THOMAS JEFFERSON Library Edition CONTAINING HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, NOTES ON VIRGINIA, PARLIA- PUBLISHED IN THEIR ENTIRETY FOR THE FIRST TIME INCLUDING ALL OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS, DEPOSITED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE AND PUBLISHED IN 1853 BY ORDER OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS AND A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYTICAL INDEX ANDREW A. LIPSCOMB, Chairman Board of Governors EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ALBERT ELLERY BERGH MANAGING EDITOR VOL. XII. ISSUED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE THOMAS JEFFERSON MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES WASHINGTON, D. C. JEFFERSON'S PASSPORTS TO IMMORTALITY.1 Gentlemen of the Jefferson Club:-I have discharged with pleasure the duty which your kindness assigned me, and we now look upon the bust of him whose genius and prophetic foresight gave to our country the soil upon which this great city stands. Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph. Amongst his papers, after death, was found a rough sketch in ink of an obelisk to be made in granite, eight feet in height, with the inscription: Here was buried THOMAS JEFFERSON, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. It is a significant epitaph, and worthy of him who wrote it. Jefferson had been a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and of the Continental Congress, Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, 1 An address delivered by Hon. George G. Vest before the Jefferson Club of St. Louis, Mo., October 31, 1895, on the occasion of unveiling a bronze bust of Thomas Jefferson, by Benjamin Harney. VOL. XII-A |