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satisfied that Monroe, Madison, and himself with Washington had voluntarily established a custom concerning the term of office or eligibility of the President, from which the country would not depart. There was a time when Mr. Jefferson might almost have dictated to all the States such changes in the Constitution as he should deem right, so great was his influence, and so undisputed the sway of the party of which he was the founder and the avowed head. Yet it remained unchanged, except as to the mode of electing the Vice-President and President, and a few points recommended by several States, and mainly for fifty years its interpretation was satisfactory to Mr. Jefferson and his successors, being the work of his party. Mr. Jefferson mistrusted J. Q. Adams, but nothing serious occurred under his honorable Administration.

But if the following words from a letter to Mr. Madison, in 1789, can be taken as his sentiments, Mr. Jefferson could hardly be regarded as ever having an undying attachment to the Constitution or a form of government having the elements of duration unsubject to the freaks of the many :

"On similar ground it may be proved, that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation; they may manage it, then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters, too, of their own persons, and consequently do with them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors are extinguished then, in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being."

In 1785, Mr. Jefferson wrote to his friend, J. Bannister, as to sending boys to Europe to be educated,

and made the following interesting statement, applicable now as at that time :

"If he goes to England, he learns drinking, horse-racing, and boxing. These are the peculiarities of English education. The following circumstances are common to that and other countries of Europe. He acquires a fondness for European luxury and dissipation, and a contempt for the simplicity of his own country; he is fascinated with the privileges of the European aristocrats; and sees, with abhorrence, the lovely equality which the poor enjoy with the rich, in his own country; he contracts a partiality for aristocracy or monarchy; he forms foreign friendships which will never be useful to him, and loses the seasons of life for forming, in his own country, those friendships which, of all others, are the most faithful and permanent; he is led, by the strongest of all the human passions, into a spirit for female intrigue, destructive of his own and others' happiness, and learns to consider fidelity to the marriage bed as an ungentlemanly practice, and inconsistent with happiness; he recollects the dress and art of the European women, and pities and despises the chaste affections and simplicity of those of his own country; he returns to his own country a foreigner, unacquainted with the practices of domestic economy, necessary to preserve him from ruin, speaking and writing his native tongue as a foreigner, and, therefore, unqualified to obtain those distinctions which eloquence of the pen and tongue insures in a free country; for I would observe to you, that what is called style in writing and speaking is formed very early in life, while the imagination is warm and impressions are permanent. I am of the opinion, that there never was an instance of a man's writing or speaking his native tongue with elegance, who passed from fifteen to twenty years of age out of the country where it was spoken. That will always appear to be his native language, which was most familiar to him in his youth. It appears to me, then, that an American, coming to Europe for education, loses in his knowledge, in his morals, in his health, in his habits, and in his happiness."

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CHAPTER XI.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS "THE HEAD AND HEART," A "LOVELETTER" TO MRS. COSWAY.

IN

N the mean time, Mr. Jefferson's little daughter, and only other living child, Mary, had, in company with a young servant, made the trip to Europe, and joined him in Paris. She was placed in a convent boarding-school with her sister, and much of his care was given to these children, to whom he was wholly devoted, and who became kind of idols in his life. Some of his letters to Martha at this period are of the most instructive and noble kind, displaying traits and feelings which must be taken into the account in making an opinion of the real character of Mr. Jefferson. He not only attended to all the wants of these daughters, but was, more than men generally, peculiarly able to see beforehand all their desires, and enter with great tenderness and fullness into all their feelings. Mr. Jefferson had nothing like romance in his nature, and usually went straight to the real condition of affairs around him. But in his domestic relations he was a model of tenderness and affection. Although his red hair was against him, according to the common impression, he was never seen angry by his family but on one or two occasions. Nor did he ever speak an angry word, it is said, to one of his children or grandchildren. There is no question about it, Mr.

Jefferson had a delicacy, depth, and refinement of heart seldom found among the noted leaders of men. Not long before his return to America he received a letter from his daughter, Martha, which, no doubt, had something to do in hastening his preparations to come home. He had repeatedly told her that upon her success in life depended his happiness from that time forward. And although he saw her day by day approaching his ideal, and becoming more and more like himself, she had allowed a feeling to grow upon her in the calm, harmless, and useless seclusion of the convent, in which she had not thought that his happiness might be involved. She wrote asking his permission to remain in France and in the convent, with a view of becoming a religious recluse. There is no doubt that, on this subject, Mr. Jefferson had strong and unalterable opinions, and this announcement from his daughter must have been another blow to his sensitive nature. He visited the convent immediately, settled his affairs, and took his daughters out without warning or delay. To the managers he gave no explanation, nor did a word ever pass between him and Martha on the subject. She yet took many lessons in the "accomplishments" of her native country, for which his liberal hand provided, but her convent days were over. They still lived on together, he acting the part of mother and father in the most tender manner, and they believing in him, trusting every thing to him, rushing to his bosom in times of little, great, or real and imaginary troubles, and to the last days and forever keeping his name and place sacred in their hearts and lives.

In October, 1789, he left France with his children, but not until December 23d did they reach Monti

cello. It had been a long residence abroad for Mr. Jefferson, and although greatly prepossessed in favor of the French, his stay with them only intensified his feelings of admiration for his own country; and though he saw some of the trappings of monarchic government swept before the mob in the name of republicanism and the introduction of the period of anarchy and rapine in the name of liberty, he gloried in the milder, wiser, and safer spirit of his own people. Yet Mr. Jefferson always believed the cause of the French Revolution was just, and that many of its instrumentalities, while striking the peaceful and refined nature with terror, were the necessary evil accompaniments of the great efforts required to relieve such social fabrics of tyranny, and advance a race in the scale of free intellectual government .

Long subsequent to the "reign of terror" in the French Revolution, in the calm moments of retirement and retrospection, Mr. Jefferson wrote in his Autobiography

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The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns, I shall neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say, that the first magistrate of a nation can not commit treason against his country, or is unamenable to its punishment; nor yet, that where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts, and a power in our hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right and redressing wrong. Of those who judged the king, many thought him willfully criminal; many that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of kings who would war against a generation which might come home to themselves, and that it was better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the legislature. I should have shut up the queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the king in his station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily

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