written before the duel explains his reasons for not declining to meet Burr, which were in effect that in the state of public opinion on dueling, a refusal to accept his challenge would destroy his public usefulness afterward.

The duel took place at Weehawken, in New Jersey, nearly opposite New York. When the word was given, Hamilton did not fire immediately; but Burr, taking deliberate aim, fired, the ball entering Hamilton's right side. He was taken across the Hudson to his home, where he died the following day. Hamilton was not faultless; but his errors were greatly exaggerated by

his enemies; and there were few among his distinguished political adversaries whose private character approached his in purity. His public life was without a stain. In ability he stands in the front rank. "He must be classed," says the great French historian Guizot, "among the men who have best known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of government. There is not in the Constitution of the United States an element of order, strength, or durability which he did not powerfully contribute to introduce into it." The judgment of history will undoubtedly be that Alexander Hamilton was the greatest constructive statesman of the eighteenth century.

THOMAS JEFFERSON,

THE PIONEER OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.

AT the beginning of the nineteenth century the people of the United States may be said to have been divided into two classes,those who thought Thomas Jefferson the greatest and wisest of living men, and those who believed him the worst and most dangerous. The French Revolution, that great uprising of the masses against the oppressions of despotic power, had then divided public opinion throughout the whole civilized world. Jefferson was at the head of the party which sympathized with the common people, and advocated their cause. The opposite party, shocked and horrified at the excesses committed by the revolutionists in France,

looked upon everything democratic with indescribable fear and aversion. These extremes of opinion make it difficult, even at this day, to get a fair and moderate opinion of Jefferson. He is either a fiend incarnate or an angel of light. But whether the principles for which he stood be approved or condemned, their success at least cannot be denied. Jefferson was the pioneer of democracy, the apostle of the sovereignty of the common people, which

from his time to the present has become every year more firmly rooted in American politics; and whether it be for good or ill, it is for this that he will be remembered in the centuries yet to come.

Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743, near the site of the present town of Charlottesville, Virginia. His father, Peter Jefferson, owned a plantation of fourteen hundred acres called Shadwell, from the name of the parish in London where his wife was born. His home was literally hewn out of the wilderness. There were but few white settlers within many miles of the mansion, which consisted of a spacious story and a half cottage-house. A wide hall and four large rooms occupied the lower floor. Above these there were good chambers and a spacious garret. Two huge outside chimneys contributed to the picturesque aspect of the mansion. It was delightfully situated upon a gentle swell of land on the slopes of the Blue Ridge, and commanded a sublime prospect of farreaching mountains and forests.

Thomas was naturally of a serious, pensive, reflective turn of mind. From the time he was five years of age he was kept diligently at school under the best teachers. He was a general favorite with both teachers and scholars. In the year 1760 he entered William and Mary College. Williamsburg was then the seat of the colonial court, and the abode of fashion and splendor. Young Jefferson lived in college somewhat expensively, keeping fine horses, and much caressed by gay society. Still, he was earnestly devoted to his studies and irreproachable in his morals.

In 1767 he entered upon the practice of the law. His thoroughly disciplined mind, ample stores of knowledge, and polished address, were rapidly raising him to distinction, when the outbreak of the Revolution introduced him to loftier spheres of responsibility. He had been but a short time admitted to the bar ere he was chosen by his fellow-citizens to a seat in the Legislature of Virginia. This was in 1769. Jefferson was then the largest slaveholder in the house. It is a remarkable evidence of his foresight, his moral courage, and the love of liberty which inspired him, that he introduced a bill empowering slaveholders to manumit their slaves if they wished to do so. Slavery caught the alarm. The proposition was rejected by an overwhelming vote.

In 1772 he married Mrs. Martha Skelton, a very beautiful, wealthy, and highly accomplished young widow. She brought to him, as her munificent dowry, forty thousand acres of land, and one hundred and thirty-five slaves. He thus became one of the largest slaveholders in Virginia: and yet he labored with all his energies for the abolition of slavery; declaring the institution to be a curse to the master, a curse to the slave, and an offense in the sight of God. In 1775 Jefferson was chosen a member of the Continental Congress, and in June of that year he left Williamsburg to take his seat in the Congress at Philadelphia. He was the youngest member in the body but one. His