LIFE

OF

THOMAS JEFFERSON,

WITH

SELECTIONS FROM THE MOST VALUABLE PORTIONS OF HIS VOLU-

MINOUS AND UNRIVALLED

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

By B. L. RAYNER,

'For I have sworn upon the Altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of

tyranny over the mind of man.'-Priv. Corres.

BOSTON:

LILLY, WAIT, COLMAN, & HOLDEN.

144

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834,

By LILLY, WAIT, COLMAN, & HOLDEN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

THE materials for this volume are principally derived from the posthumous works of Mr Jefferson himself. These works were received with extraordinary approbation by one great portion of the public, as was the case indeed with every thing which ever came from that remarkable man; and by another considerable portion, with a corresponding degree of dissatisfaction, always to be expected from the well known opinions of the Author on certain fundamental points, upon which a strongly marked division of public sentiment has prevailed, since the foundation of the federal government.

These works extend through four large octavo volumes, of about 500 pages each; nearly the whole of which is occupied with the Correspondence of the Author, public and private. And taken as a whole, it comprises the richest auto-biographical deposit, and one of the most valuable publications ever presented to the world. It is written in a style of unrivalled felicity; and supplies the record of many important transactions connected with our government, of which no authentic memorials had been preserved. But it is in the light of a