thoughtfulness than he, have moved audiences to frenzy and have carried
them at will; but Jefferson, without this peculiar gift, certainly
possessed a sufficiency of this power, which the broad culture of the
scholar and the steadfast tension of the thinker can give to any man.
His addresses and writings are pregnant with profound aphorisms, and
through his great genius transient questions were often transformed
into eternal truths. His arguments were condensed with such admirable
force of clearness that his utterances always found lodgment in the
minds of both auditors and readers. Sensitive in his physical
organization, easily moved to tenderness, and incapable of malice, he
had that ready responsiveness to his own emotions as well as to those
of others, which always characterizes genius.

While it may be said that oratory was not an art with Jefferson, yet
his ideas on all governmental questions were always so clear and strong
and well matured that he never failed to express them forcefully and
effectively. His wonderful intellect, upon all important occasions,
never failed to take hold on principle, justice, liberty and moral
development, without which, as a part of its essence, the greatest mind
can never express itself adequately. His State papers and his addresses
and writings reveal the highest order of intellect, and are marked with
a degree of originality peculiarly Jeffersonian. The doctrines he
proclaimed and the principles he promulgated were so logical and sound
that they are cherished yet, and it is believed by millions of our
countrymen that they are as imperishable as the stars. Jefferson's
philosophical ideas of democratic government are as much alive to-day
as they were when he was at the zenith of his glory in life, and this
cannot be said of any other illustrious American who was
contemporaneous with him. It may be truthfully claimed that the lamp of
liberty, which he, perhaps more than any other one American of his
times helped to light, will never go out; and it may also be stated,
with an equal degree of truthfulness, that the brilliant star of his
own personal and political greatness will never set.

Some American writers have, from their standpoints of review,
animadverted upon certain alleged weaknesses of Jefferson as a great
national character. Although I do not indorse his position as favoring
"States' Rights" and a Federal Government of restricted powers, as over
against the broader doctr