is sufficient here to say that there was found among the British
State papers, as well as in contemporaneous newspapers in this
country, the original Mecklenburg paper, which was not a Declaration of
Independence at all, but simply patriotic resolutions similar to those
which were published in most of the Colonies at that time.

"And so the Mecklenburg Declaration takes its place with the stories of
Pocahontas and of William Tell."--Boutell.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.

In effecting the purchase of Louisiana, Mr. Jefferson has thus been
eulogized by James G. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress:"

"Mr. Jefferson made the largest conquest ever peacefully achieved, at
a cost so small that the sum expended for the entire territory does not
equal the revenue which has since been collected on its soil in a single
month, in time of great public peril."

JEFFERSON AND BENEDICT ARNOLD.

Benedict Arnold, with the British troops, had entered the Chesapeake in
January, 1781, and sailed up the James River. He captured Richmond, the
capital, then a town of less than two thousand people, and destroyed
everything upon which he could lay his hands.

Jefferson summoned the militia, who came by thousands to oppose the
traitor. Arnold, however, sailed down to Portsmouth and escaped.

Jefferson then urged upon General Muhlenburg the importance of picking
out a few of the best men in his command "to seize and bring off the
greatest of all traitors."

"I will undertake," he said, "if they are successful in bringing him off
alive, that they shall receive five thousand guineas reward among them."

The effort was not made.

A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.

Jefferson mingled a great deal with the common people, especially with
mechanics.

Often, when President, he would walk down to the Navy Yard early on a
summer's morning, and sitting down upon an anchor or spar, would enter
into conversation with the surprised and delighted shipwrights. He asked
many questions of these artisans, who would take the utmost pains to
satisfy his enquiries.

His political opponents believed unjustly that he did this simply for
effect. They would say,

"There, see the demagogue!"

"There's long Tom, sinking the dignity of his station to get votes and
court the mob."

ARISTOCRACY OF MIND.

Although Jefferson was an ardent democrat, in some sense he was also an
aristocrat.

He firmly believed in an aristocracy of mind, and told