He believed that the nation should supplement its gold and silver currency by a national paper currency of its own-Treasury notes bottomed on taxes; but while he was President he made no efforts to inaugurate his system. He stressed it strongly in letters to his son-in-law, Eppes, who served long and prominently in Congress, but his system was only partially practised. He detested the Federal judiciary and denounced the judges as sappers and miners who were loosening the foundations of democracy; but he did not exert himself to cure the disease by any constitutional treatment. It excited his profound indignation to see the Government abdicate in favor of national banks the sovereign power to create money, but when his friend Madison was about to sign a bill to incorporate the third great national bank we do not find that Mr. Jefferson protested.

The Constitution did not authorize the acquisition of foreign territory or a system of internal improvements, yet he bought Louisiana, tried to buy Florida, and spoke of spending the surplus revenue on roads, canals, and education. An ardent advocate of freedom for the negro, he kept his own slaves to the last.

It amused the learned men of the Philosophical Society when Vice-President Jefferson rode up to Philadelphia with a bag of bones tied under his carriage, which bones turned out to be the remains

of a giant ant-eater instead of the mastodon, as Jefferson had supposed. Much laughter can be had over mistakes like this, but it is merely another case of Newton, with his big hole in the door for the cat, and the little hole for the kitten. Plain John Smith laughs at a mistake like this-a mistake he would never make-and complacently goes his way, a wiser man than Newton-in his own mind.

Classically educated, George Canning was profoundly amazed to learn, after he had grown to be a man, that tadpoles shed their tails and turned to frogs. Plain John Smith knows better than that, and is therefore a greater man than Canning, in Smith's catalogue.

The apostle of Jeffersonian simplicity who made his own fires, who would return the bow of the humblest negro and would seat at his table any respectable man, no matter how poor and unpopular, he had a fine house, kept foreign wines, had many servants, employed a French cook, ordered a coat of arms from London, rode in a four-horse carriage, sported thoroughbreds, and would send his saddlehorse back to be regroomed if the cambric handkerchief of the master, passed over the hair of the horse, showed any stains.

It may have been absurd in Mr. Jefferson to oppose such titles as Mister and Esquire, but his doctrine of "Resist the beginnings" was profoundly

wise. His earnest advice to Washington had much to do with those changes in the constitution of the Cincinnati, which rendered harmless what threatened to be the commencement of a hereditary military caste.

CHAPTER LI

LAST DAYS AND DEATH

QUIETLY, usefully, year after year passed with Mr. Jefferson, his only harassing trouble being his debts.

He kept up his correspondence with a very great number of people, his open-door style of entertainment, his interest in books, plants, trees, birds, flowers, his gardens, fields, and pleasure-grounds. He rode horseback several hours every day, spent much time in social converse with relatives and friends, made himself the idol of all the children, and was quite happy when sharing their pleasures, forming their habits, and improving their minds. As a patriarch, venerated and beloved, his tall figure moved through the gathering shadows of Monticello with a majesty, a grave sweet dignity, which few attain.

He had made bitter enemies-especially in Virginia, where he had removed the Capital from historic old Williamsburg to the then straggling village of Richmond; he had cut off the ancient aristocratic church from the public treasury; and he had knocked the props from under the landed aris

tocracy. John Randolph, of Roanoke, probably voiced the sentiment of thousands when he declared that Jefferson's leveling principles had brought upon Virginia financial ruin, lowering at the same time the standard of character.

To these causes for hatred was added another: he did not conform to the religious beliefs of his neighbors. He did not keep his views locked within his own breast, as Washington had more prudently done. That indefatigable pen was, every now and then, giving itself all the license of the free and bold thinker to whom expression is absolutely nec

essary.

Active causes such as these kept the dogs barking to the last; and we find this way-worn servant of the republic charged with having overdrawn his salary while minister to France. The libel was published in a Richmond paper at a time when the old man already had one leg in the grave. Think of the mortification he must have suffered in being compelled to prove himself an honest man in his home paper and to his home people!

He resigned the presidency of the Philosophical Society, an honorary post which he had held for eighteen years.

Through the kindly offices of Dr. Benjamin Rush a reconciliation was brought about between Mr. Jefferson and John Adams; and the two venerable statesmen resumed their correspondence.