Our clergy, before the revolution, having been
secured against rivalship by fixed salaries, did not give themselves the
trouble of acquiring influence over the people. Of wealth, there were
great accumulations in particular families, handed down from generation
to generation, under the English law of entails. But the only object
of ambition for the wealthy was a seat in the King's Council. All their
court then was paid to the crown and its creatures; and they Philipized
in all collisions between the King and the people. Hence they were
unpopular; and that unpopularity continues attached to their names. A
Randolph, a Carter, or a Burwell must have great personal superiority
over a common competitor, to be elected by the people, even at this
day. At the first session of our legislature after the Declaration of
Independence, we passed a law abolishing entails. And this was followed
by one abolishing the privilege of primogeniture, and dividing the
lands of intestates equally among all their children, or other
representatives. These laws, drawn by myself, laid the axe to the root
of pseudo-aristocracy. And had another which I prepared been adopted by
the legislature, our work would have been complete. It was a bill for
the more general diffusion of learning. This proposed to divide every
county into wards of five or six miles square, like your townships; to
establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing, and common
arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects
from these schools, who might receive, at the public expense, a higher
degree of education at a district school; and from these district
schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects, to
be completed at an University, where all the useful sciences should
be taught.
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