a multitude of devoted agents, he was generally his own adviser and counsellor. If, by any untoward circumstance, he found himself in the power of any individual to such an extent as to endanger his standing in the community, he took care to secure that individual to his interests, by an obligation so strong as to be relieved of all serious apprehensions of a future exposure. In addition to all his other characteristics, during his long residence in France, he had become thoroughly imbued with the principles of the infidel philosophy which prevailed in that kingdom, and extensively over the continent of Europe, previously to and during the French revolution. This fact, in connection with the belief that his views of government were of a wild and visionary character, destroyed the confidence of a large portion of his most intelligent countrymen in him as a politician, as well as a moralist and a Christian.

Mr. Jefferson was in Paris when the constitution was published. He early declared himself not pleased with the system of government which it contained. On the 13th of November, 1787, in a letter to John Adams, he said "How do you like our new constitution? I confess there are things in it which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an assembly has proposed. The house of federal representatives will not be adequate to the management of affairs either foreign or federal. Their president seems a bad edition of a Polish king. He may be elected from four years to four years, for life. Reason and experience prove to us, that a chief magistrate, so continuable, is an office for life. When one or two generations shall have proved that this is an office for life, it becomes, on every succession, worthy of intrigue, of bribery, of force, and even of foreign interference. It will be of great consequence to France and England, to have America governed by a Galloman or an Angloman. Once in office, and possessing the military force of the Union, without the aid or check of a council, he would not

be easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to withdraw their votes from him. I wish that, at the end of the four years, they had made him forever ineligible a second time. Indeed, I think all the good of this new constitution might have been couched in three or four new articles to be added to the good, old, and venerable fabric, which should have been preserved even as a religious relique."

In a letter of the same date to Colonel Smith, he says "I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave, through you, to place them where due. It will yet be three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it, and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed toward one: and what we have always read of the election of Polish kings, should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat, and model into every form, lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the facts they misconceive. If they remain in quiet under

such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to public liberty. We have had thirteen states independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon, and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

In a letter to William Carmichael, dated December 11th, 1787, he says-" Our new constitution is powerfully attacked in the American newspapers. The objections are, that its effect would be to form the thirteen states into one; that proposing to melt all down into a general government, they have fenced the people by no declaration of rights; they have not renounced the power of keeping a standing army; they have not secured the liberty of the press; they have reserved the power of abolishing trials by jury in civil cases; they have proposed that the laws of the federal legislatures shall be paramount to the laws and constitutions of the states; they have abandoned rotation in office; and particularly their president may be reelected from four years to four years, for life, so as to render him a king for life, like a king of Poland; and they have not given him either the check or aid of a council. To these they add calculations of expense, &c. &c. to frighten the people. You will perceive that those objections are serious, and some of them not without foundation."

The subject is alluded to subsequently in a variety of letters to different correspondents, in the course of which he confines his objections principally to the omission of a

bill or declaration of rights, and the re-eligibility of the president.

Enough has been quoted to show that Mr. Jefferson was not friendly to the constitution; and some of his sentiments were of a nature to shake the confidence of its friends in the soundness of his general political principles. Of this description were his remarks on the Massachusetts insurrection. So far from considering rebellion against government an evil, he viewed it as a benefit-as a necessary ingredient in the republican character, and highly useful in its tendency to warn rulers, from time to time, that the people possessed the spirit of resistance. And particularly would the public feelings be shocked at the cold-blooded indifference with which he inquires, "What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?" and the additional remark, that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." This language would better become a Turkish Sultan, or the chief of a Tartar horde, than a distinguished republican, who had been born and educated in a Christian country, and enjoyed all the advantages to be derived from civilization, literature, and science.

In September, 1789, Mr. Jefferson left Paris, on his return to the United States. On the 15th of December, of that year, he wrote the following letter to General Washington :

"SIR,-I have received at this place the honor of your letters of October the 13th, and November the 30th, and am truly flattered by your nomination of me to the very dignified office of Secretary of State, for which permit me here to return you my humble thanks. Could any circumstance seduce me to overlook the disproportion between its duties and my talents, it would be the encouragement of

your choice. But when I contemplate the extent of that office, embracing as it does the principal mass of domestic administration, together with the foreign, I cannot be insensible of my inequality to it; and I should enter on it with gloomy forebodings from the criticisms and censures of a public, just, indeed, in their intentions, but sometimes misinformed and misled, and always too respectable to be neglected. I cannot but foresee the possibility that this may end disagreeably for me, who having no motive to public service but the public satisfaction, would certainly retire the moment that satisfaction should appear to languish. On the other hand, I feel a degree of familiarity with the duties of my present office, as far at least as I am capable of understanding its duties. The ground I have already passed over, enables me to see my way into that which is before me. The change of government too, taking place in the country where it is exercised, seems to open a possibility of procuring from the new rulers some new advantages in commerce, which may be agreeable to our countrymen. So that, as far as my fears, my hopes, or my inclinations might enter into this question, I confess they would not lead me to prefer a change.

"But it is not for an individual to choose his post. You are to marshal us as may best be for the public good; and it is only in the case of its being indifferent to you, that I would avail myself of the option you have so kindly offered in your letter. If you think it better to transfer me to another post, my inclination must be no obstacle; nor shall it be, if there is any desire to suppress the office I now hold, or to reduce its grade. In either of these cases, be so good as to signify to me by another line your ultimate wish, and I shall conform to it cordially. If it should be to remain at New-York, my chief comfort will be to work under your eye, my only shelter the authority of your name, and the wisdom of measures to be dictated by you and implicitly executed by me. Whatever you may be