The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 | Page 6

his negro--and proving, from elementary principles, that slavery is the result of the supremacy of reason and the corner stone of civilized society. Had the advantages of the North led him to desert Monticello for the banks of the Hudson, he would have opposed the Administration, acting and talking much like a certain high official, 'letting I dare not wait upon I would'--for Jefferson was not a bold man, was master of the art of insinuating his opinions instead of stating them manfully, and never advanced so far as to make retreat impossible.
The truth is that there was nothing great nor even imposing in Jefferson's mental nor in his moral qualities. He expressed himself well in conversation and on paper, although a little pedagogical in manner, and too much given to epithet in style. The literary claims of the author of the Declaration of Independence cannot be passed over lightly. His mind was active; catching quickly the outlines of a subject, he jumped at the conclusion which pleased his fancy, without looking beneath the surface.[B] He was curious in all matters of art, literature, and science, but his curiosity was easily appeased. He raves about Ossian, gazes for hours on the Maison Carrée at Nismes, writes letters to Paine on arcs and catenaries, busies himself with vocabularies, natural history, geology, discourses magisterially about Newton and Lavoisier, and studies nothing thoroughly. One can see by the way in which he handles his technical terms that he does not know the use of them. He was a smatterer of that most dangerous kind, who feel certain they have arrived at truth. Like so many other children of the eighteenth century, he rejected the past with disdain, but was blindly credulous of the future; and was ready to embrace an absurdity if it came in a new and scientific shape. The marquises and abbés he met in France had dreamed over elementary principles of society and government, until they had lost themselves in wandering mazes like Milton's speculative and erring angels. He believed that those gay philosophes had discovered the magical stone of social science, and that misery and sin would be transmuted into virtue and happiness. It was only necessary to kill all the kings and to confide in the reason and virtue of the people, and the thing was done. The scenes of 1789 stimulated Jefferson's natural tendency beyond the bounds of common sense. He asserted that Indians without a government were better off than Europeans with one, and that half the world a desert with only an Adam and Eve left in each country to repopulate it would be an improvement in the condition of Europe. He became a bigot of liberalism. Luckily he had his American blood and practical education to restrain him, or he might have been as foolish as Brissot and as rabid as Marat. As it was, he could not help perceiving in his calmer moments that this new path to the glorious future which the philosophes were pointing out to their countrymen, had been for many years in America the well-worn high road of the nation.
On most subjects, Jefferson's opinions were dictated by his feelings. He takes so little pains to conceal this weakness, that we can hardly suppose he was aware of it. Contradiction he could not bear. Opposition of any kind produced a bitter feeling. Vanity, latent perhaps, but acrid, corroded his judgment of his adversaries. In France Governeur Morris remarked that he was too fond of calling fools those who did not agree with him; a sure sign of want of strength. Great minds are essentially tolerant of the opinions of others. They know how easy it is to err. There was a good deal, too, of the Pharisee about Jefferson. 'He was of no party, nor yet a trimmer between parties. If he could not go to heaven but with a party, he would not go there at all.' But he thanked God he was not as the Federalists were: Anglomen, monarchists, workers of corruption! nor even as this Washington! He boasted, too, that he had never written a line for the public press; his method was to suggest his views to others, and employ them to put them into print.
Careful not to speak out too boldly when it was not altogether safe to do so, and wanting rather in moral courage, he was a persevering man, pursuing his plans with the eagerness of women, who always have a thousand excellent reasons, however illogical and inconsistent they may be, for doing as they please--and like women, he was not over scrupulous as to the means he employed to reach his object.
The same envious vanity and inability to resist his feelings which warped his judgment into so many contradictions, led him into