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one of the ablest performances which had crossed the Atlantic. It expresses the boldest and most elevated sentiments in the most vigorous language; and might have taught in its tone what it taught in its doctrine, that America must be unoppressed, or must become independent. Among Mr. Jefferson's first productions was, in like manner, a political essay, entitled, "A Summary View of the Rights of British America." It contains a near approach to the ideas and language of the Declaration of Independence; and its bold spirit, and polished, but at the same time, powerful execution, are known to have had their effect in causing its author to be designated for the high trusts confided to him in the Continental Congress. At a later period of life, Mr. Jefferson became the author of "Notes on Virginia," a work equally admired in Europe and America; and Mr. Adams of the Defence of the American Constitution," a performance that would do honor to the political literature of any country. But in enumerating their literary productions, it must be remembered that they were both employed, the greater part of their lives, in the active duties of public service; and that the fruits of their intellect are not to be sought in the systematic volumes of learned leisure, but in the archives of state, and in a most extensive public and private correspondence.

The professional education of these distinguished statesmen had been in the law, and was therefore such as peculiarly fitted them for the contest in which they were to act as leaders. The law of England, then the law of America, is closely connected with the history of the liberty of England. Many of the questions at issue between the Parliament of Great Britain and the colonies were questions of constitutional, if not of common law. For the discussion of these questions, the legal profession, of course, furnished the best preparation. In general, the contest was, happily for the colonies, at first forensic; a contest of discussion and debate; affording time and opportunity to diffuse throughout the people, and stamp deeply on their minds, the great principles which, having first been triumphantly sustained in the argument, were then to be confirmed in the field. This required the training of the patriot lawyer, and this was the office which, in that ca

pacity, was eminently discharged by Jefferson and Adams, to the doubtful liberties of their country. The cause in which they were engaged abundantly repaid the service and the hazard. It gave them precisely that breadth of view and elevation of feeling which the technical routine of the profession is too apt to destroy. Their practice of the law soon passed from the narrow litigation of the courts to the great forum of contending empires. It was not nice legal fictions they were there employed to balance, but sober realities of indescribable weight. The life and death of their country was the all-important issue. Nor did the service of their country afterwards afford them leisure for the ordinary practice of their profession. Mr. Jefferson indeed, in 1776 and 1777, was employed, with Wythe and Pendleton, in an entire revision of the code of Virginia; and Mr. Adams was offered, about the same time, the first seat on the bench of the Superior Court of his native State. But each was shortly afterwards called to a foreign mission, and spent the rest of the active years of his life, with scarce an interval, in the political service of his country.

Such was the education and quality of these men, when the Revolutionary contest came on. In 1774, and on June 17th-a day destined to be in every way illustriousMr. Adams was elected a member of the Continental Congress, of which body he was from the first a distinguished leader. In the month of June in the following year, when a commander-in-chief was to be chosen for the American armies, and when that appointment seemed in course to belong to the commanding general of the army from Massachusetts and the neighboring States which had rushed to the field, Mr. Adams recommended George Washington to that all-important post, and was thus far the means of securing his guidance to the American armies. In August, 1775, Mr. Jefferson took his seat in the Continental Congress, preceded by the fame of being one of the most accomplished and powerful champions of the cause, though among the youngest members of that body. It was the wish of Mr. Adams, and probably of Mr. Jefferson, that independence should be declared in the fall of 1775; but the country seemed not then ripe for the meas

ure.

At length the accepted time arrived. In May, 1776, the colonies, on the proposition of Mr. Adams, were invited by the General Congress to establish their several State governments. On June 7th the resolution of independence was moved by Richard Henry Lee. On the 11th a committee of five was chosen to announce this resolution to the world; and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams stood at the head of this committee. From their designation by ballot to this most honorable duty, their prominent standing in the Congress might alone be inferred. In their amicable contention and deference each to the other of the great trust of composing the all-important document, we witness their patriotic disinterestedness and their mutual respect. This trust devolved on 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 right, destined, or, rather, let me say, already elevated, to an importance, in the estimation of men, equal to anything human ever borne on parchment or expressed in the visible signs of thought-this is the glory of Thomas Jefferson. To have been among the first of those who foresaw and broke the way for this great consummation; to have been the mover of numerous decisive acts, its undoubted precursors; to have been among many able and generous spirits united in this perilous adventure, by acknowledgment unsurpassed in zeal, and unequaled in ability; to have been exclusively associated with the author of the Declaration; and then, with a fervid and overwhelming eloquence, to have taken the lead in inspiring the Congress to adopt and proclaim it-this is the glory of John Adams.

Nor was it among common and inferior minds that these men were pre-eminent. In the body that elected Mr. Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence, there were other men of great ability. Franklin was a member of it, a statesman of the highest reputation in

Europe and America, and especially master of a most pure, effective English style of writing. And Mr. Adams was pronounced by Mr. Jefferson himself the ablest advocate of independence, in a Congress which could boast among its members such men as Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and our own Samuel Adams. They were great and among great men; mightiest among the mighty; and enjoyed their lofty standing in a body of which half the members might with honor have presided over the deliberative councils of a nation.

Glorious as their standing in this council of sages has proved, they beheld the glory only in distant vision, while the prospect before them was shrouded in darkness and terror. "I am not transported with enthusiasm," is the language of Mr. Adams, the day after the resolution was adopted. "I am well aware of the toil, the treasure, and the blood it will cost, to maintain this declaration, to support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see a ray of light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means." Nor was it the rash adventure of uneasy spirits, who had everything to gain, and nothing to risk, by their enterprise. They left all for their country's sake. Who does not see that Adams and Jefferson might have risen to any station in the British empire open to natives of a colony? They might have stood within the shadow of the throne which they shook to its base. It was in the full understanding of their all but desperate choice that they chose for their country. Many were the inducements which called them to another choice. The voice of authority; the array of an empire's power; the pleadings of friendship; the yearning of their hearts towards the land of their fathers' sepulchres-the land which the great champions of constitutional liberty still made venerable; the ghastly vision of the gibbet, if they failed-all the feelings which grew from these sources were to be stifled and kept down, for a dearer treasure was at stake. They were anything but adventurers, anything but malcontents. They loved peace, order, and law; they loved a manly obedience to constitutional authority; but they loved freedom and their country more.

How shall I attempt to follow them through the succession of great events which a rare and kind Providence

crowded into their lives? How shall I attempt to enumerate the posts they filled and the trusts they discharged, both in the councils of their native States and of the confederation, both before and after the adoption of the Federal Constitution; the codes of law and systems of government they aided in organizing; the foreign embassies they sustained; the alliances with powerful states they contracted, when America was weak; the loans and subsidies they procured from foreign powers, when America was poor; the treaties of peace and commerce which they negotiated; their participation in the Federal Government on its organization, Mr. Adams as the first Vice-President, Mr. Jefferson as the first Secretary of State; their mutual possession of the confidence of the only man to whom his country accorded a higher place; and their successive administration of the Government, after his retirement? These are all laid up in the annals of the country; her achives are filled with the productions of their fertile and cultivated minds; the pages of her history are bright with their achievements; and the welfare and happiness of America pronounce, in one general eulogy, the just encomium of their services.

Nor need we fear to speak of their political dissensions. If they who opposed each other, and arrayed the nation, in their arduous contention, were able in the bosom of private life to forget their former struggles, we surely may contemplate them, even in this relation, with calmness. Of the counsels adopted, and the measures pursued, in the storm of political warfare, I presume not to speak. I knew these great men, not as opponents, but as friends to each other, not in the keen prosecution of a political controversy, but in the cultivation of a friendly correspondence. As they respected and honored each other, I respect and honor both. Time, too, has removed the foundation of their dissensions. The principles on which they contended are settled, some in favor of one, and some in favor of the other. The great foreign interests which lent ardor to the struggle have happily lost their hold on the American people; and the politics of the country now turn on questions not agitated in their days. Meantime, I know not whether, if we had it in our power to choose between the recollection of these revered men

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