Benjamin Austin (1752–1820)

I have to acknowledge the receipt, some time ago, of a volume from you, the papers of which I had before read as they appeared in under the signature of Old South; and had read with uncommon satisfaction. A sacred devotion to the natural rights of man, and to the principles of representative government which offers the fairest chance of preserving them, with an intrepidity bidding defiance to every thing which was not reason, had already marked the author as one of the valuable advocates of human nature. ... (TJ to Austin, 28 June 1803)

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbc3&fileName=rbc0001_2007jeffca...… (meer)