lves greatly, during the
second summer, by means of them. We were shown, too, that not only could
good work be done by those driven by steam, but that the greater number
driven by oarsmen were of much service, not only in vexing the enemy, but
in protecting the whole exposed coast. Here was Jefferson's scheme to the
letter. Here was a despised thought of the past become a proud fact of the
present. Here had the Autocrat reared a monument to our great
Democrat,--gaining praise for Jefferson long after his enemies and their
factious laughter had died out forever.

But take what the main body of cultured Americans have thought Jefferson's
chronic whimsey,--his belief that the heart of England must be ever set
against all our liberty and prosperity. As we now breast the terrific
storm which English reasonings and taunts had encouraged us to brave, and
hear, swelling above the faint English God-speed, misstatements, gibes,
reproofs, malignant prophecies, who of us shall say that the English
character and policy of 1861 were not better foreknown by Jefferson in
1820 than by ourselves In 1860?

So much for Jefferson's insight and foresight. But there was yet a greater
quality which gave him a place in each of these three great groups,--his
faith in Democracy.

At a time when the French Revolution had scared even Burke, and when the
British Constitution was thought by many to have seduced even Washington,
Jefferson held fast to his great faith in the rights and capacities of the
people. The only effect on him of the shocks and failures of that period
was to make his anxiety sometimes morbid, and his action sometimes
spasmodic. Hence much that to many men has seemed unjust suspicion of
Adams, and persecution of Hamilton, and disrespect for Washington. Yet all
this was but the jarring of that strong mind in the struggle and crash of
his times,--mere spasms of bigotry which prove the vigor of his faith in
Democracy.

Jefferson, then, known of all men not fettered by provincial traditions as
invested with this foresight and this faith, is become to a vast party an
idol, and from his writings issue oracles. But the priests at his shrines,
having waxed fat in honors, have at last so befogged his sentiments and
wrested his arguments, that thousands of true men regard him sorrowfully
as the promoter of that Slavery-Despotism which to-day blooms in treason.
It is worth our while, therefore, to seek to know whether Jefferson the
god