■53 S 
 
 
 t 
 
 cAAw 
 
 G^ 
 
 n^n^Oio/sj cxAi^M ' 
 
 
Class_ l^'^i'^ 
 
 Book > ^^7 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/celebrationofbirOOIori 
 
CELEBRATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BIETH-DAY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, 
 
 AT SALEOT, MASS., APRIL 1st, t§59. 
 
 ORATION BY DR. GEO. B. LORING ; 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. JOSEPH S. CABOT, COL. J, M. ADAMS, AND OTHERS ; 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. J. C. BKEOKINRIDGE, HON. HOWELL COBB, HON. JOHN B. FLOYD, 
 
 HON. JEFFERSON DAVIS, HON. HENRY A. WISE, HON. B. F. HALLETT, 
 
 HON. JOHN S. WELLS, HON. BION BRADBURY, _ 
 
 HON, HARRY HIBBARD, GEN. J. S. WHITNEY, SAMUEL B. SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
 S. 0. LAMB, ESQ., J. E. FIELD, ESQ., AND OTHERS. 
 
 SALEM: 
 
 PRINTED AT THE ADVOCATE OFFICE. 
 
 1859, 
 
L^ ^ 
 
 M 
 
 PROCEEDINGS, &C. 
 
 The anniversary of tlic birth of 'J'homas 
 Jefferson was celebrated in Salem, on Friday 
 April 1st, 1859. In selecting this day, the 
 committee of arrangements were anxious to 
 commemorate the date recorded in the Prayer 
 Book of Jefferson's father, feeling that the as- 
 sociations which cluster around the record, arc 
 more interesting and valuable, than an obser- 
 vance of the precise anniversary, reckoned ac- 
 cording to the modification of the calendar. 
 The recorded date is April 2nd, 1743 ; and 
 Friday the 1st was chosen, in order to avoid 
 inconveniences which would have attended the 
 observance on Saturda3\ 
 
 The Committee of arrangements was compos- 
 ed of the following gentlemen, viz : — Geo. B. 
 Loring, Wm. B. Pike, George Upton, "Wm. 
 McMullen, Joseph S. Perkins, Geo. F. Put- 
 nam, John A. Currin, Daniel Brown, Charles 
 Ward, John Ryan, N. Ingersoll, Connor B. 
 Swasey, D. A. Lo^rd, Darling Pitts, C. H. 
 Manning, Horace Ingersoll. James Dodge, H. 
 
 E. Jenks, Edward Wilson, Simon Pendar, A. 
 
 F. Bosson, Henry Derby, M'. D. Randall, G. 
 W. Crosby, Edward xVlIen, Thomas Looby, T. 
 J. Kinsley, E. Harvey Quimby, E. H. Dalton, 
 Geo. W. Estes, Wm. Leach, E. L. Norfolk, 
 S. R. Hodges, S. Fuller, Henry W. Perkins, 
 Charles Millett, Eben Dodge, D, B. Gardner, 
 Jr., George H. Blynn, E. C. Peabody, Joseph 
 RowcU, Wm. L. Batcheldcr, J. Lovett Whip- 
 ple. 
 
 Hon. Joseph S. Cabot was selected as Pres- 
 ident of the daj', assisted by Wm. McMullen. 
 Geo. Upton, and Joseph II. Perkins Esqs. of 
 Salem, Hon. Albert Currier, of Newburyport 
 Hon. Daniel Saunders Jr. of Lawrence, H. L. 
 Darant of Lynn, John Carroll and Richard 
 Ramsdell Esqs, of I\Iarblehead. 
 
 Dr. George B. Loring was invited to de- 
 liver the oration on the occasion, and A. M, 
 Ide jr. Esq., of Taunton, to deliver a poem. 
 
 Distinguished democrats in Massachusetts 
 and from other states were invited to be pres- 
 ent. 
 
 The following report of the proceedmgs, is 
 taken chiefly from the Boston Post of April 2d. 
 
 "The anniversary was celebrated with cere- 
 monies of an exceedingly interesting character, 
 and in a manner becoming the sentiments of 
 deep veneration entertained by the democrats 
 of Essex County, and vicinity for the founder 
 of their party — the great party of the union. 
 Arrangements were made upon a most exten- 
 sive scale, and old Salem was never the scene 
 of a more brilliant or interesting festival — her 
 democratic and union-loving citizens turning 
 out in very large numbers to swell the general 
 throng, and her streets being at certain hours 
 of the (lay alive Avith strangei's both from sur- 
 rounding towns and distant places. At noon a 
 salute of thirteen guns was fired. At two 
 o'clock the doors of Mechanic Hall were open- 
 ed for the reception of those desiring to partic- 
 pate in the exercises assigned for that place. 
 The galleries of the large Hall were reserved 
 for the ladies who rapidly filled the seats there- 
 of, and while the people gathered within the 
 hall, admirable music was furnished by the 
 Salem Brass Band stationed in the centre gal- 
 lery. At 2 1-2 o'clock the assemblage was 
 called to order, by Hon. Joseph S. Cabot, and 
 prayer was offered by Rev. Mr. Allen, of Mar- 
 blehead. The band entertained the andience 
 with a pleasing air, and then followed the 
 oration of Dr. Geo. B. Loring, of Salem, and 
 the reception of that gentleman was extremely 
 enthusiastic." 
 
ORATION. 
 
 My Friends and Countiymen: — Tlse best ] 
 'gift God ever bestows upon liis children is [ 
 the life of a great man. Not for cxampie j 
 alone — but for guidance, fox protection, for 
 preservation, for the creation of that mar- 
 rellous social fabric, so diverse, so complex, 
 80 divine, does the. spirit descend upon those 
 whose lives arc the introduction of nev? 
 thought, the commencement of new eras, the 
 birth of new nations. As the broad river 
 of social life rolls on, the eternal hills shape 
 its course, the mountains stand there to di- 
 i-ect the sweeping curves, an island, upris- 
 ing fi'ora the foundations of the earth, di- 
 vides it, the majestic rock breasts it -into 
 eddies, and the work is done. Of gazing 
 on these landmarks, the eye never tires. 
 For at their feet lies the silver stream which 
 they have guided on its way of benefit and 
 beauty. 
 
 No .natdon ever sprang into life without 
 its heroes. In the dim light of the past we 
 see them presiding over its birth, stalwart 
 and mysterious demigods, the giants of olden 
 time , not great perhaps to their contempo- 
 raries, to their neighbors and friends, to 
 their children, and fellow laborers. Not 
 great to their neighbors I say ; for it is only > 
 as the traveller leaves the shore, that moun- 
 tain and headland rise in their full propor- 
 tions before his vision, and he learns the 
 grandeur in which he lias lived all uncon- 
 scious. 
 
 Now my friends, in this matter of heroes 
 we of this nation possess peculiar and strik- 
 ing advantages. The master spirits, who 
 gave direction to cur first steps, are not en- 
 veloped in clouds of legend and mystery, nor 
 is their work still half accomplished. There 
 are those among us who knew them face to 
 face ; and already a great people enjoys the 
 full fruition of all their counsels. The 
 echoes of the deep and agonizing struggles 
 icQ which they were engaged for us, have 
 
 hardly died away. The events of their lives) 
 arc rcc.unted to us by their contemporaries. 
 The story of their action is but as last 
 week's news. And while other pe-ople and 
 nations see only the august shadows of those 
 who shaped and moulded them into exis- 
 tence, the superhuman creations of tradi- 
 tion and fable, awful figures looming through 
 the darkness of a feeble civilization, we 
 have our heroes directly before us — their 
 greatness and their littleness — their daily 
 toil and their great design — their weakness 
 and their strength — their divinity which 
 made them godlike, and their humanity 
 which made them our brethren. 
 
 Among these great men there was one 
 who, by nature and by education,* by asso- 
 ciation and by habits of thought, seemed 
 set apart for the work of creating that re- 
 public, without which all the blood of the 
 American Ee volution would have been shed 
 in vain. At the close ot that contest, that 
 long agony of privation and disaster, in 
 which, through victory and defeat, through 
 storm and shine, the great commander had 
 patiently and serenely led a distracted and 
 beggared community of colonies, from step 
 to step, in their strife for freedom — our 
 country was divided by the jealousies of 
 states and the ambitions of individuals. I 
 have often thought that at that time Wash- 
 ington alone was our union. Massachusetts 
 was then as now sharp and alert for her own 
 peculiar rights. South Carolina was "arm- 
 ed with jealous care," against the encroach-- 
 meats of those with whom, but just now, 
 she had stood "shoulder to shoulder in the 
 strife for their country." Virginia could 
 not forget the commerce of the Chesapeake 
 Bay. Pennsylvania and Georgia, New York 
 and Maryland, never forgot, that even in the 
 common toil they possessed inherent privi- 
 leges, which it was one great duty of their 
 ca^pacity as free states to preserve and pro- 
 
cect. The close of tlie ^ar too sent a race 
 of active, vigorous, ambitious men back to 
 retirement. The smoke of the battle had 
 cleared away, and the opportunity which a 
 rising government would give, appeared be- 
 fore them with all its temptations. The im- 
 petuous and fiery Adams, the prophet of 
 freedom, the orator and diplomatist, had 
 been too long and too intimately connected 
 with public affairs, not to feel that he had a 
 right to an important part in their control. 
 Hancock, the fearless and princely merchant, 
 had a keen personal solicitude for the suc- 
 cess of an enterprise in which he had staked 
 life and property. Greene and Gates had 
 fought long and well for the great consumma- 
 tion, and now that it had come they longed 
 to feel the sweet pressure of the laurels on 
 their brows. Hamilton and Henry and 
 Madison could not contemplate with indiffer- 
 ence the high honors which were hourly un- 
 folding before their eyes — honors which they 
 had estiiblished with their earliest vigor. 
 Jefferson and Franklin saw from the bril- 
 liant and dazzling splendors of the most ac- 
 complished court in Europe, new and more 
 refulgent glories in that young western em- 
 pire which their genius had developed, and 
 which their diplomacy had brought into 
 recognition. That was indeed the most 
 trying hour in cur history. That was the 
 hour when freedom was threatened with the 
 horrors and trials of anarchy. The great 
 principles which had been proclaimed in the 
 Declaration of Independence, were enough 
 to inspire the patriotism of our people during 
 -ar — but those very principles might 
 been perverted at any moment into au 
 tment in favor of a separate political or- 
 iization for each colony. And in this 
 .-.ason of peril, before a common bond had 
 been created, before a common brotherhood 
 had gathered around one national altar^ the 
 fate of the future republic rested, I am con- 
 strained to believe, in the hands of one man, 
 whose freedom from ambition, and whose 
 stern devotion placed him far beyond the 
 reach of rivalry, grand, majestic, broad as 
 the heavens, and as pure. It was a time 
 when upon the character of one man hung 
 the fate of a nation. And it was Washing- 
 ton, before whom all statesmen of that crisis 
 bowcd,Washington, who had borne the coun- 
 try through the conflict, Washington, strong 
 in the comprehensiveness of his patriotism. 
 
 in his universal sympathy for, and intimate 
 acquaintance with, each colony, Washington, 
 who stood aloof and apart, high removed by 
 the brilliancy of his successes into almoefc 
 supernatural eminence before a v.orshipping 
 people, and who in all his human qualities 
 was the model of integrity and modesty, of 
 sagacity and transparency, of inflexible will 
 ami aboriginal adroitness, it was Washing- 
 ton alone at whose feet all jealousies were 
 of necessity kid aside, and all rivalries were 
 consigned to popular contempt. W^ashkig- 
 ton was indeed the Father of his Country : 
 but it was the great teacher of the doctrines 
 of republicanism, under whose training the 
 child was to be brought into the Icnowledge 
 of those principles of government,which have 
 elevated it to a position worthy of its high 
 parentage. And it was Thomas Jefferson, 
 the great apostle of civil freedom, the em- 
 bodiment of democx"atic truth, the friend and 
 expounder of human rights, the fearless foe 
 of every form of oppression, who having de- 
 clared that the colonies were and "of right 
 ought to be free and independent," pointed 
 out the path by which the highest glory of 
 national independence could be reached. — 
 Washington laid the foundation, and Jeffer- 
 son built the structui'e. The one a stern 
 commander, the other an ardent philosopher ; 
 the one a soldier, the other a civilian ; the 
 one firm as the everlasting hills in his moral, 
 grandeur, the other grand as the swelling 
 river in the riches of his intellectual vigor ; 
 the one educated in the forest and the camp 
 to all tlie robust strength and subtle pru- 
 dence of an accomplished warrior, the other 
 cultivated into the elegance of an accom- 
 plished scholar ; the one armed with a two- 
 edged sword, the other with a keener and 
 more eloquent pen ; the one obedient to an 
 overpowering impulse of freedom, the other 
 inquiring fjid procbiraing what true free- 
 dom is ; one the martial statesman, the 
 other the civil statesman ; both patriots, 
 both gentle in their sympathies, both defi- 
 ant, both possessed of that stateliness of 
 person and spirit which attends true great- 
 ness, both heroes, both Americans. 
 
 It is to the. contemplation of Jefferson 
 that we arc called iipon to devote this hour, 
 of Jefferson, the m:in, the patriot, the phil- 
 anthropist, the statesman. 
 
 The second of April, 1743, was his birth- 
 day ; eleven years after Washington was 
 
5 
 
 bom, and ten years before their native colo- 
 ny was exposed to that savage warfare, in 
 which the great American General took his 
 first lessons in the art of war. 
 
 His birth-pLice vras in the charming valley 
 of the Kivaui.a, a rich and lusuriam. section 
 of Virginia, in which arc combined the gran- 
 deur of mountain scenery, and the subdued 
 and placid beauty of woodland, valley and 
 plain. It was a bounteous and enobling 
 prospect upon which the eyes of Jefferson 
 first opened. The fertile lands which lay 
 around him, inspired him with a love of ru- 
 ral life, with its large instincts, its deep 
 ► love of country, its love of everything that 
 lives and moves, its love of the land ; while 
 the towering mountains which encircled his 
 home, stood there as types of the majesty 
 and elevation of human thought. The wind 
 which sighed through the "sounding aisles" 
 of that old primeval forest, the storm which 
 burst in madness from the hills, the mur- 
 muriii^ stream tracing its way through 
 lands untrod by man, the broad acres of his 
 father's farm, the budding and growing and 
 harvesting and reposing year, the Spring 
 time promise and the golden October sun, 
 the birds of the air and the beasts of the 
 field, all breathed into his mind a large and 
 abounding sense of freedom. 
 
 His father was a man of gigantic stature 
 and strength, patient of hardship and fatigue, 
 fearless, judicious, firm and honest — full of 
 tenderness and poetic sensibility, fond of 
 the best English classics, and affectionately 
 devoted to his family. He was a successful 
 Virginia planter, as his son was after him. 
 
 The mother of Jefferson is described as 
 having had a " a most amiable andaffection- 
 ite disposition, a lively, cheerful temper, 
 ; md a great fund of humor." Her maiden 
 aanie was Jane Randolph — a name associa- 
 V ted with everything princely, refined, elegant 
 md hospitable in the high-toned old colony 
 3f Virginia, a colony and a people from 
 whence Massachusetts received the first re- 
 sponse for her efforts in behalf of freedom. 
 
 It was in this class that Jefferson found 
 his early companions. He was a most ex- 
 emplary scholar, and he was also the most 
 agreeable participant of all the gaieties cf 
 that early colonial life. Among the Ran- 
 dolphs he took the lead in all social enjoy- 
 ments. He was one of the most fearless and 
 graceful of horsemen. He played the violin 
 
 with taste and skill. And it was in this 
 society, when he was seventeen years of age, 
 that he commenced that system of intellec- 
 tual training which he never discontinued 
 through a long and eventful life. He was 
 a fine and even critical Latin and Greek 
 scholar. Ho became familiar with French, 
 Italian, Spanish from time to time, and he 
 cultivated that style which attracted the 
 attention of the leading minds of the day, 
 and led to his selection as the proper author 
 of the immortal instrument, with which his 
 name is proudly connected. 
 
 In all his researches, he displayed a 
 strong devotion to questions of practical im- 
 portance. He was singularly impatient of 
 all useless metaphysical speculation. He 
 read few novel?. But wherever a great truth 
 had been promulgated, the application of 
 which promised to benefit mankind, his 
 mind seized upon it with unerring avidity. 
 While he associated familiarly and intimate- 
 ly with those whom the custom of the times 
 placed in the highest social rank, while he 
 moved in a society possessing all the virtues 
 and accomplishments, as well as all the vic- 
 es of an aristocracy, his mind seems to have 
 been constantly alive to every popular senti- 
 ment, and quick to perceive the faintest ray 
 of democratic truth. 
 
 As a student at law, few men, not even 
 our distinguished jurists, have been more 
 diligent. His teacher, George Wythe, was 
 one of the purest, ablest, and most profound- 
 ly erudite lawyers ever produced by a State 
 which has been particularly famous for 
 good lawyers. In the society of this accom- 
 plished teacher, and as a rival of the Kan- 
 dolphs, the leaders of the Virginia bar, he 
 laid the foundation of a deep comprehension 
 of the great principles of civil law, as the 
 basis of true constitutional freedom. For- 
 tunately his career at the bar was short. — 
 The fortune which he possessed rendered the 
 practice of his profession unnecessary, and 
 enabled him to escape all the narrowing in- 
 fluences of sharp work in the practical ap- 
 plication of those principles which served to 
 direct his thoughts, and to prepare him for 
 the high sphere of statesmanship. If Jef- 
 ferson had not studied law, he could not have 
 devised the Declaration — had he practised 
 law, he would probably never have written 
 it. 
 
 He was about thirty years old when he 
 
became a politician. He brought to the 
 business of politics, the training of which I 
 have spoken, a mind well balanced, and a 
 high and honorable rule of conduct. He 
 was now just arriving at mental and physi- 
 cal maturity. 
 
 His biographer tells us that his " appear- 
 ance was engaging. His face, though angu- 
 lar, and far from beautiful, beamed "with in- 
 teligence, with benevolence, and with the 
 vivacity of a happy, hopeful spirit. His 
 complexion was ruddy and delicately fair ; 
 his reddish chesnut hair luxuriant and silk- 
 en. His full, deep-set eyes, the prevailing 
 color of which was a light hazel, were pecu- 
 liarly expressive, and mirrored, as the clear 
 lake mirrors the cloud, every emotion which 
 was passing through his mind. He stood 
 six feet two and a holf inches in height, and 
 though very slim at this period, his form 
 was erect and sinewy, and his movements 
 displayed elasticity and vigor. He was an 
 expert musician, a dashing rider, and there 
 was no manly exercise in which he could 
 not play well his part. His manners were 
 unusually graceful, but simple and cordial. 
 His conversation already possessed no in- 
 considerable share of that charm which, in 
 after years, was so much extolled by friends, 
 and to which enemies attributed so seduc- 
 tive an influence, in moulding the young 
 and wavering to his political views. There 
 was a frankness, earnestness, and cordiality 
 in his tone — a deep sympathy with humani- 
 ty — a confidence in man, and a sanguine 
 hopefulness in his destiny, which irresisti- 
 bly won upon the feelings not only of the 
 ordinary hearer, but of those grave men 
 ■whose commerce with the world had led 
 them to form less glowing estimates of it. 
 His temper was gentle, kindly and for- 
 giving, subjugated by habitual control, but 
 possessing that calm self reliance and cour- 
 age which all instinctively recognize and 
 respect." He was never known to resent a 
 personal indignity, for no man dared insult 
 him. In the gay society in which he mov- 
 ed, where fortunes were constantly lost and 
 won on the hazard of a die, he never gam- 
 bled. He was temperate in all things. He 
 was precise and methodical in his business ; 
 had large landed estates which he managed 
 with great prudence and skill as a planter ; 
 and altogether possessed a combination of at- 
 tractions which gave a peculiar charm to 
 
 that career of greatness upon which he was 
 just now entering. 
 
 It was in 17G9 that Jefferson commenced 
 his political career, as a member of the Vir- 
 ginia House of Burgesses ; the same year 
 that this body responded to the declaration 
 by Massachusetts, that the colonies possess- 
 ed exclusive right of self- taxation, the right 
 to petition for redress of grievances, and to 
 secure the concurrence of other colonies 
 therein, and the right of jury trial within 
 their own jurisdiction. It was the first 
 rumbling of that earthquake which severed 
 the colonies from Great Britain. Between 
 this and the memorable events of 1773, 
 there was a pause — but by no means an in- 
 sensibility of the dangers and trials which 
 awaited the American people. So far as 
 Jefferson was concerned, the pause seems to 
 have been providential — foi- it; furnished him 
 an opportunity to erect his mansion and fix 
 his family as Mcnticello, that home which, 
 he has rendered so famous, and which has 
 been enrolled among the spots sacred to free- 
 dom on the American continent. 
 
 And now the great woi k of his life began. 
 For two years he labored incessantly, in his 
 state, to keep her up to the high standard of 
 actien required by the crisis. With Ean- 
 dolph and Nicholas, and Patrick Henry, and 
 Kichard Henry Lee, he kept the popular 
 sentiment of Virginia roused to a full appre- 
 siation of the importance of the part she was 
 to perform. Young as he was, the popular 
 heart was with him. The people felt that 
 while Henrj' and Lee were eloquent, and 
 Eaudolph and Nicholas learned and astute, 
 there was glowing in the breast of the more 
 silent, but not less prompt, quick, decisive 
 and energetic youth, a fire which nothing 
 but death could quench, and that the path 
 which he trod led up to the temple of pop- 
 ular freedom. At this age he drew up that 
 remarkable reply of Virginia to Lord North's 
 "conciliatory proposition," a reply which in- 
 spired the timid with courage, and strength- 
 ened the feeble knees, and which was the 
 first colonial declaration of that high deter- 
 mination expressed by Patrick Henry, when 
 he exclaimed to an electrified assembly of 
 Burgesses — "We must fight!" Having 
 thus accomplished what the times demand- 
 ed of him at home, he was chosen to a high- 
 er sphere, and entered congress in 1775, 
 the youngest member of that bodj^ bearing 
 
in his hand the reply of which I have 
 spoker, and stepping at once into the ranks 
 of the foremost statesmen of his age. 
 
 The congress of that day ! What a con- 
 stellation ! John Adams — the impassioned, 
 the irresistible, the eloquent, the ahrt, the 
 indefatigable, the adroit, the courageous, the 
 knight of chivalry, ready to measure his 
 lance with all comers in his defense of "In- 
 dependence now, and Independence forever." 
 Samuel Adams — "the Man of the revolu- 
 tion," as he has been called — the logical, 
 the fearless, the systematical, the practical, 
 the deep, the profound, the great wire-puller 
 in all the earliest movements of the revolu- 
 tion. Franklin — the philosopher, the tacti- 
 cian, the diplomatist, the wise, nervous, 
 witty, epigrammatic writer, ^\ ith a reputa- 
 tion already established on both continents, 
 and with a devotion to the cause of his coun- 
 try which had led him to sever every tie 
 that interfered with his patriotic duty. — 
 Eichard Henry Lee, of Virginia, the rival of 
 Patrick Henry, in that peculiar gift of speech 
 which holds the world in awe, and before 
 which senates bow like forests before the gale. 
 McKean, the "indomitable." Elbridge Ger- 
 ry, then young but bold and sagacious, as free 
 and broad as the heaving and boundless sea 
 upon which his eye rested in childhood, and 
 as immovable as the rock-bound shores of 
 old Essex, the county of his birth, tlie spot 
 so rich in sons who have enrolled their 
 names upon almost every bright page in 
 their country's history — jurists, statesmen, 
 merchants, benefactors, philanthropists, di- 
 vines. Nelson, the "high-spirited." Hai-- 
 rison the "bluff and hearty." Sherman the 
 "uncompromising." Eutledge ;nd Living- 
 ston, and Morris, "learned in the law," in 
 honor liright, "without fear and without re- 
 proach." It was an assembly like this in 
 which Jefferson in the first dawn of his 
 manhood, having as John Adams says, al- 
 ready won "the reputation of a masterly 
 pen," was called upon as a chairman of a 
 committee of five, to prepare a "Declaration 
 of Independence." 
 
 The Declaration is innnortal, There may 
 be "glittering generalities" there; there 
 may be doctrines troublesome to thf rigors 
 of legal investigation : there may be thoughts 
 which the demagogue may pervert, and 
 which the precisian may deny ; but as an in- 
 spiring " tract for the times" it is unequal- 
 
 led ; as a record of wrongs it is compact 
 with graphic power ; as an appeal to the in- 
 stinct and sentiment of mankind, the world 
 has no parallel ; ancient proclamations grow 
 narrow, modern ones feeble in their refine- 
 ment, before the startling and majestic and 
 all-embracing and all-sustaining announce- 
 ment of principles upon which men every- 
 where " free and equal" may rest the foun- 
 dations of all true government. I would 
 not criticise the Declaration of Independence. 
 I find no cause for defending it. For in it 
 I see no excuse for treason, no reward for 
 anarchy, no disruption of those laws under 
 which Grod created the races of men here 
 upon the earth, no ground for violating so- 
 cial obligations, no argument for license. — 
 But I find written everywhere in letters of 
 living light, a recognition of those rights 
 and privileges, for the preservation of which 
 " Governments are instituted among men," 
 and which are open to all who rise to the ele- 
 vation of free citizenship. I learn that by 
 Government, self-constituted, man preserves 
 his social equality, ennobles his occupation, 
 cultivates his miud,enlightens his conscience, 
 liberalizes his heart, and protects himself 
 against the horrid devastations of ignorance, 
 and bigotrj^ of superstitions, delusions, fa- 
 naticism and crime. And I look up with 
 reverent admiration at the heavenly heights 
 prepared for associated man, by that civil 
 organization in which all enjoy their fitting 
 opportunities, and in which alone mankind 
 can be "free and equal." 
 
 Need I tell you how sublimely Jefferson 
 bore himself in all the trials that followed, 
 ever true to the great Declaration, at all 
 times the right hand of AVashington, his 
 counsellor and friend. As Governor of Vir- 
 ginia, he defied obloquy and reproach in 
 preserving the Repub.ican faith against all 
 attacks. At that early day he was obliged 
 to sustain in his own state, the home of 
 Washington, a constitutional government, 
 against a powerful faction clamoring for a 
 dictatorship. He was stung by threats of 
 impeachment. The invading army laid 
 waste his estates with fire and sword, driv- 
 ing his people into the savage servitude of 
 foreign soldiery from which the pestilence 
 that attends on war alone released them. 
 Tortured as he was by the misfortunes of 
 his country and by the injustice of his peers, 
 overwhelmed with almost unmanly grief by 
 
domestic affliction, he never lost sight of the 
 great cause, and devoted himself to the es- 
 tablishment of religious freedom, and to 
 the equalization of the rights of property, 
 as the first steps in popular advancement. 
 
 The complications of the contest became 
 appalling — but he never faltered. The 
 North had witnessed the glories of victory, 
 the scared}'' dimmer glories of masterly re- 
 treat, the defection and treason of those who 
 could not "endure unto the end," the agony 
 and the fortitude of a distressed and strug- 
 gling people. The south had beheld the 
 chivalrous deeds of Sumpter and Marion, 
 the surrender of Savannah, the hard fought 
 fields of Monmouth and Camden, and the 
 threats and dangers of intrigue and cabal. 
 And Virginia had become the point against 
 which the whole power of the enemy was to 
 be directed. And there the war ended. The 
 years of doubt, during which, under the 
 guidance of Jefferson as her Chief Magis- 
 trate, she had exhausted her treasury and 
 decimated her citizens, that her favor- 
 ite son might be sustained, and her country 
 made free, were rewarded with the glorious 
 consummation of Yorktown, where upon her 
 own soil the enemy laid down his arms, and 
 the experiment of a free government began. 
 
 And now it was JefFersou who reported 
 a treaty of peace with England. It was 
 be who proposed a "committee of the 
 states" for common safety and protection. 
 It was he who in connection with Morris 
 reported a system of coinage and a money 
 unit plan for the country. It was he who 
 designed the national seal of the "United 
 States of America." His name appears on 
 all the important committees of congress 
 at that time ; and it was evidently his 
 spirit which controlled that body to a great 
 extent in the arrangement of that form of 
 confederation which served to unite the 
 states in temporary bonds, until the time 
 arrived for the adoption of the constitution. 
 Having thus discharged this duty at hom6 
 he went abroad, as Minister Plenipoten- 
 tiary to act with Adams and Franklin in 
 securing a proper recognition of our exis- 
 tence among the nations of the earth. — 
 He sailed from Boston July 5th. 1784, and 
 returned Oct, 16th, 1789 — io take his 
 seat as secretary of state in the cabinet of 
 Washington. 
 
 The constitution had been adopted 
 
 during bis absence, not without difficulty, 
 not without great difference of opinion, 
 both as regarded its character as a sys- 
 tem of government, and as regarded its 
 future application. Hamilton, Madison 
 and Jay, separated perhaps by their views 
 of government, had yet united their strong 
 powers to secure its adoption. And al- 
 though by an almost spontaneous act of 
 the people, AVashington had been elevated 
 to the presidency, two parties already ex- 
 isted, the natural consequences of our 
 early history, and differing in their under- 
 standing of the relations of the states to 
 each other and to the general government. 
 It was under these circumstances and 
 in this cabinet, that Jefferson and Hamil- 
 ton were first brought into close contact. 
 Jefferson was now forty-six, Hamilton only 
 thirty-four. The former born on American 
 soil, imbued with the spirit of American 
 Independence, educated into the genius of 
 free goverment, the apostle of American 
 republicanism ; the latter born on a little 
 island among the West Indies, educated 
 as a merchant's clerk, a volunteer in tlie 
 American army, where by his genius and 
 discipline, he won the confidence of Wash- 
 ington, the advocate of a free constitution 
 as the foundation of an oligarchy of educa- 
 tion, ability and wealth. The one advo- 
 cating a general government to sustain, 
 the other to "swallow up the state pow- 
 ers;" the one believing in the people as 
 the origin of government, the other believ- 
 ing in government as the origin of the peo- 
 ple ; the one a philosopher, the other a 
 logician ; the one a promulgator of general 
 conclusions, and abstract views, the other 
 an acute and subtle advocate; the one 
 viewing society with broad expanded vis- 
 ion from an elevation as high as his own 
 Blue Piidge, the other concentrating his 
 burning glance upon a single point of pol- 
 icy ; the one the founder of the great sys- 
 tem of government under which we live, 
 the other the organizer of the treasury de- 
 partment of the United States uj)on a plan 
 which still exists as a monument to his 
 peculiar genius ; the one clothed with the 
 panoply of high moral self-possession, thtj 
 other a humble and contrite penitent" 
 after each transgression ; both sincere' 
 both honest, both honorable. They re' 
 maineii toarether until the 3l8t of Deceir" 
 
9 
 
 ber, 1793, when Jefferson retired to liis 
 plantation, to appear again in a higher 
 sphere of action. In cabinet council, 
 Hamilton was more than his match; and 
 it was only when he appeared before the 
 peT)ple that he was able to demolish his 
 powerful rival, and his theory of govern- 
 ment, along with him. 
 
 It was the election of Jefferson as Pres- 
 ident of the United States in 1501, which 
 inaugurated that system of civil polity 
 which has prevailed in our cotintry to the 
 present time. It was in reality the com- 
 mencement of republi(!an simplicity in the 
 administratioTi of public affairs. The impos- 
 ing ceremony which attended the inaugu- 
 ration of Washington, the coat of arms 
 which glittered upon his yellow-panelled 
 carriage, his liveried servants, and his gal- 
 lant equipage, the state which the Presi- 
 dent and Mrs. Washington maintained in 
 public, were the natural remnants of the 
 ante-revolutionary courtly customs, which 
 a long military life had impressed upon 
 the mind of the Father of his Country. 
 President Adams too, had his republican 
 court, adorned with republican pomp. — 
 When Jefferson assumed the reins of gov- 
 ernment he rode down the avenue on 
 horseback, unattended and plainly dress- 
 ed. "He tied his horse to the paling which 
 surrounds the Capitol grounds, and with- 
 out ceremony entered the senate cham- 
 ber." 
 
 A new era had commenced. Without 
 ostentation the President proceeded to 
 carry out those views which he laid down 
 in his tirst inaugural address : — 
 
 "Equal and exact justice to all men of 
 whatever state or persuasion, religious or 
 political ; peace, commerce, and honest, 
 friendship with all nations, entangling al- 
 liances with none; the support of the state 
 governments in all their rights, as the most 
 competent administrations for our domes- 
 tic concern, and the surest bulwarks 
 against anti-republican tendencies ; the 
 preservation of the general government in 
 its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet 
 anchor of our peace at home and safety 
 abroad ; a jealous care of the right of 
 election by the people ; a mild and safe 
 fouec^hnii of abuses which are lopped by 
 the sword of revolution, where peaceable 
 remedies are unprovided: absolute acqui- 
 o 
 
 escence in the decisions of the majority, the 
 vital principle of republics, from which 
 there is no appeal but to force, the vital 
 principle and immediate parent of despot- 
 ism ; the supremacy of civil over the mil- 
 itary authority ; economy in the public 
 oxpences, that labor may be lightly 
 burthened ; the honest payment of our 
 debts, and sacred preservation of the pub- 
 lic faith ; encouragement of agriculture 
 and of commerce as its handmaid ; the 
 diffusion of information, and ari-aignment 
 of all abuses at the bar of the public rea- 
 son; freedom of religion, freedom of the 
 press, and freedom of person, under the 
 protection of the habe.is corpus; and trial 
 by juries impartially selected." 
 
 May I not call this our second Declara- 
 tion of Independence? May I not speak 
 of the election of Jefferson as our second 
 revolution, peaceable and bloodless? How 
 otherwise could he hold such a place in 
 our political history? No man in this day 
 dare deny his political principles. He 
 who was derided as a Jacobin, charged 
 with defrauding the widow and the father- 
 less, abused as an atheist, accused of the 
 basest private immoralities, denounced by 
 a partizan pulpit, opposed as they said by 
 all the learning and all the decency of 
 the times, held up before the people as a 
 destroyer of religion and a subverter of 
 good government, is now received as the 
 apostle of freedom, the founder of the most 
 brilliant form of government ever known, 
 the creator of the only truly successful re- 
 public the world has ever seen, while the 
 theories of Hamilton and Adams are al- 
 most forgotten, and the political policy of 
 even Washington himself is almost un- 
 known. Why is this ? 
 
 It is because Jefferson had entire and 
 unbounded faith in the "virtue, wisdom 
 and intelligence of the people,'' and be- 
 cause he thoroughly comprehended and 
 thoroughly loved the political esperiment 
 which began on this continent, at the 
 settlement of the colonies. He has 
 been charged with having brought his 
 principles from the club rooms of revolu- 
 tionary France. But no man can find 
 them there. Eousseau, and Pvobespierre, 
 and Barras, and Vergniaud, the Encyclo- 
 poedists, and the Girondists, all proclaim- 
 ed that the snvcrnmeut is the origin of all 
 
10 
 
 power, ancJ th® regulator of alT prosperity. 
 They differed from the monarchists simply 
 \vo the form in which go-vernment should 
 be organized. Bat Jefferson learned from 
 the history of his own country that all 
 power springs from the people. The Pur- 
 itan and the Huguenot had fled hither from 
 persecution in Europe, to found an empire 
 based upon the sacredness of individual 
 rights And Jefferson learned his lesson 
 rfom them. It was these rights which 
 were asserted on board the Mayflower as 
 she was moored in the bay, in solemn sus- 
 pense before that hard and frowning shore. 
 It was these rights which were violated in 
 Boston, and were defended at Concord^ 
 and Bunker Hill. They were woven into 
 the Declaration of Independence. They 
 were never forgotten by thecolonies. Jef- 
 ferson found them engrafted on the consti- 
 tution as he understood it ; nnd ,it was the 
 business of his public life to maintain and 
 defend them. While others were searching 
 among the ruins of decayed and broken re- 
 publics, for materials out of which to con- 
 struct a new temple of freedom, he seized 
 upon those living and perennial principles 
 Vv-iiich his own land aftbrded, and which the 
 saints and martyrs of American Indepen- 
 dence hastened "to lay at the feet of him — 
 the great American democrat,, of him who 
 taught the American people that the con- 
 stitution is their property, their defense. 
 
 The constitution — which, as interpreted by 
 JeiJerson, distributes all the pOAvers of govern- 
 ment among the governed. "While the fede- 
 ralists of that day were laboring for the preser- 
 vation of the Federal government, by giving it 
 an independent authority, and a power to re- 
 sist what they called "state encroachments," 
 Jefferson stood forth as the advocate of dele- 
 gated powers, conferred by the sovereign 
 states. ^Vhilc John Adams, unmindful ot the 
 strength which flowed in ui)on the general gov- 
 ernment from those "little democracies" at 
 whose hearthstones were kindled the fires of 
 the revolution, unmhidful of the majesty of 
 that voice which the American people had ut- 
 tered through their representatives in times of 
 trial, unmuulful of his own origin, and arro- 
 gant in the possession of power, declared that 
 it was the '-eommons who destroyed the wisest 
 republic, and enslaved the noblest people that 
 ever entered on the stage of the world," while 
 John Adams was thus engaged in his old age, 
 in laying the axe at the root of the tree which 
 in the ardor and impetuosity of youth he had 
 
 planted — Jefferson, relied upon the popui'a? 
 branch as the very foundation of all free gov- 
 ernment. To the mind of Adams, the revolu- 
 tion was the means of establishing an American 
 republic with a President at its Lead — to the 
 mind of Jefferson, it was the opportunity 
 which the cjlomes siezed for the establishme«t 
 of their own sovereignty, consummated at last 
 b}' the compact of the confederation of states. 
 To the mind cf Adams, American freedom; was 
 a boon bestowed upon the inhabitants of thir- 
 teen states — to the mind of Jefferson it was the 
 impulse given to a continental ''republic, and a 
 blessing bestowed upon "every kindred, nation 
 and tongue under heaven" asking to be free. 
 Adams the busy, the restless, the fervid, could 
 never contemplate his- country, withouai seeing 
 himself in the foreground of the picture — Jef- 
 ferson saw nothing there but a mighty people 
 engaged in establishing institutions of free re- 
 ligion, popular intelligence, and civil law, for 
 their own elevation. Adams labored to con- 
 vince the people that he was right — Jefferson, 
 labored to convince the people that they were^ 
 themselves right, when governed by their own 
 intelligence and virtue. Adams, like his phil- 
 anthropic followers of the present day, conceiv- 
 ed that the people had a right to control their 
 own aiiairs according to rules of conduct laid' 
 down for them by himself and his party — Jef- 
 ferson felt that they had a right to "control 
 their own affairs in their own way, under the 
 constitution." Jefl'erson felt the fuli import 
 and value of citizenship. He knew that the 
 privileges enjoj'ed by the humblest citizen on- 
 the confines of civilization in our republic, 
 shoul(5 make his hamlet the abode of jiowers as. 
 high as those which find shelter at the centre of 
 civil organization— a3'e, higher, for ujion that 
 citizen rests a responsibility more sacred than 
 potentates have ever possessed. He is the 
 creator of a government. H:s voice it is, 
 which says to '-one man go and he goetb, and 
 to another come and he cometh." The rulers 
 of the land are his delegated agents. The re- 
 served rights which he possesses,, constitute a 
 sovercigntj' before which PresLdents and Cab- 
 inets and Senators bow in sul&mission. The 
 constitution under which he lives recognizes 
 his position as the foundation of all civil organ- 
 ization. It is his intelligent effort -.vhich con- 
 stitute the power of his people. And all the 
 rights and interests of the generation in which 
 he lives, call upon him to rise to that intellec- 
 tual and moral elevation which can alone en- 
 able him to discharge the high duties whiclii 
 devolve upon liim. Pcllgion, pure and mide- 
 filed, appeals to his free conscience and would 
 add her graces to his life. His powers are aU. 
 his own, and call upon him to be true to that 
 trust which gives free scope to all attributes, 
 
11 
 
 ■f.nd by ennobling himself, elevates Iiis occupa- 
 tion to a standard worthy indeed of being call- 
 ed the wealth of a nation. 
 
 Inspired with this thought, Jeflcrson devoted 
 •himself to the work of creating our republic. 
 The system of gevernment which unfolded iu 
 his mind, presented to him the opportunity ibr 
 that peaceful human progress for which the 
 race is planted upon the earth. AVilh him, 
 this was no dream, no creation of a diseased 
 ■imagination, but a practical realit}', to be reacli- 
 -ed by the exercise of practical wisdom. AV'lien 
 the early teacher of what is called liberal Chns- 
 'tianity was expelled from England for his oi\iI 
 and religious opinions, he found a sympathiz- 
 •«r and friend in the great anthor of the "Act 
 -of Keligious Freedom,'^ while the name of 
 •Priestley v/as but just known on tL>is continent, 
 and while Channing was but a student of the- 
 ology, and only dreamed of that faith in hu- 
 manity which already warmed the heart of Jef- 
 ^ferson as a vital conviction. The liberality 
 -which filled his mind with the largest religious 
 ■toleration, led him to adopt that form of Chris- 
 tian faith, which should furnish a place for 
 <ivery variety of sect and creed in a Christian 
 republic. Ho encouraged education because 
 he felt that none but an intelligent people can 
 be free. He declared the states to be scvcr- 
 •eign, because in no other way could the exis- 
 tence of our republic be established, and its 
 ■area be extended. He enlarged our borders, 
 because he knew that the strength of our con- 
 federation would increase in proportion to the 
 •multitude of interests which should rally round 
 a common cause. Amidst the denunciations 
 'of the sectionalists of that day, who assailed 
 ■him as a slavery propagandist, he purchased 
 Louisiana, mindful of the principle that to each 
 state beloa^ed her own domestic institutions : 
 and in after life he denounced the violation of 
 this principle in the passage of the Missouri 
 compromise. In all the measures of his ad- 
 jninistration, he evinced a sagacity and fore- 
 sight and ingenuit}^, whose designs are not 
 even yet fulfilled, and which gave a direction 
 to our republic, which no man has yet been 
 able to direct. And when in after ages, in the 
 high career of our confederation, the historian 
 and statesman shall look back for that theory 
 of -government, which has created the reful- 
 gence of the heavens, by giving to each star 
 its own peculiar glory, he will find that the na- 
 tional greatness which surrounds him, is but 
 the fulfilment of the high thoughts which occu- 
 pied the mind of Jefferson, and roused him to 
 bold and unceasing action. 
 
 This is the triumph which Jefferson has 
 ■achieved on this continent, as a politician, a 
 statesman and a philanthropist. 
 
 He retired from the presidency and closed 
 ■iis public life in 1809. Demonstrations ofre- 
 
 sjiect and affection ponrctl in ujDoa ■!aim from 
 every quarter of the union — from state, city, 
 county and town. In the legislature of Virgin- 
 ia, the illustrious William "Wirt moved an ad- 
 dress to him, declaring that — 
 
 •'We have to thank you for the model of an 
 administration, comluctcd on the purest prin- 
 ciples of repubhcanism ; for pomp and state 
 laid aside ; patronage discarded ■; internal 
 taxes abolished ; a host of superfluous officers 
 disbanded : the monarchic maxim that a na- 
 tional debt is a national blessing, removed, and 
 more than thirtj'-thrce millions of our debt dis- 
 charged ; the native right to near one hundred 
 milhons of acres of our national domain extin- 
 guished j and without the guilt or calamities of 
 conquest, a vast and fertile region added to our 
 country, far more extensive than her original 
 possessions, bringing along with ic the Missis- 
 sippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the 
 west and the Pacific oceari, and in the intrin- 
 sic value of the land itself, a source of perma- 
 nent and almost inexhaustible revenue. * * 
 From the first brilliant and haiipy moment of 
 your resistance to foreign tyranny until the 
 present day, we mark with pleasure and with 
 gratitude the same uniform and consistent 
 character — the same Avarm and devoted attach- 
 ment to liberty and the republic, the same Ilo- 
 man love of your country, her rights, her 
 peace, her honor, her prosperity." 
 
 For himself he says — 
 " Within a few days I retire to my family, my 
 books, and my farms ; and having gained the 
 harbor myself, I shall look on -my friends still 
 buffeting the storm with anxiety indeed, but 
 not with envy. Never did a prisoner released 
 from his chains feel such relief as I shall on 
 shaking off the shackles of power. Nature in- 
 tended me for the tranquil pursuits of science 
 by rendering them my supreme delight. But 
 the enormities of the times in which I have 
 lived have forced me to take a part in resist- 
 ing them and to commit myself on the bois- 
 terous ocean of political jiassions. I thank 
 Crod for the opportunity of retiring from them 
 without censure, and carrying with me the 
 most consoling proofs of public approbation." 
 
 He was now sixty-three years old. He re- 
 tired as be proposed to the quiet pleasures of 
 his family at Monticello — but never fGi-getting 
 during the remainder of a long life that he had 
 a country. He lived to sec his policy sustain- 
 ed. His voice was always heard in every 
 crisis. He urged the division of his native 
 state into counties and towns, that the distribu^- 
 tion of political power among the people migi,ft 
 be more perfect. He laid the foundation of 
 the University of Virginia, and when the feeble- 
 ness of old age confined him to his home, he 
 watched for hours through a telescope the pro- 
 gress of the buildinc^ whiok he had dei-iened 
 
12 
 
 for the ediicalion of the people up to the stand- 
 ard of intelligence and virtue required by free 
 institutions. 
 
 In the domestic circle his presence was 
 charming. For his own retirement he preserv- 
 ed mementoes of his wife and those children 
 v;ho hadjgonc before him, and with them he 
 lield his daily sacred communion. To his 
 grandchildren and their young associates his 
 Bociety was always a source of delight. The 
 charms of his conversation, which had been 
 one of his strongest faculties in public life, 
 gave him peculiar attractions in the private 
 circle. Here his quick sympathies were all 
 alive, and although pressed upon by the curious 
 and compelled to entertain hosts of admirers, 
 his e(|uauimity never forsook him, nor were 
 the wants of any forgotten. 
 
 On that commanding eminence which he 
 Ijad selected in early life, and named Monti- 
 cello, as the spot around which all his afliections 
 might cluster, he found that repose he had so 
 honorably won. The broad expanding land- 
 scape of Virginia was before him. From his 
 threshold to the Blue Eidge lay the great valley 
 stretching away in all the luxuriance of that re- 
 fulgent latitude, and bounded by a horizon 
 in which mountain and cloud commingled in 
 the soft azure of a Southern sky. His lands 
 lay all about him. The sweet associations of 
 country life, upon which his 03-0 first opened, 
 came back to cheer his old age, and to warm 
 his heart after its exposure to a chilling world. 
 He loved the soil. The plants and processes of 
 nature were all dear to him. He rode his spirit- 
 ed horse as no man can who has not learned 
 the courage and gallantry of the animal. He 
 lived on, a patriarch among his people, a philos- 
 pher, a scholar, a Christian. And when the an- 
 niversary of his great appeal for freedom, of the 
 birth-day of ,his nation, came round, and the 
 first half century of our existence closed, with 
 deliberate preparation, and with that calm repose 
 which belongs to a truly great life, he "wrapped 
 the drai:)ery of his couch about him" and was 
 gathered to his fathers. 
 
 I cannot discuss his defects. They say he 
 had no religion — but he lived and died like a 
 Christian. They say he was jealous for his 
 country, and too sensitive with regard to her 
 freedom — but we now reap the reward of his 
 labors. They say be was not logical — but his 
 great mind passed on with unerring- impulse to 
 conclusions which have become a part of the 
 gospel of freedom. They say he would not 
 have made a general — but the very tenderness 
 of his scnsiljility which disarmed him as a war- 
 rior, gave him immortal power as a civilian, a 
 philanthrojjist, and a i)opular leadei*. They 
 say he was not eloquent — but his words have 
 passed into proverbs. They said he was a 
 demagogue — but the people followed him be- 
 
 cause from first to last ho maintained one all 
 pervading thought for their equality and eleva- 
 tion. 
 
 The refulgence of his work still remains un- 
 dimmcd — for, from ocean to ocean, his system 
 has extended, embracing a continent in the 
 clear pure air of popular freedom. To him 
 who contemjjlates only the actors in this busy 
 scene, who estimates the virtues of the people 
 by the character of the myriads of aspirants 
 who come and go, the sky may be filled with 
 gathering clouds and gloom. But not so to 
 him who remembers the trials out of which our 
 nation was born. Not so to him who feels that 
 the po2)ular heart still beats responsive as it 
 did in the days of Jefferson, to every great 
 constitutional truth upon which a popular gov- 
 ernment rests. As I survey the high career oi' 
 my country, and how gallantly she keeps on 
 her Avay, the efforts of factions and the designs 
 of the ambitious, fall all harmless at her feet. 
 I cannot repine when dishonest men are in 
 power, for I know that with the people from 
 whom they came, and to whom they must re- 
 turn, virtue and honesty still remain. I can- 
 not fear, when storms seem gathering over our 
 land, for I have learned in our own day, that a 
 deep and patriotic sense of the sacred obliga- 
 tions of an American citizen, a sense insjjired 
 by sitting at the feet of our revolutionary fath- 
 ers, a living faith founded on the Constitution, 
 gave strength and wisdom to the voung states- 
 man of New England, as he was called in a 
 threatening hour from the pursuits of private 
 life to the highest honors in the gift of the peo- 
 ple, and enabled him to discbarge his high du- 
 ties with a dignity and fidelity and courage 
 which made his administration illustrious, and 
 enrolled his name among the noblest in our 
 nation. And I have learned also that it is the 
 vetei'an defenders of the faith of the great 
 Democratic teacher, whose heavens are irradi- 
 ated with a golden light, as their evening sun 
 declines. 1 cannot despair when I remember 
 that it is the memory of Jefferson and Madison 
 and Jackson, Avhich is enshrined in the hearts 
 of my countrymen. I cannot complain that 
 the timid and the short-sighted and the dissap- 
 pointed and the petulant find cause for their 
 distresses — for I know that the high design 
 must be accomplished. I cannot be dismayed, 
 when I contemplate the present, for I find a 
 light shining out of the past which illumines 
 with ever-increasing brilliancy the pathway of 
 our nation. Our sun shall not go down at 
 noon. For above all the noise of party strife, 
 amidst the trials of adversity, and the tempta- 
 tions of 2'n'osperity, that voice shall still be 
 heard, which brought our fathers out of bon- 
 dage, and taught the world that scU-govern- 
 ment is the foundation of popular iiiteUigeuce, 
 virtue and prosperity. 
 
13 
 
 And, Fellow-Democrats, you who have come 
 up here to pay homage to the memory of the 
 illustrious founder of your part}', I indeed re- 
 joice with you that the faitli of Jefferson is still 
 your own. In the victories of the last half cen- 
 tury, his words have inspired the contest. In 
 the defeats, even our enemies have been com- 
 pelled to praise him. As our Union has ex- 
 panded at your hands, the glory has been his. 
 As you have added State after State to the 
 Confederation, you have but set new stars in 
 his glittering coronet. As you have swept from 
 existence a dividing line, which was but a dec- 
 laration of sectional warfare, and a violation of 
 the most sacred rights under the Constitution, 
 you have but fulfilled his prophecy. As you 
 have thi'owu wide open the doors of the temple 
 of freedom, that all men might enter in, you 
 have administered with honesty and fidelity the 
 legacy which he bequeathed to a struggling 
 world. As you have fought for religious liber- 
 ty, his epitaph has been written on j'our ban- 
 ners. In recognizing the rights of the States 
 under the Constitution which binds us together, 
 you have never forgotten the corner stone 
 which he laid at the foundation of the structure. 
 
 And when others claim the honors which 
 through your fidelity have gathered around his 
 name, when in the agony of long continued dis- 
 aster, his enemies and yours would rally their 
 broken forces Avith your own war-cry, and em- 
 ulate you in praise of your great commanderj 
 be sure that your triumph is complete. 
 
 "When they who are rending this Union with 
 their sectional broils, who tear in sunder the 
 flag of our country, who would make the faith 
 of our fathers 'of none eflect through their tradi- 
 tion' — when such as these profess to prophecy 
 in the name of Jefferson, I imagine his august 
 form rising in majestic rebuke — " I knew you 
 not." If they would honor him, let them first 
 be just to the State which gave him birth, to 
 the spot in which his bones repose, ^ 
 
 For so long as our Republic shall endure, so 
 long as the stars and stripes float over the sea 
 and over the land, so long as the guaranties of 
 the Constitution shall all be fulfilled, so long as 
 the rights of our citizens shall be protected 
 throughout the length and breadth of our do- 
 main, the name of Jefi'erson shall live to re- 
 proach a noisy, and virulent, and ambitious 
 philanthropy, and to bind in indissoluble bonds 
 that great traternity of which we are a part, 
 and which, from North to South, from East to 
 West, bears the high and honorable title of 
 American Democracy. 
 
 The band then played "Ilail Columbia,'^ 
 after which the benediction was pronounced by 
 Key, Mr. Allen, and the crowd dispersed. 
 
 Banquet at Hamilton Hall. 
 
 At the conclusion of the exercises at Me- 
 chanic Hall a procession was immediately form- 
 ed under the Chief Marshalship of Mr. Daniel 
 B. Lord, and accompanied by the Salem Brass 
 Band^ marched to Hamilton Hall, Chestnut 
 street. The hall was decorated in a tasteful 
 and appropiiate manner. The tables were 
 laid for three hundred persons, and from 
 the main table which stretched across the end 
 of the hall there branched seven others. They 
 were laden with the delicacies of the larder at- 
 tached to the establishment of the celebrated 
 caterer Mr. G. H. Wise, Upon the wall at 
 the rear of the presiding oflicer two large Amer- 
 ican flags were draped to either side, and be- 
 tween their folds, and at the centre, there was 
 suspended an engraving of Jefferson. The 
 flags were united at the top by a national shield 
 and above all were the words "Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, Born April 2d, 1743." At a short dis- 
 tance upon the right there was an engraving of 
 Washington, and on the left a portrait of Jack- 
 son. On the left Avail there was a portrait of 
 Buchanan, and at the centre opposite the chair 
 another picture of Washington. Upon gilt 
 crescents, around the hall the names of the 
 Presidents were displayed, and from the chan- 
 delier to the walls there were festoons of red, 
 Avhite and blue in graceful design and arrange- 
 ment. Hon. Joseph S. Cabot presided, and 
 the following gentlemen acted as Vice Presi- 
 dents; George Upton, Edward D, Kimball, 
 William McMullen, Joseph S, Perkins, of 
 Salem, Hon. Albert Currier, of Newburyport, 
 Richard Ramsdell. John Carroll of Marblehead, 
 and H. L. Durant of Lynn. Divine blessing 
 was invoked by Rev. Mr. Allen, and due at- 
 tention having been paid to the feast which had 
 been Wisely provided, the cloth was removed 
 and the intellectual entertainment was intro- 
 duced by Mr, Cabot. 
 
 Speech of Hon. Joseph S. Cahot. 
 
 Gentlemen — Having the honor to be selected 
 as the presiding oflicer on the present occasion 
 the pleasant duty seems to devolve upon me of 
 tendering to you a welcome. I rejoice to be a 
 participant with you in this festival, to find 
 myself here surrounded by men bound together 
 by the ties of a common political faith, moved 
 to a common purpose, actuated by a common 
 sentiment, assembled to commemorate the 
 birth of the bold promulgator, the able defen- 
 der, and eloquent advocate of democratic prin- 
 ciples, to celebrate the birth of Thomas Jef- 
 ferson, the great founder of the democratic 
 party. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances the birth of 
 any one is, except to those immediately con- 
 nected therewith, an event hardly of gufiicient 
 
14 
 
 Importance to be wortliy of any notice, for it 
 seems to be the addition of but one individual 
 the more to that innumerable multitude, ever 
 changing and never for an instant remaining 
 the same, that are, as it were on a pilgrimage 
 •constantly passing over the earth's surface. 
 And yet when it happens, as it occasionally 
 3ias, all down through the long line of past ages 
 and as it will probably continue to occur all 
 through the remote future, that some individ- 
 ual thus enters upon this stage of being, des- 
 tined OH his maturity to exercise a deep and 
 powerful influence upon his Age and Country, 
 and who, from the vigor of his intcRcct, the 
 force ef his genius, or the strength of his will, 
 •seems capable of even shaping and moulding 
 events to his .purposes, then the event loses 
 ■what there is of triviality in its character and 
 assumes proportions even of sublimity. It is 
 such as these who are to be considered as the 
 guiders and leaders of our race, and of these 
 ■was he whose birth we commemerate. 
 
 Few men of any age have exercised so great 
 ■or so permanent an influence upon their con- 
 temporaries and successors ; lev/ have so suc- 
 ceeded in stamping the imprint of their genius, 
 and their principles, upon the gevernmeut and 
 institutions of their country as Thomas Jctfer^ ' 
 son, and there are but few v/hose birth is so 
 ■worthy of commemoratioH, especially by those 
 for whom his political teachings are the cardi^ 
 nal doctrines of their political faith. 
 
 With no peculiar advantages, except those 
 derived from the powers with which nature had 
 •endowed him, born in comparative cbscurity, 
 in a colonial dependency of the British empire, 
 it might at first seem tliat he was destined to 
 pass a life not raised above the level of a re- 
 spectable mediocrity, and yet he lived to see 
 that colonial dependency as a member of that 
 powerful confederacy, assume a foremost sta- 
 tion among the independent nations of the 
 earth, and himself in acknowledgement of his 
 •attainment and in reward of his public service 
 elevated to its highest dignity. 
 
 We have come together then, gentlemen, to 
 celebrate in the birth of Thomas Jetlersou — 
 that of the author of the Declaration of Amer- 
 ican Ir.dependence, of whose principles and 
 the measures to which ttat declaration lead be 
 "Was the able advocate and unswerving defender 
 — of one who materially assisted in severing 
 the bonds of vassalage thart held his country in 
 subjection — of him who •was among the f oun- 
 'ders of oar republic — of the third President of 
 the United States during whose administration 
 ^f that great office, by fiis statesmanship and 
 foresight in the acquisition of Louisiana an em- 
 pire was added to the union, and an outlet for 
 the products of the valley of the Mississippi se- 
 cured to the commerce and markets of the 
 Xvorld. 
 
 It is not my purpose, r.or decs it seem within -i 
 my province to attempt the eulogy of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson, indeed, if it were, already this day has 
 his character been so faithfully delineated, his 
 great public services enumerated, and his claims 
 to the aflcctious and gratitude of his country- 
 men so clearly vindicated that any further at- 
 tempts seem superfluous and yet, I hope to be 
 excused if I ventuix), for a few moments, to 
 dwell upon one of the aspects in which his life 
 and character may be viewed, as especially iu- 
 tercst-ing to those of our own political organi- 
 zatio-n. 
 
 XMl'. Jefferson may justly be regarded as the 
 founder of the democratic i^art^', as the expo- 
 nent of those political principles that obtained 
 an ascendency with the people at his elevation 
 to the presidency, and that have since, with th'c 
 exception of one or two brief intervals, down 
 to the present time, continued to influence or ■ 
 control the measures and policy of the general 
 government. 
 
 The cardinal principles of that party thus 
 inaugurated and since repeatedly sanctioned by 
 the people, by their votes, as derived from his 
 teachings are, tliat all authority emanates from 
 the people — tLiat the government of the United 
 States is a government of limited powers as 
 defined by the constitution adopted by the 
 states at their entrance into the confederacy — 
 that aU powers not expressly granted are ■with- 
 held ; and that in the exercise of these reserv- 
 ed pov/crs each state is sovereign and indepen- 
 dent — -that as the people of each state, so the 
 people of each territory when about to bo 
 established as a state, have the exclusive right 
 to adopt such local government and d'o- 
 mestic institutians as they may think re- 
 quired by their wants, free from any control or 
 interference except that arising from the single 
 restriction imposed by the constitution that re- 
 quires that the government to be established 
 shall be republican in form. ^ 
 
 The democratic party demand that the gen- 
 eral government in the exercise of the authority 
 confided to it, shall in its domestic policy be 
 administered so as "to promote the greatest 
 good of the greatest number," that is, the' 
 greatest good of the whole people, and that in 
 its intercourse with foreign nations in the lan- 
 guage of the illustrious Jackson "it shall ask 
 for nothing but what is right, and submit to 
 nothing that is wrong." 
 
 The democratic party is the party of free- 
 dom desirous of extending the blessings of con- 
 stitutional liberty to every nation capable of 
 its enjoyment. It is, too, the party of pro- 
 gress, ready 'to adopt all constitutional means 
 tliat tend to advance the national interest or to 
 improve and ameliorate the condition of the 
 people, >vtiilst at the same time opposed to all 
 ri-^sh innovations or meatjures of doubtful cxpe- 
 
15 
 
 diencj, it is the great conservative party of the 
 country. The sympathies of tlie democratic 
 party are not coufiucd to the natives of our own 
 country but are extended to all who here seek 
 a home or an asylum, and it stands ready to 
 receive into the communion of citizeixship all, 
 no matter of what nation oi iginally, who are 
 I)repared to assume and fulfill its duties and re- 
 sponsibilities. 
 
 The Deniocratic party is the national party, 
 its standard is the Hag of the Union, its patri- 
 otism is confined to no fixed territorial limits 
 or boundaries, but is expansive in its charac- 
 ter and reaches not only to what is liow, but to 
 ■what shall hereafter become the extremest verge 
 of the republic. 
 
 Such, gentlem,en, is the Democratic Party 
 and such are its principles, and it is only by a 
 strict adherence to these pruiciples, especially 
 to that great doctrine of State's Rights, a doc- 
 trine that forbids all interforence with the Gov- 
 ernment and institution of a State by the other 
 States or General Government, and that secures 
 to the people of the States the exclusive right 
 ot deciding upon their own State institutions 
 and policy that the peace and harmony of the 
 Confederacy can be maintained. ^ 
 
 Even from the commencement of its princi- 
 ples and the era of its foundation, a violent and 
 powerful hostility to its principles and its suc- 
 cess has been manifested by jiolitical organiza- 
 tions and combinations acting sometimes under 
 one name, sometimes another, but all imbued 
 with the same spirit, and actuated b}' the same 
 motive. At present we see arrayed against it 
 an unscrupulous combination, which, tho' com- 
 posed of discordant materials, is in this united, 
 that it seeks the overthrow of the Democracy — 
 a combination whose only hope of success is in 
 making itself sectional by uniting one section 
 of the Union against another section of the 
 Union, which, Ijunder the pretence ot defending 
 the clanns of fice labor, is ready to commit an 
 encroachment upon the rights of many of the 
 States by virtually denying to th.era a claim to 
 a share in the tenilory acquired to the Union 
 at the expense ot the common blood and com- 
 mon treasure — .which, under the specious guise 
 of a morbid philanthroj)y in its zeal for what it 
 calls the welfare of four or five millions blacks, 
 seems utterly regardless of the peace and hap- 
 piness of twenty -five millions of whites — which 
 openly denies its obligation to a plain require- 
 ment of the constitution — which openly sets at 
 nought a decision of the highest judicial tribu- 
 nal, and which seems ready to adopt any means 
 for the attainment of its object, no matter what, 
 even though such should jeopardise the exis- 
 tence of the confederacy. 
 
 But efforts of such a character and for such 
 a purpose must fail of success — the patriotism 
 and good sense of the people alike forbid it. 
 
 We have no occasion to despair of the Eepub- 
 lie — such attempts to overthrow the immutable 
 principles and great truths that are the founda- 
 tion of the Democratic party, and from -which 
 its ascendancy with the people results, must bo 
 as futile as the waves of ocean lashed into rage 
 by the fierce storra.s of Winter, as they beat up- 
 on, our iron-bouiy.1 coast, to sweep away the 
 rcclcy barriers that nature has created as a 
 rampart against their fury. I^et the Democra- 
 cy preserve its integrity and seek in the teach- 
 ings of its great founders for its rule of faith, 
 let it maintain unimpaired its party organiza-. 
 tion and discipline, a discipline that while it 
 allows ^ difl'erence of opinion upon questions 
 of expediency permits no departure from prin-. 
 ciple. Let it as of old bear upon its standard 
 • — '■'■ Union, harmony conccssion-^every thing 
 for the cause, nothing for men,'' and then in 
 the future as in the past continued evidence 
 will be afforded of the truth of that announce- 
 ment oX Andrew Jackson, of that brave, tha4 
 noble, that wise and just old man, who ''though 
 now dead yet spealvcth to us," an announce- 
 ment whose utterance by him rang like the 
 sound of a trumpet through the land, ''the con- 
 stitution and the laws are supreme, and the 
 Union is indissoluble." 
 
 Mr Cabot's remarks were frequently inter- 
 rupted by applause, hearty and long continu- 
 ed. At the close three rousing cheers were 
 given for the speaker. 
 
 Mr. Wm. B. Pike, of Salem, was introduced 
 as toastmaster of the evening, and gave the f ol-- 
 lowing as the first regular sentiment — 
 
 Tli-e. American 'Diviocracy — True to the princi^ 
 pies laid down by Jefierson, and inoo,rj)orated iu 
 the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 The President said that they had expected 
 the pleasure of the con^pany of lion. Bi;nj. 
 F. Hallktt, but that gentleman being engage 
 ed upon a capital trial in Boston, had been 
 unable to attend. Dr. Loring having been 
 called upon to represent Mr Hallett, responded 
 by exijressing his inability to discharge satisfac- 
 torily so difficult a duty, and after complimen- 
 ting Mr H. as one of the tried standard bear- 
 ers of the party, read the following able and 
 beautiful letter; — 
 
 Boston; March 31, 1859. 
 Gentlemen : — 
 
 The professional duties of counsel in a capital 
 trial just commenced in the circuit court, couipel 
 me to relinquish the pleasure I had anticipated of 
 being present at your well timed festival in honor 
 of the birthday of Jefferson. 
 
 It was said, many years ago, by one of his biog- 
 raphers, that it was the fate of Thomas Jefferson to 
 be at once more loved and praised by his friends, 
 and more hated and reviled by bis enemies, than 
 any of his compatriots. 
 
 That was true in his lifetime. At his death all 
 statesmen, all parties all mankind united in canon- 
 
IG 
 
 izing bis virtues. But now, and what perhaps most 
 of all endangers Ills lame, in thirty-three years after 
 his decease, his worst enemies, because they are the 
 worst enemies of the union, attempt to claim him 
 as the apostle of their creed of Jjibertj' without law 
 Because he was the great apostle of civil and reli"-- 
 ious freedom, regulated by laAv. You do well there- 
 fore, on this day, to rescue his memory from such 
 unhallowed uses. 
 
 It was the fate of Mr. Jefferson during his life- 
 time, to be misrepresented as to his principles of 
 popular government. It is his fate after his death, 
 to be misrepresented as to his opinions upon the 
 duties of the states to each other, and to the union 
 under the constitution. 
 
 I have not time, nor is a letter a proper medium, 
 to enter into an exposition of the relations of the 
 democratic party to Mr. Jefferson, from the first 
 division of parties in the federal union, to the pres- 
 ent. 
 
 But if I were called upon to name the one dis- 
 criminating principle which has guided him and 
 them from the foundation of that American Inde- 
 pendence which he first embodied in his grand dec- 
 laration and which has marked the broadest and 
 most enduring line between the two policies that 
 have divided the statesmen and the parties of the 
 country, I should find it in that comprehensive 
 policy, inaugurated by Jefferson, of the extension of 
 the territory, and the increase of the states of this 
 nnion. 
 
 We owe to him more than to any one man, but in 
 common with other statesmen the democratic and 
 at the same time conservative elements of our 
 republican form of government. But we owe to 
 him almost alone, the extension of the territory of 
 the republic. 
 
 Democracy, as developed by Jefferson, was the 
 problem of man's capacity for self government. It 
 sought first the largest individual liberty consistent 
 with well ordered government. That was the re- 
 public within the state. It then applied a larger 
 IH'inciple of union in a general government of del- 
 egated powers from the states, and yet conserving 
 the equal rights of each of the states. Eeachiug 
 beyond this it sought for a still more enlarged and 
 comprehensive policy that should go onward pro 
 gressively, extending territory and increasing states 
 to cover the whole continent with commonwealths, 
 each independent within its own sphere, and all 
 united in a general government, supreme only in 
 the limited and certain powers conceded by the 
 states. 
 
 This policy required absolute political equality 
 of the new with the old states, and absolute equal- 
 ity of all the states in all newly acquired territory. 
 This was the com])rehensive policy of Jcfifursou from 
 the beginning. That is he comprehensive policy 
 of the democratic ])arty now, and that is the only 
 governmental relation to slavery which they hold 
 under the constitution, as a national party. 
 
 On no other principle could the thirteen original 
 states have now become thirty-three. 
 
 All our history shows that the democratic party 
 were with Mr. Jefferson in the initiation of this 
 grand policy of .American republican empire. His 
 and their ojiponents resisted it ; and the slavery el- 
 ement, in the new States and territories which con- 
 gress had no right to meddle with, has always been 
 the pretext for that resistance. 
 
 The federal statesmen of his time, no doubt hon- 
 estly, feared the extension of territory and the ad- 
 dition of distant states as i'atal to the republic. But 
 all the obstructions to the enlargement of the U. 
 States have, from the beginning, come from the 
 party opposed to Mr. Jefferson and to democracy. 
 
 This was the marked dividing line between parties 
 in 1800, and it is equally marked in dividing them 
 now. It was Louisiana then. It has since been 
 Florida, Texas, Oregon, California, New Mexico, 
 and it is Cuba now. 
 
 All the New England statesmen of Jefferson's 
 time not of his party, resisted the extension of ter- 
 ritory and the increase of state.. In 179G they op- 
 posed the admission of the first new state formed 
 out of territory ceded to the United States, Tennes- 
 see : alleging that it was because , she held slaves. 
 But in 1802 they resisted the admission of Ohio, 
 though a free state, formed liy the liberal endow- 
 ment of Virginia out of the north western temtory 
 because as they then said, it would depopulate New 
 England and carry power from the Atlantic to the 
 west. 
 
 And because Mr. Jefferson approved the ordi- 
 nance of 1787, framed under the confederation, and 
 before the constitution had formed the union, it is 
 assumed by modern sectional "republicans," that 
 he was a sectionalist. They forget that it was the 
 beloved state of Jefferson, standing at the head of 
 the slaveholding states, then a majority in the con- 
 federation, Virginia, that was the granting party 
 to that noble gift and compact of cession to the 
 north. Nor do they choose to remember that iu 
 that same ordinance the statesmen who made it, 
 wisely comprehending the adoption of the territory 
 solely to free labor, carefully preserved the rights 
 of the south to reclaim from that territory all fugi- 
 tives from service. A strange paternity indeed, for 
 those who resist unto blood and disunion, that Jef- 
 fersonian compact of good faith between the states 
 since engrafted into the constitution ; and who 
 now use all their power in legislatures to nullify the 
 constitution and laws of the union, which they have 
 sworn to support and maintain. 
 
 Now if any young man is desirous of knowing to 
 what party Thomas Jefferson belongs, and to what 
 policy he himself owes the honor of being a citizen 
 of these United States as they now are, second in _, 
 power to no nation of the earth, and superior iu 
 good governments and private rights over all ; let 
 iiim take the map of North America and cross off 
 the accessions of territory and states made by the 
 Jeffersonian democratic policy since 1802 ; before 
 Louisiana, Florida, Texas and California were ours. 
 See British America stretching across the continent 
 from Nova Scotia to the Pacific Ocean, from New- 
 foundland to the Russian settlements, from Davis 
 Strait to the Arctic. See the very back bone of 
 the United States broken — all west from the mouth 
 of the Mississippi to Lake Superior, Louisiana, 
 Florida and Texas, resting on the Gulf of Mexico 
 south, not our sister states, and our marts of free 
 commerce, but colonies or dependencies of Groat 
 Britain ; for if Jefferson had not made the treaty with l 
 Napoleon, Louisiana would have been, in ninety 
 days after, the conquest of England, with her fleet 
 then on the way to wrest it from France. Florida 
 too, would liave fallen from the feeble hands of 
 Spain to England. Texas, if rejected, would liave 
 become her dependant or ally. Oregon would have 
 been a parcel of the new ''Victoria" to be formed 
 out of the vast possessions of the Hudson Bay Com- 
 pany. Mexico would have retained the golden Cal- 
 ifornia still a desert, and not a stripe of the Ameri- 
 can flag would have touched the endless .shores of 
 the Pacific or the walors of the Gulf of Mexico 
 
 AVho would now wi.sh to be an American with 
 such a narrow heritage, bouml within the folds of 
 an over.shadowing iJritish Empire in North Ameri- 
 ca ? ')r that other alternative of a great southern 
 confederation of rei)ublics, comprising all this re- 
 jected territory with Mexico, and Central America, 
 
17 
 
 md guided by the indomitable statcsmansMp of our 
 own revolutionary I'ace, controlling the markets 
 and the industry of the world, by holding the great 
 staples of that industry in their hands ? 
 
 And that is not so, we owe it to the large policy of 
 Jefferson and his Democratic compatriots. There 
 is the history. Read it. In 1802 Spain owned 
 Louisiana, and we had a poor treaty with h r for 
 the right to deposit American goods to New Or- 
 leans. Spain broke the treaty and forbid the de- 
 posit. President Jefferson demanded redress, and 
 was answered that Spain had ceded Louisiana to 
 France. Napoleon had no na'/y to protect it, and 
 England was about to dispatch her fleets for its 
 conquest. Thus the purchase of Ijouisiana from 
 France was the only measure to secure the free 
 navigation of the Mississippi. 
 
 Jefferson took the responsibility for posterity and 
 achieved it. On the 2Sth of October, 1803, Andrew 
 Jacksok, a Senator from that same Tennessee 
 which New England had refused to admit into the 
 Union, rose in the Senate of the United States, and 
 laoved that the Senate do advise and consent to 
 ilie ratification Of the treaty made at Paris, April 
 30th, 1803, between the United States and the 
 French Republic, by Robert R. Livingston and 
 James Monroe, and Barbi Marbois. " New Eng- 
 land Statesman and New England politicians op- 
 posed to Jefferson, all opposed it." What, they ex- 
 claimed, pay fifteen millions for a place of deposit 
 for Western produce ? This is indeed insufferable ! 
 Why, if they have that our New England lands will 
 become a desert from the contagion of emigration. 
 And then they fell to ridiculing Mr Jefferson and 
 lais "Salt Mountain-' in Missouri. Why, if logic, 
 like malleable glass, were not amon^- the lost arts, 
 we might wonder a little that the dead Jefferson 
 should be now claimed by a party whoso living 
 Patriarch here in Massachusetts, the venerable Jo- 
 siah Quincy, stood at the head of opposition to that 
 grand Jeffersoniau policy of extension, with or 
 without slavery, when ho moved in Congress the 
 tinjiea^hmem of Thomas Jefferson for purchasing 
 Louisiana ! And who again, when ijouisiana ask- 
 ed to be admitted a State with her slave population, 
 <leclared in his place (January 15, 1811)—'- if this 
 Jsill passes vt is virtuollij a dissdution of the Union; 
 (iiid as it will he the right of all, so it will be the du- 
 ty ofso7ne, to prepare for a separation, ^7eacc«i/y if 
 they €an forcibly if theij must P Then it was that 
 first rose the sectional cry of 'no more slave states,' 
 and so it has gone on ever since, until the cry is no 
 more free states without negro suffrage and negro 
 equality ! And thus we trace down the dividing 
 line between Jefferson and sectionalism, until we 
 find the now miscalled "republican" party, doing 
 .iust what the opponents of Mr. Jefferson did in 
 1802, when they voted against the admission of free 
 Ohio, viz : voting against the admission of free Or- 
 egon because she will not consent to absorb the 
 negro race in her body politic. And this they do 
 upon the avowed doctrine that Congress has the 
 power to make or amend Constitutions for tLe new 
 states and for territories, so as to regulate the po- 
 litical status and condition of their inhabitants. 
 
 Now, that was the very heresy in the Federal 
 Government most denounced by Mr. Jefferson, 
 touching the power of congress to limit the sover- 
 eignty of Missouri in 1821. " The real question," 
 .said he, in his letter to John Adams, i,s — " are our 
 slaves to be presented with freedom and a dagger ? 
 Jor if Congress has the power to regulate the con- 
 dition of the inhabitants of States, it will be but 
 another exercise of that power to declare that all 
 shall be free" 
 
 3 
 
 And this heresy so denounced by Jefferson, is the 
 precise doctrine to-day, of Mr. Seward's -'irrepress- 
 ible conflict" to make all free or all slave States. 
 
 He who moves a step in that direction, travels 
 farther and farther from Jefferson. Why the only 
 event that ever raised a doubt in the mind of that 
 calm philosopher of the perpetuity of the Union, 
 was the attempt made by the North in the Missouri 
 controversy to draw a section line between the free 
 and slave states. " liike a fire bell in the night it 
 awakened and filled him with terror." From the 
 battle of Bunker Hill to the Treaty of Paris, said 
 he, vre never had so ominous a question — a geo- 
 graphical line, drawn in the opposing moral and 
 political views of sectional parties, and held up to 
 the angry passions of men with every local irrita- 
 tion to make it deeper and deeper, until it should 
 beceme the line of separation of the states. And 
 this idea, once suggested, would brood in the minds 
 of all those who prefer the gratification of their 
 ungovernable passions to the peace and union of 
 the country. The old schism of federalists and re- 
 publicans threatened nothing like this, because it 
 existed in every state, and united them by the fra- 
 ternization ef party. But this sectional division of 
 parties on geographical lines was a blow at the 
 grand experiment in America which is to decide 
 whether man is capable of self-government. Nay, 
 it was treason against human hope. 
 
 Such were the best considered views of the illus- 
 trious sage in the calmness of his retreat, and near 
 the close of that grand life which he had given to 
 his country. And these warnings and rebukes, then 
 so solemn and momentnus, to whom and to what 
 do they now apply, with renewed force, but to the 
 leaders and the purposes of that sectional party of 
 to-day, calling itself "republican," and yet aiming 
 to shatter the republic into angry, disjointed and 
 hoistilo confederations, on cither side of a geogra^jh- 
 ical line? 
 
 If they indeed respect and venerate Thomas Jef- 
 ferson, let them heed the admonition that comes to 
 them from him, as if uttered but yesterday. 
 
 " Would tbey," said he, " but weigh the blessings 
 they will throw away by disunion, against an ab- 
 stract principle more likely to be effected by union 
 than by secession, they would pause before perpe- 
 trating this act of suicide on themselves, and of 
 treason against the hopes of the world." And still 
 more suggestive of the present, among his last 
 words ever uttered were " the hope that the mass 
 of his honest brethren of the northei'n states wonld 
 discover the use designing men ivere making of 
 their best feelings, and see the precipice to which 
 they are led, before they take the final leap." 
 
 These are the lessons of wisdom and of warning 
 to his countrymen which come down to our time, 
 and, as if a special legacy, to the young men of 
 America, from the great statesman whose advent 
 as the Ajjostle of Freedom under Government, of 
 Liberty within Law, you to day commemorate. 
 
 Taking these principles of popular government 
 and to an united Republic of independent and ex- 
 panding States for their guide, the party which 
 has nearest followed the teachings of Thomas Jef- 
 ferson has never failed and never can fail to be tbe 
 party of Union, of State Rights and of national 
 greatness ; and no party, class or section repudiat- 
 ing them, in their relations to the whole country, 
 can justly claim to be either Jcffersonian, Nation- 
 al Democratic or Republican. I have the honoi to 
 be, With great respect. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 B. P. Hallett 
 To the Committee of Arrangements. 
 
18 
 
 Second sentiment,— 
 
 Virginia— The Mother of the States ; the home 
 of Jefferson. 
 
 The following letter from the Governor of 
 
 Virginia, Hon. H. A. Wise, was read amid 
 
 applause :• — 
 
 Richmond, Va., March 20, 1859. 
 
 Gentlemen— I am happy to see the spirit of De- 
 mocracy rise up in old Essex, of Massachusetts, to 
 celebrate the birth-day of Thomas Jeflerson. His 
 tomb has inscribed upon it his best eulogy. He 
 wrote the Declaration of Imlependence— was the 
 author of the Act of Religious Freedom, and was 
 the Founder of the University of Virginia. But 
 this is no epitome of his benefactions to mankind ; 
 it was all there v.'as room for on a grave. His life 
 was a library of useful kuowledgci and a long se- 
 ries of actions, most efficient and practical in poli- 
 tics— the results of which this nation and the world 
 have felt and are now witnessing, I hope, for great 
 good. He knew how to govern what we had, and 
 to acquire more, in peace and in good faith. He 
 was the great equalizer andleveler of his day, but 
 he levelled upwards. His democi'acy exalted man- 
 kind, for he loved letters and law, and the people 
 and the p-ublic good He was morally and politi- 
 cally brave, as well as politic and prudent, and his 
 success proved his sagacity to be sharpened in part 
 by his courage. He Avas a student of measures 
 more than of "theories, and originated more practi- 
 cal plans of administration than any other man, 
 except the first President, under whom he assisted 
 the first and foundation policy of the United States 
 —the policy of Peace with Foreign nations. 
 
 The Great Apostle of Liberty—" Louisiana and 
 Peace"' ought to be added to his epitaph. 
 
 Yours, truly, Henrx- A. Wise. 
 
 Wm. B. Pike, &c., Committee. 
 Third sentiment ;— 
 
 Our Sister States— We know no cast, no west, 
 no north, no south. 
 
 The president in response to this toast read 
 the following sound and eloquent letter receiv- 
 ed from Hon. Jefferson Davis: — 
 
 Washingtoiv', March 14, 1859. 
 Gentlemen — I have the honor to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your very kind invitation to meet the 
 democrats of Essex county. Mass , and to unite with 
 them in celebrating the birthday of Thomas Jef- 
 ferson. 
 
 Fully concurring with you as to the jpropriety of 
 commemorating an event which gave to our coun- 
 try the author of the Declaration of Independence, 
 the great Apostle of American Democracy, and ex- 
 pounder of religious liberty, I regret that it will 
 Dot be in my power to be with you as invited. 
 
 It is fortunate for our country that its early his- 
 tory presents examples of patriotism, wisdom and 
 virtue, which serve as guiding .stars to posterity ; 
 more fortunate still that they have left us an im- 
 perishable record of opinions so verified by experi- 
 ence as to seem almost the result of inspiration, to 
 which in all times of confusion we can turn as to a 
 light which leads us to the original and just nnder- 
 standing of our political institutions. 
 
 If in the progress of events the mind of any one 
 should be dazzled by the splendor of our national 
 greatness, and be made forgetful of the sovereignty 
 of the states, he has but to turn to the writings of 
 Jefferson to find the purpose, and the theory on 
 which the states were united. 
 Or if a mind of different character, in the securi- 
 
 ty and repose afforded by the shield of a united 
 people, should forget the necessity of co-operation, 
 and to exalt the individual dignity of the states, 
 should seek to paralyze the arm of the general gov- 
 ernment, in the same and cotemporaneous texts, it 
 will find the necessity of the ligament which binds 
 it together, ajid learn to realize how much the 
 steadiness of our step depends upon the support of 
 a hand, the presence of which can only be unheeded, 
 because the want of it has not been felt by this, 
 our prosperous generation. 
 
 I hail with pleasure this indication that my bro- 
 ther democrats of Massachusetts are aroused to the 
 necessity of counteracting the baneful influences 
 of the hour, and are seeking to recall the popular 
 mind from the pursuit of speculative pseudo phi- 
 lanthropy, to the contemplation of historical truth. 
 
 Though there is much in the present circumstan- 
 ces of our country to create apprehension, we should 
 not yet despair of the republic. Our government, 
 resting on the consent of the governed, has no such 
 liability to be overthrown as belongs to those which, 
 lifted aliove the people, reel at their giddy height, 
 and stand upon pillars embraced by Sampsons who 
 have only to will it in order to tear them away. 
 With us the people are the government, i-estrained 
 by limitations imposed by themselves and for them- 
 selves. To make war upon the government, then, 
 would be suicidal, and cannot be anticipated until 
 madness and venality have usurped the seats of 
 reason, and virtue. Therefore, my ' friends, in the 
 darkest hour I have been hopeful, have stood as 1 
 now stand, expectant of that reaction which the 
 country needs, and which for its peace, its honor, 
 and its progress, has already been too long delayed. 
 
 Again thanking you for your kind consideration, 
 I am, very respectfully and truly, your friend, \ 
 Jefferson Davis, 
 
 Messrs Geo. B. Loring and others. 
 
 The fourth sentiment was 
 the United States." 
 
 The President of 
 [Loud cheering. 
 
 Dr Loring said that Hon, Isaac Davis who 
 was expected to respond, had been prevented 
 from attending by the death of a near relative; 
 & that he would read the following letters from 
 the Vice President and distinguished members 
 of the Cabinet. Pie paid glowing compliments 
 to these statesmen, the mention of whose 
 names was enthusiastically received ; and con- 
 gratulated this country that its destinies were 
 guided by the veteran leader of the democratic 
 party, aided by the high abilitj^ which he had 
 called into his Council. The letter fiora the 
 Vice President is as follows : — 
 
 Washington City, March 12,1859. 
 
 Dear Sir — I thank you for your friendly 
 letter urging me to be present at the celebra- 
 tion of the birthday of Thomas Jeiferson, to 
 take place at Salem on the first of April. I 
 cordially sympathise with the movement, but 
 it will be impossible for me to attend ; nor can 
 I send j^ou a letter for publication, as I am in 
 the midst of preparations for immediate depart- 
 ure from Washington, and have scarcely time 
 to turn about. Please accept this apology, and 
 believe me, Yours truly, 
 
 John C. Breckenridge. 
 To Wm. 5- Tike, Esq., Chairman Com. of Arrangts. 
 
19 
 
 The following letter from Hon. Howell Cobb, 
 Secretary of the Treasury, was next read : — 
 AVashington City, March 19, 1859. 
 
 Gentlemen — It is in no spirit of mere for- 
 mality, that I express my regret in not being 
 able to attend your proposed celebration of the 
 birthda}- of Jefferson. 
 
 I should be gratified to visit your state, and 
 form a more extended acquaintance with that 
 portion of your people who profess the doc- 
 trines and seek to enforce the principles of con- 
 stitiitional liberty taught by the great Apostle 
 of American freedom. 
 
 It Avould give me pleasure to join tlie patriot- 
 ic sons of New England in renewing our com- 
 mon vows of fealty to the Constitution and the 
 Union, which Jefferson labored hard (o estab- 
 lish and perpetuate. It is not only a duty but 
 a pleasure you propose to discharge — and I can 
 only repeat the regret I feel in being obliged 
 1)^ pubhe engagements to deny myself the 
 privilege of being present to participate in 
 them. 
 
 Allow me to offer 3'ou the following senti- 
 ment for the occasion : — 
 
 The constitutional principles taught by Tiiom- 
 as Jefferson — May our descendants be able to 
 add to the sentunent — " and practiced by our 
 -fathers." Yours, very respeetfully, 
 
 HowEM, Cobb. 
 
 Messrs G. B. Loring-, Wm. B. Pike, George 
 Upton, and others, Com. of Arrangements. 
 
 The following letter was read from Hon. J, 
 B. Floyd :— 
 
 Washingtgn, March 25, 1S59. 
 
 Gentlemen — I i-egret to say that tire nature 
 of my official engagements at this time, puts 
 it out of my power to accept your mvitation to 
 participate in the celebration of Tliomas Jeffer- 
 son's birth day, at SaJem, on the 1st of April. 
 
 Thanking you, however, for your courtesy 
 and attention, I am, gentlemen, very truly. 
 Yours, John B. Floyd. 
 
 Messrs Wm. B. Pike, and others, Committee 
 of Arrangements. 
 
 Fifth sentiment — 
 
 The State of Mai^ie — May she again be what she 
 once was. the star that never sets. 
 
 Col. J. M. Adams, Editor of the Portland 
 Argus, responded briefly. To his mind Jeffer- 
 son was the perfect type of Democracy, and 
 bis memory should ever be held in deep ven- 
 eration by the recipients of the blessings of that 
 government for the secure establishment and 
 perpetuity of which he so patriotically and 
 fearlesslj' labored. He expressed his thanks 
 for the complimentary manner in which the 
 State of Maine had been alluded to, and tho't 
 she now stood in a false position before the 
 country. The day was not far distant when 
 she would stand right. 
 
 The following letter from Hon. Bion Brad- 
 bury was then read: — 
 
 Eastpokt, Me., March 24, 1S59. 
 
 Gentlemen : — I have the pleasure to acknowleclge 
 your kind remembrance, in the invitation I have re- 
 ceived, to he present at the celebration oi' the birth- 
 day of Thomas Jefferson at Salem, on the first of 
 April next. 
 
 The commemoration of this event is fit aucl op- 
 portune. 
 
 Jefierson was the greatest political philosopher of 
 his age, as well as its most sagacious practical 
 statesmen. 
 
 He regarded the American system as embodying 
 the true idea of government— not absolutely perfect, 
 but as near perfection as can be reached by mortals 
 —and the union of the states as the sheet-anchor of 
 th-at system. 
 
 When, in his retirement at Monticello, he was 
 watching with anxious eyes, the progress of the 
 great experiment of self-government, planned by 
 himself and his coadjutors, he was hlled with ap- 
 prehension by the danger wliich threatened its suc- 
 cess from the formation o'i geographical 2'artics. If 
 the agitation of the slavery question, which result- 
 ed in the Missouri compromise, came upon his ear,«! 
 '•like a fire-bell in the night," and seemed to him 
 the " knell of the Union," l)ow would he now trem- 
 ble for its safety when the formation of a geograph- 
 ical party is openly proposed for the purpose of tak- 
 ing possession of the governmcntand a great states- 
 man publicly avows the doctrine that free and slave 
 states cannot co-exist under the constitution. 
 
 The consideration of the wise teachings and union- 
 loving example of the immortal author of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence can but serve to quicken 
 the patriotism of the nation and assuage that spirit 
 of sectional jealousy and rancor which has of late 
 made such fearful progress in the popular mind. 
 
 I regret that i cannot be present irpon an occa- 
 sion of so much interest. With great respect, your 
 obedient servant, Bion Bradbury. 
 
 Wm. B. Pike, Esq., and others Com. of Arr. 
 
 The President read this sentiment, offered 
 by Wm. D. Chamberlain, Esq., of Lynn; — 
 
 Massachusetts, the early defender of the immortal 
 Jefferson — May she soon be found in the front rank 
 ot his political worshippers, in the true democratio 
 sense. 
 
 Dr. X-oring said that it seemed indeed hard 
 for a/democrat to respond in these days to such 
 a sentiment. Massachusetts has long since for- 
 gotten her early love. But to show how warm 
 a democratic heart kill beats within her bor- 
 ders, and that the faith of Jefferson was not 
 wholly forgotten he would here read the fol- 
 lowing letters from some of her truest sons. He 
 was sorry to say that legislative duties had pre- 
 vented Gens. CusriiNG and Butler from ful- 
 filling an engagement to be present on the oc- 
 casion, but he knew that every democrat would 
 foreo-o the pleasure of listening to these able ad- 
 vocates of democracy, the Tnore cheerfully, 
 when he felt that they were «ustainfeg the con- 
 stitution and the laws against the republican 
 force of the Massachusetts legislature. The 
 duty which kept them away, was that which 
 they owed to the people, who stand superior to 
 
20 
 
 all party requirements. He read the foliowing 
 
 letters : — 
 
 Speingfield, March 21, 1859- 
 
 My Dear Sir : — 1 have received your polite invita- 
 tion to take part in the celebration of Jefferson's 
 birthday, at Salem, on the 2d proximo. I assure 
 jou it would give me great pleasure to accept that 
 invitation, but my engagements are such, that I 
 ■cannot reasonably hope to be with you on that oc- 
 casion. 
 
 Permit me to add, that in my judgment, wo have 
 Teached a time when every patriotic citizen of our 
 republic is emphatically called upon, to seize every 
 fitting opportunity to re-awalcen the sentiments, 
 and to revive the teachings of those eminent men 
 Yrho laid the foundation of our governmental insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 Your proposed celebration of the birthday of that 
 •great a])ostle of civil and religious liberty whose 
 political principles have ever been recognized as 
 cardinal doctrine-s by the democratic party, and 
 whose teachings that party have so long followed, 
 as a safe guide in political action, will offer an in- 
 viting occasion to renew and revive that patriotic 
 devotion to our whole country as at present united, 
 •which the signs of the times invest with pre-eaiinent 
 importance. 
 
 Commending then year attempt to do something 
 by your celebration, to re-construct, and to keep 
 alive in Massachusetts a healthy political sentiment 
 b.y looking as patriots, and not as mere partizans, 
 to the record of our fathers, 
 
 I am with great repect your obd't servant. 
 James S. Whitney. 
 
 W. B. Pike, Esq, Chairman ol Com. of Arr. 
 
 Gt. BaerikgtoNj March 29th, 1859. 
 
 Pear Sir : — I regret that 1 cannot participate 
 ■with the democrats of Salem and vicinity in cele- 
 brating the birth day of Jefferson. The demonstra- 
 tion proposed has a peculiar appropriateness now, 
 when the opponents of democracy so strikingly an- 
 swer the description which was given of the Fede 
 ralists in 1820, by the statesman whose name and 
 virtues you would aid to perpetuate. Said Jeffer- 
 son in tlie turlmlent time to which I have alluded, 
 "They" the Federalists "are taking advantage of 
 the virtuous feelings of the people, to effect a divis- 
 ion of parties by a geogi-aphical line ; they expect 
 that this will insure them, on local principles, the 
 majority they could never obtain on pi-inciples of 
 Federalism. They are wasting Jeremiads on the 
 onisdfies of slavery^ as if we u-ere advocates far it.'''' 
 "It is not a moral question, but one merely of pow- 
 er. Its object is to raise a geographical principla 
 for the choice of a President, and the noise will be 
 kept np till that is effected. It is a ladder fou rivals 
 climbing to power." 
 
 That was true of the Federalists in 1820, is true of 
 the opponents of the democracy in 1859, and the 
 same factious spirit which the fathers of democracy 
 discovered and fought against remains to be en- 
 countered and subdued I trust, by the sons. 
 
 With hearty concurrence in the object of the oc- 
 casion, I remain, respectfully yours, 
 
 Samuel B. Sumner. 
 
 John A. Curriu, Esq, Sec. of Com. 
 
 Greenfield, March 29th, 1859. 
 Gentlemen: — Your favor of the 4th Instant, invi.- 
 ing me to be present at Salem, on the first of April 
 and to join in celebrating the birth of Thomas Jef- 
 ferson was duly received. I have delayed a reply, 
 lioping to be able to accept the invitation, but liiiul 
 that engagements in the court, whose session has 
 
 been protracted bejond my expcctatio'n, and will 
 continue through the entire week, will require my 
 presence here on the day of your celebration. I I'e- 
 gret thia extremely, as nothing would aCbrd me. 
 more pleasure than to unite vvith the democrats of 
 Essex in commemorating the birth of the great 
 apostle of American democracy. 
 
 Cordially approving the object of j'our proposed 
 celebration, and with sentiments of high respect for 
 you personally, 
 
 Gentlemen, I have the honor to be your most 
 obd't. servant. 
 
 Samuel 0. Lamb. 
 
 Jehu A. Currin, Sec. and others, Com. of Arr. 
 
 Stockbridge, March 26, 1859, 
 My Dear Sir: — Yoursof the 'JJst inviting me to 
 be present at the celebration cf the birth day of Jef- 
 ferson has this moment been received. To year- 
 self and the committee I am under obligations far 
 the invitation. I sliall be with you that day cer- 
 tainly in spirit, and shall use every exertion to be 
 there in body. 
 I am very respectfully, your most obd"t. servant, 
 
 J. E. Fields. 
 John Curriu, Esq., Sec. ^ 
 
 EicIiardKamsdell ofMarbleliead, in response- 
 to a call from the chair, made a few remarks, 
 closing with : 
 
 Acquisitim! of Ciiha — PeaccaWy if we can; at 
 any rate, Cuba. 
 
 Mr. Cabot gave : 
 
 Our Adopted Citizens. 
 
 Dr. Loring read the following sentiment 
 from Mr Thomas Looby : 
 
 Black EcpuUican Consistency — In celelu'ating 
 the birthday of Jefferson, who,, in his first inaugu- 
 ral address, uttered the immortal sentiment, tliat 
 we should entertain a due sense of the cqi^al right 
 of all, to honor and confidence, from considerations 
 not resulting from birth or condition, but from ac- 
 tions and a high sense of the pvivilegcsl enjoj'ed ; 
 and that equal and exact justice should be render- 
 ed to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, po- 
 litical or religious. 
 
 ]Mr. Cabot read.- 
 
 New IlampsJiire — The Nc/V England State in 
 which the country found a faithful and illustrious 
 President. 
 
 Dr. Loring in response, spoke of the admin- 
 istration of President Pierce^ as one in 'rvhich 
 the great principle of seli-government laid 
 down by Jeflbrson, was ably and fearlessly car- 
 ried into operation. He felt proud of the dis- 
 tinction which had thus fallen upon New En- 
 gland ; and he knew that among all our citizens, 
 at home and abroad, there was no one, whose 
 heart was more truly with tliem, than his who 
 under the soft skies ot Southern Italy, never 
 forgot his obligations to his own land, and al- 
 ways bore in warm remembrance the memory 
 ol those illustrious men, whoso principles had 
 guided him in his career of greatness. 
 
 He regi-ettcd that no son of New Hampshire 
 was present. Sidney Webster Esq. was in the 
 hands of a physician, who had forbidden his 
 heaving his room, and lie assured the audience 
 that that physician had shut off as good a 
 
21 
 
 democratic speech as had ever been listened to. 
 In the absence of Mr. Webster, he would re- 
 peat the words of other true democratic sons 
 of New Hampshire, and he read the tollowing 
 letters ; 
 
 ExETEK, N. H. Marcb 30, 1859. 
 
 Gentlemen:— -I thank you for tlie kind invitation 
 to attend the celebratiou'of the birthday of Jeffer- 
 son, but my engagements are such that I cannot do 
 so without great inconvenience. It is the pride of 
 •every civilized country to refer to their great and 
 good men who have by purity of life, by brilliant 
 genius, by intellectual strength, and bravery upon 
 the battle field, and by patriotism and statesman- 
 ship renowned the countries of their birth. Such 
 men are like majestic head-lands or towering land- 
 marks which guide the wanderers from afar, and 
 around which centre the interest and admiration of 
 all. They are the great links in the extended chain 
 of human events, which happily unite the diEFerent 
 periods of existence, and they will continue to be 
 the distinguished of earth, until Christianity shall 
 lose its interest, and science, genius, learning and 
 patriotism cease to be honored acd respected. 
 Such men seem to have been created for particular 
 occasions. Moses was the man to guide the ancient 
 captives, Paul of Tarsus to urge forward that faith 
 which was renewed beneath the splendor of the star 
 of Bethlehem, Coesar to lead the Roman legions, 
 Cicero to impress the minds of his countrymen with 
 the principles which then controlled the civilized 
 world, Cromwell to guide his countrymen through 
 turmoil and national distractions, Martin Luther to 
 j^enerate and push forward the religious retormatioa 
 of his time, Napoleon Bonaparte to unsettle the 
 concentration of political power by the claims of 
 right divine, VYashington to guide the American 
 army through the trying scenes of the revolution, 
 Jackson to rescue popular rights from the control of 
 combined wealth, and political corruption, and 
 Jcfl'erson to impress upon the minds of the founders 
 of this republic, and the democratic masses of this 
 nation, the genuine doctrines of a republican gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The leading idea which Jefferson advocated be- 
 fore and at the time of the formation of the Amer- 
 ican Union, was the capacity and ability of the 
 American people for self-government. Many doubt- 
 ed and strongly opposed his theory to the extent he 
 claimed, but opposition only gave renewed vigor to 
 his arguments, which resulted in placing the ballot 
 in nearly every man's hand, with freedom of action, 
 only to be controlled by a written constitution. 
 And it is well, especially at this day, when such ex- 
 traordinary efforts are in operation to influence the 
 action of the ballot by x^rejudice, bigotry, sectional- 
 ism, and fanaticism, to re-examine the faith and 
 principles of that great American .statesman, and if 
 po.s.sible to impress upon the public mind an accu- 
 rate and definite idea of the true principles of our 
 government, which he and the other founders of 
 this republic advocated and sustained. That this 
 nation can loLg continue a united and prosperous 
 people sectionally hostile to each other, increasing 
 as it does day by day, is certainly impossible. Ad- 
 mitted or legally determined constitutional lights 
 of men, or of states, should be universally acquies- 
 ced in, until modified by an amendment of the or- 
 ganic law, and upon questions of expediency un- 
 less there is to be some time when we are to have 
 some fixed, definite, and settled political and gov- 
 ernmental doctrines and principles, time will only 
 find us a distracted and contentious people instead 
 of an orderly progressive law-abiding constitution- 
 
 ally governed nation. Thus far the democratic sen- 
 timent has controlled, and my faith in the future 
 success of its doctrines is yet unimpaiied ; and I 
 cannot believe that New England so deeply in- 
 iiaterested in the perpetuity of this union, and so 
 extensively connected in the business and social 
 relations of every portion of the republic, can long 
 be deluded and controlled by the false and fatal 
 doctrines which now guide and direct her. And if 
 your celebration shall tend as I trust it will to cor- 
 rect public sentiment in violation to these matters 
 you will be .justly entitled to the thanks of every 
 true national man. 
 
 Very respectfully your obedient servant, 
 John S. Wells. 
 Dr. Geo. B. Loring and others. Committee. 
 
 Bath, N. H., March 14th, 1859. 
 
 My Dear Sir : — I am sorry that engagements 
 about home, together with poor health, will prevent 
 my being with you on the occasion of the birth day 
 of Jefferson. 
 
 The subject is indeed grand, and the whole affair 
 would be of a kind most agreeable to me. 
 
 Accept my thanks for the kindness which has 
 prompted your invitation, and be assured that I 
 am most sincerely yours, 
 
 II. HiBBAKD. 
 
 Wm. B. Pike, Esq. Chairman Com. of Arr. 
 
 W. B. Pike Esq. in response to a call gave : 
 Thomas Jefferson — Great among great men, and 
 a right use of that greatness, in the cause of hu- 
 manity, made him great in the hearts of the i)eo- 
 ple. 
 
 The President retired, and Mr. Pike took 
 the chair, and gave : 
 
 Hon. J. S. Cabot, President of the Day^-the emi- 
 nent merchant, the consistent and unwavering 
 democrat, the sound statesman. 
 
 Capt. Charles Upton, in response to a call, 
 spoke most eloquently and practically in de- 
 fense of the gunboat system, as one of the 
 most powerful engines in modern warfare ; 
 and he gave : 
 
 Our country — aright or wrong — still our country. 
 
 Mr. Pike read : 
 
 Cuba — We trust soon to hail the day when the 
 stars and stripes shall wave in triumph over the 
 vine-clad hills and fertile valleys of one of Colum- 
 bia's fairest isles. 
 
 Charles P. Thonapson of Gloucester respond- 
 ed. 
 
 The following sentiment by John A. Currin 
 was read : 
 
 The Orator of the Day — A true representative of 
 the Young Democracy. 
 
 Dr. Loring replied that he rose " for the 
 first time to-day," to respond to the sentiment 
 which had been aimed at him. He defended 
 the choice of the day selected by the commit- 
 tee of arrangements, and complimented them, 
 that each man had performed his part well. 
 The enthusiasm which had been manifested, the 
 encouragement they had met witli from the 
 party in the country, the eloquent letters which 
 had been read, a band of true men marching 
 
22 
 
 through our streets as the followers of Jeffei'- 
 son, all indicated that the democracy wn'? still 
 true to its founder. He hoped he should nev- 
 er grow old in such a cause, and he felt that 
 perennial vigor belonged to those who sustain- 
 ed the unfading principles of the Constitution 
 as taught by Jefferson. Our opponents, he 
 said, may endeavor to pervert those principles 
 and wrest them from us, but they would al- 
 ways find themselves as they were in the cele- 
 bration of the birthday of Jefferson eleven days 
 behind his faithful and consistent admirers. 
 He wanted no " new style" for the patriot and 
 sage, whose memory they had met to celebrate, 
 and he left it for others to modernize and aba- 
 litionize the day of his birth, as they were en- 
 deavoring to modernize and abolitionize his 
 I'ecord and his doctrines. 
 
 Capt. Chas. Upton gave the following quot- 
 ed toast ; 
 
 An Amei'ican always kneels only to liis God, and 
 with his face to the enemy. 
 
 By Norman Story of Essex ; 
 
 Those clergymen who preach Fremont politics — 
 May their days be few and others take their office. 
 
 By R. liamsdell, of Marblehead. 
 
 The Clergy — While armed with the sword of the 
 Spirit, may they always wield it iu the cause of re- 
 ligious liberty. 
 
 Mr. Edward Foley sang "Eed, White and 
 Blue." 
 
 By. R. Eamsdell. 
 
 The Ladies — At all times and on all occasions we 
 regard them as our choicest luxuries. 
 
 By Henry Derby. 
 
 Elbridge Gerry, the patriot statesman, and Wm. 
 Gray the patriot merchant — The exponents and rep- 
 resentatives of the Jeflersonian democracy. All 
 honor to their memories. Massachusetts was hon- 
 ored in the election of these gentlemen to the first 
 offices in the state in 1810. 
 
 Wm. H. Burbeck sang "Nine cheers for the 
 girls we love." 
 
 Jona. H. Orne of Marblehead responded to 
 ^ call, and made a short speech, in which he 
 said Marblehead had given seven or eight hun- 
 dred votes for Jefferson to thirty or forty for his 
 Opponent. 
 
 Nathan Clark Esq., of Lynn having been call- 
 ed upon, made the following graceful and ap- 
 propriate response. He said ; — 
 
 Mr. President: — 1 came here not for the purpose 
 of saying anything myself, but to listen to the ut- 
 terance of other.s— the veterans and leaders of the 
 democracy, whose faithful aud eminent service in 
 behalf of democratic principles renders it peculiarly 
 appropriate that their voices should lie heard on an 
 occasion like this, instituted in commemoration of 
 the great apostle and founder of those principles 
 
 Listening to the utterances of these to-daj-, 1 feel 
 that I have been led to a still greater appreciation 
 of that wonderful character which has stamped its 
 
 impress so incffacably upon the policy and institu- 
 tions of our country. 
 
 And not only have I been inspired with a deeper 
 reverence for the character of Jefferson, but with a 
 deeper devotion to that great political party which 
 for more than half a century has upheld the prin- 
 ciples and perpetuated the policy which he inaugu- 
 rated. 
 
 I am impelled hy this feeling to express the hope 
 that each return of this day may witness all over 
 our land, gatherings of the democracy similar to 
 this in which we have joined to-day, and that this 
 anniversaiy may thus become sacred in the annals 
 of the democratic party. 
 
 By J. J. Dalrymple : — 
 
 The memory of Jefferson, and the union of the 
 United States — may they be as enduring as time 
 aud as la sting as eternity. 
 
 Samuel Whittemore gave — 
 
 rhos. Jefferson — Though dead, bis memory yet 
 lives in the hearts of the people. 
 
 By J. M. Adams of Portland — 
 
 The Democrats of Massachusetts — Firm, able and 
 indefatigable in support of true Democratic princi- 
 ples. Tlioy have richly deserved success ; may they 
 soon obtain it. 
 
 By Capt C. II. Manning, of the Liglit Ar- 
 tillery — 
 
 The Volnuteer Soldiers of the Kepublic. who 
 waved our banners in triumph over all the ram- 
 parts of Mexico — may our eagles once more build 
 their nests in her mountain heights, and drive from 
 her plains the vultures that now prey on the state, 
 that the principles of Jefifersonian Democracy may 
 illumine the Land. 
 
 By John Ryan, Esq. — 
 
 The Union of States — the union of hearts, the un 
 ion of hands — the flag of our Union forever. 
 
 Bj^ W. G. Munroe of Lynn — 
 
 Jefferson, Jackson and Buchanan, the great tri- 
 umvirate of a constitutional Democracy — Traduced 
 and reviled for their official acts in life by a bigot- 
 ed and partizan opposition, history has, and ever 
 will, do honor and justice to their names and mem- 
 ories as true friends to an extended, united and har- 
 monious confederacy. 
 
 Sir. Pike read — 
 
 The Caterer of the Evening — Maybe always be 
 as liberal as he has been Wise this evening. 
 
 Wm. H. Burbeck sang " Big Plum Pud- ( 
 ding." 
 
 By Geo. R. Mason — 
 
 Enemies of the Administration of Thomas Jeffer- 
 son — Grandfathers of the enemies of the present Ad- 
 ministration, 
 
 By J. H. Stacy of Gloucester. 
 
 The principles of Jefferson form the platform of 
 the National Democrats of old Essex county. We 
 defy the devil to get us off if he can. 
 
 By E. C. Peabody, Esq.— 
 The natuial tendency of the Eepublic — The whole 
 continent and the adjacent islands. 
 
 Mr. Edward Foley sang "Magic Mouth." 
 
23 
 
 By Col. Moses Tarr of Gloucester — 
 
 The President of the United States. 
 
 By Capt. C. H. Manning, 
 
 The Flag of onr Country, may its glittering stars, 
 and field of blue, be frozen to the very top of the 
 north pole, while its waving stripes flap on the wa- 
 ters of Cape Horn. 
 
 By Capt. D. B. Lord. 
 
 The American Democracy — Still true to the prin- 
 ciples of Jefferson. 
 
 By Thomas Kinsley — 
 
 The Thirty-three States — May they be peopled 
 by Democrats in sufftcient numbers to overpower 
 the black Eepublicans. 
 
 By G. L. Chesbro of Gloucester. 
 
 The memory of Jackson — May it long be cherish- 
 ed by every American citizen. 
 
 By William T. Fowler. 
 
 Why is Pike's Peak like the Salem Custom House? 
 Because we have a Pike peaking around us. 
 
 By Charles Estes of South Danvers. 
 
 The State of Maine — Once the Star in the East — 
 Temporarily obscured by clouds, may it be only to 
 emerge in greater splendor. 
 
 The following from Hon. J. W. Proctor was 
 read. 
 
 • It is glory enough for any man, when assoc iated 
 With John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, to have 
 been admitted by them as their superior. This is 
 
 true of Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 By George W. Kenny. 
 
 Our Country — Not divided by wrong. 
 
 ByThos. Kinsley, 
 
 Tbe Salem Band. 
 
 Band — " Auld Lana: Syne," in which the au- 
 dience joined, and then dispersed. 
 
 The success of the celebration was most 
 gratifying. As a movement indicating that the 
 truths of democracy still live in the hearts of 
 the people, it was significant of an earnest and 
 resolute determination to be true at all times to 
 the faith of fathers As a reunion of friends it 
 was cordial and cheering. As a stimulus for 
 action, every man present felt new courage 
 for the contest with the opponents of the de- 
 mocracy. The sentiments expressed by the 
 able and distinguished members of the party 
 who furnished their counsels for the occasion, 
 roused a renewed determination. And for the 
 time all other considerations were laid aside, 
 in a liljeral, generous, unanimous and hearty 
 resolution to do all that democrats' can do, to- 
 wards perpetuating the memory of Jefferson 
 as one of the proudest possessions of the party 
 which cherishes that memory in every state in 
 our confederation. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 01 1 838 345 A ^ 
 
 ^•f'J^:*-: