MR. JEFFERSON.

When Mr. Jefferson came to Philadelphia in March, 1797, he was about fifty years of age. His personnel, as now recollected, was this: He was a tall man, over six feet in stature, neither full nor thin in body. His limbs were long and loosely jointed. His hair was of a reddish tinge, combed loosely over the forehead, and at the sides, and tied behind. His complexion was light or sandy. His forehead rather high and broad. His eyebrows long and straight, his eyes blue, his cheek bones high, his face broad between his eyes, his chin long and his mouth large. His dress was a black coat and light under clothes. He had no polish of manners, but a simplicity and sobriety of deportment. He was quiet and unobtrusive, and yet a stranger would perceive that he was in the presence of one who was not a common man. His manner of conversing was calm and deliberate and free from all gesticulation; but he spoke like one who considered himself entitled to deference, and as though he measured what he said by some standard of self-complacency. The expression of his face was that of thoughtfulness and observation; and certainly, not of that of openness and frankness. When speaking he did not look at his auditor, but cast his eyes toward the ceiling or anywhere but at the eyes of his listener. He had already become a personage of some distinction and an object of curiosity, even to a very young man. These personal descriptions are from memory, after the lapse of many years and may not accord with those of persons who had more or better opportunities to observe; and are not, therefore, offered with confidence that Mr. Jefferson is here, in all respects, justly described.

During his Vice Presidency, (during the administration of Mr. Adams,) Mr. Jefferson was employed, as usual for that officer, in the Senate. It does not appear that the Vice President was ever called to cabinet meetings in Washington's time; or that Mr. Jefferson was ever called to such meetings in the presidency of Mr. Adams, or advised with him in any way.-Sullivan.

As to the Declaration.

Mr. Everett, speaking of the Declaration of Independence, says: "This trust devolved on Thomas Jefferson, and with it rests on him the imperishable renown of having penned the Declaration of Independence. To have been the instrument of expressing, in one brief, decisive act, the concentrated will and resolution of a whole family of States, of unfolding in one all-important manifesto, the causes, the motives, and the justification of this great movement in human affairs; to have been permitted to give the impress and peculiarity of his own mind to a charter of public rights, destined, or rather let me say already elevated to an importance, in the estimation of many, equal to anything human ever borne on parchment or expressed in the visible signs of thought. This is the glory of Thomas Jefferson."

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

Towards Mr. Hamilton Mr. Maclay seemed to entertain strong repugnance. This appeared to be owing mainly to hs originating and supporting the provision for the assumption of the State debts. To the funding of the domestic debts of the General Government, contracted during the revolutionary war, and of the foreign debts, no opposition existed; but Mr. Hamilton recommended the assumption, by the General Government, of the debts of the States. To this proposition Mr. Maclay and others objected, at least until a settlement was had between the States, by which the States which were in advance in appropriations during the war should be paid their advancements; and it was alleged by Mr. Maclay that Pennsylvania was in advance to the amount of a million of dollars. But Mr. Hamilton, having little confidence in the patriotism and intelligence of the mass of the people, and in the sufficiency of the Constitution, not perceiving the vitality since manifested to exist in it, and which, so late as 1802, in a letter to Governor Morris, he pronounced to be " a frail and worthless fabric," and as a means of establishing and supporting the public credit, and, perhaps, with a desire to have an interested body of loan or stockholders to support the Government, as Secretary of the Treasury recommended such assumption,* and he urged the matter so far as to barter away the permanent seat of government, in order to effect it. This was an improper expedient, and deserving of reprobation. He was charged, through the funding measure, with a desire of advancing his private fortune; but it does not appear that he was influenced by such a motive; and it is alleged that to guard against such an imputation,

*Wolcott, in April, 1790, wrote that the assumption of the State debt was necessary for the existence of the National Government. If the State governments are to prove for their payment, these creditors will oppose all national provisions as being inconsistent with their interest.-Gibb's Wolcott, 1, p. 45. Van Holst, in his Constitutional and Political History of the United States, has observed that the good opinion of foreign nations could be regained only on condition that the credit of the Union was restored; that the funding of the debt of the Union, and the assumption by the Union of the debts of the States, were the two principal pillars on which the new political structure could be made to rest.-Van Holst, pp. 84-88.

he advised his immediate family connections to refrain from such speculation, then much practiced, as the probability of assumption increased. The provision in the funding bill for the assumption of purchased claims to their full value at the time of the assumption, without regard to the amount paid to the original creditors, was also made a ground of objection to the funding bill. The report of Mr. Hamilton on the subject of the public credits, giving the reasons for the assumption, will be found in the second volume of the Annals of Congress.

It is much to the credit of Mr. Hamilton, that notwithstanding the opinion he entertained of the constitution as giving to the General Government too little force or power, he nevertheless supported it by his articles in the Federalist, and in the convention in New York.

The plan of government submitted by him to the constitutional convention, recommending a Chief Executive and Senate, to serve during good behavior-the President to have an absolute negative on the acts of Congress; the Senate to have the sole power of declaring war; Senators not to be liable to expulsion, and to be capable of voting by proxy; the President to be chosen by citizens having an estate of inheritance, or for three lives, in land, or clear personal estate of the value of one thousand Spanish milled dollars, was deficient in wisdom, and not calculated to receive the public support.

Mr. Hamilton, in his much celebrated report, in December, 1791, on the subject of " Domestic Manufactures," (see third volume of the Annals of Congress, pp. 1011-12,) first gave prominence to the clause in the constitution relative to the general welfare, as a subject or element, for the promotion of which Congress had power to raise taxes and appropriate money. This construction of Mr. Hamilton gave strong offense to Mr. Jefferson, who was for limiting the collection and appropriation of public money to carrying out the express powers conferred on Congress by the constitution. This provision has been recently called into requisition in the Senate of the United States, in support of an appropriation in aid of the centennial celebration.

Mr. Hamilton's view of the constitutional provision on the subject of treason was extreme. From an opinion of the importance or necessity of the case, an opinion not confined to him, but entertained by others that in order to manifest the strength of the constitution, an example of severity was important, he was in favor of the execution of Fries, who had been convicted, in Pennsylvania, of treason, for mere opposition to the execution of an act of Congress,

(the excise act,) without any design of "levying war against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies-giving them aid and comfort," which is the only mode in which treason against the Government can be committed; and he made the pardon of Fries a subject of complaint against Mr. Adams, who, from the belief that the conduct of Fries would not warrant a conviction of treason, or was not deserving of death, or from some other motive, made him the subject of clemency.

This criticism as to treason will apply to Mr. Hamilton's views relative to the riotous proceedings in western Pennsylvania, commonly termed the Whisky Insurrection, a disturbance on account of the attempted enforcement of a particular law, (the excise law,) which was considered as especially grievous in that remote district, where whisky was used as an article of commerce with the east for their necessary articles, on account of the facility of its transportation. These violent proceedings were liable to indictment as misdemeanors, but they were not liable to the penalty of treason, as it is defined in the Constitution.

Mr. Hamilton was a man of probity in the common affairs of life, of patriotic impulses, of eminent and varied ability, Jefferson styling him "a Colossus to the Anti-Republican party; a host in himself; " nobody but Mr. Madison "that can meet him; and he exercised much influence over many of the public men of his day, and he certainly rendered important services, both military and civil, to the country during his eventful career. But in the full tide of life he fell a victim in a duel. He had not the moral courage to avow unfavorable opinions of Burr which he had honestly entertained and expressed, and, relying on an enlightened public opinion for his justification, refused the arbitrament of arms. He was not required, even by the false code of honor, to contend in moral combat with a man who, to use his own terms, he considered to be " one of the worst men in the community, who private character is not defended by his most partial friends;" "whose public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandizement per fas et nefas, the Cataline of America." His own courage had been signally manifested at Yorktown, the closing battle-field of the revolution. He acted otherwise, and fell in the contest, thus depriving the country of a valuable life, and leaving to the youth of the nation a pernicious example.-Editor.

The duel occurred on the 11th of July, 1804, and Mr. Hamilton died on the next day.