the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities." The advocacy of this measure brought on the bitterest contest in which Jefferson was ever engaged. It was the beginning of his long warfare with the clergy. In terms peculiar to theological combat he was denounced as the enemy of religion and as an atheist. The clergy at first were successful. The bill failed to pass. Some of its provisions, however, were acceded to by the legislature. The law declaring unorthodox opinion to be criminal was repealed, attendance at church was made voluntary and dissenters were allowed to withhold their contributions from the Episcopal Church. These were substantial gains, but they were far from religious liberty as aimed at by Jefferson. For three years he fought for the complete separation of Church and State, and then, being called to a higher station, he left his plans in the hands of his able and indispensable coadjutors, George Wythe, and his young disciple, James Madison. In 1786, after a struggle of ten years, Jefferson had the supreme satisfaction of seeing his bill pass without material change. He did not over-estimate the importance of his efforts in behalf of religious liberty.* If the Republic of the United States is new in any important sense, if it has introduced anything really novel among human institutions, that new thing is the separation of Church and State. The world has had its democracies, its republics, its governments with a trinal division of powers, its representative systems, but it has never before known such a thing as a free state existing side by side with a free church, and along with this an almost perfect freedom of religious opinion. This is what Virginia needed and what the United States needed, and Jefferson saw the need more clearly than any man of his time. The man who wrote the words "all men are created equal" could not but be expected to chafe under the institutions of slavery. Jefferson was an abolitionist in theory, but practical abolition presented insuperable objections to his mind. His *See Religion, page 357. plan was to bring about the freedom of the negroes by gradual emancipation.* He drew up and offered a bill preventing the further importation of slaves by sea or land. This bill, which readily passed, was intended as the first of a series that should remove every vestige of slavery from the State. His scheme, briefly stated, was to regard as lawfully free all slave-born children, to educate them at the public expense, and when they were grown, to transplant them to some distant and isolated colony where they might enjoy under a mild protectorate the privileges of self-government. He did not believe that the negro could live as a free man side by side with the white man, but he did most sincerely believe that he ought to be free. And he believed that he would be free. "Nothing," he said, "was more clearly written in the book of fate." Very little nevertheless, came of his elaborate scheme for emancipation. "The public mind would not bear it," he said; and it does not appear that after the Revolutionary period he was ever very industrious in his efforts to prepare the public mind to bear it. A bill that was dearer even to Jefferson's heart than that for the freedom of the slaves was one for the diffusion of knowledge. He saw that a democracy must rest upon the enlightenment of the masses and he brought forward his system; free elementary schools for all the children of the State for a term of three years; high schools at convenient places for superior and ambitious youths; a State university at the top. Many States of the Union have adopted this system, but Virginia was not prepared for it when Jefferson proposed it. The measure failed in the legislature more completely than any of its author's cherished reforms. Early in 1777 Jefferson proposed to the legislature a complete revision of the laws of Virginia. The proposal was adopted, and he was appointed chairman of the revising committee. His colleagues on the committee were Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, George Mason and T. L. Lee. *See Emancipation, page 201. See Education, page 194. Mason resigned on the ground that he was not a lawyer, and Lee soon died. The work, therefore, fell upon Jefferson, Pendleton and Wythe, and as Pendleton was not skilful at such business, the burden of the task fell upon Jefferson and his old law preceptor. For two years these two worked upon the revision, going over the whole body of British and colonial statutes, and extracting therefrom a concise and coherent system of law for the future government of Virginia. The report of the revisers consisted of one hundred and twenty-six bills, but these were not adopted in a mass. Bills included in the revision were taken up from time to time and passed as the temper of the legislature permitted and the needs of the hour demanded. In 1785 the report was taken up systematically. Jefferson was far away from Virginia at this time, but he had left his work in faithful hands. Through the persistent efforts of his youthful neighbor and political ally, James Madison, most of the work of the revision was enacted into law. JEFFERSON AS GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. In 1779, at the age of thirty-six, Jefferson was elected Governor of Virginia by the legislature of the State. His rival for the honor was the trusted friend of his youth, John Page, one of the wealthiest men in Virginia and an ardent patriot. The contest was conducted in the most decent manner imaginable, and ended with good humor on both sides. Page sent his successful friend a note of congratulation and good wishes. Jefferson's reply is a model of delicacy and tact. "It had given me much pain," he said, "that the zeal of our respective friends should have ever placed us in the situation of competitors. I was comforted, however, with the reflection that it was their competition, not ours, and that the difference of the numbers which decided between us was too insignificant to give you a pain or me a pleasure, had our dispositions toward each other been such as to admit these sensations." Page had a long and honorable public career, and lived to see the day when it was Jefferson's time to congratulate him as Governor of Virginia. The two remained close friends, and when Jefferson was President he took special pains to provide Page with a profitable sinecure. When he took his seat as Governor on June 1st, 1779, Virginia was in a sad plight. The French alliance, which had just been concluded, had aroused England to a bitter and cruel policy, and had not as yet aroused a corresponding zeal in America. If America was to become an accession to France, it was the interest of England, her commissioners declared, to render that accession of as little avail as possible. Pillage and the torch and extermination were now to be the means of subjugation. The brunt of the new warfare was to be borne by the South. The fairest scene for the ravaging of the invader was Virginia. On the west-and her western frontier extended to the Mississippi-the Indians incited by English agents were threatening to cross the Alleghanies and destroy the civilization. of the border counties. On the east, broad, deep streams invited British men-of-war to ascend and efface the important places of the State, for there were no boats and no forts to prevent them. On the south the armies of Cornwallis were harrying the Carolinas and pressing hard upon the border. At the North was Washington, calling for assistance. The State was helpless to resist an invasion. Her four armed vessels, which mounted in all but sixty-two guns, were so poorly manned that they were practically useless. Her militia, considering the vast area to be defended, was very small; worse still, it was inexperienced; and worst of all, it was wretchedly supplied with the munitions of war. There was but one good gun for four or five men. There were no saddles, blankets, tents, and there was no money with which to buy these things. The normal military resources of the State had been exhausted in responding to the call of Washington and Congress. To defend the State successfully in such circumstances required a great administrator and a great warrior, and Jefferson was neither. He was the author of some pleasing speculations in political science, he was a bold reformer of the jurisprudence of his State, but he had never been tested for practical states manship. He entered upon his arduous duties with decision and energy, and for a year at least his administration moved along fairly well. In the west the brilliant George Rogers Clarke captured Colonel Hamilton, the English leader of the Indians, and sent him in chains to Jefferson. The captive was a dangerous man and had inflicted wanton barbarities upon the Americans. Jefferson, in retaliation, chained him and threw him into a dungeon. Protests arose, and the Governor bending to Washington's judgment finally unshackled the prisoner and admitted him to parole. The capture of Hamilton and his forces was a most fortunate event for Virginia, for it freed her western border from the danger of Indian incursions; it was also fortunate for the American cause, for it secured to the Americans the possession of a vast area (the North West Territory) that otherwise would have been claimed by the English when settling the terms of the treaty of peace. Jefferson's first year in office passed without disaster, and he was re-elected for a second term. Serious troubles now began. The enemy was pressing hard upon the southern border and the most strenuous action was imperative. Gates went south in 1780 to take command, and it was Jefferson's judgment that if Virginia was to be saved from the scourge of a ruthless invasion it must be through Gates. All his efforts, therefore, were directed toward strengthening the hands of that general in the Carolinas. The counties were scoured for men; wagons (including those of the Governor) were impressed into service; blacksmith shops were converted into armories; ladies were asked and not in vain-to contribute their jewels to the cause. But all this exertion came to naught. In August, 1780, Gates was defeated with shame and disaster at Camden, South Carolina, and the march of the enemy northward, although impeded, could not be checked. In October a British fleet of sixty vessels, with three thousand regulars under General Leslie, sailed into Hampton Roads, where they remained waiting for a junction with Cornwallis. Greene and the yeomanry of North Carolina were making traveling slow and difficult for that |