breath, and some of the remaining rays of his glimmering lamp, in attempting to destroy the independence of the judiciary-our surest defence against tyrannyby depriving the judges of the only safe tenure of their office, "during good behaviour;" and rendering them, at short periods, absolutely dependent on the executive for reappointment; and, thenceforward, his degraded, miserable, corrupt tools. Were this pernicious project to obtain, we should no longer be governed by certain laws, but by the varying passions of our rulers. Had this been our judiciary system when Mr. Jefferson was president, he would have hurled from the bench chiefjustice Marshall, because he did not hang Aaron Burr; although judging with the wisdom and purity of Hale, and the integrity, ability and firmness of Holt. It is in his letter of July 2, 1822, to lieutenant governor Barry of Kentucky, that we have seen broached these dangerous ideas. It is a letter which ought to be preserved, as a characteristic memorial of a personage so much celebrated as Mr. Jefferson.* The Supreme Court of the United States, with the independence essential to a due administration of justice, had given some decisions adverse to the pretensions and acts of certain individual states-to restrain them within the limits of the constitution, of which that court is the rightful interpreter: and if the national legislature, or the legislatures of individual states, overleap its boundaries, that court is the only Constitutional Power which can bring them back. Yet this is the power which Mr. Jefferson would destroy. "Let," says he, "the future appointment of judges be "for four or six years, and renewable by the President "and Senate:"—that is, at the pleasure of one man, the President, who would or would not re-nominate the judges, according to their decisions on questions affecting himself, his friends, his party, his caprice, or his visionary notions; and thus destroy the only Power whose acts can be relied on-in the highest degree to which any human institution can be entitled to confidence-as most uniformly regulated by REASON. * It will be found in the Appendix. It deserves notice, that when Mr. Jefferson wrote his letter to lieut. governor Barry, of the seven judges then on the bench of the Supreme Court, five had received their appointments from Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, from their own party. The judges Marshall and Washington received their appointments from Mr. Adams, in his better days-when he was himself a federalist. Yet these democratic judges, according to Mr. Jefferson, were, by their judicial decisions, on solemn argument, violating the constitution, and annihilating State Rights! No; the obvious solution of their proceedings is this: Feeling their independence of party; and, like all other men, when not under the bias of personal interest, disposed to do justice; and knowing that their reputation and future fame-to which none are indifferent-will rest on the purity as well as the ability of their decisions; they will, by their enlightened and impartial adjudications, satisfy their consciences, enjoy a present reward in the approbation of their fellow citizens, and transmit their names with honour to posterity. This is the Power, and the Only Power, which can present a check to the National Legislature, whenever its acts shall transcend the limits of the Constitution; which was intended to bridle the curvetings of Congress, as well as the flounderings of State Legislatures; assemblies which, like individual rulers, feeling Power, may sometimes forget Right.This is the Power which may decide, in the last resort, the important question now agitated, with great zeal and ability, in the House of Representatives, on the making of roads and canals, by the authority of the General Government; a measure warmly advocated by some, and as warmly opposed by others, of that National Assembly. Should it be enacted, any citizen whose property shall be touched by the national road or canal, by instituting an action against the national agent, may bring the question before the Supreme Court; and if that Court pronounces the act unconstitional, that Power which holds the purse and the sword-the power so much dreaded, in anticipation, by Patrick Henry and some other distinguished cítizens-must stop. For I am not willing to believe that Congress, disregarding the Court's decision, would by physical force carry the act into execution; but would resort to the mode prescribed by the Constitution, for obtaining, by its amendment, the desired power. But it is this moral power in the Supreme Court, the power of REASON over brute force, which Mr. Jefferson would destroy. Every four or six years, he would "bring their conduct under, revision" of the President and Senate; and renew their appointments, or eject them from the Bench, as their decisions should quadrate with, or oppose, the views, interests or passions of the President and Senate for the time being: and one of the Court's decisions giving offence, might be the denial of the power of Congress to make national roads and canals. Yet this is the ORACLE to which one of the able opposers of the existing bill appeals, and by the force of whose name, he hopes to influence the opinions of at least some members of the house, to reject the bill: and if one half of the eminence, which, in the gentleman's eloquent eulogy, is ascribed to Mr. Jefferson, were his due, his opinion, in all cases, would be entitled to much respect. "Against "this power of the general government, to make inter"nal improvements, by means of roads and canals, un"der any part of the Constitution, Mr. Stevenson said "he would bring the sanction of a high name in the an"nals of our Political History, the authority of a man "whose principles had been as uniformly steadfast as republican, and whose virtues were as pure as his genius was splendid; a man who had justly been "considered as the 'Apostle of Liberty.' It was unnecessary to say that he alluded to Thomas Jefferson." His message to Congress, Dec. 2, 1806, is then referred to. It is the same celebrated message in which Mr. Jefferson casts about him to know what to do with the surpluses of the public revenue soon to be accumulated in the National Treasury; and suggests the idea of expending them "for the purposes of public 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 "education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other ob"jects of public improvement, as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of feder"al powers." Mr. Jefferson adds, "I suppose an amendment to the constitution, by the consent of the states, necessary; because the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the constitution, "and to which it permits the public moneys to be applied." His immediate successor, however, instead of being perplexed to find objects on which to expend Mr. Jefferson's surpluses, was obliged to study to find expedients to supply deficiencies; and actually to borrow some millions of dollars. But to return to the topic of mutual forgiveness, of which the two distinguished gentlemen of whom I am speaking appear so anxious to make a public exhibition-What is its character? The apologetical letter of Mr. Adams would afford some information; but it is not published, and I presume never will be: unmutilated, it would be a curiosity. Did he confess that the sentiments he once entertained and expressed of Mr. Jefferson were erroneous? that he believed Mr. Jefferson never contemplated nor carried any measures injurious to his country? that he was not chargeable with a "mean thirst of popularity," nor an "inordinate ambition," nor "a want of sincerity ?" and that he sessed no anecdotes which if made known would be disreputable to Mr. Jefferson? And will Mr. Jefferson say, that he never countenanced Freneau, Bache, Duane and Callender, in writing and publishing their slanders against Mr. Adams, in order, by diminishing his popularity, to prevent his re-election to the presidency? Will Mr. Jefferson go one step further, and say, that he did not, when Secretary of State, patronize, and in effect set up, the National Gazette, edited by Philip Freneau, a translating clerk* in his office; the whole tendency of which—and thence we have a right to say its design-was to undermine the administration of Wash pos * An imperfect translator too, though qualified to edit such a gazette. This, unsustained by a sufficient subscription, died an early death. ington, conducted, as it always was, on federal principles? principles to which Mr. Adams was attached, and on the expected adherence to which his single election to the presidency was obtained. Or, the facts being considered as unquestionable, will Mr. Jefferson now admit that he sinned against Washington, and Adams, and the federal system of government, and truth, in the countenance he gave to those licentious libellers of them all? When these two gentlemen shall make these avowals and confessions, we may, in the exercise of abounding charity, ascribe their mutual forgivings to a temper becoming Christian penitence-an act not lightly pressing on persons whose accounts are so near being closed. In reviewing the "Correspondence," the reproaches uttered by Mr. Adams against Mr. Jefferson would, indeed, have found a place, for the necessary purpose of contrasting them with the subsequent expressions of friendship, respect and praise; the latter drawn from him, or rather volunteered, in consequence of the new political situation of his son, in Mr. Jefferson's corps. I should not, however, have made a single animadversion on Mr. Jefferson, but for the appearance of his letter of October 12, in exculpation, not of Mr. Adams only, but of himself; apologizing for their mutual heart-burnings and ill will, by ascribing them to a cause, plausible indeed, and wrought up with no little ingenuity, and wanting only truth and fact for its basis. He insinuates that tale-bearers have produced all the mischief: but he speaks guardedly-"there might not be wanting those who wished to make it"-their political opposition-"a personal one, by filling their ears with malignant falsehoods:" and that the "whispers "of these people might make them forget what they "had known of each other for so many years, and "years of so much trial." Then, as an experienced philosopher, he closes the solution of their difference by a remark, just in itself, and proper, if it were applicable to the case of himself and Mr. Adams. "All men," he says, "who have attended to the workings |