rs and sisters, he
should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony. And such was
the decision of the other members."

But such fierceness against the bulwarks of aristocracy, and such keenness
in cutting through its heavy arguments, carried him farther. Logic forced
him to pass from the attack on aristocracy to the attack on slavery, just
as logic forces the Confederate oligarchs of to-day to pass from the
defence of slavery to the defence of aristocracy. He was sure to fight
this vilest of tyrannies, and he gave quick thrusts and heavy blows. In
1778 he brought in a bill to prevent the further importation of slaves
into Virginia. "This," he says, "passed without opposition, and stopped
the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its
final eradication." Years afterward he wrote as follows:--"I have
sometimes asked myself whether my country is better for my having lived at
all: I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the
following things." Of these things there were just ten. Just ten great
worthy deeds in a life like Jefferson's!--and one of these he declares
"the act prohibiting the importation of slaves."

Close upon this followed a fiercer grapple,--his third great legislative
attack on slavery. In his revision of the Virginia laws he reported "a
bill to emancipate all slaves born after the passing of the act." Attached
to this was a plan for the instruction of the young negroes thus set free.

To follow Jefferson and understand him, we must bear in mind that the
Virginia which educated him was not behind a dozen smaller States in
fertility, enterprise, and republican feeling. Its best men were haters of
slavery. The efforts of its leaders were directed to other things than
plans for taxing oysters or filching the gains of free negroes. Forth from
the Virginia of that time were hurled against negro slavery the thrilling
invectives of Patrick Henry, the startling prophecies of Madison, and the
declaration of Washington, "For the abolition of slavery by law my vote
shall not be wanting."

For a mirror of that Virginia statesmanship, in its dealings with human
rights, take the "Dissertation on Slavery with a Proposal for the Gradual
Abolition of it in the State of Virginia, written by St. George Tucker,
Professor of Law in the University of William and Mary, and one of the
Judges of the General Court in Virginia," published in 1791. It proves,
that, between the p