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ciples of this school have already regenerated the condition of one hemisphere, and will ultimately dictate to the civilized world.

The Declaration of Independence, therefore, established a great epoch in the science of government. By it, the whole system of the ancient regime, which was purely artificial, was exploded, and superseded by an entire new code, founded in reason and morality. The principles of the former, were reversed. All power was declared to be inherent, originally, in the people, and derived, secondarily, to the rulers. They, instead of being the masters, were declared to be the servants of the people. It proclaimed the great truths, that 'governments are instituted for the benefit of the people,' and that they derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.' The whole of this pure theory rested upon the fundamental axiom of the native equality of the human race. This, it will be recollected, was a favorite maxim of the Author in early youth, and formed the basis of his first effort of legislation. In the same spirit, it is placed at the head of the imposing catalogue of 'self-evident truths,' with which he prefaces the present perform

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There is another prominent feature in this paper, which is strongly illustrative of the writer. Consideration is especially due to it, since it has sometimes been cited in derogation of the instrument, whereas it constitutes one of its peculiar beauties. It is the apparent asperity, with which it treats the personal character of the King, and the industrious precision, with which it charges upon him exclusively, the complicated calamities of the Colonies. Those who recollect the ground originally assumed, and uniformly maintained by Mr. Jefferson, on the controverted question of the relation between Great Britain and the Colonies, will not derive any unfavorable impressions from this objection. On the contrary, they will be struck with the admirable consistency of his opinions upon this point, through every stage of the controversy, from first to last. It will be remembered, that the only link of connection which he recognized, as subsisting between the Colonies and the mother country, was that of an identity of Sovereign. Consequently, the only political tie, which it was the business of the Declaration to sever, was that which united us to the King himself. Parliament is not so much as mentioned in the whole instrument; he had never admitted its authority; consequently he had nothing to do

with it, nor with the British Government, in the aggregate. But allegiance to the Crown he had acknowledged, in common with all the Colonists, and scrupulously adhered to, down to the epoch of the last extremities. Conformity to the principles upon which he rested the dispute, required that he should restrain the responsibility of all that had been perpetrated, to the Monarch alone. And he accordingly charged upon him, indiscriminately, all the malversations of the Government; either as the sole and separate agent, or when abuses of Parliament are referred to, as "combining with others" in "acts of pretended legislation." How beautifully then, does this mode of procedure tally with the line of opinion and conduct, which he had uniformly observed before. In his first political essay, he had narrowed the issue down to the same point, to which he now confined it. But at that time, the opinion was deemed heterodox and chimerical; only a single individual could be found to agree with him; his proposition was rejected by the Assembly to which it was offered, and the middle ground taken. Congress, indeed, were now prepared to adopt the same principle; not however, without expunging that portion* of the original instrument, which went to declare they had always been of the same opinion. A simple regard to truth required this exception to the primitive form.

From the imperfect view thus presented, of the character of this document, the reader will be qualified to form some idea of the great principles of the American Revolution; and to detect from among its sainted constellation of movers and counsellors, the mind which had the predominant agency in originating, illustrating and establishing those principles. An attentive reflection upon those salient and governing points in the Revolution, which decided its political direction and character, will detect a strong discrimination of doctrine among its principal actors, and will assign to Thomas Jefferson the distinction of pre-eminence, in the management of its moral power. He had constantly pre-occupied its path. He had anticipated all its cardinal decisions, at a great distance; prescribed the terms of most of them; and was emphatically the father of the principles, which governed in the greatest and final one. His Declaration, backed by the om

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* See Declaration. The paragraph bogins, Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.

nipotence of the occasion, breathed those principles into the Nation, and consummated their eternal ascendancy. These principles, thus potently transfused and nationalized, gave soul and body to the American Revolution, and distinguished it from all its predecessors in the earth, by making it a revolution of mind, and not of mere brute force. Powerful affinities co-operated to produce this great moral transformation, but the trancendent influence of particular characters can never be disguised or overlooked, in the estimate of causes. With the developments, which are daily multiplying, of the councils and transactions of that prolific era, all reputed history will be confounded, if it is not already, in the relative importance which it has attached to its political, and its military chieftains. In vain had the immortal Washington led the armies of the Revolution to the field of honorable death,' and performed such miracles of valor and martial enterprise, had not the moral condition of the Country kept pace with its physical conquests. In vain had the particular rights in dispute been secured, by a decision upon the final appeal, and our Independence, to all common intent, been achieved, had not a cotemporaneous change been effected in the minds, feelings, habits and dispositions of the people, preparatory to a fundamental reformation in the principles and practices of their Government. The emancipation of the American Colonies from the parent empire, might have been a mere feat of arms, great indeed, but scarcely worth the cost; yet how inconceivably important the event, with the concomitant and resulting benefits, which were actually superinduced. And in the mighty work of securing these benefits, who led the way? Who, on all occasions involving the fate of first principles, uniformly took the laboring oar, and had the singular felicity to see his opinions finally and completely americanized?

The generation has passed away, which could number a solitary dissentient in the decision of these questions. The time has been, however, in which the temper and animosity of the popular mind, engendered by the fierce and angry collisions upon those very principles, presented a disreputable contrast in the state of feeling on this subject. Upon the organization of the government, a strong party arose which strangely misconceived the genuine text of the Revoiution. Under this infatuation, they first attempted to bring the principles themselves into disrepute, and afterwards, on perceiving their

inherent soundness and infinite merit, to detract from the generally admitted title of Mr. Jefferson as their originator and principal promoter. Not only were the doctrines of the Declaration pronounced common-place, and downright plagiarisms, but the authorship of the production itself was brought in question. The newspapers, even of a very modern date,* teem with disgraceful ribaldry upon this topic. To these pusillanimous assaults upon his just reputation, he opposed no other barrier, than that of 'the dignified contempt by which he has consigned to oblivion, all the spoken and written scurrility of his enemies.'t Among the multitude of sacrilegious strictures upon the primitive palladium of human liberty, and its canonized framer, the most elaborate attempt at disparagement, appeared in the unnatural form of a fourth of July oration, in 1823, by Timothy Pickering. The political opinions advanced in this critique, being matters of mere private speculation, do not deeply concern us; but the material inaccuracies of fact which it contains, relative to the Declaration of Independence, require attention; more especially since they have obtained an extensive currency with

The following extracts from leading anti-republican journals, so late as the year 1822, will suffice to exhibit the general character of that warfare, which for thirty years, was directed against the silent and unresisting claims of the Author of the Declaration. The first is from the Philadelphia Union, and the second from the New-York Commercial Advertiser.

"We have long been acquainted with the facts alluded to in the following article from the Federal Republican. We have seen Mr. Jefferson's draught of the Declaration of Independence, scored and scratched like a school boy's exercise. When Mr. Schaeffer shall comply with his promise to publish the documents relating to this subject, the jackdaw will be stript of the plumage, with which adulation has adorned him, and the crown will be placed on the head of a real patriot.” "The old controversy relative to Mr. Jefferson's agency in drafting the Declaration of Independence, is again revived, in the southern papers, and, as is usual in most controversies, both parties are in error-the one denying him all credit in regard to the authorship of that splendid document, and the other bestowing it all upon him. It appears to be the common opinion that Mr. Jefferson was the exclusive author of the Declaration of 1776; and he is every year toasted as such in every part of the country. But this is not the fact. Mr. Jefferson was one of the committee appointed to prepare the draught, and he drew the original paper; but his co-adjutors were so little satisfied with the performance, that it was worked over and altered almost from beginning to end. Many alterations of language were made, much was stricken out, as much more added; so that when completed it bore but little resemblance to Mr. Jefferson's draught. We have had for several years a copy of this document, which shows at one view, the original draught as made by Mr. Jefferson, the erasures and alterations that were made, and also the additions of the Committee. Mr. Jefferson deserves as much credit, for the share he took in this labor, as any other member of the Committee, and no more.'

+ Edinburgh Review, 1814.

the public. The best answer, however, to this diatribe of Pickering, is found in a confidential letter of Mr. Jefferson, to his bosom friend Madison; than which, no example of familiar correspondence could be given, which should illustrate the character of the writer in a more endearing light.

"You have doubtless seen Timothy Pickering's fourth of July observations on the Declaration of Independence. If his principles and prejudices, personal and political, gave us no reason to doubt whether he had truly quoted the information he alleges to have received from Mr. Adams, I should then say, that in some of the particulars, Mr. Adams' memory has led him into unquestionable error. At the age of eighty-eight, and forty-seven years after the transactions of Independence, this is not wonderful. Nor should I, at the age of eighty, on the small advantage of that difference only, venture to oppose my memory to his, were it not supported by written notes, taken by myself at the moment and on the spot. He says, 'The committee of five, to wit, Doctor Franklin, Sherman, Livingston, and ourselves, met, discussed the subject, and then appointed him and myself to make the draught; that we, as a subcommittee, met, and after the urgencies of each on the other, I consented to undertake the task; that, the draught being made, we, the sub-committee, met, and conned the paper over, and he does not remember that he made or suggested a single alteration.' Now these details are quite incorrect. The committee of five met; no such thing as a sub-committee was proposed, but they unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee, I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, requesting their corrections, because they were the two members of whose judg ments and amendments I wished most to have the benefit, before presenting it to the committee; and you have seen the original paper now in my hands, with the corrections of Doctor Franklin and Mr. Adams interlined in their own hand writings. Their alterations were two or three only, and merely verbal. I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered, to Congress. This personal communication and consultation with Mr. Adams, he has misremembered into the actings of a sub-committee. Pickering's observations, and Mr. Adams' in addition, that it contained no new ideas, that it is a common-place compilation, its sentiments hacknied in Congress for two years before, and its essence contained in Otis' pamplet,' may all be true. Of that I am not to be the judge. Richard Henry Lee charged it as copied from Locke's Treatise on Government. Otis' pamphlet I never saw, and whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it. I did not consider it

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