CHAPTER VII

THOMAS JEFFERSON-DEFENDER OF " EQUAL RIGHTS TO ALL

66

MEN"

Mr. Jefferson's letter to Giles; defense against letter in Enquirer, by American Citizen "; letter to Madison concerning financial embarrassment; Cabell's continued efforts in the Legislature for education; Mr. Jefferson's letter to the President, John Quincy Adams; last visit to the University; letter to Weightman; final week, and death; Madison's letter of condolence; funeral and burial; Andrew K. Smith's letter recounting his student days and recollection of Mr. Jefferson's sickness and interment; reflections upon Mr. Jefferson's life and abilities.

Mr. Jefferson wrote Giles, December 25, 1825: "Far advanced in my eighty-third year, worn down with infirmities which have confined me almost entirely to the house for seven or eight months past, it afflicts me much to receive appeals to my memory, now almost blank, for transactions so far back as that which is the subject of your letter. However, I remember well the interview with Mr. Adams; not, indeed, in the very words which passed between us, but in their substance, which was of a character too awful, too deeply engraved in my mind, and influencing too materially the course I had to pursue, ever to be forgotten. He called on me pending the embargo to further its appeal, stating that he had information, that certain citizens of the eastern States were in negotiation with agents of the British government, in order to effect an agreement that the New England States should take no further part in the war then going on; that without formally declaring their separation from the Union of the States, they should withdraw from all aid and obedience to them; that their navigation and commerce should be free from restraint and interruption by the British; that they should be considered and treated by them as neutrals, and as such might conduct themselves towards both parties; and at the close of the war, be at liberty to join the confederacy." And again on the following day he wrote Giles: "I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal

branch of our Government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limit to their power. Under the power to regulate commerce, they assume indefinitely that also over agriculture and manufactures, and call it regulation to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry, and that too, the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the other, the most flourishing of all. And what is the resource for the preservation of the Constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them. Are we then to stand to our arms, with the hot-headed Georgian? No. That must be the last resource, not to be thought of until much longer and greater suffering. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and monied incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry. This will be to them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest stepping stone to it. I learn with great satisfaction that your school is thriving well, and that you have at its head a truly classical scholar. He is one of three or four whom I can hear of in our State. We were obliged last year to receive shameful Latinists into the classical school of the University; such as we will certainly refuse as soon as we can get from better schools a sufficiency of those properly instructed to form a class. We must get rid of this Connecticut Latin, of the barbarous confusion of long and short syllables, which renders doubtful whether we are listening to a reader of Cherokee, Shawnee,

Iroquois, or what. Our University has been most fortunate in the five professors procured from England—a finer selection could not have been made. Besides their being of a grade of science which has left little superior behind, the correctness of their moral character, their accommodating dispositions, and zeal for the prosperity of the institution, leave us nothing more to wish. I verily believe that as high a degree of education can be obtained here as in the country they left. And a finer set of youths I never saw assembled for instruction. They committed some irregularities at first, until they learned the lawful length of their tether; since which it has never been transgressed in the smallest degree. A great proportion of them are severely devoted to study, and I fear not to say, that within twelve or fifteen years from this time, a majority of the rulers of our State will have been educated here. They shall carry hence the correct principles of our day, and you may count assuredly that they will exhibit their country in a degree of sound respectability it has never known, either in our day or those of our forefathers. I cannot live to see it. My joy must only be that of anticipation-you may see its full fruition, owing to the twenty years I am ahead of you in time."

Mr. Jefferson, February 7, 1826, wrote Cabell of his great mortification over the articles in the Enquirer, by "American Citizen," purporting a familiar talk at Monticello about his method of obtaining money from the Legislature—not in a lump sum, but in small amounts, and his jocose reply: "No one likes to have more than one hot potato at a time crammed down his throat. He makes me declare that I have intentionally proceeded in a course of dupery of our Legislature, teasing them, as he makes me say, for six or seven sessions for successive aids to the University, and asking a part only at a time, and intentionally concealing the ultimate cost, and gives an inexact statement of a story of Obrian. Now, our annual reports will show that we constantly gave full and candid accounts of the money expended, and statements of what might still be wanting, founded on the Proctor's estimates. No man ever heard me speak of the grants of the Legislature but with acknowledgments of their liberality, which I have always declared had gone far beyond what I could have expected in the beginning. Yet the letter writer has given to my expres