to restrain him, or he might have been as foolish as Brissot and as rabid as Marat. As it was, he could not help perceiving in his calmer moments that this new path to the glorious future which the philosophes were pointing out to their countrymen, had been for many years in America the well-worn high road of the nation.

On most subjects, Jefferson's opinions were dictated by his feelings. He takes so little pains to conceal this weakness, that we can hardly suppose he was aware of it. Contradiction he could not bear. Opposition of any kind produced a bitter feeling. Vanity, latent perhaps, but acrid, corroded his judgment of his adversaries. In France Governeur Morris remarked that he was too fond of calling fools those who did not agree with him; a sure sign of want of strength. Great minds are essentially tolerant of the opinions of others. They know how easy it is to err. There was a good deal, too, of the Pharisee about Jefferson. 'He was of no party, nor yet a trimmer between parties. If he could not go to heaven but with a party, he would not go there at all.' But he thanked God he was not as the Federalists were: Anglomen, monarchists, workers of corruption! nor even as this Washington! He boasted, too, that he had never written a line for the public press; his method was to suggest his views to others, and employ them to put them into print.

Careful not to speak out too boldly when it was not altogether safe to do so, and wanting rather in moral courage, he was a persevering man, pursuing his plans with the eagerness of women, who always have a thousand excellent reasons, however illogical and inconsistent they may be, for doing as they please—and like women, he was not over scrupulous as to the means he employed to reach his object.

The same envious vanity and inability to resist his feelings which warped his judgment into so many contradictions, led him into actions that have damaged his character as a gentleman. For instance, his behavior to Washington. When a member of Washington's cabinet, protesting the warmest friendship to him, his confidential adviser by virtue of the office he held, he permitted, not to say encouraged, those attacks in Freneau's paper which were outrages on common decency. His intimacy with the President enabled him to judge of the effect of the blows. He noticed, with the cool precision of an experimental observer, the symptoms of pain and annoyance which Washington could not always conceal. Freneau was Jefferson's clerk; a word would have stopped him. 'But I will not do it,' Jefferson says; 'his paper has saved our Constitution, which was galloping forth into monarchy.' Jefferson's underhand attack upon Vice-President Adams, in the note he wrote by way of preface to the American publisher of Paine's 'Rights of Man,' is a domestic treachery of the same kind, though very much less in degree. That note might have been written on the impulse of the moment; but what shall we say of his practice of committing to paper Hamilton's sayings in the freedom of after-dinner conversation—a time when open-hearted men are apt to forget that there may be a Judas at table—and of saving them up to be used against him in the future? Jefferson explains away these and other dubious passages in his life with great ingenuity. He had to make such explanations too often. An apology implies a mistake, wilful or accidental. Too many indicate, to say the least, a lack of discretion. What a difference between these explanations, evasions, excuses, denials, and the majestic manliness of Washington, who never did or wrote or said anything which he hesitated to avow openly and without qualification!

Another dissimilarity between these two worth heeding, is Jefferson's want of that thrift which produces independence, comfort, and self-respect. He lived beyond his means, and died literally a beggar.

Jefferson was deficient in that happy combination of courage, energy, judgment, and probity, which mankind call character, for want of a more distinctive word—but which, in fact, in its highest expression, is genius on the moral side. It commands the respect of mankind more than the most brilliant faculties—and it accomplishes more. We have only to look at Washington's life to see what can be done by it.

When Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson showed a want of spirit and of action; the same deficiency was more painfully conspicuous in his dealings with the Barbary pirates and in the affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake. The insults and spoliations of the English and French under the orders in council and the Berlin and Milan decrees were borne with equal meekness. He was for peace at all hazards, and economy at any price. When at last he found he had exhausted his favorite method, and that neither 'time, reason, justice, nor a truer sense of their own interests' produced any effect upon the obstinate aggressors, he could desire no better means of checking their depredations upon our trade than to order our merchants to lay up their ships and shut up their shops. It was a Japanese stroke of policy—to revenge an insult by disembowelling oneself—hari kari applied to a nation.

His was indeed a brilliant theory of government, if we take him at his word. At home, freedom was to be invigorated by occasional rebellions, not to be put down too sharply, for fear of discouraging the people—the tree of liberty was to be watered with blood. Abroad, custom-house regulations would keep the peace of the seas. Embargo and non-intercourse must bring France and England to their good behavior.

Mr. Jefferson had his political panacea: all disorders would infallibly be cured by it. He puffed it in his journals and extolled its virtues in his state papers. He congratulated his countrymen upon his election; he called it the revolution of 1800. Now at length they could try the panacea. What wonders did it work? The Federalists can point to the results of their twelve years of power: credit created out of bankruptcy; prosperity out of union; a great nation made out of thirteen small ones—an achievement far beyond that Themistocles could boast of. Jefferson added the Louisiana Territory to the Union; but this, the only solid result of his Administration, was totally inconsistent with his principles. Did he render any other service to the country? We know of none. His 'Quaker' theories and 'terrapin' policy increased the contempt of our enemies, cost the nation millions of money to no purpose, and made the war of 1812 inevitable.

No one can deny that Jefferson was a monster of party tactics and strategy. He knew well how to get up a cry, to excite the odium vulgare against his antagonists, to play skilfully upon the class feeling of poor against rich, and to turn to profit every popular weakness and meanness. He drilled and organized his followers, and led them well disciplined to victory. But on the grander field of statesmanship he was wanting. He was what Bonaparte called an ideologist. A principle, however true, may fail in its application, because other principles, equally true, may then come into action and vitiate the result. These collateral principles Jefferson never deigned to consider. He had no conception of expediency, of which a wise statesman never loses sight. Results he thought must be advantageous, provided processes were according to his principles. His object appears to have been rather a government after his theories than a good government. And in this respect he is the type of the impracticable and mischief-making class of reformers numerous in this country.

Jefferson seems to have been unable to grasp the real political character of the American people, the path they were destined to tread, the shape their institutions must necessarily take. He was possessed with the idea that liberty was in danger, and that the attempt was made to change the republic into a monarchy, perhaps a despotism. This