rget, for the sentiment is foreign to
his own character; and I had written my argument, and given my reasons
above why Mr. Jefferson could not possibly be the author of that
sentiment, a month before I found that Jefferson had misquoted the
Declaration. I reason from first principles, which rest on established
facts, the _silent language of nature_, compared with which the vain
babblings of men amount to nothing. For example, John Adams says that he
and Mr. Jefferson met as a sub-committee to draft the Declaration; that
he urged Jefferson to do it; that afterward they both met, and conned it
over, and he does not remember of making or suggesting a single
alteration. This Mr. Jefferson denies. He says there was _no_
sub-committee; that Adams has forgotten about it; that he [Jefferson]
drew it, and turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it, and
that Adams _did_ correct it.--Jefferson's Works, vol. vii, pages 304,
305. Here are two men, one eighty and the other eighty-eight, on whose
words history rests, differing materially about historic facts. The one
who can not quote an important passage correctly, as to fact or language
which he says he wrote himself, accuses the other of _forgetting_ about
a committee _which never existed_. _The reader must judge._

"Be it so." Let us find the feeling which produced this expression. It
is peculiar to Junius. See Letters 18, 34, and 44, where the sentence is
used. And now let me remark, _that the reader may be led to a just
criticism, and not ramble after vague and unmeaning expressions_, the
spirit of the writer must be found, the prominent sentiment of the heart
must _be felt_, the cause must be seen which shall give utterance to the
expression, "Be it so." How trifling it appears to the cursory reader!
But let me arrest your attention. Junius uses the expression three
times, and every time in connection with the sentiment of _dignity_. So,
also, in the Declaration. It is only produced in him by a feeling, and
the peculiar and particular feeling of _dignity_, in antithesis to
contempt, littleness, disrepute, or meanness. I will now give the
context. In Let. 18 he says: "You seem to think the channel of a
pamphlet more respectable, and better suited to the _dignity_ of your
cause, than a newspaper. Be it so."

In Let. 34 he says: "We are told by the highest judicial authority that
Mr. Vaughan's offer to purchase the reversion of a patent place in
Jamaica amounts to a _hi