It was true in the narrow application which it had at first, but
false in that which was afterwards given to it. There is a marked
distinction between him and the politicians of France. Rousseau,
perhaps the ablest, certainly the most popular, of those who
preceded the Revolution, is an example. The _Contrat Social_
constantly carries the idea, that the government is the seat of all
power and the source of all national action. No suggestion is made,
that there are individual functions with which the state cannot
interfere to advantage. The same opinions prevailed among the
Encyclopedists and Economists, they were announced by the Gironde
and the Mountain, and practically carried out by Robespierre and
Barras. The Girondists made cautious approaches towards federalism,
but one looks in vain through the speeches of Vergniaud for an
intimation of individualism. The modern _doctrinaires_ have retained
the same principles. Legitimists, Imperialists, Republicans,
Socialists, and Communists are all in favor of a centralized and
unlimited government. The last two classes wish to exercise the
governing power upon the minutest details of life,--to establish
public baths, shops, theatres, dwellings, to control the amusements
and direct the occupations of the citizen, and to divide his social
status by law. Comte himself, whose general system might be expected
to lead him to a different conclusion, outdoes them all, and proposes
to prescribe creeds, establish fasts, feasts, and forms of worship,
and even to name those who shall receive divine honors. There is no
trace here of that scrupulous regard for personal independence and
that invincible distrust of governmental action which characterized
Jefferson. It is true, he and the Gallic writers agreed upon certain
fundamental propositions; but they were peculiar neither to him nor
them. Some of the same principles were announced by Locke and
Beccaria, by Hobbes, who maintained the omnipotence of the state,
and by Grotius, who insisted upon the divine right of kings. To
agree with another upon certain matters does not make one his
disciple. No one mistakes the doctrines of Paul for those of Mohammed,
because both taught the immortality of the soul. To confound
Jefferson with Rousseau or Condorcet is about as reasonable as to
confound Luther with Loyola, or Ricardo with Jeremy Bentham.

Although we deny that Jefferson was indebted to France for his
political system, it cannot be clai