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sentiment of his mind, at this early period, are clearly indicated by those emphatic mottoes which he selected for his seals: "Ab eo libertas, a quo spiritus," and "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." These mottoes attracted great attention among his cotemporaries, and were regarded as prophetic of his destiny. They are well remembered to this day, by the aged inhabitants of Virginia, and associated with the warmest recollections of him, whose presence only is lost from among them. The seals themselves are preserved, as sacred relics, by the family of Mr. Jefferson; and accurate impressions of them in wax, have been obtained by his particular friends, in various parts of the country, by whom they are cherished with religious regard.

Various attempts have been made to ascertain the birth of opin ions on the subject of American Independence; and to fix the precise epoch, and the particular individual, when and with whom the stupendous conception originated. But the enquiry has been attended with no success, except to multiply candidates for the distinction, and is, from the nature of the case, incapable of solution. It is evident that the measure did not result from any deliberate and preconcerted design on the part of one, or any number of individuals; but from a combination of progressive, adventitious causes, generated, for the most part, in the hot-bed of the British Parliament, and fostered and matured by its unyielding obstinacy. It was the slow and legitimate growth of political oppression, assisted, it is true, by the great advance of certain minds beyond the general step of the age. To use the happy phraseology of Mr. Jefferson, "it would be as difficult to say at what moment the Revolution began, and what incident set it in motion, as to fix the moment that the embryo becomes an animal, or the act which gives him a beginning."

Whether James Otis "breathed into this nation the breath of life," in the capitol of Massachusetts, or Patrick Henry "gave the first impulse to the ball of the Revolution," in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, as has been alternately claimed, and reclaimed against, in a spirit of laudable and patriotic rivalry, by the two great States which have stood forth as the chief competitors for the honor; or whether Independence "was born" in the breast of a Hancock, a John or Samuel Adams, or a Christopher Gadsden, are questions, which, though they furnish matter for curious and interesting speculation, will probably never be decided to the satisfaction of all the

parties. But it is certain that if the subject were examined with reference to its bearing upon a Jefferson, and a similar indulgence were allowed in hyperbolism, it might with equal propriety be advanced, that in those pointed and eloquent inscriptions, which he selected in the fire of youth, as the mottoes of his seals, we discover the germ, not merely of emancipated America, but of revolutionary Europe, and of the general amelioration of associated man throughout the world. The Revolution itself was but an inchoate movement, America alone considered; a fortiori, it was but the first chapter in the history of the great moral and political regeneration which is advancing over the earth, and to which it gave the primary impulse. The mere political disseverence of the Colonies from the mother country, was but the initiatory process in the grand and fundamental metamorphosis through which they had to pass, in order to derive any essential advantages from the separation; to wit, the entire abrogation of the regal investiture, and the assumption of free, independent, self-government. And unless contemplated in the broad light of a contest of principle, between the advocates of republican and those of kingly government, into which it finally resolved itself, it is of little importance to enquire what incident gave it birth, or who set it in motion. Stopping at the point at which many, who were the boldest at the outset, evidently wished it to stop, and with honest motives, the Revolution would have been nothing more, in effect, than transferring the government to other hands, without putting it into other forms; and no change would have been wrought in the political condition of the world. It would have been merely a spirited and successful rebellion, or rather a struggle for power, like that which long embroiled the royal races of Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts, terminating, at best, in a limited modification of the old system, and most likely, in its entire adoption, substituting George or John the First, in the room of George the Third. Many a firm breasted champion of the Revolution, proved deficient in metal when brought to the bar of principle. The whig of the first crisis, was transformed into the tory of the second, in many cases, and vice

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The solution of the problem, as it is usually stated, therefore, if practicable, would afford no certain criterion of the relative advance of the leading minds of that period. But the question becomes a rational one, and assumes a powerful interest, if presented in its

proper aspect; when and with whom originated those eternal rules of political reason and right, which crowned with glory and immortality the American Revolution, and made it one in substance as well as form? To whom belongs the honor of conceiving the sublime, creative idea of giving to those detached and chaotic fragments of empire, which formed the nucleus of the American nation, not only shape and organization, but a new projectile impulse, to revolve in an untried orbit, under the control of a new equilibrium of forces? Viewing the subject under these, its moral phases, it becomes of some consequence to ascertain the origin and progress of individual opinions. Those of Mr. Jefferson, both as to date and character, will gradually, and in due time, unfold themselves to the reader, in the course of the sequel. Meanwhile, it is difficult to affirm whether Massachusetts, who has evinced an honorable degree of sensibility upon this topic, will feel most solaced or rebuked by the following compliment paid her by Mr. Jefferson, a few years since, in a letter to Samuel A. Wells. "We willingly cede to her the laud of having been, although not exclusively, the cradle of sound principles; and if some of us believe she has deflected from them in her course, we retain full confidence in her ultimate return to them.” Again, in a letter to General Dearborn, soon after the close of the last war, he apostrophizes her, in a tone of such winning and fraternal supplication, and so much in unison with our position, that we cannot omit introducing it here.

"Oh Massachusetts! how have I lamented the degradation of your apostacy! Massachusetts, with whom I went with pride in '76, whose vote was my vote on every public question, and whose principles were then the standard of whatever was free or fearless. But then she was under the counsels of the two Adamses; while Strong, her present leader, was promoting petitions for submission to British power and British usurpation. While under her present counsels, she must be contented to be nothing; as having a vote, indeed, to be counted, but not respected. But should the State, once more, buckle on her republican harness, we shall receive her again as a sister, and recollect her wanderings among the crimes only of the parricide party, which would have basely sold what their fathers so bravely won from the same enemy. Let us look forward, then, to the act of repentance, which, by dismissing her venal traitors, shall be the signal of return to the bosom, and to the principles of her brethren; and, if her late humiliation can just give her modesty enough to suppose that her southern brethren are somewhat on a par with her in wisdom, in information, in

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patriotism, in bravery, and even in honesty, although not in psalmsinging, she will more justly estimate her own relative momentum in the Union. With her ancient principles, she would really be great, if she did not think herself the whole. I should be pleased to hear that you go into her councils, and assist in bringing her back to those principles, and to a sober satisfaction with her proportionable share in the direction of our affairs."

In 1767, Mr. Jefferson was inducted into the practice of the Law, at the bar of the General Court, under the auspices of his learned preceptor and friend, Mr. Wythe. He brought with him into practice, the whole body of ancient and modern jurisprudence, text and commentary, from its rudest monuments in Anglo-Saxon, to its latest depositories in polished vernacular, well systematized in his mind, and ready for use at a moments warning. A specimen of his familiarity with the vast phalanx of legal authorities, from Prisot down to Lord Mansfield, will presently appear; although it was originally intended as a confidential deposite in the bosom of his correspondent. But his professional career was brief, and unfavored with any occasion adequate to disclose the immensity of his technical preparation, or the extent of his abilities as an advocate. The outbreak of the Revolution, which was followed by a general occlusion of the Courts of Justice, trod close upon his introduction to the bar and while it closed one important avenue to distinction, ushered him upon a broader and more diversified theatre of action.

During the short interval which he spent in his profession, he acquired considerable celebrity; but his forensic reputation is so disproportioned to his unusually versatile pre-eminence, as to have occasioned the general impression that he was deficient in the requisite qualifications for a successful practitioner at the bar. That this was not the case, however, we have the authority of a gentleman,* whose opportunities of information, and well known political bias, are a guaranty of the literal accuracy of his statement. "Permit me," says he, "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

+ William Wirt.

the light, will vindicate his claims to the first honors of the profession."

Again, we have the authority of the same gentleman upon another interesting point. It will be new to the reader to learn that Mr. Jefferson was any thing of a popular orator. "It is true," continues the writer, "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 gutteral 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 services 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."

The "arguments," above mentioned, have not yet seen the light; but a curious fragment exists, in the form of a letter to the celebrated English whig, Major John Cartwright, which displays at one view, the wonderful copiousness of legal research, fertility and promptitude of reference, which he possessed, and brought down' with him to the age of eighty-one. This long and learned letter embraces a wide range of historical details, and political information; and partakes more of the character of a treatise on the British and American Constitutions, than of an epistolary communication. The part which we quote, contains the detection, through a long labyrinth of legal authorities, of a fundamental heresy, which, at an early period, through a palpable mistranslation of two words, crept into the common law, and finally, by a series of cumulative adjudications, became firmly embodied in the text.

"I was glad to find in your book a formal contradiction, at length, of the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have usurped in their repeated decisions, that Christianity is a part of the common law. The proof of the contrary, which have

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