JEFFERSON'S WORDS ENLIGHTEN NATION.

Byline: JAMES BEMIS

In public buildings and private homes, in giant parks and tiny back yards, in great cities and in small towns, Americans gathered this weekend to celebrate the Fourth of July, our most patriotic of holidays. This national celebration commemorates breaking the yoke of English tyranny, evidenced by the Continental Congress' signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Penned by a young Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence stands with the Constitution and the Federalist Papers as the monumental documents of our nation's founding. With this magnificently written document, the little-known Jefferson immediately established himself as a political writer of the first rank. Our Fourth of July holiday could easily be subtitled Thomas Jefferson Day.

If any American besides George Washington and Abraham Lincoln deserves to have his birthday declared a national holiday, it is Jefferson. President, vice president, secretary of state, ambassador, governor, legislator, scientist, planter, writer, patriot: He was both brilliant and insatiably curious. But it is as author of the Declaration of Independence, setting forth a timeless philosophy of freedom, for which he will forever be remembered.

Certain that our rights are endowed to us by our Creator, Jefferson argued in the Declaration that they are thus unalienable - unable to be given, taken or voted away. Among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Governments are formed to secure these rights, deriving ``their just powers from the consent of the governed.'' This, then, is the role and purpose for which government exists.

When a government becomes destructive of these ends, abusing rather than securing rights, then ``it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it'' and form another more suitable to those ends. In the course of just two paragraphs, Jefferson brilliantly struck the enduring propositions upon which our liberty rests, now as well as then: Our rights are given to us by God, not by government, and government's legitimate powers come only from the consent of the governed.

Looking safely from the distance of 221 years, one can easily overlook what courage it took for the Founding Fathers to declare their independence, risking everything they owned by rebelling.

On frequent occasion, they had witnessed first hand the strength of the British military power and the brutality of the king's troops. To resist, they had little more than their muskets and the will to be free. They could not know, as we do, whether history would judge them as prophets or fools.

It's easy to become cynical about politics today, with polls rather than principles serving as the coin of our political realm. The best antidote to this is to rediscover in our forefathers' writings both our country's noble beginnings and the way our government is really supposed to work - a way bearing little resemblance to today's federal behemoth.

Jefferson was one of the most eloquent exponents of limited government. His Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 should be required reading for every high school civics class. ``In quest of power, then,'' he wrote, ``let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.''

And from his first inaugural address: ``What more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall otherwise leave them free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.''

Liberals have made a recent effort to strike Jefferson from the pantheon of American heroes, based on his holding slaves and on the fondness of some militia groups for his more fiery rhetoric. But this is a simplistic view of a complex man.

According to his autobiography, Jefferson's first act as a Virginia legislator was to propose the emancipation of slaves. Furthermore, his original draft of the Declaration of Independence condemned the British government's tolerance of slavery, a clause later stricken after objection by several Southern states.

Jefferson viewed slavery as an inherited evil that should be ended as quickly and humanely as possible. Nevertheless, he was a slave owner himself, suffering from the same myopia regarding the vile institution that afflicted most prominent men of his age. This should in no way diminish his accomplishments nor our regard for his genius.

To this day, Jefferson can be read with great profit. His writings have a marvelously simple elegance, illuminating and clarifying everything he observes. As one of the towering intellects of his age, he informs us. Through his distinguished career as a public servant, he inspires us. As a lover of liberty, he still lights our way.