The Writings of Thomas Jefferson | Page 2

and
James G. Blaine. Neither represented the same generation, and neither
was the exact counterpart of the others, but all of them were renowned
in their ability to control their fellow-men. Each possessed that peculiar
magnetic power to draw men around them and to win their confidence
and support. Each had but to say the word, and his wishes were carried
out. Each needed only to give the command to follow, and, like drilled
soldiers, the multitudes fell into line and were obedient to every order.
They were evidently cast in a peculiar mould, and that particular mould
is limited seemingly to a single man in every generation. Why it is thus
we know not, and yet we know that it is so. As the precentor in a choir
leads the masses with his baton, and under correct leadership they
rarely miss a note, so does the great tactician issue his commands, and
his wishes are supreme. I here write Jefferson, Clay and Blaine as
America's intrepid leaders and commanders in civil life; these three,
and the greatest of these was Jefferson, as he seemed to have learned in
early life, more than any of his compeers, that a little management will
often avoid resistance, which a vast force will strive in vain to
overcome; and that it is wisdom to grant graciously what he could not
refuse safely, and thus conciliate those whom he was otherwise unable
to control.
In referring to a man who possesses a high grade of capacity in a
particular calling, we usually say he is able--an able man. The term
able, therefore, signifies more than capable, more than well-informed,
whether applied to an artist, a general, a man of learning, or a judge. A
man may have read all that has been written on war, and may have seen
it, without being able to conduct a war. He may be capable of
commanding, but to acquire the name of an able general he must
command more than once with success. A judge may know all the laws,
without being able to apply the principles of law properly. A learned
man may not be able either to speak, or to write, or to teach in a
commanding manner. An able man, then, is he who makes a valuable
use of what he knows. A capable man can do a thing; an able one does
it. The term able cannot, therefore, be properly applied to genius. It is
not correct, according to my way of thinking, to say an "able poet," an
"able painter," an "able musician," an "able orator," an "able sculptor,"

because it is talent or genius, or both, that gives one rank in these
callings in life, or in these particular undertakings. The word "able," as
I understand it, is applicable to those arts only which involve the
exercise of the mind as a controlling factor. One may be a great orator,
according to the usual acceptation of the term "great," and yet be only a
declaimer and a rhetorician. That is to say, he may be able to captivate
audiences by his superior action, as Demosthenes defines oratory to be,
and at the same time his elocution and rhetoric may be unexceptionable,
yet he maybe in fact totally lacking in every element which goes to
make up real greatness.
It may be correctly claimed that one may win distinction and renown
by energy and tact, and yet be deficient in both wit and learning. But
usually men are measured by the success they make in life, just as a
carpenter is measured by his "chips"; and accepting this measure, it is
exceedingly rare to find one who reaches above the rank of a ward
politician, unless he possesses those real elements of greatness which I
choose to class as honesty, sobriety, manliness, sympathy, energy,
education, knowledge and fairness. I agree that a great tactician may
not per se be a great man, but I do say that one who possesses this
element, usually embodies those other elements which are accepted
ordinarily as the true ingredients of greatness.
Jefferson did not rank in oratory with the Adamses, the Randolphs,
James Otis and Patrick Henry, who were contemporaneous with him.
He was, therefore, not by nature great in the sphere of oratory, and in
his public utterances he does not always show the habit of radical
thought which gave the great Democratic party, which lived and ruled
our country throughout the larger part of the nineteenth century, that
tremendous moral force peculiar to that marvelous organization which
he founded and fostered throughout his long, useful and eventful life.
Yet his speeches, if they may be classed as such, were clear, logical,
forceful, convincing. In politics, in literature, in everything that
concerned the world's forward movement