To this Address Mr. Jefferson returned the following answer.

Returning to the scenes of my birth and early life, to the society of those with whom I was raised, and who have been ever dear to me, I receive, fellow citizens and neighbors, with inexpressible pleasure, the cordial welcome you are so good as to give me. Long absent on duties which the history of a wonderful era made incumbent on those called to them, the pomp, the turmoil, the bustle, and splendor of office, have drawn but deeper sighs for the tranquil and irresponsible occupations of private life, for the enjoyment of an af fectionate intercourse with you, my neighbors and friends, and the endearments of family love, which nature has given us all, as the sweetener of every hour. For these I gladly lay down the distressing burthen of power, and seek, with my fellow citizens, repose and safety under the watchful cares, the labors, and perplexities of younger and abler minds. The anxieties you express to administer to my happiness, do, of themselves, confer that happiness; and the measure will be complete, if my endeavors to fulfil my duties in the several public stations to which I have been called, have obtained for me the approbation of my country. The part which I have acted on the theatre of public life, has been before them; and to their sentence I submit it: but the testimony of my native county, of the individuals who have known me in private life, to my conduct in its various duties and relations, is the more grateful, as proceeding from eye witnesses and observers, from triers of the vicinage. Of you, then, my neighbors, I may ask, in the face of the world, 'Whose ox have I taken, or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed, or of whose hand have I received a bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? On your verdict I rest with conscious security. Your wishes for my happiness are received with just sensibility, and I offer sincere prayers for your own welfare and prosperity."

Among the numerous testimonials of the public gratitude, elicited on this gratifying occasion, the valedictory address of the General Assembly of Virginia,' is deservedly the most distinguished. It is too rich a document intrinsically, and too proudly associated with the reputation of him whose merits it was intended to commemorate, not to require an insertion. It was agreed to by both Houses, on the 7th of February, 1809.

"Sir, The General Assembly of your native State cannot close their session, without acknowledging your services in the office which you are just about to lay down, and bidding you a respectful and affectionate farewell.

"We have to thank you for the model of an administration conducted on the purest principles of republicanism; for pomp and state laid aside; patronage discarded; internal taxes abolished; a host of superfluous officers disbanded; the monarchic maxim that

'a national debt is a national blessing,' renounced, and more than thirty-three millions of our debt discharged; the native right to nearly one hundred millions of acres of our national domain extinguished; and, without the guilt or calamities of conquest, a vast and fertile region added to our country, far more extensive than her original possessions, bringing along with it the Mississippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the West to the Pacific ocean, and in the intrinsic value of the land itself, a source of permanent and almost inexhaustible revenue. These are points in your administration which the historian will not fail to seize, to expand, and teach posterity to dwell upon with delight. Nor will he forget our peace with the civilized world, preserved through a season of uncommon difficulty and trial; the good will cultivated with the unfortunate aborigines of our country, and the civilization humanely extended among them; the lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Barbary, that we have the means of chastising their piratical encroachments, and awing them into justice; and that theme, on which, above all others, the historic genius will hang with rapture, the liberty of speech and of the press, preserved inviolate, without which genius and science are given to man in vain.

"In the principles on which you have administered the government, we see only the continuation and maturity of the same virtues and abilities, which drew upon you in your youth the resentment of Dunmore. From the first brilliant and happy moment of your resistance to foreign tyranny, until the present day, we mark with pleasure and with gratitude the same uniform, consistent character, the same warm and devoted attachment to liberty and the republic, the same Roman love of your country, her rights, her peace, her honor, her prosperity.

"How blessed will be the retirement into which you are about to go! How deservedly blessed will it be! For you carry with you the richest of all rewards, the recollection of a life well spent in the service of your country, and proofs the most decisive, of the love, the gratitude, the veneration of your countrymen.

"That your retirement may be as happy as your life has been virtuous and useful; that our youth may see, in the blissful close of your days, an additional inducement to form themselves on your model, is the devout and earnest prayer of your fellow-citizens who compose the General Assembly of Virginia."

Thus terminated the political career of one who had been a principal agent of two Revolutions, and an eye-witness of a third, generated in the prolific womb of the first; of one who, from his entrance into manhood, had continued the unyielding advocate of princiciples, which, first discarded, next endured, then embraced, had eventually swayed the destinies of his country through the perilous

and successive convulsions of transformation from a monarchical to a free structure of government, and of deliverance from the fatal catastrophe of a counter-revolution, in the last extremities of exhaustion, despair, and self-abandonment; who had lived to see the potent energies of those principles so extensively transfused into the very sycophants of the tyrants of the old world, temporal and spiritual, as that the earth was every where shaking under their feet; and who, at last, enjoyed the ineffable consummation of seeing his name become the synonym of political orthodoxy at home, and the watchword of the isolated aspirants for its attainment, in all parts of the civilized world.

"Bright are the memories link'd with thee,
BOAST of a glory-hallowed land,

HOPE of the valiant and the free."

Thus had he performed his wonderful course, and thus, full of years, and covered with glory, in the rich fruition of his earliest and sweetest aspirations, he was ready, as to all political affairs, to utter his favorite invocation: Nunc dimittas, Domine-Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'

CHAPTER XIV.

In repairing with so much eagerness to the shades of his native mountains, it seems not to have entered the mind of Mr. Jefferson to relax his efforts for the benefit and happiness of mankind, but to divert them into a channel more analogous to his disposition. His whole life, he was in the habit of remarking, had been at war with his natural taste, feelings and wishes. Circumstances had led him along, step by step, the path he had trodden, and like a bow long bent, when unstrung, he resumed with delight the character and pursuits for which nature designed him. His was not the retirement of one who sought refuge from the pangs of disappointed ambition, and the world's mockery of them, in the vain, though vaunted resource of oblivion and stoical insensibility; or who coveted repose from the giddy turbulence of the scene, to indulge in inglorious indolence and inanity. No, his was the voluntary seclusion of one, "who," as it has been beautifully said, "had well filled

a noble part in public life, from which he was prepared and anxious to withdraw; who sought retirement to gratify warm affections, and to enjoy his well earned fame; who desired to turn those thoughts which had been necessarily restrained and limited, to the investigation of all the sources of human happiness and enjoyment; who felt himself surrounded, in his fellow citizens, by a circle of affectionate friends, and had not to attribute to a rude expulsion from the theatre of ambition, his sincere devotion to the pursuits of agriculture and philosophy; and who, receiving to the last moment of his existence continued proofs of admiration and regard, which penetrated his remote retirement, devoted the remainder of his days to record those various reflections for which the materials had been collected and treasured up, unknown to himself, on the long and various voyage of his life."

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To do justice to the remaining portion of Mr. Jefferson's life, which is fitly described as having been appropriated' to the investigation of all the sources of human happiness and enjoyment,' would exceed the competency of any one not conversant with his daily avocations, and admitted into all the mysteries of his mighty cabinet. In the possession of undecayed intellectual powers, and a physical strength unsubdued by the labors which the history of a wonderful era had made incumbent on him,' he devoted the remnant of his days to the precious employment of unlocking all the store-houses of human knowledge, and dispensing their rich treasures to the generation who had succeeded him on the theatre of public affairs; and to laying the foundations for the still greater extension of science, and indigenous political philosophy, for the benefit of the still succeeding generations who should rise up, in perpetuum, and assume the direction of the interests of society, by the establishment of a Colossean Seminary of learning, which should rival the institutions of Cambridge and Oxford. These were his wisest, if not his happiest, days. The streams of oracular wisdom which flowed from his consecrated retreat, have continued to nourish the principles of the noble fabric which he reared, and to preserve from degeneracy those who have successively been constituted the depositories of its sacred functions. May the time never arrive when they shall cease to maintain their ascendency in the councils of the nation, and to exert their healthful and restraining influ ence over its authorities. To give place for a series of selections

from his cabinet, developing the OPINIONS of the Monticellean philosopher, on questions the most interesting and important to mankind, and which have not yet been brought into special review; his observations on the distinguished characters with whom he acted, or came in contact, in the course of his various career; on the parties and political occurrences of the passing day; his daily occupations and habits of living, &c.-expressed in the freedom of private and unrestrained confidence, seems the most satisfactory meth. od of supplying that portion of his history, for which the materials are of too abstract a nature to be adapted to historical narrative. The quotations must be necessarily limited, broken, and in some cases, perhaps, insufficient to convey a perfect idea of the writer's opinions.

RELATIVE POWERS OF THE GENERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS. "With respect to our State and Federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. To the State governments are reserved all legislation and administration, in affairs which concern their own citizens only, and to the Federal government is given whatever concerns foreigners, or the citizens of other States; these functions alone being made federal. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government; neither having control over the other, but within its own department. There are one or two exceptions only to this partition of power. But you may ask, if the two departments should claim each the same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable ground: but if it can neither be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the States must be called, to ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think best."

RELATIVE POWERS OF EACH BRANCH IN THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT." You seem to think it devolved on the judges to decide on the validity of the sedition law. But nothing in the constitution has given them a right to decide for the executive, more than to the executive to decide for them. Both magistracies are equally independent in the sphere of action assigned to them. The judges, believing the law constitutional, had a right to pass a sentence of fine and imprisonment; because the power was placed in their hands by the constitution. But the executive, believing the law to be unconstitutional, were bound to remit the execution of it;