, all but the single sentiment (the only one he approves), which recommends friendship to his dear England, whenever she is willing to be at peace with us. His insinuations are, that although the high tone of the instrument was in unison with the warm feelings of the times, this sentiment of habitual friendship to England should never be forgotten, and that the duties it enjoins should especially be borne in mind on every celebration of this anniversary. In other words, that the Declation, as being a libel on the government of England, composed in times of passion, should now be buried in utter oblivion, to spare the feelings of our English friends and Angloman fellow-citizens. But it is not to wound them that we wish to keep it in mind; but to cherish the principles of the instrument in the bosoms of our own citizens; and it is a heavenly comfort to see that these principles are yet so strongly felt, as to render a circumstance so trifling as this little lapse of memory of Mr. Adams', worthy of being solemnly announced and supported at an anniversary assemblage of the nation on its birth-day. In opposition, however, to Mr. Pickering, I pray God that these principles may be eternal, and close the prayer with my affectionate wishes for yourself of long life, health and happiness."

Among the articles of information, which Mr. Pickering alleges to have received from Mr. Adams, he should have included the oft repeated declaration of the latter, that no man, but the one who did, could have produced that immortal paper.' He might also have cited the well known fact, that he retained to the last, his preference for the primitive reading. With respect to the particular circumstances attending its preparation, the Notes happily taken by Mr. Jefferson at the time, and the original copy of the Declaration, in the hand writing of the author, found among his papers at his death, with the interlineations in the hand writings of Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin, are placed in one scale, and the imputed recollections of an octogenarian, in the other; and the world must decide between them. The assertion, also, that the doctrines of the Declaration had been hacknied in Congress, for two years before, is contradicted by the whole tenor of history. Nothing had appeared like it, in the range of political disquisition, except his own previous essays; the most important of which, had been rejected as premature and extravagant, but two years before, by the identical Assembly which issued the first instructions recommendatory of independence. All historians concur in testifying, that total emancipation was not contemplated until the Spring of "76.* And Mr. Adams in '75 had declared, "There is not a man in the province, among the whigs, nor ever was, who harbors a wish of Independence." Again, "Our patriots have never determined or desired to be independent States." How then could the sentiments of the Declaration have been hacknied, in Congress, for two years before? So far from it, the whole aim and object of that body, anterior to the Spring of '76, had been reconciliation; and all its consultations and discussions had been conducted upon that basis. The reasons and rights of Revolution existed, it is true, in the fundamental principles of colonization. But who, let it be remarked, was the earliest to discover, illustrate, and enforce those principles? Historic fidelity will say, the Author of the Declaration himself, in his masterly dissertation upon the doctrine of expatriation, &c. in '74; in which he constructed the entire, and the only tenable theory of Colonial rights, then deemed so treasonable and revolutionary as to subject him to the ostracism of the British Parliament.

* See Gordon, Ramsay, Marshall, Botta, &c.

Well might he then magnanimously declare, in noticing the vindictive maraudings upon his reputation, let history speak.' Nor will his confidence in the integrity of that umpire, be deceived. Impartial generations will rely with more confidence, upon the pure text of contemporaneous chronicles, than upon the gratuitous constructions, contortions and surmises of modern critics and commentators. The civil and political history of that renowned race has never been presented in a just and adequate light; its monuments, too, are fast crumbling away; but it is hoped, that enough has been preserved, with the aid of competent hands, to rescue from reproach at least, an age, which united the greatest moral endowments to the greatest power of circumstances, and had a larger share in shaping the destinies of mankind, than any other that has yet appeared.

The term for which Mr. Jefferson had been elected to Congress, expired on the 11th of August, '76; and he had communicated to the Convention of Virginia, in June preceding, his intentions to decline a re-appointment. But his excuses were overruled by that body, and he was unanimously re-elected. On receiving intelligence of the result, gratifying as it was in the highest degree, he addressed a second letter to the chairman of the Convention, in which he adhered to his original resolution,—as follows:

"I am sorry the situation of my domestic affairs renders it indispensably necessary, that I should solicit the substitution of some other person here, in my room. The delicacy of the House will not require me to enter minutely into the private causes which render this necessary. I trust they will be satisfied I would not have urged it again, were it not unavoidable. I shall with cheerfulness continue in duty here till the expiration of our year, by which time I hope it will be convenient for my successor to attend."

He continued in Congress until the 2d of September following, when, his successor having arrived, he resigned his seat and returned to Virginia.

Thus closed the extraordinary career of this illustrious Reformer in the Continental Congress. He had been in actual attendance upon that renowned Legislature, about nine months only, in all; and yet he had succeeded in impressing his character, in distinct and legible forms, upon the whole inchoate empire. The result is astonishing when considered in connection with his immature age. He had, at this time, attained only his thirty-third year, and was

the youngest man but one, in the session of "76. The example is without a parallel in the personal annals of the world.

We have been restrained by our design, to the capital and distinguishing points in his course. The minor features of his service, while engaged in conducting the general administration, were proportioned to the same standard; but they are shorn of all interest by the overshadowing importance, which attaches to his gigantic chef de' ouvres in the sphere of Revolution. In the multiplied operations of a subordinate character, which engaged the attention of the House, he sustained a corresponding prominency. To estimate the extent of his labors, it is only necessary to turn over the journals of Congress. In constituting the committees of importance it was the policy, in general, to put Virginia at the head; and the effect of this policy was to throw him into the situation of Chairman, unusually often. No member, probably, served on more committees, or executed a greater amount of business, in proportion to his term of service, than he did. The union of uncommon practical facility, with peculiar theoretical acuteness and propensity, is an anomoly in the constitution of man. It is proverbial, however, that he displayed 'an aptitude no less original and surprising in the ordinary details of legislation, than in the high concerns of an abstract and metaphysical nature, which were committed to him.

The retirement of Mr. Jefferson from a stage of action, on which he had performed such prodigies of Revolution, in the zenith of human popularity and power, and at the first crisis of Independence, may appear unaccountable, with the lights already in possession of the reader. The causes which he assigned, seem clearly disproportioned to the effect, reasoning from all analogy, applicable to himself alone, or the human character generally; and compel us to resort to more competent aids of revelation, for a satisfactory solution of the mystery. The predominant motive, which dictated his resignation, but which his modesty would not permit him to urge to the Convention, is found inserted among his private ' Memoranda.' It is alike curious and honorable. He "The new government (in Virginia) was now organized; a meeting of the Legislature was to be held in October, and I had been elected a member by my county. I knew that our legislation, under the regal government, had many very vicious points which ur

says:

gently required reformation; and I thought I could be of more use in forwarding that work. I therefore retired from my seat in Congress," &c. The whole secret of the transaction is here unveiled, and is singularly in unison with the reigning attribute of his character. Those who recollect the irrepressible anxiety which he felt for Virginia, while in the crisis of her transition from the monarchical to the republican state, and the severe contribution which he made upon his own industry, towards securing the greatest practicable measure of freedom and liberality in the act, will be impressed with the admirable coincidence of purpose, which influenced his present determination. The new government in the first province of free empire, was now fairly put in motion; and he felt an invincible desire to participate in the measures of the first re publican Legislature under it. Every thing, he conceived, depended upon the stamp of political unction that should be impressed upon the new institutions of a State government, which was to set the example in the career of republican legislation, and which constituted so influential a member of the incipient confederacy. The principles of her present code were incompatible with the enjoyment of any considerable benefits under the change of Administration, and required a fundamental revision and reduction to a consistent standard. The English common law, with its odious and despotic refinements of feudal origin, was in full force; many of the British statutes, of the most obnoxious character, still binding upon them; the Virginia statutes themselves scarcely less aristocratic, and hostile to well-regulated liberty; presenting, in all, an unwieldy and vicious pile of legislation, civil and religious, which, in the mind of the political redeemer of men, embra ced stronger attractions, and more imperious urgencies, than the scene which he had just immortalized with his labours. To have descended from an eminence in Congress, which placed him indisputably at the helm of the Revolution, to the subordinate station of representative to the municipal Assembly, was an act of magnanimous patriotism, of which history furnishes few examples. But he was impressed with the necessity of carrying into action, upon the generous flood of the national enthusiasm, all the sound principles which he meditated securing in the effort of emancipation; and now he thought was the propitious moment for coinmencing the enterprise.

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