At the next session of Congress, he secured the adoption of our present admirable system of coinage. As chairman of a committee to draft rules for the government of our Northwest Territory he endeavored, but without success, to secure the prohibition of slavery therefrom forever. In May, 1784, he was sent to Europe, to assist Adams and Franklin in negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign nations. Returning home in 1789, he received from Washington the appointment of Secretary of State, which office he resigned in 1793. He withdrew, says Marshall, “at a time when he stood particularly high in the esteem of his countrymen." His friendship for France, and his dislike of England; his warm opposition to the aggrandizement of the central power of the Government, and his earnest advocacy of every measure tending to enlarge popular freedom, had won for him a large following, and he now stood the acknowledged leader of the great and growing Anti-federal party.

Washington declining a third term, Adams, as we have already seen, succeeded him, Jefferson becoming Vice-President. At the next election, Jefferson and Burr, the Republican candidates, stood highest on the list. By the election law of that period, he who had the greatest number of votes was to be President, while the Vice-Presidency fell to the next highest candidate. Jefferson and Burr having an equal number of votes,

it remained for the House of Representatives to decide which should be President. After a long and heated canvass, Jefferson was chosen on the thirty-sixth ballot. He was inaugurated, on the 4th of March, 1801, at Washington, whither the Capitol had been removed a few months previously. In 1804, he was re-elected by an overwhelming majority. At the close of his second term, he retired once more to the quiet of Monticello.

The most important public measure of Jefferson's Administration, to the success of which he directed his strongest endeavors, was the purchase from France, for the insignificant sum of $15,000,000, of the immense Territory of Louisiana. It was during his Administration, too, that the conspiracy of Burr was discovered, and thwarted by the prompt and decisive action of the President. Burr's scheme was a mad one-to break up the Union, and erect a new empire, with Mexico as its seat. Jefferson is regarded as hav ing initiated the custom of removing incumbents from office on political grounds alone.

From the retirement into which he withdrew at the end of his second term, Jefferson never emerged. His time was actively employed in the management of his property and in his extensive correspondence. In establishing a University at Charlottesville, Jefferson took a deep interest, devoting to it much of his time and means,

He was proud of his work, and directed that the words "Father of the University of Virginia should be inscribed upon his tomb. He died, shortly after mid-day, on the Fourth of July, 1826, a few hours before his venerable friend and compatriot, Adams.

Jefferson was the very embodiment of the democracy he sought to make the distinctive feature of his party. All titles were distasteful to him, even the prefix Mr. His garb and manners were such that the humblest farmer was at home in his society. He declared that in view of the existence of slavery he "trembled for his country when he remembered that God is just." He was of splendid physique, being six feet two and a half inches in height, but well built and sinewy. His hair was of a reddish brown, his countenance ruddy, his eyes light hazel. Both he and his wife were wealthy, but they spent freely and died insolvent, leaving but one daughter.

His moral character was of the highest order. Profanity he could not endure, either in himself or others. He never touched cards, or strong drink in any form. He was one of the most generous of men, lavishly hospitable, and in everything a thorough gentleman. Gifted with an intellect far above the average, he had added to it a surprising culture, which ranked him among our most accomplished scholars. Το his extended learning, to his ardent love of lib

erty, and to his broad and tolerant views, is due much, very much, of whatever is admirable in our institutions. In them we discern everywhere traces of his master spirit.

W

JAMES MADISON.

HEN Mr. Jefferson retired from the Presidency, the country was almost on the verge of war with Great Britain. Disputes had arisen in regard to certain restrictions laid by England upon our commerce. A hot discussion also came up about the right claimed and exercised by the commanders of English war-vessels, of searching American ships and of taking from them such seamen as they might choose to consider natives of Great Britain. Many and terrible wrongs had been perpetrated in the exercise of this alleged right. Hundreds of American citizens had been ruthlessly forced into the British service.

It was when the public mind was agitated by such outrages, that James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, was inaugurated. When he took his seat, on the 4th of March, 1809, he lacked but a few days of being fifty-eight years of age, having been born on the 15th of March, 1751. His father was Colonel James Madison, his mother Nellie Conway. He gradu

ated at Princeton College, New Jersey, in 1771. after which he studied law.

In his twenty-sixth year he had been a member of the Convention which framed the Constitution of Virginia; in 1780 had been elected to the Continental Congress, in which he at once took a commanding position; had subsequently entered the Virginia Legislature, where he co-operated with his friend and neighbor, Jefferson, in the abrogation of entail and primogeniture, and in the establishment of religious freedom; had drawn up the call in answer to which the Convention to Draught a Constitution for the United States met at Philadelphia in 1787, and had been one of the most active members of that memorable assemblage in reconciling the discordant elements of which it was composed. He had also labored earnestly to secure the adoption of the new Constitution by his native State; had afterward entered Congress; and when Jefferson became President, in March, 1801, had been by him appointed Secretary of State, a post he had declined when it was vacated by Jefferson in December, 1793. In this important post for eight years, he won the highest esteem and confidence of the nation. Having been nominated by the Republicans, he was in 1808 elected to the Presidency, receiving one hundred and twenty-two electoral votes, while Charles C. Pinckney, the Federal can. didate, received but forty-seven.