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No. IV.

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These phrases are, "dissolve the political bands which have connected"-" absolve from all allegiance to the British crown"-"are, and of right ought to be"We feel it to be our duty to publish the following "pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our Review of an article in "The New York Review and sacred honor."-We do not adopt Professor Tucker's Quarterly Church Journal," of March, 1837. The theory, that the extant copy of the Mecklenburg Deperson to whom it relates has filled a large space in the claration is so far spurious, that the compiler of it boreyes of his countrymen. The New York Review is rowed from Mr. Jefferson's draft these parallel phrases conducted with no little ability, and makes a great figure and interpolated them into the Mecklenburg copy. We in the Republic of Literature; and the Reviewer, who are willing to admit the present Mecklenburg copy to has taken up arms, in defence of Mr. Jefferson, against be as it was at first written, and we entirely dissent the attacks of the New York Review, appears to be a from Professor Tucker's account of the changes and champion of no ordinary power. All together, the interpolations which he has assigned to that copy. But article comes commended to us in a manner, which is Mr. Jefferson, then, the plagiarist? Certainly not, of does not permit us to deny the use of our columns- the three first phrases, and from the Mecklenburg and it will probably attract a large share of the atten- copy.-Mr. Jefferson's copy was drawn out by the tion of our readers. We admit it to be somewhat spicy| resolution of Mr. Richard Henry Lee, as quoted by in its composition; but if the New York Reviewer our Reviewer. That resolution was founded on the should feel himself under any obligation to make a reply, resolution of the Virginia Convention of May 15, 1776, we will cheerfully extend to him the hospitality of our instructing their Delegates in General Congress "to house. Our columns are open to him; and they are propose to that respectable body, to declare the United at his service. The Editor of a Periodical like this is Colonies, free and independent States." Richard Henry not at liberty to consult his own feelings, in what he Lee, as one of their Delegates, moved the resolution, as excludes or admits: but having admitted such an arti- quoted by our Reviewer. The Committee was then cle as the following, it is his duty to render justice by appointed by Congress to draft the Declaration; and admitting a reply. it fell to Mr. Jefferson, as one of the Committee, to

We mean not to play the Critic upon the two Re-make the original draft, and report to the Committee. viewers. The attack and the defence are both before the public tribunal; and the reader must judge for himself. The reviews of Mr. Jefferson's 'moral principles and his intellectual character, will be reviewed in turn by the public. We mean not to decide between them. But there is one circumstance alleged by the New York Reviewer in relation to Mr. Jefferson, upon which we would offer a few explanatory remarks, though our own Reviewer has nearly exhausted the subject. It is a curious literary problem, whether Mr. Jefferson in preparing his own Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, did not commit a plagiarism upon the Declaration of Independence adopted at Mecklenburg, North Carolina, on the 20th May, 1775. It has already given rise to much discussion. Mr. Joseph Seawell Jones of North Carolina has made it the theme of some severe strictures on the Virginia politician. Mr. Tucker, in his "Life of Thomas Jefferson," has defended him against the charge of plagiarism. And the New York Reviewer, in reviewing Mr. Tucker's work, has attempted to refute the Biographer, and to bring back the charges, with other cases of plagiarism, home to Mr. Jefferson. Our own Reviewer has gallantly stept forward to defend the memory of Mr. Jefferson; and brought up for that purpose a contemporaneous piece of history, which had entirely escaped the researches, both of Mr. Tucker and his Reviewer. But our Reviewer | himself has dropped two links in the chain of proofs, which we beg leave to supply.

When reported, it underwent several alterations. It was then reported to Congress itself, and adopted by that body on the 4th July, 1776. Now, the following facts appear, from a comparison of these several documents: Ist. That the phrase "absolved from all allegiance to the crown," is in the original resolution: 2nd. That this same phrase, as well as the phrase "are, and of right ought to be," are found in Mr. Lee's resolution: and, 3dly. That the other phrase, "dissolve the political bands which have connected," is also to be found in this form in Mr. Lee's resolution, "all political connexion, &c. &c. is and ought to be totally dissolved:" and, 4thly. That even these phrases were not adopted by Mr. Jefferson in his original draft, but that they were interpolated by the Committee itself, to whom he reported ;--for, they were introduced subsequently to the report, in the following form, the words thrown in by the Committee being in italics: "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, and that all political connexion between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dissolved.”—As to the last of the four parallel phrases, we cannot trace them to any other document. In the Mecklenburg Declaration, the phrase stood, "to the maintenance of which independence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our fortunes and our most sacred honor." In Mr. Jefferson's Declaration, it ran, “and for the support of this The charge consists in Mr. Jefferson's borrowing from Declaration [with a firm reliance on Divine Providence,] the Mecklenburg Declaration four phrases for his own. we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, We believe this is the amount of the alleged plagiarism.and our sacred honor."

[The words in brackets were VOL. IV.-27

This is very extraordinary--a coarse political and personal article in a religious and literary journal. But besides the manner of it, the subject too, is strangely chosen; for the life of Mr. Jefferson furnishes little to illustrate religious literature-and therefore to form a fit subject for such a work. His life, or the active part of it, was spent in political affairs. It was as a statesman and politician that he appeared to the men of his own times; and it is only as such that other times We presume this curious difficulty, which so pershould recur to his memory. But it is not in this cha-plexed the philosophical reviewer, was less embarrassracter that the critics of the "New York Review and ing to the professor. Though he states it with too Quarterly Church Journal" choose to consider him. By much solemnity, for so plain a matter. them he is made into a drum-a drum ecclesiastic-to animate a battle of religion and politics. They declare in the outset, an intention to examine, not his public acts, but his private character; or as they phrase it, "to study, not the politician, but the man-and the qualities of his head and heart." And this is defended

Mr. Jefferson's religious opinions are next arrayed by his clerical examiner. That is declared the truest test of character, and Mr. Jefferson's "rejection of revelation" pronounced at the bottom of all his "defects." Without religion, the reviewer admits, but hesitatingly and reluctantly, that man "may distinguish the right

rom 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 flammantia mania mundi-beyond the flaming bounds of nature; and never was popular leader less controlled by other men.

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 apart to his own barren patch in the hortus siccus of disbelief. He concludes at last that Mr. Jefferson "had so far 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 sub-to him by the Virginia Legislature. In that letter, his ject to bring odium on the man, and discredit on his general opinions. Such a dishonest artifice may have its influence.

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

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 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 into- The next charge-and the stream of calumny deeplerance. Whoever may think that the practice of virtue ens and widens as it descends—is "insincerity;" a feeble is not embarrassed by the knowledge of truth, may word, which appears to the writer very insufficiently rightly communicate whatever opinions he sincerely to mark his meaning, for he changes it, with much holds, and enforce them by the reasonings on which his nicety and variety of selection, first for "management," own conviction rests. But Mr. Jefferson, we believe, then for "duplicity," till the critic reaches his grand and was no infidel propagandist. Professor Tucker says he scurrilous climax upon the phrase "basest hypocrisy." was always reluctant to speak of religion. He does Never was painter more fastidious and fickle with his sometimes speak, and freely too, on this subject, in let-colors, than this moral and critical limner. The ground ters to his philosophical friends. But no man will lock of all this, is the letter to Mazzei, and the corresponhis thoughts in his own breast. The reviewer asserts dence with Burr. These letters were examined with that he founded the University of Virginia for a nursery great severity in a tract published by Major Henry Lee of infidelity, and that the young men were entertained on the entire Jefferson correspondence. The motives at his table on Sundays with infidel conversation. It is to this publication, the style and general ability of the