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 A man of
high culture, an able lawyer, and a member of the Virginian Assembly,
THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-1826) took a leading part in deciding
the colonies to resist the mother-country. He was chosen to draft
the Declaration of Independence. The second sentence in that
manifesto rang through Europe. It was the earliest appearance
in practical politics of the theories of Rousseau. "We hold
these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent to be
governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish
it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on
such principles, and organising its powers in such forms, as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
The rest of the Declaration was an enumeration of the unconstitutional
acts of George III, more in the style of the English "Bill
of Rights" of 1689. Jefferson was an ardent admirer of France.
"Every man," he said, "has two countries--his
ownn and France." He succeeded Franklin as American Minister
at Versailles (1785), and witnessed with enthusiasm the opening
scenes of the Revolution. On his return (1789), Washington
made him his Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was the leader of
the anti-federalist party, afterwards called "Democrats,"
who opposed the centralising, authoritative, and aristocratic
tendencies of the Federalists, afterwards called "Whigs,"
and still later "Republicans," who were headed by Adams,
the Vice-President, and Hamilton, the Minister of Finance. Washington
himself inclined to the latter party, though such was his grand
impartiality as to persons that both Jefferson and Hamilton threatened
to resign if he did not accept the Presidency for a second term.
But Jefferson's eager and not always scrupulous partisanship
at length caused a breach between him and Washington which was
never healed. On the retirement of the latter, Adams beat Jefferson
in the contest for the Presidency (1797). But in 1801, and again
in 1805, Jefferson was elected, and the Democratic party maintained
its ascendency till the election of Abraham Lincoln. In the epitaph
which Jefferson composed for himself he records that he drafted
the Declaration of Independence and the bill for establishing
religious freedom in Virginia, and that he was the Father of
the University of Virginia, but makes no mention of his double
Presidency--a last testimony to his democratic principles. He
might have added that he had proposed the emancipation of slaves
in Virginia; therein more consistent than the Democrats who immediately
followed him.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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