from the wrong," but will want “a principle of action | hardly credible that any man, however inflamed and sufficiently powerful," &c. &c. to "do the right rather blinded by religious and political passions, could assert than the wrong." Now we reject, entirely, this dogma, from the reason of life and the philosophy of history; at least in the application and for the use the reviewer makes of it; who asserts that irreligion was the cause of all Mr. Jefferson's "defects;" and among these, numbers cowardice, duplicity, and general laxity of principle. We reply, that these vices, and this depravity of character, (had they existed,) were, in no measure, the consequence of infidelity. It is not worth while to reason about it; the question may be left to men's understandings. Religion is the surest stay of virtue, but men have been, and men are, brave and honest without it.

These, the reviewer's speculations, are not so material as his facts; and they are only referred to, to show the animus of his article, and the value of his opinions. He holds always a pulpit-style; for these are not the sentiments of a liberal-minded man of the world, or of one who has been in any way, and from any point of view, a cool spectator of life.

such things. The University was the crowning work of a long life spent with unexampled usefulness in the public service. It had no chaplain, nor a foundation for religious instruction; because, in these matters, Mr. Jefferson meant to leave every one to himself—and not, by a selection, to prefer one sect before another. Had he looked to the sinister designs with which he is so fiercely charged, he might have placed that reverend casuist Doct. Cooper in a chair of French philosophy, or brought his reviewer in a chaplain's desk to preach charity and toleration.

The other assertion about Sunday-dinner conversations, if true, is defended by repeating that a man may say what he thinks. It is opposed by Professor Tucker's general declaration, and by the specific declarations of others.

Having canvassed Mr. Jefferson's conduct and opinions on religion, the reviewer proceeds to hunt up his moral "defects." The first of the catalogue is extreme sensitiveness to men's opinions. The proofs of this monstrous vice are that he complained of newspaper abuse, and that he provided for his own fame by leaving in his letters and his ana a history of his life and times. But this is a very solemn parade of trivial and accidental circumstances. The thing itself is, to a degree, the consequence of public life, and the moral and mental habitudes it creates. Mr. Jefferson, though surrounded by the many able men with whom he acted, was always a leader, and predominated with a high ascendancy. No bolder thinker ever urged speculations extra flam

But to return where we left him, investigating Mr. Jefferson's religion. The end of the inquiry is, that he was an infidel, and a noxious proselytizing infidel. Professor Tucker,-who, in this, is charged with being a “partial apologist"—says he was nearly a socinian; that he wrote logically on natural theology, and professed himself a unitarian. All which, is obstinately denied by the reviewer, who no doubt has gone deeper than the professor into the arcana of theological mystics. He is anxious to preserve the unitarians from the taint of such a heresy; and to confine each infidel apartmantia mœnia mundi-beyond the flaming bounds of to his own barren patch in the hortus siccus of disbelief. nature; and never was popular leader less controlled He concludes at last that Mr. Jefferson "had so far by other men. as man is concerned, a right to entertain these opinions." Then why does he make or meddle with them? What good comes of such discussions? It is not to stop the spread of these opinions; for he offers no argument, no refutation. Nor was it necessary. Learning and human reason have long poured all their light into the dark places of theology. No benefit can now arise from religious disputings. Every one may think as he pleases, and no man has a right to judge him. But the federalist divine would blazon the infidelity of his subject to bring odium on the man, and discredit on his general opinions. Such a dishonest artifice may have its influence.

The reviewer thinks the attempt to pervert others to infidelity a crime more enormous than the infidelity itself; and reasoning upon this at some length, and after his own way, he plunges down the lowest deep of intolerance. Whoever may think that the practice of virtue is not embarrassed by the knowledge of truth, may rightly communicate whatever opinions he sincerely holds, and enforce them by the reasonings on which his own conviction rests. But Mr. Jefferson, we believe, was no infidel propagandist. Professor Tucker says he was always reluctant to speak of religion. He does sometimes speak, and freely too, on this subject, in letters to his philosophical friends. But no man will lock his thoughts in his own breast. The reviewer asserts that he founded the University of Virginia for a nursery of infidelity, and that the young men were entertained at his table on Sundays with infidel conversation. It is

Under this head the reviewer alludes to the style of the ana, and the occasional solemn attestations to the truth of the facts there recorded; and here he finds and applies the maxim, that he who swears lightly will swear falsely. If this means any thing, it means to brand Mr. Jefferson with the infamy of a moral perjury. To so foul a charge, no answer need be given.

The next "defect" is excessive self-esteem. The proof, is his letter upon the grant of a lottery privilege to him by the Virginia Legislature. In that letter, his public services are briefly spoken of; but it has always appeared to us, that the reckoning was made with great dignity. The style and circumstances of this letter are made by the reviewer proof of opposite and inconsistent weaknesses-meanness and arrogance. Of course, if it proves the one, it disproves the other.

The next charge-and the stream of calumny deepens and widens as it descends-is "insincerity;" a feeble word, which appears to the writer very insufficiently to mark his meaning, for he changes it, with much nicety and variety of selection, first for "management,” then for "duplicity," till the critic reaches his grand and scurrilous climax upon the phrase "basest hypocrisy." Never was painter more fastidious and fickle with his colors, than this moral and critical limner. The ground of all this, is the letter to Mazzei, and the correspondence with Burr. These letters were examined with great severity in a tract published by Major Henry Lee on the entire Jefferson correspondence. The motives to this publication, the style and general ability of the

what is now called the list of grievances in the Declara- | burg writer. Both reasoners easily find what they wish tion. The same mind employed to express the same thoughts, must naturally fall into the same mode. To avoid it scrupulously, must be a laborious trifling of vanity and affectation.

to discover. The first three certainly are not Mr. Jefferson's-they were perhaps in common use at the time. They are the language of the resolutions by which Richard Henry Lee moved the Declaration ;-which were "That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved," &c.

In 1819, forty years after the event, the Mecklenburg Declaration came to the knowledge of ex-president Adams, who, surprised and perplexed, wrote to Mr. Jefferson-"How is it possible that this paper should be concealed from me to this day? Had it been communicated, &c. &c. it would have been printed in every whig newspaper upon the continent. I would have made the Hall of Congress echo and re-echo with it fifteen months before your Declaration of Independence."ary No. of 1838, in the article on Davis's Burr. These Mr. Jefferson replied, that," he believed it spurious." And after giving his reasons, drawn from the character of the evidence which supported it, he proceeds"When Mr. Henry's resolutions, far short of independence, flew like lightning through every paper, and kindled both sides of the Atlantic, this flaming Declaration, &c. although sent to Congress, is never heard of. It is not even known a twelve month after, when a similar proposition is first made in that body. Armed with this bold example, would not you have addressed our timid brethren in peals of thunder? Would not every advocate of independence have rung the glories of the Mecklenburg Declaration ?" &c. &c.

We have now examined the whole article in the New York Review of Mr. Jefferson. Some of those charges are repeated, and in a more invective form, in the Janu

two articles are from the same political clerk and clerical politician. The spirit is preserved, but the style is a little changed with the title of the work. It is no longer the "Quarterly Church Journal." The church device is stricken from their banner; and having thrown off their clerical incumbrances, surplice, cassock, and all, and got a party uniform, these gentlemen return to the old political scuffle with a good deal more fierceness. Our soldier, in particular, flourishes in the field like a Bishop of Beauvais.

We thought the party malice of the federal journalist and political divine was too concentrated for diffusion; that his phial was emptied on Mr. Jefferson. But his Now we ask how is it possible that this paper, if it January number pours a full stream on Burr; whom he reached Congress, was concealed? Did the North Caro-subjects, in the test of character, to the same sort of lina representatives suppress it? With what a weapon analysis. First, he settles his religion, then his morals, would it have armed the whigs! The charge against and then his politics; the whole sparkling with critical Mr. Jefferson, supposes that this remarkable paper eloquence and personal denunciation, much after this became known to him particularly and alone of the fashion. Burr is styled an "unprincipled, and almost General Congress; not to Adams and others of that peerless villain ;" and afterwards, more figuratively, body, at that time more distinguished; that he con- "a wretch whom purity would scarce look at, much less cealed it, (though how he prevented it from reaching touch." "We would we knew a word stronger than others is inconceivable,) because he found in it four ex- any the language affords, which might express the conpressions of remarkable rhetorical excellence, which he centrated wickedness of a thousand villanies compressed might use for some future state paper; which occasion into one; some little syllabic formation which might did, a year after, present itself in the National Declara- convey with comprehensive brevity the idea of a devil's tion of Independence. This is the reviewer's charge, spirit linked to a brute's propensities; and verily," he with all its absurdities and improbabilities. Mr. Jones proceeds more jocosely, "Burr should have the benefit of North Carolina has made these Mecklenburg pro- of it." After this con amore sketch, where, in his railceedings the subject of a book of invective on Mr. ing, our language breaks down under him, he returns Jefferson. But this notion of the plagiarism was too to Mr. Jefferson, and declares, p. 210, that “a good man silly for his adoption. The four expressions which would long hesitate in his choice, were he forced upon constitute all the verbal likeness of the two papers, the hard alternative of being either Thomas Jefferson, or are-"dissolve the political bands which have con- Aaron Burr." Here we have the eminent citizen and nected”—“ absolve from all allegiance to the British President of the Republic, who lived and died in the crown”—“are, and of right ought to be"-" pledge to unbounded devotion of the whole American people, each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." branded as a "peerless villain"—" a wretch whom puThey are a slight temptation to a literary theft. The rity would scarce look at”—“a devil and a brute."* first is periphrastical and incorrect; the second and And this is the way a living clergyman talks of a dead third have no remarkable elegance; and a better than patriot. It was not in this style his political enemies the last may be found on any page of any classic of wrote his funeral oration; it was not with such sentiour language. Did Mr. Jefferson think to build a lite-ments Daniel Webster exclaimed, "We would have rary fame on four lucky phrases? and was this the borne him upward in a nation's outspread arms, and ambition of a man engaged in great affairs, and to with the prayers of millions and the blessings of milwhose hands were committed the destinies of a people? lions, have recommended him to the favor of the DiviBoth the professor and his reviewer marked these nity." Let the American people learn from the New expressions, and both determined that their appearance York Church Review what a crime-stained monster in the two papers could not have been accidental. But has been the god of their political idolatry. they differ as to the right of property; the professor giving them to Mr. Jefferson, and the reviewer (equally faithful to his own side) giving them to the Mecklen- his posthumous slander," &c. &c.

One extract more-the conclusion on Burr-to show *P. 202, we have a "viper"-" the cowardly chronicle of

somewhat more of the temper of the whole. The style | the general opinion of their countrymen then, and what is Counsellor Phillips' run mad, but the sentiments are is that opinion now? Mr. Madison may be allowed as like the rest. It is meant for fine writing, and was, no a competent judge. He had tried Hamilton's strength doubt, a matured and digested passage. It is of Burr. in every form, and did full justice to his ability; but "He lay a shattered wreck of humanity just entering declared, that in the gradation of intellect, there were upon eternity, with not enough of man left about him, many orders, between such a mind and Mr. Jefferson's. to make a christian out of. [!!!] Ruined in fortune and Judge the men too, by what they attempted and accomrotten in reputation, thus passed," &c. &c.—and "when plished. Jay, after his treaty, retired from public life. he was laid in the grave, decency congratulated itself But Hamilton lived on, in political struggles, and polithat a nuisance was removed, and good men were glad tical defeats; while Mr. Jefferson triumphed, and from that God had seen fit to deliver society from the con- president to president of his party, led the political taminating contact of a festering mass of moral putre- opinions of his country through twenty-four years. A faction." man who passes through life unimpressive as a shadow, may be gifted with higher powers than he who governs the mind of his age; but, of this, we can only reason in the spirit of the Latin maxim, and infer that only to exist, which appears. But these reviewers judge men and things by the illumination of a higher wisdomwhich teaches them to know that the race is never to the swift, and to believe whatever is contrary to facts and probable evidence.

This is like an hyena; it is the rancorous malignity of a fiend. There is nothing human in this chuckling over a deathbed, a miserable, deserted deathbed, and a dishonored grave. Surely that ambitious, and singularly worldly-minded man must, in his own feelings, in his political prostration, and his deep personal abasement, have sufficiently avenged his enemies. No matter what his errors and crimes were; a feeling man would pity as well as condemn, while he regarded his elevation and his fall; and a just man would decide that his misery was punishment enough. How a man of religion regards all these circumstances, we charitably take it, the New York reviewer is no example.

The New York Church Quarterly cannot be regarded as the most valuable gift that Divinity has bequeathed to politics. The habit of taking a little verse of text, and wire-drawing it into a sermon, makes weak and diffusive writers. The labor of writing about nothing, disqualifies them to write well about any thing. But were it otherwise,--were it the direct reverse of this

Salmasius, could reconcile us to the revival of the vulgar and atrocious railing, which was the old language of church controversy. We therefore hope that the tempting opportunities of this Review, and the ambition of that sort of reputation may not turn the New York ministry into a set of political and pamphleteering clerics.

GENERAL HUGH MERCER.

This article on Burr quotes from Davis a detailed account of the opening of the ballots before Congress in the presidential election of 1801; in which is stated-review,-no learning or eloquence, not even Milton and that the votes presented for Georgia were not authenticated; and that, notwithstanding, Mr. Jefferson passed them for himself and Burr. The reviewer thinks, "there was nothing in Mr. Jefferson's character to render the story improbable;” but that the testimony of an anonymous witness is insufficient evidence. He might have found, in the very statement, a conclusive refutation of it, made as sure as human testimony can make any thing. The circumstances are these. This unknown witness of Mr. Davis' "secret history" says he had it from Nicholas and Wells, two of the tellers. If the fact be true, then four perjuries were committed; by the three tellers and the presiding officer-for with all it was a violation the grossest, of their oath of office. Two of them afterwards confess their infamy, in the way of babbling gossip and secret history, to a man in New York, who furnishes it for the enduring record and eternal blazon of Davis' biography. Wells too was a federalist; yet he sinned against his oath, and all his political feelings and interests. Rutledge, of South Carolina-an honorable and distinguished man-he too colluded!! These monstrous improbabilities are involved in this libel. Yet it is welcomed by the reviewer, who calls on Davis to produce his witness!-In the January No. of the Democratic Review, published at Washington, is given a copy of the Georgia ballot, taken from the archives of the United States Senate, by which it appears that the votes were authenticated in every legal form, by the signatures of the electors, by the signature of the governor, and by the executive seal of the state. This removes the very foundation on which this great fabric of slander was erected.

The reviewer's estimate of Mr. Jefferson's abilities is as just, and candid, and liberal as his moral strictures. On p. 34, article Jefferson, he pronounces it ludicrous to compare him with Hamilton or Jay. But what was

Among the many acts of tyranny and oppression, which exiled from Britain her noblest sons, and which crowded the forests of America with an educated and enterprising population, was the memorable battle of Culloden. The dull pen of history slumbers over the details of that terrific conflict, while romance has caught from it some of the proudest examples of virtue, patriotism and chivalry. The Stuarts' throne was filled by a sullen and phlegmatic race-the unholy union with England; a nation's birthright prostituted to sale by a hireling parliament-the burnings, wastings and judicial murders, under the iron law of the sword, and the heroism of her true, though proscribed sovereign, all conspired to leave a festering wound on the heart of Scotland, and to render her restless and insubordinate under the rule of a foreign king. The battle of Culloden

The maxim referred to by the writer is, "De non apparen. tibus et non existentibus, eadem est ratio."-Things not appear. ing, are considered as not existing.-[Ed. Mess.

quenched the last gasp of her independence, and endearments of domestic life, and gave to his the stern revenge inflicted on the vanquished by country in that trying hour the energy and rethe merciless Cumberland, while it filled the sources of a practised and accomplished soldier. nation with woe and wretchedness, expelled from In 1775 he was in command of three regiments of her bosom those sons whom power could not pur-minute men, and early in 1776 we find him zealchase, and whom cruelty could not conquer. In ously engaged as a colonel of the army of Virthat memorable engagement, the subject of our ginia, in drilling and organizing the raw and illmemoir bore an honorable part in the service of his oppressed country. Having graduated at an early age in the science of medicine, he acted on this occasion as an assistant surgeon, and with a multitude of the vanquished, he shortly after sought a refuge of virtue and a home of freedom in the wilderness of America.

tude and bravery.

formed masses of men, who under the varied names of sons of Liberty, minute men, volunteers and levies, presented the bulk without the order-the mob without the discipline of an army. To produce obedience and subordination among men who considered military discipline as a restraint on personal liberty, and who had entered Landing in Pennsylvania, he remained there a into the war unpaid and unrestricted by command, short time. From thence he removed to Fre- was a severe and invidious task. The couragedericksburg in Virginia, where he married and the fortitude-the self-possession of Col. Mercer became highly distinguished for his skill and suc- quailed not to these adverse circumstances, and by cess as a practitioner of medicine. An unsub- the judicious exercise of mingled severity and dued enemy-merciless, treacherous and revenge- kindness, he soon succeeded in reducing a mutiful, hovered around the frontiers of Maryland, nous soldiery to complete submission. Tradition Pennsylvania and Virginia, repressing settle- has preserved the following anecdote, illustrating ments-murdering defenceless women and chil-in a striking manner, his characteristic promptidren, and frequently making inroads into the cultivated and open country of the colonies. Joining Among the troops which arrived at Williamsthe army under Washington, which was collected burg, then the metropolis of Virginia, was a comfor the purpose of subduing the Indians, General pany of riflemen from beyond the mountains, Mercer, then holding the rank of captain, became commanded by Captain Gibson. A reckless inan actor in those wild, perilous, and spirit-stirring subordination, and a violent opposition to military scenes which characterized the Indian war of restraint, had gained for this corps the sarcastic 1755. In one of the engagements with this wily name of "Gibson's Lambs." They had not been foe he was wounded in the right wrist by a mus-long in camp before a mutiny arose among them, ket ball; and in the irregular warfare then prac-producing much excitement in the army, and tised, his company scattered and became separated alarming the inhabitants of the city. Freed from from him. Faint from loss of blood, and ex-all command, they roamed through the camp, hausted by fatigue, he was closely pursued by the threatening with instant death, any officer who savage foe, their thrilling war-whoop ringing should presume to exercise authority over them. through the forest, and stimulating to redoubled In the height of the rebellion, an officer was desenergy the footsteps of their devoted victim. patched with the alarming tidings to the quarters Fortunately the hollow trunk of a large tree pre-of Col. Mercer. The citizens of the town vainly sented itself. In a moment he concealed himself implored him not to risk his life and person amid in it, and though his pursuers reached the spot and this infuriated mob. Reckless of personal safety, seated themselves around him, he yet miraculously he instantly repaired to the barracks of the muescaped! Leaving his place of refuge, he sought tinous band, and directing a general parade of the the abodes of civilization, through a trackless wild troops, he ordered Gibson's company to be drawn of more than one hundred miles in extent, and up as offenders and violaters of law, and to be disafter supporting life on roots and the body of a rat-armed in his presence. The ringleaders were tlesnake, which he encountered and killed, he placed under a strong guard, and in the presence finally reached Fort Cumberland in safety. For of the whole army, he addressed the offenders in his gallantry and military skill in this war, proved in a distinguished degree, by the destruction of the Indian settlement at Kittaning, Pennsylvania, the Corporation of Philadelphia presented to him an honorable and appropriate medal.

an eloquent and feeling manner-impressing on them their duties as citizen-soldiers, and the certainty of death if they continued to disobey their officers, and remained in that mutinous spiritequally disgraceful to them, and hazardous to the The commencement of the American Revolu- sacred interests they had marched to defend. Distion found him in the midst of an extensive medi-order was instanly checked, and after a short concal practice, surrounded by affectionate friends, finement, those under imprisonment were released, and enjoying in the bosom of a happy family all and the whole company were ever after as exemthe comforts of social life. Stimulated to action plary in their deportment and conduct as any by a lofty spirit of patriotism, he broke from the troops in the army.