polish of his pen, and of the wisdom of his administration in the highest office of the nation, I need say nothing. They have spoken, and will for ever speak for themselves."

The habit of not suffering his personal views to be shapen, or his momentary actions to be dictated by the sectional impulses of his private ambition, gave him a great and abiding weight in the counsels of our young Republic. Strong in his own earnest and masculine love of freedom, he dealt with the political necessities of the moment from a national rather than an individual point of view. Therefore it is, that we value this man as second only to the active deed of our Revolution-the arm whose just blow and careful defense enabled the will of our ancestors to battle successfully with the difficulties which surrounded them.

The third man who ever filled the Presidential chair-he would have been the second, and immediately have succeeded Washington, were it not for the sectional political struggles which, in the very infancy of the Stars and Stripes, already began to make themselves felt-Jefferson was a Republican, as the primary members of that Democratic section of the citizens of the United States to which we belong, were originally named. Washington had united both the Republicans and the Federalists. Under the gratitude which had been demanded by his services to the country, the sectional animosities of party had lost their influence; or possibly, at the inauguration of the Republic, they had not yet awoken to the uncontrolled exercise of their right of action.

With his successors it was different. Equally deserving of the gratitude of the United States although Jefferson might be, popular veneration had been lavished upon the object of the popular choice. Little of it remained undivided. It had already split up into party differences, and the two sections of feeling in the Republic were already enouncing themselves. It was owing to this that Adams was our second President.

The administration of Mr. Jefferson was signalized by an undoubted amount of vigor and statesmanlike wisdom. Even his political opponents were forced to confess in many things the forecast and political prescience which he almost invariably displayed.

Let us now quote from his Auto-Biography some obser vations which he makes anterior to this upon the subject of slavery. At the present moment, when the anti-slavery party have taken up their position so definitively, and would at the

risk of the severance of that Union which was formed by their sires, ruin one half of the States from the simple desire to gratify their sectional prejudices, it may not be amiss to recall them. We do this with the less hesitation, as Jefferson's opinions can scarcely be considered by any of our readers as always and entirely coïncident with our own:

"The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future and general emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amendment, whenever the bill should be brought on. The principle of the amendment, however, was agreed on, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation after a proper age. But it was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear it and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races can not live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion harve drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation, peaceably and in such slow degree, as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation, or the depletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall short of our case."

Nothing, says Jefferson in the extract which we have just made, is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. We neither can nor do we agree with this enunciation of opinion. Without recurring to that curse which the scriptural student may recall in Genesis-the curse that Noah bestowed upon one of his children, and the application of the malediction to the negro by those who are inclined to refer every event in the history of the world to Scriptural premonition-we can not but say, that NOTHING IS LESS CERTAINLY WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF FATE. The wisdom of the words which follow, and which we have italicized, strikingly opposes itself to his previous declaration. NATURE, habit, opinion, HAVE DRAWN INDELIBLE LINES OF DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM. Habit and opinion we confess ourselves to have little respect for. Treading in the same direction as Jefferson, and following in the same line of thought, we feel that his party in the present age has advanced beyond its founder. As he did not respect the habit and opinion

which attached all Europe and a large section of the Americans to the monarchical form of government, we own that we have no respect, per se, for habit and opinion, at all. These change daily. What is now habit, in twenty years may not be so. What was opinion, ten years since, is so no longer. But Nature is a fixed and immutable fact. It never changes. It has drawn indelible lines of distinction between the white man and the negro. Nor is it possible, that the two races equally free, should live under the same government. As Jefferson declared, they can not do so.

To what would you condemn the majority of the negro race in releasing them from slavery? Can those who advocate it, place their hand upon their hearts and conscientiously say, that they believe the negro in the Free States is better off than his sable brother who is only a slave? At any rate we can not.

Let those who do, visit a negro drinking-house in New-Yorkthere are many such. Let them look at and listen to him, when removed from the rigid influence which white society almost necessarily imposes on him. Let them go into a negro dancingroom and gaze upon the colored woman, debased beneath the lowest level to which servitude could possibly have reduced her-corrupt in mind and prostituted in body. Let him tell us whether he regards her as better than her less licensed sister. Or, let us turn from this picture to the isolated cases in which labor and respectability have been given to the black. With how strong and resolute an isolation is he cut off, save in extraordinary instances, from white society. Whatever the general principles may be, individual feeling can not admit him to take an equal footing with his white brethren. Nor is this altogether unjust. The black is decidedly of a lower organization. He is framed more as the animal. If ever he entitles himself to be regarded as a being capable of ranking in the social scale with the white, it must be by a long and arduous progression. The construction of his skull must be modified and the form of his brain must be changed, ere he is enabled to take a place in humanity at the side of the white

man.

This, however, is scarcely the place in which we may enter into a merely physiological discussion, be the subject as tempting as it may. We accordingly abandon that into which we have been drawn separately from the merits of this publi

cation.

From the last portion of the Auto-Biography which is unfortunately far from being finished, we make a somewhat lengthy

extract, which will, at the same time, more distinctly exhibit the singularly compact and lucid style in which the portion of it that he left, is written, while it will make the reader regret that he never completed his memoirs. Had he done so, we feel that it would have been a work only inferior in its style to "Cæsar's Commentaries," while in its interest to the American, it would have far surpassed any production, written at any time or by any pen.

"At Philadelphia, I called on the venerable and beloved Franklin. He was then on the bed of sickness from which he never rose. My recent return from a country in which he had left so many friends, and the perilous convulsions to which they had been exposed, revived all his anxieties to know what part they had taken, what had been their course, and what their fate. He went over all in succession, with a rapidity and animation almost too much for his strength. When all his inquiries were satisfied, and a pause took place, I told him I had learned with much pleasure that, since his return to America, he had been occupied in preparing for the world the history of his own life. I can not say much of that,' said he, 'but I will give you a sample of what I shall leave ;' and he directed his little grandson, (William Bache,) who was standing by the bedside, to hand him a paper from the table, to which he pointed. He did so; and the Doctor putting it into my hands, desired me to take it and read it at my leisure. It was about a quire of folio paper, written in a large and running hand, very like his own. I looked into it slightly, then shut it, and said I would accept his permission to read it, and would carefully return it. He said, 'No, keep it.' Not certain of his meaning, I again looked into it, folded it for my pocket, and said again, I would certainly return it. 'No,' said he, 'keep it.' I put it into my pocket, and shortly after took leave of him. He died on the 17th of the ensuing month of April; and as I understood that he intended to bequeath to his grandson, William Temple Franklin, I immediately wrote to Mr. Franklin, to inform him I possessed this paper, which I should consider his property, and would deliver to his order. He came on immediately to NewYork, called on me for it, and I delivered it to him. As he put it into his pocket, he said carelessly, he had either the original, or another copy of it, I do not recollect which. This last expression struck my attention forcibly, and for the first time suggested to me the thought that Dr. Franklin had meant it as a confidential deposit in my hands, and that I had done wrong in parting from it. I have not yet seen the collection he published of Dr. Franklin's works, and therefore know not if this is among them. I have been told it is not. It contained a narrative of the negotiations between Dr. Franklin and the British ministry, when he was endeavoring to prevent the contest of arms which followed. The negotiation was brought about by the intervention of Lord Howe and his sister, who, I believe, was called

Lady Howe, but I may misremember her title. Lord Howe seems to have been friendly to America, and exceedingly anxious to prevent a rupture. His intimacy with Dr. Franklin, and his position with the Ministry, induced him to undertake a mediation between them: in which his sister seemed to have been associated. They carried from one to the other, backwards and forwards, the several propositions and answers which passed, and seconded with their intercessions the importance of mutual sacrifices, to preserve the peace and connection of the two countries. I remember that Lord North's answers were dry, unyielding, in the spirit of unconditional submission, and betrayed an absolute indifference to the occurrence of a rupture; and he said to the mediators distinctly, at last, that 'a rebellion was not to be deprecated on the part of Great Britain; that the confiscations it would produce would provide for many of their friends.' This expression was reported by the mediators to Dr. Franklin, and indicated so cool and calculated a purpose in the Ministry, as to render compromise hopeless, and the negotiation was discontinued. If this is not among the papers published, we ask, what has become of it? I delivered it with my own hands into those of Temple Franklin. It certainly established views so atrocious in the British government, that its suppression would, to them, be worth a great price. But could the grandson of Dr. Franklin be, in such degree, an accomplice in the parricide of the memory of his immortal grandfather? The suspension for more than twenty years of the general publication, bequeathed and confided to him, produced, for awhile, hard suspicions against him; and if, at last, all are not published, a part of these suspicions may remain with some."

In thus speaking, be it remembered, that Jefferson closes the fragment of his auto-biography which he has bequeathed to us-110 pages of the present work only. The remainder of the five volumes contains his Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and other writings, official and private. These, in many respects, the most valuable portion of the work to the student of the history of the period, have been edited by Mr. H. A. Washington, with a rare good taste. One portion of his very brief preface-we use the adjective as the highest compliment which we could offer him-so few editors are there who appreciate the value of brevity in their own remarks, we shall take ere we close our article.

"Under the view which the editor takes of his editorial duties, and the instructions of the Library Committee, he has not felt himself at liberty to encumber the publication with matter of his own, farther than is necessary to illustrate the text. Such notes as have been appended will, therefore, be found to be purely explanatory and historical in their character."