If it had gone further and read, "A Republic of Republics and of Lesser Republics" - carrying the mind down to the county and township republics, with their direct participation by all the people in democratic assemblies it would have been thoroughly descriptive of Jefferson's ideal.

Virginia had adopted a written constitution in 1776. It was adopted at a time when patriots were trying to get together, and when the main object in view was to put some sort of State government upon a legal footing, to take the place of the patriotic but irresponsible revolutionary committees. There were some undemocratic features in it needing revision. Long afterwards, Samuel Kercheval wrote some letters on the subject and enclosed them to Jefferson, asking his advice. There is much of Jeffersonianism in Jefferson's reply, and of the sort which has exerted a permanent influence on our State institutions. In many respects, it is worthy to stand side by side with "The Summary View," the great "Declaration of Independence," the platform letter to Elbridge Gerry in 1800, and the "First Inaugural," as an exponent of Americanism.

This letter appears in full as Appendix 29 to be found in the third volume of Randall's "Life of Jefferson," page 647. It was dated July 12, 1816. Excerpts from which are as follows:

"In truth, the abuses of monarchy had so much filled all the space of our political contemplation, that we imagined everything republican, which was not monarchy. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle that 'governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it!' Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principle in them. But experience and reflection have but more and more

confirmed me in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed.

"In the Legislature" (of Virginia) "the House of Representatives is chosen by less than half the people, and not at all in proportion to those who do choose. The Senators are still more disproportionate, and for long terms of irresponsibility. In the Executive, the Governor is entirely independent of the choice of the people, and of their control; his council equally so, and at best but a fifth wheel to a wagon. In the Judiciary the judges of the highest courts are dependent on none but themselves. In England, where judges were named and removable at the will of an hereditary executive, from which branch most misrule was feared and has flowed, it was a great point gained, by fixing them for life, to make them independent of the executive. But in a government founded on the public will, this principle operates in an opposite direction, and against that will. There, too, they were still removable on a concurrence of the executive and legislative branches. But we have made them independent of the nation itself."

This utterance, and what follows about judges, with its cool, limpid reasoning, was and is of far-reaching influence.

In Jefferson's day all State judges, as far as I have learned, except in Connecticut, were appointed. In the twenties he urged their election for fixed terms in Virginia, and cited the success of the experiment in Connecticut. By the time the Democracy had developed itself further under Jackson, they were nearly everywhere elected, and life tenure was abolished everywhere, except with the Federal Judiciary. Thus all three branches of the government became democratized.

Of the Revolutionary constitutions, very few, if any, were submitted to the people, they being adopted by conventions alone.

Beginning with "the word" - under Jefferson, and culminating with the deed under Jackson, constitutions began everywhere to be submitted to the people for their ratification; that is, nearly everywhere. Some few very conservative States never did submit them. No constitution of Mississippi, for example, except one, was ever submitted to the people, the people seeming to think that they can get a wiser, better fundamental law, if they elect the very best men to constitute a constitutional convention, and leave them with plenary power. This was all a growth out of Mr. Jefferson's doctrine that he wanted "frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

Recurring in this letter to his favorite scheme for the complete democratization of Virginia - dividing the counties into wards and giving them direct selfgovernment to a certain extent similar to the New England township system he says:

"The organization of our county administrations may be thought more difficult. But follow principle, and the knot unties itself. Divide the counties into wards of such size as that every citizen can attend when called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them the government of their wards in all things relating to themselves exclusively. A justice, chosen by themselves, in each; a constable, a military company, a patrol, a school; the care of their own poor, their own portion of the public roads, etc. . . . These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principles of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation. We should thus marshal out government into, 1. The general federal republic, for all concerns foreign and federal; 2. That of the state, for what relates to our own citizens exclusively; 3. The county republics, for the duties and concerns of the county; and, 4. The ward republics, for the small, and yet numerous

and interesting concerns of the neighborhood; and in government, as well as in every other business of life, it is by division and subdivision of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can be managed to perfection. And the whole is cemented by giving to every citizen, personally, a part in the administration of the public affairs."

After this, he sums up the whole situation and expresses the philosophy underlying it:

"The sum of these amendments is: 1. General suffrage; 2. Equal representation in the Legislature; 3. Judges elected or amovable; 5. Justices, jurors" (evidently grand jurors) "and sheriffs elective; 6. Ward divisions; and, 7. Periodical amendments of the Constitution.

"I have thrown out those, as loose heads of amendment for consideration and correction; and their object is to secure self-government by the republicanism of our constitution, as well as by the spirit of the people; and to nourish and perpetuate that spirit. I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."

In this last sentence is the doctrine of "Jeffersonian simplicity."

Note the summing up and remember how- gradually beginning the work then and substantially completing it under Andrew Jackson - his political disciples pursued his instructions in nearly all the States, and in every case (except the election of grand jurors and (7), the last), to a successful consummation. He came afterwards, as I shall show later in my lecture on Educational Influence, to modify his views on the suffrage, to the extent, of desiring an educational, or reading and writing, qualification. This is being gradually adopted, and will be universally.

Dr. Grigsby says in his discourses on the Virginia Convention of 1776:

"The first Constitution of Virginia withstood, for nearly forty years, his (Jefferson's) attacks in the Notes; but when he threw his thoughts into the shape of a letter to Kercheval, the fate of that instrument was sealed. The phrases of that letter were at once stereotyped in the public voice; and it was amusing to observe on the court green, and in debate, how these phrases passed current with men, who had never seen or heard of the letter, and who believed that they were clothing their own thoughts in their own words."

And this summary, too, by Watson is well worth reading and well worth remembering:

"The ink of the Declaration of Independence was hardly dry when this same 'timid' Jefferson hurried to Virginia, challenged the proud, strong aristocracy of the Old Dominion to the field, and unhorsed it in fair fight. Then he accomplished what French Revolutionists found it hard to do, and what Mr. Gladstone found it so hard to do in Ireland, and what no man has been able to do in England to this day—he disestablished the State church.

"Not only that! He told the whites they ought to free the blacks; and told the rich they ought to tax themselves to educate the poor."

"Yet so scholarly a writer as Henry Cabot Lodge, makes 'timidity' a salient feature of Jefferson's character; and Mr. Roosevelt continually repeats that he was 'weak and vacillating.""

What I am now about to quote from Jefferson, I select to repeat and emphasize that it was not alone the state governments, but the county and town governments, within their several spheres, for the full vigor of which he always contended: