is a question of such consequence as not only to merit discussion, but place also among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here, on the elementary principles of society, has presented this question to my mind, and that no such obligation can be transmitted, I think very capable of proof."

Mr. Jefferson arrives at this conclusion: "That neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time; that is to say within thirty-four years from the date of the engagement."

He concludes his course of reasoning thus: "That no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law." Consequently all constitutions must be adopted or renewed every thirty-five years ; and if not, it follows that the society goes into a state of anarchy and dissolution. These are the sober and deliberately expressed opinions of this wise and practical statesman!

Additional proofs of the falsity of many of Mr. Jefferson's statements, in reference to his political and personal enemies, may be found in a work published in 1832, by IIenry Lee of Virginia, in which that writer clearly exposes the error of many of Mr. Jefferson's declarations in reference to Gen.

Henry Lee, of the Revolution, as contained in his published Memoirs, his Anas, and his correspondence. For the remarkable and unanswerable evidences, contained in that work, of the unfounded. and calumnious assertions of Mr. Jefferson on many subjects, we refer the reader to its pages.*

Yet nothing human is perfect; and no inconsiderable excuse may be found for this error of Mr. Jefferson in the fact, that he was himself fiercely persecuted, slandered, and misrepresented by many of his personal and political opponents; and that his severest strictures were but retaliations on them of the wrongs and the injustice which he supposed them to have inflicted on himself. Whatever may be his relative merit and demerit, it is certain that, as long as the American confederacy shall survive the shocks of time, and as it grows greater and more powerful, the name and the services of Thomas Jefferson will continue to live fresh and fadeless in the memories and the gratitude of millions of prosperous and intelligent freemen!

The chief difference between the political opinions. of Jefferson and Hamilton-the great Democrat

* See "Observations on the writings of Thomas Jefferson ; with particular reference to the attack they contain on the Memory of the late General Henry Lee, by H. Lee, of Virginia. New York. Published by Charles de Behr. 1832." See particularly pp. 41, 45,

51, 107, and 201

and the great Federalist of American history-may be thus briefly stated: In establishing the form of government, and in administering it, these statesmen were guided by principles as opposite as the poles. Hamilton preferred practice to theory; that is, he thought it wiser to adopt those elements of the British government which, while they accorded with the spirit of true liberty, possessed the additional advantage of the prosperous and favorable experience of the past in their support. Mr. Jefferson, on the contrary, discarded every thing which had appertained to European governments, and insisted on carrying out a full and independent theory of his own, which embodied his whole conception of what a free, popular, and democratic government should be. Mr. Hamilton wished to leave room for future legislation, adapted to the developing wants and resources of the country. Mr. Jefferson insisted upon realizing at once and immediately his ideal of a free government, whether that ideal proved in itself practicable and beneficial or not. Mr. Hamilton looked partly to the past for guidance. Mr. Jefferson regarded all the past as wrong, as perversion, as injustice and outrage upon the rights of man, and looked only to the future. IIamilton was cautious of losing all by grasping too much. Jefferson wished to realize his full rights at

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LIFE AND TIMES OF JEFFERSON.

the outset, forgetful of the wise maxim, that nothing human is at the same time both begun and perfected. Hamilton was conservative; Jefferson was radical. Hamilton penned the Constitution, Jef

ferson interpreted it; just as Homer wrote the Iliad, and Aristotle afterward inferred from its matchless numbers the great rules and canons of poetical composition. But whether Hamilton or Jefferson understood the Constitution best, may be as readily determined as the question, who was the greater poet, the author or the critic of the Iliad.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GENERAL CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, AS FIRST WRITTEN AND AFTERWARD AMENDED.*

WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with (inherent and †) inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form,

*The parts struck out are enclosed in brackets. The additions are placed in foot-notes.

† Certain inalienable rights.