Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-03-27
JefersOn's Debts.

1
MIR. PARTON, in his chapter of Jeffer
| sons life, for the atlantic Nonth1y for
| March, abiding to Jefferson's resolution
| to quit the public service at the end OF
Washington's first term, says:
But why this agonizing desire for re-
| tirement? Thereby hangs tale If we
give ten reasons for a certain course of
conduct, there is often an eleventh which
we do not give; and that unspoken one is
apt to be the reason. He could no longer
afford to serve the public on the terms
fixed by Congress. 1t was not merely
that his salary did not pay the cost of his
Philadelphia establishment, nor that his
estate was ill-managed by overseers. An
ancient debt hung, as he says, ''like q
milestone round his neck, "a debt which
he had twice paid, although not incurred
by him. Upon the death of his wife's
father, twenty years before, he had re-
celVed property from his estate worth
SAT, 600, but subject to British debt Of
S13, OOO. Impatient Of debt, he sold fine
farm near Monticello for sum sufficient
to discharge it; but by the time he received
the money, the war of the Revelation had
begun. Virginia invited all men owing
money to Great Britain to deposit the
same in her Treasury, the State agreeing
to pay 1t over to the British creditor
after the war. Tie identical coin which
Jefferson received for his farm he him
self carried to the treasury in Williams
burg, where it was Immediately expended
in equipping troops.
The Legislature of Virginia, however,
thought better Of this policy, -escinded the
resolution, and returned the sums receiv-
ed under it. But Jefferson was obliged to
take back his thirteen thousand dollars in
deprecated paper, which continued to de
preclate until it was worthless. In fact,
the thirteen thousand dollars just sufflced
to buy him one garment; and in riding by
that farm, III after years, he would some
times point to it, and say, laughing,
That farm once sold for an overcoat"
At the end Of the war, during which
CORVALLIS destroyed more than enough
OF his property 10 pay this debt, he had,
as be remarked " to lay his shoulders to
the payment of it a third time" in addi-
tIon to considerable debt of his own in
CURED just before the outbreak of hostili-
ties. What the laws of Virginia." he
wrote to his creditor ia England, are,
or may be, will in no wise influence my
conduct. Substantial justice is my object,
as decided by reason, not by
authority or compulsion." Ever since
reduce these debts; and, finally, made an
arrangement for paying them off at the
rate of four hundred pounds sterling
year. How easy this ought to have been
to person owning ten thousand acres of
excellent land, lone hundred and fifty
four slaves, thirty four horses. five mules,
TWO hundred and forty nine cattle, three
hundred and ninety hogs, and three
sheep!' But only two thousand acres of
his lands were Cultivated, nine of his
horses were used for the saddle, aud the
labor of his slaves had been, for ten years,
directed by overseers. In 1898 the great
er part Of the debt remained to be dis
charged, and he saw, whenever he visited
Monticello, such evidences of "the rava-
ges of overseers" as filed him with alarm.
lie had now a scn-in-law to settle, q
second daughter to establish, mountain
Gus debt to pay, high Office to live up
to, and an estate going to ruin. Behold
his eleventh unuttered reason for the
frenzy which possessed him to live at
home.
He might well desire to see the reign of
overseers brought to an end on his estate.
Readers remember, perhaps, General
w ashlngtOn's experience with them.
How, when he owned one hundred and
one cows, he was compelled to buy butter
for his own table; and how, after building
one of the best barns in the country,
where thirty men could conveniently
WELD the fail, he could not prevent his
manager from treading out the grain
with horses-so impossible was it, he says,
TO put the overseers of this country out
of the track they have been accustomed
to walk in" He reached home for his
annual vacation in 1898, about the middle
of September, and caught this truly con-
sentative gentleman in the act. II found
treading- yard" wrote the President,
mot thirty feet from the barn-door, the
wheat again brought out of the barn, and
horses treading it out ia an open expo
sure, liable to the vicissitudes of wealth
er." With such men to manage, the Gen
eral thought the new threshing machine
would have brief existence