Like Charles James Fox, to whom Edmund Burke referred, Thomas Jefferson was the foremost Commoner of his day, and he allowed no opportunity to pass unimproved, to lift the common people to higher conceptions of life and duty. Such men are rare, and I am glad to be able conscientiously to place the name of Thomas Jefferson, in many important respects, and particularly as the champion of the rights of the common people, pre-eminently above all the other distinguished Americans of his generation; and I wish it understood that I make this statement upon a fair comprehensive knowledge of the acts and works of the leading men of that period of our country's history. Jefferson in early life accepted the idea or theory that the first and most general truth in history is that men ought to be free. He evidently felt that if happiness is the end of the human race, then freedom is the condition, and that this freedom should not be a kind of a half escape from thralldom and tyranny, but it should be ample and absolute. This theory is most admirably expressed in the opening of the Declaration of Independence, of which he was the sole author, and which was adopted almost literally as he wrote it: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." Democratic principles cannot be more clearly expressed than in the language above quoted, nor can any creed be more clearly defined. It is but just to state, therefore, that no individual American represents more distinctively the constructive power of the principles of popular government than Thomas Jefferson, who was then as now the greatest of all Virginians save one--Washington. In all of his public acts he was upheld by his confidence in the people, and he was so tactful at all times that he never allowed himself to wander at any great distance from the masses of his fellows. His faith in the reserve power of the people was imposing, and by this trustfulness he stamped himself as the matchless leader of his times, and among the greatest leaders of all times. Excepting, perhaps, Washington and Lincoln, the name of Jefferson is the most conspicuous of all Americans, and will endure longest in the annals of the history of the Great Republic, because it must be conceded that his theories of government have had more influence upon the public life of America than those of any other American citizen, living or dead.