And then let us
unfold before our youth his splendid career at the bar--a career radiant
with genius, marked by untiring industry and fidelity to the interests
confided to his care, brilliant with extraordinary displays of
intellect, upheld by dauntless courage, memorable as well by his
triumphant successes as by the moderation of his fees and by the moral
light which he diffused around him, regarding, as he ever did, rapacity,
extortion, and complicity in evil-doing as the worst of crimes, and more
memorable, as blending in a single character, and at an early age, those
uncommon qualities which separately make the reputation of a great
advocate, of a great civilian, and of a great master of the Laws of
Nations; and, more memorable still, when, his high position attained,
and able to add thousands upon thousands to his wealth, he, with noble
self-denial, put another enticing cup away from his lips, and withdrew
with a moderate competence only to the bosom of his family and to the
peaceful pursuits of agriculture, leaving, as an example worthy of all
imitation, a broad margin which Plutus might have condemned, but which
Socrates, Cato, and Cicero would have extolled, between the bar of man
and that supreme tribunal before which we must all appear; how, when in
the retirement which he so much loved, his country called for his
services, he promptly and generously rendered them, serving a long term
of years, speaking, accustomed as he was to speak, rarely, but
effectively and conclusively, so that nothing was to be said after him,
and winning laurels for himself in the high places of the land, and from
the foremost spirits of the age--laurels whose only worth in his eyes
was that he might lay them at the feet of that blessed mother of us all,
our beloved Virginia; how, when he had performed long and distinguished
service abroad, which Virginia and the whole country were anxious to
reward, he again sought retirement, relinquishing without a sigh to
others those personal honors which so fascinate the votaries of
ambition, but which had no charm for him; how, when he had formed with
the utmost deliberation his political creed, he adhered most closely and
conscientiously, and in the face of great temptations, to its cardinal
doctrines throughout his entire course; yet, throning country above
party in the empire of his affections, he did not hesitate to oppose as
readily and as fearlessly his political friends when he deemed them
wrong as he sustained them when he believed them to be right; how,
though a stern upholder of the public honor, he ever sought to avoid
war, when it was consistent with the public interests to defer it, and,
in 1807, when a false step on his part would have brought on an instant
rupture with Great Britain, he, with consummate tact and courage, poured
oil upon the troubled waters, and averted a war which, under the
circumstances, would have been worse than a civil war--_bellum plus quam
civile_--a war to the knife; how, at a later day, when, on the eve of
the conclusion of the war in Europe, it was resolved to commence
hostilities with England, he sought to postpone the struggle for a
season, convinced that a short delay would render it unnecessary, and
how signally his foresight was justified by the result; thus
recommending, in opposition to the pervading sentiment of the State, a
policy which would have saved thousands of valuable lives, and a hundred
millions of money, expended in our contest with England; how, at a still
later day, when the Senate of the United States, unconsciously and
needlessly, were about to involve us in a war with Spain, his eloquence
rescued the country from the impending danger; yet, when war was
declared against his will, ever ready to unite with his countrymen in
prosecuting hostilities with the greatest vigor; how, alone among all
the departed statesmen of Virginia, he managed, with the industry and
attention of an ordinary citizen, his private affairs, into which he
introduced a system which the planter and the merchant might wisely
imitate, and which enabled him to compete with his most skilful
contemporaries in the success which followed all his exertions; how,
unseduced by a love of gold in an age of speculation, he never committed
a dollar to the caprices of fortune, or lost an investment; how, though
affluent with wealth, won mainly by downright industry, and waxing
greater every hour by the force of that wondrous element in the
accumulation of money, a lengthened lapse of years, he constantly and
steadily turned his back upon the extravagance and social follies of the
day, and exhibited in his household and in his life those stern and
sterling virtues of prudence, economy, and thrift, which were the
characteristics of the early fathers of the republic; displaying before
the eyes of the people a model wherein the loftiest genius, the most
varied and profound learning, the most fervid patriotism ever sinking
self in country, the severe simplicity and frugality which should ever
shine along the track of a true republican statesman, and an escutcheon
undebased by a solitary vice, were united in all their fair and grand
proportions; how, in his happy home, he dispensed, freely and without
price, the marvellous stores of learning and experience which he had
amassed during his long and eventful career, turning his modest study
into a chamber of philosophy, and the well-spring of oracles more
practical, more prudent, more profound, and penetrating further into the
abyss of the dark and illimitable future than were ever uttered at the
Pythian fane; and last, though not least, how, in the lingering twilight
of his years as in their earliest dawn, he loved Virginia, not with that
cold feeling which looks to latitude and longitude, to East or to West,
as the limits of affection, but, first, in that tender and household
light, as the home of his ancestry, the sepulchre of his sires, his own
birth and burial-place, and the birth and burial-place of those who were
dear to him, and then in that more majestic aspect as the bride of
liberty, the first born of the colonies of Britain, and the first born
of the States of the new world, as the mother of heroes, statesmen, and
philosophers, "above all Greek, above all Roman fame," as the sole
mistress of his heart, valuing her humblest commission, whether stamped
by the greater or the lesser seal, above the highest honors which a
federal executive could bestow, or the most gorgeous transcript of
imperial praise, as a free, puissant, and perfect commonwealth, as an
integral, independent, and sovereign State, as independent, as
sovereign, as when she struck the lion with his senseless motto from her
flag, and placed in their stead her own Virtue, erect, with a helmet on
her head, a spear in her hand, and a fallen crown at her feet, and that
ever dear and ever living sentiment, "SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS," and
especially and touchingly, with unutterable and inextinguishable
affection, as the beneficent parent who had rocked his cradle, who had
held out to him in youth the helping hand, who had honored his meridian
and his setting years with her greenest bays, and who as he humbly and
fondly hoped, would drop a tear upon his tomb, and hold his name not
unworthy of her remembrance.
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