of Independence, in which "all men were pronounced to be equal, and endowed by their Maker with inalienable rights." No concession of rights to the negro or to the Indian-to the black man or to the red man, was mentioned. The statesmen wisely discarded the Declaration of Independence as a mere political manifesto which had served its purpose; and they proceeded to establish safeguards against the ambition of public functionaries and against the capricious decisions of the sovereign people.

In the construction of the Constitution differences of opinion arose as to the proper distribution of political power. Alexander Hamilton contended for safeguards against the aggressive encroachments of the poorest class, while Jefferson supported the claims of the popular party. In this contest the opinions of Jefferson prevailed, and subsequently, when he became President of the United States, he contributed still further to develop the principles of the democratic government.

It was the fortune of Jefferson to be present at the birth of two republics: in America and in France. The statesmen of America, while they retained the local administration of the provincial legislatures, united the several states in a Federal Government, which they framed upon a pattern in some respects analogous to the Constitution of the Mother Country. Their political arrangements displayed much practical wisdom; and although further experience has brought to light many defects, yet the result was successful in the establishment of communities destined eventually to become a free and powerful commonwealth.

The politicians of France rejecting all past experience boasted that they would regenerate the civilized world on the principles of the rights of man, of fraternity, and equality. The result ended in military despotism and in the failure of their lofty aspirations. Jefferson, writing on the condition of France, towards the close of his own life, expressed his sorrow

that the Republic had ended in despotism, and that, after millions of lives had been sacrificed in war, with all its attendant miseries, the fabric of Liberty was in ruins, and the odious monarchs remained sitting in triumph on their re-established thrones.

The correspondence of Jefferson has fortunately been preserved, and we can now compare the condition of a democratic community, which has endured for a hundred years, with the confident predictions of a man who was the chief author of the existing Constitution.

Jefferson had an unhesitating faith in the perfectibility of mankind through the operation of democratic institutions. He believed that kings and aristocracies were the only obstacles to the development of human virtue, and that the moral nature of man, when emancipated from these vicious tyrants, would be at once renovated and purified in the atmosphere of freedom. He could only speak of kings as

pestilent monsters, and the words of Voltaire's tragedy would exactly represent his sentiments,

Je suis fils de Brutus, et je porte en mon cœur

La liberté gravée, et les rois en horreur."

So deeply impressed was he with the dangerous and immoral influence of kingly governments and of aristocratic society, that he objected to young Americans visiting Europe,

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lest," as he says, "they should acquire the taste for luxury and dissipation prevalent in the capitals of the Old World."

In another letter, he contrasts "the voluptuous dress and arts of European women with the chaste affections and inartificial manners which would be found in the United States."

Contemplating in his imagination American society in future years as a perpetual feast of intellectual pleasure and of unalloyed virtue, Jefferson ventured to predict: “No man living will ever see an instance of an American removing to settle in Europe, while we shall

see multiplied instances of Europeans going to live in America."

It is amusing to read this prediction by the light of recent days. Whilst few Europeans settle in America, unless driven there by lack of money or of character, many Americans flocked to the cities of Europe, and specially selected Paris as their home, not during its Republican rule, but while it was the seat of Imperial power. Educated Americans gladly escaped from the vulgar monotony of a community absorbed in money-making, to a capital which, after many convulsions, still retained traces of its traditional culture and refinement.

Jefferson seems to have believed that the establishment of a republic would at once. resuscitate the primitive society which he had studied in the school-room; and that the new world would again behold the matronly pride of a Cornelia, the rustic frugality of a Cincinnatus, and the unimpeachable integrity of a Fabricius.