Mr. Jefferson, on the other hand, succeeded at the age of fourteen, in addition to other rights of primogeniture, to an inheritance which, with competent management, was sufficient to satisfy all his wants, and to a social position, when he became a man, which required no pecuniary aids to make his condition in every respect all that was desirable, and one that could scarcely be improved by any change in the government of his country. To an unusual extent devoid of the gift of oratory, personal ambition was less likely to tempt him into the paths of politics. Cherishing always a love of letters, science and the arts, blessed with a genial temper, and in every respect well qualified to adorn and to enjoy the social circle, he seemed destined for a life of elegant ease. But, happily for the cause of human rights throughout the world, and for the welfare especially of his own country, he was impressed by his Maker with an ardent love of liberty, and a zealous devotion to the generous and equalizing principles of republican government, which impelled him into the political field, and placed him from the beginning in unreserved hostility to hereditary political power in any form, to all institutions in the State which secure to particular classes or individuals a preference over others of equal merit, and to all power in government, or in individuals or associations, civil or ecclesiastical, which can be exerted to control the opinions or to coerce the consciences of men. Moved by such impulses, and having "sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man," he entered, at an early age, upon his public career, destined to be long and eventful, and sustained throughout the character given of him on his first appearance in Congress in 1775, by John Adams,--"prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive"--"not even Samuel Adams was more so." From that time until the day of his death he gave his support, never for a moment diminished in zeal or sincerity, and varied only in its efficiency according to the positions he occupied and the influence they afforded for the purpose, to the great principle of "the equality of political rights" which Hamilton well described as "the foundation of pure Republicanism."