rian, aggrandizing, or visionary projects It is stated with much confidence by a living chronicle of those times, whose personal intimacy with the President enabled him to speak with authority on the subject, that he contributed to found more temples for religion and education than any other man of that age.'

The minor traits of Mr. Jefferson's administration open a range of topics, on which the historian might dwell and expatiate with everrenewing delight. His simplicity was only equalled by his economy, of which he presented an example, in the extinguishment of more than thirty-three millions of the public debt, which is unparalleled in any previous history of the world. The diplomatic agents of foreign governments, on their introduction to him, were often embarrassed, and sometimes mortified, at the entire absence of eti quette with which they were received; but the awkwardness of the moment was soon lost in admiration of a character, and a scene, so congenial to the spirit of republican government. His arrivals at the Seat of Government, and departures therefrom, were so studiously timed and conducted, as to be unobserved and unattended. His inflexibility upon this point, so variant from the practice of his predecessors, could never be overcome; and he was finally permitted to pursue his own course, undisturbed by any manifestations of popular feeling. His uniform mode of riding was on horseback, which was daily, and always unattended. In one of these solitary excursions, while passing a stream of water, he was accosted by a feeble beggar, who implored his assistance to transport him and his baggage. He immediately mounted the beggar behind him, and carried him over; on perceiving he had neglected his wallet, he as good humoredly recrossed the stream and brought it over to him.

Although repeatedly and warmly solicited by his friends to make a tour to the North, he never could reconcile it to his obligations of propriety as a Chief Magistrate. In a private answer to Governor Sullivan of Massachusetts, on the subject, he wrote: "The course of life which General Washington had run, civil and military, the services he had rendered, and the space he therefore occupied in the affections of his fellow citizens, take from his examples the weight of precedents for others, because no others can arrogate to themselves the claims which he had on the public homage. To myself, there

*S. H. Smith.

fore, it comes as a new question, to be viewed under all the phases it may present. I confess, that I am not reconciled to the idea of a Chief Magistrate parading himself through the several States as an object of public gaze, and in quest of an applause, which, to be valuable, should be purely voluntary. I had rather acquire silent good will by a faithful discharge of my duties, than owe expressions of it to my putting myself in the way of receiving them."

He carried his ideas of simplicity to such an extent as to deprecate the size of the house allotted to the Chief Magistrate. He thought it should have been turned into a University. Nor was it from any sordidness of disposition, any constitutional insensibility to the charms of elegance, that his extraordinary frugality, simplicity, and plainness proceeded; but purely from an exquisite sense of his obligations as a public man, and a determination to leave an example which should long counteract the natural tendency of nations to luxury, dissipation and extravagance. Had it been otherwise. he might with less contestable propriety, have deprecated the size and magnificence of his own Monticello, which, in the various buildings and rebuildings it underwent at his hands, to suit the progress of his taste in the arts, is believed to have cost more than the mansion of the Chief Magistrate. In his private expenditures, he was indeed liberal, to a fault. Humane and compassionate towards his fellow man, on a scale of benevolence which comprehended every distinction of color and condition, no feasible object of philanthropy was probably ever presented to him, which he did not encourage by the most generous assistance. But in the immediate circle of his friends, to whom, from the warmth of his feelings, he was ever devoted, his liberality appeared to know no limits. In the profusion of expensive presents which he lavished upon them, in the extensive accommodations of money with which he succored them under embarrassment, in the exuberant hospitality with which he entertained strangers and visitors from every country, and in his ordinary habits of living, which embraced all the enjoyments of a refined taste, such evidences of a private munificence appeared, as contrasted wonderfully with his frugality and simplicity as a public man.

One other trait of Mr. Jefferson, in the discharge of his official duties, deserves a conspicuous mention,-to wit, his disinterestedness. The distinguishable eminence of this quality is evidenced by the

fact that in all the splendid stations which he occupied, he accumulated nothing; but retired from each of them much poorer than he entered, and from the last and greatest station, "with hands," to use his own expression, "as clean as they were empty,"-indeed, on the very verge of bankruptcy. While, in the short interval of eight years, he had saved to his country millions and millions of dollars, enough to make her rich and free, who was before poor and oppressed with taxation; he, of the immense fortune with which he set out in life, had added nothing, and lost almost every thing. If any further testimony were wanting on this brilliant theme, it might be drawn from the fact of his having refrained from appointing a single relation to office. This was not only true of him, while President, but in every public station which he filled. Writing to a friend in 1824, he says: "In the course of the trusts I have exercised through life with powers of appointment, I can say with truth, and with unspeakable comfort, that I never did appoint a relation to of fice, and that merely because I never saw the case in which some one did not offer, or occur, better qualified." Nor, in the multiplied removals and replacements which he was compelled to make, did he eject a personal enemy, or appoint a personal friend. He felt it his duty to observe these rules, for reasons expressed in answer to an application for office by a relative: "That my constituents may be satisfied, that, in selecting persons for the management of their affairs, I am influenced by neither personal nor family interests, and especially, that the field of public office will not be perverted by me into a family property. On this subject, I had the benefit of useful lessons from my predecessors, had I needed them, marking what was to be imitated and what avoided. But, in truth, the nature of our government is lesson enough. Its energy depending mainly on the confidence of the people in their Chief Magistrate, makes it his duty to spare nothing which can strengthen him with that confidence."

In the crowd of official occupations which devolve on the Executive Magistrate, Mr. Jefferson found time to accomplish a succession of private labors and enterprises, which would have been enough of themselves, to have exhausted the ordinary measure of application and talent. A simple enumeration of the topics on which his leisure moments were employed, will suffice to exhibit the extent of his voluntary efforts for the improvement and happi

ness of the nation. Regular Essays abound in his correspondence during this period, on Physics, Law, and Medicine; on Natural History, particularly as connected with the aborigines of America; on maxims for the regulation and improvement of our Moral Conduct, addressed to young men ; on Agriculture, Navigation, and Manufactures; on Politics and Political Parties, Science, History and Religion. In some of those intervals when he could justifiably abstract himself from the public affairs, his meditations turned upon the subject of Christianity. He had some years before promised his views of the Christian religion to Dr. Rush, with whom, and with Dr. Priestly, he was in habits of harmonious and delightful intercommunication on the subject. The more he reflected upon it, the more, he confessed, it expanded beyond the measure of either his time or information.' But he availed himself of a day or two, while on the road to Monticello, in 1803, to digest in his mind a remarkably comprehensive outline, entitled "A Syllabus of an estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, compared with those of others." This he afterwards wrote out and forwarded to Dr. Rush, in discharge of his promise, but under a strict injunction of secrecy, to avoid the torture of seeing it "disembowelled by the Aruspices of Modern Paganism." It embraced a comparative view of the Ethics of Christianity with those of Judaism, and of ancient Philosophy under its most esteemed authors; particularly Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, Antoninus. The result was, such a development of the immeasurable superiority of the doctrines of Christianity, that he declared its Author had presented to the world a system of morals, which, if filled up in the style and spirit of the rich fragments he has left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man.' Space can only be spared for the conclusions he arrived at, which were all on the side of Christianity. "They are the result," says he, “ of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions." The question of the Divinity, or Inspiration of Christ, being foreign to his purpose, did not enter into the estimate.

"1. He [Jesus] corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government.

"2. His moral doctrines, relating to kindred and friends, were more pure and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers, and greatly more so than those of the Jews; and they went far beyond both in inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants, and common aids. A development of this head will evince the peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over

all others.

"3. The precepts of philosophy, and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.

“4. He taught, emphatically, the doctrine of a future state, which was either doubted, or disbelieved by the Jews; and wielded it with efficacy, as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral conduct."

The President was in habits of frequent communication with the fraternity of literary men spread over the whole earth; and with various societies in Europe, instituted for benevolent or useful purposes, particularly the Agricultural Society of Paris, and the Board of Agriculture of London, of both of which he was a member. He was indefatigable in endeavoring to obtain the useful discoveries of these Societies, as they occurred, and in communicating to them, in return, those of the western hemisphere. He imported from France, at his own expense, two parcels of Merino sheep, among the first introduced into this country, with a variety of new inventions in the agricultural and mechanic arts, and new articles of culture, which have since become of general use in the United States. He transmitted to the Society of Paris, in return, several tierces of South Carolina rice, for cultivation in France; and to the Board of Agriculture of London, several barrels of the genuine May wheat, of Virginia. Some of these exportations happened during the restraints of the embargo, and, on its getting into the newspapers, excited a furious and most ridiculous uproar against the President. His correspondence with the eminent philanthropists of Europe, particularly on the subject of Vaccination, at the epoch of the first intelligence of that momentous discovery; his persevering efforts for introducing it into this country, against the weight of scepticism and ridicule which it encountered; and his subsequent correspondence with Dr. Waterhouse and others, mingled with experimental exertions for