Page:Life And Letters Of Thomas Jefferson -- Hirst (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.89541).pdf/15



On July 4th 1926 a century will have elapsed since Jefferson’s death at Monticello, and more than 183 years since he first saw the light in a farmhouse not far away on the same estate. No new biography is needed to emblazon his name on the roll of fame. Among the founders of the Great Republic the statesman who wrote the Declaration of Independence and added Louisiana to the Union can never be forgotten. As reformer of its laws and founder of its University his name stands first among the citizens and benefactors of Virginia. To those who, in spite of failures and disappointments, still rest their hopes of peaceful and civilized progress on representative government and popular education, Jefferson is a prophet, and more than a prophet. By those who believe that the success of democratic institutions and the establishment of good will between nations and classes depend on a wide dissemination of liberal ideas, the author of the Statute of Religious Freedom and the successful opponent of the sedition laws will be deemed not unworthy of a place beside Milton and Hampden and other heroic men who down to our own times have withstood the tyranny of priest, soldier, monarch, or bureaucrat. Those again who love republican frugality and simplicity, who wish their ministers to be thrifty stewards of public money, and would equalise opportunity, partly by a just system of taxation, partly by judicious expenditure on public health and education, will learn alike from the precepts and practice of Jefferson