use it provided for
free States south as well as north of the Ohio River, and also his
successful efforts as President to get Congress to abolish slave
importation in 1806-7. His warnings as to what must happen if
emancipation were not in some way provided for are familiar, as
fulfilled prophecy.

After two years at State law-making Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as
governor of Virginia, in the summer of 1779. But although his
administration was popular, it was not marked as pre-eminently able. He
had no military abilities for such a crisis in American affairs, nor
even remarkable executive talent. He was a man of thought rather than of
action. His happiest hours were spent in his library. He did not succeed
in arousing the militia when the English were already marching to the
seat of government, and when the Cherokee Indians were threatening
hostilities on the southwestern border. Nor did he escape the censure of
members of the legislature, which greatly annoyed and embittered him, so
that he seriously thought of retiring from public life.

In 1782, on the death of his wife, whom he tenderly loved, we find him
again for a short time in Congress, which appointed him in 1784, as
additional agent to France with Franklin and Adams to negotiate
commercial treaties. On the return of Franklin he was accredited sole
minister to France, to succeed that great diplomatist. He remained in
France five years, much enamoured with French society, as was Franklin,
in spite of his republican sentiments. He hailed, with all the transport
his calm nature would allow, the French Revolution, and was ever after a
warm friend to France until the Genet affair, when his eyes were
partially opened to French intrigues and French arrogance. But the
principles which the early apostles of revolution advocated were always
near his heart. These he never repudiated. It was only the excesses of
the Revolution which filled him with distrust.

In regard to the Revolution on the whole, he took issue with Adams,
Hamilton, Jay, and Morris, and with the sober judgment of the New
England patriots. England he detested from first to last, and could see
no good in her institutions, whether social, political, or religious. He
hated the Established Church even more than royalty, as the nurse of
both superstition and spiritual tyranny. Even the Dissenters were not
liberal enough for him. He would have abolished if he could, all
religious denominations and orga