deference, conceived a more exalted idea of him, on this simple and unpretending occasion, than they had ever previously entertained."

Mr. Tucker is in error in saying, that the sole object of the meeting was to ascertain a single statistical fact. The Commissioners sat four days, and adopted a long report, drawn up by Mr. Jefferson, in regard to the several specified objects of their appointment.'

In February, 1819, the first Board of Visitors of the University was chosen, and it consisted of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Chapman Johnson, James Breckenridge, Robert B. Taylor, John H. Cocke, and Joseph C. Cabell. On the 29th day of March, 1819, the Visitors held their first meeting, and unanimously appointed Mr. Jefferson rector.

The buildings were erected on three sides of a square or lawn, fronting inwards. One side is occupied by the rotunda and some other structures for the common use of the students, and two sides by professors' houses (called "pavilions "), and intervening rows of students' apartments but one story in height, faced with colonnades. The pavilions, ten in number, display several different architectural orders. Their columns, capitals, etc., and those of the rotunda, were executed in Italy. This mixture of orders destroys unity of effect, but the result is generally regarded as agreeable. Students' rooms thus constructed are greatly more conducive to comfort and health, and to escape in case of fire, than those arranged in the ordinary way in large and lofty buildings; but they are also greatly more expensive in proportion to the number of persons to be accommodated. Some peculiarities and inconveniences about the buildings will hereafter be mentioned in descriptions which we shall quote. Mr. Jefferson had substantially the entire control of the plan and manner of completing the edifices, and for reasons which are very exactly expressed by Professor Tucker:

"Though every essential part of the establishment required the sanction of the Board of Visitors, yet on almost all occasions they yielded to his views, partly from

And it would appear from the report "signed and certified by the Members present," that President Monroe did not attend. The names appended to the report are, Th. Jefferson, Creed Taylor, Peter Randolph, Wm. Brockenbrough, Arch'd Rutherford, Arch'd Stuart, James Breckenridge, Henry E. Watkins, James Madison, A. T. Mason, Hugh Holmes, Phil. C. Pendleton, Spencer Roane, John M. C. Taylor, J. G. Jackson, Phil. Slaughter, Wm. H. Cabell, Nat. H. Claiborne, Wm. A. C. Dade, William Jones, and Thomas Wilson.

the unaffected deference which most of the Board had for his judgment and experi ence, and partly for the reason often urged by Mr. Madison, that as the scheme was originally Mr. Jefferson's, and the chief responsibility for its success or failure would fall on him, it was but fair to let him execute it in his own way."1

It is a rule adopted by some practical men to estimate carefully and minutely the cost of the labor and materials for an edifice, and then double the sum to ascertain the actual eventual cost. If the owner or builder has an architectural mania, the first estimate should be tripled. Mr. Jefferson had this mania pretty well developed, and the expense of the University structures swelled far beyond his expectations, or those of the public. Two or three times the embryo institution came near being wrecked by this cause the Legislature hesitating, and sometimes refusing to make new appropriations. There was a strong party in that body deeply opposed to the institution, for reasons which will hereafter appear, and even cautious friends occasionally got out of patience. When driven to the wall, Mr. Jefferson always proposed some plan, or made some appeal which proved irresistible.

During his struggles to make the University, in all particulars, what he conceived it ought to be, he had many able and zealous coadjutors; but there was one whom it would be unjust to pass over without special notice, Joseph Carrington Cabell. Of an ancient and opulent family, abounding with honored names -the son of Colonel Nicholas Cabell, of Liberty Hall, distinguished in the Revolution-the nephew of the still more distinguished William Cabell, of Union Hill-his mother of the talented and patriotic family of Carrington-himself cultivated by a finished education, and foreign travel, and uniting in an eminent degree, ability, discretion, and earnestness of character-a zealous lover of education-a warm friend of Jefferson, but independent in his own views-he was most wisely selected as the confidant and legislative mover in the University undertaking. Never was a trust better fulfilled; and in the language of General Dade, in the Virginia Senate, in 1828, "in promoting that monument of wisdom and taste [he] was second only to the im

1 Life of Jefferson, vol. ii., p. 431.

Dr. Grigsby, in his Discourse on the Virginia Convention of 1776, says of William Cabell, of Union Hill: "What Washington was on the banks of the Potomac, Cabell was on the banks of the Upper James." He owned 25,000 acres of the best lands in Nelson and Amherst counties, and his hospitality was similar in its scale and character to that of Mount Vernon and Monticello.

mortal Jefferson." Cabell succeeded Mr. Madison in the Rectorship, and died in that office in 1856.'

An exciting episode in the history of the University occurred in 1820. The Board of Visitors of Central College had, it is presumed at Mr. Jefferson's instance, agreed with the celebrated Dr. Cooper (celebrated as Priestley's friend, as a victim of the Sedition Law, and as a man of profound education and capacity), to take a professorship, as soon as the institution should open. The appointment was continued when the college was converted into the University. Cooper was reputed to be a Unitarian.

The appointment transpiring, the clergy of Virginia at once, to use Mr. Jefferson's words, raised a "hue and cry ;" and he complained that they directed it as much against the institution as against Cooper's appointment. Perhaps jealousies had previously existed as to what religious direction a school under the auspices of the overthrower of hierarchy would be likely to take; and Cooper's appointment confirmed, or furnished a good pretext for those jealousies. The censures of the clergy found a decided and dangerous echo in the Legislature. Mr. Jefferson was annoyed and provoked by the storm about his ears, and his private letters exhibit keen resentment. He warmly lashed the clergy, as desiring to restore a "Holy Inquisition," and especially the Presbyterians, whom he accused of taking the lead in the matter. But he exhibited his usual good sense in action, by causing the engagement with Cooper to be cancelled on terms equitable and satisfactory to the latter.

Some blame ought, doubtless, to attach to both the parties to this controversy. It cannot be claimed that Mr. Jefferson acted discreetly in employing first, and therefore conspicuously, a Professor in a State University, whose religious opinions were obnoxious to nearly the entire body of the religious people of that State. It could not have been necessary, in order to obtain pro

1 The historian of the University, in speaking of the founders of that Institution, says: "If in this connection, the thanks of posterity are principally due to Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Cabell, it should not be forgotten that they had most efficient coadjutors; as Messrs. Watson, Boadnax, Samuel Taylor, R. Morris (of Hanover), Gordon, Stevenson, and many others from the East; and Johnson, Baldwin, Blackburn, and above all, a Breckenridge from the West." (Introduction, p. xxxvi.) We shall add one name to this list, that of Colonel Thomas Mann Randolph, who, after retiring from the office of Governor, reëntered the Legislature from Albemarle; and we find repeated allusions to his efficient aid, in Cabell's letters.

* He succeeded Mr. Madison in 1834, but resigned two years later, and Chapman Johnson was appointed. Mr. Johnson resigned in 1845, and Cabell was reappointed, and continued in the office until his death.

VOL. III.-30

per literary and other qualifications. If the appointment was made with special reference to Cooper's theological creed, and an expected propagation of it through him, no candid man could deny that, under the circumstances, it exhibited a reprehensible motive, and involved a violation of the spirit of all Mr. Jefferson's professions in regard to the proper and constitutional mode of treating the different religious sects in the foundation of the University.

But the clergy had no right, without waiting for further developments, to go beyond the obnoxious appointment, and preach a crusade against the institution. And no liberal member of that profession would have assumed, that the mere appointment. showed that Mr. Jefferson had the propagation of Cooper's religious opinions in view, had they understood what was his uniform conduct in regard to the religious creeds of others. The man who never communicated his inner religious beliefs to more than half a dozen persons-who never communicated them to his own family, except so far as he conceived it necessary to show he was not an infidel'—who declined communicating them to his family on the express ground that it would be improper, inasmuch as it might influence their views-would not be likely to turn proselyter on so public and comprehensive a scale as that of a State University. Mr. Jefferson well knew that suspicious and watchful eyes were upon him-that an attempt to propagate tenets obnoxious to the Virginia churches, by means of the University, could not be concealed for a day, and that such an attempt, if clearly made to appear, would at once prove fatal to the institution.

There was a magnanimous class of clergymen and gentlemen in Virginia who had objected to Cooper's appointment, but who were completely satisfied by his withdrawal, and by the subsequent appointments. The more distant echoes of the misunderstanding did not so rapidly die away, or rather, new charges were brought against Mr. Jefferson's religious "designs" in founding the University. Long after Cooper's appointment

1 We do not apply this remark to all who denounced the selection of Cooper. We apprehend it does not apply to the leading Presbyterian assailant, the Rev. Dr. John Rice, who preached, and edited a religious paper at Richmond. We have not seen his articles, but the apparently candid editor of the History of the University describes him as a courteous and liberal man, a non-combatant in politics, a zealous advocate of education, and a known friend of the University.

See his letter to his daughter Martha, ante, p. 45.

ceased to be talked about, and the professorships had been otherwise filled (filled under Mr. Jefferson's immediate auspices, and according to his wishes), long after the "Father of the University" slept in his grave on Monticello, a Review, of high literary character, and known to be supplied with matter by able clerical pens, assumed that Mr. Jefferson intended the University as "a machine" "for the work of proselyting;" that "ardent, generous, gifted, and unsuspecting youth was here made. the victim of a deliberate, cold-blooded, calculating design for its corruption." In view of these statements and various oral traditions of analogous tenor, as old as the great political struggle of 1800, we took pains to ascertain from the two surviving original professors, who remain in the United States, what were the religious opinions of themselves and colleagues, and how far they had reason to believe those opinions influenced their selection. The following replies were received:

1

TO HENRY S. RANDALL,

PHILADELPHIA, May 28, 1856.

DEAR SIR, I am not able to give you all the information you require relative to the first Visitors and Professors of the University. The Visitors, I believe were Messrs. Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Chapman Johnson, Joseph C. Cabell, Gen. John H. Cocke, and George Loyall. But I am not able to say whether they were Unitarians or Trinitarians. I believe that all the first Professors belonged to the Episcopal Church, except Dr. Blaetterman, who, I believe, was a German Lutheran; but I think there was no one except Mr. Lomax, the Professor of Law, and now a judge, who was a communicant. I don't remember that I ever heard the religious creeds of either Professors or Visitors discussed or inquired into by Mr. Jefferson, or any one else.

I am, very respectfully yours.

TO HENRY S. RANDALL.

GEORGE TUCKER,

PHILADELPHIA, June 1, 1856.

MY DEAR SIR:

I have not the slightest reason for believing that Mr. Jefferson was, in any respect, guided in his selection of Professors of the University of Virginia by religious considerations. The question was certainly never asked me by Mr. Gilmer, who chose some of the Professors in England, myself among the rest; and in all my conversations with Mr. Jefferson, no reference was made to the subject. I was an Episcopalian, so was Mr. Tucker, Mr. Long, Mr. Key, Mr. Bonnycastle, and Dr. Emmet. Dr. Blaetterman, I think, was a Lutheran; but I do not know

1 See the New York Review and Quarterly Church Journal, March, 1837, p. 19.