JEFFERSON AND FOX. TO EXAMINE, define, and illustrate the Law of Human Progress, is one of the most interesting studies to the philosophical mind, and one of the most instructive to the practical man.

We do not now intend to enter this inviting field of inquiry. That we live in an era of progress, is an universally admitted truth. That our age is, in this respect, distinguished from the times which preceded it, except in the celerity and vigor of the movement, will hardly be asserted by the student of history. Though the last three-quarters of a century has been remarkable for social and political progress in every part of the world, yet nowhere has the advance been more steady and rapid, or more astonishing and beneficial in its consequences, than in the United States and Great Britain.

An illustrious ex-president* has but recently departed from among us, who saw a few depressed colonies, hovering along the Atlantic coast, achieve their independence, and expand into a epublic of thirty sovereign states, stretching its territory from the capes of the Delaware to the mouth of the Oregon, and from the Bay of Fundý to the valley of the Rio Grande, swelling its population from three millions of subjects to twenty-five millions of freemen, becoming richer in all the attributes of true greatness than any contemporary power, and attaining a rank among nations which made its influence' potent in every cabinet of Europe, and on this conti

A distinguished ex-ministert of Great Britain, whose death has just been chronicled, saw the long-waged contest between the throne and the people, between the privileges of the aristocracy and the rights of the commonalty of that country, result in gradual concessions to the demands of the latter, as worthy, on account of their number and importance, to be called a “Revolution," as the ts that dethroned the House of Stuart and crowned the Prince of Orange.

nent supreme.

+ Sir Robert Peel.

* Gen. Jackson, VOL. XXVII. NO. III.

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The progress of society in both these countries, during the period we have specified, was caused mainly by combinations of men in each, organized on similar principles, though bearing different names. In America, this combination was originally called the Republican, and is now known as the Democratic party; in England it was once denominated the Whig, and is now known as the Liberal party. Both these parties were organized at about the same time-we allude to their modern characteristicsand each rallied under a leader of eminent attainments, who held unbounded sway over his followers, and had few equals and no superiors among his contemporaries, whether we regard the solidity of his talents. or the lustre of his services. We need hardly add, that we allude to THOMAS JEFFERSON, and CHARLES JAMES FOX.

There were striking points of resemblance, as well as some marked dissimilarities, in the minds, characters, and histories of these great statesmen. The salient point of identity in their characters and histories is, that they embodied in their principles and reflected in their measures, more fully and perfectly than any of their contemporaries, the progressive tendencies of their times, or, in popular phrase, "The Spirit of the Age." To explain our meaning, we will briefly state what seems to us to be the modus operandi of Human Progress, not as it exists in our times merely, but as it has existed in all ages.

At no period of the world have human institutions (and we use the term in its broadest sense) been so perfect that they would not admit of improvement; and never so imperfect that the evils they engendered were not surpassed by the blessings they conferred. On examining any era in the annals of the race, we find two classes of men viewing the institutions of their times from widely differing positions, and, as a consequence, placing very opposite estimates upon their value. The ardent, the ultra, the reckless, fix their eyes on prevalent evils, and attribute them to the inherent structure of existing institutions. Regarding the latter as too bad for amendment, they would fain exterminate the former by destroying the institutions. On the other hand, the placid, the inert, the timid, look exclusively at the blessings which surround them, and regard them as the legitimate and sole fruits of existing institutions. So believing, they esteem the latter as too perfect for improvement, and therefore would fain preserve them not only from destruction but from alteration. Occupying a middle ground between these extreme parties-neither of whom is wholly right nor wholly wrong-we discover a third class, who differ in many material points with both the others, and hold many opinions in common with each. This party admit the existence of the evils which the one extreme anathematizes, as well as the blessings which the other idolizes, and would fain exterminate the former while preserving the latter. They are the true eclectics; and searching for the happy medium between complete destruction and unimpaired preservation, they are ready to tear down when demolition will reform, and alert to build up when new creations will improve. Acting as the umpire between these extreme parties, they are able ultimately to win to their middle ground the more reasonable portions of the antagonists, who unite with them to destroy what is evil and conserve what is good in existing institutions, and to make such additions as will impart to them harmony and beauty. This combined party may be denominated CONSERVATIVE REFORmers.

We by no means intend to say, that the mutual conflicts and partial

conjunctions of these three forces, have invariably been regulated by fixed laws, nor that their operations have always been obvious to the superficial eye. But, that three grand divisions of society, substantially such as we have indicated, have, from the earliest periods, been at work in carrying forward the cause of Human Progress, will scarcely be denied by those who have studied the nature of man and the history of the race.

To this great middle party of Conservative Reformers, belonged Jefferson and Fox. And it is this party which has borne America and England onward in the path of improvement so rapidly during the past fifty or sixty years. We will briefly note some of the steps in the social and political advancement of our own and our father-land during this period. In America, we have seen a complex and exquisitely balanced polity, created by ourselves without aid from foreign precedents, so administered as to guard the sovereignty of the several states while maintaining the supremacy of the federal head; and laws so framed as to bestow the largest measure of individual liberty consistent with social order-the electoral suffrage extended to the entire body of the people; and the powers of legislation and administration, to an unprecedented extent, taken from select bodies of officials, and restored to the masses of the constituency, making them in fact what they were in theory, "sovereigns"-the common and statute law systematized and simplified, the courts made accessible to the needy, and judges rendered amenable to the people by means of frequent elections-the sanguinary features of the penal code removed, imprisonment for debt abolished, penitentiaries converted into houses of reformation, poor-houses into homes for the friendless, and asylums erected to soothe, educate and restore, the deaf, dumb, blind and insane--the monopolies of banking, trade, and every species of associated wealth, and of the learned professions, either wholly abolished, or compelled to run an equal race with individual competition-the utmost freedom of speech, the press, and of religion, guarantied and enjoyed-rudimental education universally and freely diffused, and newspapers and libraries established in every considerable village-labor, fairly paid and made honorable, uniting with enterprise, skill and capital, to clear forests larger than all England, to construct roads, canals, and railways across states by whose side European principalities dwindle to rural parishes, to invent machinery and establish manufactures suited to our peculiar wants, and to cloud the most distant ports with the sails of our commerce-the national honor maintained on the land and on the sea, while exhibiting the national hospitality by receiving to our shores and admitting to the rights of citizenship millions of the subjects of foreign states-and, in a word, we have seen the capacity of man for self-government vindicated and illustrated under institutions which maintain the supremacy of law without stifling the aspirations of liberty. This brilliant spectacle, unparalleled in the history of mankind, ought to hide even from the eye of envious criticism those few social evils yet existing among us, which time alone can remedy.

During the period over which we have glanced, we have seen the middling and lower classes of England, acting under heroic leaders, explode the dangerous doctrines of constructive treason, modify the law of libel, sedition and conspiracy, and place the freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembling, under the protection of juries-humanize the entire penal code, greatly circumscribe the death-penalty, and secure the full benefits of counsel to prisoners on trial for their lives-remove many

abuses in the administration of the civil courts, make them more accessible to the poor, and simplify the whole body of the laws-render the law of debtor and creditor more tolerant of the misfortunes of the former, and infuse a little of the leaven of charity into the poor laws-make it possible for a landless sportsman to "wing" a pheasant without being himself maimed by a spring-gun, and for a peasant to kill the hare which poached on his beans without expiating his offence on the gallows; extend more widely the blessings of rudimental schools, cripple the educational monopoly of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and give an upward bound to the national intellect, by means of cheap publications, mechanics' institutes, and periodicals conducted on liberal principles; curb the power of the established church, and relieve dissenters from political disabilities and ecclesiastical persecution, by repealing the test acts and emancipating the Catholics; greatly increase the influence of the commonalty, by destroying the rotten borough-system of representation, and extending the suffrage to half a million of artisans, yeomen and shopkeepers; give increased freedom to commerce, by abolishing the East India monopoly, the corn laws, and the navigation laws; improve the administration of justice in the penal colonies, restore nominal freedom to large masses of colonial subjects, and compel ministers to listen to the complaints of colonial legislatures; and, in brief, render the cabinet, the parliament, and the judiciary, more obedient to the dictates of public opinion, and more deferential to the liberalizing spirit of the age. These achievements, so salutary in their immediate consequences, and inspiring so much hope for the future, tend to mitigate the abhorrence with which Christendom views the continued oppression of millions of British subjects, at home and abroad.

Now, we do not assert, that the events we have noted have been produced solely through the agency of the democratic and liberal parties of America and England; but we do say, that, so far as they can be called political events, they are the legitimate fruits of those principles which are embodied in the creed, and have been reflected in the measures of those parties, and which are not thus embodied and reflected by the federal or whig party of this country, and the tory or conservative party of England.

Though the position of Messrs. Jefferson and Fox, at the head of the democratic and liberal parties of their respective countries, is the salient point of resemblance in their public lives and characters, the likeness between them does not terminate here. Many of the particular doctrines and measures which they advocated or combated, and the events in which they participated or sympathized, were the same, or exhibited striking points of similarity.

Jefferson and Fox entered public life the same year-one, as a representative in the colonial legislature of Virginia-and the other, as a member of the British House of Commons--both being subjects of George III. Both continued in public life nearly forty years, distinguished for extraordinary convulsions, and both bore parts in the great drama of affairs so conspicuous as to make their names familiar in all parts of the world. Though one lived and died a liege subject of his king, while the other early threw off his allegiance to the crown, and took a leading share in a successful attempt to despoil it of its brightest jewel; yet the loyalist was quite as cordially hated by his sovereign as the rebel.

There was abundant cause for this. Few men in the American Congress were more vehement in their denunciations of the ministry for their treatment of this country during the revolutionary contest, than was Fox in the British Parliament. He sided with Burke, Barré and Dunning, in espousing the cause of the colonies, and nightly rained down upon king and minister a pitiless storm of logic, wit, sarcasm and anathema. If to report the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, and stake life, fortune, and sacred honor upon the issue, required heroic courage in the favorite son of the Old Dominion, then, to defend that Declaration in Westminster, exhibited courage not less heroic in the classic scion of Holland House. Much as our great citizen rejoiced over the peace of 1783, his joy could scarcely surpass that of the great Commoner. And a king, whose attachment to his colonies amounted to fanaticism, might be pardoned for hating the subject Fox as heartily as the rebel Jefferson. Jefferson and Fox were the early friends of the French Revolution, deplored the excesses into which it was driven by fanaticism, but vindicated its necessity, gloried in its general principles, and maintained that the sublime doctrines mixed with its fire and blood would ultimately regenerate Europe. The avowal of these opinions drew upon them great obloquy at home, while they endeared their names to the republicans of France. Mr. Jefferson, when the Revolution commenced, was our minister at that Court. His society was sought, not only by Condorcet, D'Alembert, and other men of letters and science, but he was often consulted by Mirabeau, La Fayette, and other leading revolutionists. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was drafted at his house, the pen of the author of the American Declaration bearing a part in its composition. He also assisted in perfecting the first Constitution, which was modeled by a committee sitting at his house. During the same period, Mr. Fox declared the taking of the Bastile as "the greatest and best event that had happened in the century," and he pronounced a splendid eulogium, on the floor of Parliament, upon the Declaration, and vindicated the acts of the National Assembly.

After Mr. Jefferson's return to this country, and while at the head of Gen. Washington's cabinet, occurred some of those frightful excesses in Paris which blanched the cheek of Christendom. Notwithstanding the attack on the Tuilleries, the seizure of the king, and the massacre in the prisons, Mr. Jefferson still clung to the cause of France; combating the sentiments of his colleague, Hamilton; avowing his hostility to the policy of Pitt; and encouraging the hopes of Washington. Here, his sentiments and position were similar to those of Fox in England. The events to which we have alluded filled Britain with alarm. Societies for "Constitutional Reform" had been organized in London. Their avowed object was a reform in Parliament. The character of many of their members, the Duke of Richmond, Fox, Grey, Whitbread, Sheridan and Tierney being of the number, forbid the idea that treasonable designs could have been cloaked under their ostensible objects. The king suddenly convened Parliament, and in the address from the throne declared, that under the plausible pretext of discussing a reform in Parliament, conspiracies existed for overthrowing the government, and that the kingdom was on the eve of a revolution. During the debate which followed, Fox met his royal master with the declaration, that "there was not one fact stated in His Majesty's speech which was not false-not one assertion