"I should like to know how that could be?" inquired Charlie. "What I
have read in the Federalist shows that he was as much in favor of the
Declaration of Independence as any one."

"But he wanted the president and his cabinet to have very great power,
somewhat like monarchs, and Jefferson wanted the _people_ to have the
power. That was the reason that Jefferson's party called themselves
Republicans."

"Yes; but do the Democrats now carry out the Declaration of
Independence? Don't they uphold slavery at the present day?"

"Jefferson did not uphold it in the least, and a good many of his
friends did not. If his life and writings tell the truth, some of the
Federalists _did_ uphold it, and some of them had slaves. So you can't
make much out of that."

"All I want to make out of it," replied Charlie, "is just this--that the
Democrats now _do_ sustain slavery, and how is this believing the
Declaration of Independence, that '_all_ men are created equal?'"

"I don't care for the Democrats now," responded Nat. "I know what
Jefferson believed, and I want to believe as he did. I am such a
Democrat as he was, and if he was a Republican, then I am."

"I suppose, then," added Charlie, with a sly look, "that you would like
the Declaration of Independence a little better if it read, 'all men are
created equal,' _except niggers_?"

"No, no; Jefferson believed it just as it was, and so do I. Whether men
are white or black, rich or poor, high or low, they are equal; and that
is what I like. He never defended slavery, I would have you know."

"I thought he did," added Charlie.

"I can show you that he did not," said Nat, taking up a volume from the
table. "Now hear this;" and he proceeded to read the following, in which
Jefferson is speaking of holding slaves:

"'What an incomprehensible machine is man! who can endure toil, famine,
stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his own
liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power
supported him through the trial, and inflict on his fellow men a
bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that
which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must wait with patience the
workings of an overruling Providence, and hope that that is preparing
the deliverance of these our suffering brethren. When the measure of
their tears shall be full--when their tears shall have involved heaven
itself in darkness--doubtless a God of justice wi