p the republican government with as much ease
as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new set
of clothes."

Jefferson's greatness lay in this, that he was the first statesman who
trusted the mass of the people. He alone had divined the fact that they
were competent, morally and mentally, for self-government. It is almost
impossible for us to appreciate Jefferson's originality in this respect,
because the bold and untried theories for which he contended are now
regarded as commonplace maxims. He may have derived his political ideas in
part from the French philosophical writers of the eighteenth century,
although there is no evidence to that effect; but he was certainly the
first statesman to grasp the idea of democracy as a form of government,
just as, at a later day, Walt Whitman was the first poet to grasp the idea
of equality as a social system. Hamilton, John Adams, Pinckney, Gouverneur
Morris, even Washington himself, all believed that popular government
would be unsafe and revolutionary unless held in check by a strong
executive and by an aristocratic senate.

Jefferson in his lifetime was often charged with gross inconsistency in
his political views and conduct; but the inconsistency was more apparent
than real. At times he strictly construed, and at times he almost set
aside the Constitution; but the clue to his conduct can usually be found
in the fundamental principle that the only proper function of government
or constitutions is to express the will of the people, and that the people
are morally and mentally competent to govern. "I am sure," he wrote in
1796, "that the mass of citizens in these United States mean well, and I
firmly believe that they will always act well, whenever they can obtain a
right understanding of matters." And Jefferson's lifelong endeavor was to
enable the people to form this "right understanding" by educating them.
His ideas of the scope of public education went far beyond those which
prevailed in his time, and considerably beyond those which prevail even
now. For example, a free university course for the most apt pupils
graduated at the grammar schools made part of his scheme,--an idea most
nearly realized in the Western States; and those States received their
impetus in educational matters from the Ordinance of 1787, which was
largely the product of Jefferson's foresight.

Happily for Virginia, she did not become a scene of war until the year
1779, and, me