not suffer, in respect to the talent with which
it has been conducted, by comparison with anything which other and older
states can produce; and to the attainment of this respectability and
distinction Mr. Jefferson has contributed his full part.

On the retirement of General Washington from the presidency, and
the election of Mr. Adams to that office in 1797, he was chosen
vice-president. While presiding in this capacity over the deliberations
of the senate, he compiled and published a Manual of Parliamentary
Practice, a work of more labor and more merit than is indicated by its
size. It is now received as the general standard by which proceedings
are regulated; not only in both houses of congress, but in most of
the other legislative bodies in the country. In 1801 he was elected
president, in opposition to Mr. Adams, and re-elected in 1805, by a vote
approaching toward unanimity.

From the time of his final retirement from public life, in 1809,
Mr. Jefferson lived as became a wise man. Surrounded by affectionate
friends, his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge undiminished, with
uncommon health and unbroken spirits, he was able to enjoy largely the
rational pleasures of life, and to partake in that public prosperity
which he had so much contributed to produce. His kindness and
hospitality, the charm of his conversation, the ease of his manners,
the extent of his acquirements, and, especially, the full store of
revolutionary incidents which he possessed, and which he knew when and
how to dispense, rendered his abode in a high degree attractive to his
admiring countrymen, while his high public and scientific character drew
toward him every intelligent and educated traveler from abroad. Both
Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson had the pleasure of knowing that the respect
which they so largely received was not paid to their official stations.
They were not men made great by office; but great men, on whom the
country for its own benefit had conferred office. There was that in them
which office did not give, and which the relinquishment of office did
not, and could not, take away. In their retirement, in the midst of
their fellow-citizens, themselves private citizens, they enjoyed as high
regard and esteem as when filling the most important places of public
trust.

There remained to Mr. Jefferson yet one other work of patriotism and
beneficence, the establishment of a university in his native state. To
this object he devoted year