XXX. POLICY AND JUSTICE IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Speech XXXI. RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS RELATIONS TO THE BUSI- NESS OF THE COUNTRY: Speech delivered in Boston, Dec. 27, 1866, before the Old Bay State Association XXXII. TEST-Oath for ATTORNEYS IN THE COURTS OF THE UNITED STATES: Remarks in the House of Represent- atives, Jan. 22, 1867 XXXIV. GOVERNMENT OF THE REBEL STATES: Remarks upon the Bill to provide for the more Effectual Government of the Insurrectionary States, Feb. 13, 1867 . . . XXXV. GOVERNMEnt of the REBEL STATES: Remarks upon the Amendments of the Senate to the Bill to provide SPEECHES. JEFFERSON. SPEECH DELIVERED AT BOSTON, APRIL 13, 1859, AT A FESTIVAL ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF JEFFERSON'S BIRTHDAY. IT T is a distinguished honor to be permitted to preside on a festive occasion, when the vir tues and political principles of Thomas Jefferson are remembered. For this honor, I am indebted to the undeserved partiality of the committee who have invited and organized this gathering, that here, within the limits of the Commonwealth which first resisted British aggression, we may acknowledge our obligations to the men and the principles of a sister republic in the great struggle for liberty in America. Public justice, in a large sense, is often slow, but always sure; and, on the hundred and sixteenth anniversary day of the birth of Jefferson, we encourage our faith in humanity by the reflection, that his principles, and the purity of his private and official life, have been relieved from the rancor and obloquy of personal strifes; and that he now stands the chosen leader of a majority of the people of the nation, who either accept his principles, or claim that he would, if living, accept theirs. The world permits some men to be immortal, and Jefferson is one of the chosen few. Some are immortal on account of their goodness or wisdom; some on, account of their love of freedom, or services in its support; and some because the record of the world's life would be incomplete without their names and doings. In addition to these high qualities, Jefferson is immortal because he attached himself ardently and faithfully to principles in which all men of all ages must be interested. There can be no history of America, without a history of its great Revolution; there can be no history of that Revolution without the Declaration of Independence; and there can be no history of the Declaration of Independence without the name, the services, and the character, of Jefferson. Moreover, the history of the American Revolution, with its actual and possible results, is no longer local, or even continental: it is for the world. We are also building up a language, which, if not destined to be a universal dialect, shall yet borrow something of the learning and something of the speech of every people, and which is finally to be spoken and understood in all civilized nations. The principles of the American Revolution have, then, a common interest for all mankind; and the English language, as a medium of universal communication, shall make those principles, and the contest itself, everywhere known. Hence the name of Jefferson is to be more widely diffused, and the principles which he declared are to be generally accepted, because they awaken sentiments as universal as the love of life. Jefferson is not, then, a star merely in our own firmament, but a central sun, whose light and heat, in the revolutions of the world's political system, are for every zone and every people. Other men participated more largely in the contests of the Revolution; but none understood better the principles on which it was waged, or sought more zealously to secure its advantages through the theory of human equality as the basis of the equality and sovereignty of the States. In the catalogue of great names, Washington is first. Exhibiting a patriotism loyal and unselfish, a wisdom circumspect and practical, he was always a leader, because the instincts of men discovered in him a greatness far superior to that of others; and they consequently yielded a willing obedience to his authority. After Washington are many whom we can neither compare nor contrast. Each had a record that cannot die; each had a life that "Closed without a cloud. They set as sets the morning star, which goes But melts away into the light of heaven." In Jefferson was combined a high order of political philosophy, with profound, sagacious, far-seeing statesmanship. The cardinal idea of the nationality which he encouraged and cherished is the equality of all men by nature and before the law, as the basis on which the States, as independent sovereignties, are associated together for mutual protection, but without the right anywhere to op |
