Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-13

l trust you will pardon me for refer
ring to the Declaration of independence.
1t may be thought by some to be a very
old-fashioned instrument for this day
and time; perhaps it Is, and yet 1t was
the fashion of the fathers; and whenever
it's spirit ceases to be fashionable though
an old fashion 1t may be, re-
publican government will have persisted
from the face of the earth. Jefferson
wrotesthat instrument, and in il he said,
amongst other things, that all men were
created equal, and were endowed by the
Creator-not by government-with the
inalienable rights of life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. He said further
hat to secure these rights, governments
were instituted among men deriving their
just powers from the consent of the gov
erned. These self-evident propositions
constitute the foundation of republican
governments; all else is mere superstruc-
ture. The spirit of that declaration per-
vades the constitutions of forty-two
states, as it does the Fedora constitution
in every line from the preamble to the
signature of George Washington. What
followed that declaration you all know:
the establishment Of a new republic, the
struggles of the revolution, the confed-
GRAFTON and finally the present coustitu-
ton.
AS the author of that paper Jefferson
might well have rested upon his honorS,
confident that his name and his renown
would be banded down from generation
to generation so long as republican in
situations should exist among men. The
discovery n PRONUNCIATION of a new.
and as we believe, the only correct theo-
~ of government, might well have sat-
isfied the ambition of an ordinary man;
but he did not stop; his
grander work was yet before him.
So far he had only aid the foundations
for q national government. There were
still reforms TO be made in matters that
concerned the domestic affairs of the
people. The new scheme OF national
government was we'll enough in its way,
but 1t never could be vitaliZed n made
TO achieve its purpose until the last yes
tIge of the old regime should be dug up,
root and branch. To this undertaking
Jefferson addressed himself. He had
been elected a delegate to the congress
which adopted the great declaration,
which he had written; he was reelected
but resigned in order to become u mem
Der of the Virginia house of burgesses,
where he could inaugurate and accom-
plish those reforms which were to crown
his glorious work. l have told you that
Jefferson was an aristocrat; yet
it was he who destroyed aristocracy in this
government. IL he were living to-day
there are those who would call him a
m~onopolist on account of his wealth; yet
it was he who laid the ak at the root of
the tree of monopoly. He proposed to
eradicate every fiber of ancient or future
aristocracy, n how well he did his
work you will find written in your own
constitution and in the constitution of
every state in the Union IN these words:
''Perpetuities and monopolies are con-
trary to the genius of a free government,
and shall never be allowed; nor shall the
law of primogeniture or entailments ever
be in force in this state
Jefferson had no hand in framing the
Federal constitution as originally
adopted, and it was not entirely salts
factory TO him. He did
not believe it sufficiently guarded
the rights of the states
against the dangers of Federal encroach-
meut, and he devoted himself to the
work of amending it so as to define the
respective spheres of Federal and state
government beyond the possibility of
reasonable doubt. To his watohful and
jealous care the people are indebted for
the first ten amendments, and notably
the tenth, which furnishes the Demo-
cratic rule for the ascerta nment of the
respective powers of Federal and state
government. He believed that the
powers of the national government
should be limited to objects of national
concern, and that in the states rested,
and should ever rest, ali those powers
that concerned the domestic affairs of the
people and the we'll being Of society.
Jefferson thought that the world was
governed too much, for he believed in
the largest individual liberty consistent
with the good order of society. Class
legislation found no countenance from
lin; he was for an open field and a fair
race between all men, with no inter
terence on the part of the government to
help those who fell by the wayside, nor
yet to hinder those who ran ahead.
~Paternalism in government was his
abomination.
And now if the eye of a jealous watch
fulness over the system which he founded
can discern any tendencies which might
endanger its foundation, let US sound
the note OF alarm and invoke the iuiu-
ence of his spirit.
The founding Of the new republic,
though an epoch in the history of man
kind, provoked the derision of the mon
arches of the old world. They believed
that the people were incapable of self
government; and the proposition that
governments derived their just powers
from the consent of the governed, and
that that consent should be derived from
a universal suffrage, seemed to them the
very height of human folly. They be-
lleved that strong governments, admin
istered by a governing class which the
people had no power to either make or
mar, best promoted the welfare and hap
piness of mankind. They could not see
how the masses could be trusted to make
and unmake rulers.
You will not forget that many of the
most patriotic of the revolutionists though
q new government, republi-
can in form, yet had the most serious
misgivIngs as to its ultimate success.
They knew it was largely experimental
and their faith was small. Hamilton
and his followers were surely as patriotic
as Jefferson, and yet the former a
their doubts though Jefferson had, lone.
Hamilton, who wanted a strong central
government because he lacked. faith in
the De0Dla Orevaiied for a time. and IL