as an incontrovertible truth, "that the agricultural interest is the permanent interest of this country, and therefore ought not to be sacrificed to any other." Mr. Jackson of Georgia, who had accustomed himself, as he said, to a blunt integrity of speech, that attested his sincerity, exclaimed: "They call to my mind a passage of Scripture, where a king, by the advice of inexperienced counsellors, declared to his people, my father did laden you with a heavy yoke, but I will add to your burdens.' " Follow those men through all their legislative career and it will be found, though history has given them little credit for it, that they steadily pursued one object as their polar star-resistance to the encroachments of power, and protection to the rights of the people. The awful squinting towards monarchy which Henry saw in the Executive, made them particularly jealous of that department of government, and caused them to oppose every measure that might tend to increase its power or patronage. On the much mooted question, for example, of removal from office, they insisted that the Senate should be associated with the President. Mr. Bland was the first to give expression to opinions which have since been so often repeated, and the policy of which is still a question. He thought the power given by the Constitution to the Senate, respecting the appointments to office, would be rendered almost nugatory if the President had the power of removal. He thought it consistent with the nature of things, that the power which appointed, should remove; and would not object to a declaration in the resolution, that the President shall remove from office by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The bill to establish the Treasury Department contained a clause making it the duty of the Secretary, "to digest and report plans for the improvement and management of the revenue and for the support of public credit." Mr. Page moved to strike out these words, observing, that to permit the Secretary to go farther than to prepare estimates, would be a dangerous innovation on the constitutional privilege of that house. It would create an undue influence within those walls, because members might be led by the deference commonly paid to men of abilities, who gave an opinion in a case they have thoroughly considered, to support the plan of the minister even against their own judgment. Nor would the mischief stop there. A precedent would be established, which might be extended until ministers of the government should be admitted on that floor, to explain and support the plans they had digested and reported, thereby laying a foundation for an aristocracy or a detestable monarchy. Mr. Tucker seconded the motion of Mr. Page. He hoped the house was not already weary of executing and sustaining the powers vested in them by the Constitution; and yet the adoption of this clause would argue that they thought themselves less adequate than an individual to determine what burdens their constituents were able to bear. This was not answering the high expectations that had been formed of their exertions for the general good, or of their vigilance in guarding their own and the people's rights. But nothing could equal the ferment and disquietude occasioned throughout the country by the proposition which came from the Senate, to confer titles on the President and other officers of government. The committee of the Senate reported, that it was proper to style the President his highness the President of the United States of America, and Protector of their liberties. In some of the newspapers the President was called his highness the President General. Some even went farther, and declared that as he represented the majesty of the people, he might even be styled "His Majesty," without reasonable offence to republican ears. The Senate was de nominated most honorable, and the same epithet was applied to the members of that body. For instance, it was published that the most honorable Rufus King and the most honorable Philip Schuyler were appointed senators. And when Mrs. Washington came to NewYork, she was accompanied by the "lady of the most honorable Robert Morris." The representatives, and even the secretaries of the executive departments were favored with no higher title than honorable. This habit of conferring titles and drawing distinctions between the different departments of government, and extending those titles and distinctions to persons no way connected with the government, had become very common, and would unquestionably have grown into something worse, but for the debates called forth in the House of Representatives, and the indignation shown by the leading members of that body against such proceedings. “What, sir,” said Mr. Tucker, "is the intention of this business? Will it not alarm our fellow-citizens? will it not give them just cause of alarm? Will they not say, that they have been deceived by the Convention that framed the Constitution? That it has been contrived with a view to lead them on by degrees to that kind of government which they have thrown off with abhorrence? Shall we not justify the fears of those who are opposed to the Constitution, because they considered it as insidious and hostile to the liberties of the people?" "Titles, sir," said Mr. Page, "may do harm and have done harm. If we contend now for a right to confer titles, I apprehend the time will come when we shall form a reservoir for honor, and make our President the fountain of it. In such case may not titles do an injury to the Union? They have been the occasion of an eternal faction in the kingdom we were formerly connected with, and may beget like inquietude in America; for I contend, if you give the title, you must follow it with the robe and the diadem, and then the principles of your government are subverted." Such were the men with whom John Randolph daily associated, such were the high-toned principles of liberty he was daily accustomed to hear. It was not from the reading of books in his closet, nor from second-hand that he acquired his knowledge of politics, and that extensive acquaintance with the leading characters of the country for which he was so remarkable, but from familiar intercourse with the statesmen and sages who laid the foundations of the government, and commenced the first superstructure of laws and precedents to serve as guides and examples to the statesmen who should come after them. It was the fortune of this young man to behold the Government in its feeble beginnings, like the simple shepherds on the snowy Vesolo, gazing in the overshadowed fountain of the Po with his scanty waters. Mirando al fonte ombroso It was his destiny also never to lose sight of it, but to follow it through near half a century of various fortune, now enfeebled by war and faction, now strengthened and enlarged by new States and new powers. How like the Po! he receives as a sovereign the Adda and the Tessino in his course, how ample he hastens on to the sea, how he foams, how mighty his voice, and to him the crown is assigned. Che 'l Adda, che 'l Tessino CHAPTER X. THOMAS JEFFERSON. In the winter of the year 1790-1, Philadelphia had again become, as in times of the old Continental Congress, the great centre of attraction. By a recent Act it had been made the seat of the Federal Government for ten years. The national legislature, adjourning the 12th of August in New-York, were to assemble the first Monday in December in the new Capitol. The papers and officers of all the Executive Departments were removed thither early in October, under the conduct of Cot. Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury. The President returning from Mount Vernon about the 1st of December, took up his lodgings in a house belonging to Robert Morris, which had been hired and fitted up for the purpose. And Tuesday, the 7th of December, the 3d session of the 1st Congress was organized in the new Court House of the city, which had been tendered to the government by the town authorities. We find also our young friend, in this general removal, transferred to the city of Philadelphia. He took up his residence at No. 154 Arch-street, where he continued with short intervals, till the spring of 1794, when he returned to Virginia. He was attached to the family of Edmund Randolph, the Attorney General of the United States-the same person his mother pointed him to as the model of an orator, worthy of his imitation. Edmund Randolph was a kinsman in the collateral line. He was the son of John Randolph, the King's Attorney General about the time of the Revolution. "Mr. Randolph," says Wirt, "was, in person and manners, among the most elegant gentlemen in the colony, and in his profession one of the most splendid ornaments of the bar." He was the son of Sir John (Knight), who was the son of William of Turkey Island, the great American progenitor of the family. Edmund Randolph inherited many of the accomplishments of his father. But he was more showy than solid. He was also of a vacillating character; voting against the Constitution, then violent in its favor; striving at first to steer above the influence of party, he was at length ingulfed and swept away by its current. "Friend Edmund," said John Randolph years afterwards, " was like the aspen, like the chameleon, ever trembling, ever changing." We may, therefore, suppose that his influence over the mind and character of his pupil was not so great as that of another kinsman who was also a member of General Washington's Cabinet. We allude to Thomas Jefferson, the first cousin of John Randolph's father, and the intimate friend of his youth. Mr. Jefferson had been abroad some years as Minister to France. Returning on a visit to America, he was invited by General Washington to take charge of the State Department. The invitation was accepted, and he was no soonor installed in office in the spring of 1790, than he became the head and leader of the Republican StateRights Party, then struggling into existence. Is was not the exalted station alone, but other circumstances that forced him into this unenviable and critical position. The author of the doctrine of State Rights and its eloquent defender, George Mason, and Patrick Henry, were both in retirement. The latter had been offered a seat in the Senate at its organization, but declined. It was tendered to him the second time, on the death of Col. Grayson; he again declined on the ground that he was too old to fall into those awkward imitations which have now become fashionable, spoken in allusion to the levees of Mrs. Washington, and the etiquette observed in presentations at the Executive Mansion. Richard Henry Lee was still in the Senate. He was the gentleman, the scholar, and the orator, but his thoughts ran too much in the smooth channel of established forms, his oratory too elaborate and polished, his disposition too indolent and unambitious to make him the fit leader of a party just coming into existence in a new era, with new thoughts, new principles, and an untried experiment before them. Thomas Jefferson was the man. The qualities of his mind, his education and |