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PREFACE

I WROTE and delivered these lectures not only in great haste, but under great pressure. At the time the promise to deliver them was made, Congress was expected to adjourn about the middle of June. It adjourned about the first of September. This subtracted two and one-half months from my time. I deemed it my duty later to devote two and one-half weeks of the time remaining to campaign field work in behalf of the election to the Presidency of one of Mr. Jefferson's successors, Governor Woodrow Wilson. The natural inference from all this is that the work may, and probably does, contain errors.

I have sought as much as possible to bring the past bodily into the present by quotations from dead actors. The reader will find a very free use of italics. It is not good taste; but the hearer was thereby spared much hearing, and the reader will be spared much reading. Italicizing the salient point of a quotation is my way of saving words of comment, which otherwise would be necessary.

No man can entirely divorce himself from his likings and dislikings. I have tried to do it; but I have for long loved world democracy and its apostles, and disliked special privilege and its beneficiaries and upholders.

There is no American about whom more has been written than Mr. Jefferson. In addition to the stand

ard histories of the United States and what they record concerning him, there is a distinct Jeffersonian bibliography. The list below, under the heading "Bibliography," contains articles, pamphlets, and books, especially appertaining to Mr. Jefferson, which I have read either recently, or in times past.

JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS.

PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF

THOMAS JEFFERSON

ON AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

In an article written by Andrew D. White, entitled, "Jefferson and Slavery," in the Atlantic Monthly for January, 1862, he says that "in the architecture" of our democratic republic, we find "the agency mainly of six men."

First, three men who "did most to found the Republic: and these three men are Washington, Adams and Jefferson."

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Secondly, two men who" did most to build the Republic: and these two men are Jefferson and Hamilton."

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Third, three men, who, having a clear theory in their heads, and a deep conviction in their hearts. . . did most to brace the Republic: and these three men are Franklin, Jefferson and Channing."

He continues:

"So, rising above the dust raised in our old quarrels, and taking a broad view of this Democracy, we see Jefferson placed firmly in each of these groups.

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