try of the English, as he might clear a field of stumps. In the brilliant moves of the great game of war he seems to take no delight; he has none of the sudden inspirations of genius; if deranged during the course of an action, Jefferson tells us, or if "any member of his plan" is "dislocated by sudden circumstances," he is "slow in a readjustment;" but it would be difficult probably to find any commander who, without any really brilliant victories, amidst repeated defeats from the enemy, and hindrances of all kinds on his own side, either inspired so entire a confidence in his own countrymen, or effected a greater work. The world at large will certainly not remember Trenton or Princeton, any more than it will Brandy wine or Germantown. But it will never forget that George Washington was the commanderin-chief of those colonist soldiers--often militiamen enlisted only for a few weeks -ill-paid, ill-clad, often without powder, who ended by driving out all the armies of England. So of his eight years' Presidency (1789-97). What single leading event of it has planted a milestone in the world's history? The whole work of it nearly consists only in the mapping out, so to speak, of the future development of his country's life. He fixes boundary marks here and there; as respects foreign nations, in a resolute neutrality in reference to European affairs; as respects his own people, in a resolute vindication of the Federal authority against taxation. riots, and a parting warning against secession in his "Farewell Address," which anticipates in fact in a sentence all the rough work which Abraham Lincoln will have to do: "The Constitution which "at any time exists, until changed by an explicit and deliberate act of the whole

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Electoral College, he had stepped up into it. ("He seemed to me enjoy a triumph over me," wrote John Adams to his wife of Washington's handing over to him the Presidency.) It knows that he went down to the grave the "father of his country." Washington died, at the age of sixtyseven years, on the 14th of December, 1799, after two days' illness, of a severe sore throat, not without much suffering. "I die hard," he said the last day, "but I am not afraid to die ; I believed from my very first "attack that I should not survive it. "My breath cannot last long." After which he spoke but little, except to thank the doctors, and ask them to take no more trouble, but let him die quietly. Between ten and eleven that night he breathed his last. "Is he gone?" asked Martha Washington, his wife. His secretary, Mr. Lear, could but hold up his hand. "Tis well; all "is now over. I shall soon follow him. "I have no more trials to pass through."

A quarter of a century before, after the first session of the first Congress (1774), Patrick Henry, when asked who was the greatest man in it, had said of him, "If you speak of eloquence, Mr. "Rutledge of South Carolina is by far "the greatest orator; but, if you speak "of solid information and good judg "ment, Colonel Washington is unques"tionably the greatest man on that "floor." After his death, Jefferson, who, at first a member of his Cabinet, had led the opposition against him, wrote: "His integrity was most pure, his justice "the most flexible I have ever known; "no motives of interest or consanguinity, "of friendship or hatred, being able to "bias his decision. He was indeed in every sense of the word a wise, a good, "and a great man.””

JOHN ADAMS, of Massachusetts (born 1735, died 126) succeeded him. Washington had nly passed from the surveyor into the soldier and the country gentleman; John Adams, a farmer's-others say a mechanic's-son, but of the stock of the earliest settlers, had passed through Harvard College; had been a school

master, and a successful barrister; had sat in the first Congress (1774), of which Jefferson tells us he was the Colossus" -adding, "not graceful, not elegant, "not always fluent in his public ad"dresses, he yet came out with a power "both of thought and expression which "moved his hearers from their seats." He had in this Congress seconded (8th June, 1776) the Resolution declaring the "United Colonies to be free and independent States;" had practised diplomacy for his country as commissioner, or ambassador, in France, Holland, England; had published an Essay on Canon and Civil Law," and a "Defence of the Constitution and Government of the United States." He was the chief author of the Constitution of Massachusetts, and had been VicePresident-in other words, Speaker of the United States' Senate-during the whole of Washington's double Presidency. A man whose character is thus drawn by his latterly successful rival, Jefferson, at a time (1787) when they must already have become somewhat alienated in opinion, in a letter to Madison :-"He "is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator "of the force and probable effect of the "motives which govern men. This is "all the ill which can possibly be said "of him. He is as disinterested as the

except when knowledge of the world "is necessary to form a judgment. He "is so amiable that I pronounce you will "love him if ever you become acquainted "with him." And later, quoting "an enemy's" dictum :-"He is always an honest man, and often a great one." Not a bad character, one would say, to be handed down to posterity by enemies and by rivals-of a Calvinist, by a Freethinker. Whatever may have been his foibles, no American statesman has left behind him a purer reputation than John Adams.

Washington had been the candidate of the nation. John Adams was that of a majority only, representing the socalled Federalist party. It is difficult for us now to estimate the bitterness of

party-feeling which, in the end of the last century, and the beginning of this, divided "Federalists from "Republicans "-the latter not to be confounded with the present party of that name, but being, in fact, the predecessors of their opponents, the "Democrats." The main difference between the two was that the former aimed rather at the consolidation of American nationality by giving adequate powers to the Central Government, the latter at the jealous preservation of State-liberties. So the former were treated as monarchists, the latter as anarchists in disguise. Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, and the true Federalist leader, had had the enormity to say that the British Government, with all its corruptions, was the best then existing; John Adams giving occasion to the speech by the only less heinous opinion, that the British Government would be the best if purged of its corruptions. This was enough to make Jefferson assert that during Adams's stay in England as Chargé d'Affaires-where he was often scarcely treated with common civility by the Court-" the glare of royalty and nobility.... had made him believe their fascination a necessary ingredient in government.' So he was only allowed to fulfil one term of office, and was succeeded (1801) by

THOMAS JEFFERSON, the Virginian (born 1743, died 1826). (born 1743, died 1826). A tall man, of an expressive, intelligent countenance; of a good and wealthy family, excellently educated (at William and Mary College, Virginia) in Greek, Latin, French, mathematics, philosophy; author of "Notes on Virginia," and other publications. He had practised as a barrister; had brought forward, in the Virginia legislature, a motion for permitting the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected; had drawn up some instructions for delegates to a general congress then proposed, which were afterwards published as "A sum

mary View of the Rights of British "America;" had sat in the General Congress (1775); had drawn up the famous Declaration of Independence; had been governor of Virginia; had almost car

ried in Congress (11th March, 1784) a proposal, that after the year 1800 there should be no more slavery in any of the future states of the Confederation; had gone to Europe as plenipotentiary (1784-89), residing almost exclusively in France, but travelling as far as Milan. On his return to his country he had become Secretary of State, under Washington, but had resigned in 1793; had competed for the Presidency against Adams in 1797, and had been elected to the Vice-Presidency; and now reached the highest office, strange to say, not even as the candidate of a majority of the presidential electors, whose votes were equally divided between him and the United States' first traitor, Burr, but by the vote of the House of Representatives. As good an imitation of a great man, perhaps, as the world has ever seen; of amazing variousness of information; "no speaker," Colonel Burton tells us, "but a most instructive and fascinating talker;" quick, shrewd, supple in mind; generous, though a passionate partizan; the shallowest of eighteenth-century Freethinkers, yet using the name of God with effect; with much love of justice in the abstract, and an ethical creed so low that he reckoned good-humour as the first among moral qualities; a declaimer against slavery, and an owner, probably father, of slaves, whom he left unenfranchised. Strong in a rhetorical fervour, which did duty for much greater warmth of heart than he possessed, and in a sincere incapacity for distinguishing petween his own opinions and the welfare of the country, he offers to us the most brilliant type of the Southerner which American history as yet presents. Washington had done his best, till Jefferson's withdrawal, to make all honest men of opposite opinions work together for the country's good, uniting Jefferson and Hamilton in one Cabinet, and giving the superior office to Jefferson, whose tendencies were not his own. Adams, by a singular act of spite, is said to have spent his last days of power in giving place to opponents of his successor. Jefferson, on coming into power, in turn swept out his predecessor's nomi

nees from office, to put partizans of his own policy in their place; yet it is recorded of him that in so doing he showed no bias of kindred or friendship. During his Presidency he was far from justifying the expectations either of his admirers or his opponents; profited by various strokes of good luck; left the main conduct of affairs to Madison; proclaimed the most peaceful intentions; left his country unprepared for war, in the midst of a tremendous conflict. To his first period of office (which was renewed in 1805) belongs the purchase of Louisiana from France-an act big with future troubles.

Retiring, like Washington, after his second Presidency, in 1809, Jefferson's life soon became linked once more with that of his old rival, Adams, from whom he had remained some years estranged, although, at a period of Jefferson's administration when he was in difficulties with England, Adams had generously supported him in some letters published in a Boston paper. "I always loved Jefferson, and still love him," Adams had said; and soon after sent him, with a letter, some specimens of homespun. Before these last had even arrived, the letter was answered in the friendliest terms (1812). Nothing could be pleasanter henceforth than the exchange of correspondence between the two veteran statesmen, ranging as it does over almost every conceivable topic, from Greek texts to theology, were it not now known that all the while Jefferson was continuing to deposit in a series of ana the venom of a life-time against the party to which his friend belonged. And, in the correspondence itself, the utter superficiality of Jefferson's nature comes. out more and more. A genial old man of seventy-three must be he who says (1815)-" My temperament is sanguine; I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern." We may barely conceive of such a one that he would be willing, as Jefferson declared himself to be, to live his life over again. But when he goes on to say: "I have often wondered for what good end the sensations of grief could be intended," it is difficult not to

turn away with a feeling akin to contempt. What! old man, so near the grave, so much evil around, so many loved ones gone, and wondering why man should grieve?

But Jefferson lived on, with Adams, for thirteen years still; the latter in comfort, but in exceedingly feeble health; Jefferson amidst pecuniary difficulties, not entirely of his own creation. With all his varied powers, and with a show of accuracy in accounts, observations, tables, and the like, he was by no means a good man of business in his own concerns. To that pitch, indeed, did he come, that, after having opposed lotteries all his life, he asked permission at last to put his own domain of Monticello into a lottery. The last day of both Adams and Jefferson has often been recorded. The morning of the 4th July, 1826, had come, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Bells were ringing, and guns and crackers firing, and the din woke up old John Adams. He was asked if he knew what it all meant. After a moment, " "Oh, "yes! it is the glorious 4th of July-God "bless it! God bless you all!" Then, after a while: "It is a great and glorious day;" then, after a last pause: "Jefferson still survives." At noon his last illness came; at 6 P.M. he died. Jefferson was then himself dead since 1 o'clock, his last words being, "I resign "my soul to my God, and my daughter "to my country." The two old rivalfriends went forth to meet their Maker together.

When all has been said, Jefferson must live in history as the author of the "Declaration of Independence"-a document which, to calm, distant readers, not trained to look to it as the startingpoint of their own nationality, must seem declamatory, and hollow; yet the influence of which over the destinies of the United States, were it only through its implied pledge of equality between white and black, has been incalculable. "I have never had a feeling politically," said Abraham Lincoln, in Independence Hall, on his way to the Capitol and to martyrdom, "that did not spring from

"the sentiments embodied in the De"claration of Independence. . . . It was not the mere matter of the separa"tion of the colonies from the mother"land, but that sentiment in the Decla "ration of Independence which gave

liberty not alone to the people of this country, but I hope to the world, for "all future time . . . . If this country "cannot be saved without giving up "that principle, I was about to say I "would rather be assassinated on this "spot than surrender it."

JAMES MADISON (born 1751, died 1836), third Virginian President, continues Jefferson much as John Adams continues Washington. A planter's son, much younger than his predecessors, he had been nearly as well educated as Jefferson; had graduated at Princeton College, New Jersey (performing "all "the exercises of the two senior collegiate "years in one);" and had studied for the Bar, though I am not aware that he was ever called. He had sat repeatedly in the Legislature, or the Council, of Virginia; in the Congress of 1780, in the Congress after the Constitution (1789-97); had, with Hamilton and Jay, written the celebrated series of letters known as "The Federalist," in explanation of the United States Constitution; had drawn up some celebrated resolutions of the Legislature of Virginia (1798), which have since served as a text-book to the " States-rights" party, and had become Secretary of State under Jefferson. The latter was much attached to him. "I have ever viewed Mr. Madison and yourself," he wrote to Monroe, in 1808, " as two principal pillars of my happiness." He has left of Madison a glowing eulogium; speaking of his "habit of self-possession," his "luminous and discriminating mind," his "extensive information, his "never "wandering from his subject into vain. "declamation, but pursuing it closely in "language pure, classical, and copious, "soothing always the feelings of his "adversaries by civilities and softness "of expression," his "pure and spot"less virtue, which no calumny has ever "attempted to sully," and concluding

"Of the powers and polish of his pen, "and of the wisdom of his administration "in the highest office of the nation, "I need say nothing." Posterity has hardly confirmed the latter part, at least, of this panegyric of Jefferson's on one whom he must have looked upon as his favourite pupil. Though always leaning to France against England, Jefferson had steered clear of actual political partizanship between foreign nations. Madison drifted (through Clay's influence, it is said) into that deplorable war between the United States and England, grounded on an English Order in Council, which the British Ministry had decided on revoking before the declaration of war by the United States, and actually revoked four days after it. Although the course of the war, especially at sea, was not discreditable to the Americans, considering how little prepared they were for it, it was terminated by a peace which guaranteed nothing which they had gone to war to secure, and left the United States for the time being with a heavy debt and an annihilated trade, and the beginning of a protective system (promoted at this time by Calhoun and the South Carolinians). Madison quitted office after his second term, in 1817, and afterwards only took part in the revision of the Virginia Constitution (1829). Personally a most amiable man, of great conversational powers, he made no enemies. He was always an invalid (having weakened his constitution in youth by excessive study), and lived on to his eighty-fifth year, with two or three mortal diseases.

JAMES MONROE, Madison's coeval successor (born 1751, died 1831,) closes for a time the list of Virginian Presidents. Of Irish Presbyterian extraction, unlike his three last predecessors, he was a soldier; had served in the revolutionary war; had, as a lieutenant, been wounded at Trenton in 1766; and had been appointed colonel on Washington's recommendation, just before the end of the war. He then went to college, studied law, entered the legislature, opposed in the Virginia Convention the adoption of the United States Constitution, sate in

the Senate; was sent by Washington as minister to France, where, however, he was considered by the then cabinet to have shown himself too subservient to French policy. Recalled in 1790, he was appointed governor of Virginia, and, after Jefferson's accession to the Presidency, sent again as minister to France, afterwards to Spain. In the former country, together with Mr. H. R. Livingston, he concluded the purchase of Louisiana; but a treaty which he drew up with Spain was disallowed by Jefferson, and Monroe returned dissatisfied, and unsuccessfully competed with Madison for the Presidency, not obtaining a single vote. But Jefferson brought the two old friends together again; he was made Secretary of State, (or prime minister), and succeeded Madison in the Presidency, by an all but unanimous vote (1816); served his two terms, and withdrew into private life (1825). “A slow, hard-working man, of parts," Benton says, "not shining, but solid; lack"ing genius, but possessing judgment;" at one time singularly valued by Jeffer son (who once wrote of him, "Turn his "soul wrong side outwards, and there is "not a speck on it"); of whom it has even been said that "he never could "have attained the dignity of the Presi"dency independent of his intimacy and "political connexion with Mr. Jefferson." Courteous almost to fulsomeness, he seemed the very President for a country wearied and exhausted by war, at a time when party spirit had almost gone out. After consulting General Jackson, the popular military hero of the day, Monroe formed a cabinet, in which John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State, and J. C. Calhoun Secretary of War,-three men of whom each pair were one day to stand wide as the poles asunder. Presidency was called "the era of good feeling;" there was no opposing candidate against him at his second term of office. He concluded treaties with England, with Spain, and, without much intending it, left his mark upon the history of the world in the shape of that famous but much exaggerated "Monroe Doctrine," so much applauded at the time by

His