THOMAS JEFFERSON.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, the third President of the United States, was born on the 2d day of April, (O. S.) 1743, at Shadwell, in Albemarle County, Virginia. Of the first incidents of his life very little is recorded. We first hear of him as a student in the college of William and Mary, and, still ignorant of what success he met with in his literary pursuits at this institution, we find him a student at law in the office of George Wythe. Mr. Jefferson was admitted to the bar in 1766, and pursued his profession with zeal and success, and during the short period in which he devoted himself to its practice, he acquired considerable reputation, and there still exists a monument of his early labor and talents in a volume of Reports of Cases in the Supreme Courts of Virginia.

He was not, however, permitted long to remain in a private station. We find him, as early as 1769, a distinguished member of the legislature of Virginia, associated with men whose names have come down to us as the earliest and most determined champions of our rights. On the first of January, 1772, Mr. Jefferson married the daughter of Mr. Wayles, an eminent lawyer of Virginia. On the 12th of March, 1773, Mr. Jefferson was appointed a member of the first committee of correspondence, established by the colonial legislatures, one of the most important acts of the Revolution, and which paved the way for that union of action and sentiment, from which arose the first effective resistance, and on which depended the successful conduct and final triumph of the cause.

In 1774, we still find Mr. Jefferson a member of the Virginia legislature. In March, 1775, Mr. Jefferson was elected a delegate to the General Congress, and took his seat in that body on the 21st of June. He was an active and efficient member. In August he was again chosen to the same body; in which, being on the committee appointed to prepare a draft of the Declaration of Independence, he drew up the one which was finally adopted. In the autumn of 1776, he returned to Virginia. He was tendered the office of commissioner to France, with Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane, but declined the appointment, and remained during the year in his native state, devoting himself assiduously to her concerns. He was, for more than two years, actively engaged in revising the statutes of Virginia, and adapting them to the new condition of things. To his labors Virginia is indebted for some of her most important statutes.

In June, 1779, Mr. Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry, as governor of the state. In 1782, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary, with those then in Europe, to negotiate for peace; but, before his departure, the wel come intelligence was received, that peace had been concluded. In June, 1783, he was again elected to Congress.

In May, 1784, he was a third time appointed on an embassy, and went to Paris. He was absent on his mission more than four years, and visited Holland and Italy. Peace having been restored, and the government put in operation, Gen. Washington tendered to Mr. Jefferson the first office in his cabinet, as secretary of state. held the office until the close of 1793, when he resigned. In 1801, he was elected president of the United States by the House of Representatives, the people in their colleges having failed to make a choice. He continued in this

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high office eight years, and, during his administration, some important measures were adopted; the most impor tant of which was the purchase of Louisiana. When his second term of office expired, he retired to his estate in Virginia, and devoted the remainder of his life to philosophical pursuits, and the oversight of his plantation.

Of all our public men, the greatest injustice has been done to Mr. Jefferson. The character of the two great parties which have divided this country, from the foundation of the government, has not been fairly exhibited before the great mass of the people. Mr. Jefferson, the acknowledged head of the democratic party, presents a fit occasion for vindicating that party, in the purity of their motives, the justness of their views, the wisdom of their policy, from the criminations to which they have been subjected, by exhibiting, in a short sketch of his most valuable life, his views in common with the true democratic party then, and at this day, of the policy and measures to be pursued to perpetuate and prolong the glorious institutions of this country. Honest, credulous, unsuspecting individuals are often cheated out of their liberty by their confidence in the promises and professions of others. Mr. Jefferson says, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.

Mr. Jefferson arrived at New York on the 21st of March, 1790, and here commenced a new and important epoch of his life. From this time, until he retired from public affairs, in March, 1809, a period of nineteen years, his history is closely connected with the history of his country; and it is emphatically and completely a history of the political parties into which that country has been divided.

As soon as the thirteen colonies had formed themselves

into one nation, having the same general interests, they furnished another example of this portion of human des tiny, which even the sense of common danger and the aspirations after the common blessing of independence could check, but was not able altogether to extinguish.

One of the first, as well as most interesting occasions for a difference of opinion which presented itself, was the precise character of the political connection which should exist among the several states, which had, by a joint effort and a common triumph, effected a separation from their European rulers. Besides these general speculations in favor of a political union, there was another consideration which had a more general and immediate operation, because it was felt as well as seen. The peo

ple had practically experienced, since the peace, the inconvenience of so many independent sovereignties, in their conflicting regulations of foreign trade. The benefits to be derived from the union were the greater, from the fact that one division of the states was agricultural in its pursuits, and the other commercial. With such strong inducements for a united government, it is no wonder that the belief of its necessity was very prevalent. But about the character of the confederacy, men were much divided; and some saw, or thought they saw, in too close a union, dangers as great, and consequences as distasteful, as in their entire séparation. It was believed by many that the territorial extent of the country, and the great diversity of character, habits, and pursuits, among the several states, presented insuperable obstacles to a closer union than already existed, some states being addicted to commerce, and others exclusively agricultural; some having domestic slavery entwined in their civil policy, and others free from that institution, and averse to it. Of this description were the sentiments