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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
• soon put into the nomination of Justices of the county in which I live , and at the first election following , I became one of its representatives in the Legislature . I was thence sent to the Old Congress . Then employed two vears with Mr . Pendleton and
Mr . Wythe , ou the revisal and reduction to a single code , of the whole body of the British statutes , the acts of our Assembly , and certain parts of the common law . Then elected
Governor . Next to the Legislature , and to Congress again . Sent to Europe as Minister Plenipotentiary . Appointed Secretary of State to the new Government . Elected Vice-President and
President . And lastly , a visiter and rector of the University . In these different offices , with scarcely any interval between them , I have been in the public service now sixty-one years ; and during" the far greater part of the time , in foreign countries or in other states .
If legislative services are worth mentioning , and the stamp of liberality and equality , which was necessary to be impressed on our laws , in the first crisis of our birth as a nation , was of any value , they will find that
many of the leading and important laws of that day were prepared by myself , and carried chiefly by my efforts : supported , indeed , by able and faithful coadjutors . The prohibition of the further importation of slaves was the first of these measures in
time . This was followed by the abolition of entails , which broke up hereditary and high-handed aristocracy , which , by accumulating immense masses of property in single lines of faintly , had divided our country into two distinct orders of nobles and plebeians . But , further to complete the
equality among our citizens , so essential to the maintenance of Republican Government , it was necessary to abolish the principle of primogeniture ; I drew the law of descents , giving equal inheritance to sons and daughters , which made a part of the revised code .
" The attack on the establishment of a dominant religion was first made by myself . It could be carried at first only by a suspension of salaries for one year , by battling it again at the next session or another year , and eo frooa year to year , until the public
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mind was ripened for the bill for establishing religious freedom , wltich I had prepared for the revised code also . This was at length established perm anently , and by the efforts chie 6 y of Mr . Madison , bei 4 g myself in Europe at the time that work was brought forward .
" I think I might add , the establishment of our University . My residence in the vicinity threw of course on me the chief burden of the enterprise , as well of the buildings as of the general organization and care of the whole . The effect of this
institution on the future fame , fortune , and prosperity of our country , can as yet be seen but &t a distance . But one hundred well-educated youths , which it will turn out annually , aftd ere long , will fill all its offices with men of superior qualifications , and raise it from its humble state to an
eminence among its associates , which it has never yet known- —no , not in its brightest days . Those ilow on the theatre of affairs , will enjoy the ineffable happiness of seeing themselves succeeded by sons of a grade of science "beyond their own ken . Our
sister states will also be repairing to the same fountains of instruction , will bring hither their genius to be kindled at our fire , and will carry back the fraternal affections , which , nourished by the same Alma Mater , will knit us to them by the indissolute bonds of
early personal friendships . The good old dominion , the blessed mother of us all , will then raise her head with pride among the nations , will present to them that splendour of genius ,
which she has ever possessed , but has too long suffered to rest uncultivated and unknown , and will become a centre of reliance to the States , whose youths she has instructed , and , as it were , adopted .
** I claim some share in the merit of this great work of regeneration . My whole labours , now for many years , have been devoted to it , and I stand pledged to follow it up through the remnant of life remaining to me . "
John Adams . President Adams was educated at Cambridge , and to the profession of the law . So eminent was his standing in that profession , that at an early age he was appointed Chief
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638 Jefferson and Adams .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1826, page 638, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2554/page/2/
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