"The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. The will and the power of man expire with his life, by nature's law. Some societies give it an artificial continuance for the encouragement of industry; some refuse it, as our aboriginal neighbors, whom we call barbarians. The generations of men may be considered as bodies or corporations. Each generation has the usufruct of the earth during the period of its continuance. When it ceases to exist, the usufruct passes on to the succeeding generation, free and unencumbered; and so on, successively, from one generation to another for ever. We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation more than the inhabitants of another country. Or the case may be likened to the ordinary one of a tenant for life, who may hypothecate the land for his debts during the continuance of his usufruct; but at his death the reversioner (who is for life only) receives it exonerated from all burden. The period of a generation, or the term of its life, is determined by the laws of mortality, which, varying a little only in different climates, offer a general average to be found by observation.1 Jefferson's notions of the nature of what little government we had in this country were well set out in the letter to Major Cartwright, above quoted: "With respect to our State and Federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. This is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of a single and integral whole. To the State governments are reserved all legislation and administration in affairs which concern their own citizens only, and to the Federal Government is given whatever concerns foreigners, or the citizens of other States; these functions alone being made federal. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign, branch of the same government; neither having control over the other, but within its own department. There are one or two exceptions only to this partition of power. But, you may ask, if the two departments should claim the same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable ground; but, if neither can be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the States must be called to ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think best." 2 His hostility to the present Constitution was early proclaimed. Writing from Paris, under date of Nov. 13, 1787, he says, 1 Letter to J. W. Eppes, Jefferson's Works, vol. vi. p. 136. "Indeed, I think all the good of this new Constitution might have been couched in three or four new articles, to be added to the good, old, and venerable fabric, which should have been preserved even as a religious relique." From the preceding extracts, it will be seen that Jefferson completely ignored the Supreme Court of the United States as the authorized expounder of the Constitution. In reference to this tribunal, he says: "The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our constitutional fabric. They are construing our Constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet; and they are too well versed in English law to forget the maxim, Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem. We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring stride these five lawyers" (judges) "have lately taken. Having found, from experience, that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scarecrow, they consider themselves secure for life; they skulk from responsibility to public opinion, the only remaining hold upon them,under a practice first introduced into England by Lord Mansfield. An opinion is huddled up in conclave (perhaps by a majority of one), delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge" (Marshall), "who sophisticates the law to his mind by the turn of his own reasoning. A judiciary law was once reported by the Attorney-General to Congress, requiring each judge to deliver his opinion seriatim and openly, and then to give it in writing to the clerk to be entered on the record. A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." Jefferson would have no government capable of binding the future, and no courts as the final arbiters of disputes. His remedy for misgovernment and political oppression was rebellion: "Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat, and model into every form, lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed 1 Letter to John Adams, Jefferson's Works, vol. ii. p. 317. 2 The case referred to was McCulloch v. The State of Maryland, in which Judge Marshall made his famous argument in support of the constitutionality of the Bank. 3 Letter to Thomas Ritchie, Jefferson's Works, vol. vii. p. 192. them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and, what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion! The people cannot be all and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the impor tance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”1 Jefferson not only most earnestly opposed Washington's principles of government, but he claimed to have been, by his election to the Presidency, the instrument for their complete overthrow. Writing to Judge Roane, under date of September 6, 1819, soon after the famous decision of Judge Marshall affirming the constitutionality of the United States Bank, he said: 2 "The Revolution of 1800 was as complete a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form; not effected, indeed, by the sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people. The nation declared its will by dismissing functionaries of one principle, and electing those of another, in the two branches - executive and legislative submitted to their election. Over the judiciary department the Constitution had deposed them of their control. That, therefore, has continued the reprobated system." The preceding extracts, which might be multiplied in kind, so as to fill a volume, furnish the key, and the only one, by means of which the political as well as the financial history of this country can be made intelligible, not only to foreigners, but to ourselves. Up to 1860, Jefferson was the patron saint of the nation. His teachings in reference to the 1 Letter to Colonel Smith, Jefferson's Works, vol. ii. pp. 318, 319. nature of our government were held to be the sum of political wisdom. Taught only too well, a part of the nation, in anticipation of any overt act or grievance, withdrew from the Union. From opinion, which up to that time had been the arbiter of events, the North took an appeal to a still higher tribunal, — that of the sword. Then flowed like a flood the blood which, with Mr. Jefferson, was "the natural manure of the tree of liberty." In this final appeal he was again overruled, and an emphatic judgment reaffirmed for his great rival. The overthrow of Jefferson was a revolution as much in the literature as in the politics of the country. If his teachings were false, then the works which sought to base upon them its institutions were equally so. Hence the desperate attempt, so late as 1865, of our great historian to impose upon the ignorance and credulity of the nation, that Jefferson was the champion of whatever centralizing tendency our Constitution contained, and that "no man ever contributed so much toward the consolidation of the Union: " "When John Adams," says Mr. Bancroft, "was elected President, before any overt act, before any other cause of alarm than his election, the legislature of Virginia took steps for an armed organization of the State, and old and long-cherished sentiments adverse to union were renewed. The continuance of the Union was in peril. It was then that the great Virginia statesman, now perfectly satisfied with the amended Constitution, came to the rescue. . . . The thought never crossed the mind of Jefferson that the general government had not proper powers of coercion. . . . No one man did so much as he towards consolidating the Union."" 1 As Jefferson was the very person through whose influence "the legislature of Virginia took steps for an armed organization of the State," and was himself the author of those "old and long-cherished' sentiments hostile to the Union," the assertion, that at the moment when, under the elder Adams, the stability of the government was threatened, and all know how seriously it was threatened," he rushed to the rescue," may well excite astonishment. He was the person who, far in advance of all others, developed and proclaimed, in all their length and breadth, the doctrines of nullification. But for him, they might not have been heard of for a half century. So 1 Place of Abraham Lincoln in History, by George Bancroft, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1865. alarming were the consequences of his teachings, and so insidious and untiring his efforts to undermine the government, that Washington, who had wholly retired from public life, which he hoped never again to enter, was forced to forego his determination, and appear once more in the political arena. The Virginia Resolutions were passed in the latter part of December, 1798. No sooner had the knowledge of this reached him, than he made an earnest appeal to Patrick Henry, who had now become a supporter of the Constitution, to consent to become a member of the State legislature, in order to be in a position in which he could exert his great influence to defeat a movement aimed at the very life of the nation: "It would be a waste of time," said Washington, "to attempt to bring to the view of a person of your observation and discernment the endeavors of a certain party (referring to Jefferson) among us, to disquiet the public mind with unfounded alarms, to arraign every act of the administration, to set the people at variance with their government, and to embarrass all its measures. Equally useless would it be to predict what must be the inevitable consequences of such a policy, if it cannot be arrested. "Unfortunately, and extremely do I regret it, the State of Virginia has taken the lead in this opposition. I have said the State, because the conduct of its legislature in the eyes of the world will authorize the expression; and because it is an incontrovertible fact, that the principal leaders of the opposition dwell in it, and that, with the help of the chiefs in other States, all the plans are arranged and systematically pursued by their followers in other parts of the Union; though in no State except Kentucky, that I have heard of, has legislative countenance been obtained beyond Virginia. . At such a crisis as this, when every thing dear and valuable to us is assailed; when this party hangs upon the wheels of government as a dead weight, opposing every measure that is calculated for defence and self-preservation; when measures are systematically and pertinaciously pursued which must eventually DISSOLVE THE UNION, OR PRODUCE COERCION,I say, when these things have become so obvious, ought characters (like yourself), who are best able to rescue the country from the pending evil, to remain at home? Rather ought they not to come forward, and by their talents and influence stand in the breach which such conduct has made on the peace and happiness of this country, and oppose the widening of it? "Vain will it be to look for peace and happiness, or for the security of liberty or property, if civil discord should ensue. And what else can result from the policy of those among us who, by all the measures in their power, are driving matters to extremity, if they cannot be counteracted effectually?... If their conduct is viewed with indifference,-if there are activity and misrepresentation on one side, and supineness on the other, - their numbers accumu |