INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

BY A FRIEND TO THE EDITOR.

It was the good fortune of Washington to finish his unexampled career of usefulness, with universal approbation. No such fate has attended any of his contemporaries, or successors. Mr Jefferson had many and powerful opponents to contend against, during the whole of his political career. Some of these were no doubt influenced by personal jealousies, and many by an honest difference of opinion.

Where these differences involved matters of local or of temporary importance, it could answer no useful purpose to bring them forward for renewed discussion at this late day; and in the volume before us every thing calculated to revive party animosities has been studiously avoided, without however suppressing any thing that was necessary for historical accuracy, or to elucidate deliberate opinions, and develop essential traits of cha

racter.

To such readers as have not been favored with the perusal of the valuable edition of Mr Jefferson's writings already alluded to, this unpretending volume may prove a safe guide to the true character and sentiments of that distinguished man.

The difference between Mr Jefferson and his honest opponents was this. The republicanism of Thomas Jefferson was too thorough, too radical, to be adopted even by a considerable portion of the best men of the Revolution. A disinterested sacrifice of personal safety to the welfare of the country was the same on the part of all, but Mr Jefferson had greater confidence in the wisdom and discretion of the people, than was entertained by a majority of his patriotic and devoted fellowlaborers. Upon the organization of the government under the federal constitution, this difference in opinion soon became apparent in the councils of the nation and Mr Jefferson stood forth the champion of Democracy. The more aristocratic party were inclined to restrain the people, under the apprehension that they were unqualified to govern themselves. This party was designated by the name of Federalists, and soon embodied a very large proportion of the wealth and intelligence of the nation. Deriving our literature, our laws, and our most respected usages from a nation where arbitrary institutions prevailed, it was quite natural that our intelligent citizens should desire an approximation to that form of government, and suppose it indispensable to tie up the hands of the people, in order to save them from working their own destruction.

There can be no reason to doubt that here was an

honest difference of opinion on the part of the Federal and of the Democratic leaders, whatever may have been the wicked animosity which grew up in the breasts of designing and ignorant men who afterwards arranged themselves under the banners of each party. Without pretending therefore to decide at this time to what extent either party might have erred, it is certainly to be desired that the prejudices which belonged to those times should now so far be overcome, as to qualify us to appreciate fairly the talents and services of the great men of the Revolution, and render a just tribute to their merit, besides aiding us in the more necessary duty of acquainting ourselves with the character of our government, of our existing institutions, and their effect upon the happiness of the people.

From the commencement of the Revolutionary struggle down to the period of his death, Mr Jefferson's predominating fear was, that the rights of the people would be disregarded. Neither was his love of liberty and of human happiness confined to one race of men. So early as 1769, upon his first taking a seat in the legislature of Virginia, he had the hardihood to rise amidst that body of inexorable planters,' and propose a bill for the 'permission of the Emancipation of Slaves.'

Whilst a member of the Continental Congress, he made use of these remarkable words:

'It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their

rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect of their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive, or expire, in a convulsion.'

Many of us now see the truth of this prophecy many of the present and of the coming generation may see and feel it both.

Mr Jefferson was among the first to perceive the fallacy of sustaining individual rights at the expense of the general welfare. With our English ancestors, the first struggle for civil liberty, was to guard the property of the private citizen against the encroachments of the crown and of the nobility. All that was thus gained to untitled individuals was considered as subtracted from an arbitrary and irresponsible power, over which the people possessed no control. With us, the government is not an independent and irresponsible power, but the agent of the people, and controlled by their will. There is, therefore, and there can be, under our form of government, no permanent usurpation on the part of those who administer it, and from this source we have no arbitrary influence to apprehend that the ordinary remedy of election may not effectually control.

The same right to acquired property which may be indispensable to the private citizen, who needs a defence against the usurpation of hereditary power, is not called for under a republican government, where nothing can be assumed by those in authority which does not immediately revert to the people. What Justice Blackstone,

therefore, in speaking of the British constitution, might correctly term a private right, would operate with us, as

a public wrong.

Many principles which we have adopted under the name of individual or private rights, and which originally obtained as a necessary defence against arbitrary power, are wholly inapplicable under our form of government, and so far as persisted in, place individuals and incorporated associations above the control of law, and wholly independent of what is usually considered the province of legislation. They are invested with privileges that were created as a defence against abuses which can have no existence in a free commonwealth.

That principle, therefore, which universally prevails, and which is adopted and placed upon the most stable foundation among us,—the existing RIGHT to Property, -is in fact an arbitrary principle, with no foundation in natural justice, having been originally set up to counteract other and greater usurpations, and preserve something like a balance of power in the miserable schemes of government which have hitherto afflicted the human family. The Right to Property, as now sustained to individuals, and as in some measure aggravated by charters to associations, may be considered the only permanent usurpation that can exist under our constitution. It tolerates an inequality of possession that must forever prove fatal to republicanism, and gives to a successful few as galling a superiority over the multitude as could be conferred by hereditary rank, or by any other usurpation that prevails under more arbitrary forms of government. Upon this subject the American people will soon require a reform. They will eventually effect one. In