Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

In these circumstances, Jefferson's reluctance to encourage both his French and Spanish friends to establish at once a government modeled on the American government in their respective countries, is perfectly intelligible. Of all the nations of the earth, England alone could "borrow wholesale the American system."

As for the other nations, they were no more qualified to exercise the duties of a truly representative government than were the inhabitants of New Orleans at the time of the purchase. The French, in particular, had proved in several instances that they could not be intrusted with the administration of their own affairs.

From these declarations, to which many other similar passages could be added, a capital difference between the idealism of Jefferson and the idealism of the French philosophers becomes quite obvious. The author of the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed that all men are born free and equal, but he never thought that women, Indians and newly enfranchized slaves should be admitted to the same rights and privileges as the other citizens. In like fashion, although representative government remains the best possible form of government, he found it desirable that some people, who are still children, should not be granted at once the full enjoyment of their natural rights. Thus self-government, which had become a well established fact and a reality in America, should remain for other peoples a reward to be obtained after a long and painful process of education. It could be hoped that some day, after many disastrous experiments and much suffering, the peoples of Europe and South America might deserve the blessings enjoyed by the American people. But nothing was further from the character of Jefferson than to preach the gospel of Americanism to all the nations of the world. Instead of considering as desirable a close imitation of the American Constitution by the newly liberated nations, he maintained that each people should mold their institutions according to their own habits and traditions. Far from being a Jacobin, a wild radical, or a "closet philosopher", this practical politician had come to the conclusion that each people have the government they deserve, and that durable improvements can come only as a result of the improvement of the moral qualities of every citizen—from within and not from without. Such a moderate conclusion may surprise those who are accustomed to damn or praise Jefferson on a few sentences or axioms detached from their context; but, after careful scrutiny of the evidence, it seems difficult to accept any other interpretation.

Comparatively perfect as it was, the government of the United States presented certain germs of weakness, corruption and degeneracy. The Sage of Monticello did not fail to call his friends' attention to some of the dangers looming up on the horizon. As he had warned them against inflation, he opposed the formation of societies which might become so strong as "to obstruct the operation of the government and undertake to regulate the foreign, fiscal, and military as well as domestic affairs." This might be taken already as a warning against lobbying. He was fully aware that a time might come when the speeches of the Senators and Representatives "would cease to be read at all" and when the Legislature would not enjoy the full confidence of the people. He deplored the law vacating nearly all the offices of government nearly every four years, for "it will keep in constant excitement all the hungry cormorants for office, render them as well as those in place sycophants to their Senators, engage in eternal intrigue to turn out and put in another, in cabale to swap work, and make of them what all executive directories become, mere sinks of corruption and faction."[537]

Serious and pressing as these dangers were, they could be left to future generations to avoid, but at the very moment he wrote another fear obsessed his mind:

No New Englander had done more to promote the cause of abolition than Jefferson; on two occasions he had proposed legislative measures to put an end to the scourge of slavery and he had never ceased to look for a solution that would permit the emancipation of the slaves without endangering the racial integrity of the United States. But this was no longer a question of humanity. What mattered most was not whether slavery would be recognized in Missouri or not. Slavery had become a political question; it had created a geographical division between the States, and the very existence of the Union was at stake. As on so many other occasions, the old statesman had a truly prophetic vision of the future when he wrote to John Adams early in 1820:

The whole question was fraught with such difficulties that Jefferson refused to discuss the abolition of slavery with Lafayette when the Marquis paid him a last visit at Monticello. With his American friends he was less reserved. When, as early as 1811, James Ogilvie asked him to suggest an important and interesting subject for a series of lectures he intended to deliver in the Southern States, Jefferson could think of nothing more momentous than a discourse "on the benefit of the union, and miseries which would follow a separation of the States, to be exemplified in the eternal and wasting wars of Europe, in the pillage and profligacy to which these lead, and the abject oppression and degradation to which they reduce its inhabitants."[540]

Jefferson has so long been represented as the champion of State rights, he stood so vigorously against all possible encroachments of the States' sovereignty by the Federal Government, that we have a natural tendency to forget this aspect of his policies and to see in him only the man who inspired the Kentucky resolutions. It must be remembered, however, that he never ceased to preach the necessity of the union to his fellow countrymen, that when President he lived in a constant fear of secession by the New England States, that he stopped all his efforts in favor of abolition lest he should inject into the life of the country a political issue which might disrupt national unity. While he claimed that theoretically the States had a right to secede, he could no more consider actual secession than he would have approved of any man breaking the social compact in order to live the precarious life of the savage.

From these dangers nothing could preserve the United States except what Du Pont de Nemours called once "the cool common sense" of their citizens. It was the only foundation on which to rest all hopes for the future, for American democracy is not a thing which exists on paper, it is not a thing which can be created overnight by law, decree or constitution, it is not to be looked for in any document. "Where is our republicanism to be found," wrote Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval. "Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our people. Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our constitution all things have gone well."[541]

One of the most reassuring manifestations of this spirit was seen in the willingness of the people to choose the best qualified persons as their representatives, executives and magistrates. But if the Republic was to endure, it was necessary to enlighten and cultivate the disposition of the people, and it was no less important to provide a group of men qualified through their natural ability and training, to discuss and conduct the affairs of the community. Thus Jefferson was induced to take up again in his old days one of his pet schemes, the famous bill for the diffusion of knowledge.

As a matter of fact, he had never abandoned it completely, and its very purpose had been explained already in the "Notes on Virginia":

During his stay in Europe, Jefferson had become acquainted with great universities, particularly those of Edinburgh and Geneva, and after coming back to America he shifted somewhat the emphasis. It was not so immediately necessary to improve the minds of all the citizens as to form an élite, a body of specialists who might become the true leaders of the nation. This seems to have been the object of his plan, to bring over to America the whole faculty of the University of Geneva to establish a national university at Richmond or in the vicinity of Federal City. This scheme was only defeated because of the opposition of Washington who, with great common sense, realized how incongruous it would be to call National University an institution where the teaching would be conducted entirely in a foreign language and by foreigners.

Even after this plan had failed, Jefferson did not give up his ambition to establish somewhere in America and preferably in Virginia, an institution of higher learning. On January 18, 1800, he wrote to Joseph Priestley to ask him to draw up the program of a university "on a plan so broad, so liberal, and modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support. The first thing is to obtain a good plan."

Priestley sent him, in answer, some "Hints Concerning Public Education" which have never been published and probably did not arouse any enthusiasm in Jefferson. The English philosopher had simply taken the main features of the English system, placing the emphasis on the ancient languages and excluding the modern: "For the knowledge of them as well as skill in fencing, dancing and riding is proper for gentlemen liberally educated, and instruction in them may be procured on reasonable terms without burdening the funds of the seminary with them." He ended with a very sensible piece of advice:

At the same time Jefferson had sent a similar request to Du Pont de Nemours. Curiously enough, the Frenchman manifested little enthusiasm for the proposal of his friend. To establish a university was all very well, but first of all one had to provide solid foundations and to place educational facilities within the reach of the great mass of citizens—the university being only the apex of the pyramid. On this occasion Du Pont reminded Jefferson that he had expressed himself to such an intent some fifteen years earlier in his "Notes on Virginia", which developed the excellent view that colleges and universities are not the most important part of the educational system of the State:

By July, 1800, Du Pont de Nemours, who had already proposed a similar scheme to the French Government, had completed his manuscript and sent it to Jefferson at the end of August. This was more speed than Jefferson had expected, and Du Pont's plan was far too elaborate and too comprehensive to be of immediate value. "There is no occasion to incommode yourself by pressing it," wrote Jefferson, "as when received it will be some time before we shall probably find a good occasion of bringing forward the subject."[544]

During his presidency, Jefferson had had to lay aside all his plans and postpone any action for the organization of public education in his native State until after his retirement. In the meantime, he read and studied the project of Du Pont de Nemours and corresponded with Pictet of Geneva; he had in his hands several memoirs of Julien on the French schools, and he looked everywhere for precedents and suggestions. His views were finally formulated in a "Plan for Elementary Schools" sent to Joseph C. Cabell from Polar Forest, on September 9, 1817. The act to be submitted to the Assembly of Virginia was far more comprehensive than the title indicates. It provided for the establishment in each county of a certain number of elementary schools, supported by the county and placed under the supervision of visitors; the counties of the commonwealth were to be distributed into nine collegiate districts, and as many colleges, or rather secondary schools, instituted at the expense of the literary fund, "to be supported from it, and to be placed under the supervision of the Board of Public Instruction."

"In the said colleges," proposed Jefferson, "shall be taught the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian and German languages, English grammar, geography, ancient and modern, the higher branches in numeral arithmetic, the mensuration of land, the use of the globes, and the ordinary elements of navigation."

A third part of the act provided for

Finally, in order "to avail the commonwealth of those talents and virtues which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as among the rich, and which are lost to their country by the want of means of their cultivation", the visitors would select every year a certain number of promising scholars from the ward schools to be sent to the colleges and from the colleges to be sent to the University at the public expense.

This was essentially the Bill for the Diffusion of Knowledge proposed to the Assembly in 1779. Jefferson had incorporated in it such modifications as he may have borrowed from Du Pont de Nemours, but essentially the plan was his own. That Jefferson himself was perfectly aware of it appears in a short mention of the fact that "the general idea was suggested in the 'Notes on Virginia.' Quer. 14."[545]

It was soon realized that neither the Assembly nor the public were ready for such a comprehensive scheme. Part of the plan had to be sacrificed, if a beginning was to be made at all. Jefferson did not hesitate long; the elementary schools could be organized at any time without much preparation or expense; secondary education was taken care of after a fashion in private schools supported from fees; but nothing existed in the way of an institution of higher learning. Young Virginians had to be sent to the northern seminaries, there "imbibing opinions and principles in discord with those of our own country." The university was the thing, and, in order to provide sufficient funds to start it, Jefferson proposed that subsidies from the literary fund to the primary schools be suspended for one or two years. In his opinion this measure did not imply any disregard of primary education, and Jefferson vehemently protested to Breckenridge that he had "never proposed a sacrifice of the primary to the ultimate grade of instruction"; but, "if we cannot do everything at once, let us do one at a time."[546]

The fight in which Jefferson engaged to obtain recognition for his project, to have Central College or, as it was finally to be called, the University of Virginia, located near Monticello, where he could watch its progress and supervise the construction of its buildings, has been told many times and does not need to be recounted here.[547]

On the board of visitors with Jefferson were placed James Madison, James Monroe, Joseph C. Cabell, James Breckenridge, David Watson and J. H. Cocke. Jefferson was appointed Rector of the University at a meeting held on March 29, 1819, at a time when the university had no buildings, no faculty, no students and very small means. Everything had to be done and provided for. It would have been possible to put up some sort of temporary shelter, a few ramshackle frame houses, but Jefferson wanted the university to endure and he remembered that he was an architect as well as a statesman. It was not until the spring of 1824 that he could announce that the buildings were ready for occupancy—the formal opening was to be held at the beginning of the following year—but the master builder could be proud of his work. The university was his in every sense of the word: not only had he succeeded in arousing the interest of the public and the Assembly in his undertaking, but he had drawn the plans himself with the painstaking care and the precision he owed to his training as a surveyor. He had selected the material, engaged the stone carvers, the brick layers and the carpenters, and supervised every bit of their work. After his death he would need no other monument.

Then, as everything seemed to be ready, a new difficulty arose. Ever since 1819, the visitors had been looking for a faculty. Ticknor, with whom Jefferson had gotten acquainted through Mrs. Adams, had refused to leave Cambridge although disgusted with the petty bickerings of his colleagues. Thomas Cooper had proved inacceptable, and the very mention of his name had aroused such a storm among the clergy that the appointment had to be withdrawn. After a long and fruitless search for the necessary talents at home, Jefferson and his fellow members on the board of the university decided to procure the professors from abroad. This time, however, they were not to repeat the mistake of the proposed transplantation of the University of Geneva. Several prominent Frenchmen suggested by Lafayette were turned down as too ignorant of the ways of American youth and the language of the country. There remained only one place from which satisfactory instructors could be obtained; this was England. Their nationality did not raise any serious objection, for, to the resentment of the War of 1812 had succeeded the "era of good feeling", and Francis Walker Gilmer was commissioned to go to England in order to consult with Dugald Stewart and to recruit a faculty from Great Britain, "the land of our own language, habits and manners."[548]

Eighteen months later, the Rector declared the experiment highly successful, and the example likely to be followed by other institutions of learning.

Thus after fifty years, Jefferson was able to make real his educational dream of the Revolutionary period, to endow his native State with an institution of higher learning in which the future leaders of the nation would be instructed. They would no longer have to be sent abroad to obtain the required knowledge in some subjects; nor would they have to study in "the Northern seminaries", there to be infected with pernicious doctrines; above all, they would be preserved from any sectarian influence during their formative years; for no particular creed was to be taught at the university, although the majority of the faculty belonged to the Episcopal Church.

The University of Virginia was the last great task to which Jefferson put his hand, an achievement of which he was no less proud than of having written the Declaration of Independence. To bring it to a successful conclusion this septuagenarian displayed an admirable tenacity, a resourcefulness, a practical wisdom, a sense of the immediate possibilities and an idealistic vision, the combination of which typifies the best there is in the national character of the American people. It would take many pages to study in detail Jefferson's educational ideas, as he expressed them in the minutes of the board and in his many letters to John Adams, Thomas Cooper and Joseph Cabell. The most remarkable feature of the new institution was that, for the first time in the history of the country, higher education was made independent of the Church, and to a large extent the foundation of the University of Virginia marks the beginning of the secularization of scientific research in America. Its "father" certainly gave some thought to the possible extension of the educational system that had finally won recognition in his native Virginia, to all the States in the country; but he was too fully aware of the difficulties to follow his old friend Du Pont de Nemours and to propose a Plan for a National Education. At least he "had made a beginning", he "had set an example", and he built even better than he knew. The man who wished to be remembered as the "father of the University of Virginia" was also, in more than one sense, the father of the State universities which play such an important part in the education of the American democracy.

CHAPTER III

THE PHILOSOPHY OF OLD AGE

Old people are often accused of being too conservative, and even reactionary. They seem out of step with the younger generations, and very few preserve enough resiliency to keep in touch with the ceaseless changes taking place around them. But a few men who, born in the second half of the eighteenth century, lived well up into the nineteenth, were able to escape this apparently unavoidable law of nature. After witnessing political convulsions, commotions and revolutions, they clung tenaciously to the faith of their younger days. They refused to accept the view that the world was going from bad to worse; they looked untiringly for every symptom of improvement and thought they could distinguish everywhere signs foretelling the dawn of a new era. The growing infirmities of their bodies did not leave them any illusion about their inevitable disappearance from the stage and they were not upheld by any strong belief in personal immortality. But however uncertain and hazy may have been their religious tenets, they had a stanch faith in the unlimited capacity of human nature for improvement and development. They believed in the irresistible power of truth, in the ultimate recognition of natural principles and natural laws, in the religion of progress as it had been formulated by the eighteenth-century philosophers. Thus, rather than follow the precept of the ancient poet and unhitch their aging horses, they had anticipated the advice of the American philosopher by hitching their wagon to a star.

Du Pont de Nemours, experimenting with his sons to develop American industries in order to make America economically independent from Europe; Destutt de Tracy, almost completely blind, dictating his treatise on political economy and appearing in the streets of Paris during the glorious days of 1830; Lafayette, yearning and hoping for the recognition of his ideal of liberty during the Empire and the Restauration—all of these were more than survivors of a forgotten age. Even to the younger generations they represented the living embodiment of the political faith of the nineteenth century. It is not a mere coincidence that most of them were friends and admirers of the Sage of Monticello, whose letters they read "as the letters of the Apostles were read in the circle of the early Christians."

Jefferson could complain that "the decays of age had enfeebled the useful energies of the mind",[550] but he kept, practically to his last day, his alertness, his encyclopædic curiosity and an extraordinary capacity for work. A large part of his time was taken by his correspondence. Turning to his letter list for 1820 he found that he had received no less than "one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven communications, many of them requiring answers of elaborate research, and all of them to be answered with due attention and consideration."[551] I may be permitted to add that a large part of the letters he received as well as those he wrote deserve publication and would greatly contribute to our knowledge of the period.

Among them essays and short treatises on every possible subject under heaven will be found. With Du Pont de Nemours, Jefferson discussed not only questions of political economy, education and government, but the acclimation of the merino sheep, the manufacturing of woolen goods and nails, the construction of gunboats and the organization of the militia. With Madame de Tessé, Lafayette's aged cousin, he resumed the exchange of botanical views, interrupted by his presidency and the continental blockade. He undertook to put together the scraps of paper on which he had scribbled notes during Washington's and Adams' administrations and compiled his famous "Anas"; he wrote his "Autobiography", furnished documents to Girardin for his continuation of Burke's "History of Virginia"; he answered queries on the circumstances under which he had written the Declaration of Independence, the Kentucky Resolution, on his attitude towards France when Secretary of State and President; he criticized quite extensively Marshall's "History of Washington" and one of his last letters, written on May 15, 1826, was to inform one of his friends of the facts concerning "Arnold's invasion and surprise of Richmond, in the winter of 1780-81."[552]

His interest in books was greater than ever; he had scarcely sold his library to Congress when he undertook to collect another, going systematically through the publishers' catalogues, writing to booksellers in Richmond, Philadelphia, New York and even abroad, requesting his European friends to send him the latest publications and asking young Ticknor to procure for him, in France or Germany, the best editions of the Greek and Latin classics. He drew up the plans for the University of Virginia and supervised the construction of the building. Between times he took upon himself the task of rewriting entirely the translation of Destutt de Tracy's "Review of Montesquieu" and directed the printing of his treatise on "Political Economy." After writing letters, regulating the work of the farm, he spent several hours on horseback every day and during the balance of the afternoon read new and old books, played with his grandchildren, walked in the garden to look at his favorite trees, listened to music and, during the fine weather, received the visitors who flocked to Monticello by the dozens. Some were simply idlers coming out of curiosity, many were old friends who stayed for days or weeks; but all were welcomed with the same affable courtesy and the same generous hospitality, according to the best traditions of old Virginia.

No sound estimate of the extraordinary influence exerted by Jefferson upon the growth of liberalism can be made at the present time. It would require separate studies, careful investigation and the publication of many letters, safely preserved but too little used, which rest in the Jefferson Papers of the Library of Congress, and with the Massachusetts Historical Society. I have already printed Jefferson's correspondence with Volney, Destutt de Tracy, Lafayette and Du Pont de Nemours; many other letters, no less significant, remain practically unknown. He encouraged his European friends, Correa de Serra, Kosciusko, the Greek Coray, to keep up their courage, to hope against hope. To all of them he preached the same gospel of faith in the ultimate and inevitable recognition throughout the world of the principles of American democracy. This was not done for propaganda's sake, for no man would deserve less than Jefferson the dubious qualification of propagandist. The many letters written to his American friends on the same subject clearly show that this was his profound conviction and almost his only raison d'être. His was not an over-optimistic temperament; he did not fail to notice all "the specks of hurricane on the horizon of the world." Yet, all considered, and in spite of temporary fits of despondency, his conclusion on the future of democracy can be summed up in the words he wrote to John Adams at the end of 1821:

Jefferson felt such a dislike for unnecessary controversies that he was apt to adopt the tone and the style of his correspondents and apparently to accept their ideas, so that many contradictions can be found in these letters. To a chosen few only he fully revealed his intimate thoughts and without reticence, without fear of being betrayed, communicated his doubts, his hopes and his hatred. The letters he wrote to Short, Priestley, and Thomas Cooper are most remarkable in this respect. But with none of them did he communicate so freely as with his old friend John Adams. The correspondence that passed between them during the last fifteen years of their lives constitutes one of the most striking and illuminating human documents a student of psychology may ever hope to discover. To those who have had the privilege of using the manuscripts to follow month by month the palsied hand of Adams until he had to cease writing himself and dictated his letters to a "female member of his household", it seems unthinkable that the wish expressed by Wirt in 1826,—to see the correspondence between the two great men published in its entirety,—should not have received its fulfillment.

They had been estranged for a long time, and no word had passed between them for more than ten years after Adams' sulky departure from Washington on the morning of March 4, 1801. At the beginning of 1811, Doctor Benjamin Rush made bold to deplore "the discontinuance of friendly correspondence between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson." Jefferson answered quite lengthily, giving a long account of his difficulties with Adams, including the letter written by Abigail Adams in 1802, but adding that he would second with pleasure every effort made to bring about a reconciliation. However, he did not entertain much hope that Doctor Rush would succeed, for he knew it was "part of Mr. Adams' character to suspect foul play in those of whom he is jealous, and not easily to relinquish his suspicions."[555]

It was not until the end of the same year that Jefferson took up the subject again, having heard that during a conversation Adams had mentioned his name, adding: "I always loved Jefferson, and still love him." This was enough, and it only remained to create an opportunity to resume the correspondence without too much awkwardness; but "from this fusion of sentiments" Mrs. Adams was "of course to be separated", for Jefferson could not believe that the woman wounded in her motherly pride had forgotten anything. This was no insuperable obstacle, however: "It will only be necessary that I never name her" wrote Jefferson.[556]

Adams took the first step, and, knowing how much Jefferson was interested in domestic manufactures, sent him a fine specimen of homespun made in Massachusetts. Jefferson could but acknowledge the peace offering, which he did most gracefully, without mentioning Mrs. Adams.[557] But he was too much of a Southern gentleman to hold a resentment long even against a woman of such a jealous disposition. Two months later he sent for the first time the homage of his respects to Mrs. Adams, after which he never forgot to mention her. On two occasions he even wrote her charming letters, in the same friendly tone as he had used with her twenty-five years earlier, when he used to do shopping for her in Paris. On hearing of her death on November 13, 1818, he sent to his stricken old friend a touching expression of his sympathy:

Quite naturally, as the circle of his friends grew narrower and one after the other were called by death, Jefferson's thoughts turned to the hereafter. In his youth he had apparently settled the problem once for all; but the solution then found was scarcely more than a temporary expedient. It may behove a young man full of vigor, with a long stretch of years before him, to declare that "the business of life is with matter" and that it serves no purpose to break our heads against a blank wall. There are very few men, if they are thinking at all, who can entirely dismiss from their minds the perplexing and torturing riddle, as the term grows nearer every day. Such an ataraxia may have been obtained by a few sages of old, but it is hardly human, and Jefferson, like Adams, was very human. This is a subject, however, which I cannot approach without some reluctance. Jefferson himself would have highly disapproved of such a discussion. After submitting silently to so many fierce criticisms, after being accused of atheism, materialism, impiety and philosophism by his contemporaries, he hoped that the question would never be broached to him again. With those who tried to revive it, he had absolutely no patience.

Unfortunately the controversy is still going on and at least a few points must be indicated here. The simplest and to some extent the most acceptable treatment of the matter was given a few years after his death by the physician who attended him up to the last minutes:

But Doctor Dunglison's declaration is somewhat unsatisfactory and misleading, for Jefferson once gave his own definition of Unitarianism. From a letter he wrote to James Smith in 1822 it appears he was not ready to join the Unitarian Church any more than any other:

On the other hand, one might easily be misled by some declarations of Jefferson to his more intimate friends. "I am a materialist—I am an Epicurian," he wrote on several instances to John Adams, Thomas Cooper and Short, with whom he felt that he could discuss religious questions more freely than with any others. Rejecting the famous Cogito ergo sum of Descartes, he fell back when in doubt on his "habitual anodyne": "I feel therefore I exist." This in his opinion did not imply the sole existence of matter, but simply that he could not "conceive thought to be an action of a particular organisation of matter, formed for the purpose by its Creator, as well as that attraction is an action of matter, or magnetism of loadstone." Then he added: "I am supported in my creed of materialism by the Lockes, the Tracys and the Stewarts. At what age of the Christian Church this heresy of immaterialism or masked atheism, crept in, I do not exactly know. But a heresy it certainly is. Jesus taught nothing of it."[562]

In the same sense he could write to Judge Augustus S. Woodward: "Jesus himself, the Founder of our religion, was unquestionably a Materialist as to man. In all His doctrines of the resurrection, he teaches expressly that the body is to rise in substances."[563]

His definition of Epicurism would seem equally remote from the popular acceptation, and certainly Jefferson was never of those who could deserve the old appellation of Epicuri de grege porcus; for his Epicurus is the philosopher "whose doctrines contain everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us."[564]

All through the year 1813 and on many occasions after that date, Adams tried to draw him out on the question of religion. "For," as he said, "these things are to me, at present, the marbles and nine-pins of old age; I will not say beads and prayer books." But Jefferson could not have declared, as did his old friend: "For more than sixty years I have been attentive to this great subject. Controversies between Calvinists and Arminians, Trinitarians and Unitarians, Deists and Christians, Atheists and both, have attracted my attention, whenever the singular life I have led would admit, to all these questions."[565]

Not so with Jefferson, who felt a real abhorrence for theological discussions and considered them as a sheer waste of time. They belonged to a past age and were to be buried in oblivion lest they create again an atmosphere of fanaticism and intolerance; at best, they could be left to the clergy. But tolerant as he was, there were certain doctrines against which Jefferson revolted even in later life, as he probably did when a student at William and Mary: