The Writings of Thomas Jefferson | Page 3

in his day, his intellectual
sympathies were universal, or as nearly so as it was possible for any
man's to be. Men less learned and with lesser power of reason and
thoughtfulness than he, have moved audiences to frenzy and have

carried them at will; but Jefferson, without this peculiar gift, certainly
possessed a sufficiency of this power, which the broad culture of the
scholar and the steadfast tension of the thinker can give to any man. His
addresses and writings are pregnant with profound aphorisms, and
through his great genius transient questions were often transformed into
eternal truths. His arguments were condensed with such admirable
force of clearness that his utterances always found lodgment in the
minds of both auditors and readers. Sensitive in his physical
organization, easily moved to tenderness, and incapable of malice, he
had that ready responsiveness to his own emotions as well as to those
of others, which always characterizes genius.
While it may be said that oratory was not an art with Jefferson, yet his
ideas on all governmental questions were always so clear and strong
and well matured that he never failed to express them forcefully and
effectively. His wonderful intellect, upon all important occasions, never
failed to take hold on principle, justice, liberty and moral development,
without which, as a part of its essence, the greatest mind can never
express itself adequately. His State papers and his addresses and
writings reveal the highest order of intellect, and are marked with a
degree of originality peculiarly Jeffersonian. The doctrines he
proclaimed and the principles he promulgated were so logical and
sound that they are cherished yet, and it is believed by millions of our
countrymen that they are as imperishable as the stars. Jefferson's
philosophical ideas of democratic government are as much alive to-day
as they were when he was at the zenith of his glory in life, and this
cannot be said of any other illustrious American who was
contemporaneous with him. It may be truthfully claimed that the lamp
of liberty, which he, perhaps more than any other one American of his
times helped to light, will never go out; and it may also be stated, with
an equal degree of truthfulness, that the brilliant star of his own
personal and political greatness will never set.
Some American writers have, from their standpoints of review,
animadverted upon certain alleged weaknesses of Jefferson as a great
national character. Although I do not indorse his position as favoring
"States' Rights" and a Federal Government of restricted powers, as over

against the broader doctrine promulgated by Washington, Adams, Jay
and Hamilton, of a centralized government or Union which, when
national questions are involved, should be, at all times, the supreme
power of the country, yet I concede to him wonderful foresight in
advocating a Constitution that would grant to the States the greatest
possible latitude. Other critics have also barked along the trail of this
distinguished man of destiny, charging him with being a demagogue, a
jingoist, an infidel and the like, but their barking has made him all the
greater, and has added new laurels to his marvelous career. Faults he
may have had, but who has not? Weaknesses he may have had, but who
is universally wise and strong? Burke, in his incomparable speech in
the English Parliament on the East India bill, spoke for many great men
in history when he thus alluded to the younger Fox: "He has faults; but
they are faults, that though they may, in a small degree, tarnish the
lustre, and sometimes impede the march of his abilities, have nothing in
them to extinguish the fire of great virtues. In those faults there is no
mixture of deceit, of hypocrisy, of pride, of ferocity, of complexional
despotism, or want of feeling for the distress of mankind."
Like Charles James Fox, to whom Edmund Burke referred, Thomas
Jefferson was the foremost Commoner of his day, and he allowed no
opportunity to pass unimproved, to lift the common people to higher
conceptions of life and duty. Such men are rare, and I am glad to be
able conscientiously to place the name of Thomas Jefferson, in many
important respects, and particularly as the champion of the rights of the
common people, pre-eminently above all the other distinguished
Americans of his generation; and I wish it understood that I make this
statement upon a fair comprehensive knowledge of the acts and works
of the leading men of that period of our country's history.
Jefferson in early life accepted the idea or theory that the first and most
general truth in history is that men ought to be free. He evidently felt
that if happiness is the end of the human race, then freedom is the
condition, and that this freedom should