what was said of the Romans in their golden | too, on a great scale; and so readily did he kinage; "With them the Republic was all in all; dle the feelings that were playing around him, for that alone they consulted: the only faction that he could no more have stood still while his they formed was against the common enemy: country was agitated than the war-horse can their minds, their bodies were exerted, sincere- sleep under the sound of the trumpet. ly, and greatly and nobly exerted, not for per- He was a republican and a philanthropist sonal power, but for the liberties, the honor, from the earliest dawn of his character. He the glory of their country." May the time never read with a sort of poetic illusion, which identicome, when an allusion to their virtues can give fied him with every scene that his author spread any other feelings than those of pleasure and before him. Enraptured with the brighter ages pride to their descendants. of republican Greece and Rome, he had followed, with an aching heart, the march of history which had told him of the desolation of those fairest portions of the earth; and had seen, with dismay and indignation, that swarm of monarchies, the progeny of the Scandinavian hive, under which genius and liberty were now every where crushed. He loved his own country with a passion not less intense, deep and holy, than that of his great compatriot; and with this love he combined an expanded philanthropy which encircled the globe. From the working of the strong energies within him, there arose an early vision, too, which cheered his youth and ac

Having, in this imperfect manner, fellowcitizens, touched rather than traced the incidents by which Mr. Adams was prepared and conducted into the scenes of the Revolution, let us turn to the great luminary of the South. Virginia, as you know, had been settled by other causes than those which had peopled Massachusetts; and the Colonists themselves were of a different character. The first attempts at settlement in that quarter of the world had been conducted, as you remember, under the auspices of the gallant Raleigh, that "man of wit and man of the sword," as Sir Edward Coke tauntingly called him, and certainly one of the bright-companied him through life-the vision of est flowers in the Courts of Elizabeth and James. He did not live to make a permanent establishment in Virginia; but his genius seems, nevertheless, to have presided over the State, and to have stamped his own character on her distinguished sons. Virginia had experienced none of those early and long-continued conflicts which had contributed to form the robust character of the North; on the contrary, during the century that Massachusetts had been buffeting with the storm, Virginia, resting on a halcyon sea, had been cultivating the graces of science, and literature, and the genial elegancies of social life. But her moral and intellectual character was not less firm and vigorous than that of her northern sister: for the invader came, and Athens as well as Sparta was found ready to do her duty, and to do it too, bravely, ably, heroically.

At the time of Mr. Jefferson's appearance, the society of Virginia was much diversified, and reflected, pretty distinctly, an image of that of England. There was, first, the landed aristocracy, shadowing forth the order of English nobility: then the sturdy yeomanry, common to them both; and last, a "foeculum" of beings, as they were called by Mr. Jefferson, corresponding with the mass of the English plebeians. Mr. Jefferson, by birth, belonged to the aristocracy; but the idle and voluptuous life which marked that order had no charms for a mind like his. He relished better the strong, unsophisticated and racy character of the yeomanry, and attached himself of choice to that body. Born to an inheritance then deemed immense, and with a decided taste for literature and science, it would not have been surprising if he had devoted himself exclusively to the luxury of his studies, and left the toils and the hazards of public action to others. But he was naturally ardent, and fond of action, and of action VOL. II.-29

emancipated man throughout the world. Nor was this a dream of the morning, that passed away and was forgotten. On the contrary, like the heaven-descended banner of Constantine, he hailed it as an omen of certain victory, and girded his loins for the onset, with the omnipotence of truth.

On his early studies we have already touched. The study of the law he pursued under George Wythe; a man of Roman stamp, in Rome's best age. Here he acquired that unrivalled neatness, system, and method in business, which, through all his future life, and in every office that he filled, gave him, in effect, the hundred hands of Briareus; here, too, following the giant steps of his master, he travelled the whole round of the civil and common law. From the same example, he caught that untiring spirit of investigation which never left a subject till he had searched it to the bottom, and of which we have so noble a specimen in his correspondence with Mr. Hammond, on the subject of British debts. In short, Mr. Wythe performed for him, what Jeremiah Gridley had done for Mr. Adams; he placed on his head the crown of legal preparation; and well did it become him. Permit me, here, to correct an error which seems to have prevailed. It has been thought that Mr. Jefferson made no figure at the bar: but the case was far otherwise. There are still extant, in his own fair and neat hand, in the manner of his master, a number of arguments which were delivered by him at the bar, upon some of the most intricate questions of the law; which, if they shall ever see the light, will vindicate his claim to the first honors of the profession. It is true he was not distinguished in popular debate; why he was not so, has often been matter of surprise to those who have seen his eloquence on paper, and heard it in conversation. He had all the attributes of the mind, and the heart, and the

soul, which are essential to eloquence of the highest order. The only defect was a physical one; he wanted volume and compass of voice for a large deliberative assembly; and his voice, from the excess of his sensibility, instead of rising with his feelings and conceptions, sunk under their pressure, and became guttural and inarticulate. The consciousness of this infirmity repressed any attempt in a large body, in which he knew he must fail. But his voice was all sufficient for the purposes of judicial debate; and there is no reason to doubt that, if the service of his country had not called him away so soon from his profession, his fame as a lawyer would now have stood upon the same distinguished ground which he confessedly occupies as a statesman, an author, and a scholar.

It was not until 1764, when the Parliament of Great Britain passed its resolutions preparatory to the stamp act, that Virginia seems to have been thoroughly startled from her repose. Her legislature was then in session; and her patriots, taking the alarm, remonstrated promptly and firmly against this assumed power. The remonstrance, however, was, as usual, disregarded, and the stamp act came. But it came to meet, on the floor of the House, an unlookedfor champion, whom Heaven had just raised up for the good of his country and of mankind. I speak of that untutored child of nature, Patrick Henry, who had now, for the first time, left his native forests to show the metal of which he was made, and "give the world assurance of a man."

come almost too familiar for quotation: "Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third-('Treason!' cried the Speaker. 'Treason! treason!' echoed the House ;) may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."

While I am presenting to you this picture of Mr. Jefferson in his youth, listening to the almost superhuman eloquence of Henry on the great subject which formed the hinge of the American Revolution, are you not forcibly reminded of the parallel scene which had passed only four years before, in the Hall of Justice in Boston: Mr. Adams catching from Otis, "the breath of life?" How close the parallel, and how interesting the incident! Who can think of these two young men, destined themselves to make so great a figure in the future history of their country, thus lighting the fires of their own genius at the altars of Henry and of Otis, without being reminded of another picture, which has been exhibited to us by a historian of Rome: the younger Scipio Africanus, then in his military noviciate, standing youthful spectator on a hill near Carthage, and looking down upon the battle-feld on which those veteran Generals, Hamilcar and Massanissa, were driving with so much glory, the car of war! Whether Otis or Henry first breathed into this nation the breath of life, (a question merely for curious and friendly speculation,) it is very certain that they breathed into their two young hearers, that breath which has made them both immortal.

The Assembly met in the city of Williams- From this day forth, Mr. Jefferson, young as burg, where Mr. Jefferson was still pursuing the he was, stood forward as a champion for his study of the law. Mr. Henry's celebrated reso- country. It was now, in the fire of his youth, lutions against the stamp act were introduced in that he adopted those mottos for his seals, so May, 1765. How they were resisted, and how well remembered in Virginia: "Ab eo libertas, maintained, has been already stated to the a quo spiritus," and "Resistance to tyrants is world, in terms that have been pronounced obedience to God." He joined the band of the extravagant by those who modestly consider brave who were for the boldest measures; and themselves as furnishing a fair standard of Revo- by the light, the contagious spirit and vigor of lutionary excellence. The coldest glow-worm his conversation, as well as by his enchanting in the hedge, is about as fair a standard of the and powerful pen, he contributed eminently to power of the sun. To the present purpose, it lift Virginia to that height which placed her by is only necessary to remark, that Mr. Jefferson the side of her northern sister. It is a historical was present at this debate, and has left us an fact well known to us all, that these two great account of it in his own words. He was then, States, then by far the most populous and powhe says, but a student, and stood in the door of ful in the Union, led off, as it was natural and fit communication between the House and the that they should do, all the strong measures that lobby, where he heard the whole of this magni- ended in the Declaration of Independence. Toficent debate. The opposition to the last reso-gether, and stroke for stroke they breasted the lution was most vehement; the debate upon it, to use his own strong language, "most bloody; " but, he adds, torrents of sublime eloquence from Henry, backed by the solid reasoning of Johnson, prevailed; and the resolution was carried by a single vote. I well remember, he continnes, the cry of "treason," by the Speaker, echoed from every part of the House, against Mr. Henry: I well remember his pause, and the admirable address with which he recovered himself, and baffled the charge thus vociferated. He here alludes, as you must perceive, to that memorable exclamation of Mr. Henry, now be

angry surge, and threw it aside "with hearts of controversy," until they reached that shore from which we now look back with so much pride and triumph.

It was in his thirtieth year, as you remember, that Mr. Adams gave to the world his first great work, the Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law; and it was about the same period of his life, that Mr. Jefferson produced his first great political work, "A Summary View of the Rights of British America." The history of this work is somewhat curious and interesting, and I give it to you on the authority of Mr.

The plot of the awful drama now began to thicken. The sword had been drawn. The battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought; and Warren, the rose of American chivalry, had been cut down, in his bloom, on that hill which his death has hallowed. The blood which had been shed in Massachusetts cried from the ground, in every quarter of the Union. Congress heard that cry, and resolved on war. Troops were ordered to be raised. A Commander-in-Chief came to be appointed, ar.d General Ward, of Massachusetts, was put in nomination. Here we have an incident in the life of Mr. Adams most strikingly characteristic of the man. Giving to the winds all local prepossessions, and looking only to the cause that filled his soul, the cause of his country, he prompted and sustained the nomination of that patriot hero whom the Almighty, in his goodness, had formed for the occasion. Washington was elected, and the choice was ratified in heaven. He accepted his commission on the very day on which the soul of Warren winged its flight from Bunker Hill, and well did he avenge the death of that youthful hero.

Jefferson himself. He had been elected a member of that State Convention of Virginia which, in August, 1774, appointed the first Delegates to the Continental Congress. Arrested by sickness on his way to Williamsburg, he sent forward, to be laid on the table, a draught of instructions to the Delegates whom Virginia should send. This was read by the members, and they published it, under the title of "A Summary View of the Rights of British America." A copy of this work having found its way to England, it received from the pen of the celebrated Burke such alterations as adapted it to the purposes of the opposition there, and it there reappeared in a new edition; an honor which, as Mr. Jefferson afterwards learned, occasioned the insertion of his name in a bill of attainder, which, however, never saw the light. So far Mr. Jefferson. Let me add, that the old inhabitants of Williamsburg, a few years back, well remembered the effect of that work on Lord Dunmore, then the royal governor of the State. His fury broke out in the most indecent and unmitigated language. Mr. Jefferson's name was marked high on his list of proscription, and the victim was only reprieved until the rebellion should be crushed; but that rebellion be-pointment, Mr. Jefferson, for the first time, took came revolution, and the high priest of the meditated sacrifice was sent to howl his disappointment to the hills and winds of his native Scotland. In the next year, 1775, Mr. Jefferson, young as he was, was singled out by the Virginia legislature, to answer Lord North's famous "conciliatory proposition," called, in the language of the day, his "olive branch." But it was an olive branch that hid the guileful serpent, or, in the language of Mr. Adams, "it was an asp in a basket of flowers." The answer stands upon the records of the country. Cool, calin, close, full of compressed energy and keen sagacity; while, at the same time it preserves the most perfect decorum, it is one of the most nervous and manly productions even of that age of men.

The second Congress met on the 10th of May, 1775. Mr. Adams was, of course, again a member. Mr. Jefferson having been deputed, contingently, (to supply the place of Peyton Randolph,) did not take his seat at the commencement of the session. Of the political works of this Congress, as well as of the preceding, their petitions, memorials, remonstrances, to the throne, to the parliament, to the people of England, of Ireland, and of Canada, I have forborne to speak, because they are familiar to you all. Let it suffice to say, that, in the estimation of so great a judge as Lord Chatham, they were such as had never been surpassed even in the master States of the world, in ancient Greece and Rome; and although they produced no good effect on the unhappy monarch of Britain; though Pharaoh's heart was hardened so that they moved not him, they moved all heaven and all earth besides, and opened a passage for our fathers through the great deep.

Five days after General Washington's ap

his seat as a member of Congress; and here, for the first time, met the two illustrious men whom we are endeavoring to commemorate. They met, and at once became friends-to part no more, but for a short season, and then to be re-united, both for time and eternity.

There was now open war between Great Britain and her colonies. Yet the latter looked no farther than resistance to the specific power of the parent country to tax them at pleasure. A dissolution of the union had not yet been contemplated, either by Congress or the nation; and many of those who had voted for the war, would have voted, and did afterwards vote, against that dissolution.

Such was the state of things under which the Congress of 1776 assembled, when Adams and Jefferson again met. It was, as you know, in this Congress, that the question of American Independence came, for the first time, to be discussed; and never, certainly, has a more momentous question been discussed, in any age or in any country: for it was fraught, not only with the destinies of this wide extended continent, but, as the event has shown, and is still showing, with the destinies of man all over the world.

How fearful that question then was, no one can tell but those who, forgetting all that has since past, can transport themselves back to the time, and plant their feet on the ground which those patriots then occupied. "Shadows, clouds, and darkness" then covered all the future, and the present was full only of danger and terror. A more unequal contest never was proposed. It was, indeed, as it was then said to be, the shepherd boy of Israel going forth to battle against the giant of Gath; and there were yet among us, enough to tremble when

they heard that giant say, "Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field." But, there were those who never trembled-who knew that there was a God in Israel, and who were willing to commit their cause "to his even-handed justice," and his almighty power. That their great trust was in Him, is manifest from the remarks that were continually breaking from the lips of the patriots. Thus, the patriot Hawley, when pressed upon the inequality of the contest, could only answer, "We must put to seaProvidence will bring us into port ;" and Patrick Henry, when urged upon the same topic, exclaimed, "True, true; but there is a God above, who rules and overrules the destinies of nations."

stated are candidly, calmly, and mildly discussed; where neither pride, nor shame, nor anger take part in the discussion, nor stand in the way of a correct conclusion; but where every thing 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. They were, in truth, hemispheres of the same golden globe, and required only to be brought and put together, to prove that they were parts of the same heaven-formed whole.

On the present occasion, however, much still remained to be effected by debate. The first of Amid this appalling array that surrounded July came, and the great debate on the resoluthem, the first to enter the breach, sword in tion for independence was resumed, with fresh hand, was John Adams-the vision of his youth spirit. The discussion was again protracted for at his heart, and his country in every nerve. two days, which, in addition to the former On the sixth of May, he offered, in committee three, were sufficient, in that age, to call out all of the whole, the significant resolution, that the speaking talent of the House. Botta, the the colonies should form governments independ- Italian historian of our Revolution, has made ent of the crown. This was the harbinger of Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Lee the principal speakmore important measures, and seems to have ers on the opposite sides of this question; and been put forward to feel the pulse of the House. availing himself of that dramatic license of anThe resolution, after a bloody struggle, was cient historians, which the fidelity of modern adopted on the 15th day of May following. On history has exploded, he has drawn, from his the 7th of June, by previous concert, Richard own fancy, two orations, which he has put into Henry Lee moved the great resolution of In- the mouths of those distinguished men. With dependence, and was seconded by John Adams; no disposition to touch, with a hostile hand, one and "then came the tug of war." The debate leaf of the well-earned laurels of Mr. Lee, (which upon it was continued from the 7th to the 10th, every American would feel far more pleasure in when the further consideration of it was post-contributing to brighten and to cherish,) and poned to the 1st of July, and at the same time with no feelings but those of reverence and a committee of five was appointed to prepare, gratitude for the memory of the other great provisionally, a draught of a Declaration of In-patriots who assisted in that debate, may we dependence. At the head of this important committee, which was then appointed by vote of the House, although he was probably the youngest member, and one of the youngest men in the House, (for he had served only part of the former session, and was but thirty-two | years of age,) stands the name of Thomas Jeffer-vocate and champion on the floor of the House, son-Mr. Adams stands next. And these two gentlemen having been deputed a sub-committee to prepare the draught, that draught, at Mr. Adams' earnest importunity, was prepared by his more youthful friend. Of this transaction Mr. Adams is himself the historian, and the authorship of the Declaration, though once disputed, is thus placed for ever beyond the reach of question.

not say, and are we not bound in justice to say, that Botta is mistaken in the relative prominency of one, at least, of his prolocutors? Mr. Jefferson has told us that "the Colossus of that Congress-the great pillar of support to the Declaration of Independence, and its ablest ad

was John Adams." How he supported it, can now be only matter of imagination: for, the debate was conducted with closed doors, and there was no reporter on the floor to catch the strains living as they rose. I will not attempt what Mr. Adams himself, if he were alive, could not accomplish. He might recall the topics of argument; but with regard to those flashes of inspiration, those bursts of passion, which grew The final debate on the resolution was post-out of the awful feelings of the moment, they poned, as we have seen, for nearly a month. In are gone for ever, with the reality of the occathe mean time, all who are conversant with the sion; and the happiest effort of fancy to supply course of action of all deliberative bodies, know their place, (by me, at least,) would bear no how much is done by conversation among the better resemblance to the original, than the members. It is not often, indeed, that prose- petty crepitations of an artificial volcano to the lytes are made on great questions by public sublime explosions of thundering Etna. Waivdebate. On such questions, opinions are far ing, therefore, the example of Botta, let it sufmore frequently formed in private, and so form-fice for us to know, that in that moment of ed that debate is seldom known to change them. | darkness, of terror, and of consternation, when Hence the value of the out-of-door talent of the election was to be made between an attempt chamber consultation where objections candidly at liberty and independence on the one hand,

and defeat, subjugation and death on the other, | separate themselves from Great Britain, and to the courage of Adams, in the true spirit of he- declare these States free and independent. It roism, rose in proportion to the dangers that was the voice of the American nation addressing pressed around him; and that he poured forth herself to the other nations of the earth; and that only genuine eloquence, the eloquence of the address is, in all respects, worthy of this the soul, which, in the language of Mr. Jeffer- noble personification. It is the great argument son, "moved his hearers from their seats." of America in vindication of her course: and The objections of his adversaries were seen no as Mr. Adams had been the Colossus of the longer but in a state of wreck; floating, in cause on the floor of Congress, his illustrious broken fragments, on the billows of the storm; friend, the author of this instrument, may well and over rocks, over breakers, and amid ingulf be pronounced to have been its Colossus on the ing whirlpools, that every where surrounded theatre of the world. him, he brought the gallant ship of the nation safe into port.

The decisive step, which fixed the destiny of the nation, had now been taken: and that step was irrevocable. "The die was now indeed

in the justice of Heaven, and the final triumph of truth, they moved forward in solid phalanx, and with martial step, regardless of the tempest that was breaking around them.

It was on the evening of the day on which this great victory was achieved, (before which, cast. The Rubicon had been crossed," effectuin moral grandeur, the trophies of Marengo and ally, finally, for ever. There was no return but the Nile fade away,) and while his mind was to chains, slavery and death. No such backyet rolling with the agitation of the recent ward step was meditated by the firm hearts that tempest, that he wrote that letter to the vener-led on the march of the nation: but, confiding able partner of his bosom, which has now become matter of history; in which, after announcing the adoption of the resolution, he foretells the future glories of his country, and the honors with which the returning anniversary of her Declaration of Independence would be hailed, till time should be no more. That which strikes us on the first perusal of this letter, is, the prophetic character with which it is stamped, and the exactness with which its predictions have been fulfilled. But, his biographer will remark in it another character: the deep political calculation of results, through which the mind of the writer, according to its habit, had flashed; and the firm and undoubting confidence with which, in spite of those appearances that alarmed and misled weaker minds, he looked to the triumphant close of the struggle.

The resolution having been carried, the draught of the declaration came to be examined in detail; and, so faultless had it issued from the hands of its author, that it was adopted as he had prepared it, pruned only of a few of its brightest inherent beauties, through a prudent deference to some of the States. It was adopted about noon of the fourth, and proclaimed to an exulting nation, on the evening of the same day. That brave and animated band who signed it-where are they now? What heart does not sink at the question? One only survives: Charles Carroll, of Carrollton-a noble specimen of the age that has gone by, and now the single object of that age, on whom the veneration and prayers of his country are concentrated. The rest have bequeathed to us the immortal record of their virtue and patriotism, and have ascended to a brighter reward than man can confer.

Of that instrument to which you listen with reverence on every returning anniversary of its adoption, "which forms the ornament of our halls, and the first political lesson of our children," it is needless to speak. You know that in its origin and object, it was a statement of the causes which had compelled our fathers to

Their confidence in the favor and protection of Heaven, however, strong and unshaken as it was, did not dispose them to relax their own exertions, nor to neglect the earthly means of securing their triumph. They were not of the number of those who call upon Hercules, and put not their own shoulders to the wheel. Our adversary was one of the most powerful nations on earth. Our whole strength consisted of a few stout hearts and a good cause. But we were wofully deficient in all the sinews of war: we wanted men, we wanted arms, we wanted money; and these could be procured only from abroad. But the intervening ocean was covered with the fleets of the enemy; and the patriot Laurens, one of their captives, was already a prisoner in the Tower of London. Who was there to undertake this perilous service? He who was ever ready to peril any service in the cause of his country: John Adams. Congress knew their man, and did not hesitate on the choice. Appointed a minister to France, he promptly obeyed the sacred call, and, with a brave and fearless heart, he ran the gauntlet through the hostile fleet, and arrived in safety. Passing from court to court, he pleaded the cause of his country with all the resistless energy of truth; and, availing himself adroitly of the selfish passions and interests of those courts, he ceased not to ply his efforts, with matchless dexterity, until the objects of his mission were completely attained. With the exception of one short interval of a return home, in 1779, when he aided in giving form to the constitution of his native State, he remained abroad, in France, in Holland-wherever he could be most useful-in the strenuous, faithful and successful service of his country, receiving repeated votes of thanks from Congress, till the storm was over, and peace and liberty came to crown his felicity, and realize the cherished vision of his youth.