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CHAPTER XXI.

The University goes into operation. Mr. Jefferson's exertions for its success. Fails in procuring further grants from the Legislature. His maxims of practical Morality. Receives a second visit from La Fayette. His system of Laws for the University. Disorders-and Proceedings thereon. The power of the Federal Government to make Roads and Canals. Letter to Mr. Madison. Proposed Protest of the Virginia Legislature. Letters to Mr. Giles concerning President Adams. Letter to Mr. Madison. His pecuniary difficulties. His heavy expenses. Applies to the Legislature for leave to dispose of his Property by a Lottery. His hopes of the University. Letter to the President. Liberal principles of National Law.Plan of his Lottery. Public sympathy. Other schemes of relief attempted. Letters to the Mayor of Washington. His last illness and death. Honours to his memory.

1824-1826.

THE time now approached when Mr. Jefferson was to have the satisfaction to see his long cherished scheme of the university carried into execution. The buildings were so far completed as to be fit to open the institution by the latter end of the year 1824. He had long before turned his attention to the subject of obtaining professors, and had come to the conclusion that it would be advisable to procure them from Europe, it being better, as he said, to get competent foreigners, than second-rate natives, since those of the first order of talents were likely to be already engaged in other institutions, which they could not leave, and because, moreover, it would be invidious to seduce them. His colleagues having concurred in his views, the board had sent a special

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to Major John Cartwright, who had sent him a copy of his work on the English Constitution, which he thought had been, in that work, correctly deduced from the Anglo-Saxons. "Having driven out the former inhabitants of that part of the island called England," he remarks, "they became aborigines as to you, and your lineal ancestry. They, doubtless, had a constitution; and though they have not left it in a written formula, to the precise text of which you may always appeal, yet they have left fragments of their history and laws, from which it may be inferred with considerable certainty. Whatever their history and laws show to have been practised with approbation, we may presume was permitted by their constitution; whatever was not so practised, was not permitted. And although this constitution was violated and set at nought by Norman force, yet force cannot change right. A perpetual claim was kept up by the nation, by their perpetual demand of a restoration of their Saxon laws, which shows they were never relinquished by the will of the nation. In the pullings and haulings for these ancient rights, between the nation and its kings of the races of Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts, there was sometimes gain and sometimes loss, until the final conquest of their rights from the Stuarts. The destitution and expulsion of this race broke the thread of pretended inheritance, extinguished all regal usurpations, and the nation re-entered into all its rights; and although in the bill of rights they specifically reclaimed some only, yet the omission of the others was no renunciation of the right to assume their exercise also, whenever occasion should occur. The new king received no rights or powers but those expressly granted to him." He is very severe on Hume for maintaining that the people encroached upon the sovereign and not the sovereign upon the people, calling him a “degenerate son of science," and "traitor to his fellow-men," for saying that "the commons established a principle, which is noble

in itself, and seems specious, but is belied by all history and experience, that the people are the origin of all just power.”

In his sketch of the theory of our government, he notices those fundamental principles which are recognized in most of the states; and does not forget among the improvements which he hopes will be adopted, his favourite ward system. He regards the federal and state governments "as co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole." And that in cases where both claim the same subject of power, and the question can neither be avoided nor compounded, a convention of the states must be called, to ascribe the doubtful power to that department they think best. He agrees with Major Cartwright, that the judiciary had usurped legislative powers in deciding that Christianity is a part of the common law, and he examines that question by a reference to numerous law authorities which implies great diligence and patience of research.

In the autumn of the present year, he had the satisfaction of seeing his old friend La Fayette at Monticello. That generous and gallant Frenchman, the friend of America for almost fifty years, had arrived at New York in August, for the purpose of meeting such of the companions of his youthful campaigns as yet survived, and of witnessing with his own eyes the fruits of that independence he had aided in achieving, and of that civil liberty he so much prized. Such was the enthusiasm with which he was received by the whole nation, that his journey through the states appeared as one continued triumphal procession; and no national victory ever produced more fervent and universal exultation than did this unpretending visit of an ancient friend; nor did any chief or emperor, in the pride of power and conquest, ever receive homage more profound, or greetings so sincere as were voluntarily paid to this private citizen, a foreigner too, from the recollection of his disinterested services in the cause of the

agent, Mr. F. W. Gilmer, to England, for the purpose of engaging suitable professors, except those of moral philosophy and law, which it was deemed more advisable to procure at home.

Mr. Jefferson has been censured for this course, as reflecting on the science and literature of his own country. But surely nothing can be more defensible. The institution, which had been reared by his efforts, and for whose success he had every motive, personal and patriotic, aspired to give a course of education equal to any other in the United States. As the most capable professors were presumed to be already occupied, that description of talent being not yet redundant in the country, and scarcely equalling the demand, to have confined himself to such professors as could have been obtained here would have subjected the visitors to the alternative of either taking inferior men, such as had not found employment elsewhere, or of enticing them from some other institution. The first course would have been unfaithful to themselves, their own promises, and the public expectations; the last would have been invidious, would have subjected them to a still severer censure, and their own injustice might have been retorted on them.

The professors finally arrived at the end of 1824, or beginning of 1825, and with the addition of the professor of chemistry and of moral philosophy, obtained in the country, the university opened in April, 1825. The main building, the rotunda, was still unfinished, and the legislature began to be deaf to the appeals made to it for more money. It happened, however, fortunately, that there was still an unsettled claim of Virginia against the general government for interests due upon the advances made by the state for the public defence; it being a general practice in that government not to pay interest on its debts, because it assumes that the public treasury has always been able to discharge

all just claims against it, and that the delay of payment has been owing either to a delay of application, or a want of evidence, or authority. These suppositions, however, do not always square with the fact, and did not in the present instance, since Virginia had been a creditor, because the United States were not in a condition to make the requisite advances, and Virginia had, in fact, been paying interest on the money thus expended. The claim for interest, therefore, seemed to be as well founded as that of the principal. The visitors applied to the legislature for a grant of a part of this fund, on account of the university, and succeeded in obtaining one to the amount of fifty thousand dollars, but they were not able to obtain any further advances out of the public treasury. The claim being thus appropriated, it was earnestly pressed by the delegation from the state, and by dint of the many personal friends whom Mr. Jefferson had in Congress, the favour shown by the liberal-minded members of the legislature towards its object, and the influence of the President, Mr. Monroe, the claim was allowed, at the session of 1824-5. Even this, however, was not sufficient to complete the buildings, as well as furnish the requisite books and apparatus; and at the succeeding session of the legislature, he attempted to get a further grant from the same fund, while yet its issue was uncertain, and he urged to Mr. Cabell, "That the legislature will certainly owe to us the recovery of this money; for had they not given it, in some measure, the reverenced character of a donation for the promotion of learning, it would never have been paid. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the displeasure incurred by wringing it from them at the last session, will now give way to a contrary feeling, and even place us on a ground of some merit."

Mr. Cabell had given him encouraging hopes of success, and tells him that his handwriting and letters had great