make for
what we call culture. And yet, with all that, he soon grew wise and
skillful in the world's affairs, possessing an industry and insight
which assured his speedy success as a lawyer, despite an impediment of
speech which prevented him from being an effective orator.

He had the good fortune to marry happily, finding a comrade and
helpmate, as well as a wife, in beautiful Martha Skelton, with
whom he rode away to his estate at Monticello when he was twenty-seven.
She saw him write the Declaration of Independence, saw him war-governor
of Virginia, and second only to Washington in the respect and affection
of the people of that great commonwealth; and then she died. The shock
of her death left Jefferson a stricken man; he secluded himself from the
public, and declared that his life was at an end.

Washington, however, eight years later, persuaded him to accept a place
in his cabinet as secretary of state. Within a year he had definitely
taken his place as the head of the Anti-Federalist, or Republican party,
and laid the foundations of what afterwards became known as the
Democratic party. His trust in the people had grown and deepened, his
heart had grown more tender with the coming of affliction, and it was
his theory that in a democracy, the people should control public policy
by imposing their wishes upon their rulers, who were answerable to
them--a theory which is now accepted, in appearance, at least, by all
political parties, but which the Federalist leaders of that time
thoroughly detested. Jefferson seems to have felt, too, that the
tendency of those early years was too greatly toward an aristocracy,
which the landed gentry of Virginia were only too willing to provide,
and when, at last, he was chosen for the presidency, he set the country
such an example of simplicity and moderation that there was never again
any chance of its running into that danger.

Everyone has read the story of how, on the day of his
inauguration, he rode on horseback to the capitol, clad in studiously
plain clothes and without attendants, tied his horse to the fence, and
walked unannounced into the Senate chamber. This careful avoidance of
display marked his whole official career, running sometimes, indeed,
into an ostentation of simplicity whose good taste might be questioned.
But of Jefferson's entire sincerity there can be no doubt. Inconsistent
as he sometimes was--as every man is--his purposes and policies all
tended steadil