Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookOpen Original Text Statute of
Virginia for Religious Freedom and Father
of the University of Virginia.
WORKS.
Autobiography, Essays, Treatises, Letters, Reports, Messages, and
Addresses, (9 volumes).
Jefferson's style as a political writer is considered a model: and
every citizen of the United States should be well acquainted with the
Declaration of Independence, which has been called by competent
critics the most remarkable paper of its kind in existence.
His writings show a well trained mind, accustomed to observe closely
and to delight in thought and truth and freedom. _See under George
Tucker._ Consult also his Life, by Tucker, by Morse, by Sarah N.
Randolph, his great-grand-daughter, Memoirs by Thos. J. Randolph
(1830).
POLITICAL MAXIMS.
Government has nothing to do with opinion.
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. (_Motto on his seal._)
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion,
religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with
all nations, entangling alliances with none.
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS AT THE AGE OF TWENTY.
(_From a letter to John Page._)
Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be
the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very
much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I
have steadfastly believed. The most fortunate of us, in our journey
through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes, which
may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks
of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal
studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is
to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider
whatever does happen must happen; and that by our uneasiness, we
cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its
force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as
these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties
thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience
under this burthen of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken
resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end, when we may deliver
up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such
reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit. Such, dear
Page, will be the language of the man who considers his situation in
this life, and such should be the language of every man who would
wish to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit.
Few things will disturb him at all; nothing will disturb him much.
SCENERY AT HARPER'S FERRY AND AT THE NATURAL BRIDGE.
(_From Notes on Virginia, written in 1781, published in 1801._)
[Illustration: ~Harper's Ferry.~]
The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of
the most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand on a very high point
of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along
the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left
approaches the Patowmac, in quest of a passage also. In the moment of
their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it
asunder, and pass off to the sea. The first glance of this scene
hurries our senses into the opinion, that this earth has been created
in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began
to flow afterwards, that in this place particularly they have been
damned up by the Blue ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean
which filled the whole valley; that continuing to rise they have at
length broken over at this spot, and have torn the mountain down from
its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but
particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disrupture
and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents of nature,
corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing which nature has
given to the picture, is of a very different character. It is a true
contrast to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful, as that is
wild and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven asunder, she
presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smoothe
blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting
you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass
through the breach and participate of the calm below. . . . . . . . .
The Natural Bridge, the most sublime of nature's works, . . . is on
the ascent of a hill, which seems to have been cloven through its
length by some great convulsion. The fissure, just at the bridge, is,
by some admeasurements, 270 feet deep, by others only 205. It is about
45 feet wide at the bottom, and 90 feet at the top; this of course
determines the length of the bridge, and its height from the water.
Its breadth in the middle, is about 60 feet, but more at the ends, and
the thickness of the mass, at the summit of the arch, about 40 feet. A
part of this thickness is constituted by a coat of earth, which gives
growth to many large trees. The residue, with the hill on both sides,
is one solid rock of lime-stone.
The arch approaches the semi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of
the ellipsis, which would be the cord of the arch, is many times
longer than the transverse. Though the sides of this bridge are
provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have
the resolution to walk to them, and look over into the abyss. You
involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and
peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a
violent head-ach.
If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below
is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions
arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so
beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up
to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable! The
fissure continuing narrow, deep, and straight, for a considerable
distance above and below the bridge, opens a short but very pleasing
view of the North mountain on one side, and Blue ridge on the other,
at the distance each of them of about five miles. This bridge is in
the county of Rockbridge, to which it has given name, and affords a
public and commodious passage over a valley, which cannot be crossed
elsewhere for a considerable distance. The stream passing under it is
called Cedar-creek.
ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS OPINION.
Compulsion makes hypocrites, not converts.
It is error alone that needs the support of government: truth can
stand by itself.
ON THE DISCOURSES OF CHRIST.
Such are the fragments remaining to us to show a master-workman, and
that his system of morality was the most benevolent and sublime that
has ever been taught, and consequently more perfect than those of any
of the ancient philosophy.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.
(_From an Act Passed in the Assembly of Virginia, 1786._)
Well aware that Almighty God hath created Previous Next |