eloquence. In fact, he never distinguished himself as a speaker either in court, or in Congress. His voice wanted strength, com pass, flexibility. William Wirt, in his ornate and elaborate eulogy of Jefferson, delivered at Washington, on the iQth of October, 1826, touches upon this point with his usual flow ing eloquence: "The study of the law lie pur sued under George Wythe; a man of Roman stamp, in Rome's best age. Here he ac quired that unrivalled neatness, system and method in business, which, through all his life, and in every office that he filled, gave him, in effect, the hundred hands of Briareus; here, too, following the giant steps of his master, he travelled the whole round of the civil and common law. From the same ex ample he caught that untiring spirit of inves tigation which never left a subject till he had searched it to the bottom. In short, Mr. Wythe placed on his head the crown of legal preparation: and well did it become him. Permit me, here, to correct an error which seems to have prevailed. It has been thought that Mr. Jefferson made no figure at the bar: but the case was far otherwise. There are still extant, in his own fair and neat hand, in the manner of his master, a number of argu ments which were delivered by him at the bar upon some of the most intricate questions of the law; which if they shall ever see the light will vindicate his claim to the first hon ors of the profession. It is true he was not distinguished in popular debates: why he was not so, has often been a matter of surprise to those who have seen his eloquence on paper and heard it in conversation. He had all the attributes of mind, and the heart and soul, which are essential to elo quence of the highest order. The only <1efect was a physical one: He wanted volume and compass of voice for a large de liberate assembly; and his voice, from the ex cess of his sensibility, instead of rising with his feelings, and conceptions, sunk under their pressure?nd became guttural and in
articulate. The consciousness of this infirm ity repressed any attempt in a large body in which he knew he must fail. But his voice was all sufficient for the purpose of judicial debate; and there is no reason to doubt that, if the services of his country had not called him away so soon from his profession, his fame as a lawyer would now have stood up on the same distinguished ground which he confessedly occupies as a statesman, an au thor, and a scholar." When the year 1775 began, Thomas Jeffer son, was only a successful young lawyer, un known outside of his own State. When that year closed, he was known all over the thir teen colonies as one of the leading patriots. While Fox, Burke, Chatham and Junius were teaching the people of England the inestima ble blessing of constitutional government, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and Rich ard Henry Lee were proclaiming in Virginia that no power on earth has a right to impose taxes on a people, or take the smallest por tion of their property without their consent given by their representatives—that this prin ciple was the chief pillar of the common wealth, without which no man can possess the least possible shadow of liberty. Thomas Jefferson was one of the best edu cated men of the eighteenth century, either in Europe or America. One of his biogra phers deliberately declares that, "of all the public men who have figured in the United States, he was incomparably the best scholar, and the most variously accomplished man." It has been suggested that Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson would have made an unrivalled partnership as lawyers—Jefferson to prepare the cases, and Henry to plead them with his matchless eloquence; thus, each supplying what the other lacked. Of few men can it be said with more truth t'.ian of Thomas Jefferson that he "Sounded all the depths and shoals of honor."
