for them; if so, they are false and fraudulent. As all men in office are merely agents for constituents, they are held to account for capacity, intelligence, and fidelity. While they live, their constituents have the remedy of finding worthier agents, by the peaceable remedy of elections. When they have passed away, there is no earthly tribunal but that of public opinion. No man, not even the malefactor who dies by the halter, is regardless of what will be said of him, when he is dead. This sensibility is, doubtless, one of the provisions of man's Creator, to keep him in the path of his duties.

With Mr. Jefferson's private life, there is no call to intermeddle, excepting so far as it is inseparably connected with his public life. There must always be two classes of public men in a free elective government. One of them holds political and social life, to be ordained by the Deity; that man's natural propensities and wants, properly regulated, were intended to prompt him to secure to himself the greatest good which he can have; that the establishment of wise rules, and the faithful observance of them, in all social and political relations, secure to rulers and to the ruled, the best condition which they can have. This class also holds, that all official station is a mere trust to be executed wisely and honestly for the common welfare. Those who are called to this trust, hope for the esteem and respect of their constituents; if they fail to obtain these, they cannot be deprived of the consciousness of having deserved them.

The other class see in human society, only the means of satisfying the worst cravings of the human heart. They seek dominion, not for the common welfare, but for themselves. They use the rules established for the general good to secure that dominion. They know that they must have adversaries in the first mentioned class, and in all who support that class. These adversaries collectively, and individually, must be traduced, calumniated, and made odious.

To their leaders must be denied talents and integrity. They must be accused of the basest designs. The sovereign people must be made to believe these criminations. To this end, any fraud, cunning, perversion, or machination, is justifiable. Private intercommunication, the public press, assuming to be friends and protectors of the people against their enemies, and to be the mere instruments of executing a popular will, which they create themselves, are the well known means. Why should not the great mass of the community be deceived, by such means? They hear and read, only as these crafty politicians order. Why should they not believe what their best friends tell them for truths? To what an anxious, miserable servitude do these politicians condemn themselves! Some of them prosper, it is true, to the end of life; but in general, they are found out, and they close their career with sorrow, and disgrace.

Among this great political class, there are prominent men, who have acquired the sincere belief, (from the habit of contemplating the acts, and designs of adversaries, in peculiar lights,) that the country cannot be safe in any hands but their own. They see through a distorting medium, but are honest in their views. Then there is a portion who are sincerely republican, as they understand the matter, who feel, rather than reason, on the political system, and who are liable to great mistakes. Then there is the class who misunderstand the meaning of "liberty and equality," and the order of society; and who think any order must be wrong, which does not place them in positions as desirable as those which they see others to have. Then there are the master spirits who know how to excite, regulate, and control all these classes. To this combination, add the leven of party feeling, made up of hopes and fears, partialities and enmities, confidence and jealousy, ambition and avarice, and one comes to the dominant power in most popular governments. This power vehemently maintains, in

words, the excellence of civil liberty; and conducts, by acts, inevitably to despotism. To this condition Americans seem to be hastening, notwithstanding they have the advantages of schools, means of instruction, and a free press.

At first view, it strikes one with astonishment, that the great mass of citizens, who suffer most from the errors of ignorant rulers, or the frauds of dishonest ones, should sustain and applaud both of these classes of politicians. But one ought rather to be astonished, that a government which is conducted merely on party dominion, has continued as long as it has. Let any man examine into the true state of information in any city, town, or village, in the United States, and satisfy himself as to the sources of information which he finds there; and he cannot wonder at the opinions which are prevalent, nor doubt as to the motives by which they are imparted. He may lament, as he will, that such opinions. exist, but he can no more change them by stating truths, than he can change the stature of those who entertain them, by wishing to do it.

Whether Mr. Jefferson belonged to the honorable, highminded, and intelligent order of statesmen, or to the managing, contriving, and unprincipled class of politicians, it is not assumed to decide. But it is intended so to arrange the materials, (furnished by himself) for forming a judgment, as to enable others to decide for themselves. There is no reason why Mr. Jefferson should be exempted from appearing before that tribunal at which he has arraigned so many of his eminent countrymen. Is there, (to use one of Mr. Jefferson's favorite words,) a sacrosanct protection, or panoply for him, and for no other man? If so, is it found in his virtues, in his example, in his science, in his philosophy, in his religion, in his public services, his political wisdom and fidelity? Let Mr. Jefferson speak for himself. But why should the repose of the dead be disturbed? If Mr. Jefferson had lived out his term, and left his fame to history, as Wash

ington, Jay, Adams, and others have done, he would not have been now a subject of commentary. If he had left for publication his claims to the respect and gratitude of his countrymen, without interfering with the like claims of other men, history would have only to deal with him, as with other men.

But when it comes to this, that in striving to uphold and honor his own fame, he attempts to deprive all his contemporaries, who were not of his own school, not only of the ordinary respect and consideration to which men in public life may be supposed entitled, but to brand them as conspirators, and traitors, is he to go unanswered? If it be said that history will do justice, will it not also be asked, where were the survivors of those who were charged with misdemeanors and crimes? Where were their sons and descendants? Why were they silent in their time? Have they not pleaded guilty by their silence, to all the criminations of Mr. Jefferson, both as to themselves, and their fathers?

It is not to present Mr. Jefferson in unfavorable lights, that these pages concerning him are written; but to show the true value of his testimony against others. If he had left the federalists to be judged of, when he left the earth, without his testimony against them, they would have had no cause of complaint against him. His public acts, and their public acts, remain recorded. These would have been examined, as the proper authorities, for the estimation of his merits, and of their merits, as public agents. The bitterness of party feeling, the personalities and enmities of adversaries, would not have appeared in these records. Time would have obliterated all memory of them. It is, then, a surprising and sorrowful fact, that a retired President of the United States should have gathered the memoranda of his own unkind feelings, the tattle of his associates, the hearsay of excited partisans, the minutes of private and confidential intercourse, among guests invited to his own table, and

dignify them with the title of "Memoirs and Writings of Thomas Jefferson!" This would only have been the subject of regret and pity, if it could be so understood in distant times, as it, probably, now is, by a great majority of all who have read these writings. But these writings will continue, and may be considered true, when those mentioned in them, will not be known as they were known while they lived. It is then a duty, and one of which the performance is demanded by truth, justice, and patriotism, to weigh the worth of Mr. Jefferson's testimony.

In contemplation of his posthumous work, Mr. Jefferson says, under date apparently of February 14th, 1818, (vol. iv. p. 443,) "At this day, after the lapse of twenty-five years, or more, from their dates, I have given to the whole a "calm revisal, when the passions of the time have passed away, and the reasons of the transactions act alone on the "judgment. Some of the informations I had recorded, are now cut out from the rest, because I have seen that they "were incorrect, or doubtful, or merely personal, or private; "with which we have nothing to do." We are, therefore, to take all that Mr. Jefferson retains to be correct, free from doubt, and neither personal nor private; and also to be that which Mr. Jefferson intended for the world after "calm revisal."

LETTER XXXIV.

JUNE 5, 1833.

THE perusal of Mr. Jefferson's writings raises the very difficult question, What was his motive for preparing them, and leaving them for publication?

Did the writer, in this case, mean only to vindicate himself against aspersions made in his lifetime; or against