Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/41

30 summer, by means of them. We were shown, too, that not only could good work be done by those driven by steam, but that the greater number driven by oarsmen were of much service, not only in vexing the enemy, but in protecting the whole exposed coast. Here was Jefferson's scheme to the letter. Here was a despised though of the past become a proud fact of the present. Here had the Autocrat reared a monument to our great Democrat,—gaining praise for Jefferson long after his enemies and their factious laughter had died out forever.

But take what the main body of cultured Americans have thought Jefferson's chronic whimsey,—his belief that the heart of England must be ever set against all our liberty and prosperity. As we no breast the terrific storm which English reasonings and taunts had encouraged us to brave, and hear, swelling above the faint English God-speed, misstatements, gibes, reproofs, malignant prophecies, who of us shall say that the English character and policy of 1861 were not better foreknown by Jefferson in 1820 than by ourselves in 1860?

So much for Jefferson's insight and foresight. But there was yet a greater quality which gave him a place in each of these three great groups,—his faith in Democracy.

At a time when the French Revolution had scared even Burke, and when the British Constitution was thought by many to have seduced even Washington, Jefferson held fast to his great faith in the rights and capacities of the people. The only effect on him of the shocks and failures of that period was to make his anxiety sometimes morbid, and his action sometimes spasmodic. Hence much that to many me has seemed unjust suspicion of Adams, and persecution of Hamilton, and disrespect for Washington. Yet all this was but the jarring of that strong mind in the struggle and crash of his times,—mere spasms of bigotry which prove the vigor of his faith in Democracy.

Jefferson, then, known of all men not fettered by provincial traditions as invested with this foresight and this faith, is become to a vast party an idol, and from his writing issue oracles. But the priests at his shrines, having waxed fat in honors, have at last so befogged his sentiments and wrested his arguments, that thousands of true men regard him sorrowfully as the promoter of that Slavery-Despotism which to-day blooms in treason. It is worth our while, therefore, to seek to know whether Jefferson the god of the Oligarchs is Jefferson the Democrat. Let us, by the simplest and fairest process possible, try to come at his real opinions on Slavery,- just as they grew when he did so much to found the Republic,—just as they flourished when he did so much to build the Republic,—just as they were re wrought and polished when he did so much to brace the Republic.

The whole culture of Jefferson's youth was, of all things in the world, least likely to make him support slavery or apologize for it. The man who did most to work into his mind ideas of moral and political science was Dr. William Small, a liberal Scotchman; the man who did most to direct his studies in law, and his grappling with social problems, was George Wythe. To both of these Jefferson confessed the deepest debt for their efforts to strengthen his mind and make his footing firm. Now, of all men in this country at the time, these two were least likely to support pro-slavery theories or tolerate pro-slavery cant. For while to Small's soundness there is abundance of general testimony the most pointed. We have but to take the first volume of Jefferson's Works, published by order of Congress, and we find Jefferson's anti-slavery letter to Dr. Price, written in 1785, urging the Doctor to work against pro-slavery ideas in the young men, and to exhort the young men of Virginia to the "redress of the enormity." Incidentally he speaks of Mr. Wythe as already doing great good in this direction among these same young me, and declares him "one of the most virtuous of