Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826 . THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA AND THOMAS JEFFERSON, ITS FATHER / From The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Volume 2
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
AND
THOMAS JEFFERSON, ITS FATHER.(1)

   The lives of institutions, like those of human beings, have their vicissitudes.
This University in whose honor we are gathered together to-day, has not been an
exception. It had a long struggle even for existence. Joy and triumph followed
when, eighty years ago, its first corner-stone was laid with pomp and ceremony
in the presence of a distinguished company which included three illustrious men
who had filled the office of President of the United States. A long succeeding
period of growth, prosperity and happiness was rudely interrupted by the
desolating storm of war -- war raging with fury around its own temples, and
driving even its own peaceful children into the grim work of destruction and
slaughter. But even war, which spares almost nothing, yet spared the walls with
their precious contents. The heart of the soldier will still melt before the sad
pleading of the Muse.


   __________
[(1) An Address delivered by James C. Carter, LL. D., upon the occasion of the
Dedication of the new Buildings of the University; June 14, 1898.]




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    "Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower:
The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tow'r
Went to the ground; and the repeated air
Of sad Electra's poet had the pow'r
To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare."

   The dawn of peace found the University weak and exhausted, but not
disheartened. The people of Virginia who had learned to cherish it, its sons
who looked back to it with fond affection, the warmhearted and open-handed
friends of learning in distant places came forward with liberal help. The Muses
returned and re-peopled their haunts, and a new era of prosperity, stimulated
by the new national life, began its course.

   But another stroke of adversity awaited it, -- this time, not from the hostile
passions of man, but from the rage of the elements, less savage indeed, but not
less unsparing. Its very walls were laid in ruins and their precious treasures
wasted. But if any evidence were needed to show the extent to which the
University had increased in power, in grandeur, in usefulness, and in the
esteem of the people of Virginia and the friends everywhere of the higher
education, it would be found in the undaunted spirit with which this disaster
was faced. There was an immediate resolve that it should rise from its ashes in
yet fairer proportions, more worthy of the spirit in which it was originally
founded, better equipped for the great work to which it was originally
dedicated, and a more glorious monument to the great name forever associated
with it.




-v-


    This great purpose has now been accomplished,
and we are gathered together to-day to celebrate its completion. The scene
before me and around is the best evidence of the interest of the occasion. The
sons of the University from near and far have returned to the bosom of their
Fair Mother to rejoice together over her happiness. Representatives of other
seats of learning are here to offer their congratulations. The diplomatic
representative of the great empire at the antipodes -- an empire in which learning
has for ages been held in honor lends to the occasion the dignity of his
presence. The venerable Commonwealth is here in the person of the Chief
Magistrate and principal officers of state to manifest her own interest in an
institution which her bounty has cherished and which has given back in return
the support upon which alone a free Commonwealth can rest.


   It is the custom on such occasions to make provision for deliberate utterance
of the thoughts which they are calculated to excite, and the authorities of the
University have thought it suitable to invite to this office, not -- I have been
made to feel -- an entire stranger, but a friend from a distance, whose
opportunities have not been such as to permit a close observation of the
history and fortunes of the institution. Profoundly sensible of the honor thus
conferred upon me, I cannot help feeling how inadequate I am to its due
performance. I cannot speak of the University of Virginia with all the
affection which




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the graduate cherishes for his Alma Mater, nor with the full pride which the
Virginian alone can feel; but to those who regard this institution as their
own, who have control over its destinies, or have been reared within its walls,
a view of it, as it appears to outside observers, may not be unwelcome, or
wholly uninteresting. We are sometimes enabled to correct our own conceptions
of ourselves, and qualify ourselves in some degree for the better performance
of our own duties, by learning what is thought of us and what is expected of us
by others.


   Let me then occupy your thoughts for a brief hour with a sketch, very rude and
imperfect, of the origin of the University and of its principal features as
they appear to the world at large, to which I may add some allusion to its
illustrious founder, and to the political philosophy the teaching of which he
so ardently desired to promote.


   Its origin offers a strong contrast with the beginnings of our principal seats
of learning which preceded it. Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton began as
mere schools for humble colonies, with no prevision of the great destinies
which awaited them. Their majestic proportions have been developed and shaped,
during long periods of time, by many different hands and many varying
influences. But the University of Virginia sprang into life, in full panoply,
from the conception of a single man, like Minerva from the brain of Jove. The
aim of its founder was not to supply merely local and immediate


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wants, but to make provision for the growth, maintenance and glory of the
new civilization and the new empire with which his visions were filled. No
sketch can even be outlined of the origin and character of this institution
which does not take in as a principal element the figure of this illustrious
man.


   The leading feature in the mind and character of Thomas Jefferson was a firm
and undoubting belief in the worth and dignity of human nature, and in the
capacity of man for self government. This was at once the conclusion of his
reason and the passion of his soul. Whence it came to him it is difficult to
discover; it was not from the sense of subjection and oppression felt by an
inferior class in society towards those above it, for he belonged to the class
of well to do, if not wealthy, Virginia land-holders; not from the venerable
college of William and Mary, in which he was bred, for his opinions were not
the cherished sentiments of that institution; not from his early and familiar
acquaintance, to which he has acknowledged his great indebtedness, with Dr.
Small, the President of that College, George Wythe and Gov. Fauquier, for
their tendencies were towards very conservative views; not even from the fiery
eloquence of Patrick Henry, to which he had often listened with
admiration, -- that may have fanned the flame in his bosom -- but indignation at the
Stamp Act would scarcely have nerved him to his early effort in the House of
Burgesses to facilitate the manumission of slaves. It seems to have been




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inborn; but whether inborn or communicated, it ruled his life; it burst from
him like the peal of an anthem when he came to pen the immortal Declaration ;
his long residence in Europe only confirmed it the excesses of the French.
Revolution had no effect to abate it, and it breathes through every line of his
public utterances from his seat as President of the United States; it was the
foundation of his virtues and the source of his errors; and not only the
source of these, but the cause of the false imputation to him of errors he
never committed; his friendships and his enmities were alike due to it; he
distrusted all who were not in full sympathy with it, and they distrusted him.
Taught by bitter experience that the principles of true democracy are often as
distasteful to the multitude as they are to the possessors of wealth and
privilege, that the masses of men, fascinated by the splendors and force of
concentrated power, may easily be persuaded, sometimes, to surrender in
exchange for them the sense of individual freedom, even this did not dishearten
him, and after filling, for eight years, the highest office in the gift of his
countrymen with undeviating fidelity to the principles of popular government,
he retired to the rest and repose of his beloved Monticello, carrying thither
convictions of the worth and dignity of human nature, and ideals of government
by the people, as distinct and fresh as those which animated him in the morning
of his life.


   Men have forever been prone to cast either a


doubt or a sneer upon the apparently beneficent deeds of those whose principles
they reject and whose influence they fear. . A large part, at least, of the
acts of Mr. Jefferson's official life still remain and will, perhaps, forever
remain, the subjects of dispute; but he himself has happily singled out, to be
engraven upon his tomb, three particular achievements with which he wished his
name to be associated, by friend or stranger, in all future time. The latest
generation of his countrymen will not question the justice of his claim, nor
withhold any part of the full tribute of honor and glory which belongs to the
"author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of
Virginia for Religious Freedom, and to the Father of the University of
Virginia."(1)


   Mr. Jefferson, at his retirement, was sixty-six years of age. His intellectual
faculties were unimpaired, his bodily strength was well preserved, and he was
still conscious of the possession of a large capacity for usefulness to his
countrymen and to mankind. His ambition for public office, never very deeply
cherished, had been fully satisfied, and he was inwardly resolved never again
to seek it. He had cherished through life a passion for the acquisition of
knowledge, and was one of the best educated men, if not the best educated man,
of his country and time, and he could. have filled the remainder of his days
with a serene and tranquil enjoyment of the pleasures of literature and
science; but such a life

_________

(1) From the inscription on his tomb.
_________


was not possible for him, nor was any life possible for him the strength of
which was not devoted to the advancement of the liberty and happiness of men.
He had in early manhood formed a scheme of public education, which, from time
to time, had pressed itself on his attention throughout even the busiest years
of his public life. It was part of his political philosophy. Lover of liberty
as he was, firmly as he believed that popular government was the only form of
public authority consistent with the highest happiness of men, he yet did not
believe that any nation or community could permanently retain this blessing
without the benefit of the lessons of truth, and the discipline of virtue to be
derived only from the intellectual and moral education of the whole people.


   His general scheme appears to have embraced three branches : ( 1 ) the division
of the whole state into districts, or wards, and the establishment in each of a
primary school in which the rudiments of knowledge should be taught to all; (2)
the establishment of a sufficient number of higher academies or colleges, in
which those exhibiting in the primary schools superior intellectual endowments
might acquire, gratis, a further and higher education; and (3) a State
University, in which each science should " be taught in the highest degree it
has yet attained."


   The length of time during which, and the intensity with which Mr. Jefferson had
devoted himself to this great object, is well manifested by an extract from a

__________

(1) See Jefferson's Autobiography; vol. 1, p, 47.

__________


letter written by him in 1818, some ten years after his retirement from the
presidency. "A system " says he, " of general instruction which shall reach
every description of our citizens, from the highest to the poorest, as it was
the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I
shall permit myself to take an interest." (1)


   The two branches of his scheme relating respectively to the primary schools and
the higher academies encountered obstacles which it was impossible for him to
surmount, and they are not those features which chiefly concern us to-day; but
I cannot resist the temptation to read before this audience his statement of
the objects of primary education contained in the celebrated report prepared by
him for the Commission appointed by the Governor of Virginia under an act of
the General Assembly and which met in 1818 at the unpretending tavern at
Rockfish Gap in the Blue Ridge. There have been held since that day, in many
parts of the United States, conventions and conferences of teachers, educators
and friends and patrons of learning more numerously attended, favored with more
abundant information, and with other advantages for the consideration and
discussion of educational questions; but none, certainly, more distinguished
for the dignity and ability of its members.. Besides senators and judges, there
were among those who assembled on that occasion, James Monroe, then President
of the United States,

__________

(1) Correspondence of Jefferson and Cabell; p. 106.

__________




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and his two predecessors, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. And, certainly,
we may look in vain for any public statement before that time or since, of the
objects of public education so concise so comprehensive and so just as that
contained in the report of this Commission written by Jefferson. He thus
defined the objects of primary education:

" 1. To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of
his own business.

" 2. To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his
ideas, his contracts and accounts in writing

" 3. To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties.

" 4. To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge
with competence the functions confided to him by either.

" 5. To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains;
to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice
their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment.

" 6. And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the
social relations under which he shall be placed."'


   This statement of the objects of primary education will never be improved. It
ought to be written in letters of gold and hung in every primary school
throughout the land and be known by heart to every teacher and child therein.
It is, indeed, more than

__________

(1) U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular No. 1

__________

P. 33.



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a statement of the elements of rudimentary education. It is an enumeration of
the duties of every good citizen under a popular government.


   The apparent impossibility, at the time he began his effort, of impressing upon
the Commonwealth his sense of the necessity of a universal provision for
primary education, moved Mr. Jefferson to turn his attention to the third
branch of his scheme, that which embraced a State University. This, although
not, in his democratic view, the part of his plan which promised results of the
widest utility, was the one which offered to him the most congenial field of
effort, and held out to his hopes a better promise of success.


   His conception in its main elements had been in his mind from early manhood. He
had never dismissed it from his thoughts. He cherished it during the gloomy
years of the Revolution. He improved it during his long sojourn in France. He
recurred to it again and again in the midst of the perplexities which
distracted him during both his presidential terms, and he brought it gradually
to a completion after his retirement. He sought every aid which he could derive
from independent study, from unceasing correspondence with men of learning
familiar with university education and from personal intercourse with those
interested in his project whom he could attract to his own hospitable roof.


   I have no time to recount the successive steps by which his plan proceeded
towards its realization; its partial embodiment in the Albemarle Academy, its



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fuller development in the Central College, under which name the corner-stone of
the future University was laid, and its final establishment in fact and in name
by the passage through the General Assembly, on the 25th of January, 1819, of
the bill uniting the Central College and the University of Virginia.


   It would be no disparagement of the glory to which Mr. Jefferson is entitled
for this great achievement to say that he could never have accomplished the
work without the aid of others. The assent of the Legislature was needed, and
for this a favoring public sentiment was necessary; but it was here that Mr.
Jefferson's task began. For forty years he had been laboring in every form in
which public sentiment could be reached, through the press, and by
correspondence and personal influence with leading public men, to create, and
he finally created, a conviction of the importance and necessity of the work.
But, however conspicuous the place which may be assigned to him, there was one
coadjutor whose devoted labor and effective aid can never be forgotten. The
right arm upon which he relied in later years, and without which it may well be
doubted whether this audience would be gathered together to-day, was Joseph C.
Cabell. The alumni and friends of the University of Virginia may be trusted to
take care that that name shall not perish from the grateful memory of men.


   The whole work, however, was as yet by no means accomplished. I have just said
that the University




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had become established in fact and in name; but the fact was only the
legislative fiat, and the name as yet but a name. The conception of a
University embraces noble buildings which contain its libraries, its
collections, its halls of instruction, and which, in most instances prior to
this time, had been the contributions of successive generations. Of these there
were as yet none; and in nothing does this institution more clearly appear as
the creation of Mr. Jefferson's mind than in its material structures and their
situation.


   In respect to the situation, the presence of a selfish interest may be
recognized and excused. Among the motives which stimulated his zeal was
undoubtedly a desire, of which we have more than one example among democratic
statesmen, to spend the years of retirement in the congenial neighborhood of a
great institution of learning and science; and it was the longing of his heart
that the University should have her permanent seat, " her arms and her chariot,
in the neighborhood of his own Monticello. To this end he employed every
resource of argument, and when this failed, of art, to persuade the body of
which he was himself a member, of the superior claims of this locality. They
were obliged to admit that healthiness and centrality ought to be the
predominating considerations; but, admitting this, they could hardly resist
the argument afforded by Mr. Jefferson's " imposing array of octogenarians "
then still living in this region; and, as to centrality, he was ready with a
demonstration that on whatever



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theory the lines might be run " they would be found to pass close to
Charlottesville:"(1)


   The form, the architecture, and the arrangement of the material structures seem
to have been altogether his own; and here he did not allow the simplicity and
frugality of his political philosophy to lead him astray. His vision was of a
University which would appeal to the sentiments, and thus attract to itself the
most famous teachers, with crowds of scholars. He knew the Muses could not be
enticed to take up their abode in mean and squalid habitations. He wrote to his
efficient helper, Cabell :

" The great object of our aim from the beginning has been to make the
establishment the most eminent in the United States in order to draw to it the
youth of every State, but especially of the South and West. We have proposed,
therefore, to call to it characters of the first order of science from Europe,
as well as our own country, and not only by the salaries and the comforts of
their situation, but by the distinguished scale of its structure and
preparation, and the promise of future eminence which these would hold up, to
induce them to commit their reputation to its future fortunes. Had we built a
barn for a college and log huts for accommodations, should we ever have had the
assurance to propose to an European professor of character to come to it ? "(2)
He sought, therefore, to reproduce on the American frontier a

__________

1 U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular No. 1,1888, p. 37. 2 Correspondence of
Jefferson and Cabell; p. 260.

__________




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vision of the architecture and art of Greece and Rome. He seems to have been
his own architect and almost his own builder. It would be strange, indeed, if
the results had altogether escaped criticism, or if personal vanity had not, to
some extent, usurped the place of knowledge; but it is no mean tribute to the
merit of the original design that it has been, after the lapse of
three-quarters of a century, reproduced and perpetuated in the principal
restoration which we dedicate to-day.


   On the 7th of March, 1825, the University was thrown open for the reception of
students, and its actual career began. It must have been a day of unspeakable
satisfaction to Mr. Jefferson. A long life filled with public service and
public cares had been at last crowned by what he regarded as its most useful
achievement, at the very moment when he had reached the boundary which limits
human endeavor; but if he was capable of no further effort there was no further
effort which he was called upon to make. It was the very point at which, as he
had many times declared, he could with happiness pronounce his " nunc
dimittis," and the moment was not long deferred. On the 4th day of July of the
succeeding year, just half a century after the American Colonies had rung out
to the world in his own immortal language their declaration of nationality, he
closed his career on earth.


   This is not the time, had I the ability, to make any attempt to assign the
place to which this illustrious



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man is entitled on the roll of philanthropists. Coming as he did upon the
theatre of conspicuous life at a period when the fundamental principles of
government were the subjects of universal discussion, subjects upon which
freemen are at all times inclined to array themselves on one or the other of
two opposing sides, -- one dreading the effects of popular ignorance, the other
fearing the selfishness of the enlightened, -- one looking back to the supposed
wisdom and virtue of the past, and the other looking forward with confidence to
the possibilities and promise of the future, -- plunging, as he did, into these
conflicts with all the earnestness of long cherished and positive convictions,
he could hardly fail to encounter hostilities which would stop at no methods
by which his principles or his character could be discredited. By some irony of
fate the great apostle of democracy was made to suffer in his own person all
the injustice which democratic societies can perpetrate. The great defender of
the liberty of speech and the press was rewarded by an outpouring from the
press and the pulpit of calumny and detraction unparalleled before or since;
and the foremost champion of popular principles, faithful to them in every act
of his life, retired from the high office of President under a load of
unpopularity.


   But,

"Time! the corrector where our judgments err,

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Time, the avenger!"

Thomas Jefferson, its Father xix ,

has dispelled the clouds of detraction and the mists of prejudice and revealed
in clearer light the true image of the statesman and the patriot. Looking at
the denunciation poured out upon him by his contemporaries and the applause
with which posterity has hailed his name, we are moved to think with the great
English orator " that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the composition of
all true glory," and that " it was not only in the Roman customs, but it is in
the nature and constitution of things that calumny and abuse are essential
parts of a triumph."


   He had, indeed, few of the qualities which mark the great military chieftain,
the conqueror, or the dictator, but what figure in the gallery of American
renown can point to such a catalogue of pacific achievement ? -- the abolition in
his native State of the laws of primogeniture and entail -- the Virginia Statute
of religious freedom -- the Declaration of Independence -- the kind and peaceful
removal of the Indian tribes to the west of the Mississippi -- the near extinction
of the national debt -- the acquisition of Louisiana -- the University of
Virginia -- where are the crimes or the vices which dim the lustre of these deeds?
Those whose ideal of the duty and destiny of the Republic is that of a
conquering nation ready at any moment for the grim business of war, eager to
avenge an insult real or supposed, greedy of military and naval renown,
inclined to erect its own will into law, and enforce it against all opposition,
to strike first and reason afterwards -- these will find




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little to admire in the career of Mr. Jefferson. He knew too well the lessons
of history. He knew what visions of empire had dazzled the ambition of Rome,
while Rome was yet free,

"Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; Hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque
imponere morem, Parcere subjectis, et debellare suberpos."

And he knew also the terrible penalty to Rome and the world which an indulgence
of those visions cost. He had lived in the midst of the interesting scenes
which ushered in the emancipation of France, and had afterwards shuddered to
see how ruthlessly the passion for extended empire and military glory would
trample upon true liberty. He was a pacific ruler. War, except in self-defence,
and as a last alternative; he held in detestation, as the enemy both of
civilization and liberty. His patriotism expanded into philanthropy, and
permitted no other ambitions respecting foreign nations than those of
cultivating the peaceful relations of trade and commerce with the whole family_
of man.


   Whatever abatement we may be required or disposed to make from his credit as a
practical statesman, the sum of his achievements was hardly equalled by any of
his contemporaries, save one alone, and the general features of his political
philosophy still remain as the nominal creed at least of the great body of his
countrymen.


   But what, if any, was the particular conception of university education which
he enshrined within these




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walls? Is it still cherished here, and will it be a worthy guide in training
the intellect and directing the aspirations of the future generations who are
to flock hither? These are questions which more immediately concern us on this
occasion.


   I suppose most men who have given great attention to the subject of education
have not thought it appropriate to inquire for what it was useful; they would
deem it useful in itself, as being the development of the faculties of man, or,
if required to assign an ulterior object to which it should be held
subservient, they would point to nothing less general, or less absolute, than
human happiness.


   This, however, was not Mr. Jefferson's view. Lover as he was of the sciences,
and of all learning for their own sake, happy as he had always been made while
cultivating them, he yet would never have expended so many years of his life in
founding this institution, if he had had no hopes other than those of
establishing a university on the ordinary model, even though there were a
promise of rivaling the fame of Oxford or Bologna. With him, university
education was important as being a part of general education, and this was
important because necessary to the development and preservation of that civil
and political liberty which he deemed essential to the progress and happiness
of man.


   His idea of university education was, therefore, a part of his political
philosophy. He believed that there was a system of government founded upon the




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principles of human nature under which the largest liberty and happiness were
attainable, but only upon the condition of a wide -- a universal -- diffusion of
popular education, and that such education embraced the cultivation in the
highest degree of those selected minds exhibiting the highest order of genius.
It was by means of a systematic cultivation of the best natural geniuses in the
land that he hoped to carry all the sciences to the highest degree of
cultivation, and among them especially, the science of free government.


   The animating principle of his political philosophy was a jealousy of all
governmental power in whomsoever vested. Such power is, of necessity, to be
exercised by some over others. It may be wrongfully usurped, or voluntarily
entrusted, but, in either case is liable to be abused; and, in Jefferson's
view, the best guaranty against abuse consisted in preventing usurpation and
withholding delegation. He knew, indeed, that government to a certain extent
was necessary, and, therefore, that it was necessary to delegate and entrust
power; but this he would do with stingy parsimony, measuring the amounts doled
out by the rule of rigid necessity. This was the ground of his animosity
towards any concentration of power in the hands of one, or a few; because
concentrated power is a common form and fruit of usurped or delegated power.
Nor did his democracy assume that socialistic form which would merge the
liberty of the individual in the equality of the




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masses. It was the natural, original freedom of man which he sought to
preserve. He was the apostle of individualism. He lost no opportunity of
inculcating his favorite principle, and a question as to whether primary
schools should be supported and managed by counties, or each by the particular
district in which it was situated, led him into a very concise' and excellent
statement of his whole theory :

"No, my friend," said he, "the way to have good and safe government is not to
trust it all to one; but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one
exactly the functions he is competent to. Let the National government be
entrusted with the defence of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations;
the State government with the civil rights, laws, police and administration
of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of
the counties and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by
dividing and subdividing these republics, from the great national one down
through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every
man's farm and affairs by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye
may superintend, that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed liberty
and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun?
The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no
matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a
Venetian Senate. And I do believe, that if




-xxiv-


the Almighty has not decreed that man shall never be free(and it is blasphemy
to believe it) the secret will be found in the making himself the depository of
the powers respecting, himself so far as he is competent to them, and
delegating only. what is beyond his competency by a synthetical process to
higher and higher orders of functionaries, so as to trust fewer and fewer
powers, in proportion. as the trustees become more and more oligarchical." (1)


   At the present day we are so familiar with these ideas that it is difficult to
imagine that they were ever novel; but in Mr. Jefferson's time it was far
otherwise. Not all of those who espoused the side of the colonies against Great
Britain and joined in the struggle for independence were believers in popular
government, and many even of those who supported the new constitution had but
feeble faith in democratic principles. Many even preferred monarchical
government, and many more what they called a strong government, that is, a
government strong enough to maintain itself even against the popular will.

And it is difficult also to understand the partisan hostility and bitterness
engendered by these conflicting views. Each side seemed to believe that the
other was bent upon the destruction of everything valuable in society.
Jefferson and Marshall, two great Virginians, incomparably the first political
geniuses in the land, utterly distrusted each other.

__________

(1) Correspondence of Jefferson and Cabell; p.54

__________







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Nor could men be much blamed for withholding

assent from the political ideas of Jefferson. There was but little in the
teachings of history to support them. They were based in large degree upon a
priori conceptions. He was obliged to admit that all previous attempts at
popular government had been failures; but this was, in his view, because of
special disfavoring conditions; the long habit of submitting to despotic
authority had enervated the people, or the true principle of popular government
had been violated by delegating and concentrating too much power in the hands
of a few. He saw in the conditions exhibited by the American colonies the first
real opportunity for establishing liberty. For a century these colonies had
been exempt from the dominion of feudalism, from sectarian domination, and from
nearly every form of severe governmental oppression. Here was a virgin soil, an
abundance of land, no degrading poverty, a brave and intelligent people which
had just vindicated its title to independence after a long struggle with the
mightiest of European powers. He could not help thinking that " unless the
Almighty had decreed that man should never be free (and it would be blasphemy
to believe this) " that the golden opportunity was now offered; that here the
free spirit of mankind should " put its last fetters off; " that here should
be established no bastard, degenerate freedom, no government affecting to be
popular, but really resting upon monarchical or aristocratic contrivances




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but a freedom in which every man should be master of his own destiny, in which
there should be no usurpation of power, and no delegation of power, unless its
natural possessor was unfitted to exercise it, and consequently no
concentration of power, beyond what rigid necessity required -- no great standing
armies -- no powerful navies carrying the flag in triumph over every sea, -- no
interference with liberty of opinion or speech -- no interference with liberty of
action, so long as the public peace and order were not broken -- this was
Jefferson's vision of republican freedom.


   It would be a gross injustice to impute to him hostility to government itself,
or any indulgence of mere license. Government was in his view the first and
most important of human necessities; but instead of regarding it, as some
seemed to do, as being in itself the source of good; and therefore presumably
beneficent wherever its power was felt, he looked upon it as beneficial only so
far as it was necessary to prevent one man from encroaching upon the liberty
and rights of another, and as carrying with it great possibilities of mischief
and wrong whenever its interference was pushed beyond its just limits.


   Such was Mr. Jefferson's conception of liberty and government which he intended
should be accepted by this University, and be therein defended and propagated.
It was only through the universal adoption of this idea that it seemed to him
possible




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for the newly created nation to reach the glorious destiny which the future had
in store for it; and hence the importance he attached to it, and the
unquestioning assent which he demanded for it. By nature the most tolerant of
men, upon this point he was dogmatic, even to bigotry. A thorough believer in
the inherent power of truth to triumph ultimately over error, he was yet
unwilling to subject his favorite dogma to the temporary hazards of a contest.
In one of his communications just before the University was thrown open to
students, he expressed to one of his fellows upon the Board of Visitors his
anxieties in this direction. Said he : " In most public seminaries text-books
are prescribed to each of the several schools as the norma docendi in that
school; and this is generally done by authority of the trustees. I should not
propose this generally in our University; because I believe none of us are so
much at the heights of science in the several branches as to undertake this;
and, therefore, that it will better be left to the professors, until occasion
of interference shall be given. But there is one branch in which we are the
best judges, in which heresies may be taught, of so interesting a character to
our own State, and to the United States, as to make it a duty in us to lay down
the principles which shall be taught. It is that of government. Mr. Gilmer,
being withdrawn, we know not who his successor may be. He may be a Richmond
lawyer, or one of that school of quondam federalism, now consolidation. It is
our duty to




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guard against the dissemination of such principles among our youth, and the
diffusion of that poison, by a previous prescription of the texts to be
followed in their discourses."(1)


   Of the fidelity heretofore of this University to the political theory thus
entrusted to it, no doubt will be entertained. Its own convictions have
concurred with the sentiments of grateful admiration for its father. Successive
generations of the sons of the South have become deeply imbued with it by
lessons received upon this spot and have greatly aided in making it the
unchallenged popular faith throughout the largest part of the land.


   Shall this fidelity be continued into the indefinite future? Shall Jefferson's
theory of Liberty be forever cherished around his tomb ? Has the experience of
a century vindicated its pretensions as the only sure foundation of popular
government, or stamped upon it the discredit of an illusive impracticability ?
These are not uninteresting questions and they deserve my few remaining words.


   If an intelligent observer removed from any participation in our political
strifes were to survey the history of our country for a century with the view
of ascertaining how far events had justified the teachings of Mr. Jefferson and
his followers, he would find difficulty in reaching at first, at least, a
favorable verdict. He would impute, perhaps not unjustly, to that peaceful
policy the national humiliations

__________

(1) Correspondence of Jefferson and Cabell; P. 339.

__________




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which preceded and accompanied the War of 1812 with Great Britain. He would see
one of the supposed conclusions of that political philosophy as originally
drawn and carefully expressed by the great apostle himself in the celebrated
Kentucky resolutions of 1798, and afterwards re-stated and vindicated by
another illustrious son of the South, made the justification for a bold and
deliberate attempt to nullify, throughout the territory of a State, a law of
the United States. He would see this conclusion at a still later period made
the ground for a widespread defiance of the entire national authority, and the
main support of a civil strife which deluged the land with fraternal blood.


   Further reflection, however, would probably dispel in part, if not altogether,
the unfavorable impression. Mr. Jefferson's political system was, no doubt,
based upon the assumption of peace. He held in abhorrence large standing armies
and powerful navies, and a nation unprovided with these will sometimes find
itself subjected to humiliation, as we were in the era of 1812, either by
submitting to injury from a consciousness of unreadiness to make good a
defiance, or by being suddenly overwhelmed by an inferior hostile force. But
are nations unprepared for war the only ones likely to be subjected to
humiliations? Was England never humiliated, or France, or Germany ? And what
can be a greater humiliation than that of an unjust aggression upon the rights
of others and the peace of the world so






-xxx-


likely to be committed by those who think them-selves armed with resistless
power ? And had we always been armed on the land and on the sea in proportion
to our power, should we have gained and held the glory hitherto accorded to us
by civilized mankind of being the promoters everywhere of international law,
and the advocates of peace and justice among nations? And, even in respect to
power itself, were we called upon to exhibit our strength in a just cause,
could we under a more consolidated government, assemble the overwhelming forces
which the emulation of rival States will now willingly place at the service of
the nation?


   For the theoretical doctrine which supported the claims of nullification and
secession, Mr. Jefferson must, indeed, be held largely accountable; but this
was never any essential part of his philosophy of free government, if indeed it
be consistent with it. It concerned only the interpretation and effect of the
particular constitutional instrument by which the colonies united themselves
together.


   I must employ a few words here to make this more plain. In the great political
division which took place soon after the adoption of the constitution, men
arrayed themselves on the one side or the other according as they favored the
advanced doctrines of popular government, or, distrusting the capacity of the
people, inclined towards the principles and methods of a constitutional
monarchy. The impulse of the movement which culminated in the French




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Revolution, reaching these shores, stirred the sympathies and passions of both
parties, the one espousing the cause of Democratic France and the other of
monarchical England. The Federal party, alarmed for the public welfare, and
fearful lest the license of the French revolutionists should be repeated on
this side of the water, sought to strengthen authority by those acts of
repressive Federal power, since generally condemned, called the Alien and
Sedition laws. The constitutional validity of these was attacked by Jefferson,
and his argument was formulated in the celebrated Kentucky resolutions, in
which he affirmed the right of each State, under the Constitution, to determine
for itself the validity of any Federal enactment. The main question was not
whether under a Federal government formed to secure the ends which ours had in
view, it would be wise to delegate to the general government the exclusive
right to determine the extent of its own powers, but whether in point of fact
such a delegation was contained in our own constitution. Upon this point it
would be true to say that Mr. Jefferson and his followers had their own way,
until the appearance of the scene, at a later period, of those great
protagonists in constitutional debate, Webster and Calhoun. In what condition
the struggle between these renowned champions left the dispute I will not
undertake to say, --

"Non nostrum tantas componere lites; "




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but I may hazard the opinion that if the question had been made, not in 1861,
but in 1788, immediately after the adoption of the Constitution, whether the
Union as formed by that instrument could lawfully treat the secession of a
State as a rebellion and suppress it by force, few of those who had
participated in framing that instrument would have answered in the affirmative.


   Nor has that question been in any manner settled by the result of that civil
strife which has effected such a profound revolution in the political and
social world of America. I cannot admit the efficacy of force to settle any
question of historic or scientific truth. Truth is eternal and immutable, and
the warfare of those who seek to suppress it will forever be in vain. The
question which the result of that strife did settle, as has been eloquently and
powerfully shown by a distinguished statesman and jurist of the South -- shown,
too, in pronouncing a glowing eulogy upon his great teacher and master, Calhoun
was, not whether our Constitution actually created a consolidated
nation -- nations cannot be created by agreement -- but whether the Federal Union,
composed originally of colonies the people of which had been subjects of the
same sovereign, and which had never occupied the attitude of independent States
before the world, embracing, also, new States created out of territory which
was the common property of all, could -- after they had been knit together into a
nation during the life of nearly a century by the




-xxxiii-



thousand processes which time and nature employ to cement and consolidate a
people -- by trade, by commerce, by railways, by social and business alliances, by
common perils and sufferings in war, by the blessings, hopes and aspirations of
peace, could, after all this, at the will and pleasure of one of its parts, be
instantly and peacefully resolved, not into its original elements, but into
supposed constituent parts, most of which had had no participation in its
original formation. That was a question which from its nature could be settled
only by trial, and the trial has indeed forever settled that, and -- strange thing
in human history -- neither side would wish the decision to be reversed. Nor
should it be forgotten that, whatever the consequences, in, the form of
disunion or secession, the doctrine of Mr. Jefferson, as propounded in the
Kentucky resolutions, might possibly involve, no such project was ever
suggested, or in any manner countenanced, by him. Whatever discredit may be
attached to any suggestions, in his day, of disunion or secession belongs
altogether to his political opponents.


   Are there any other respects in which it may be plausibly suggested that the
political philosophy of Mr. Jefferson has been discredited by the teachings of
experience? Does the General Government now need a larger delegation of power?
Are there any functions hitherto performed by the States which should be
relegated to the central authority ? Do we need a large standing army? Must we
confront




-xxxiv-


the gigantic naval armaments of the European nations with a corresponding array
? Must we mingle in the ambitions of the great powers of the world ? Must we
extend the area of our territorial dominion ? Must we look on and behold with
unconcern the partitioning of Africa among the European powers, and the
dismemberment of China? Must we assert before the world the might and majesty
of seventy millions of the most energetic and productive people on the globe?
Shall we form alliances with kindred peoples, or remain in calm and forbidding
isolation among the nations? All these questions to which, if proposed in Mr.
Jefferson's time, his teaching would have returned an answer in the negative,
are likely to press themselves, if they are not already pressing themselves,
upon the public attention.


   Time, of course, does not permit me to indulge in any consideration of either
of them; but I venture to express my conviction that unless the answer the
American people make to them shall be consistent with those principles of which
Mr. Jefferson has hitherto been regarded as the champion, there will be an end
of true popular government among men. There is -- there can be -- but one true basis
of liberty, and that lies in constantly cherishing the dispersion rather than
the concentration of power. The individual loses something of his liberty the
moment he clothes another with any power over himself. Nothing can justify the
surrender except




-xxxv-



the promise that by making it he better secures the liberty he retains. But
with every new surrender of power there comes a peril. Power entrusted will
sometimes be abused, and the temptation to abuse increases with the extent of
the delegation. Liberty is safe when, and only when, for each delegation of
power which is demanded a necessity is shown.

No; the fundamental political philosophy of Mr. Jefferson has not been
discredited by time or experience. It never will be discredited while men
retain a real love and a true comprehension of civil liberty. And never more
than at the present time has there been a necessity for studying and teaching
within the walls of universities the true principles of republican liberty and
the practical art of applying them to human affairs. Recreant, indeed, would
this University be to the fame of its founder, to the purposes for which it was
established, and to its own obligations to present and to future times, if it
failed to continue to maintain, not in the spirit of dogmatism, but of devotion
to truth, those great principles upon which free popular government stands.


   If anything were needed to impress upon patriotic minds the supreme importance
of cultivating anew these principles and implanting in all hearts the
determination to maintain them, it would be supplied by the extraordinary
spectacle which our country exhibits at the present moment. We have voluntarily
chosen to break the peace of the world




-xxxvi-


and engage in a war which already imposes a heavy burden upon the industry and
resources of the nation, and which may become enlarged into gigantic
proportions -- a war undertaken not to repel aggression, but to check the
disorders and relieve the oppressions to which a neighboring people have been
subjected. It is, indeed, true that nations have their duties not only to
themselves, but to the world; and these must be performed at whatever hazard.
If we have not the virtue to perform them without sacrificing our own freedom,
we have no right to be a republic. We believe, and have solemnly avowed, that
we have taken this perilous step under the influence of those humane motives
which civilization and humanity enjoin us to obey. For the sincerity of that
avowal we must abide the judgment of civilized nations, and this will largely
depend upon the consistency with that declaration which our future conduct
shall exhibit. Even now the passion for national glory, growing by what it
feeds upon, stimulated by the deeds of naval skill and daring on distant
seas -- deeds which reflect undying lustre on the American name and excite the
admiration of the world -- is indulging new visions of territorial aggrandizement.


   But have a care, Americans! These national duties which call upon us to raise
an avenging arm arise only in those rare alternatives when all else has proved
to be ineffectual, and when we have good reason to know that such avenging arm
will be




-xxxvii-



effectual. Have a care that among your ruling motives no place shall be allowed
to the mere love of military and naval renown. The pathway marked out for the
republic by its fathers was one of peaceful achievement. Its mission is peace.
A free nation can rightfully have no other aspiration. But there are
temptations which come with the possession of power. Men take pride in being
the citizens of powerful nations, and enjoy the consciousness of strength.
These temptations are to be resisted, for we may be sure that for any undue
indulgence in them the price will be exacted with the certainty of fate; and
this price is grinding taxation, the oppression of the poorer classes, the
multiplication of the official corps, the intensifying of the struggle for the
possession of governmental patronage and consequent spread of corruption, the
increasing power of political bosses and chieftains, the decay of public and
civic virtue, and the resulting danger of resorts to revolution. Let not our
future confirm the sad lament of the misanthropic poet, that history has but
one page which reads,

"First Freedom, and then Glory -- when that fails, Wealth, vice,
corruption, -- barbarism at last."


   Here, then, of all places, let the true principles of liberty and free
government, as expounded by Jefferson, be forever studied and taught. Let the
youth of the land who are to resort hither here learn the true objects of
national ambition and the methods by




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which they are to be reached. Let them study here the new problems arising from
the prodigious growth of the nation and its rapid material consolidation. Let
them be taught the true principles of legislation, and by what methods liberty
is best reconciled with order and with law; and above all let them learn to
prefer for their country that renown among the nations which comes from the
constant display of the love of peace and justice.


   And the ancient Commonwealth of Virginia, -- to what nobler object can she extend
her favor 'and support than the building up upon this historic spot of a great
university which shall be at once the home of the Sciences and the Arts and the
nursery of political freedom? Outshining all her sister colonies in the
splendor of her contribution to the galaxy of great names which adorns our
Revolutionary history, how can she better perpetuate that glory than by sending
forth from her own soil a new line of patriot statesmen? No jealousies will
attend her efforts to this great end, and her sister States would greet with
delight her re-ascending star once more blazing in the zenith of its own proper
firmament.