Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4
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Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4
Editor: Charles F. Horne
Release date: August 27, 2008 [eBook #26424]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN. VOL. 4 ***
Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has
been maintained.
Captions marked with [TN] have been added while producing this file.]
[Illustration: The Berlin Conference.]
GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN
_A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of_
THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY
VOL. IV.
Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS
edited by Charles F. Horne
[Illustration: Publisher's arm.]
New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher
Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.
SUBJECT AUTHOR PAGE
JOHN ADAMS, _Edwin Williams_, 251
Letter from Adams to a friend
on the "Destiny of America," 252
LOUIS AGASSIZ, _Asa Gray_, 350
PRINCE VON BISMARCK, _Prince Outisky_, 385
SIMON BOLIVAR, _Hon. John P. St. John_, 306
EDMUND BURKE, _Dr. Heinrich Geffcken_, 226
JEAN FRANCOIS CHAMPOLLION, _Georg Ebers_, 311
GROVER CLEVELAND, _Clarence Cook_, 403
GEORGES CUVIER, _John Stoughton, D.D._, 287
CHARLES DARWIN, _Arch. Geikie, LL.D., F.R.S._, 355
BENJAMIN DISRAELI, _Harriet Prescott Spofford_, 370
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 231
LEON GAMBETTA, 363
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, _Justin McCarthy_, 377
HORACE GREELEY, _Noah Brooks_, 345
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, 265
PATRICK HENRY, _General Bradley T. Johnson_, 236
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, _Louis Agassiz_, 292
ANDREW JACKSON, _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_, 317
THOMAS JEFFERSON, _Hon. John B. Henderson_, 256
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, _Terence Vincent Powderly_, 338
WILLIAM MCKINLEY, _Rossiter Johnson_, 398
MARIA THERESA, _Anna C. Brackett_, 221
COUNT DE MIRABEAU, _Charles S. Hathaway_, 273
ISAAC NEWTON, _John Stoughton, D.D._, 211
DANIEL O'CONNELL, _Justin McCarthy_, 300
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL, _Thomas Davidson_, 395
JEAN HENRI PESTALOZZI, _Harriet Martineau_, 282
PETER THE GREAT, 215
MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE, 278
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD, _Hon. Charles E. Fitch_, 332
LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS, 360
GEORGE WASHINGTON, 242
_Letter from Washington to his adopted
daughter on the subject of "Love,"_ 250
DANIEL WEBSTER, _Rev. Dr. Tweedy_, 326
_Letter from Webster to his friend
Brigham on the "Choice of a Profession,"_ 331
WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND, 205
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME IV.
PHOTOGRAVURES
ILLUSTRATION ARTIST TO FACE PAGE
THE BERLIN CONFERENCE, _Anton von Werner_ _Frontispiece_
THE THIRD ESTATE TAKES REFUGE IN THE
TENNIS COURT, _Etienne Lucien Melingue_ 276
PESTALOZZI, THE CHILDREN'S FRIEND, _Konrad Grob_ 286
THE ENROLLMENT OF VOLUNTEERS, 1870, _Alfred Paul de
Richemont_ 368
BISMARCK BEFORE PARIS, _Ludwig Braun_ 390
WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES
COUNCIL OF WAR AFTER THE LANDING OF WILLIAM OF
ORANGE, _H. G. Glindoni_ 208
NEWTON ANALYZING THE RAY OF LIGHT, _Loudan_ 212
THE LIFE OF PETER THE GREAT SAVED AT
THE FOOT OF THE ALTAR, _Steuben_ 216
BURKE, JOHNSON, AND THEIR FRIENDS, _James E. Doyle_ 228
THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS TO
WASHINGTON, _Armand Dumaresq_ 246
ROBESPIERRE'S ARREST, _Francois Flameng_ 280
A. LINCOLN, 340
HAWARDEN CASTLE, THE HOME OF
GLADSTONE, _G. Montbard_ 378
GLADSTONE'S FIRST HOME RULE BILL, 382
PROCLAMATION OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE AT
VERSAILLES, _Anton von Werner_ 386
PARNELL TESTIFYING AGAINST THE
"TIMES," _Walter Wilson_ 396
PRESIDENT MCKINLEY TAKING THE OATH OF
OFFICE, _A. de Thulstrup_ 402
THE CEREMONY AT GROVER CLEVELAND'S
MARRIAGE, _A. de Thulstrup_ 406
WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND
(1650-1702)
[Illustration: William III. [TN]]
William, Prince of Orange, the third king of England of that name, born
November 14, 1650, was the posthumous son of William II., Prince of
Orange, and Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I. of England. The fortunes
of his childhood did not promise that greatness which he attained. His
father had been thought to entertain designs hostile to the liberties of
the United Provinces, and the suspicions of the father produced distrust
of the son. When Cromwell dictated terms of peace to the Dutch in 1654,
one of the articles insisted on the perpetual exclusion of the Prince of
Orange from all the great offices formerly held by his family; and this
sentence of exclusion was confirmed, so far as Holland was concerned,
thirteen years after, by the enactment of the Perpetual Edict, by which
the office of Stadtholder of Holland was forever abolished. The
restoration of the Stuarts, however, was so far favorable to the
interests of the House of Orange, as to induce the princess-royal to
petition, on her son's behalf, that he might be invested with the
offices and dignities possessed by his ancestors. The provinces of
Zealand, Friesland, and Guelderland warmly espoused her cause: even the
States of Holland engaged to watch over his education, "that he might be
rendered capable of filling the posts held by his forefathers." They
formally adopted him as "a child of the state," and surrounded him with
such persons as were thought likely to educate him in a manner suited to
his station in a free government.
A storm broke upon Holland just as William was ripening into manhood;
and discord at home threatened to aggravate the misfortunes of the
country. The House of Orange had again become popular; and a loud cry
was raised for the instant abolition of the Perpetual Edict, and for
installing the young prince in all the offices enjoyed by his ancestors.
The Republican party, headed by the De Witts, prevented this; but they
were forced to yield to his being chosen captain-general and
high-admiral. Many persons hoped that William's military rank and
prospects would incline his uncle Charles II. to make common cause with
the friends of liberty and independence; but the English monarch was the
pensioner of the French king, and France and England jointly declared
war against the States, April 7, 1672. The Dutch made large
preparations; but new troops could not suddenly acquire discipline and
experience. The enemy meditated, and had nearly effected, the entire
conquest of the country; the populace became desperate; a total change
of government was demanded; the De Witts were brutally massacred, and
William was invested with the full powers of stadtholder. His fitness
for this high office was soon demonstrated by the vigor and the wisdom
of his measures. Maestricht was strongly garrisoned; the prince of
Orange, with a large army, advanced to the banks of the Issel; the Dutch
fleet cruised off the mouth of the Thames, to prevent the naval forces
of England and France from joining. The following year, 1763, Louis XIV.
took Maestricht; while the Prince of Orange, not having forces
sufficient to oppose the French army, employed himself in retaking other
towns from the enemy. New alliances were formed; and the prince's
masterly conduct not only stopped the progress of the French, but forced
them to evacuate the province of Utrecht. In 1674 the English Parliament
compelled Charles II. to make peace with Holland. The Dutch signed
separate treaties with the Bishop of Munster and the Elector of Cologne.
The gallantry of the prince had so endeared him to the States of
Holland, that the offices of stadtholder and captain-general were
declared hereditary in his male descendants. Meanwhile he continued to
display both courage and conduct in various military operations against
the French. The battle of Seneffe was desperately fought. After sunset,
the conflict was continued by the light of the moon; and darkness,
rather than the exhaustion of the combatants, put an end to the contest,
and left the victory undecided. The veteran Prince of Conde gave a
candid and generous testimonial to the merit of his young antagonist:
"The Prince of Orange," said he, "has in every point acted like an old
captain, except in venturing his life too much like a young soldier."
In 1675 the sovereignty of Guelderland and of the county of Zutphen was
offered to William, with the title of duke, which was asserted to have
been formerly vested in his family. Those who entertained a bad opinion
of him, and attributed whatever looked like greatness in his character
to ambition rather than patriotism, insinuated that he was himself the
main-spring of this manifest intrigue. He had at least prudence enough
to deliberate on the offer, and to submit it to the judgment of the
States of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht. They viewed with jealousy the
aristocratic dignity, and he wisely refused it. This forbearance was
rewarded by the province of Utrecht, which adopted the precedent of
Holland, in voting the stadtholdership hereditary in the heirs-male of
his body.
The campaign of 1675 passed without any memorable event in the Low
Countries. In the following year hopes of peace were held out from the
meeting of a congress at Nimeguen; but the articles of peace were to be
determined rather by the events of the campaign than by the
deliberations of the negotiators. The French took Conde and several
other places; the Prince of Orange, bent on retaliation, sat down before
Maestricht, the siege of which he urged impetuously; but the masterly
movements of the enemy, and a scarcity of forage, frustrated his plans.
Aire had already been taken; the Duke of Orleans had made himself master
of Bouchain; Marshal Schomberg, to whom Louis had intrusted his army on
retiring to Versailles, was on the advance; and it was found expedient
to raise the siege of Maestricht. It was now predicted that the war in
Flanders would be unfortunate in its issue; but the Prince of Orange,
influenced by the mixed motives of honor, ambition, and animosity, kept
the Dutch Republic steady to the cause of its allies, and refused to
negotiate a separate peace with France. In October, 1677, he came to
England, and was graciously received by the king, his uncle. His
marriage with Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, was the object
of his visit. That event gave general satisfaction at the time; the
consequences which arose from it were unsuspected by the most
far-sighted. At first the king was disinclined to the match, then
neutral; and at last favorable, in the hope of engaging William to fall
in with his designs, and listen to the separate proposals of the French
monarch. The prince, on his part, was pleased with the prospect, because
he expected that the King of England would, at length, find himself
obliged to declare against Louis, and because he imagined that the
English nation would be more strongly engaged in his interest, and would
adopt his views with respect to the war. In this he was disappointed,
though the Parliament was determined on forcing the king to renounce his
alliance with Louis. But the States had gained no advantage commensurate
with the expense and danger of the contest in which they were engaged,
and were inclined to conclude a separate treaty. Mutual discontent among
the allies led to the dissolution of the confederacy, and a peace
advantageous to France was concluded at Nimeguen in 1678; but causes of
animosity still subsisted. The Prince of Orange, independent of
political enmity, had now personal grounds of complaint against Louis,
who deeply resented the zeal with which William had espoused the
liberties of Europe and resisted his aggressions. He could neither bend
so haughty a spirit to concessions, nor warp his integrity even by the
suggestions of his dominant passion, ambition. But it was in the power
of the French monarch to punish this obstinacy, and by oppressing the
inhabitants of the principality of Orange, to take a mean revenge on an
innocent people for the imputed offences of their sovereign. In addition
to other injuries, when the Duchy of Luxembourg was invaded by the
French troops, the commanding officer had orders to expose to sale all
the lands, furniture, and effects of the Prince of Orange, although they
had been conferred on him by a formal decree of the States of the
country. Whether to preserve the appearance of justice, or merely as an
insult, Louis summoned the Prince to appear before his Privy Council in
1682, by the title of _Messire Guillaume Comte de Nassau_, living at The
Hague in Holland. In the emergency occasioned by the probability of the
Dutch frontier being attacked in 1683, the Prince of Orange exerted all
his influence to procure an augmentation of the troops of the republic;
but he had the mortification to experience an obstinate resistance in
several of the States, especially in that of Holland, headed by the city
of Amsterdam. His coolness and steadiness, qualities invaluable in a
statesman, at length prevailed, and he was enabled to carry his measures
with a high hand.
The accession of James II. to the throne of Great Britain, in 1685, was
hailed as an opportunity for drawing closer both the personal friendship
and the political alliance between the stadtholder of the one country
and the king of the other; but a totally different result took place.
The headstrong violence of James brought about a coalition of parties to
resist him; and many of the English nobility and gentry concurred in an
application to the Prince of Orange for assistance. At this crisis,
William acted with such circumspection as befitted his calculating
character. The nation was looking forward to the prince and princess as
its only resource against tyranny, civil and ecclesiastical. Were the
presumptive heir to concur in the offensive measures, he must partake
with the king of the popular hatred. Even the continental alliances,
which William was setting his whole soul to establish and improve, would
become objects of suspicion to the English, and Parliament might refuse
to furnish the necessary funds. Thus by one course he might risk the
loss of a succession which was awaiting him; by an opposite conduct, he
might profit by the king's indiscretion, and even forestall the time
when the throne was to be his in the course of nature. The birth of a
son and heir, in June, 1688, seemed to turn the scale in favor of James;
but the affections of his people were not to be recovered; it was even
asserted that the child was supposititious. This event, therefore,
confirmed William's previous choice of the side which he was to take;
and his measures were well and promptly concerted. A declaration was
dispersed throughout Great Britain, setting forth the grievances of the
kingdom, and announcing the immediate introduction of an armed force
from abroad, for the purpose of procuring the convocation of a free
parliament. In a short time, full four hundred transports were hired;
the army rapidly fell down the rivers and canals from Nimeguen; the
artillery, arms, stores, and horses were embarked; and, on October 21,
1668, the prince set sail from Helvoetsluys, with a fleet of near five
hundred vessels, and an army of more than fourteen thousand men. He was
compelled to put back by a storm; but, on a second attempt, he had a
prosperous voyage, while the king's fleet was wind-bound. He arrived at
Torbay on November 4th, and disembarked on the 5th, the anniversary of
the gunpowder treason. The remembrance of Monmouth's ill-fated rebellion
prevented the western people from joining him; but at length several
persons of consideration took up the cause, and an association was
formed for its support. At this last hour James expressed his
readiness to make concessions; but it was too late, they were looked on
only as tokens of fear; the confidence of the people in the king's
sincerity was gone forever. But, how much soever his conduct deserved
censure, his distresses entitled him to pity. One daughter was the wife
of his opponent; the other threw herself into the hands of the
insurgents. In the agony of his heart the father exclaimed, "God help
me! my own children have forsaken me!" He sent the queen and infant
prince to France. Public affairs were in the utmost confusion, and
seemed likely to remain so while he stayed in the island. After many of
those perplexing adventures and narrow escapes which generally befall
dethroned royalty, he at length succeeded in embarking for the
continent.
[Illustration: Council of war after the landing of William of Orange.]
The prince issued circular letters for the election of members to a
convention, which met January 22, 1689. It appeared at once that the
House of Commons, agreeably to the prevailing sentiments both of the
nation and of those in present authority, was chiefly chosen from among
the Whig party. The throne was declared vacant by the following vote:
"That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the
constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between
king and people; and having, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked
persons, violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself out of the
kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby
vacant." By the national consent, the vacancy was supplied by his
daughter Mary and her husband William jointly.
The Prince of Orange lost no time in apprising the States-General of his
accession to the British throne. He assured them of his persevering
endeavors to promote the well-being of his native country, which he was
so far from abandoning, that he intended to retain his high offices in
it. War with France was renewed early in 1689 by the States, supported
by the house of Austria and some of the German princes; nor was it
difficult for William to procure the concurrence of the English
Parliament, when the object was the humiliation of France and her
arbitrary sovereign. In the spring of 1689, James landed in Ireland with
a French force, and was received by the Catholics with marks of strong
attachment. Marshal Schomberg was sent to oppose him, but was able to
effect little during the campaign of that year. William, in the
meantime, had been successful in suppressing a Jacobite insurrection in
Scotland, and embarked for Ireland with a reinforcement in the summer of
1690. He immediately marched against James, who was strongly posted on
the River Boyne. Schomberg passed the river in person, and put himself
at the head of a corps of French Protestants. Pointing to the enemy, he
said, "Gentlemen, behold your persecutors!" With these words he advanced
to the attack, but was killed by a random shot from the French
regiments. The death of this general was near proving fatal to the
English army; but William retrieved the fortune of the day, and totally
dispersed the opposite force. In this engagement the Irish lost 1,500
men, and the English about one-third of that number.
Disturbances again took place among the Jacobites in the Scotch
Highlands. A simultaneous insurrection was planned in both kingdoms,
while a descent from the French coast was to have divided the attention
of the friends of government; but the defeat of the French fleet near
Cape La Hogue, in 1692, frustrated this combined attempt, and relieved
the nation from the dread of civil war. In 1691 the king had placed
himself at the head of the Grand Alliance against France, of which he
had been the prime mover; he was, therefore, absent on the continent
during the dangers to which his new kingdom was exposed. His repeated
losses in the following campaigns rather impaired than enhanced his
military renown, though they increased his already high reputation for
personal courage. The death of Queen Mary, which took place early in
1695, proved a severe calamity, both to the king and the nation. She had
been a vigilant guardian of her husband's interests, which were
constantly exposed to hazard by the conflicts of party and by the
disadvantages under which he labored as a foreigner. In 1696 a congress
was opened at Ryswick, to negotiate a general peace; and William did not
interpose any obstacles. In the following year the treaty was concluded.
The King of Spain's death led to the last event of great importance in
William's reign. The powers of Europe had arranged plans to prevent the
accumulation of the Spanish possessions in the houses of Bourbon and
Austria; but the French king violated all his solemn pledges, by
accepting the deceased monarch's will in favor of his own grandson, the
Duke of Anjou. In consequence of this breach of faith, preparations were
made by England and Holland for a renewal of war with France; but a fall
from his horse prevented William from further pursuing his military
career, and the glory of reducing Louis XIV. within the bounds of his
own kingdom was left to be earned by the generals of Queen Anne. The
king was nearly recovered from the lameness consequent on his fall, when
fever supervened; and he died March 8, 1702, in the fifty-second year of
his age and thirteenth of his reign.
The character of King William has been drawn with all the exaggeration
of panegyric and obloquy by opposing partisans. His native country owes
him a lasting debt of gratitude, as the second founder of its liberty
and independence; and his adopted country is bound to uphold his memory,
as its champion and deliverer from civil and religious thraldom. In
short, the attachment of the English nation to constitutional rights and
liberal government may be measured by its adherence to the principles
established at the Revolution of 1688 and its just estimate of that
sovereign and those statesmen who placed the liberties of Great Britain
on a solid and lasting foundation.
ISAAC NEWTON
By JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.
(1642-1727)
[Illustration: Isaac Newton. [TN]]
As a literary philosopher, Bacon surpasses Newton; as an experimental
philosopher, Newton surpasses Bacon. Newton's works contain nothing in
point of style and illustration comparable to Bacon's essays; Bacon's
works contain nothing in point of scientific discovery and mathematical
calculation comparable to Newton's "Optics" and "Principia."
Newton has been the great glory of the Royal Society; and the Royal
Society is justly proud of its most illustrious ornament. He joined it
in January, 1674, when he was excused the ordinary payment of a shilling
a week, "on account of his low circumstances as he represented." In 1703
he was elected to the presidential chair, which he continued to occupy
until his death, in 1727. Characteristic mementoes of him are preserved
among the Royal Society's treasures. There is a solar dial made by the
boy Isaac, when, instead of studying his grammar and learning Virgil and
Horace, he was busy making windmills and water-clocks. We fancy we see
him going along the road to Grantham on a market day with the old
servant whom his mother sent to take care of him, and then stopping by
the wayside to watch the motions of a water-wheel, reflecting upon the
mechanical principles involved in the simplest contrivances. It is
pleasant, with our knowledge of what he afterward became, to sit down on
the green bank by the river side, and to speculate upon the ignorance of
the old servant who accompanied him, and of the farmers they saluted by
the way, as to the illustrious destiny which awaited the widow's son who
lived in the manor house of Woolsthorpe. The reflecting telescope,
preserved along with the dial, was made by Newton in his thirtieth year,
and reminds us of the deep mathematical studies he was then pursuing at
Cambridge. The autograph MS. of the "Principia," also in the possession
of the Royal Society, gives increased vividness to the picture of this
extraordinary person in his study, solving mysterious problems, and
suggesting others still more mysterious; and then the lock of silvery
hair adds the last touch to fancy's picture--like a stroke of the pencil
which, when a portrait is nearly complete, gives life and expression to
the whole.
Newton was portly but not tall, his silvery locks were abundant without
any baldness, and his eyes were sparkling and piercing, though perhaps
they failed to indicate the profound genius which through them looked
into the secrets of the universe. Wonderful humility blended with his
intellectual greatness. To other men he seemed a spirit of higher rank,
having almost superhuman faculties of mental vision, wont to soar into
regions which the vulture's eye hath never seen; to himself he was but a
boy playing with the shells on the seashore, while the ocean lay
undiscovered before him. Others were taken up with what Newton
accomplished, Newton was taken up with what remained to be done. So it
is ever with the highest genius; the broader the range of view, the
wider the horizon of mystery. He who understands more than others is
conscious beyond others of what still remains to be understood.
Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, on December 25,
1642, one year after the death of Galileo, and just as England was being
plunged into the confusion and miseries of civil war. Strange to say, as
a lad, at first he was inattentive to study; but being struck a severe
blow by a school-fellow, he strangely retaliated by determining to get
above him in the class, which he accomplished, and ere long became head
of the school. His play hours were employed in mechanical contrivances,
and a windmill in the course of erection on the Grantham road was an
object of intense curiosity and a source of immense instruction. He soon
had a windmill of his own, at the top of the house in which he lived. He
had also a water-clock in his bedroom, and a mechanical carriage in the
parlor, in which he could wheel himself. Paper kites and paper lanterns
were his favorite toys. In the yard of the house he traced on a wall the
movements of the sun by means of fixed pins; the contrivance received
the name of "Isaac's dial," and was a standard of time to the country
people in the neighborhood.
[Illustration: Newton analysing the ray of light.]
He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, June 5, 1660, just as England was
astir with restoration festivities, and he soon devoted himself to
mathematical studies. Euclid he took in at a glance, and afterward
proceeded to master Descartes's geometry. Isaac Barrow, then Lucasian
Professor of Mathematics, became his friend and tutor; and the pupil
repaid the master's kind attention by services rendered to him in
connection with his optical lectures. In 1669, Newton succeeded Barrow
in his professorship. He rose to eminence in the university, and in 1688
was chosen its representative in the Convention parliament. In 1695 he
was appointed Warden of the Mint, and was promoted to the Mastership in
1699. After his appointment to a government office he left Cambridge to
reside in London, and occupied for a time a house in Jermyn Street. From
1710 till two years before his death he lived close to Leicester Square.
Next door to Orange Street Chapel there stands an old house which has
seen a good many changes, and is identified as the abode of Sir Isaac,
who had been knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. We visited it many years
ago. The part of the house most intimately associated with his name is
the little observatory perched on the roof. We were permitted to ascend
into that spot, to see it desecrated by its present use, for there we
found a shoemaker busy at his toil. A glass cupola probably crowned
the observatory in Newton's time, and evidently there was a window in
each of the four walls. So here he looked out on the London of nearly a
century and a half ago, hardly less crowded and smoky about the
neighborhood than now. Overhead, where Newton turned his eyes with most
interest, we know it was just the same; the same beautiful stars shining
out on a cold winter's night, the same planets sailing along the same
blue ocean, the same moon throwing its light over the same old city.
What observations, keen and searching, what calculations, intricate and
profound, what speculations, far-reaching and sublime, must there have
been, when one of the most gifted of mortals from that spot looked out
upon the heavens, and in thought went forth on voyages of discovery into
the distant regions of the universe! At the calm, still hour of
midnight, Sirius watching over the city of sleepers, Jupiter carrying
his brilliant lamp along his ancient pathway, every one of the
luminaries in the place appointed by Him who calleth them all by their
names--there stood the thoughtful man, with his reflecting telescope,
occupied with thoughts which we common mortals in vain endeavor to
conjecture.
The first department in the field which Newton explored with
characteristic success was the study of optics. Philosophers were busy
with inquiries into the nature of light. It had been long believed that
every colored ray is equally refracted when passing through a lens.
Newton determined to analyze the prismatic hues. He made a hole in a
window-shutter, and darkening the room, let in a portion of light, which
he passed through a prism. The _white_ sunbeam formed a circular image
on the opposite wall, but the _prismatic colors_ formed an image five
times as long as it was broad. He was curious to know how this came to
pass. Satisfied that the length of the image in the latter case did not
arise from any irregularity in his glass, or from any differences in the
incidence of light from different parts of the sun's disk, or from any
curvature in the direction of the rays, he concluded, after thorough
reflection, that light is not _homogeneous_, but that it consists of
rays of diverse refrangibility. The red hue he saw was less refracted
than the orange, the orange less refracted than the yellow, and the
violet more than any of the rest. These important conclusions he applied
in the construction of the first reflecting telescope ever used in the
survey of the heavens, and an instrument is preserved in Trinity College
Library bearing the inscription, "Invented by Sir Isaac Newton, and made
with his own hands, 1671."
At the request of the Royal Society, he published in the "Transactions"
an account of his optical discoveries, and proved that white light is a
compound of seven prismatic colors.
Everybody is familiar with the story of Newton's watching the apple fall
from the tree. The tradition is fondly cherished on the spot where the
philosopher is said to have been struck by the fact. The _law_ by which
the apple falls, not the _reason_ which underlies the law, formed the
subject of Newton's reflections, and led to the grandest of modern
discoveries. The unknown cause of the apple's descent is the unknown
cause of the planet's motion. That was the truth, simple and grand,
which he brought to light and inculcated on the world. He undertook long
calculations which he expected would prove this theory, but they failed
to give the desired result. He consequently for a time desisted from the
inquiry and turned his attention to other subjects. The error in
Newton's first calculation arose from his taking the radius of the earth
according to the received notion that a degree measured sixty miles,
whereas Picard had determined it to be sixty-nine and a half miles. This
was mentioned at a meeting of the Royal Society in 1682, at which Newton
was present. "It immediately struck him that the value of the earth's
radius was the erroneous element in his first calculation. With a
feverish interest in this result, little imagined by those present, he
hurried home, resumed his calculation with the new value, and having
proceeded some way in it, was so overpowered by nervous agitation at its
anticipated result, that he was unable to go on, and requested a friend
to finish it for him, when it came out, _exactly establishing the
inverse square_ as the true measure of the moon's gravitation, and thus
furnishing the key to the whole system." Hence proceeded Newton's
immortal work, the "Principia."
The sublimest conclusion which Newton drew from his cautious and
successful investigations of the laws of nature is put, with his
characteristic humility, in the form of a query: "These things being
rightly described, does it not appear from the phenomena that there is a
Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who, in infinite
space (as it were in His sensory), sees the things themselves
intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly
by their immediate presence to Himself?"
Newton spent his last days in Kensington. "I was, Sunday night," says
his nephew, "March 7, 1725, at Kensington, with Sir Isaac Newton in his
lodgings, just after he was come out of a fit of the gout, which he had
in both of his feet for the first time, in the eighty-third year of his
age. He was better after it, and had his health clearer and memory
stronger than I had known them for some years." A year later the same
diarist says: "April 15, 1726. I passed the whole day with Sir Isaac
Newton, at his lodgings, Orbell's Buildings, Kensington, which was the
last time I saw him." The house was lately in existence, situated in
what is called Bullingham Place, retaining, when we visited it, a
mansion-like aspect, with a large garden and tall trees. There he died,
March 20, 1727, having on the previous day been able to read the
newspaper and to hold a long conversation with Dr. Mead.
His body was laid in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and then buried in
Westminster Abbey.
PETER THE GREAT
(1672-1725)
[Illustration: Peter the Great. [TN]]
At the close of the sixteenth century, the dominions of Russia, or
Muscovy, as it was then more generally called, were far thrown back from
the more civilized nations of southern Europe, by the intervention of
Lithuania, Livonia, and other provinces now incorporated in the Russian
empire, but then belonging either to Sweden or Poland. The Czar of
Muscovy, therefore, possessed no political weight in the affairs of
Europe, and little intercourse existed between the court of Moscow and
the more polished potentates whom it affected to despise as barbarians,
even for some time after the accession of the reigning dynasty, the
house of Romanoff, in 1613, and the establishment of a more regular
government than had previously been known. We only read occasionally of
embassies being sent to Moscow, in general for the purpose of arranging
commercial relations. From this state of insignificance, Peter, the
first Emperor of Russia, raised his country, by introducing into it the
arts of peace, by establishing a well-organized and disciplined army in
the place of a lawless body of tumultuous mutineers, by creating a navy,
where scarce a merchant vessel existed before, and, as the natural
result of these changes, by important conquests on both the Asiatic and
European frontiers of his hereditary dominions. For these services his
countrymen bestowed on him, yet living, the title of Great; and it is
well deserved, whether we look to the magnitude of those services, the
difficulty of carrying into effect his benevolent designs, which
included nothing less than the remodelling a whole people, or the grasp
of mind and the iron energy of will, which were necessary to conceive
such projects and to overcome the difficulties which beset them. It will
not vitiate his claim to the epithet that his manners were coarse and
boisterous, his amusements often ludicrous and revolting to a polished
taste; if that claim be questionable, it is because he who aspired to be
the reformer of others was unable to control the violence of his own
passions.
The Czar Alexis, Peter's father, was actuated by somewhat of the spirit
which so distinguished the son. He endeavored to introduce the European
discipline into his armies; he had it much at heart to turn the
attention of the Russians to maritime pursuits; and he added the fine
provinces of Plescow and Smolensko to his paternal dominions. At the
death of Alexis, in 1677, Peter was but five years old. His eldest
brother Theodore succeeded to the throne. Theodore died after a reign of
five years, and named Peter his successor, passing over the second
brother, Ivan, who was weak-minded. Their ambitious sister, Sophia,
stirred the strelitzi, or native militia, to revolt in favor of Ivan,
and Peter and his mother had to take refuge in the Troitski convent.
This retreat being discovered, they were driven for protection to the
church altar itself, where the religion or superstition of the wild
soldiery saved the intended victims. We pass in silence over the
remaining intrigues and insurrections which troubled the young czar's
minority. It was not until the close of the year 1689, in the eighteenth
year of his age, that he finally shook off the trammels of his ambitious
sister, and assumed in reality, as well as in name, the direction of the
state. How he had been qualified for this task by education does not
clearly appear; but even setting aside the stories which attribute to
his sister the detestable design of leading him into all sorts of
excess, and especially drunkenness, with the hope of ruining both his
constitution and intellect, it is probable that no pains whatever had
been taken to form his intellect or manners for the station which he was
to occupy. One of the few anecdotes told of his early life is, that
being struck by the appearance of a boat on the river Yausa, which runs
through Moscow, and noticing it to be of different construction from the
flat-bottomed vessels commonly in use, he was led to inquire into the
method of navigating it. It had been built for the Czar Alexis by a
Dutchman, who was still in Moscow. He was immediately sent for; he
rigged and repaired the boat, and under his guidance the young prince
learned how to sail her, and soon grew passionately fond of his new
amusement. He had five small vessels built at Plescow, on the lake
Peipus; and not satisfied with this fresh-water navigation, hired a ship
at Archangel, in which he made a voyage to the coast of Lapland. In
these expeditions his love of sailing was nourished into a passion which
lasted through life. He prided himself upon his practical skill as a
seaman; and both at this time and afterward exposed himself and his
friends to no small hazard by his rashness in following this favorite
pursuit.
[Illustration: The life of Peter the Great saved at the foot of the
altar.]
The first serious object of Peter's attention was to reform the army. In
this he was materially assisted by a Swiss gentleman named Lefort; at
whose suggestion he raised a company of fifty men, who were clothed and
disciplined in the European manner, the Russian army at that time being
little better than a tribe of Tartars. As soon as the little corps was
formed, Peter caused himself to be enrolled in it as a private soldier.
It is a remarkable trait in the character of the man, that he thought no
condescension degrading which forwarded any of his ends. In the army he
entered himself in the lowest rank, and performed successively the
duties of every other; in the navy he went still further, for he
insisted on performing the menial duties of the lowest cabin-boy, rising
step by step, till he was qualified to rate as an able seaman. Nor was
this done merely for the sake of singularity; he had resolved that
every officer of the sea or land service should enter in the lowest rank
of his profession, that he might obtain a practical knowledge of every
task or manoeuvre which it was his duty to see properly executed; and he
felt that his nobility might scarcely be brought to submit to what in
their eyes would be a degradation, except by the personal example of the
czar himself. Meanwhile he had not been negligent of the other arm of
war; for a number of Dutch and Venetian workmen were employed in
building gunboats and small ships of war at Voronitz, on the river Don,
intended to secure the command of the Sea of Azof, and to assist in
capturing the strong town of Azof, then held by the Turks. The
possession of this place was of great importance, from its situation at
the mouth of the Don, commanding access to the Mediterranean Sea. His
first military attempts were accordingly directed against it, and he
succeeded in taking it in 1696.
In the spring of the ensuing year, the empire being tranquil and the
young czar's authority apparently established on a safe footing, he
determined to travel into foreign countries, to view with his own eyes,
and become personally and practically familiar with the arts and
institutions of refined nations. There was a grotesqueness in his manner
of executing this design, which has tended, more probably than even its
real merit, to make it one of the common-places of history. Every child
knows how the Czar of Muscovy worked in the dock-yard of Saardam in
Holland, as a common carpenter. In most men this would have been
affectation; and perhaps there was some tinge of that weakness in the
earnestness with which Peter handled the axe, obeyed the officers of the
dock-yard, and in all points of outward manners and appearance, put
himself on a level with the shipwrights who were earning their daily
bread. It seems, however, to have been the turn of Peter's mind always
to begin at the beginning; a sound maxim, though here, perhaps, pushed
beyond reasonable bounds. And his abode and occupations in Holland
formed only part of an extensive plan. On quitting Russia he sent sixty
young Russians to Venice and Leghorn to learn ship-building and
navigation, and especially the construction and management of galleys
moved by oars, which were so much used by the Venetian republic. Others
he sent into Holland, with similar instructions; others into Germany, to
study the art of war, and make themselves well acquainted with the
discipline and tactics of the German troops. So that while his personal
labor at Saardam may have been stimulated in part by affectation of
singularity, in part, perhaps, by a love of bodily exertion common in
men of his busy and ardent temper, it would be unjust not to give him
credit for higher motives; such as the desire to become thoroughly
acquainted with the art of ship-building, which he thought so important,
and to set a good example of diligence to those whom he had sent out on
a similar voyage of education.
Peter remained nine months in Holland, the greatest part of which he
spent in the dock-yard of Saardam. He displayed unwearied zeal in
seeking out and endeavoring to comprehend everything of interest in
science and art, especially in visiting manufactories. In January, 1698,
he sailed for London in an English man-of-war, sent out expressly to
bring him over. His chief object was to perfect himself in the higher
branches of ship-building. With this view he occupied Mr. Evelyn's
house, adjoining the dock-yard of Deptford; and there remain in that
gentleman's journal some curious notices of the manners of the czar and
his household, which were of the least refined description. During his
stay he showed the same earnestness in inquiring into all things
connected with the maritime and commercial greatness of the country, as
before in Holland; and he took away nearly five hundred persons in his
suite, consisting of naval captains, pilots, gunners, surgeons, and
workmen in various trades, especially those connected with the naval
service. In England, without assuming his rank, he ceased to wear the
attire and adopt the habits of a common workman; and he had frequent
intercourse with William III., who is said to have conceived a strong
liking for him, notwithstanding the uncouthness of his manners. Kneller
painted a portrait of him for the king, which is said to have been a
good likeness.
He left London in April, 1698, and proceeded to Vienna, principally to
inspect the Austrian troops, then esteemed among the best in Europe. He
had intended to visit Italy; but his return was hastened by the tidings
of a dangerous insurrection having broken out, which, though suppressed,
seemed to render a longer absence from the seat of government
inexpedient. The insurgents were chiefly composed of the Russian
soldiery, abetted by a large party who thought everything Russian good,
and hated and dreaded the czar's innovating temper. Of those who had
taken up arms, many were slain in battle; the rest, with many persons of
more rank and consequence, suspected of being implicated in the revolt,
were retained in prison until the czar himself should decide their fate.
Numerous stories of his extravagant cruelties on this occasion have been
told, which may safely be passed over as unworthy of credit. It is
certain, however, that considerable severity was shown. This
insurrection led to the complete remodelling of the Russian army, on the
same plan which had already been partially adopted.
During the year 1699 the czar was chiefly occupied by civil reforms.
According to his own account, as published in his journal, he regulated
the press, caused translations to be published of various treatises on
military and mechanical science and history; he founded a school for the
navy; others for the study of the Latin, German, and other languages; he
encouraged his subjects to cultivate foreign trade, which before they
had absolutely been forbidden to do under pain of death; he altered the
Russian calendar, in which the year began on September 1st, to agree in
that point with the practice of other nations; he broke through the
Oriental custom of not suffering women to mix in general society; and he
paid sedulous attention to the improvement of his navy on the river Don.
We have the testimony of Mr. Deane, an English ship-builder, that the
czar had turned his manual labors to good account, who states in a
letter to England, that "the czar has set up a ship of sixty guns, where
he is both foreman and masterbuilder; and, not to flatter him, I'll
assure your lordship it will be the best ship among them, and it is all
from his own draught: how he framed her together, and how he made the
moulds, and in so short a time as he did, is really wonderful."
He introduced an improved breed of sheep from Saxony and Silesia;
despatched engineers to survey the different provinces of his extensive
empire; sent persons skilled in metallurgy to the various districts in
which mines were to be found; established manufactories of arms, tools,
stuffs; and encouraged foreigners skilled in the useful arts to settle
in Russia, and enrich it by the produce of their industry.
We cannot trace the progress of that protracted contest between Sweden
and Russia, in which the short-lived greatness of Sweden was broken: we
can only state the causes of the war and the important results to which
it led. Peter's principal motive for engaging in it was his leading wish
to make Russia a maritime and commercial nation. To this end it was
necessary that she should be possessed of ports, of which, however, she
had none but Archangel and Azof, both most inconveniently situated, as
well in respect of the Russian empire itself, as of the chief commercial
nations of Europe. On the waters of the Baltic Russia did not possess a
foot of coast. Both sides of the Baltic, both sides of the Gulf of
Finland, the country between the head of that gulf and the Lake Ladoga,
including both sides of the River Neva, and the western side of Lake
Ladoga itself, and the northern end of Lake Peipus, belonged to Sweden.
In the year 1700, Charles XII. being but eighteen years of age, Denmark,
Poland, and Russia, which had all of them suffered from the ambition of
Sweden, formed a league to repair their losses, presuming on the
weakness usually inherent in a minority. The object of Russia was the
restoration of the provinces of Ingria, Carelia, and Wiborg, the country
round the head of the Gulf of Finland, which formerly had belonged to
her; that of Poland, was the recovery of Livonia and Esthonia, the
greater part of which had been ceded by her to Charles XI. of Sweden.
Denmark was to obtain Holstein and Sleswick. But Denmark and Poland very
soon withdrew, and left Russia to encounter Sweden single-handed. To
this she was entirely unequal; her army, the bulk of it undisciplined,
and even the disciplined part unpractised in the field, was no match for
the veteran troops of Sweden, the terror of Germany. In the battle of
Narva, a town on the river which runs out of the Peipus Lake, fought
November 30, 1700, 9,000 Swedes defeated signally near forty thousand
Russians, strongly intrenched and with a numerous artillery. Had Charles
prosecuted his success with vigor, he might probably have delayed for
many years the rise of Russia; but whether from contempt or mistake he
devoted his whole attention to the war in Poland, and left the czar at
liberty to recruit and discipline his army, and improve the resources of
his kingdom. In these labors he was most diligent. His troops, practised
in frequent skirmishes with the Swedes quartered in Ingria and Livonia,
rapidly improved, and on the celebrated field of Pultowa broke forever
the power of Charles XII. This decisive action did not take place until
July 8, 1709. The interval was occupied by a series of small, but
important additions to the Russian territory. In 1701-2, great part of
Livonia and Ingria were subdued, including the banks of the Neva, where
on May 27, 1703, the city of St. Petersburg was founded. It was not till
1710 that the conquest of Courland, with the remainder of Livonia,
including the important harbors of Riga and Revel, gave to Russia that
free navigation of the Baltic Sea which Peter had longed for as the
greatest benefit which he could confer upon his country.
After the battle of Pultowa Charles fled to Turkey, where he continued
for some years, shut out from his own dominions, and intent chiefly on
spiriting the Porte to make war on Russia. In this he succeeded; but
hostilities were terminated almost at their beginning by the battle of
the Pruth, fought July 20, 1711, in which the Russian army, not
mustering more than forty thousand men, and surrounded by five times
that number of Turks, owed its preservation to Catherine, first the
mistress, at this time the wife, and finally the acknowledged partner
and successor of Peter on the throne of Russia. By her coolness and
prudence, while the czar, exhausted by fatigue, anxiety, and
self-reproach, was laboring under nervous convulsions, to which he was
liable throughout life, a treaty was concluded with the vizier in
command of the Turkish army, by which the Russians preserved indeed
life, liberty, and honor, but were obliged to resign Azof, to give up
the forts and burn the vessels built to command the sea bearing that
name, and to consent to other stipulations, which must have been very
bitter to the hitherto successful conqueror. Returning to the seat of
government, his foreign policy for the next few years was directed to
breaking down the power of Sweden, and securing his new metropolis by
prosecuting his conquests on the northern side of the Gulf of Finland.
Here he was entirely successful; and the whole of Finland itself, and of
the gulf, fell into his hands. These provinces were secured to Russia by
the peace of Nieustadt, in 1721. Upon this occasion the senate or state
assembly of Russia requested him to assume the title of Emperor of all
the Russias, with the adjunct of Great, and Father of his Country.
If our sketch of the latter years of Peter's life appears meagre and
unsatisfactory, it is to be recollected that the history of that life is
the history of a great empire, which it would be vain to condense within
our limits, were they greater than they are. Results are all that we are
competent to deal with. From the peace of Nieustadt, the exertions of
Peter, still unremitting, were directed more to consolidate and improve
the internal condition of the empire, by watching over the changes which
he had already made, than to effect farther conquests, or new
revolutions in policy or manners. He died February 8, 1725, leaving no
surviving male issue. Some time before he had caused the Empress
Catherine to be solemnly crowned and associated with him on the throne,
and to her he left the charge of fostering those schemes of civilization
which he had originated.
MARIA THERESA[1]
By ANNA C. BRACKETT
(1717-1780)
[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Maria Theresa. [TN]]
Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, was born May 13, 1717, daughter
of Charles VI. of the house of Hapsburg--ruling Austria for more than
four hundred years--and of Elizabeth of Brunswick. From her father she
inherited the "deadly Hapsburg tenacity," and from her mother much good
sense and capacity for managing affairs, all of which stood her in good
stead. She was especially fortunate in three things: that she lived in
the time of Frederick the Great of Prussia, for thus she had given to
her a chance to know of what stuff she was made; that she did not marry
him, as was proposed by the great Eugene; and that she did not live to
see the beautiful head of her daughter, Marie Antoinette, fall under the
guillotine. Though the court of Charles VI. rivalled in ceremonial
observance that of Spain, the little archduchess was reared in almost
Spartan simplicity of dress and food. From Jesuit text-books she learned
her history and geography, and she spoke several languages, none of
which, however, could she ever write or spell quite correctly. But
chiefly she was taught the pre-eminent dignity and power of the
Hapsburgs, and the necessary indivisibility of the Austrian state. She
learned to hunt, to shoot, and to dance, and at suppers of state she and
her little sister were sometimes allowed to present to their stately
mother her gloves and fan when the emperor rose. She had an aversion to
business and great diffidence of her own capacity, and though the
emperor took her to the council of state at the time of the Polish
election, when she was only sixteen, he yet failed to give her any real
knowledge of the commonest forms of business. In this austere court,
never seeing a smile on her father's face, she grew up, "the prettiest
little maiden in the world," to a radiant woman, heir-expectant to the
throne by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, an order of state by means
of which the Emperor Charles VI. had undertaken to settle the Austrian
succession.
At nineteen she was "beautiful to soul and eye," tall and slight, with
brilliant complexion, sparkling gray eyes, and a profusion of golden
wavy hair. She had an aquiline nose,--strange to say for a Hapsburg, an
exceedingly lovely mouth,--and very beautiful hands and arms. Her voice
was sharp but musical, and her quick speech and animated gestures
betrayed an ardent and impetuous nature, though she never lost her high
and dignified bearing. Her anger was easily roused, but never lasted
long, especially when a fault had been committed against herself, and
when she knew that she had been too angry she tried to atone by
overflowing kindness. She needed only to be convinced that a thing was
wrong, to give it up. Whatever she did she did with her whole heart, and
gratitude was one of her strongest characteristics. Withal she kept a
constant and steadfast soul, and her nature was delicate and refined;
she was a worthy sister of Isabella of Castile. At nineteen, largely
through her own persistence, she escaped being made a sacrifice to the
political needs of Austria in being given to the heir of Philip V. of
Spain, and married the man of her choice, Francis Stephen, the grandson
of that Duke of Lorraine who, in 1683, together with John Sobieski, King
of Poland, had saved Vienna from the Turks. Her husband was of comely
person and suave manners, kind-hearted, though not strong nor brilliant.
To him she bore five sons and eleven daughters. She was looking forward
to the birth of her eldest son, when, at the age of twenty-three,
October 20, 1740, she was proclaimed by the heralds Sovereign
Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, for her father lay
dead in Vienna, and all the cares and anxieties of government had fallen
upon her shoulders. Austria was not one nation, but composed of many
differing and scattered peoples jealous of their ancient rights, among
whom there could be no sense of unity, and in his many disastrous wars
her father had lost several of its possessions. There was the depression
of defeat and mismanagement among the state-counsellors, there were only
$65,000 in the treasury, and an army of but 68,000 soldiers. The powers
that had given in their adhesion to the Pragmatic Sanction were tardily
and but half acknowledging her succession, and from France she could get
nothing but dissimulation and uncertainty. On November 1st the young
royal wife was joyfully and peacefully creating her husband Grand Master
of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and co-regent, and conferring upon
him the Bohemian electoral vote. In less than six weeks from that day
the Elector of Bavaria had laid formal claim to her throne, Frederick of
Prussia had marched his troops into Silesia, one of her finest
provinces, calling it his own, and the war of the Austrian Succession
was on for seven long years; for the high, heroic heart would not yield
one inch, and the sovereign ruler of Austria had met with fine Hapsburg
scorn the insulting proposition of the King of Prussia that he would
gladly support her right to the throne of her ancestors, provided she
would resign to his obliging majesty the whole of Silesia.
The aged counsellors who took it upon themselves to dictate to the young
and inexperienced ruler soon found out their mistake. The little girl
who had displayed an aversion for business was now a woman with talent
for its details, only eager for instruction in order to make up her own
mind. The army must be increased and improved, and the people aroused to
enthusiasm, if Frederick was to be checked. And it was not Frederick
alone that was to be feared, for a great coalition of European powers
was formed against her, and she had but England and Saxony to depend on
for help, while the enemy was already within her dominions. March 13,
1741, her son Joseph was born, and by September 11th the young mother
was in Hungary to urge its people to come to the aid of the threatened
country in its extremity. In deep mourning and still pale and delicate,
holding the little archduke in her arms, her appeal to the Hungarian
nobles roused them to lofty enthusiasm and gained their unswerving
devotion. She never forgot this, and when she lay dying, spoke of them
with grateful affection. The war went on with varying fortunes, but she
kept heart and hope, though by the end of 1741 the powers were plotting
the partition of Austria as a probable event. By 1743 the luck had
changed; the Austrian army had redeemed itself, and Maria Theresa was
fancying that she should be able to conquer Prussia. It was about this
time that she began greatly to rely on Kaunitz, who afterward became
Prime Minister, and who shaped for all the after-years of her reign the
policy of her rule. The old ministers left her by her father were not
able to meet the new difficulties, and the sovereign was often in great
anxiety amid conflicting and hesitating counsels, for it was nothing
less than the very existence of the country that was at stake. She was
thirty-one years old when the war came to an end by the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, the particulars of which were entrusted to Kaunitz
while he was ambassador at London. By that treaty Maria Theresa gained
the final guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, though she had to cede
two of her Italian duchies to the Spanish Bourbons, and Glatz and the
much-desired Silesia to the "bad neighbor," as she always called
Frederick. She was twenty-eight when she had the pleasure of seeing her
husband elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, gaining as his wife
the title of empress, and being thus often spoken of as the
empress-queen.
The war was over, but she knew full well that it was only for a short
time, and she spent the eight years of restless peace that followed, in
the most unremitting efforts to enable her country to endure the next
attack. She had proved that she could create heroes out of common men;
she was now to extort praise even from Frederick of Prussia for
"accomplishing designs worthy of a great man." A military academy was
created at Vienna; order and economy were brought into the treasury and
the army; she established camps of instruction and went herself to visit
them, recompensing brave officers, calling forth abilities and
emulation. The Department of Justice was disjoined from that of the
Police, a superior court was established, and the direction of the
finances given to a special council, reporting every week to the
empress. She often consulted men who were not in office upon matters of
policy, and thus got many valuable suggestions. Meantime Kaunitz was
ambassador at Paris, and had been bending all his efforts to secure a
French alliance, which seemed to him of so much importance that he even
induced his royal mistress to write to the Pompadour with a view to
securing the influence of Louis XV. in the impending war. This was not
the only time that Maria Theresa sacrificed the woman in her to the
ruler, for though above all breath of scandal, and devotedly attached to
husband and children, she never forgot that she was Austria, and must
maintain her inheritance. Then came on the Seven Years' War, in which
she had as allies almost all Europe, though at its close she had to give
up the last hope of ever regaining Silesia, which was as dear to her as
Calais to Mary of England, Frederick agreeing to vote for Joseph as
successor to his father as emperor. It was in this war, after the
victory of Kolin, that she founded the military order of Maria Theresa,
the beautiful cross of which is still the highest and most coveted
Austrian decoration. At the end of the war she was forty-six years old,
and it was only two years after, August 18, 1765, that she herself made
the shroud for her husband, and put on the mourning which was to last
for fifteen years. Ever after that she spent in seclusion the whole
month of August and the 18th of every other month, thus breaking the
routine of her busy days. I give in brief the account of one of these:
Rising at five or six, according to the season, prayer, dressing,
hearing mass, breakfast, work till nine on petitions and reports, a
second mass, a visit to her children, more work till dinner at one, and
again work. This she was apt to do in a sentinel-guarded arbor to which
she would go from the palace, carrying despatches and papers in a tray
slung by a cord round her neck. Vespers at six, an evening card-party,
supper, a walk at eight, and then sleep. After the death of Francis she
made her son Joseph joint-ruler, but soon found herself obliged to limit
his authority to the care of the army. At fifty the small-pox greatly
marred her beauty, though she was now at the age when the constant
beauty of soul of her life shone fair on the lofty face. When she was
fifty-three she bade good-by to the little fifteen-years-old Marie
Antoinette, going, as she hoped, to assure the alliance of France, never
to see her again. To her for the rest of Maria Theresa's life, as to the
other married daughters, went a courier every three weeks with letters,
which have been preserved, and may still be read for knowledge of the
mother and empress. At fifty-five Maria Theresa became a party to the
partition of Poland, and because this transaction is regarded as a blot
upon her character, I give in full the words which she sent to Kaunitz
when she returned to him the signed agreement. She was then fifty-five
years old, and keen memories of 1741 and of her young life must have
stirred the trembling pen as she wrote on it: "_Placet_, because so many
great and learned men wish it; but when I have been long dead, people
will see what must come from the violation of everything that until now
has been deemed holy and right." And then on a slip of paper sent with
the document stood these words: "When all my countries were attacked,
and I no longer knew where I might go quietly to lie in, I stood stiff
on my good right and the help of God. But in this affair, when not only
clear justice cries to Heaven against us, but also all fairness and
common-sense condemn us, I must confess that all the days of my life I
have never felt so troubled, and I am ashamed to show myself before the
people. Let the prince consider what an example we give to the world,
when, for a miserable slice of Poland or of Moldavia and Wallachia, we
risk the loss of our honor and reputation. I feel that I am alone, and
no longer in health and strength; and therefore, although not without my
greatest sorrow I allow matters to take their own course."
The heaviest burdens and greatest trials of her life were now over. The
fruit of her careful plans was beginning to be reaped in prosperity, and
a long period of tranquillity had come. She turned all her attention to
reforms: academies were established, among others one for the education
of the Magyar noble youth in Vienna, that these might become the more
surely incorporated with the Austrian system. The public schools were
reconstituted, the monasteries reformed, and no longer allowed to
furnish asylums for criminals. Priests were forbidden to be present at
the making of wills, and the Inquisition was suppressed. Through most
convincing efforts on the part of Kaunitz, the Jesuits had been finally
expelled from the country. Agriculture, trade, and commerce were
encouraged, though by the advice of England the navy was given up.
Inoculation for the small-pox was introduced, and a hospital for its
treatment, as well as a home for veteran soldiers, built in Vienna. When
she was sixty, the war of the Bavarian Succession was happily ended, in
opposition to the will of Joseph, by her most untiring efforts.
Servitude and the torture had been abolished; the taxes, on a better
basis, were bringing in large returns; a standing army had been created,
the monarchy lifted and strengthened, and the court and the people stood
together against oppression from the aristocracy. Austria had been
carried from the Middle Ages into modern times, and was no longer a
conglomeration but a nation.
Maria Theresa had reached the age of sixty-three when the brave
religious spirit, over which flattery had had no power, was waiting in
pain and anguish but not in fear the hour of its release. The generous
and open hand could no longer give; the heart so keenly sensitive to
criticism was to dread it no more; the eyes that, as she had written to
Marie Antoinette, had shed so many relieving tears were nevermore to
need that relief. "You are all so timid," she said, "I am not afraid of
death. I only pray to God to give me strength to the end." She did not
forget Poland, she gratefully remembered Hungary, and then, with the
cry, "To Thee! I am coming!" she sank back dead, in the arms of the son
whom, as a little baby, she had held up in her brave arms to plead for
the loyalty of the Hungarian nobles. The high imperial heart had ceased
to beat, the house of Hapsburg had come to an end, and Joseph II., of
the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, was the sovereign ruler of Austria.
[Signature of the author.]
EDMUND BURKE[2]
By DR. HEINRICH GEFFCKEN
(1730-1797)
[Footnote 2: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Edmund Burke. [TN]]
Edmund Burke, the great British politician, and one of the greatest
political philosophers that ever lived, was born at Dublin, January 1,
1730, as son of a petty attorney. Conformably to the wishes of his
father, he began to study law in London, but found it so little
attractive that, encouraged by eminent men, particularly by Johnson, he
turned to literary pursuits. His first work, "Vindication of Natural
Society" (1756), which at once won him fame, is a keen satire on
Bolingbroke, showing that the attacks of that writer upon revealed
religion might as well be turned against all social and political
institutions. His reputation was still enhanced by the "Philosophical
Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful"
(1757); and at the same time he showed, by publishing "Dodd's Annual
Register," that he was equally gifted for politics. As a preliminary for
practical activity in that domain, he became private secretary of Gerard
Hamilton, the lieutenant-general's assistant for Ireland, but soon found
that his chief's smart mediocrity only wanted to turn to advantage the
secretary's scantily rewarded talent. He returned to London (1764), and
at once entered upon the political career in which he was to play so
eminent a part.
The Grenville ministry was dismissed and replaced by an administration
of rather heterogeneous elements, under Lord Rockingham, not a great
statesman, but combining unblemished character and solid gifts with rank
and wealth. Burke became his private secretary and influential adviser,
being at the same time elected a member for Wendover. Matters then were
in a very critical state: while discontent was fast rising in America
and commerce trembling for its colonial trade, two parties were fiercely
opposed in Parliament. Pitt deemed it treason against the Constitution
and to the colonies to tax America without its consent. Grenville
declared it treason to crown and legislature to abandon that right.
Burke, though in principle more inclining to Pitt, advised a middle
course by redressing the grievances of the colonies, while maintaining
the dignity of the crown. The government proposed (January, 1766) to
repeal Grenville's Stamp Act, but to guard the constitutional rights of
the mother-country by a "Declaratory Act." In the debate on these bills
Burke made his maiden speech, which called forth universal admiration; a
friend wrote to him, "You have made us hear a new eloquence." The bills
passed, but the ministry, mined by both parties, soon afterward was
obliged to resign. Burke summed up its activity in an excellent
pamphlet, "A Short Account of a Late Short Administration," and now
entered into opposition against Lord Chatham's ministry, which he called
"a tessellated pavement without cement." On the other hand, he
victoriously refuted the attacks of the Grenvilles against Rockingham,
in his "Observations on the Present State of the Nation," exhibiting the
emptiness of his opponents' declamations on the declining wealth of the
country, and proving that its resources were fast increasing.
Burke rises still higher in the "Thoughts on the Causes of the Present
Discontents" (1770), a powerful plea for the British Constitution in its
development from 1688, and exhibiting the full maturity of his talent.
He denies that the prevailing discontents are due to some factious
libellers exciting the people, who have no interest in disorder, but are
only roused by the impatience of suffering. The discontents were real,
and their cause was a perversion of the true principles on which the
Constitution rested. As hitherto, business had gone alternately through
the hands of Whigs and Tories, the opposition controlling the
government; but now a court faction had sprung up called "the king's
friends," a double cabinet, acting as irresponsible wire-pullers behind
the scenes. These men deriving, like Janissaries, a kind of freedom from
the very condition of their servitude, were sitting in secondary, but
efficient, departments of office and in the household of the royal
family, so as to occupy the avenues to the throne and to forward or
frustrate the execution of any measure according to their own interests;
they endeavored to separate the crown from the administration, and to
divide the latter within itself. To this cabal it was owing that British
policy was brought into derision in those foreign countries which, a
while ago, trembled at the power of England's arms. Above all, they
tried to pervert the principles of Parliament by raising divisions among
the people, by influencing the elections, by separating representatives
from their constituents, and by undermining the control of the
legislature over the executive. They maintained that all political
connections were in their nature factious; but free commonwealths were
ever made by parties, _i.e._, bodies of men united for promoting by
their joint endeavors the national interest upon great leading
principles in which they were agreed; government by parties was the very
soul of representative institutions; it had raised England to her
present power and protected the liberty of the people; while the cant,
"measures not men," had always been the pretext for getting loose from
every honorable engagement.
Burke finds the remedy in restoring the Constitution to its original
principles; all patriots must form a firm combination against the cabal;
a just connection between representatives and constituents must be
re-established; Parliament ought not to meddle with the privileges of
the executive, but exercise real control upon the acting powers of the
state, and if necessary, not be afraid to resort to impeachment, "that
great guardian of the purity of the Constitution;" finally, if all means
fail, there must be an interposition of the body of the people
itself--"an unpleasant remedy but legal, when it is evident that nothing
else can hold the Constitution to its true principles."
He at the same time displayed a prominent activity in Parliament, where
soon all internal questions gave way to the great contest with America.
In 1771 he had accepted the place of an agent for New York, had become
intimately acquainted with Franklin, and won a deep insight into
American affairs. Of the six duties imposed by Townshend's Revenue Act
(1767) five had been repealed, the tea duty alone remained. December 18,
1773, the cargo of an East Indian tea-ship was thrown into the sea at
Boston, and the first armed conflict ensued. Court and government were
resolved to put down this rebellion; Burke, on the contrary, supported
in his great speech "On American Taxation" Rose-Fuller's motion (April,
1774) for suppressing the last duty. England had no right to tax the
colonies, nor had she ever pretended to do so before Grenville's Stamp
Act; that, as well as the most important duties of the Revenue Act, had
been repealed; the tea-duty was slight and it produced short of nothing,
the cost of collection devouring it to the bone; for the Americans
refused to buy imported tea, and they were right to do so; having
inherited English principles they resisted for the same reason for which
Hampden had resisted the payment of the trifling ship-money, because the
principle on which it was demanded would have made him a slave. It would
be a signal folly to maintain the shadow of a duty and to risk the loss
of an empire merely because the preamble of the Revenue Act said it was
expedient that a revenue should be raised in his majesty's dominions in
America.
[Illustration: Burke, Johnson and their friends.]
The blindness of the majority turned away from those wise counsels.
Parliament was dissolved. Burke, elected for Bristol, forthwith
introduced thirteen resolutions, which he defended in his celebrated
speech for "Conciliation with the Colonies" (March 22, 1775). As he had
told his constituents his aim was to reconcile British superiority with
American liberty, he proposed to remove the ground of the difference in
order to restore the former confidence of the colonies in the
mother-country. "Fighting is not the best way of gaining a people of
more than two millions, in which the fierce spirit of liberty is
probably stronger than in any other country, and that liberty is founded
upon English principles." Now, a fundamental point of our Constitution
is that the people have power of "granting their own money;" the
colonial assemblies have uncontested competence to raise taxes, and have
frequently granted them for imperial purposes; sometimes so liberally
that, in 1743, the Commons resolved to reimburse the expense; no method
for procuring a representation in Parliament of the colonies has
hitherto been advised, consequently no revenue by imposition has been
raised before the Stamp Act; we therefore ought to acknowledge that only
the general assemblies can grant "aids to his Majesty." To enforce the
reverse principle is not only unjust, but impossible, "when three
thousand miles of ocean lie between us and them. Seas roll and months
pass between the order and the execution. We may impoverish the
colonies and cripple our own most important trade, but it is
preposterous to make them unserviceable, in order to keep them
obedient." The motions were rejected; three years afterward, when it was
too late, Burke's opponent, Lord North, proposed a similar plan.
In 1780 Burke introduced his bill for "Economical reform in support of
several petitions to correct the gross abuses in the management of
public expenditure before laying fresh burdens upon the people." His
speech derives a particular interest from its defining the difference of
timely and gradual reformation from hasty and harsh, making clear work.
The former was an amicable and temperate arrangement with a friend in
power, leaving room for growth; the latter was imposing terms upon a
conquered enemy under a state of inflammation. In 1782 Lord North was
obliged to resign, and Rockingham became again premier, Burke
paymaster-general of the army. He now carried his economical reform,
abolishing sinecures, suppressing useless expenses, and cutting down
salaries, among which was his own.
After Rockingham's death and the overthrow of the short Shelburne
administration, Burke turned his activity to the misgovernment of India;
his speeches in support of Fox's East-India Bill (December 1, 1783), and
on the Nabob of Arcot's debts (February 15, 1783), show that he had
thoroughly mastered that intricate subject. He violently denounced the
oppression exercised by the company, a prelude to his campaign against
Warren Hastings, which he continued for eight years. His speech
justifying the impeachment of the governor-general, said Erskine,
"irresistibly carried away its brilliant audience by a superhuman
eloquence."
Burke in this contest was, as always, animated by the purest motives,
but his passion went too far in comparing Hastings to Verres, and did
not sufficiently allow for the difficult circumstances in which his
adversary was placed. Without the latter's unscrupulous energy, India
would have been lost. Hastings finally was acquitted, but Burke's
attacks nevertheless had the effect of uncovering and redressing the
prevailing abuses.
The last period of Burke's life is filled up by his great struggle
against the French revolution. Already in 1769 he had prophetically
asserted that the derangement of French finances must infallibly lead to
a violent convulsion, the influence of which upon France and even Europe
could be scarcely divined; now he directed the attention of the House
(February 4, 1790) to the dangers of the revolution, by which the French
had shown themselves "the ablest architects of ruin," pulling down all
their domestic institutions, making "a digest of anarchy" called "the
rights of men," and establishing a ferocious, tyrannical, and
atheistical democracy. It might be said that they had done service to
England, a rival, by reducing their country to impotence and expunging
it out of the system of Europe; but, by the vicinity of the two
countries, their present distemper might prove more contagious than the
gilded tyranny of Louis XIV. had been, and "much as it would afflict
him, he would abandon his best friends and join with his worst enemies
to oppose all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, which by
tearing to pieces the contexture of the state prevented all real
reformation;" the last passage alluding to the apology of Fox, hitherto
his closest friend, for French proceedings.
These ideas Burke more fully developed in his famous "Reflections on the
Revolution in France" (1790); liberals maintained that by this work he
had deserted the cause of liberty; conservatives asserted that he had
become the stoutest champion of order combined with rational freedom. It
must be acknowledged that Burke erred by judging the state of France
before the revolution too favorably; if he justly appreciated the
pernicious influence of Rousseau, "that great professor and hero of
vanity," he ought to have discerned that a nation, the higher classes of
which were undermined by materialism and unbelief, while the masses
lived in deep misery, was incapable of a temperate reform; the follies
and terrors of the revolution were the children of the sins of the
"ancien regime." But how amply has history confirmed his judgment on the
revolution itself! While Fox admired the constitution of 1791 as "the
most astonishing and glorious edifice of liberty that ever was erected,"
Burke foresaid that this constitutional king would be torn from his
throne by the mob, that the wildest anarchy would put France in
confusion, and that after its exhaustion an unlimited military despotism
would be established.
This work, which produced a European sensation, receives its true light
by Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs" (1791). His former
friends having sided with Fox, he refuted the reproach of having
abandoned his principles by an elaborate comparison of the English
revolution of 1688 with that of France. His later writings, among which
the "Thoughts on French Affairs" (1791) and "Thoughts on a Regicide
Peace" (1796) are the principal, were directed against the foreign
influence of the revolutionary system, "France being no more a state but
a faction, which must be destroyed or will destroy Europe." Here again
Burke was wrong; if France was a revolutionary crater, the safest way
was to let it burn out in itself, while the insane aggression of
continental powers only confirmed the reign of terror. Burke would go to
war for the idea of prescriptive right; Pitt declined to fight for the
French monarchy, and would make war only for the defence of English
interests.
Although Burke had the satisfaction of gaining the majority for his
views, he retired from Parliament in 1794; a pension which he obtained
he defended in the "Letter to a Noble Lord," a dignified plea, "pro
domo." One of his last works was "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity"
(1795). In a time when political economy was still in a state of
infancy, he held the most enlightened opinions on all questions relating
to it; his doctrines on prices, wages, rent, etc., are still worth
reading. Above all, he opposes indiscreet government tampering with the
trade of provisions. "Once habituated to get cheap bread, the people
will never be satisfied to get it otherwise, and on the first scarcity
they will turn and bite the hand that fed them."
Burke died July 8, 1797. His was a character of unblemished purity,
manly uprightness, and perfect disinterestedness. He was a conservative
of the truest and best kind, but in his later years went too far in
supporting existing institutions merely because they existed. Lacking
practical accommodation to circumstances, he would probably not have
been a great minister; neither was he a consummate parliamentary
tactician and debater, nevertheless he stands in the first ranks of
statesmen and orators. Lord Brougham goes too far in calling his
speeches spoken dissertations; they were carefully prepared set
speeches. In them, as in his writings, we admire the most varied
information, philosophical acuteness, penetrating sagacity, curious
felicity of expression, and an eloquence embracing the full range and
depth of the subject. Fox avowed that he had learned more from Burke
than from all other men and authors, and for the same reason his works
will remain a mine of political wisdom. The only drawback is that in his
eagerness he sometimes overstated his case, and, embittered by the
struggles of his later years, occasionally condescended to expressions
bordering upon scurrility.
[Signature of the author.]
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
(1706-1790)
[Illustration: Benjamin Franklin. [TN]]
Though eminent qualities are generally necessary to the acquisition of
permanent fame, the life of Franklin affords signal proof that moderate
talents, judiciously directed, when aided by industry and perseverance,
will enable a man to render signal services to his country and his kind,
and give him a claim to the homage of posterity. He was the fifteenth
child of a tallow-chandler in Boston, where he was born January 17,
1706. His father at first intended to educate him for the church, but
finding that the expense was likely to exceed his means, he took the boy
home after he had acquired little more than the elements of learning, to
assist him in his own trade. The boy greatly disliked the nature of the
employment, and was very anxious to become a sailor. Fortunately for him
his friends controlled his inclinations; instead of going to sea he was
apprenticed to his eldest brother, James, who was a printer. Franklin
records in his Memoirs that though he had only at this time entered his
twelfth year he paid so much attention to his business that he soon
became proficient in all its details, and, by the quickness with which
he executed his work, obtained a little leisure, which he devoted to
study. His studious habits were noticed by a gentleman named Adams, who
had a large collection of books, which he placed at the disposal of
Franklin; among these were some volumes of poetry, which fired his
emulation, and he began to compose little pieces in verse. Two of these
were printed by his brother and sold as street-ballads, but they were,
as he informs us, wretched doggerel, and the ridicule thrown on them by
his father deterred him from similar attempts. But though he laid aside
poetry, he did not abandon his ambition to become a good English writer;
he studied the art of composition with great labor, being rewarded by
the consciousness of improvement.
Franklin's self-denial and power of control over his appetites were not
less remarkable than his industry. Having, at the age of sixteen, read a
work which recommended vegetable diet, he determined to adopt the
system, and undertook to provide for himself upon his brother's allowing
him one-half of the ordinary expenses of board. On this pittance he not
only supported himself, but contrived, by great abstemiousness, to save
a portion of it, which he devoted to the purchase of books. He soon had
an opportunity of testing his literary progress; in 1720 his brother
commenced the publication of a newspaper, the second which had appeared
in America, called the _New England Courant_. This paper, at a time when
periodicals were rare, attracted most of the literary men of Boston to
the house of the proprietor; their conversation, and particularly their
remarks on the authorship of the various articles contributed to the
paper, revived Franklin's literary ambition; he sent some communications
to the journal in a feigned hand; they were inserted, and he tells us
that "he had the exquisite pleasure to find that they met with
approbation, and that, in the various conjectures respecting the author,
no one was mentioned who did not enjoy a high reputation in the country
for talents and genius." He was thus encouraged to reveal his secret to
his brother, but he did not obtain the respect and fraternal indulgence
which he had anticipated. James Franklin was a man of violent temper; he
treated Benjamin with great harshness, and often proceeded to the
extremity of blows.
An article which appeared in the _Courant_ having given offence to the
authorities, James was thrown into prison for a month, and the
management of the paper devolved on Benjamin. He conducted it with great
spirit, but with questionable prudence, for he made it the vehicle of
sharp attacks on the principal persons in the colony. This gave such
offence that when James was liberated from prison, an arbitrary order
was issued that he should no longer print the paper called the _New
England Courant_. To evade this order it was arranged that Benjamin's
indentures should be cancelled in order that the paper might be
published in his name, but at the same time a secret contract was made
between the parties, by which James was entitled to his brother's
services during the unexpired period of apprenticeship. A fresh quarrel,
however, soon arose, and Benjamin separated from his brother, taking
what he has confessed to be an unfair advantage of the circumstance
that the contract could not be safely brought forward.
The circumstance produced an unfavorable impression on the minds of the
printers in Boston, and Franklin, finding it impossible to obtain
employment in his native town, resolved to seek it in New York. Aware
that his father would be opposed to this measure, he was compelled to
sell his books to raise money for defraying the expenses of his journey.
America was at this time very thinly inhabited; there were no public
conveyances on the roads, the inns were few, and their accommodations
miserable; but Franklin had accustomed himself to hard fare, and he did
not allow the inconvenience he endured to interfere with his enjoyment
of new scenery. On reaching New York he found that the printers there
had no occasion for his services, and he continued his journey to
Philadelphia. Having obtained employment in that city from a printer
named Keimer, Franklin continued to devote his leisure hours to
literature. The respectability of his appearance and the superior tone
of his conversation began soon to be remarked; they led to his being
introduced to several eminent men, and particularly to Sir William
Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania, who frequently invited him to his
table. Keith urged Franklin to commence business on his own account, and
when the young man had ineffectually applied for assistance to his
father in Boston, he advised him to go to London and form a connection
with some of the great publishing houses, promising him letters of
credit and recommendation. Franklin sailed for London, but the promised
letters were never sent; and he found himself, on his arrival in
England, thrown entirely on his own resources.
Having soon obtained employment, he exhibited to his fellow-workmen an
edifying example of industry and temperance, by which many of them
profited. He also published a little work of a sceptical tendency, which
procured him introductions to some eminent men, but which he afterward
lamented as one of the greatest errors of his life. After remaining
about eighteen months in England, he returned to Philadelphia as a clerk
to Mr. Denham, and on the death of that gentleman went back once more to
his old employer, Keimer. About this time he established a debating
society, or club of persons of his own age, for the discussion of
subjects connected with morals, politics, and natural philosophy. These
discussions gradually assumed political importance, and had a great
effect in stimulating the public mind during the War of Independence.
Having quarrelled with Keimer, Franklin entered into partnership with a
young man named Meredith, and commenced publishing a paper in opposition
to one which had been started by his former employer. Meredith proving
negligent of business, Franklin was enabled by his friends to dissolve
the partnership, and to take the entire business into his own hands. His
steady adherence to habits of industry and economy had brought him
comparative wealth; and he now married Miss Read, whom he had met on his
first arrival in Philadelphia.
In 1732 Franklin began the publication of "Poor Richard's Almanac,"
which soon became celebrated for its important lessons of practical
morality. These were subsequently collected in a little volume, and are
still highly esteemed both in England and America. His high character
for probity and intelligence induced the citizens of Philadelphia to
intrust him with the management of public affairs; he was appointed
clerk of the general assembly, postmaster, and alderman, and was put by
the governor into the commission of the peace. All the hours he could
spare from business he now devoted to objects of local utility, and the
city of Philadelphia is indebted to him for some of its finest buildings
and best institutions. As his wealth increased he obtained leisure to
devote himself to the study of philosophy, and to take a leading part in
political life.
We shall first look at his philosophical labors, by which his name first
became known abroad. His attention was drawn to the subject of
electricity in 1746, by some experiments exhibited by Dr. Spence, who
had come to Boston from Scotland. These isolated experiments were made
with no regard to system, and led to no results. A glass tube, and some
other apparatus that had been sent to Franklin by a friend in London,
enabled him to repeat and verify these experiments. He soon began to
devise new forms of investigation for himself, and at length made the
great discovery, which may be said to be the foundation of electrical
science, that there is a positive and negative state of electricity. By
this fact he explained the phenomenon of the Leyden phial, which at that
time excited great attention in Europe, and had foiled the sagacity of
its principal philosophers. In the course of his investigations he was
led to suspect the identity of lightning and the electric fluid; and he
resolved to test this happy conjecture by a direct experiment. His
apparatus was simply a paper-kite with a key attached to the tail.
Having raised the kite during a thunder-storm, he watched the result
with great anxiety; after an interval of painful suspense, he saw the
filaments of the string exhibit by their motion signs of electrical
action; he drew in the kite, and, presenting his knuckles to the key,
received a strong spark, which of course decided the success of the
experiment. Repeated sparks were drawn from the key, a phial was
charged, a shock given, and the identity of lightning with the electric
fluid demonstrated beyond all possibility of doubt.
Franklin had from time to time transmitted accounts of his electrical
experiments to his friend, Mr. Collinson, in England, in order that they
should be laid before the Council of the Royal Society; but, as they
were not published in the "Transactions" of that learned body, Collinson
gave copies of the communications to Cave, for insertion in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_. Cave resolved to publish them in a separate
form, and the work, soon after its appearance, became generally
recognized as the text-book of electrical science. It was translated
into French, German, and Latin; the author's experiments were repeated,
and verified by the leading philosophers of France, Germany, and even
Russia; the Royal Society atoned for its former tardiness by a hearty
recognition of their value, and Franklin was elected a member of their
body without solicitation or expense. The universities of St. Andrews,
Edinburgh, and Oxford subsequently conferred upon him the honorary title
of Doctor of Laws.
We must pass more briefly over Franklin's political career. In 1753 he
was appointed Deputy Postmaster of the American colonies. The
post-office, which had previously supplied no revenue to the Government,
became very productive under his management, and yielded three times as
much as the post-office in Ireland. Nor was this the only service he
rendered to the Government. At the time of Braddock's unfortunate
expedition against the French and Indians, he provided conveyances for
the troops and stores at his own risk; he took a leading part in
obtaining a militia bill, and he proposed a plan for the union of the
several colonies in a common system of defence against the Indians.
These measures greatly increased his influence and popularity.
Pennsylvania was at this period a proprietary government, and the
proprietary body claimed exemption from taxation. In consequence of the
disputes to which these claims gave rise, he was sent to England by the
General Assembly, as agent for the provinces. He performed his duties
with such zeal and ability, that he was appointed agent for the
provinces of Massachusetts, Georgia, and Maryland; and, on his return to
America in 1762, received not only the thanks of the House of Assembly,
but a grant of L5,000. Previous to his return he made a short visit to
the continent, and was everywhere received with great honor, especially
at the court of Louis XV.
In the year 1764, the American colonies, alarmed at the system of
taxation with which they were menaced by the British, resolved that
Franklin should be sent to England, no longer as an agent, but as the
general representative of the States. In this character he arrived in
London about forty years after his first appearance in that city as a
distressed mechanic. His own mind was strongly impressed by the
contrast; he went to the printing-office where he had worked, introduced
himself to the men employed there, and joined in a little festival in
honor of printing. He officially presented to Mr. Grenville a petition
against the Stamp Act, but finding that the minister was not deterred
from his purpose, he zealously exerted himself to organize an opposition
to the measure. When it was proposed to repeal the bill in the following
year, Franklin was examined before the House of Commons; the effect of
his evidence was decisive, and the Stamp Act was repealed.
The quarrel with the colonies, however, grew more and more bitter; and
while Franklin's words were always of peace, he championed the American
cause with power and dignity. Attempts were made to win him over to the
side of the Government, by offers of high honors and liberal emoluments;
but threats and promises were alike unavailing to divert him from his
course. He lingered in England, hoping that some turn in public affairs
would avert the fatal necessity of war; but when the petition of the
American Congress was rejected, and Lord Chatham's plan of
reconciliation outvoted, he resolved to return home and share the
fortunes of his countrymen. His departure was hastened by the
intelligence that the ministers intended to arrest him on a charge of
fomenting rebellion in the colonies; he narrowly escaped this danger,
and on landing in America, he was elected a member of Congress.
Soon after the declaration of independence was issued, Dr. Franklin was
sent as ambassador to France, to solicit aid for the infant republic. On
his first arrival, in 1776, he was not officially received; but when the
intelligence of the English losses had given courage to the French
court, negotiations were formally commenced, and on February 7, 1778, he
had the honor of signing the first treaty between the United States and
a foreign power. He remained at the French court as ambassador until the
end of the war, when, as an American plenipotentiary, he signed the
treaty of Paris, by which Great Britain recognized the independence of
the United States. At the close of the negotiations (November, 1782), he
was anxious to be recalled; but his diplomatic services were too highly
valued to be spared, and he remained at Paris three years longer, during
which period he negotiated treaties with Sweden and with Prussia. His
residence in France was cheered by the enthusiasm with which he was
regarded by all classes, particularly persons of literature and science;
his departure from that city was lamented as a general loss to society.
Honors of every kind awaited him on his return to his native land; he
was appointed President of the State of Pennsylvania, and a member of
the Federal Convention, by which the American Constitution was framed.
But old age, and a painful disease, to which he had been long subject,
compelled him to retire into the bosom of his family. Notwithstanding
his sufferings, he preserved his affections and faculties unimpaired to
the last, and died tranquilly, April 17, 1790. The American Congress,
and the National Assembly of France, both went into mourning on
receiving the intelligence of his death.
Franklin's powers were useful rather than brilliant; his philosophical
discoveries were the result of patience and perseverance; with a warmer
imagination he would probably have been misled by speculative theory,
like so many of his contemporaries. His industry and his temperance were
the sources of his early success, and they nurtured in him that spirit
of independence which was the leading characteristic of his private and
public career.
PATRICK HENRY[3]
By GENERAL BRADLEY T. JOHNSON
(1736-1799)
[Footnote 3: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Patrick Henry. [TN]]
Patrick Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia, May 29, 1736; died
in Charlotte County, Virginia, June 6, 1799. He was the son of Colonel
John Henry, of Mount Brilliant, a Scotchman by birth, who was the nephew
of Dr. William Robertson, the historian. Henry received only the limited
education accessible in the rural locality in which he was born,
consisting of the rudiments of an English training and absolutely no
acquaintance with the classics. His early youth was spent on the
plantation, occupied with the amusements of his age and his epoch;
fishing and hunting gave him acquaintance with the fields, the streams,
and the forests, and the observation of nature, her changes, her forces,
and her moods. The habits thus formed evolved in part the great power of
introspection and analysis of the feelings of men which afterward gave
him such control of them.
At the age of fifteen he was placed in a country store as assistant
salesman, or clerk. After a year's experience, his father purchased a
small stock of goods for him, and set him up on his own account in
partnership with his brother William.
This adventure came to grief in a year, and then Henry, at the age of
eighteen, married Miss Shelton, the daughter of a neighboring farmer.
The young couple were settled on a farm by the joint efforts of their
parents, where they endeavored to win a subsistence with the assistance
of two or three servants. In two years he sold out and invested in
another mercantile undertaking. In a few years this ended in bankruptcy,
leaving him without a dollar and with a wife and an increasing family to
support. He was devoted to music, dancing, and amusement, and was
incapable of continuous physical or intellectual labor. He had devoted
himself to desultory reading of the best kind, and made himself
acquainted with the history of England, of Greece, and of Rome. He
therefore undertook to win a support by the profession and the practice
of the law, and after a brief pretence of preparation, by the generosity
of the bar at that period, was admitted to practice. The vigor of his
intellect, his powerful logic, and his acute analysis induced the
examining committee to sign his certificate.
That committee consisted of Mr. Lyons, then the leader of the Provincial
bar, afterward president-judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of
Virginia; Mr. John Lewis, an eminent lawyer, and John Randolph,
afterward knighted and as Sir John Randolph, the king's Attorney General
for Virginia. Henry was twenty-four when admitted to the bar, and for
three years did nothing.
Under the law of Virginia the people, without regard to religious
belief, were bound to pay a tax of so many pounds of tobacco per poll
for the support of the clergy. The parson of each parish was entitled to
sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco per annum. When the price of tobacco
was low this imposition was borne not without grumbling. When short
crops or increased demand raised the price, the General Assembly of the
colony by law allowed the people the option to pay their poll-tax in
tobacco, or to commute it at the fixed price of 16_s._ and 8_d._ per
hundred. When the market price was above that the tax was paid in
currency; when it was below, in tobacco. When tobacco rose to 50_s._ per
hundred the parsons demanded tobacco for their salaries instead of
16_s._ 8_d._ per hundred. The King in council declared the Commutation
Act void, and the parsons brought suit for their salaries. The
defendants pleaded the Commutation Act in defence; to this plea the
plaintiffs demurred; and the court, as it was bound to do, gave judgment
for the plaintiff on the demurrer. The only question then left was the
_quantum_ of damages, to be assessed by a jury. The case selected for a
test was the case of the Rev. James Maury against the sheriff of Hanover
County and his sureties. It was set for trial at the December term of
the County Court of Hanover, 1763. Henry was retained for the defendant,
and made an argument so forcible, so conclusive, and so eloquent that it
has made his fame as "the greatest orator who ever lived," as Mr.
Jefferson wrote of him. He took the ground that allegiance and
protection in government are reciprocal, that the King of Great Britain
had failed to protect the people of Virginia in their rights as
Englishmen, and that therefore they owed no allegiance to him and he had
no right to declare laws made by them void, therefore his nullification
of the Commutation Act was void and of no effect. The jury found for the
plaintiff with one penny damages, and thus ended the attempt to rely
upon the power of the king to set aside laws made by Virginia for her
own government.
It was the first announcement in America of the radical revolutionary
doctrine that government is a matter of compact with the people, and
when the former breaks the agreement, the latter are absolved from
obedience to it.
The next year Henry removed to Louisa County and was employed by
Dandridge in the contested election case of Dandridge _v._ Littlepage
before the House of Burgesses for a seat in that body. When the Stamp
Act passed in 1765, Mr. William Johnson, member of the House of
Burgesses for Louisa County, resigned his place to make way for Henry,
who was elected to fill the vacancy.
This body consisted of some of the ablest and most illustrious Americans
who ever lived. George Washington, Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland,
Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee were all members, and
Henry at the first session won a place in the front rank among them. In
May, 1765, he introduced a series of resolutions, reiterating and
enlarging the propositions of the parson's case, and declaring that the
people of Virginia are entitled to all the rights of British subjects,
and that they alone, through their General Assembly, "have the sole
right and power to lay taxes and impositions on this colony," and that
any attempt by any other authority "has a manifest tendency to destroy
British as well as American freedom." They were opposed by the old
members, but the eloquent logic of Henry, backed by Johnston, a member
from Fairfax, carried them by a close vote, the last one by a majority
of one.
In this debate, Henry in a passion of eloquence exclaimed, "Caesar had
his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George III.----"
"Treason," cried the Speaker and the House----"may profit by their
example. If this be treason, make the most of it."
The next day, the House in a panic, reconsidered, rejected, and expunged
from the _Journal_ the last resolution, which asserted the sole right
of taxation in Virginia, and denied it to Parliament.
Henry continued a member of the House of Burgesses from Louisa County
until the close of the Revolution. He led Virginia in resistance to the
tax on tea, and in organizing armed resistance to the Mother Country by
all the colonies. He was among the first of the Americans who understood
that liberty could only be preserved by defending it by force.
He was sent as a deputy from Virginia to the first Continental Congress,
which met at Philadelphia in September, 1774. He at once took a
commanding influence in that body, and on its adjournment in October,
returned home.
In March, 1776, he attended the Convention of Virginia held in Richmond.
Here he moved that "this colony be immediately put in a state of
defence, and that a committee be appointed to prepare a plan for
embodying, assigning, and disciplining such a number of men as may be
sufficient for that purpose." Bland, Harrison, Pendleton, and Nicholas,
all vigorously opposed these resolutions as leading inevitably and
logically to revolution and separation; but Henry, in a storm of
patriotic, eloquent enthusiasm, carried everything, uttering those
deathless sentences, "Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand
we here idle. What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?
"Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery?
"Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as
for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
The resolutions were carried and Henry made chairman of the committee to
organize the colony. He proceeded with great vigor to form companies of
cavalry or infantry in every county. On April 20, 1775, Lord Dunmore,
the royal governor, seized the powder of the colony and placed it on the
armed schooner Magdalene. The country rose at once. Henry, as captain,
marched the independent company of Hanover on Williamsburgh, to compel
the governor to pay for or restore the powder. Five thousand armed men
were marching from the counties to reinforce him, when Lord Dunmore,
through the intercession of Peyton Randolph, paid Henry for the powder
and induced the volunteers from Hanover, Frederick, Berkeley, and other
counties to return to their homes. As soon as they had returned, Dunmore
issued a proclamation denouncing Henry and his comrades as traitors and
rebels.
Henry was elected by the Virginia Convention one of the deputies to the
second Continental Congress. He was also elected colonel of the first
Virginia Regiment, and "commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and
to be raised for the defence of the colony." Lord Dunmore having erected
a fortification south of Norfolk, at Great Bridge, Colonel Woodford,
with the second Virginia Regiment, was sent by the Committee of Safety
to drive him away, which he did promptly and well. Henry claimed the
right to command this expedition himself, but his claim was not admitted
by the committee, and his authority was disclaimed by Colonel Woodford.
Henry insisted upon having the question of rank between them decided,
and the committee decided in favor of Colonel Henry. Yet when brigadiers
were selected by Congress to command the troops of Virginia in the
Continental Army, Andrew Lewis was made brigadier, Henry colonel of the
first regiment. He promptly refused the Continental commission, and
resigned the one held in the service of Virginia. Henry's conduct was
justified in the opinion of his contemporaries and of posterity. He had
led the colony at the risk of life and fortune, he had organized and led
the first movement of troops against the royal authority, he had been
appointed commander-in-chief and colonel of the First Regiment, and then
had been superseded in command by another, without excuse or
justification. He was thus driven out of the military service by petty
intrigues and small jealousies of smaller men, and the country deprived
of his great abilities in the military field.
On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed their deputies in
Congress "to declare the United Colonies free and independent States,"
and on June 29th adopted a form of State government and elected Mr.
Henry governor. During the winter of 1776-77 was the darkest period of
the revolution, and it has been charged that it was proposed to create
him dictator; but his friends have always denied this, and it seems with
truth, for he was re-elected governor, May 30th, 1777. He was a firm
supporter of General Washington through all the trials of that period,
and firmly stood by him against the intrigue in the army to supersede
him with Gates. He was again elected governor in the spring of 1778, and
the next year declined a re-election because in his opinion he was
ineligible. His wife, Miss Shelton, died in 1775, leaving him the father
of six children, and in 1777 he married Dorothea, daughter of Nathaniel
W. Dandridge.
After the expiration of his gubernatorial service he retired to his
estate in Henry County. He was elected to the General Assembly for that
County in 1780, and he continued to represent it until after the
revolution. He took the ground of amnesty to the Tories and the
resumption of commercial intercourse with Great Britain. In 1784, he
introduced and urged the passage of a bill to promote inter-marriages
with the Indians, which failed to pass from his being again elected
governor on November 17, 1784, for the term of three years.
He declined a re-election, and was appointed one of the deputies from
Virginia to the Constitutional Convention to meet in Philadelphia. The
order of appointment being George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund
Randolph, John Blair, James Madison, George Mason and George Wythe. He,
however, was too poor to perform the duties of the office and was
obliged to return to the practice of the law. He was sent as a member
from Prince Edward to the convention to consider the Federal
Constitution which had been framed at Philadelphia. The convention met
at Richmond, June 2, 1788.
It was composed of the most illustrious men that Virginia ever produced,
and was probably the ablest body that ever convened in any country in
any age. James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, Edmund Pendleton,
George Nicholas, George Mason, Jarvis, Grayson, and Henry, Lee, and
Randolph were among the members. Henry vigorously opposed the
ratification of the new constitution on the ground that it would
establish a government of the people in place of a government of the
States, and would create a consolidated government with omnipotent
power, without check or balance, and lead to a great and mighty empire
and an absolute despotism. The Federal party carried the ratification
under the lead of Madison and Marshall by a majority of ten.
In the ensuing General Assembly Henry opposed the election of Madison as
one of the first senators under the new constitution, and secured that
of Richard Henry Lee and Grayson to represent Virginia in the first
Congress. He also drafted and had passed resolutions calling upon
Congress to call a Constitutional Convention of the States to cure by
amendments the many defects in the Federal Constitution which were
indicated by the amendments proposed to it by Virginia. The Convention
was never called, but ten of the amendments were adopted by Congress and
ratified by the States.
He declined a re-election to the General Assembly in 1791, and retired
to private life. In November, 1791, he appeared before the Federal Court
in Richmond, for the defendant in the case of the British debts. The
question involved was the right of Virginia to confiscate, during the
war, debts due by her citizens to subjects of Great Britain. With Henry
was John Marshall, and in the argument Henry made the greatest legal
effort of his life.
In November, 1795, he was again elected Governor of Virginia, but
declined on account of his age. He was offered the mission to Spain by
Washington during his first term, and to France during his second--both
of which positions he declined. Alarmed at the position taken by the
Virginia resolutions of 1798, he became a candidate for, and was elected
to the General Assembly from Charlotte County in 1799. But the Virginia
Legislature was opposed to his views, and reiterated those set forth in
the resolution of 1798.
His health had been infirm for several years, and he died June 6, 1799.
The General Assembly passed resolutions recording their love and
veneration for his name and fame, and ordered a bust of him to be
procured and set up in one of the niches of the hall of the House of
Delegates. It is now in the capitol at Richmond.
[Signature of the author.]
GEORGE WASHINGTON
(1732-1799)
[Illustration: George Washington. [TN]]
George Washington was born at Bridge's Creek, in Westmoreland County,
Va., on February 22, 1732. The first of the family who settled in
Virginia came from Northampton, but their ancestors are believed to have
been from Lancashire, while the ancient stock of the family is traced to
the De Wessyngtons of Durham. George Washington's father, Augustine, who
died, after a sudden illness, in 1743, was twice married. At his death
he left two surviving sons by the first marriage, and by the second,
four sons (of whom George was the eldest) and a daughter. The mother of
George Washington survived to see her son President. Augustine
Washington left all his children in a state of comparative independence;
to his eldest son by the first marriage he left an estate (afterward
called Mount Vernon) of twenty-five hundred acres and shares in iron
works situated in Virginia and Maryland; to the second, an estate in
Westmoreland. Confiding in the prudence of his widow, he directed that
the proceeds of all the property of her children should be at her
disposal till they should respectively come of age; to George were left
the lands and mansion occupied by his father at his decease; to each of
the other sons, an estate of six or seven hundred acres; a suitable
provision was made for the daughter.
George Washington was indebted for all the education he received to one
of the common schools of the province, in which little was taught beyond
reading, writing, and accounts. He left it before he had completed his
sixteenth year; the last two years of his attendance had been devoted to
the study of geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. He had learned to
use logarithms. It is doubtful whether he ever received any instruction
in the grammar of his own language; and although, when the French
officers under Rochambeau were in America, he attempted to acquire their
language, it appears to have been without success. From his thirteenth
year he evinced a turn for mastering the forms of deeds, constructing
diagrams, and preparing tabular statements. His juvenile manuscripts
have been preserved; the handwriting is neat, but stiff. During the last
summer he was at school, he surveyed the fields adjoining the
school-house and the surrounding plantations, entering his measurements
and calculations in a respectable field-book. He compiled about the same
time, from various sources, "Rules of Behavior in Company and
Conversation." Some selections in rhyme appear in his manuscripts, but
the passages were evidently selected for the moral and religious
sentiments they express, not from any taste for poetry. When a boy he
was fond of forming his school-mates into companies, who paraded and
fought mimic battles, in which he always commanded one of the parties.
He cultivated with ardor all athletic exercises. His demeanor and
conduct at school are said to have won the deference of the other boys,
who were accustomed to make him the arbiter of their disputes.
From the time of his leaving school till the latter part of 1753,
Washington was unconsciously preparing himself for the great duties he
had afterward to discharge. An attempt made to have him entered in the
Royal Navy, in 1746, was frustrated by the interposition of his mother.
The winter of 1748-49 he passed at Mount Vernon, then the seat of his
brother Lawrence, in the study of mathematics and the exercise of
practical surveying. George was introduced about this time to the family
of Lord Fairfax, his brother having married the daughter of William
Fairfax, a member of the Colonial Council, and a distant relative of
that nobleman. The immense tracts of wild lands belonging to Lord
Fairfax, in the valley of the Alleghany Mountains, had never been
surveyed; he had formed a favorable estimate of the talents of young
Washington, and intrusted the task to him. His first essay was on some
lands situated on the south branch of the Potomac, seventy miles above
its junction with the main branch. Although performed in an almost
impenetrable country, while winter yet lingered in the valleys, by a
youth who had only a month before completed his sixteenth year, it gave
so much satisfaction that he soon after received a commission as public
surveyor, an appointment which gave authority to his surveys, and
enabled him to enter them in the county offices.
The next three years were devoted without intermission, except in the
winter months, to his profession. There were few surveyors in Virginia,
and the demand for their services was consequently great, and their
remuneration ample. Washington spent a considerable portion of these
three years among the Alleghanies. The exposures and hardships of the
wilderness could be endured only for a few weeks together, and he
recruited his strength by surveying, at intervals, tracts and farms in
the settled districts. Even at that early age his regular habits enabled
him to acquire some property; and his probity and business talent
obtained for him the confidence of the leading men of the colony.
At the time he attained his nineteenth year the frontiers were
threatened with Indian depredations and French encroachments. To meet
this danger the province was divided into military districts, to each of
which an adjutant-general with the rank of major was appointed. George
Washington was commissioned to one of these districts, with a salary of
L150 per annum. There were many provincial officers (his brother among
the number) in Virginia, who had served in the expedition against
Carthagena and in the West Indies. Under them he studied military
exercises and tactics, entering with alacrity and zeal into the duties
of his office. These pursuits were varied by a voyage to Barbadoes, and
a residence of some months in that colony, in company with his brother
Lawrence, who was sent there by his physicians to seek relief from a
pulmonary complaint. Fragments of the journal kept by George Washington
on this excursion have been preserved; they evince an interest in a wide
range of subjects, and habits of minute observation. At sea the log-book
was daily copied, and the application of his favorite mathematics to
navigation studied; in the island, the soil, agricultural products,
modes of culture, fruits, commerce, military force, fortifications,
manners of the inhabitants, municipal regulations and government, all
were noted in this journal. Lawrence Washington died in July, 1752,
leaving a wife and infant daughter, and upon George, although the
youngest executor, devolved the whole management of the property, in
which he had a residuary interest. The affairs of the estate were
extensive and complicated, and engrossed much of his time and thoughts
for several months. His public duties were not, however, neglected. Soon
after the arrival of Governor Dinwiddie the number of military divisions
was reduced to four and the northern division allotted to Washington. It
included several counties, which he had visited at stated intervals, to
train and instruct the military officers, inspect the men, arms, and
accoutrements, and establish a uniform system of manoeuvres and
discipline.
In 1753 the French in Canada pushed troops across the lakes, and at the
same time bodies of armed men ascended from New Orleans to form a
junction with them, and establish themselves on the upper waters of the
Ohio. Governor Dinwiddie resolved to send a commissioner to confer with
the French officer in command, and inquire by what authority he occupied
a territory claimed by the British. This charge required a man of
discretion, accustomed to travel in the woods, and familiar with Indian
manners. Washington was selected, notwithstanding his youth, as
possessed of these requisites. He set out from Williamsburg on October
31, 1753, and returned on January 16, 1754. He discovered that a
permanent settlement was contemplated by the French within the British
territory, and notwithstanding the vigilance of the garrison, he
contrived to bring back with him a plan of their fort on a branch of
French Creek, fifteen miles south of Lake Erie, and an accurate
description of its form, size, construction, cannon, and barracks.
In March, 1754, the military establishment of the colony was increased
to six companies. Colonel Fry, an Englishman of scientific acquirements
and gentlemanly manners, was placed at the head of them, and Washington
was appointed second in command. His first campaign was a trying but
useful school to him. He was pushed forward, with three small companies,
to occupy the outposts of the Ohio, in front of a superior French force,
and unsupported by his commanding officer. Relying upon his own
resources and the friendship of the Indians, Washington pushed boldly
on. On May 27th he encountered and defeated a detachment of the French
army under M. De Jumonville, who fell in the action. Soon after Colonel
Fry died suddenly, and the chief command devolved upon Washington.
Innis, the commander of the North Carolina troops, was, it is true,
placed over his head, but the new commander never took the field. An
ill-timed parsimony had occasioned disgust among the soldiers, but
Washington remained unshaken. Anticipating that a strong detachment
would be sent against him from Fort Duquesne as soon as Jumonville's
defeat was known there, he intrenched himself on the Great Meadows. The
advance of the French in force obliged him to retreat, but this
operation he performed in a manner that elicited a vote of thanks from
the House of Burgesses. In 1755 Colonel Washington acceded to the
request of General Braddock to take part in the campaign as one of his
military family, retaining his former rank. When privately consulted by
Braddock, "I urged him," wrote Washington, "in the warmest terms I was
able, to push forward, if he even did it with a small but chosen band,
with such artillery and light stores as were necessary, leaving the
heavy artillery and baggage to follow with the rear division by slow and
easy marches." This advice prevailed. Washington was, however, attacked
by a violent fever, in consequence of which he was only able to rejoin
the army on the evening before the battle of the Monongahela. In that
fatal affair he exposed himself with the most reckless bravery, and when
the soldiers were finally put to rout, hastened to the rear division to
order up horses and wagons for the wounded. The panic-stricken army
dispersed on all sides, and Washington retired to Mount Vernon, which
had now, by the death of his brother's daughter without issue, become
his own property. His bravery was universally admitted, and it was known
that latterly his prudent counsels had been disregarded.
In the autumn of the same year he was appointed to reorganize the
provincial troops. He retained the command of them till the close of the
campaign of 1758. The tardiness and irresolution of provincial
assemblies and governors compelled him to act during much of this time
upon the defensive; but to the necessity hence imposed upon him of
projecting a chain of defensive forts for the Ohio frontier, he was
indebted for that mastery of this kind of war, which afterward availed
him so much. Till 1758 the Virginia troops remained on the footing of
militia; and Washington having had ample opportunities to convince
himself of the utter worthlessness of a militia in time of war, in the
beginning of that year prevailed upon the Government to organize them on
the same footing as the royal forces. At the same time that Washington's
experience was extending, his sentiments of allegiance were weakened by
the reluctance with which the claims of the provincial officers were
admitted, and the unreserved preference uniformly given to the officers
of the regular army. At the close of 1758 he resigned his commission and
retired into private life.
On January 6, 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a young widow with
two children. "Mr. Custis," says Mr. Sparke, "had left large landed
estates, and L45,000 sterling in money. One-third of this property she
held in her own right; the other two-thirds being equally divided
between her two children." Washington had a considerable fortune of his
own at the time of his marriage, consisting of the estate at Mount
Vernon, and large tracts of land which he had selected during his
surveying expeditions and obtained grants of at different times. He now
devoted himself to the management of this extensive property, and to the
guardianship of Mrs. Washington's children, and till the commencement of
1763 was, in appearance at least, principally occupied with these
private matters. He found time, however, for public civil duties. He had
been elected a member of the House of Burgesses before he resigned his
commission, and although there were commonly two, and sometimes three
sessions in every year, he was punctual in his attendance from beginning
to end of each. During the period of his service in the Legislature he
frequently attended on such theatrical exhibitions as were then
presented in America, and lived on terms of intimacy with the most
eminent men of Virginia. At Mount Vernon he practised on a large scale
the hospitality for which the Southern planters have ever been
distinguished. His chief diversion in the country was the chase. He
exported the produce of his estates to London, Liverpool, and Bristol,
and imported everything required for his property, and domestic
establishment. His industry was equal to his enterprise; his day-books,
ledgers and letter-books were all kept by himself and he drew up his own
contracts and deeds. In the House of Burgesses he seldom spoke, but
nothing escaped his notice, and his opinion was eagerly sought and
followed. He assumed trusts at the solicitation of friends, and was much
in request as an arbitrator. He was, probably without being himself
aware of it, establishing a wide and strong influence, which no person
suspected till the time arrived for exercising it.
On March 4, 1773, Lord Dunmore prorogued the intractable House of
Burgesses. Washington had been a close observer of every previous
movement in his country, though it was not in his nature to play the
agitator. He had expressed his disapprobation of the Stamp Act in
unqualified terms. The non-importation agreement, drawn up by George
Mason in 1769, was presented to the members of the dissolved House of
Burgesses by Washington. In 1773 he supported the resolutions
instituting a committee of correspondence and recommending the
legislatures of the other colonies to do the same. He represented
Fairfax County in the Convention which met at Williamsburg, in August,
1774, and was appointed by it one of the six Virginian delegates to the
first General Congress. On his return from Congress he was virtually
placed in command of the Virginian Independent Companies. In the spring
of 1775 he devised a plan for the more complete military organization of
Virginia; and on June 15th of that year, he was elected
commander-in-chief of the continental army by Congress.
[Illustration: The surrender of Cornwallis to Washington.]
The portion of Washington's life which we have hitherto been passing in
review, may be considered as his probationary period--the time during
which he was training himself for the great business of his life. His
subsequent career naturally subdivides itself into two periods--that of
his military command and that of his presidency. In the former we have
Washington the soldier; in the latter, Washington the statesman. His
avocations from 1748 to 1775 were as good a school as can well be
conceived for acquiring the accomplishments of either character. His
early intimacy and connection with the Fairfax family had taught him to
look on society with the eyes of the class which takes a part in
government. His familiarity with applied mathematics and his experience
as a surveyor on the wild frontier lands, had made him master of that
most important branch of knowledge for a commander--the topography of
the country. His experience as a parade officer, as a partisan on the
frontier, and as the commander of considerable bodies of disciplined
troops, had taught him the principles both of the war of detail and the
war of large masses. On the other hand, his punctual habits of business,
his familiarity with the details both of agriculture and commerce, and
the experience he had acquired as trustee, arbitrator, and member of the
House of Burgesses, were so many preparatory studies for the duties of a
statesman. He commenced his great task of first liberating and then
governing a nation, with all the advantages of this varied experience,
in his forty-third year, an age at which the physical vigor is
undiminished, and the intellect fully ripe. He persevered in it, with a
brief interval of repose, for upward of twenty years, with almost
uniform success, and with an exemption from the faults of great leaders
unparalleled in history.
Washington was elected commander-in-chief on June 15, 1775; he resigned
his commission into the hands of the President of Congress on December
23, 1783. His intermediate record as a general, and as the steadfast and
undismayed leader of an apparently hopeless struggle, we pass over here.
It is the entire history of the American Revolution.
We must also pass briefly over the interval which separates the epoch of
Washington the soldier from that of Washington the statesman--the few
years which elapsed between the resignation of his command in 1783, and
his election as first President of the United States, in February, 1789.
It was for him no period of idleness. In addition to a liberal increase
of hospitality at Mount Vernon, and indefatigable attention to the
management of his large estates, he actively promoted in his own State,
plans of internal navigation, acts for encouraging education, and plans
for the civilization of the Indians. He also acted as delegate from
Virginia to the Convention which framed the first constitution of the
United States. We now turn to contemplate him as president.
Washington left Mount Vernon for New York, which was then the seat of
Congress, on April 16, 1789. His journey was a triumphal procession. He
took the oath of office on April 30th, with religious services,
processions, and other solemnities.
The new president's first step was to request elaborate reports from the
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of War, and the
Commissioners of the Treasury. The reports he read, and condensed with
his own hand, particularly those of the Treasury board. The voluminous
official correspondence in the public archives, from the time of the
treaty of peace till the time he entered on the presidency, he read,
abridged, and studied, with the view of fixing in his mind every
important point that had been discussed, and the history of what had
been done.
His arrangements for the transaction of business and the reception of
visitors were characterized by the same spirit of order which had marked
him when a boy and when at the head of the army. Every Tuesday, between
the hours of three and four, he was prepared to receive such persons as
chose to call. Every Friday afternoon the rooms were open in like manner
for visits to Mrs. Washington. He accepted no invitations to dinner, but
invited to his own table foreign ministers, officers of the government,
and others, in such numbers as his domestic establishment could
accommodate. The rest of the week-days were devoted to business
appointments. No visits were received on Sunday, or promiscuous company
admitted; he attended church regularly, and the rest of that day was his
own.
The organization of the executive departments was decreed by act of
Congress during the first session. They were the Departments of Foreign
Affairs (afterward called the Department of State, and including both
foreign and domestic affairs), of the Treasury, and of War. It devolved
upon the president to select proper persons to fill the several offices.
Jefferson was appointed Secretary of State; Hamilton, Secretary of the
Treasury; and Knox, Secretary of War. Randolph had the post of
Attorney-General. Jay was made Chief-Justice. After making these
appointments he undertook a tour through the Eastern States, and
returned to be present at the opening of Congress, in January, 1790.
In his opening speech he recommended to the attention of the Legislature
a provision for the common defence; laws for naturalizing foreigners; a
uniform system of currency, weights, and measures; the encouragement of
agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; the promotion of science and
literature; and an effective system for the support of the public
credit. The last topic gave rise to protracted and vehement debates. At
last Hamilton's plan for funding all the domestic debts was carried by a
small majority in both Houses of Congress. The president suppressed his
sentiments on the subject while it was under debate in Congress, but he
approved the act for funding the public debt, and was from conviction a
decided friend to the measure. It now became apparent to the most
unreflecting that two great parties were in the process of formation,
the one jealous of anything that might encroach upon democratic
principles; the other distrustful of the power of institutions so simple
as those of the United States to preserve tranquillity and the cohesion
of the state. Jefferson was the head of the Democratic, Hamilton of what
was afterward called the Federalist party. Washington endeavored to
reconcile these ardent and incompatible spirits. His own views were more
in accordance with those of Hamilton; but he knew Jefferson's value as a
statesman, and he felt the importance of the president remaining
independent of either party. The two secretaries, however, continued to
diverge in their political course, and ultimately their differences
settled into personal enmity.
The president's term of office was drawing to a close, and an anxious
wish began to prevail that he should allow himself to be elected for a
second term. Jefferson, Hamilton, and Randolph--who did not exactly
coincide with either--all shared in this anxiety, and each wrote a long
letter to Washington, assigning reasons for his allowing himself to be
re-elected. He yielded; and on March 4, 1793, he took the oath of office
in the senate chamber.
The first question that came before the cabinet after the re-election,
rendered more decided the differences which already existed. The
European parties, of which the court of England and the French republic
were the representatives, were eager to draw the United States into the
vortex of their struggle. The president and his cabinet were unanimous
in their determination to preserve neutrality, but the aristocratic and
democratic sections of the cabinet could not refrain from displaying
their respective biases and their jealousy of each other. Foreign
affairs were mingled with domestic politics, and the Democratic and
Federalist parties became avowedly organized. Washington was for a time
allowed to keep aloof from the contest--not for a long time. A
circumstance insignificant in itself increased the bitterness of the
contest out of doors. Democratic societies had been formed on the model
of the Jacobin clubs of France. Washington regarded them with alarm, and
the unmeasured expression of his sentiments on this head subjected him
to a share in the attacks made upon the party accused of undue fondness
for England and English institutions.
Advices from the American minister in London representing that the
British cabinet was disposed to settle the differences between the two
countries amicably, Washington nominated Mr. Jay to the Senate as
Envoy-extraordinary to the court of Great Britain. The nomination,
though strenuously opposed by the Democratic party, was confirmed in the
Senate by a majority of two to one. The treaty negotiated by Jay was
received at the seat of government in March, 1795, soon after the
session of Congress closed. The president summoned the Senate to meet in
June to ratify it. The treaty was ratified. Before the treaty was signed
by the president it was surreptitiously published. It was vehemently
condemned, and public meetings against it were held to intimidate the
executive. The president, nevertheless, signed the treaty on August
18th. When Congress met in March, 1796, a resolution was carried by a
large majority in the House of Representatives, requesting the president
to lay before the house the instructions to Mr. Jay, the correspondence,
and other documents relating to the negotiations. Washington declined to
furnish the papers; a vehement debate ensued, but in the end the hostile
majority yielded to the exigency of the case and united in passing laws
for the fulfilment of the treaty.
The two houses of Congress met again in December. Washington had
published on September 15th his farewell address to the United States.
He now delivered his last speech to Congress, and took occasion to urge
upon that body the gradual increase of the navy, a provision for the
encouragement of agriculture and manufactures, the establishment of a
national university, and of a military academy. Little was done during
the session; public attention was engrossed by the presidential
election. Adams, the Federalist candidate, had the highest number of
votes; Jefferson, the Democratic candidate (who was consequently
declared vice-president), the next. Washington's commanding character
and isolation from party, had preserved this degree of strength to the
holders of his own political views. He was present as a spectator at
the installation of his successor, and immediately afterward returned to
Mount Vernon.
He survived till December 14, 1799, but except when summoned in May,
1798, to take the command of the provincial army, on the prospect of a
war with France, did not again engage in public business.
The character of Washington is one of simple and substantial greatness.
His passions were vehement but concentrated, and thoroughly under
control. An irresistible strength of will was combined with a singularly
well-balanced mind, with much sagacity, much benevolence, much love of
justice. Without possessing what may be called genius, Washington was
endowed with a rare quickness of perception and soundness of judgment,
and an eager desire of knowledge. His extremely methodical habits
enabled him to find time for everything, and were linked with a talent
for organization. During the War of Independence he was the defensive
force of America; wanting him, it would almost appear as if the
democratic mass must have resolved itself into its elements. To place
Washington as a warrior on a footing with the Caesars, Napoleons, and
Wellingtons, would be absurd. He lost more battles than he gained. But
he kept an army together and kept up resistance to the enemy, under more
adverse circumstances than any other general ever did. His services as a
statesman were similar in kind. He upheld the organization of the
American state during the first eight years of its existence, amid the
storms of Jacobinical controversy, and gave it time to consolidate. No
other American but himself could have done this, for of all the American
leaders he was the only one whom men felt differed from themselves. The
rest were soldiers or civilians, Federalists or Democrats; but he was
Washington. The awe and reverence felt for him were blended with
affection for his kindly qualities, and except for a brief period toward
the close of his second presidential term, there has been but one
sentiment entertained toward him throughout the Union--that of
reverential love. His was one of those rare natures which greatness
follows without their striving for it.
* * * * *
The following extract is from a letter written by him to his adopted
daughter, Nellie Custis, on the subject of love:[4]
[Footnote 4: Copied by kind permission of the publishers,
Messrs. Harper & Bros., from Benson Lossing's "Mary and Martha
Washington."]
"Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is therefore
contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for
like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with
aliment it is rapid in progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may
be stifled in its birth or much stunted in its growth. For example: a
woman (the same may be said of the other sex) all beautiful and
accomplished, will, while her hand and heart are undisposed of, turn the
heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. Let her marry, and
what is the consequence? The madness ceases and all is quiet again. Why?
Not because there is any diminution in the charm of the lady, but
because there is an end of hope. Hence it follows that love may, and
therefore ought to be, under the guidance of reason, for although we
cannot avoid first impressions, we may assuredly place them under guard;
and my motives for treating on this subject are to show you, while you
remain Eleanor Parke Custis, spinster, and retain the resolution to love
with moderation, the propriety of adhering to the latter resolution, at
least until you have secured your game, or the way by which it may be
accomplished.
"When the fire is beginning to kindle, and your heart growing warm,
propound these questions to it: Who is this invader? Have I a competent
knowledge of him? Is he a man of good character; a man of sense? For, be
assured, a sensible woman can never be happy with a fool. What has been
his walk in life? Is he a gambler, a spendthrift, or drunkard? Is his
fortune sufficient to maintain me in the manner I have been accustomed
to live, and my sisters do live? and is he one to whom my friends can
have no reasonable objection? If these interrogatories can be
satisfactorily answered there will remain but one more to be asked;
that, however, is an important one: Have I sufficient ground to conclude
that his affections are engaged by me? Without this the heart of
sensibility will struggle against a passion that is not
reciprocated--delicacy, custom, or call it by what epithet you will,
having precluded all advances on your part. The declaration, without the
_most indirect_ invitation of yours, must proceed from the man, to
render it permanent and valuable, and nothing short of good sense, and
an easy, unaffected conduct can draw the line between prudery and
coquetry. It would be no great departure from truth to say that it
rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-paced coquette dies in
celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others by
encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose than to
draw men on to make overtures that they may be rejected.... Every
blessing, among which a good husband when you want one, is bestowed on
you by yours affectionately."
JOHN ADAMS
By EDWIN WILLIAMS
(1735-1826)
[Illustration: John Adams. [TN]]
John Adams, the second president of the United States, was born on the
19th of October (old style), 1735, in that part of the town of Braintree
(near Boston), Massachusetts, which has since been incorporated by the
name of Quincy. He was the fourth in descent from Henry Adams, who fled
from persecution in Devonshire, England, and settled in Massachusetts
about the year 1630. Another of the ancestors of Mr. Adams was John
Alden, one of the Pilgrim founders of the Plymouth colony in 1620.
Receiving his early education in his native town, John Adams, in 1751,
was admitted a member of Harvard College, at Cambridge, where he
graduated in regular course four years afterward. On leaving college he
went to Worcester, for the purpose of studying law, and at the same time
to support himself, according to the usage at that time in New England,
by teaching in the grammar-school of that town. He studied law with
James Putnam, a barrister of eminence, by whom he was afterward
introduced to the acquaintance of Jeremy Gridley, then attorney-general
of the province, who proposed him to the court for admission to the bar
of Suffolk County, in 1758, and gave him access to his library, which
was then one of the best in America.
Mr. Adams commenced the practice of his profession in his native town,
and by travelling the circuits with the court, became well known in that
part of the country. In 1766, by the advice of Mr. Gridley, he removed
to Boston, where he soon distinguished himself at the bar by his
superior talents as counsel and advocate. At an earlier period of his
life his thoughts had begun to turn on general politics, and the
prospects of his country engaged his attention. Soon after leaving
college he wrote a letter to a friend, dated at Worcester, October 12,
1755, which evinces so remarkable a foresight that it is fortunate it
has been preserved. We make the following extracts: "Soon after the
Reformation a few people came over into this new world for conscience'
sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great
seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me, if we can remove the
turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the exactest computation,
will, in another century, become more numerous than England herself. The
only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us.
_Divide et impera_. Keep us in distinct colonies, and then some great
men in each colony, desiring the monarchy of the whole, will destroy
each other's influence, and keep the country in equilibrio. Be not
surprised that I am turned politician; the whole town is immersed in
politics. I sit and hear, and, after being led through a maze of sage
observations, I sometimes retire and, by laying things together, form
some reflections pleasing to myself. The produce of one of these
reveries you have read above." Mr. Webster observes: "It is remarkable
that the author of this prognostication should live to see fulfilled to
the letter what could have seemed to others, at the time, but the
extravagance of youthful fancy. His earliest political feelings were
thus strongly American, and from this ardent attachment to his native
soil he never departed."
In 1764 he married Abigail Smith, daughter of Rev. William Smith, of
Weymouth, and grand-daughter of Colonel Quincy, a lady of uncommon
endowments and excellent education. He had previously imbibed a
prejudice against the prevailing religious opinions of New England, and
became attached to speculations hostile to those opinions. Nor were his
views afterward changed. In his religious sentiments he accorded with
Dr. Bancroft, a Unitarian minister of Worcester, of whose printed
sermons he expressed his high approbation. In 1765 Mr. Adams published
an essay on canon and feudal law, the object of which was to show the
conspiracy between Church and State for the purpose of oppressing the
people.
In 1770 he was chosen a representative from the town of Boston, in the
Legislature of Massachusetts. The same year he was one of the counsel
who defended Captain Preston and the British soldiers who fired at his
order upon the inhabitants of Boston. Captain Preston was acquitted, and
Mr. Adams lost no favor with his fellow-citizens by engaging in this
trial. As a member of the Legislature he opposed the royal governor,
Hutchinson, in his measures, and also wrote against the British
Government in the newspapers. In 1774 he was elected a member of the
Massachusetts Council, and negatived by Governor Gage. In this and the
next year he wrote on the Whig side, the pamphlets called "Nov Anglus,"
in reply to essays, signed "Massachusitensis," in favor of the British
Government, by Sewall, the attorney-general. The same year he was
appointed a member of the Continental Congress, from Massachusetts, and
in that body, which met at Philadelphia, he became one of the most
efficient and able advocates of liberty. In the Congress which met in
May, 1775, he again took his seat, having been reappointed as a
delegate. In 1775 he seconded the nomination of Washington as
commander-in-chief of the army, and in July, 1776, he was the adviser
and great supporter of the Declaration of Independence. It was reported
by a committee composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. During the same year
he, with Dr. Franklin and Edward Rutledge, was deputed to treat with
Lord Howe for the pacification of the colonies. He declined at this time
the offer of the office of Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts.
In December, 1777, Mr. Adams was appointed a commissioner to the court
of France; and with the exception of one short interval, during which he
aided in the framing of the Massachusetts State Constitution, he spent
the following eleven years in diplomatic services abroad. He arranged
the treaties of the United States with most foreign nations during that
time, was associated with Franklin and Jay in signing the treaty of
peace with England, and was our first English minister.
The services of Mr. Adams in the cause of his country, at home and
abroad, during the period to which we have referred, it is believed,
were not excelled by those of any other of the patriots of the
Revolution. In the language of one of his eulogists (Mr. J. E. Sprague,
of Massachusetts), "Not a hundred men in the country could have been
acquainted with any part of the labors of Mr. Adams--they appeared
anonymously, or under assumed titles; they were concealed in the secret
conclaves of Congress, or the more secret cabinets of princes. Such
services are never known to the public; or, if known, only in history,
when the actors of the day have passed from the stage, and the motives
for longer concealment cease to exist. As we ascend the mount of
history, and rise above the vapors of party prejudice, we shall all
acknowledge that we owe our independence more to John Adams than to any
other created being, and that he was the Great Leader of the American
Revolution."
When permission was given him to return from Europe, the Continental
Congress adopted the following resolution: "Resolved, That Congress
entertain a high sense of the services which Mr. Adams has rendered to
the United States, in the execution of the various important trusts
which they have from time to time committed to him; and that the thanks
of Congress be presented to him for the patriotism, perseverance,
integrity, and diligence with which he has ably and faithfully served
his country." Such was the testimonial of his country, expressed through
the national councils, at the termination of his revolutionary and
diplomatic career.
During the absence of Mr. Adams in Europe, the Constitution of the
United States had been formed and adopted. He highly approved of its
provisions, and on his return, when it was about to go into operation,
he was selected by the friends of the Constitution to be placed on the
ticket with Washington as a candidate for one of the two highest offices
in the gift of the people. He was consequently elected vice-president,
and on the assembling of the Senate he took his seat, as president of
that body, at New York, in April, 1789. Having been re-elected to that
office in 1792, he held it, and presided in the Senate with great
dignity, during the entire period of the administration of Washington,
whose confidence he enjoyed, and by whom he was consulted on important
questions. In his valedictory address to the Senate he remarks: "It is a
recollection of which nothing can ever deprive me, and it will be a
source of comfort to me through the remainder of my life that, on the
one hand, I have for eight years held the second situation under our
Constitution, in perfect and uninterrupted harmony with the first,
without envy in the one, or jealousy in the other, so, on the other
hand, I have never had the smallest misunderstanding with any member of
the Senate."
In 1790 Mr. Adams wrote his celebrated "Discourses on Davila;" they were
anonymously published at first, in the _Gazette of the United States_,
of Philadelphia, in a series of numbers; they may be considered as a
sequel to his "Defence of the American Constitutions." He was a decided
friend and patron of literature and the arts, and while in Europe,
having obtained much information on the subject of public institutions,
he contributed largely to the advancement of establishments in his
native State for the encouragement of arts, sciences, and letters.
On the retirement of General Washington from the presidency of the
United States, Mr. Adams was elected his successor, after a close and
spirited contest with two rivals for that high office; Mr. Jefferson
being supported by the Democratic or Republican party, while a portion
of the Federal party preferred Mr. Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina,
who was placed on the ticket with Mr. Adams. The result was the election
of Mr. Adams as president, and in March, 1797, he entered upon his
duties in that office. He came to the presidency in a stormy time. In
the language of Colonel Knapp, "the French revolution had just reached
its highest point of settled delirium, after some of the paroxysms of
its fury had passed away. The people of the United States took sides,
some approving, others deprecating, the course pursued by France. Mr.
Adams wished to preserve a neutrality, but found this quite impossible.
A navy was raised with surprising promptitude, to prevent insolence and
to chastise aggression. It had the desired effect, and France was taught
that the Americans were friends in peace, but were not fearful of war
when it could not be averted. When the historian shall come to this page
of our history, he will do justice to the sagacity, to the spirit, and
to the integrity of Mr Adams, and will find that he had more reasons,
and good ones, for his conduct, than his friends or enemies ever gave
him."
In his course of public policy, when war with France was expected, he
was encouraged by addresses from all quarters, and by the approving
voice of Washington. He, however, gave dissatisfaction to many of his
own political party, in his final attempts to conciliate France, and in
his removal of two members of his cabinet toward the close of his
administration. Under these circumstances, notwithstanding Mr. Adams was
the candidate of the Federal party for re-election as president, and
received their faithful support, it is not strange that his opponents,
with the advantage in their favor of the superior popularity of Mr.
Jefferson, succeeded in defeating him. For this event, the
correspondence of Mr. Adams shows that he was prepared, and he left the
arduous duties of chief magistrate probably with less of disappointment
than his enemies expected.
Immediately after Mr. Jefferson had succeeded to the presidency, in
1801, Mr. Adams retired to his estate at Quincy, in Massachusetts, and
passed the remainder of his days in literary and scientific leisure,
though occasionally addressing various communications to the public. He
gave his support generally to the administration of Mr. Jefferson, and
the friendship between these distinguished men was revived by a
correspondence, and continued for several years previous to their death.
When the disputes with Great Britain eventuated in war, Mr. Adams avowed
his approbation of that measure, and in 1815 he saw the second treaty of
peace concluded with that nation, by a commission of which his son was
at the head, as he had been himself in that commission which formed the
treaty of 1783.
In 1816 the Republican party in Massachusetts, which had once vehemently
opposed him as president of the United States, paid him the compliment
of placing his name at the head of their list of presidential electors.
In 1820 he was chosen a member of the State Convention to revise the
constitution of Massachusetts, which body unanimously solicited him to
act as their president. This he declined on account of his age, but he
was complimented by a vote of the convention acknowledging his great
services, for a period of more than half a century, in the cause of his
country and of mankind.
The last years of the long life of Mr. Adams were peaceful and tranquil.
His mansion was always the abode of elegant hospitality, and he was
occasionally enlivened by visits from his distinguished son, whom, in
1825, he had the singular felicity of seeing elevated to the office of
President of the United States. At length, having lived to a good old
age, he expired, surrounded by his affectionate relatives, on July 4,
1826, the fiftieth anniversary of that independence which he had done so
much to achieve. A short time before his death, being asked to suggest a
toast for the customary celebration, he replied, "I will give
you--Independence forever." Mr. Jefferson died on the same day. A
similar coincidence occurred five years afterward, in the death of
President Monroe, July 4, 1831.
Mr. Adams was of middle stature and full person, and when elected
president, was bald on the top of his head. His countenance beamed with
intelligence, and moral as well as physical courage. His walk was firm
and dignified to a late period of his life. His manner was slow and
deliberate, unless he was excited, and when this happened he expressed
himself with great energy. He was ever a man of purest morals, and is
said to have been a firm believer in Christianity, not from habit and
example, but from diligent investigation of its proofs.
THOMAS JEFFERSON[5]
By HON. JOHN B. HENDERSON
(1743-1826)
[Footnote 5: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Thomas Jefferson. [TN]]
Thomas Jefferson was born April 2, 1743, at Shadwell, Albemarle County,
Va. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a descendant of a Welsh family
which came to Virginia before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. The
father's income was derived from a large farm adjoining that of William
Randolph, whose daughter, Jane, he married in 1738. Monticello, the
future residence of his son Thomas, was a part of this farm. Peter
Jefferson was a leader among the men of his day and received expressions
of public confidence from the voters of his county. He died in 1759,
having directed that Thomas should complete his education in William and
Mary College at Williamsburg, then the capital of the colony.
Thomas entered the college and by assiduous application he soon built
upon the learning acquired in the public and private schools of his
county, an education quite liberal and advanced for that period.
He was tall, and in youth somewhat awkward in manner. What he lacked,
however, in personal grace was at once forgotten in the vivacity of his
conversation, made doubly charming by the extent and variety of his
learning. During his collegiate days he formed a close friendship with
Patrick Henry, John Marshall, and others who afterward became
distinguished in American history. He was always welcome in the house of
Governor Fauquier, from whom he learned much of the social, political,
and parliamentary life of the old world. It was here that he first met
George Wythe, a gifted and talented young lawyer, who afterward became
Chancellor of the State.
After leaving college he entered upon the study of the law in the office
of his friend Mr. Wythe, and with this and the management of his
father's estate he found himself abundantly occupied.
In 1767 he was admitted to the bar, and for several years devoted
himself to the practice of his profession. It is quite probable that, in
consequence of his inability to speak and his utter incapacity for
forensic controversy, his career at the bar would not have reached the
highest distinction. What he lacked, however, in the power of speech,
found ample compensation in the strength, beauty, and elegance of
expression which he commanded with the pen. This extraordinary talent
was destined soon to find abundant employment in defending the rights of
the people against the oppressive acts of the mother-country. Patrick
Henry had already argued the "Parsons' Cause" in December, 1763, and
Jefferson himself, as a college student at Williamsburg, had listened to
the impassioned speech of Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses
against the Stamp Act of Parliament. But the fiery eloquence of his
friend Henry only fanned a flame that already burned in the breast of
Jefferson. Impulsive by nature, by education and training a democrat, he
naturally espoused the cause of his countrymen. The peculiar condition
of the colonies furnished the opportunity to Jefferson's wonderful
faculty for writing. The orator could not be heard by all the people of
the colonies; but the products of the pen could be carried to the most
secluded hamlet. And truly in Jefferson's hands the pen was "mightier
than the sword."
The first year after opening his law office, at the age of twenty-five,
he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses from Albemarle, his
native county, and on taking his seat the following May, the controversy
between the royal governor and the assembly at once began. Jefferson
prepared the resolutions in reply to the executive speech; and on the
third day of the session the passage of other resolutions, in the form
of a bill of rights, caused the governor to dissolve the assembly.
Jefferson was again elected to the House of Burgesses, and in 1774, was
elected a delegate to the State convention.
On account of illness he failed to reach the convention, but he prepared
and forwarded to its president a draft of instructions which he hoped
would be adopted for the guidance of those to be sent by the body as
delegates to the General Congress of the colonies. For this paper,
afterward published as "A Summary View of the Rights of British
America," the name of Jefferson was inserted in a bill of attainder
brought into the English Parliament.
After a short detention in the House of Burgesses, in which he drafted
the reply of Virginia to the "conciliatory proposition" of Lord North,
he proceeded to Philadelphia as a delegate to the General Congress, in
which he took his seat on June 21, 1775.
When Jefferson entered the Congress, conditions existing between the
mother country and the colonies had already reached the point of open
rebellion. It is true that the taxes had all been repealed except the
import tax on tea, but the repeals had been invariably accompanied with
the assertion of an unlimited right to tax without the consent of the
colonies. English troops had been quartered in Boston, and English
war-ships occupied its harbor. The right of deportation to, and trial
in, England for offences committed in America, was still claimed by both
king and Parliament. The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill had now
been fought, and Washington had already been commissioned as
commander-in-chief of the colonial armies.
In this condition of affairs Massachusetts and Virginia, in which had
been most keenly felt the oppressive acts of the mother country, were
quite ready for open and avowed rebellion. But in many of the other
colonies the sense of loyalty and the ties of friendship were yet
sufficiently strong to induce the hope of continued union.
It was therefore not until June 7, 1776, that Virginia, through Richard
Henry Lee, introduced into Congress at Philadelphia the resolutions for
a final separation; and a few days thereafter a committee was appointed
to prepare the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was placed at the
head of this committee, his colleagues consisting of Adams, Franklin,
Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. The declaration was prepared by
Jefferson, and when submitted to Dr. Franklin and John Adams for
criticism, some verbal amendments suggested by them were made. It was
then reported to Congress on June 28th, and after debate and other
slight amendments by the body itself, it was adopted and signed on July
4, 1776.
Whatever the merits or demerits of the paper, it is essentially the work
of Jefferson. It has been much criticised, both in its substance and its
form. It is quite certain, however, that since its promulgation there
has been, not only in the United States but abroad, a continually
increasing tendency to accept and apply its principles in the practical
affairs of government. As an eloquent arraignment of tyranny, a
denunciation of oppression and an inspiration to resistance, it stands
perhaps unequalled among the products of human intellect. As
appropriately said by another, the paper is "consecrated in the
affections of Americans and praise may seem as superfluous as censure
would be unavailing."
So soon as the colonies had become united in the cause of forcible
resistance, Jefferson returned to his own State to commence perhaps the
most useful and beneficent work of his life. He had again been elected
to Congress, but with the prescience of the seer, he chose the seemingly
less important place of representative to the Legislature of his State.
He took his seat on October 7, 1776. On the 11th of the same month he
asked leave to present a bill to establish courts of justice in the
State of Virginia; on the next day, to authorize tenants _en tail_ to
convey their estates in fee simple. This was immediately followed by
other bills for the utter overthrow of primogeniture and the whole law
of entails.
His reformatory spirit did not stop with these radical measures. He
found another danger in the conservatism and aristocratic tendencies of
the established church of the State. In his judgment the whole body of
law and custom inherited from England must be thoroughly exterminated,
to the end that English influence might be driven from the land. In his
judgment English institutions had been cunningly devised in the interest
of monarchy. Their purpose, he believed, was to create and maintain
distinctions in society, and to perpetuate and strengthen an
aristocratic caste as the ally and support of the crown. So long as they
existed there was constant danger of relapse from the high purposes of
the rebellion. In Jefferson's regard, they were inconsistent with the
principles of the revolution now proclaimed, and sooner or later would
be found its open or secret enemies.
For these reforms the old aristocracy of his State denounced him as a
Jacobin, and the established church denounced him as an infidel.
Jefferson continued to serve in the House of Delegates during the years
1777 and 1778, and in addition to the measures already named, he secured
laws to establish elementary and collegiate education in the State, and
to prohibit the further importation of slaves into Virginia. He also
sought to inaugurate a system of gradual emancipation; but slavery was
already so thoroughly engrafted on the social system of the people, that
even Jefferson, Wythe, and Mason could not dislodge it. Jefferson, in
1821, referring to his failure in this regard, said: "it was found that
the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it,
even to this day; yet the day is not distant, when it must bear and
adopt it, or worse will, follow. Nothing is more certainly written in
the book of fate than that these people are to be free."
On retiring from the Legislature he was elected governor of the State.
The period of his service in this position was unfortunate for his fame.
He was essentially a civilian, neither having, nor pretending to have,
military skill or knowledge. The war had now been transferred to the
Southern States. Cornwallis had overrun Georgia and South Carolina,
defeated Gates at Camden, and was pushing north for the desolation of
Virginia. The State had already become impoverished by its liberal
contributions of money, men, and arms to the general cause, and was now
powerless for its own defence. The hated Benedict Arnold was able to
ascend the James River to Richmond, dispersing the Legislature and
burning the town. Tarleton afterward penetrated as far as
Charlottesville--Jefferson and the Legislature narrowly escaping
capture. Jefferson felt keenly the situation, and at the expiration of
his term retired to Monticello, humiliated and overwhelmed by unjust
criticism and undeserved censure. His gloom and melancholy were made
still more sad at this period, by the death of his wife, whom he had
married in 1772. But the privilege of neither obscurity nor rest was
reserved for him. The winter session of 1783 found him again in the
General Congress abolishing the English system of coinage and providing
for the government of the Northwestern territory, which had been ceded
to the confederation by Virginia.
In 1784 he was named as a minister plenipotentiary to Europe at large,
to assist Adams and Franklin in the negotiation of commercial treaties.
In 1785 he became minister to France in the place of Dr. Franklin, who
had resigned; and in March, 1790, in pursuance of a previous acceptance,
he entered the Cabinet of President Washington as Secretary of State.
Already the germs of two great conflicting parties had been sown. The
debates in the convention that framed the Constitution, and still more
manifestly the controversies in the State Conventions called to consider
the adoption of the instrument, had developed the differences, which, in
theory at least, have distinguished political parties ever since. The
colonies had been chiefly settled by Englishmen. No people are more
tenacious than they of preconceived opinions, or more averse to the
abandonment of ancient forms and customs. A strong attachment to the
institutions of England still remained with the people of the colonies.
With many of them the whole object of the revolution was political
separation from the mother country. They heartily desired independence
and freedom, and they had willingly risked their lives to secure them.
But the freedom they sought was the right, if they chose, to establish
and perpetuate those cherished institutions of the mother-country for
themselves. They would enjoy them still, and make them a lasting
inheritance for their posterity, but free from the power and dominion of
Europe.
Such persons had revolted not against England, but against England's
wrongful acts; not against the authority of law, but against the
perversion of law. To them the Declaration of Independence was a
splendid piece of rhetoric intended only to inflame the mind with a
sense of injury, and to nerve the heart to determined resistance. Like
the Marseillaise hymn, it was merely to be repeated on entering the
battle. Like the bugle blast, it served only to stimulate the soul and
shut out all other sounds while the contest lasted. Not so with
Jefferson and his followers. The Declaration of Independence truly
reflected their political sentiments. To them the revolution meant
something more than mere separation. It looked to the total repudiation
of the English system of government, and the substitution of the rule of
the people. They admitted the inefficiency of the articles of
confederation, and were willing to accept nationality in a modified
form. But to them the Constitution as framed in 1787 was armed with the
most dangerous powers. They accepted it merely as a choice of evils,
trusting by strict construction and future amendment to give it
eventually the form and mould of their own views.
The President, in selecting his ministers, sought to compromise these
antagonisms by giving the parties equal representation in his Cabinet.
Between two such men, however, as Jefferson, his Secretary of State, and
Alexander Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury, there could be no
permanent co-operation. So eager, indeed, was Jefferson to inaugurate
the controversy, that he really began the battle of strict construction
before his peculiar principles had been seriously invaded. Time has long
since demonstrated that, in his opposition to Hamilton's financial
measures, he was clearly wrong. The truth seems to be, that in this
branch of politics, Jefferson was without knowledge or practical skill.
In his discussions with the English minister touching violations of the
late treaty of peace, and in the controversy with Spain in respect to
the right of navigating the Mississippi River through her territory to
the Gulf, Jefferson displayed his usual ability.
The declaration of war by France, now a republic, against England,
precipitated upon the Government of the United States a number of
difficult and troublesome questions of international law. They were
especially irritating because of the personal feelings involved in their
discussion and settlement. A profound sense of gratitude to France for
assistance in the late revolutionary struggle, was felt by all classes
in America, while the Republicans were especially open and undisguised
in their expressions of sympathy for the French people. And but for the
imprudent conduct of the French minister, Genet, the supremacy of the
Federal party might have been seriously jeopardized in the beginning of
Washington's second term. The conduct of this functionary was so
insolent and exacting as to excite disgust for himself, and to cool in a
marked degree the zeal of the Republicans in their support of the new
republic.
While Jefferson's sympathy with France was perhaps too manifest, and
while his personal conduct in the Cabinet touching this question was not
altogether kind to the president, and in other respects liable to
criticism, his correspondence with the French Government, when finally
published, was found to have been based upon the highest principles of
international right and dictated by a proper sense of the dignity and
character of his own country.
Jefferson's proud nature had for several years, chafed under the
continued success of Federal measures. Washington had manifestly ignored
his counsel in the Cabinet, and favored Hamilton in the administration
of the Government. Jefferson was piqued and chagrined beyond further
endurance. He hated Hamilton with an intensity due only to an open enemy
of the country.
In this state of mind, on December 31, 1793, he resigned from the
Cabinet, and again sought the seclusion and quiet of his farm at
Monticello. But his pen was never idle. He was untiring in the
dissemination of his peculiar views of government. With emotions
intensified by strong convictions of right his contributions to the
political literature of the day were vigorous and peculiarly attractive.
He continued to be the acknowledged leader of the Republican party, and
was promptly named as its candidate for president in 1796, to succeed
General Washington, who had declined a third term. Between him and John
Adams, the candidate of the Federal party, the vote was very close,
Adams receiving 71 electoral votes and Jefferson 68. Under the
provisions of the Constitution as they existed at the time, Adams became
President and Jefferson Vice-President.
During Adams' term were passed the Alien and Sedition laws, as well as
others, unnecessary and of doubtful constitutionality, which proved to
be fatal and ruinous mistakes of the Federal party. Jefferson and
Madison's threats of State repudiation against Federal legislation, as
enunciated in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, furnished good
arguments, of course, for the continued existence of a truly national
party. But the seeds of decay had been sown. Adams was vain, impulsive,
rash, and violent. Jefferson was far more deliberate, with larger views
of statesmanship and a better knowledge of the people. He had abundant
cunning and the ready adaptation of partisan skill.
In a contest of four years between such leaders, it is not strange that
when the election of 1800 came on, Jefferson should receive 73 electoral
votes while Adams received but 65.
Although Jefferson was elected over Adams, he was not yet elected over
Aaron Burr, who had received an equal number of votes for president with
himself. In reality no vote had been intended for Burr as President--the
purpose being to elect Jefferson President and Burr Vice-President.
Under the constitutional provision already referred to, the election was
remitted to the House of Representatives. Finally, by the aid of
Hamilton, who only hated Jefferson less than he hated Burr, the
controversy was decided in favor of the former.
The moment Jefferson became president his whole character seemed to be
changed. Instead of the relentless partisan of the past, he became the
apostle of benevolence and charity. His inaugural address, in that
florid rhetoric of which he was master, enunciated principles of
government to which no friend of human liberty could object. The spirit
of conciliation breathed in every sentence. "Every difference of
opinion," he said, "is not a difference of principle. We have called by
different names brethren of the same principles. We are all
Republicans--we are all Federalists.... Let us then, with courage and
confidence, pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our
attachment to our Union and representative government."
The short-lived peace of Europe had re-established American commerce on
the ocean, and general prosperity pervaded all departments of business.
Indeed, the wise moderation of the president had brought the most
agreeable disappointment to his enemies. Federalists were not removed
from office for political reasons, and the country settled down into the
conviction that Republican success after all, might prove to be a
beneficent change.
As already stated, the Northwest territory, extending from the Ohio to
the Mississippi River, had formerly belonged to Virginia, and perhaps no
public man of his day so well understood as did Jefferson, the
importance and needs of that vast domain. Spain, as the owner of
Louisiana, held supreme control of New Orleans and the lower
Mississippi.
While Secretary of State under Washington, Jefferson would have been
content with the acquisition of the Island of New Orleans, and the free
navigation of the Mississippi River. Circumstances had now changed. He
was himself president. Spain had suddenly conveyed Louisiana to France,
and Napoleon was meditating the abrogation of the peace of Amiens and
the declaration of war against England. In such a war France could not
well retain her distant possessions against the superior naval power of
her old and grasping enemy. Napoleon had a property which in case of
war, he was likely to lose. He had resolved on war, and for that purpose
needed money, which, fortunately, the American Treasury could furnish at
once.
Instead of the Island of New Orleans the President's dream now embraced
the whole of the Louisiana purchase, extending from the Mississippi
River to the Pacific Ocean.
Livingston, of New York, the associate of Jefferson, in 1776, on the
Committee to frame the Declaration of Independence, was now Minister to
France, but he was unfortunately embarrassed by his committal to the
acquisition of New Orleans alone. Monroe's term, as Governor of
Virginia, had just expired. He had formerly served the country most
acceptably at the French court. He was the devoted friend, personally
and politically, of Jefferson. They were both committed to the "strict
construction" theory of the Constitution. This narrow view of the
instrument, on which their party had come into power, absolutely forbade
the acquisition of territory by purchase. But Louisiana was necessary
not only to the growth, but to the maintenance of the Union. It mattered
not that the professions of the Republican party had to be violated. The
prize outweighed the virtue of party consistency. Jefferson himself was
forced to admit the want of power, but having resolved on the act, he
said: "The less that is said about any constitutional difficulty the
better." Again he said: "It will be desirable for Congress to do what is
necessary in silence."
With these views he despatched Monroe to Paris. For obvious reasons
written instructions were avoided; but it is quite certain that
unlimited discretion to the Minister had resulted from a careful
comparison of views.
It was under these circumstances that in 1803 the vast domain known as
"The Louisiana Purchase" was obtained by the United States for the
paltry consideration of fifteen million dollars.
This of itself added immensely to Jefferson's popularity. Internal
taxation had been abolished. Rigid economy of administration had been
introduced. The public debt was in the course of rapid extinction. The
rigorous ceremonials of former administrations had given place to the
simplest forms, and the temples of power had been made accessible to the
humblest citizen. The country enjoyed great prosperity, and a spirit of
contentment pervaded the land.
Jefferson's second election, in 1804, was almost without opposition--his
vote being 162 to 14 for C. C. Pinckney, the Federal candidate.
The second term of the President was far less successful than the first.
A political exigency in France had forced the sale of Louisiana, and its
opportune purchase had given Jefferson unbounded popularity, and linked
his name with the future greatness of his country. But the impending
hostilities producing that exigency had now been declared. France and
England were again in open war, and each, to wound the other, had
recklessly trampled upon the rights of the United States. English orders
in council blockaded the ports of France, and Napoleon's Berlin decrees
equally closed those of England against neutral commerce. The right of
search was claimed by both powers, and offensively exercised by England.
Time had now brought its inevitable revenges. Jefferson was again
confronted by conditions in which he manifested more or less of weakness
and incapacity. In peace his statesmanship was always creditable, and at
times, truly magnificent. In the presence of war he was too often
vacillating and incompetent. The embargo on the commerce of his own
country, which he suggested, was hardly less injurious than the wrongs
of which he complained. The remedy was worse, if possible, than the
disease.
Aaron Burr, in contesting for the presidency in 1801, had forfeited the
confidence of his own party, and for killing Hamilton in a duel in 1804,
he had incurred the hatred of the Federalists, and lost the respect of
all parties. In his desperation he had organized an expedition to
proceed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with a view, as was
supposed, of invading Mexico, or segregating from the United States a
portion of its territory. He was arrested for treason and brought to
Richmond, where he was finally tried for a high misdemeanor in
organizing forces against Spain within the United States. In this
prosecution, as in the impeachment of Judge Chase of the Supreme Court,
executive encouragement and aid were offensively open and notorious.
When the embargo had almost ruined the commercial States of the Union,
it was modified by a non-intercourse act with France and England, to
take effect on March 4, 1809, the last day of Jefferson's term.
At the close of his second term Jefferson permanently retired from
office, and spent his remaining years at Monticello.
By a singular coincidence both he and John Adams died on July 4, 1826,
just fifty years after they had signed the Declaration of Independence.
The brief facts already recited clearly indicate the character of the
man. He was a bold and original thinker. With him mere precedent was
without weight. By nature he was a democrat, plain, simple, and
unostentatious. He not only believed in the capacity of the people for
self-government, but in their honest wish to govern aright. In the
struggle of the Revolution his devotion to the rights of the people
against English tyranny took the form of religious enthusiasm. In France
he witnessed the sufferings and misery of the down-trodden poor, whose
wild vengeance he believed to be justified by the long ages of
oppression and wrong under which they had groaned.
He distrusted power and naturally sought to restrict its exercise.
Hating monarchy, he feared to delegate large powers of government even
in republican forms. Hating an aristocracy, he encouraged the masses to
demand equality in civil, political, and social rights.
His political inconsistencies resulted from the usual impossibility of
reconciling theory and practice. When his opponents were in power, their
purposes, he thought, were accomplished through violations of the
constitution. An equally dangerous exercise of power by his friends
failed to excite his alarm. Feeling conscious within himself of an
honest purpose to subserve the good of the people and to perpetuate
their liberties, he found ready justification for every act having, in
his judgment, those ends in view.
America has produced no man so dear to the masses of its people as
Thomas Jefferson. He was an iconoclast, but the images broken by him
were the idols of a past age, and no longer deserved the worship of a
free people.
[Signature of the author.]
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
(1757-1804)
[Illustration: Alexander Hamilton. [TN]]
The parentage of Alexander Hamilton is given by his son and biographer
as of mingled Scottish and French ancestry--Scottish on the father's
side, Huguenot on the mother's. Students of the doctrine of temperaments
may find something to ponder over in such a fusion under the genial ray
of the southern sun. Given the key, they may unlock with it many
cabinets in the idiosyncrasy of the future Hamilton; Scottish
perseverance and integrity, French honor and susceptibility, tropical
fervor. Be that as it may, Alexander Hamilton first saw the light in the
West India island, St. Christopher, January 11, 1757. His father was a
trader or captain, sailing between the islands of the archipelago, whose
business brought him into relation with Nicholas Cruger, a wealthy
merchant of Santa Cruz, in intimate relation with New York, in whose
counting-house the son was placed at the age of twelve. He was a boy of
quick intellect, in advance of his years, and had already made much of
limited opportunities of instruction, as we may learn from an
exceedingly well-penned epistle, addressed thus early to a school-fellow
who had found his way to New York. In this remarkable letter, the boy
seems to have written with prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness,
Ned," he says, "my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the
grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune
condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character,
to exalt my station.... I mean to prepare the way for futurity.... I
shall conclude by saying, I wish there was a war." This may be regarded
as a boyish rhapsody; but all boys are not given to such rhapsodies.
The clerk had his hours for study as well as for the counting-room, and
doubtless practised his pen in composition, for we hear of his writing
an account of a fearful hurricane which visited the island, a narrative
which appears to have been published, since it attracted the attention
of the governor. These evidences of talent determined his friends to
send him to New York to complete his education. He came, landing at
Boston in the autumn of 1772, and was received at New York by the
correspondents of Dr. Knox, a clergyman who had become interested in his
welfare in Santa Cruz. He was immediately introduced to the school of
Francis Barber, at Elizabethtown, where he enjoyed the society of the
Boudinots, Livingstons, and other influential people of the colony. He
studied early, and at the close of the year presented himself to Doctor
Witherspoon, at Princeton, with a request to be permitted to overleap
some of the usual collegiate terms according to his qualifications. As
this was contrary to the usage of the place, he entered King's College,
now Columbia, in New York, with the special privileges he desired. In
addition to the usual studies, he attended the anatomical course of
Clossey. Colonel Troup, at this time his room-fellow, testifies to his
earnest religious feeling, a very noticeable thing in a youth of his
powers. He wrote verses freely--among them doggerel burlesques of the
productions of the ministerial writers of the day.
The Revolution was now fairly getting under way, and in the opening
tumultuous scenes in New York, strong hands were wanted at the wheel.
Hamilton, at the age of seventeen, in 1774, did not hesitate in making
his decision. He entered the field against the dashing young president
of the college, Myles Cooper, of convivial memory, in a reply in Holt's
_Gazette_ to some Tory manifesto of that divine. About this time, after
the adjournment of Congress, at the close of the year, he also published
a pamphlet in vindication of the measures of Congress, against the
attacks of Seabury and Wilkins. The contest, however, was one which was
not to be decided by the pen alone. The old prerogative lawyers and
divines were not to be shaken out of their seats by the constitutional
arguments of such young counsellors as Hamilton and Jay. The hard hands
of the committee of mechanics were much more demonstrative. Myles
Cooper, Seabury, and their brethren very naturally suspected the logic,
and laughed at the novel measures of the day by which the popular party
in their restrictive, non-importation measures proposed to dispense with
the wisdom of Lords and Commons, and starve themselves into
independence. It is well sometimes to look at that side of the question,
too.
But all the pooh-poohing in the world over the best wine in the colony,
was not to stop the affair which had commenced. Volunteers were
drilling, men of sound heads and stout hearts were getting ready for
action. There were certain cannon to be removed from the Battery;
Hamilton was engaged in the duty with his comrades, "Hearts of oak" they
called themselves; a boat approached from the man-of-war Asia, in the
harbor; the citizens fired; the fire was returned from the ship, and one
of Hamilton's company was killed. The Liberty Boys spread the alarm and
gathered in a mob, threatening to attack the college and seize its
president, Myles Cooper. Hamilton, who was no friend to riot, little as
he was afraid of discussion or of force, interposed with a speech from
the college steps, while the president, roused from his bed, half naked,
took refuge on the shore, wandering over the island in the night to the
old Stuyvesant mansion, whence he was the next day finally removed from
America in his Majesty's vessel, the Kingfisher. The royal governor,
Tryon, took refuge in the Asia shortly after.
Hamilton now turned his attention in earnest to military affairs, making
choice of the artillery service, in which he gained some instruction
from a British soldier, and by aid of the popular leader, McDougal,
received from the convention the appointment of captain of the
Provincial Company of Artillery. He had only recently completed his
nineteenth year. It was early, but not so very early for a man of
genius; for the child in such cases is the father of the man, and youth
is an additional spur to exertion. But this was not all. The young
captain was engaged, not only in the gymnastics of drilling recruits,
but he was reading, thinking, and working out problems in political
economy for himself--and the future. Dr. Johnson said that he learned
little after eighteen; Hamilton would seem to have laid the foundation
at least, of all his knowledge before twenty. "His military books of
this period," says his son, "give an interesting exhibition of his train
of thought. In the pay-book of his company, amid various general
speculations and extracts from the ancients, chiefly relating to
politics and war, are intermingled tables of political arithmetic,
considerations on commerce, the value of the relative productions which
are its objects, the balance of trade, the progress of population, and
the principles on which depends the value of a circulating medium; and
among his papers there remains a carefully digested outline of a plan
for the political and commercial history of British America, compiled at
this time." There is the germ in all this of the Secretary of the
Treasury.
The battle of Long Island now ensued on the vain attempt to resist the
landing of Howe and his British troops, followed by the masterly retreat
of Washington, in which Hamilton brought up the rear. The subsequent
American proceedings in the evacuation of the city, the passage from the
island to Westchester, and the subsequent retreat before Cornwallis
through the Jerseys under Washington, if they had little of glory, at
least required their full share of military determination and endurance.
Hamilton was active throughout the campaign. At White Plains and on the
Raritan, at Trenton and Princeton, his artillery did good service. When
he entered Morristown, his original compa
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