Jefferson conducted the correspondence and negotiations, like an American patriot, with impartiality and effect.* From 1793 to 1797, Jefferson lived in modest but not inactive retirement; in the year 1797, however (having received the greatest number of votes next to Adams), he was chosen vicepresident of the United States. In the year 1801 he received for the office of president 73 votes; while Colonel Burr also had 73, and Adams 65. The decision was thus left to the House of Representatives; and after thirty-six ballotings, ten states declared themselves for Jefferson, and four for Burr. These votes show the great power of the two parties standing opposed to each other, as also the zeal and obstinacy of the electors and representatives. But passion rose to a much greater height beyond this constitutional sphere; and never was a man on earth so violently attacked by an unbridled press, and so shamefully calumniated, as Jefferson. He was by no means insensible to such treatment; but he never descended to refutations or wordy disputes, rightly trusting that the power of truth would prevail, and that his public life would set him in his true light before the world. To his friend Norwell he afterwards thus expressed himself in relation to these experiences: "To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, 'by restraining it to true facts and sound principles only.' Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow-citizens, who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Buonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c. &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He * See Writings, iii. 267, 269, 279, 280. † Tucker's Life of Jefferson, ii. 109, 120. who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false. "Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies," &c. "Defamation is becoming a necessary of life; insomuch, that a dish of tea in the morning or evening cannot be digested without this stimulant. Even those who do not believe these abominations, still read them with complaisance to their auditors, and, instead of the abhorrence and indignation which should fill a virtuous mind, betray a secret pleasure in the possibility that some may believe them, though they do not themselves. It seems to escape them, that it is not he who prints, but he who pays for printing a slander, who is its real author.' Yet his Such are the just exclamations of this noble man. bitterest experiences could not bring him even to wish for a restraint upon the press. He said, "He who wishes fire and warmth also needs a chimney; and erroneous opinions can be borne with, where reason is left alone to combat them." in his inaugural address to Congress, Jefferson said, with equal truth and impressiveness: "Let all bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate, would be oppression. Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection, without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions." Improper as it would be even to mention here the common falsehoods and low slanders which were propagated respecting Jefferson, it is still necessary to state and examine the accusations that have been raised against his religion, philosophy, and statesmanship. First of all, it has been said that he was no Christian, but an infidel, an atheist. Let us hear how he expresses himself in confidential letters on this topic. "I promised you," he writes to Dr. Rush,§ "a letter on Christianity, which I have not forgotten. On the contrary, it is because I have reflected on it, that I find much more time necessary for it than I can at present dispose of. I have a view of the subject which ought to displease *Writings, iv. 80. ↑ Messages, p. 92. † Statutes of South Carolina, i. 306. neither the rational Christian nor deist, and would reconcile many to a character they have too hastily rejected. I do not know that it would reconcile the genus irritabile vatum, who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too interesting ground to be softened. Certain delusions with respect to a clause in the Constitution gave the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity throughout the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, and they believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." "The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they have enveloped it,* and brought to the original purity and simplicity of its benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind." "My views of the Christian religion are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other. It is to be regretted that Jesus himself wrote nothing, and that his doctrines have come to us mutilated, mis-stated, and often unintelligible. He corrected the deism of the Jews, and taught the most pure and perfect system of morals that has ever been announced on earth. It embraces all mankind, gathering them into one family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants and common aids. But even from the time of the Apostle Paul, the simple doctrines of Jesus Christ have been sophisticated and perverted. Every Christian sect too gives a great handle to atheism by their general dogma, that without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a God. Christ teaches that there is one only God, and he all perfect; that there is a future state of rewards and punishments; that to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion. Calvin on the contrary teaches: that there are three Gods; that good works, or the love of our neighbor, are nothing; that faith *Writings, iii. 463, 468, 506. iv. 321. For a more circumstantial, rationalistic criticism of the New Testament writings, see vol. iv. 326. is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit in its faith; that reason in religion is of unlawful use; that God from the beginning elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them, no virtues of the latter save. Now which of these is the true and charitable Christian? he who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus; or the impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin ?"* Jefferson was no theologian by profession; but though from these declarations some may acquit and others condemn him, he certainly took up the right position as a practical American statesman, and his constant and powerful influence for a long time put an end to all ecclesiastical tyranny. Had it not been for him, perhaps a dominant church would have been smuggled in, or its introduction at least ventured on, through a civil and religious war. In fact, hardly had the attempt been made to expel from the university founded by Jefferson its alleged infidelity, when (at least so it is said), four nominally pious sects came in, contended for the supremacy, and anathematized one another. As regards the fulfilment of the chief commandment of Jesus Christ, that peace should be and remain upon earth-certainly no statesman has ever more ardently enforced it, with all the powers of his heart and soul, than Jefferson.† Although the dogmatist may judge otherwise and according to another standard, the historian must place rulers fond of persecution and conquest below the American president, and present to him, in return for the proffered olive-branch, the laurel crown.‡ The philosophers must condemn Jefferson still more strongly than the theologians, when they hear what he says about the divine Plato. “I have been amusing myself," he writes to John Adams, "with reading seriously Plato's Republic. I am wrong, however, in calling it amusement; for it was the heaviest task-work I ever went through. I had occasionally before taken up some of his other works, but scarcely ever had patience to go through a whole dialogue. While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself, how it could have been, that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this? How the soi-disant Christian world indeed should have done it, is a piece of historical curiosity. But how could the Roman good sense do it? And particularly how could Cicero bestow • Writings, iv. 349, 363. 't See Writings, ii. 13. "Mr. Jefferson, instead of being obnoxious to the charge of impiety, was probably one of the most sincerely religious men in the community."-Everett's America, p. 318. such eulogies on Plato? Although Cicero did not wield the dense logic of Demosthenes, yet he was able, learned, laborious, practised in the business of the world, and honest. He could not be the dupe of mere style, of which he was himself the first master in the world. With the moderns, I think, it is rather a matter of fashion and authority. Education is chiefly in the hands of persons who, from their profession, have an interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato. They give the tone while at school, and few in their after years have occasion to revise their college opinions. But fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities, and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? In truth, he is one of the race of genuine sophists, who has escaped the oblivion of his brethren, first, by the elegance of his diction, but chiefly, by the adoption and incorporation of his whimsies into the body of artificial Christianity. His foggy mind is for ever presenting the semblances of objects which, half seen through a mist, can be defined neither in form nor dimension. Yet this, which should have consigned him to early oblivion, really procured him immortality of fame and reverence. The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticisms of Plato materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might from its indistinctness admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained. Their purposes, however, are answered. Plato is canonized; and it is now deemed as impious to question his merits as those of an apostle of Jesus. He is peculiarly appealed to as an advocate of the immortality of the soul; and yet I will venture to say, that were there no better arguments than his in proof of it, not a man in the world would believe it.* It is fortunate for us, that Platonic republicanism has not obtained the same favor as Platonic Christianity; or we should now have been all living, men, women, and children, pell-mell together, like the beasts of the field or forest."+ Jefferson, many will say after these extracts, is still less of a philosopher than of a theologian; and yet the practical statesman, who was to call into new life half a world, was quite right, and it was very natural for him to declare Plato's doctrines of privileged Perfectly similar sentiments are found in a sermon by Mason.-National Preacher, i. 6. † Writings, iv. 241, 325. |