be performed by a few servants. But I repeat, that this simple and economical mode of government can never be secured, if the New England States continue to support the contrary system. I rejoice, therefore, in every appearance of their returning to those principles which I had always imagined to be almost innate in them. In this State, a few persons were deluded by the X. Y. Z. duperies. You saw the effect of it in our last Congressional representatives, chosen under their influence. This experiment on their credulity is now seen into, and our next representation will be as republican as it has heretofore been. On the whole, we hope, that by a part of the Union having held on to the principles of the constitution, time has been given to the States to recover from the temporary phrenzy into which they have been decoyed, to rally round the constitution, and to rescue it from the destruction with which it had been threatened even at their own hands."

To Doctor RUSH.-"I promised you a letter on christianity, which I have not forgotten. On the contrary, it is because I have reflected on it, that I find much more time necessary for it than I can at present dispose of. I have a view of the subject which ought to displease neither the rational Christian nor Deist, and would reconcile many to a character they have too hastily rejected. I do not know that it would reconcile the genus irritabile vatum, who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too interesting ground to be softened. The delusion into which the X. Y. Z. plot showed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, and they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn, upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to, fear from me; and enough too in their opinion. this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me, forg ing conversations for me with Mazzei, Bishop Madison, &c. which are absolute falsehoods without a circumstance of truth to rest on ; falsehoods, too, of which I acquit Mazzei and Bishop Madison, for they are men of truth."

And

Despairing of making any head against the monarchical ascendency in Congress, where they were brow-beaten by a bold and

overwhelming majority, the republican leaders formed the deterinination, on the recommendation of Mr. Jefferson, to abandon that ground, one and all, to retire within their respective State Legislatures, 'embody whatsoever resistance they could, and if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch.' This course was accordingly adopted. Mr. Jefferson remained alone in the Senate, where his office confined him, and Mr. Gallatin, in the House. Continuing undismayed at their posts, in defiance of the insults and indignities of the dominant faction, they preserved the republicans in Congress, in firm phalanx, until the State Legislatures could bring up the weight of their resistance. Mr. Madison went into the Virginia Legislature, and Mr. Nicholas into the Legislature of Kentucky. At a consultation between these gentlemen and Mr. Jefferson, it was agreed, that the engaging the co-operation of these two States, who were wedded in principle and sympathy, in an energetic protestation against the constitutionality of various acts of administration, particularly the Alien and Sedition laws, would be the best method of manifesting the public sentiment, and awaking the people to a proper cognizance of their affairs. Mr. Jefferson was pressed by the other gentlemen to draft the necessary resolutions for this purpose, to be offered to the Legislature of Kentucky. After a solemn assurance given, that it should never be known from what quarter they came, he consented; and Mr. Nicholas undertook, on his part, to propose and carry them through. Accordingly on the 10th of November, 1798, they were proposed by Mr. Nicholas, and passed with great unanimity.

These were the celebrated "Kentucky Resolutions,” which are allowed to have saved the Constitution in its last struggle. They were followed, the next month, by the equally celebrated "Virginia Resolutions," drawn by Mr. Madison, on principles entirely analogous ; and afterwards, by corresponding demonstrations of political sentiment in other republican States. They are too voluminous to admit insertion, in extenso. The principles advanced by them, established the republican creed on the fundamental and agitating question concerning the distribution of powers, intended by the Constitution, between the General and State Governments. They resolved, that the general compact of union between the States, was constituted for special purposes, and with certain definite powers, each State reserving to itself the residuary mass of right for

self government. That whenever the General Government assumed undelegated powers, its acts were inauthoritative and void; and that each State, being an integral party to the compact. of which there was no common judge, had a right to judge for itself, as well of infractions, as of the mode and measure of redress. After demonstrating the unconstitutionality of the Alien and Sedition laws, on a variety of grounds, and by a series of elaborate deductions, after declaring an inviolable attachment to the Union, and an anxious desire for its preservation, the resolutions conclude as follows:

"That these and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these States into revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against republican governments, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed, that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron; that it would be a dangerous delusion, were a confidence in the men of our choice, to silence our fears for the safety of our rights; that confidence is every where the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited Constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which and no further our confidence may go and let the honest advocate of confidence read the Alien and Sedition acts, and say if the Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the Government it created, and whether we should be wise in destroying those limits? Let him say what the Government is if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have conferred on the President, and the President of our choice has assented to and accepted over the friendly strangers, to whom the mild spirit of our country and its laws had pledged hospitality and protection; that the men of our choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the President, than the solid rights of innocence, the claims of justification, the sacred force of truth. and the forms and substance of law and justice. In questions of power then let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief, by the chains of the Constitution. That this Commonwealth does therefore, call on its Co-States for an expression of their sentiments on the acts concerning Aliens, and for the punishment of certain crimes herein before specified, plainly declaring whether these acts are or are not authorized by the Federal Compact. And it doubts not that their sense will be so announced, as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited government, whether general or particular, and that the rights and liber ties of their Co-States, will be exposed to no dangers by remaining

embarked on a common bottom with their own-That they will concur with this Commonwealth in considering the said acts as so palpably against the Constitution, as to amount to an undisguised declaration, that the compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these States of all powers whatsoever-That they will view this as seizing the rights of the States, and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government with a power assumed to bind the States, (not merely in cases made Federal,) but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent-That this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and to live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authorityand that the Co-States recurring to their natural right in cases not made Federal, will concur in declaring these acts void and of no force, and will each unite with this Commonwealth in requesting their repeal at the next session of Congress."

From the warmth with which Mr. Jefferson embarked in opposition to the administration, it might be inferred that he permitted his political feelings to influence him in the discharge of his official duties. But this was not the case. He presided over the Senate, with a dignity never excelled, and, although composed for the most part of his political enemies, with an impartiality, which the rancor and madness of the times never attempted to impeach. How attentive he was to the duties of his station, and how accurately he understood the rules of parliamentary order, incident to that station, is attested by his "MANUAL," a work which he at this time published, and which has ever since been the guide of both Houses of Congress.

Soon after the election of Mr. Adams, the political contest for his successor was renewed with increased vehemence and agitation. Mr. Jefferson was again, with one accord, selected as the republican candidate for the Presidency, and Aaron Burr of New York, for the office of Vice President. With equal unanimity, John Adams, the incumbent, and Charles C. Pinkney of South Carolina, were designated as the candidates of the federal party.

It would be a tedious and painful task to describe the long and terrible ordeal of bigotry, fanaticism, political malevolence and vituperation, through which Mr. Jefferson was called to pass. The general character of those scandalous annals is matter of proverbial notoriety. The press was made to groan with daily and inor

dinate ravings against a public character, whose principles had revolutionized one hemisphere, and astonished and agitated the other; and whose only crime was, that he had not joined in the audacious conspiracy to cheat the people of all that they had recovered and consecrated by their blood and treasure. The pulpit was debauched into the profligate service, and became the ready handmaid of the press, in echoing and re-echoing the licentious reprobations of the monarchical faction. No one who was a stranger to that tremendous contest, can adequately conceive the diabolism and insanity of the pulpit fulminations and pamphleteering anathemas of the traitorous conspirators of Church and State, to identify republicanism with infidelity, and sink them irrecoverably together. Every instrument of imposition was employed, and every species of engine which could be brought to bear upon the human passions, was resorted to for intimidation, for crushing the power of thought and speech, and perpetuating a delusion, little inferior to New England witchcraft, under which the combination of political Maratists and clerical alarmists had undertaken to bind the understandings of the people, and trample their rights in the dust The clergy of New England were the chiefest of the movers and participators in this atrocious crusade against the principles of the Revolution, and their adoring, persevering advocate; for they believed, and believed rightly, that every portion of power committed to him would be exerted in eternal opposition to their schemes.

Time would fail us to specify the innumerable fabrications of crime and scurrility, with which the myrmidons of monarchism attempted to blacken and beat down the character of the republican candidate. He was accused of having betrayed his native State into the hands of the enemy on two occasions, while at the head of the government, by a cowardly abandonment of Richmond, on the sudden invasion of Arnold, and subsequently, by an ignominious flight from Monticello, on the approach of Tarlton, with circumstances of such panic and precipitation as to occasion a fall from his horse, and the dislocation of his shoulder. He was charged with being the libeler of Washington, and the retainer of mercenary libelers to blast the reputation of the father of his country. He was accused of implacable hostility to the Constitution, of employing foreign scribblers to write it down; and of aiming at the annihilation of all law, order, and government, and the introduc