Webster, with all his eloquence, denounced and deplored the spectacle of the Executive disclaiming the powers and dismantling the government of which he was the head. The overgrowth of abuses and arrogations of authority which now conceal, as they have distorted, our political system, would have seemed fifty years ago, when that debate occurred, as incredible to Webster as they would to Jackson.

The government can never be restored and reformed except from inside, and by the active, intelligent agency of the Executive. We must hope that Providence will, in its own good time, raise up a man adapted and qualified for the wise execution of this great work, and that the people will put him in possession of the executive administration, through which alone that noble mission can be accomplished, and the health and life of our political system be preserved and invigorated. Your fellow-citizen,

.SAMUEL J. TILDEN.

Messrs. S. CORNING JUDD, THOMAS HOYNE, MELVILLE W. FULLER, GEORGE W. BRANDT, HENRY WALLER, Jr., JULIUS S. GRINNELL, and STEPHEN S. GREGORY, Committee.

LXVI.

JEFFERSON AND DEMOCRACY.1

GRAYSTONE, March 30, 1882.

GENTLEMEN,I have received your letter in behalf of the Jefferson Club of New Haven, inviting me to be present at their commemoration of the birth of Thomas Jefferson. Although I am obliged to deny myself the pleasure of meeting with you on that occasion, I share the feelings which bring you together.

Mr. Jefferson has many titles to the reverence of the American people and of all lovers of liberty throughout the world. He was among the earliest, most resolute, and most steadfast of the patriots who upheld the popular rights in the incipient struggles of our Revolution, when the part he took required a higher order of courage, of self-denial, and of genius than were necessary at any subsequent period of our history. He penned the immortal statement of the principles which led our ancestors to assert the independent existence of our country, and which has been substantially adopted as a model for every people who have since attempted to establish national independence on the basis of human rights. He was first in his day completely to emancipate his own mind from the monarchical and aristocratical traditions which still enslaved most of the best intellects of the country.

But the obligations of the world to Mr. Jefferson do not end

1 Letter read to the Jefferson Club of New Haven on the anniversary of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson.

here. On the completion of the Federal Constitution, Gouverneur Morris, being asked what he thought of it, answered, "That depends upon how it is construed." After the organization of the Federal Government a powerful class sought to impress upon it in its practical working the features of the British system. Mr. Jefferson was the great leader of the party formed to resist these efforts, and to hold our institutions to the popular character which was understood to belong to them when the Constitution was ratified by the people.

By his inflexible adherence to free principles, by his untiring efforts, by his counsels, and by the magic of his pen, he was the principal agent in rescuing from its greatest peril, and while yet in its infancy, government by the people, for the people.

The arduous contest resulted in a political revolution which brought Mr. Jefferson into the Presidency. He put the ship of State, to use his own expression, upon the "republican tack.” He arrested centralizing tendencies, re-invigorated local selfgovernment, restored the rights of the States, and protected and enlarged the domain of the individual judgment and conscience. For eight years he admininistered the Government, and for sixteen years it was administered by his pupils, under his observation and advice. Thus was established a habit which largely shaped the standards for the guidance of the popular judgment, the modes of thinking of statesmen, and the general course of government for sixty years. How important such a habit is, will be appreciated when we consider that usurpation has often been successfully accomplished in other countries by men wielding the executive power; when we remember that Jefferson sincerely feared that Hamilton, who thought our government a "frail and worthless fabric," would change it if he came into power; and when we also recall the fact that Hamilton himself has left on record his belief that Burr would have wrought a personal usurpation if he could have grasped the Presidency.

Mr. Jefferson gave to our administrative system an aspect of republican simplicity; he repressed jobbery as well as all

perversions of power; and by his precepts, his influence, and his example, elevated the standard of political morals. In his personal practice he was not only pure, but, to make his example more effective, he refrained, while administering the greatest of official trusts, from all attempts to increase his private fortune, even by methods open to every private citizen.

In a period when there seems to be little respect for the limitations of power prescribed in our written Constitution; when assumptions of ungranted authority are rife in all the departments of the Federal Government; when that Government is being gradually changed into an elective despotism, meddling in everything belonging to the State or to individuals; when every new assumption of ungranted power creates new opportunities, new facilities, and new incentives to favoritism and jobbery; when the civil service has been converted into a balance of power to determine the elections by pecuniary and other illegitimate influences; when the perversion of high trusts to the private gain of the official is frequently committed with apparent unconsciousness of wrong, and passes almost without rebuke, it is time that the teachings and the example of Thomas Jefferson be invoked to keep alive the glimmering spark of official virtue and public honor.

Your fellow-citizen,

SAMUEL J. TILDEN.

Messrs. C. B. BOWERS, JAMES E. ENGLISH, JOHN H. LEEDS, PHILIP POND, and A. HEATON ROBERTSON, Committee.

LXVII.

FALSE CONSTRUCTIONS AND CORRUPT PRACTICES. -LETTER TO THE IROQUOIS CLUB.

NEW YORK, April 11, 1884.

GENTLEMEN,I have had the honor to receive your invitation to the third annual banquet of the Iroquois Club to respond to the sentiment "The Federal Constitution." I have also received private letters asking a written response to the sentiment in case I am prevented from attending. I have been for some time, and am still, exceptionally engrossed with business which I have no power to defer or abandon. I must therefore communicate with you in writing, and my answer must be brief.

On the formation of the Federal Constitution, Gouverneur Morris, who had been a conspicuous member of the Convention, being asked what he thought of the Constitution, replied, "That depends upon how it is construed."1 The Democratic party originated in a resistance by the more advanced patriots of the Revolution to the efforts which were made to change the character of our government by false constructions of the Constitution, impressing on the new system a monarchical bias. Mr. Jefferson's election in 1800 rescued our free institutions from the perils which surrounded them, and secured sixty

1 [The remark here attributed to Gouverneur Morris was addressed by him to Rufus King. He repeated it to Mr. Van Buren, who repeated it to Mr. Tilden.

ED.]