CHAPTER II. 1764-1773. Mr. Jefferson's Earliest Political Opinions-Opposition to the Views of his RelativesThe Declaratory and Stamp Acts-Patrick Henry's Resolutions against the Stamp Act Jefferson present at the "Bloody Debate"-His Description of it-Mr. Trist's Memoranda-Death of Jefferson's Sister-Family Details-His Garden, Farm, and Pocket Account-Books, etc. - His Precision and Fondness for Details-ExamplesMental Characteristics indicated-A Peculiar Habit in Conversation-Journey NorthMeets Gerry-Admitted to Practice Law in the General Court His Taste for his Profession-Extent, Character, and Profits of his Practice-Declines Colonel Nicholas's Business-His Erudition and Ability as a Lawyer-His Adaptation to the ProfessionHis Qualifications for an Advocate-His Zeal in collecting Ancient Statutes-Letter giving a Course of Reading and Study for a Lawyer-Appointed a Justice-Elected to the House of Burgesses-Session of 1769-Dissolved by Lord Botetourt-Association of the Members Shadwell burnt-Jefferson takes up his Residence at MonticelloBritish Imposts of 1767 repealed-Tea Tax retained-Virginia Politics from 1770 to 1773-Jefferson's Plans for embellishing his Estate-Extracts from his Early Writings -His Marriage-Family, Character, and Appearance of his Wife-Anecdote of Rivals -Annoying Adventures-Death of Jefferson's Father-in-law-His and his Wife's Patrimony-Losses on British Debts-His Providence in Money Matters His Establishment Taste for Horses-His Horsemanship-Old Wormley's RecollectionsSpecimens of the Garden-Book. THE misunderstandings with the parent country, which led to the Revolutionary struggle, though long accumulating, first began to wear an immediately menacing aspect at about the close of Mr. Jefferson's minority. Mr. Jefferson himself was a Whig both by inheritance and by the natural constitution of his mind. And when that transient gleam of joy which broke over the Colonies at the conclusion of the Peace of Paris (1763) faded into gloom; when the Colonists found that British triumphs were not their triumphs; when they found that new exactions were their only requital for bearing so much more than their proportionate share of the burthens of the late war, and contributing so essentially to its success; and when a few of their СНАР. П.] JEFFERSON TAKES HIS GROUND. 37 bolder spirits determined to resolutely oppose those exactions by every constitutional method-their number did not include one whose views were more decisive and uncompromising than the young Williamsburg law student, whose biography we are writing. In this, he went counter to the feelings of some of his most influential relatives and friends, and far ahead of those of them even who professed Whig principles. Wealth and rank are usually conservative and slow to embark in violent opposition to constituted authority. The political chasm between Mr. Jefferson and a portion of his kinsmen was destined to widen until it became one of total and permanent separation; but with another portion, it was destined to be obliterated-and though more cautious at the outset, those kinsmen were to nobly vindicate the fidelity of their patriotism at the councilboard and in the battle-field. When the news of the Declaratory Act-declaratory of the power of the British Parliament to tax the American Coloniesreached Virginia, in the spring of 1764, it called forth a remonstrance from the House of Burgesses in the form of an address to the King and a memorial to Parliament, in which the asserted right was denied, and its exercise deprecated in earnest though perhaps rather supplicatory terms. The famous Stamp Act was advanced on its passage through Parliament, when these papers, and similar ones from several other Colonies, reached England; and they were not sufficient to prevent its consummation. It became a law in January, 1765, to take effect the ensuing November. The news of this, when it reached Virginia, produced a pause among the old Whig leaders. There was a wide difference between remonstrating against an obnoxious proposition, or even taking theoretical grounds against its constitutionality, and making a factious opposition to law. The spring session of the Burgesses was therefore within three days of its close, before the Stamp Act was mentioned on its floors! The broken merchant whose acquaintance we have made at Colonel Dandridge's, was in the body, a representative from Louisa. His appearance and manners were as rustic as ever. "The forest-born Demosthenes,1 Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas," Lord Byron so termed Henry, though the resemblance between the latter and the 38 PATRICK HENRY'S RESOLUTIONS. [СНАР. П. sat with a burning heart to see if none of the old Whig leaders would propose to the House to take some step to vindicate the rights of their country. As the session was about closing, on the 30th of May he took a blank leaf from "an old Coke upon Littleton," and penned five resolutions. They assumed the common ground that the colonists brought with them to America all the rights of British subjects that the taxation of the people by themselves or their representatives, was "the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom"-that all power to lay taxes was in the Colonial Legislature-and they concluded by spiritedly declaring "that every attempt to vest such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, had a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom." Henry offered these resolutions, and then broke suddenly upon the astonished House with that torrent of burning and vehement declamation, thus described by Jefferson in his Memoir : "When the famous Resolutions of 1765, against the Stamp Act, were proposed, I was yet a student of law in Williamsburg. I attended the debate, however, at the door of the lobby of the House of Burgesses, and heard the splendid display of Mr. Henry's talents as a popular orator. They were great indeed; such as I have never heard from any other man. He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote. Mr. Johnson, a lawyer, and member from the Northern neck, seconded the resolutions, and by him the learning and logic of the case were chiefly maintained." In narrating the same scene to Mr. Wirt he gave these further details: "Mr. Henry moved, and Mr. Johnson seconded these resolutions successively. They were opposed by Messrs. Randolph, Bland, Pendleton, Wythe, and all the old members, whose influence in the House had, till then, been unbroken. They did it, not from any question of our rights, but on the ground that the same sentiments had been, at their preceding session, expressed in a more conciliatory form, to which the answers were not yet received." He then mentions that the last resolution was carried but by a single vote that the debate on it was "most bloody"-that Peyton Randolph, the Attorney-General, coming to the door where he was standing, said as he entered the lobby, "By God! Athenian orator does not extend beyond their common power to move the feelings of their auditors. It would be difficult indeed to mention two men, of what may be termed the same vocation, more unlike. CHAP. II.] SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES. 39 I would have given five hundred guineas for a single vote," (for that would have made a tie, and the Speaker, Robinson, would have negatived the resolution) - that Mr. Henry left town that evening-that Colonel Peter Randolph, then of the Council, came to the House next morning, and looked over the journals to find a precedent for expunging a resolution that as soon as the House met a motion was made and carried to expunge it." In another letter to Wirt, he said, in addition to the preceding enumeration, that the resolutions were opposed by Robinson "and all the cyphers of the aristocracy." It was on this occasion that occurred the incident thus narrated by Wirt : "It was in the midst of this magnificent debate, while he [Henry] was descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious act, that he exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, and with the look of a god, 'Cæsar had his Brutus-Charles the First his Cromwell -and George the Third' ('Treason!' cried the Speaker-'treason! treason!' echoed from every part of the House. It was one of those trying moments which is decisive of character. Henry faltered not an instant; but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye of the most determined fire, he finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis) -' may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it. " 3 When Mr. Henry sat down, the real leadership of the opposition had passed away from the Pendletons, the Wythes, the Blands, the Randolphs, and the Nicholases; and the "forestborn Demosthenes" was the idol of the people-the head of that class of Whigs who (whether they had yet formed resolutions on the subject or not) were sure to make their opposition to tyranny commensurate with the necessity. Mr. Jefferson afterwards modestly and liberally said of the old leaders we have mentioned: "These were honest and able men, had begun the opposition on the same grounds, but with a moderation more adapted to their age and experience. Subsequent events favored the bolder spirits of Henry, the Lees, Pages, Mason, &c., with whom I went in all points. Sensible, however, of the importance of unanimity among our constituents, although we often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, on their part, differing nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait somewhat beyond that which their prudence might of itself have advised, and thus consoli 1 Son of the second William Randolph, of Turkey Island. For these statements, see Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, 7th edition, New York. 1834, p. 78; and Jefferson to Wirt, in his published correspondence, Aug. 14, 1814. • Wirt's Life of Henry, p. 83. 4 Jefferson to Wirt, Aug. 1814. 40 MR. TRIST'S MEMORANDA. [СНАР. П. dated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold with the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation than, perhaps, existed in any other part of the Union." 1 Mr. Nicholas P. Trist, who resided at Monticello the last two or three years of Mr. Jefferson's life, kept daily memoranda of conversations held with the latter, always recording them the same day, and usually the same hour they took place. These jottings disclose an obvious attempt at that literal and precise fidelity which those who know the writer need not be informed marks his character. We are kindly favored with the use of these papers, and shall have not unfrequent occasion to quote them. Here is an extract giving some remarks of Jefferson in regard to Henry, which will be read with inter est: "Wirt says he (Henry] read Plutarch's Lives once a year. I don't believe he ever read two volumes of them. On his visits to court, he used always to put up with me. On one occasion of the breaking up in November, to meet again in the spring, as he was departing in the morning, he looked among my books, and observed, 'Mr. J., I will take two volumes of Hume's Essays, and try to read them this winter.' On his return he brought them, saying he had not been able to get half way into one of them. "His great delight was to put on his hunting-shirt, collect a parcel of overseers and such like people, and spend weeks together hunting in the 'piny woods,' camping at night, and cracking jokes round a light-wood fire. "It was to him that we were indebted for the unanimity that prevailed among us. He would address the assemblages of the people at which he was present, in such strains of native eloquence as Homer wrote in. I never heard anything that deserved to be called by the same name with what flowed from him; and where he got that torrent of language, is inconceivable. "I have frequently shut my eyes while he spoke, and when he was done asked myself what he had said, without being able to recollect a word of it. He was no logician. He was truly a great man, however, one of enlarged views. (Oct. 11, 1824. This was said to Mr. Leavit Harris, U. S. Consul or ex-Consul at St. Petersburg, then on a visit to the United States.)" Some interesting letters from Jefferson to Wirt, in respect to Mr. Henry, which are not included in either edition of Mr. Jefferson's published Works, will be found in Kennedy's Life of Wirt. In the autumn of 1765, Mr. Jefferson was called upon to experience a severe domestic bereavement, in the death of his Letter to Wirt. * He married Virginia Jefferson Randolph, a grand-daughter of Mr. Jefferson. |