Part 12

After a deadly combat of three-and-a-half hours, in which the Serapis and the Richard literally “shot each other to pieces,” the Serapis had to yield. The king conferred on Captain Pearson the honor of knighthood as a reward for his brave, though unsuccessful, fight. When Jones heard of this he said that if ever he met Pearson at sea again he would make a lord of him. After the Revolution in which he served America so bravely and ably, Jones made his home in France. There in 1792 ended his adventurous life in which he had, as he said, “twenty-three battles and solemn rencounters by sea.”

Thomas Jefferson

The Author of the Declaration of Independence

Not all the work of securing American independence was done by the able generals and the brave soldiers. The patriot cause in the Revolution owed much to men who never served in the army. One of these was Franklin, who secured for the colonies aid and recognition from France. Another was Thomas Jefferson, called “the pen of the Revolution,” who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia, in 1743; his father, a wealthy country gentleman, died when Thomas was about fourteen years old. The country boy divided his time between books and outdoor sports, and his mind was well-trained and his slender frame was as active and as tireless as an Indian’s. Then at seventeen he rode off to Williamsburg to enter William and Mary College.

At Williamsburg was formed the friendship with Patrick Henry which continued till after the Revolution; it was broken by differences in political opinions. It was on a flyleaf of one of Thomas Jefferson’s law books that Henry wrote his “resolutions.” Jefferson was one of the audience that listened entranced to the eloquent speech against the Stamp Act. When Jefferson was twenty-four, he was admitted to practice law at Williamsburg. He became an able and successful lawyer, though he had a weak voice and was never a pleasing speaker. In 1775 Jefferson heard Patrick Henry’s eloquent appeal to the people to arm for the inevitable conflict; Jefferson, Washington, and others were appointed to form plans to put Virginia on a military basis.

[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON]

Jefferson, who had already won reputation as author and scholar, was sent to Philadelphia to the Continental Congress. Though one of the youngest of its members, he was appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence. The paper was accepted and adopted in form slightly changed from that in which he presented it. The delegates who signed it well knew that they were signing their death warrants if the Revolution should prove a failure and they should fall into King George’s hands.

Hancock, the president of the Congress, said that the members must all hang together.

“Yes,” said Franklin, “we must hang together or we shall all hang separately.”

Four days later, the Declaration was read publicly, and its proclamation was received with enthusiasm throughout the colonies.

Jefferson was one of the five men that the Assembly selected to revise the Virginia laws; upon him devolved most of the work. It was due to him that severe laws were passed against dueling, and that there was repealed the old English law by which the eldest son inherited the father’s estate. For nine years he and other enlightened men fought for the repeal of the old intolerant laws about religion, and the passing of a statute securing religious liberty. Finally, all the old laws about tithes, compulsory worship, etc., were struck out and in their place was substituted this statute written by Jefferson:

“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, ministry, or place whatsoever; nor shall he be enforced, restrained, molested or hindered in his body or his goods; nor shall he otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or beliefs; but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion; and the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.” We accept this as a matter of course, but in that day it was a great step forward.

Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia, but he resigned in 1781, feeling that in the emergency of the time the government could best be administered by having civil and military power in the same hands. He was asked by Congress to go with Franklin to France as ambassador but he refused because his wife was ill. After her death, two years later, he went as minister to France. No other American ambassador was ever so popular as Franklin, but Jefferson was liked and respected.

“You replace Dr. Franklin,” said a Frenchman.

“I merely succeed him; no one could replace him,” was the prompt reply.

Jefferson, like Franklin, was a many-sided man. The famous author of the Declaration of Independence, the scholar versed in the Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish languages, took a keen interest in practical matters and applied science. Under great difficulties, he procured some of the best rice of Italy and sent it to South Carolina; from this handful came the great rice crops produced in that state. From Europe Franklin sent to the United States the first announcement of Watt’s steam engine which he went from Paris to London to see. He wrote back that by it “a peck and a half of coal performs as much work as a horse in a day.” Jefferson himself had inventive talent; among his other inventions was a plow superior to any then in use, which in 1790 received a gold medal in France. He became the third president of the American Philosophical Society of which Franklin was the first president.

Jefferson returned to America in 1789 and served as Secretary of State under Washington. He had succeeded in getting our present coinage system adopted, urging successfully a decimal system to replace that of England which many people wished to retain. He tried to have introduced a system of measures founded on the same decimal plan, but in this he did not succeed. While he was Secretary of State the mint in Philadelphia was established by his advice; till then American money had been coined in Europe.

In 1793 Jefferson resigned the office of Secretary of State and returned to his beloved home, Monticello, one of the handsomest country seats in Virginia. His overseer said that in the twenty years he lived at Monticello, he saw Jefferson sitting unemployed only twice--both times he was too unwell to work. “At all other times he was either reading, writing, talking, working upon some model, or doing something else.” Once Jefferson’s little grandsons whom he urged to “learn” and “labor” replied that they would not need to work because they would be rich. He answered, “Ah, those that expect to get through the world without industry, because they are rich, will be greatly mistaken. The people that do the work will soon get possession of all their property.”

One of his grandsons tells another incident of these days: “On riding out with him when a lad we met a negro who bowed to us; he returned his bow, I did not. Turning to me he asked, ‘Do you permit a negro to be more of a gentleman than yourself?’”

The country did not permit Jefferson to remain long in retirement. He was elected Vice President in 1796 and President in 1801. He represented the party of the people; this was opposed to the Federalist party led by Hamilton which was in favor of a centralized government. The party led by Jefferson was called, first Republican, then Democratic-Republican, then Democratic--to express the idea that the power belonged to the people. Scholar and aristocrat as Jefferson was, he had confidence in the “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as a man of the people expressed it later. Throughout Jefferson’s life this was his main idea, and the one for which he always worked.

During his first administration he rendered a great service to the country; being instrumental in 1803 in purchasing from France for fifteen million dollars the Louisiana territory. This territory included not only Louisiana but the territory extending to Puget Sound. In a message to Congress, Jefferson asked for money to send an expedition to explore this great country and he selected two brave and hardy frontiersmen to lead it, Captain Lewis and Lieutenant Clarke. They spent two and a half years on the expedition and brought back information about the country and specimens of its products.

After he had served his country twice as president, Jefferson retired to his home at Monticello and there spent his old age, still occupied with schemes for the public welfare. He believed in America for Americans. In a letter to President Monroe he said, “Our first and fundamental maxim should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with Cis-Atlantic affairs.”

He planned an educational system for Virginia which included a comprehensive free school system, and a university. He gave years of thought and study to planning the building, government, and course of study of this university. In 1818 the state legislature made a grant to establish the University of Virginia.

Jefferson gave practically his whole life to the service of his country. He was in office thirty-nine years, and spent more than twenty years revising the Virginia Statutes and laboring to establish the University of Virginia. Thus, he said, his public services occupied over sixty years. During this time, his private affairs were neglected. From wealth in youth, he was reduced in old age to straitened circumstances. He sold his library, thirteen thousand volumes, to Congress for $23,950, about one-half of its auction value, and the money went to his creditors.

In the summer of 1826 Jefferson was taken ill. At midnight July the third, he was heard to murmur, “This is the fourth of July.” About midday he died, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted. On the same day in Massachusetts was dying John Adams who had helped in the fight for the people’s rights. During his last hours, his thoughts turned to his great associate and he said, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.”

On Jefferson’s tombstone were recorded as he had requested--not the offices he had held nor the honors he had received--but the three things by which he wished to be remembered,--that he wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for religious liberty, and founded the University of Virginia.

Alexander Hamilton

The Founder of the Federalist Party

The Democratic-Republican party which believed in the “power of the masses” and the rule of the people was founded by Thomas Jefferson. The Federalist party, which believed in a centralized government patterned on the aristocratic one of England, was founded by Alexander Hamilton. Little is known about the family and early life of Hamilton. He was born in the little West India island of Nevis in January, 1757. His father is supposed to have been a Scotch trader and his mother a Frenchwoman. His family was poor, and it was necessary for him to leave school in childhood and set to work. At the age of twelve, he became a clerk in a counting-house where he remained about three years. Every spare moment was spent in the study of mathematics, chemistry, and history. He was so faithful in his work, however, that at the age of thirteen or fourteen he was left in charge of business during his employer’s absence.

[Illustration: ALEXANDER HAMILTON]

In 1772 the island of Santa Cruz was visited by a terrible hurricane; young Hamilton wrote such a vivid and eloquent account of it that his friends thought he ought to become a professional man and offered to help him continue his education. Accordingly, in October, 1772, he set sail to the colonies. Leaving the West Indies, he cut loose from his old life; of friends and relatives there, almost nothing is heard after this time. Young Hamilton attended a grammar school in New Jersey, and then entered King’s College, now Columbia University, in New York. The young West Indian came to America at a time when people were greatly excited about political matters, and he heard much about the Stamp Act and the oppressive taxes laid by Great Britain. At first he took the part of the king, but in less than two years he had become an enthusiastic patriot. It was the cause of the colonies as a whole that appealed to him. He never developed any of the feeling for the separate colonies which was so strong in most native-born Americans.

When he espoused the cause of the oppressed colonies, he did it with his whole heart. The precocious, clever boy of seventeen made patriotic addresses, and published an able pamphlet, entitled, “A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress from the Calumnies of their Enemies” (1774). In this pamphlet he stated the case of the colonies clearly and eloquently. He said, “All men have one common origin; they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be advanced why one man should exercise any power or preëminence over his fellow-creatures, unless they have voluntarily vested him with it. Since then, Americans have not by any act of their own empowered the British Parliament to make laws for them, it follows that they can have no just authority to do it.”

Hamilton believed in the enforcement of law and order. On one or two occasions, when mobs had set out to attack royalists’ houses, he persuaded them to respect private property and opinions.

The opinions that young Hamilton upheld with pen he was ready to uphold with sword. In 1776, when he was only nineteen, he was put in charge of a company of artillery which he drilled so well that he won the commendation and friendship first of General Greene and later of General Washington. During the retreat through New Jersey, he managed his company with courage and skill, and he fought bravely in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In 1777 he became one of Washington’s “official family,” being made his confidential secretary. Washington was very fond of the clever young man whom he often addressed as “my boy.” Hamilton’s ability, too, was recognized and in 1777 he was entrusted with a delicate and important mission. This was to get reinforcements for Washington’s hard-pressed army from Gates’s successful forces. As superior officer, Washington could have ordered the troops sent to his relief, but for many reasons it was best to have them sent on Gates’s own accord, if possible. Therefore, Washington gave Hamilton a sealed order of command to Gates, instructing him not to deliver it if without doing so he could persuade the general to send the troops. Hamilton brought back the troops and he also brought back the unopened letter. It was while he was in New York on this errand that he met General Schuyler’s daughter whom he married in 1780.

Hamilton did not remain in the commander-in-chief’s official family. On one occasion he failed to answer a summons promptly; General Washington, who was a strict disciplinarian, said, “Colonel Hamilton, you have kept me waiting for you these ten minutes. I must tell you, sir, that you treat me with disrespect.” The hot-tempered youth replied, “I am not conscious of it, sir, but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part.”

“Very well, sir, if that is your choice,” answered the general.

Washington was willing to overlook the occurrence, but Hamilton was desirous to return to active service. At Yorktown he led a gallant attack against a British redoubt which he took in ten minutes.

After the Revolution, he read law four months and then began to practice in Albany. He put aside professional work to serve his adopted country again. This time in Congress. The colonies which had united in their war of defence now seemed drifting apart and the general government had no power to hold them together. The country was in debt and had neither money nor credit. The states, therefore, sent representatives to Philadelphia in 1787 to form a Constitution to take the place of the Articles of Confederation.

Hamilton was one of these delegates. He argued in favor of a strong central government, ruled by a president, congress, and supreme court; he thought that practically all power should be put in the hands of the general government, and that the governors of states should be appointed by it and should have veto power over state legislation. To him an American state was a mere geographical division, like an English county. Most of the people, however, clung to the independence of the separate states, and there was heated discussion as to what rights should be delegated to the general government and what should be reserved by the states. At last a constitution was drawn up, in favor of which Congress voted. It was decided that this constitution should go into effect as soon as it should be ratified by nine states. As yet the states “had given up none of their rights to the general government.”

In order to present the views in favor of this constitution and to secure its adoption, Hamilton, with some assistance from Madison and Jay, published a series of eighty-five papers called “The Federalist.” The constitution was adopted, and George Washington was elected first President. When he formed his Cabinet he made Alexander Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury. It was felt that this young man of thirty-two could do more than any one else to establish the finances of the country on a safe basis. He made a report “On the Public Credit” which “laid the corner-stone of American finance under the constitution.”

He insisted that the credit of the United States should be firmly established and the United States should assume the war debt of fifty-four million dollars; to secure the payment of this a national bank was established. Hamilton suggested ways in which money might be raised by taxing whiskey and imported articles and by the use of public lands, the Northwest Territory ceded by Virginia, and the western lands ceded by Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia.

After some opposition Hamilton’s plan was adopted and the finances of the country were established on a safe basis. An insurrection called the Whiskey Rebellion was raised in Pennsylvania by people who were unwilling to pay the tax on liquor, and Hamilton went with troops who suppressed it.

Jefferson and others argued that under this constitution the general government had no power to establish a national bank. Hamilton brought forward the view, which he was the first to advance, that Congress had “implied” powers as well as “delegated” ones. One of his chief motives in urging national banks was that he felt they would be a “powerful cement of union,” uniting the business interests of the country in the support of the government. It was Hamilton, then, who originated the “protective tariff” and “national banks,” over which political parties are still contending.

In 1795 after his national policies were adopted, Hamilton resigned public life and began to practice his profession in New York. He put aside his brilliant and profitable professional work, however, when war with France seemed imminent, in order to assist Washington in his plans for the organization of the army. When the war-cloud passed he resumed the practice of his profession. But his brilliant life was to come to an early and untimely end. In his political life he made many antagonists. One of these was Aaron Burr, as brilliant and hot-tempered as Hamilton, and a man of bold and dangerous ambition.

After a political quarrel, Burr challenged Hamilton to fight a duel. In theory Hamilton recognized the sin and folly of dueling, but he was not willing to refuse to fight for fear people would think he was a coward. Early one morning, July 11, 1804, the two rivals met in a quiet spot. Hamilton fired into the air, as he had said he would do; Burr with deadly skill aimed straight at his opponent who fell fatally wounded. Hamilton left his mourning country the record of a brilliant public career, the main purpose of which was to strengthen the general government and to consolidate the Union.

Daniel Boone

The Pioneer of Kentucky

During colonial days, the English settlers occupied the land east of the Alleghany Mountains. Except on expeditions of war or explorations and adventure, they did not cross the mountains to the west. During the latter part of the eighteenth century, the first pioneer went westward to settle, taking with him his wife and daughter, the first white women to make their homes in the western land. This pioneer was Daniel Boone. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1735, and so was three years younger than George Washington.

Boone’s father moved to North Carolina in 1752 and there Daniel grew to manhood. His school days were brief and his book-learning was limited. There was standing many years a tree on which was carved in rude letters, “D. Boon Cilled A Bar on this tree year 1760.” But he was expert in the homely, hardy work of the frontier, and in woodcraft; familiar with the life and habits of the wild things of the wood; a sure quick shot, a fearless and self-reliant youth. One who knew him later says he was “honest of heart and liberal--in short, one of nature’s noblemen. He abhorred a mean action and delighted in honesty and truth. He never delighted in the shedding of human blood, even that of his enemies in war. His remarkable quality was an unwavering and invincible fortitude.”

Boone was an expert hunter and trapper. Like many American frontiersmen, he wore a dress resembling that of the Indians,--a buckskin hunting shirt with fringed buckskin leggings and moccasins of deerskin or buffalo-hide. His inseparable companion was his long-barrelled rifle.

He went as a wagoner on Braddock’s ill-fated expedition and barely escaped with his life.

The country west of the mountains had been visited and explored by several men and parties. Gist, who accompanied Washington on his mission to the French forts, was one of these early explorers. Another was John Finley who traded with the Indians on the Red River of Kentucky. He told Boone about the fertile soil, the abundant game, and the “salt licks” of the western lands.

After a short hunting trip on the borders, Boone started out, in May, 1769, to explore “the far-famed but little-known land of Kentucky.” He started with five companions and he spent two years roaming over the country. The white men were attacked by Indians in the fall of 1769 and Boone and Stewart were captured. A week later they made their escape, but were unable to find their friends. Not long after, Boone’s brother and another frontiersman joined them with a welcome supply of powder and lead.

Their companions were killed by the Indians, and the Boone brothers spent some months in the wilderness in a cabin which they built of poles and bark. For some reason his brother went home, and Daniel Boone remained for months alone, the only white man in that wilderness which was the battle-ground of northern and southern Indians. Not even a dog was there to keep him company, and as food, he had only what his rifle and fishing-rod could secure.