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+            <titleStmt>
+                <title>Thomas Jefferson</title>
+                <author><name reg="Merwin, Henry Childs">Henry Childs Merwin</name></author>
+            </titleStmt>
+            <publicationStmt>
+                <publisher>Project Gutenberg</publisher>
+                <date value="2010-06-28">June 28, 2010</date>
+                <idno type='etext-no'>33011</idno>
+                <availability>
+                  <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere
+                  at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
+                  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+                  the terms of the Project Gutenberg License online at
+                  www.gutenberg.org/license</p>
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+            <date value="2010-06-28">June 28, 2010</date>
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+                <resp>Produced by <name>Stefan Cramme</name>
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+        <charName>thinsp</charName>
+        <desc>THIN SPACE</desc>
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+<front>
+    <div>
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+    </div>
+    <div>
+        <divGen type="encodingDesc" />
+    </div>
+<div rend="center; page-break-before: always">
+<pb/>
+<p><hi rend="antiqua">The Riverside Biographical Series</hi>
+</p>
+<p>NUMBER 5</p>
+<p><hi rend="font-size: large">THOMAS JEFFERSON</hi></p>
+<p>BY</p>
+<p>HENRY CHILDS MERWIN</p>
+<pb/>
+<pb/>
+<pb/>
+<pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p>[Illustration: Th. Jefferson]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/i004.jpg" rend="width: 100%"><figDesc>Th. Jefferson</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+</div>
+<titlePage rend="center; page-break-before: right">
+<pb/>
+<docTitle>
+    <titlePart type="main"><hi rend="font-size: xx-large">THOMAS JEFFERSON</hi></titlePart>
+<lb/><lb/>
+</docTitle>
+<byline>BY<lb/><lb/>
+<docAuthor><hi rend="font-size: large">HENRY CHILDS MERWIN</hi></docAuthor></byline>
+<lb/><lb/>
+<figure url="images/i005.png" rend="small"><figDesc>Publisher's emblem</figDesc></figure>
+<lb/><lb/>
+<docImprint><publisher>HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<lb/>
+<hi rend="font-size: small">Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street<lb/>
+Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue</hi></publisher><lb/>
+<publisher><hi rend="antiqua">The Riverside Press, Cambridge</hi></publisher>
+</docImprint>  
+</titlePage>
+<div rend="center; page-break-before: always">
+<pb/>
+<p rend="font-size: small">COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HENRY C. MERWIN</p>
+<p rend="font-size: small">ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p>
+</div>
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb/>
+
+<head>CONTENTS</head>
+
+<table rend="tblcolumns: 'r lw(34m) r'; latexcolumns: 'rp{5cm}r'">
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><hi rend="font-size: x-small">CHAP.</hi></cell>
+<cell></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><hi rend="font-size: x-small">PAGE</hi></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">I.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Youth and Training</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg1">1</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">II.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Virginia in Jefferson’s Day</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg16">16</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">III.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Monticello and its Household</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg28">28</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">IV.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Jefferson in the Revolution</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg36">36</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">V.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Reform Work in Virginia</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg45">45</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">VI.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Governor of Virginia</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg59">59</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">VII.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Envoy at Paris</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg71">71</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">&nbsp;VIII.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Secretary of State</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg82">82</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">IX.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>The Two Parties</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg98">98</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">X.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>President Jefferson</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg114">114</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">XI.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Second Presidential Term</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg130">130</ref></cell>
+</row>
+    <row>
+<cell rend="text-align: right">XII.</cell>
+<cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>A Public Man in Private Life</hi></cell>
+<cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg149">149</ref></cell>
+</row>
+</table>
+   <pb/> 
+</div>
+</front>
+<body rend="page-break-before: right">
+<pb n="1"/><anchor id="Pg1"/>
+
+<head>THOMAS JEFFERSON</head>
+<div>
+<index index="toc" level1="I. Youth and Training"/><index index="pdf" level1="I. Youth and Training"/>
+<head>I</head>
+
+<head type="sub">YOUTH AND TRAINING</head>
+
+<p>
+Thomas Jefferson was born upon a
+frontier estate in Albemarle County, Virginia,
+April 13, 1743. His father, Peter
+Jefferson, was of Welsh descent, not of aristocratic
+birth, but of that yeoman class which
+constitutes the backbone of all societies.
+The elder Jefferson had uncommon powers
+both of mind and body. His strength was
+such that he could simultaneously <q>head
+up</q>—that is, raise from their sides to an
+upright position—two hogsheads of tobacco,
+weighing nearly one thousand pounds apiece.
+Like Washington, he was a surveyor; and
+there is a tradition that once, while running
+his lines through a vast wilderness, his assistants
+gave out from famine and fatigue,
+<pb n="2"/><anchor id="Pg2"/>and Peter Jefferson pushed on alone, sleeping
+at night in hollow trees, amidst howling
+beasts of prey, and subsisting on the flesh
+of a pack mule which he had been obliged
+to kill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomas Jefferson inherited from his father
+a love of mathematics and of literature.
+Peter Jefferson had not received a classical
+education, but he was a diligent reader of a
+few good books, chiefly Shakespeare, The
+Spectator, Pope, and Swift; and in mastering
+these he was forming his mind on great
+literature after the manner of many another
+Virginian,—for the houses of that colony
+held English books as they held English
+furniture. The edition of Shakespeare (and
+it is a handsome one) which Peter Jefferson
+used is still preserved among the heirlooms
+of his descendants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was probably in his capacity of surveyor
+that Mr. Jefferson made the acquaintance
+of the Randolph family, and he soon became
+the bosom friend of William Randolph, the
+young proprietor of Tuckahoe. The Randolphs
+had been for ages a family of con<pb n="3"/><anchor id="Pg3"/>sideration in the midland counties of England,
+claiming descent from the Scotch Earls
+of Murray, and connected by blood or marriage
+with many of the English nobility. In
+1735 Peter Jefferson established himself as
+a planter by patenting a thousand acres of
+land in Goochland County, his estate lying
+near and partly including the outlying hills,
+which form a sort of picket line for the
+Blue Mountain range. At the same time
+his friend William Randolph patented an
+adjoining estate of twenty-four hundred
+acres; and inasmuch as there was no good
+site for a house on Jefferson’s estate, Mr.
+Randolph conveyed to him four hundred
+acres for that purpose, the consideration expressed
+in the deed, which is still extant,
+being <q>Henry Weatherbourne’s biggest
+bowl of Arrack punch.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Peter Jefferson built his house, and
+here, three years later, he brought his bride,—a
+handsome girl of nineteen, and a kinswoman
+of William Randolph, being Jane,
+oldest child of Isham Randolph, then Adjutant-General
+of Virginia. She was born in
+<pb n="4"/><anchor id="Pg4"/>London, in the parish of Shadwell, and Shadwell
+was the name given by Peter Jefferson
+to his estate. This marriage was a fortunate
+union of the best aristocratic and yeoman
+strains in Virginia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the year 1744 the new County of Albemarle
+was carved out of Goochland County,
+and Peter Jefferson was appointed one of
+the three justices who constituted the county
+court and were the real rulers of the shire.
+He was made also Surveyor, and later Colonel
+of the county. This last office was regarded
+as the chief provincial honor in Virginia, and
+it was especially important when he held it,
+for it was the time of the French war, and
+Albemarle was in the debatable land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the midst of that war, in August,
+1757, Peter Jefferson died suddenly, of a
+disease which is not recorded, but which was
+probably produced by fatigue and exposure.
+He was a strong, just, kindly man, sought
+for as a protector of the widow and the
+orphan, and respected and loved by Indians
+as well as white men. Upon his deathbed
+he left two injunctions regarding his son
+<pb n="5"/><anchor id="Pg5"/>Thomas: one, that he should receive a classical
+education; the other, that he should
+never be permitted to neglect the physical
+exercises necessary for health and strength.
+Of these dying commands his son often
+spoke with gratitude; and he used to say
+that if he were obliged to choose between
+the education and the estate which his father
+gave him, he would choose the education.
+Peter Jefferson left eight children, but only
+one son besides Thomas, and that one died
+in infancy. Less is known of Jefferson’s
+mother; but he derived from her a love of
+music, an extraordinary keenness of susceptibility,
+and a corresponding refinement
+of taste.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His father’s death left Jefferson his own
+master. In one of his later letters he says:
+<q>At fourteen years of age the whole care
+and direction of myself were thrown on myself
+entirely, without a relative or a friend
+qualified to advise or guide me.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first use that he made of his liberty
+was to change his school, and to become a
+pupil of the Rev. James Maury,—an ex<pb n="6"/><anchor id="Pg6"/>cellent clergyman and scholar, of Huguenot
+descent, who had recently settled in Albemarle
+County. With him young Jefferson
+continued for two years, studying Greek and
+Latin, and becoming noted, as a schoolmate
+afterward reported, for scholarship, industry,
+and shyness. He was a good runner, a
+keen fox-hunter, and a bold and graceful
+rider.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the age of sixteen, in the spring of
+1760, he set out on horseback for Williamsburg,
+the capital of Virginia, where he proposed
+to enter the college of William and
+Mary. Up to this time he had never seen
+a town, or even a village, except the hamlet
+of Charlottesville, which is about four miles
+from Shadwell. Williamsburg—described
+in contemporary language as <q>the centre of
+taste, fashion, and refinement</q>—was an
+unpaved village, of about one thousand inhabitants,
+surrounded by an expanse of dark
+green tobacco fields as far as the eye could
+reach. It was, however, well situated upon
+a plateau midway between the York and
+James rivers, and was swept by breezes
+<pb n="7"/><anchor id="Pg7"/>which tempered the heat of the summer sun
+and kept the town free from mosquitoes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Williamsburg was also well laid out, and
+it has the honor of having served as a model
+for the city of Washington. It consisted
+chiefly of a single street, one hundred feet
+broad and three quarters of a mile long,
+with the capitol at one end, the college at
+the other, and a ten-acre square with public
+buildings in the middle. Here in his palace
+lived the colonial governor. The town also
+contained <q>ten or twelve gentlemen’s families,
+besides merchants and tradesmen.</q>
+These were the permanent inhabitants;
+and during the <q>season</q>—the midwinter
+months—the planters’ families came to
+town in their coaches, the gentlemen on
+horseback, and the little capital was then a
+scene of gayety and dissipation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was Williamsburg in 1760 when
+Thomas Jefferson, the frontier planter’s son,
+rode slowly into town at the close of an early
+spring day, surveying with the outward indifference,
+but keen inward curiosity of a
+countryman, the place which was to be his
+<pb n="8"/><anchor id="Pg8"/>residence for seven years,—in one sense the
+most important, because the most formative,
+period of his life. He was a tall stripling,
+rather slightly built,—after the model of
+the Randolphs,—but extremely well-knit,
+muscular, and agile. His face was freckled,
+and his features were somewhat pointed. His
+hair is variously described as red, reddish,
+and sandy, and the color of his eyes as blue,
+gray, and also hazel. The expression of his
+face was frank, cheerful, and engaging. He
+was not handsome in youth, but <q>a very
+good-looking man in middle age, and quite a
+handsome old man.</q> At maturity he stood
+six feet two and a half inches. <q>Mr. Jefferson,</q>
+said Mr. Bacon, at one time the
+superintendent of his estate, <q>was well proportioned
+and straight as a gun-barrel. He
+was like a fine horse, he had no surplus flesh.
+He had an iron constitution, and was very
+strong.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson was always the most cheerful and
+optimistic of men. He once said, after remarking
+that something must depend <q>on
+the chapter of events:</q> <q>I am in the habit
+<pb n="9"/><anchor id="Pg9"/>of turning over the next leaf with hope, and,
+though it often fails me, there is still another
+and another behind.</q> No doubt this
+sanguine trait was due in part at least to
+his almost perfect health. He was, to use
+his own language, <q>blessed with organs of
+digestion which accepted and concocted,
+without ever murmuring, whatever the palate
+chose to consign to them.</q> His habits
+through life were good. He never smoked,
+he drank wine in moderation, he went to
+bed early, he was regular in taking exercise,
+either by walking or, more commonly, by
+riding on horseback.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The college of William and Mary in Jefferson’s
+day is described by Mr. Parton as
+<q>a medley of college, Indian mission, and
+grammar school, ill-governed, and distracted
+by dissensions among its ruling powers.</q>
+But Jefferson had a thirst for knowledge
+and a capacity for acquiring it, which made
+him almost independent of institutions of
+learning. Moreover, there was one professor
+who had a large share in the formation
+of his mind. <q>It was my great good for<pb n="10"/><anchor id="Pg10"/>tune,</q> he wrote in his brief autobiography,
+<q>and what probably fixed the destinies of
+my life, that Dr. William Small, of Scotland,
+was then professor of mathematics; a man
+profound in most of the useful branches of
+science, with a happy talent of communication
+and an enlarged liberal mind. He, most
+happily for me, soon became attached to me,
+and made me his daily companion when not
+engaged in the school; and from his conversation
+I got my first views of the expansion
+of science, and of the system of things in
+which we are placed.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson, like all well-bred Virginians,
+was brought up as an Episcopalian; but as
+a young man, perhaps owing in part to the
+influence of Dr. Small, he ceased to believe
+in Christianity as a religion, though he always
+at home attended the Episcopal church, and
+though his daughters were brought up in that
+faith. If any theological term is to be applied
+to him, he should be called a Deist.
+Upon the subject of his religious faith,
+Jefferson was always extremely reticent.
+To one or two friends only did he disclose
+<pb n="11"/><anchor id="Pg11"/>his creed, and that was in letters which were
+published after his death. When asked,
+even by one of his own family, for his opinion
+upon any religious matter, he invariably
+refused to express it, saying that every person
+was bound to look into the subject for
+himself, and to decide upon it conscientiously,
+unbiased by the opinions of others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Small introduced Jefferson to other
+valuable acquaintances; and, boy though he
+was, he soon became the fourth in a group
+of friends which embraced the three most
+notable men in the little metropolis. These
+were, beside Dr. Small, Francis Fauquier,
+the acting governor of the province, appointed
+by the crown, and George Wythe.
+Fauquier was a courtly, honorable, highly
+cultivated man of the world, a disciple of
+Voltaire, and a confirmed gambler, who had
+in this respect an unfortunate influence upon
+the Virginia gentry,—not, however, upon
+Jefferson, who, though a lover of horses,
+and a frequenter of races, never in his life
+gambled or even played cards. Wythe was
+then just beginning a long and honorable
+<pb n="12"/><anchor id="Pg12"/>career as lawyer, statesman, professor, and
+judge. He remained always a firm and intimate
+friend of Jefferson, who spoke of him,
+after his death, as <q>my second father.</q> It
+is an interesting fact that Thomas Jefferson,
+John Marshall, and Henry Clay were all,
+in succession, law students in the office of
+George Wythe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many of the government officials and
+planters who flocked to Williamsburg in
+the winter were related to Jefferson on his
+mother’s side, and they opened their houses
+to him with Virginia hospitality. We read
+also of dances in the <q>Apollo,</q> the ball-room
+of the old Raleigh tavern, and of musical
+parties at Gov. Fauquier’s house, in which
+Jefferson, who was a skillful and enthusiastic
+fiddler, always took part. <q>I suppose,</q> he
+remarked in his old age, <q>that during at
+least a dozen years of my life, I played no
+less than three hours a day.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this period he was somewhat of a
+dandy, very particular about his clothes and
+equipage, and devoted, as indeed he remained
+through life, to fine horses. Virginia im<pb n="13"/><anchor id="Pg13"/>ported more thoroughbred horses than any
+other colony, and to this day there is probably
+a greater admixture of thoroughbred
+blood there than in any other State. Diomed,
+winner of the first English Derby,
+was brought over to Virginia in 1799, and
+founded a family which, even now, is highly
+esteemed as a source of speed and endurance.
+Jefferson had some of his colts; and both
+for the saddle and for his carriage he always
+used high-bred horses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Referring to the Williamsburg period of
+his life, he wrote once to a grandson: <q>When
+I recollect the various sorts of bad company
+with which I associated from time to time, I
+am astonished I did not turn off with some of
+them, and become as worthless to society as
+they were.... But I had the good fortune
+to become acquainted very early with some
+characters of very high standing, and to feel
+the incessant wish that I could ever become
+what they were. Under temptations and difficulties,
+I would ask myself what would Dr.
+Small, Mr. Wythe, Peyton Randolph do in
+this situation? What course in it will as<pb n="14"/><anchor id="Pg14"/>sure me their approbation? I am certain
+that this mode of deciding on my conduct
+tended more to correctness than any reasoning
+powers that I possesed.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This passage throws a light upon Jefferson’s
+character. It does not seem to occur to
+him that a young man might require some
+stronger motive to keep his passions in check
+than could be furnished either by the wish
+to imitate a good example or by his <q>reasoning
+powers.</q> To Jefferson’s well-regulated
+mind the desire for approbation was a
+sufficient motive. He was particularly sensitive,
+perhaps morbidly so, to disapprobation.
+The respect, the good-will, the affection
+of his countrymen were so dear to him
+that the desire to retain them exercised a
+great, it may be at times, an undue influence
+upon him. <q>I find,</q> he once said, <q>the pain
+of a little censure, even when it is unfounded,
+is more acute than the pleasure of much
+praise.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During his second year at college, Jefferson
+laid aside all frivolities. He sent home
+his horses, contenting himself with a mile
+<pb n="15"/><anchor id="Pg15"/>run out and back at nightfall for exercise,
+and studying, if we may believe the biographer,
+no less than fifteen hours a day. This
+intense application reduced the time of his
+college course by one half; and after the
+second winter at Williamsburg he went home
+with a degree in his pocket, and a volume of
+Coke upon Lytleton in his trunk.
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="16"/><anchor id="Pg16"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="II. Virginia in Jefferson's day"/><index index="pdf" level1="II. Virginia in Jefferson's day"/>
+<head>II</head>
+
+<head type="sub">VIRGINIA IN JEFFERSON’S DAY</head>
+
+<p>
+To a young Virginian of Jefferson’s standing
+but two active careers were open, law and
+politics, and in almost every case these two,
+sooner or later, merged in one. The condition
+of Virginia was very different from that
+of New England,—neither the clerical nor
+the medical profession was held in esteem.
+There were no manufactures, and there was
+no general commerce.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nature has divided Virginia into two parts:
+the mountainous region to the west and the
+broad level plain between the mountains and
+the sea, intersected by numerous rivers, in
+which, far back from the ocean, the tide
+ebbs and flows. In this tide-water region
+were situated the tobacco plantations which
+constituted the wealth and were inhabited by
+the aristocracy of the colony. Almost every
+planter lived near a river and had his own
+<pb n="17"/><anchor id="Pg17"/>wharf, whence a schooner carried his tobacco
+to London, and brought back wines, silks,
+velvets, guns, saddles, and shoes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The small proprietors of land were comparatively
+few in number, and the whole
+constitution of the colony, political and social,
+was aristocratic. Both real estate and
+slaves descended by force of law to the eldest
+son, so that the great properties were kept
+intact. There were no townships and no
+town meetings. The political unit was the
+parish; for the Episcopal church was the established
+church,—a state institution; and
+the parishes were of great extent, there being,
+as a rule, but one or two parishes in a county.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clergy, though belonging to an establishment,
+were poorly paid, and not revered as
+a class. They held the same position of inferiority
+in respect to the rich planters which
+the clergy of England held in respect to the
+country gentry at the same period. Being
+appointed by the crown, they were selected
+without much regard to fitness, and they
+were demoralized by want of supervision,
+for there were no resident bishops, and,
+<pb n="18"/><anchor id="Pg18"/>further, by the uncertain character of their
+incomes, which, being paid in tobacco, were
+subject to great fluctuations. A few were
+men of learning and virtue who performed
+their duties faithfully, and eked out their
+incomes by taking pupils. <q>It was these
+few,</q> remarks Mr. Parton, <q>who saved civilization
+in the colony.</q> A few others became
+cultivators of tobacco, and acquired
+wealth. But the greater part of the clergy
+were companions and hangers-on of the rich
+planters,—examples of that type which
+Thackeray so well describes in the character
+of Parson Sampson in <q>The Virginians.</q>
+Strange tales were told of these old Virginia
+parsons. One is spoken of as pocketing
+annually a hundred dollars, the revenue of a
+legacy for preaching four sermons a year
+against atheism, gambling, racing, and swearing,—for
+all of which vices, except the first,
+he was notorious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This period, the middle half of the eighteenth
+century, was, as the reader need not
+be reminded, that in which the English
+church sank to its lowest point. It was the
+<pb n="19"/><anchor id="Pg19"/>era when the typical country parson was a
+convivial fox-hunter; when the Fellows of
+colleges sat over their wine from four o’clock,
+their dinner hour, till midnight or after;
+when the highest type of bishop was a
+learned man who spent more time in his
+private studies than in the duties of his
+office; when the cathedrals were neglected
+and dirty, and the parish churches were
+closed from Sunday to Sunday. In England,
+the reaction produced Methodism, and,
+later, the Tractarian movement; and we are
+told that even in Virginia, <q>swarms of Methodists,
+Moravians, and New-Light Presbyterians
+came over the border from Pennsylvania,
+and pervaded the colony.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taxation pressed with very unequal force
+upon the poor, and the right of voting was
+confined to freeholders. There was no system
+of public schools, and the great mass
+of the people were ignorant and coarse, but
+morally and physically sound,—a good substructure
+for an aristocratic society. Wealth
+being concentrated mainly in the hands of a
+few, Virginia presented striking contrasts of
+<pb n="20"/><anchor id="Pg20"/>luxury and destitution, whereas in the neighboring
+colony of Pennsylvania, where wealth
+was more distributed and society more democratic,
+thrift and prosperity were far more
+common.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>In Pennsylvania,</q> relates a foreign traveler,
+<q>one sees great numbers of wagons
+drawn by four or more fine fat horses....
+In the slave States we sometimes meet a
+ragged black boy or girl driving a team consisting
+of a lean cow and a mule; and I have
+seen a mule, a bull, and a cow, each miserable
+in its appearance, composing one team, with
+a half-naked black slave or two riding or
+driving as occasion suited.</q> And yet between
+Richmond and Fredericksburg, <q>in
+the afternoon, as our road lay through the
+woods, I was surprised to meet a family
+party traveling along in as elegant a coach
+as is usually met with in the neighborhood
+of London, and attended by several gayly
+dressed footmen.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Virginia society just before the Revolution
+perfectly illustrated Buckle’s remark about
+leisure: <q>Without leisure, science is impos<pb n="21"/><anchor id="Pg21"/>sible; and when leisure has been won, most
+of the class possessing it will waste it in the
+pursuit of pleasure, and a <hi rend="italic">few</hi> will employ
+it in the pursuit of knowledge.</q> Men like
+Jefferson, George Wythe, and Madison used
+their leisure for the good of their fellow-beings
+and for the cultivation of their minds;
+whereas the greater part of the planters—and
+the poor whites imitated them—spent
+their ample leisure in sports, in drinking, and
+in absolute idleness. <q>In spite of the Virginians’
+love for dissipation,</q> wrote a famous
+French traveler, <q>the taste for reading is
+commoner among men of the first rank than
+in any other part of America; but the populace
+is perhaps more ignorant there than
+elsewhere.</q> <q>The Virginia virtues,</q> says
+Mr. Henry Adams, <q>were those of the field
+and farm—the simple and straightforward
+mind, the notions of courage and truth, the
+absence of mercantile sharpness and quickness,
+the rusticity and open-handed hospitality.</q>
+Virginians of the upper class were
+remarkable for their high-bred courtesy,—a
+trait so inherent that it rarely disappeared
+<pb n="22"/><anchor id="Pg22"/>even in the bitterness of political disputes
+and divisions. This, too, was the natural
+product of a society based not on trade or
+commerce, but on land. <q>I blush for my
+own people,</q> wrote Dr. Channing, from Virginia,
+in 1791, <q>when I compare the selfish
+prudence of a Yankee with the generous confidence
+of a Virginian. Here I find great
+vices, but greater virtues than I left behind
+me.</q> There was a largeness of temper and
+of feeling in the Virginia aristocracy, which
+seems to be inseparable from people living
+in a new country, upon the outskirts of civilization.
+They had the pride of birth, but
+they recognized other claims to consideration,
+and were as far as possible from estimating
+a man according to the amount of
+his wealth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slavery itself was probably a factor for
+good in the character of such a man as Jefferson,—it
+afforded a daily exercise in the
+virtues of benevolence and self-control. How
+he treated the blacks may be gathered from
+a story, told by his superintendent, of a slave
+named Jim who had been caught stealing
+<pb n="23"/><anchor id="Pg23"/>nails from the nail-factory: <q>When Mr.
+Jefferson came, I sent for Jim, and I never
+saw any person, white or black, feel as badly
+as he did when he saw his master. The tears
+streamed down his face, and he begged for
+pardon over and over again. I felt very
+badly myself. Mr. Jefferson turned to me
+and said, <q>Ah, sir, we can’t punish him. He
+has suffered enough already.</q> He then talked
+to him, gave him a heap of good advice, and
+sent him to the shop.... Jim said: <q>Well
+I’se been a-seeking religion a long time, but
+I never heard anything before that sounded
+so, or made me feel so, as I did when Master
+said, <q>Go, and don’t do so any more,</q> and
+now I’se determined to seek religion till I
+find it;</q> and sure enough he afterwards
+came to me for a permit to go and be baptized....
+He was always a good servant
+afterward.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another element that contributed to the
+efficiency and the high standard of the early
+Virginia statesman was a good, old-fashioned
+classical education. They were familiar, to
+use Matthew Arnold’s famous expression,
+<pb n="24"/><anchor id="Pg24"/><q>with the best that has ever been said or
+done.</q> This was no small advantage to men
+who were called upon to act as founders of
+a republic different indeed from the republics
+of Greece and Rome, but still based upon
+the same principles, and demanding an
+exercise of the same heroic virtues. The
+American Revolution would never have cut
+quite the figure in the world which history
+assigns to it, had it not been conducted with
+a kind of classic dignity and decency; and
+to this result nobody contributed more than
+Jefferson.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was Virginia in the eighteenth century,—at
+the base of society, the slaves;
+next, a lower class, rough, ignorant, and
+somewhat brutal, but still wholesome, and
+possessing the primitive virtues of courage
+and truth; and at the top, the landed gentry,
+luxurious, proud, idle and dissipated
+for the most part, and yet blossoming into
+a few characters of a type so high that the
+world has hardly seen a better. Had he
+been born in Europe, Jefferson would doubtless
+have devoted himself to music, or to
+<pb n="25"/><anchor id="Pg25"/>architecture, or to literature, or to science,—for
+in all these directions his taste was
+nearly equally strong; but these careers being
+closed to him by the circumstances of
+the colony, he became a lawyer, and then,
+under pressure of the Revolution, a politician
+and statesman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the four years following his graduation,
+Jefferson spent most of the winter
+months at Williamsburg, pursuing his legal
+and other studies, and the rest of the year
+upon the family plantation, the management
+of which had devolved upon him. Now, as
+always, he was the most industrious of men.
+He lived, as Mr. Parton remarks, <q>with a
+pen in his hand.</q> He kept a garden book,
+a farm book, a weather book, a receipt book,
+a cash book, and, while he practiced law, a
+fee book. Many of these books are still preserved,
+and the entries are as legible now as
+when they were first written down in Jefferson’s
+small but clear and graceful hand,—the
+hand of an artist. Jefferson, as one of
+his old friends once remarked, <hi rend="italic">hated</hi> superficial
+knowledge; and he dug to the roots of
+<pb n="26"/><anchor id="Pg26"/>the common law, reading deeply in old reports
+written in law French and law Latin,
+and especially studying Magna Charta and
+Bracton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He found time also for riding, for music,
+and dancing; and in his twentieth year he
+became enamored of Miss Rebecca Burwell,
+a Williamsburg belle more distinguished,
+tradition reports, for beauty than for cleverness.
+But Jefferson was not yet in a position
+to marry,—he even contemplated a
+foreign tour; and the girl, somewhat abruptly,
+married another lover. The wound
+seems not to have been a deep one. Jefferson,
+in fact, though he found his chief happiness
+in family affection, and though capable
+of strong and lasting attachments, was not
+the man for a romantic passion. He was a
+philosopher of the reasonable, eighteenth-century
+type. No one was more kind and
+just in the treatment of his slaves, but he
+did not free them, as George Wythe, perhaps
+foolishly, did; and he was even cautious
+about promulgating his views as to the folly
+and wickedness of slavery, though he did his
+<pb n="27"/><anchor id="Pg27"/>best to promote its abolition by legislative
+measures. There was not in Jefferson the
+material for a martyr or a Don Quixote;
+but that was Nature’s fault, not his. It may
+be said of every particular man that there
+is a certain depth to which he cannot sink,
+and there is a certain height to which he
+cannot rise. Within the intermediate zone
+there is ample exercise for free-will; and no
+man struggled harder than Jefferson to fulfill
+all the obligations which, as he conceived,
+were laid upon him.
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="28"/><anchor id="Pg28"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="III. Monticello and its Household"/><index index="pdf" level1="III. Monticello and its Household"/>
+<head>III</head>
+
+<head type="sub">MONTICELLO AND ITS HOUSEHOLD</head>
+
+<p>
+In April, 1764, Jefferson came of age,
+and his first public act was a characteristic
+one. For the benefit of the neighborhood,
+he procured the passage of a statute to authorize
+the dredging of the Rivanna River
+upon which his own estate bordered in part.
+He then by private subscriptions raised a
+sum sufficient for carrying out this purpose;
+and in a short time the stream, upon which
+before a bark canoe would hardly have
+floated, was made available for the transportation
+of farm produce to the James River,
+and thence to the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1766, he made a journey to Philadelphia,
+in order to be inoculated for smallpox,
+traveling in a light gig drawn by a high-spirited
+horse, and narrowly escaping death
+by drowning in one of the numerous rivers
+which had to be forded between Charlottes<pb n="29"/><anchor id="Pg29"/>ville and Philadelphia. In the following
+year, about the time of his twenty-fourth
+birthday, he was admitted to the bar, and
+entered almost immediately upon a large
+and lucrative practice. He remained at the
+bar only seven years, but during most of
+this time his professional income averaged
+more than £2500 a year; and he increased
+his paternal estate from 1900 acres to 5000
+acres. He argued with force and fluency,
+but his voice was not suitable for public
+speaking, and soon became husky. Moreover,
+Jefferson had an intense repugnance
+to the arena. He shrank with a kind of
+nervous horror from a personal contest, and
+hated to be drawn into a discussion. The
+turmoil and confusion of a public body were
+hideous to him;—it was as a writer, not as
+a speaker, that he won fame, first in the
+Virginia Assembly, and afterward in the
+Continental Congress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In October, 1768, Jefferson was chosen
+to represent Albemarle County in the House
+of Burgesses of Virginia; and thus began
+his long political career of forty years. A
+<pb n="30"/><anchor id="Pg30"/>resolution which he formed at the outset is
+stated in the following letter written in 1792
+to a friend who had offered him a share in
+an undertaking which promised to be profitable:—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>When I first entered on the stage of
+public life (now twenty-four years ago) I
+came to a resolution never to engage, while
+in public office, in any kind of enterprise for
+the improvement of my fortune, nor to wear
+any other character than that of a farmer.
+I have never departed from it in a single
+instance; and I have in multiplied instances
+found myself happy in being able to decide
+and to act as a public servant, clear of all
+interest, in the multiform questions that
+have arisen, wherein I have seen others embarrassed
+and biased by having got themselves
+in a more interested situation.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the next few years there was a
+lull in political affairs,—a sullen calm before
+the storm of the Revolution; but they
+were important years in Mr. Jefferson’s life.
+In February, 1770, the house at Shadwell,
+where he lived with his mother and sisters,
+<pb n="31"/><anchor id="Pg31"/>was burned to the ground, while the family
+were away. <q>Were none of my books
+saved?</q> Jefferson asked of the negro who
+came to him, breathless, with news of the
+disaster. <q>No, master,</q> was the reply,
+<q>but we saved the fiddle.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In giving his friend Page an account of
+the fire, Jefferson wrote: <q>On a reasonable
+estimate, I calculate the cost of the books
+burned to have been £200. Would to God
+it had been the money,—then had it never
+cost me a sigh!</q> Beside the books, Jefferson
+lost most of his notes and papers; but
+no mishap, not caused by his own fault, ever
+troubled his peace of mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the fire, his mother and the children
+took temporary refuge in the home of an
+overseer, and Jefferson repaired to Monticello,—as
+he had named the elevated spot
+on the paternal estate where he had already
+begun to build the house which was his
+home for the remainder of his life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Monticello is a small outlying peak, upon
+the outskirts of the mountainous part of
+Virginia, west of the tide-water region, and
+<pb n="32"/><anchor id="Pg32"/>rising 580 feet above the plain at its foot.
+Upon its summit there is a space of about
+six acres, leveled partly by nature and partly
+by art; and here, one hundred feet back
+from the brow of the hill, Jefferson built his
+house. It is a long, low building,—still
+standing,—with a Grecian portico in front,
+surmounted by a cupola. The road by
+which it is approached winds round and
+round, so as to make the ascent less difficult.
+In front of the house three long terraces,
+terminating in small pavilions, were
+constructed; and upon the northern terrace,
+or in its pavilion, Jefferson and his friends
+used to sit on summer nights gazing off
+toward the Blue Ridge, some eighty miles
+distant, or upon the nearer peaks of the Ragged
+Mountains. The altitude is such that
+neither dew nor mosquitoes can reach it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this beautiful but as yet uncompleted
+mountain home, Jefferson, in January, 1772,
+brought his bride. She was Martha Skelton,
+who had been left a widow at nineteen,
+and was now twenty-two, a daughter of John
+Wayles, a leading and opulent lawyer.
+<pb n="33"/><anchor id="Pg33"/>Martha Skelton was a tall, beautiful, highly
+educated young woman, of graceful carriage,
+with hazel eyes, literary in her tastes, a
+skillful performer upon the spinnet, and a
+notable housewife whose neatly kept account
+books are still preserved. They were married
+at <q>The Forest,</q> her father’s estate in
+Charles City County, and immediately set
+out for Monticello.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two years later, in 1774, died Dabney
+Carr, a brilliant and patriotic young lawyer,
+Jefferson’s most intimate friend, and the
+husband of his sister Martha. Dabney
+Carr left six small children, whom, with
+their mother, Jefferson took under his wing,
+and they were brought up at Monticello as
+if they had been his own children. Jefferson
+loved children, and he had, in common
+with that very different character, Aaron
+Burr, an instinct for teaching. While still
+a young man himself, he was often called
+upon to direct the studies of other young
+men,—Madison and Monroe were in this
+sense his pupils; and the founding of the
+University of Virginia was an achievement
+<pb n="34"/><anchor id="Pg34"/>long anticipated by him and enthusiastically
+performed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson was somewhat unfortunate in his
+own children, for, of the six that were born
+to him, only two, Martha and Maria, lived
+to grow up. Maria married but died young,
+leaving one child. Martha, the first-born,
+was a brilliant, cheerful, wholesome woman.
+She married Thomas Mann Randolph, afterward
+governor of Virginia. <q>She was just
+like her father, in this respect,</q> says Mr.
+Bacon, the superintendent,—<q>she was always
+busy. If she wasn’t reading or writing,
+she was always doing something. She
+used to sit in Mr. Jefferson’s room a great
+deal, and sew, or read, or talk, as he would
+be busy about something else.</q> John Randolph
+of Roanoke once toasted her—and it
+was after his quarrel with her father—as
+the sweetest woman in Virginia. She left
+ten children, and many of her descendants
+are still living.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To her, and to his other daughter, Maria,
+who is described as being more beautiful
+and no less amiable than her sister, but not
+<pb n="35"/><anchor id="Pg35"/>so intellectual, Jefferson owed the chief happiness
+of his life. Like many another man
+who has won fame and a high position in the
+world, he counted these things but as dust
+and ashes in comparison with family affection.
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="36"/><anchor id="Pg36"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="IV. Jefferson in the Revolution"/><index index="pdf" level1="IV. Jefferson in the Revolution"/>
+<head>IV</head>
+
+<head type="sub">JEFFERSON IN THE REVOLUTION</head>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after Mr. Jefferson’s marriage,
+the preliminary movements of the Revolution
+began, and though he took an active
+part in them it was not without reluctance.
+Even after the battle of Bunker Hill, namely,
+in November, 1775, he wrote to a kinsman
+that there was not a man in the British
+Empire who more cordially loved a union
+with Great Britain than he did. John Jay
+said after the Revolution: <q>During the
+course of my life, and until the second petition
+of Congress in 1775, I never did hear
+any American of any class or description
+express a wish for the independence of the
+colonies.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But these friendly feelings were first outraged
+and then extinguished by a long series
+of ill-considered and oppressive acts, covering,
+with some intermissions, a period of
+<pb n="37"/><anchor id="Pg37"/>about twelve years. Of these the most noteworthy
+were the Stamp Act, which amounted
+to taxation without representation, and the
+impost on tea, which was coupled with a
+provision that the receipts should be applied
+to the salaries of officers of the crown, thus
+placing them beyond the control of the local
+assemblies. The crown officers were also
+authorized to grant salaries and pensions at
+their discretion; and a board of revenue
+commissioners for the whole country was established
+at Boston, and armed with despotic
+powers. These proceedings amounted to a
+deprivation of liberty, and they were aggravated
+by the king’s contemptuous rejection
+of the petitions addressed to him by the
+colonists. We know what followed,—the
+burning of the British war schooner, Gaspee,
+by leading citizens of Providence, and the
+famous tea-party in Boston harbor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Virginia had not been inactive.
+In March, 1772, a few young men, members
+of the House of Burgesses, met at the Raleigh
+Tavern in Williamsburg. They were
+Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and his
+<pb n="38"/><anchor id="Pg38"/>brother, Thomas Jefferson, and a few others.
+They drew up several resolutions, the most
+important of which called for the appointment
+of a standing committee and for an
+invitation to the other colonies to appoint
+like committees for mutual information and
+assistance in the struggle against the crown.
+A similar resolution had been adopted in
+Massachusetts two years before, but without
+any practical result. The Virginia resolution
+was passed the next day by the House
+of Burgesses, and it gave rise to those proceedings
+which ushered in the Revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first Continental Congress was to meet
+in Philadelphia, in September, 1774; and
+Jefferson, in anticipation, prepared a draft
+of instructions for the delegates who were to
+be elected by Virginia. Being taken ill
+himself, on his way to the convention, he
+sent forward a copy of these instructions.
+They were considered too drastic to be
+adopted by the convention; but some of the
+members caused them to be published under
+the title of <q>A Summary View of the Rights
+of America.</q> The pamphlet was extensively
+<pb n="39"/><anchor id="Pg39"/>read in this country, and a copy which had
+been sent to London falling into the hands
+of Edmund Burke, he had it reprinted in
+England, where it ran through edition after
+edition. Jefferson’s name thus became
+known throughout the colonies and in England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <q>Summary View</q> is in reality a
+political essay. Its author wasted no time
+in discussing the specific legal and constitutional
+questions which had arisen between
+the colonies and the crown; but he went to
+the root of the matter, and with one or two
+generalizations as bold and original as if
+they had been made by Rousseau, he cut the
+Gordian knot, and severed America from the
+Parliament of Great Britain. He admitted
+some sort of dependence upon the crown,
+but his two main principles were these: (1)
+that the soil of this country belonged to the
+people who had settled and improved it, and
+that the crown had no right to sell or give it
+away; (2) that the right of self-government
+was a right natural to every people, and that
+Parliament, therefore, had no authority to
+<pb n="40"/><anchor id="Pg40"/>make laws for America. Jefferson was
+always about a century in advance of his
+time; and the <q>Summary View</q> substantially
+anticipated what is now the acknowledged
+relation of England to her colonies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson was elected a member of the
+Continental Congress at its second session;
+and he made a rapid journey to Philadelphia
+in a chaise, with two led horses behind,
+reaching there the night before Washington
+set out for Cambridge. The Congress was
+composed mainly of young men. Franklin,
+the oldest member, was seventy-one, and a
+few others were past sixty. Washington
+was forty-three; John Adams, forty; Patrick
+Henry, a year or two younger; John Rutledge,
+thirty-six; his brother, twenty-six;
+John Langdon and William Paca, thirty-five,
+John Jay, thirty; Thomas Stone, thirty-two,
+and Jefferson, thirty-two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson soon became intimate with John
+Adams, who in later years said of him:
+<q>Though a silent member of Congress, he
+was so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive
+upon committees and in conversation—not
+<pb n="41"/><anchor id="Pg41"/>even Samuel Adams was more so—that he
+soon seized upon my heart.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson, as we have seen, was not fitted
+to shine as an orator, still less in debate.
+But as a writer he had that capacity for style
+which comes, if it comes at all, as a gift of
+nature; which needs to be supplemented, but
+which cannot be supplied, by practice and
+study. In some of his early letters there
+are slight reminders of Dr. Johnson’s manner,
+and still more of Sterne’s. Sterne indeed
+was one of his favorite authors. However,
+these early traces of imitation were
+absorbed very quickly; and, before he was
+thirty, Jefferson became master of a clear,
+smooth, polished, picturesque, and individual
+style. To him, therefore, his associates naturally
+turned when they needed such a proclamation
+to the world as the Declaration of
+Independence; and that document is very
+characteristic of its author. It was imagination
+that gave distinction to Jefferson both
+as a man and as a writer. He never dashed
+off a letter which did not contain some play
+of fancy; and whether he was inventing a
+<pb n="42"/><anchor id="Pg42"/>plough or forecasting the destinies of a great
+Democracy, imagination qualified the performance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of the most effective forms in which
+imagination displays itself in prose is by the
+use of a common word in such a manner and
+context that it conveys an uncommon meaning.
+There are many examples of this rhetorical
+art in Jefferson’s writings, but the
+most notable one occurs in the noble first
+paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
+<q>When, in the course of human
+events, it becomes necessary for one people
+to dissolve the political bands which have
+connected them with another, and to assume
+among the powers of the earth the separate
+and equal station to which the Laws of
+Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a
+decent respect to the opinions of mankind
+requires that they should declare the causes
+which impel them to the separation.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon this paragraph Mr. Parton eloquently
+observes: <q>The noblest utterance of
+the whole composition is the reason given
+for making the Declaration,—<q><hi rend="italic">A decent
+<pb n="43"/><anchor id="Pg43"/>respect for the opinions of mankind</hi>.</q> This
+touches the heart. Among the best emotions
+that human nature knows is the veneration
+of man for man. This recognition of the
+public opinion of the world—the sum of human
+sense—as the final arbiter in all such
+controversies is the single phrase of the document
+which Jefferson alone, perhaps, of all
+the Congress, could have originated; and in
+point of merit it was worth all the rest.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Franklin and John Adams, who were on
+the committee with Jefferson, made a few
+verbal changes in his draught of the Declaration,
+and it was then discussed and reviewed
+by Congress for three days. Congress
+made eighteen suppressions, six additions,
+and ten alterations; and it must be admitted
+that most of these were improvements. For
+example, Jefferson had framed a paragraph
+in which the king was severely censured for
+opposing certain measures looking to the suppression
+of the slave trade. This would have
+come with an ill grace from the Americans,
+since for a century New England had been
+enriching herself by that trade, and the southern
+colonies had subsisted upon the labor
+<pb n="44"/><anchor id="Pg44"/>which it brought them. Congress wisely
+struck out the paragraph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Declaration of Independence was received
+with rapture throughout the country.
+Everywhere it was read aloud to the people
+who gathered to hear it, amid the booming
+of guns, the ringing of bells, and the display
+of fireworks. In Philadelphia, after the reading,
+the late king’s coat of arms was burned
+in Independence Square; in New York the
+leaden statue, in Bowling Green, of George
+III. was <q>laid prostrate in the dust,</q> and
+ordered to be run into bullets. Virginia had
+already stricken the king’s name from her
+prayer-book; and Rhode Island now forbade
+her people to pray for the king, as king,
+under a penalty of one hundred thousand
+pounds! The Declaration of Independence,
+both as a political and literary document, has
+stood the test of time. It has all the classic
+qualities of an oration by Demosthenes; and
+even that passage in it which has been criticised—that,
+namely, which pronounces all
+men to be created equal—is true in a sense,
+the truth of which it will take a century or
+two yet to develop.
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="45"/><anchor id="Pg45"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="V. Reform Work in Virginia"/><index index="pdf" level1="V. Reform Work in Virginia"/>
+<head>V</head>
+
+<head type="sub">REFORM WORK IN VIRGINIA</head>
+
+<p>
+In September, 1776, Jefferson, having
+resigned his seat in Congress to engage in
+duties nearer home, returned to Monticello.
+A few weeks later, a messenger from Congress
+arrived to inform him that he had
+been elected a joint commissioner with Dr.
+Franklin and Silas Deane to represent at
+Paris the newly formed nation. His heart
+had long been set upon foreign travel; but
+he felt obliged to decline this appointment,
+first on account of the ill health of his wife,
+and secondly, because he was needed in Virginia
+as a legislator. Not since Lycurgus
+gave laws to the Spartans had there been
+such an opportunity as then existed in the
+United States. John Adams declared:
+<q>The best lawgivers of antiquity would rejoice
+to live at a period like this when, for
+the first time in the history of the world,
+<pb n="46"/><anchor id="Pg46"/>three millions of people are deliberately
+<hi rend="italic">choosing</hi> their government and institutions.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of all the colonies, Virginia offered the
+best field for reform, because, as we have
+already seen, she had by far the most aristocratic
+political and social system; and it is
+extraordinary how quickly the reform was
+effected by Jefferson and his friends. In
+ordinary times of peace the task would have
+been impossible; but in throwing off the
+English yoke, the colonists had opened their
+minds to new ideas; change had become
+familiar to them, and in the general upheaval
+the rights of the people were recognized. A
+year later, Jefferson wrote to Franklin:
+<q>With respect to the State of Virginia, in
+particular, the people seem to have laid
+aside the monarchical and taken up the
+republican government with as much ease
+as would have attended their throwing off
+an old and putting on a new set of clothes.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s greatness lay in this, that he
+was the first statesman who trusted the mass
+of the people. He alone had divined the
+fact that they were competent, morally and
+<pb n="47"/><anchor id="Pg47"/>mentally, for self-government. It is almost
+impossible for us to appreciate Jefferson’s
+originality in this respect, because the bold
+and untried theories for which he contended
+are now regarded as commonplace maxims.
+He may have derived his political ideas in
+part from the French philosophical writers
+of the eighteenth century, although there is
+no evidence to that effect; but he was certainly
+the first statesman to grasp the idea
+of democracy as a form of government, just
+as, at a later day, Walt Whitman was the
+first poet to grasp the idea of equality as a
+social system. Hamilton, John Adams,
+Pinckney, Gouverneur Morris, even Washington
+himself, all believed that popular
+government would be unsafe and revolutionary
+unless held in check by a strong
+executive and by an aristocratic senate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson in his lifetime was often charged
+with gross inconsistency in his political
+views and conduct; but the inconsistency
+was more apparent than real. At times he
+strictly construed, and at times he almost
+set aside the Constitution; but the clue to
+<pb n="48"/><anchor id="Pg48"/>his conduct can usually be found in the
+fundamental principle that the only proper
+function of government or constitutions is to
+express the will of the people, and that the
+people are morally and mentally competent to
+govern. <q>I am sure,</q> he wrote in 1796, <q>that
+the mass of citizens in these United States
+mean well, and I firmly believe that they
+will always act well, whenever they can obtain
+a right understanding of matters.</q> And
+Jefferson’s lifelong endeavor was to enable
+the people to form this <q>right understanding</q>
+by educating them. His ideas of the
+scope of public education went far beyond
+those which prevailed in his time, and considerably
+beyond those which prevail even
+now. For example, a free university course
+for the most apt pupils graduated at the
+grammar schools made part of his scheme,—an
+idea most nearly realized in the Western
+States; and those States received their
+impetus in educational matters from the Ordinance
+of 1787, which was largely the product
+of Jefferson’s foresight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Happily for Virginia, she did not become
+<pb n="49"/><anchor id="Pg49"/>a scene of war until the year 1779, and,
+meanwhile, Jefferson and his friends lost no
+time in remodeling her constitution. There
+were no common schools, and the mass of
+the people were more ignorant and rough
+than their contemporaries in any other
+colony. Elections were scenes of bribery,
+intimidation, and riot, surpassing even those
+which Hogarth depicted in England. Elkanah
+Watson, of Massachusetts, describes
+what he saw at Hanover Court House, Patrick
+Henry’s county, in 1778: <q>The whole
+county was assembled. The moment I
+alighted, a wretched, pug-nosed fellow assailed
+me to swap watches. I had hardly
+shaken him off, when I was attacked by a
+wild Irishman who insisted on my swapping
+horses with him.... With him I
+came near being involved in a boxing-match,
+the Irishman swearing, I <q>did not
+trate him like a jintleman.</q> I had hardly
+escaped this dilemma when my attention
+was attracted by a fight between two very
+unwieldy fat men, foaming and puffing like
+two furies, until one succeeded in twisting
+<pb n="50"/><anchor id="Pg50"/>a forefinger in a sidelock of the other’s
+hair, and in the act of thrusting by this
+purchase his thumb into the latter’s eye, he
+bawled out, <q>King’s Cruise,</q> equivalent in
+technical language to <q>Enough.</q></q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quakers were put in the pillory, scolding
+women were ducked, and it is said that a
+woman was burned to death in Princess
+Anne County for witchcraft. The English
+church, as we have seen, was an established
+church; and all taxpayers, dissenters as
+well as churchmen, were compelled to contribute
+to its support. Baptist preachers
+were arrested, and fined as disturbers of
+the peace. The law of entail, both as respects
+land and slaves, was so strict that
+their descent to the eldest son could not be
+prevented even by agreement between the
+owner and his heir.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his reformation of the laws, Jefferson
+was supported by Patrick Henry, now governor,
+and inhabiting what was still called
+the palace; by George Mason, a patriotic
+lawyer who drew the famous Virginia Bill
+of Rights; by George Wythe, his old pre<pb n="51"/><anchor id="Pg51"/>ceptor, and by James Madison, Jefferson’s
+friend, pupil, and successor, who in this year
+began his political career as a member of the
+House of Burgesses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Opposed to them were the conservative
+party led by R. C. Nicholas, head of the
+Virginia bar, a stanch churchman and gentleman
+of the old school, and Edward Pendleton,
+whom Jefferson described as <q>full
+of resource, never vanquished; for if he
+lost the main battle he returned upon you,
+and regained so much of it as to make it a
+drawn one, by dexterous manœuvres, skirmishes
+in detail, and the recovery of small
+advantages, which, little singly, were important
+all together. You never knew when
+you were clear of him.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Intense as the controversy was, fundamental
+as were the points at issue, the speakers
+never lost that courtesy for which the Virginians
+were remarkable; John Randolph
+being perhaps the only exception. Even
+Patrick Henry—though from his humble
+origin and impetuous oratory one might
+have expected otherwise—was never guilty
+<pb n="52"/><anchor id="Pg52"/>of any rudeness to his opponents. What
+Jefferson said of Madison was true of the
+Virginia orators in general,—<q>soothing
+always the feelings of his adversaries by
+civilities and softnesses of expression.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson struck first at the system of
+entail. After a three weeks’ struggle, land
+and slaves were put upon the same footing
+as all other property,—they might be sold
+or bequeathed according to the will of the
+possessor. Then came a longer and more
+bitter contest. Jefferson was for abolishing
+all connection between church and state, and
+for establishing complete freedom of religion.
+Nine years elapsed before Virginia could be
+brought to that point; but at this session
+he procured a repeal of the law which imposed
+penalties for attendance at a dissenting
+meeting-house, and also of the law
+compelling dissenters to pay tithes. The
+fight was, therefore, substantially won; and
+in 1786, Jefferson’s <q>Act for establishing
+religion</q> became the law of Virginia.<note place="foot">It is to be remembered that the support of public
+worship was compulsory in Massachusetts—the inhabitants of certain cities excepted—down to the year 1833.
+An attempt to free the people from this burden, led by
+Dr. Childs, of Berkshire County, was defeated at the Constitutional
+Convention of 1820.</note>
+</p>
+
+<pb n="53"/><anchor id="Pg53"/>
+
+<p>
+Another far-reaching law introduced by
+Jefferson at this memorable session of 1776
+provided for the naturalization of foreigners
+in Virginia, after a two years’ residence in
+the State, and upon a declaration of their
+intention to become American citizens. The
+bill provided also that the minor children
+of naturalized parents should be citizens of
+the United States when they came of age.
+The principles of this measure were afterward
+embodied in the statutes of the United
+States, and they are in force to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this session Jefferson also drew an act
+for establishing courts of law in Virginia,
+the royal courts having necessarily passed
+out of existence when the Declaration of
+Independence was adopted. Moreover, he
+set on foot a revision of all the statutes of
+Virginia, a committee with him at the head
+being appointed for this purpose; and
+finally he procured the removal of the capital
+from Williamsburg to Richmond.
+</p>
+
+<pb n="54"/><anchor id="Pg54"/>
+
+<p>
+All this was accomplished, mainly by
+Jefferson’s efforts; and yet the two bills
+upon which he set most store failed entirely.
+These were, first, a comprehensive measure
+of state education, running up through
+primary schools and grammar schools to a
+state university, and, secondly, a bill providing
+that all who were born in slavery
+after the passage of the bill should be free.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was Jefferson’s second ineffectual
+attempt to promote the abolition of slavery.
+During the year 1768, when he first became
+a member of the House of Burgesses, he had
+endeavored to procure the passage of a law
+enabling slave-owners to free their slaves,
+He induced Colonel Bland, one of the ablest,
+oldest, and most respected members to propose
+the law, and he seconded the proposal;
+but it was overwhelmingly rejected. <q>I, as
+a younger member,</q> related Jefferson afterward,
+<q>was more spared in the debate; but
+he was denounced as an enemy to his country,
+and was treated with the greatest indecorum.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1778 Jefferson made another attempt:<pb n="55"/><anchor id="Pg55"/>—he brought in a bill forbidding the further
+importation of slaves in Virginia, and this
+was passed without opposition. Again, in
+1784, when Virginia ceded to the United
+States her immense northwestern territory,
+Jefferson drew up a scheme of government
+for the States to be carved out of it which
+included a provision <q>that after the year
+1800 of the Christian Era, there shall be
+neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in
+any of the said States, otherwise than in
+punishment of crimes.</q> The provision was
+rejected by Congress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his <q>Notes on Virginia,</q> written in the
+year 1781, but published in 1787, he said:
+<q>The whole commerce between master and
+slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous
+passions, the most unremitting despotism,
+on the one part, and degrading submission
+on the other. Our children see this, and
+learn to imitate it.... With the morals
+of the people their industry also is destroyed.
+For in a warm climate no one will labor
+for himself who can make another labor for
+him.... Indeed, I tremble for my country
+<pb n="56"/><anchor id="Pg56"/>when I reflect that God is just; that his
+justice cannot sleep forever.... The Almighty
+has no attribute which can take sides
+with us in such a contest.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the Missouri Compromise question
+came up, in 1820, Jefferson rightly predicted
+that a controversy had begun which would
+end in disruption; but he made the mistake
+of supposing that the Northern party were
+actuated in that matter solely by political
+motives. April 22, 1820, he wrote: <q>This
+momentous question, like a fire-bell in the
+night, awakened and filled me with terror.
+I considered it at once as the knell of the
+Union.... A geographical line, coinciding
+with a marked principle, moral and political,
+once conceived and held up to the angry passions
+of men, will never be obliterated; and
+every new irritation will mark it deeper and
+deeper.... The cession of that kind of property,
+for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle
+which would not cost me a second thought
+if, in that way, a general emancipation and
+expatriation could be effected; and gradually
+and with due sacrifices I think it might be.
+<pb n="57"/><anchor id="Pg57"/>But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears,
+and we can neither hold him nor safely let
+him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation
+in the other.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And later, he wrote of the Missouri Compromise,
+as a <q>question having just enough
+of the semblance of morality to throw dust
+into the eyes of the people.... The Federalists,
+unable to rise again under the old
+division of Whig and Tory, have invented a
+geographical division which gives them fourteen
+States against ten, and seduces their old
+opponents into a coalition with them. Real
+morality is on the other side. For while the
+removal of the slaves from one State to
+another adds no more to their numbers than
+their removal from one country to another,
+the spreading them over a larger surface adds
+to their happiness, and renders their future
+emancipation more practicable.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These misconceptions as to Northern motives
+might be ascribed to Jefferson’s advanced
+age, for, as he himself graphically
+expressed it, he then had <q>one foot in the
+grave, and the other lifted to follow it;</q> but
+<pb n="58"/><anchor id="Pg58"/>it would probably be more just to say that
+they were due, in part, to his prejudice against
+the New England people and especially the
+New England clergy, and in part to the fact
+that his long retirement in Virginia had somewhat
+contracted his views and sympathies.
+Jefferson was a man of intense local attachments,
+and he took color from his surroundings.
+He never ceased, however, to regard
+slavery as morally wrong and socially ruinous;
+and in the brief autobiography which he
+left behind him he made these predictions:
+<q>Nothing is more certainly written in the
+book of fate than that these people are to
+be free. Nor is it less certain that the two
+races, equally free, cannot live in the same
+government.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+History has justified the second as well as
+the first of these declarations, for, excepting
+that brief period of anarchy known as <q>the
+carpet-bag era,</q> it cannot be maintained that
+the colored race in the Southern States have
+been at any time, even since their emancipation,
+<q>equally free,</q> in the sense of politically
+free, with their white fellow citizens.
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="59"/><anchor id="Pg59"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="VI. Governor of Virginia"/><index index="pdf" level1="VI. Governor of Virginia"/>
+<head>VI</head>
+
+<head type="sub">GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA</head>
+
+<p>
+For three years Jefferson was occupied
+with the legislative duties already described,
+and especially with a revision of the Virginia
+statutes, and then, in June, 1779, he succeeded
+Patrick Henry as governor of the
+State. It has often been remarked that he
+was, all through life, a lucky man, but in
+this case fortune did not favor him, for the
+ensuing two years proved to be, so far as
+Virginia was concerned, by much the worst
+period of the war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The French alliance, though no doubt an
+ultimate benefit to the colonies, had at first
+two bad effects: it relaxed the energy of the
+Americans, who trusted that France would
+fight their battles for them; and it stimulated
+the British to increased exertions. The British
+commissioners announced that henceforth
+England would employ, in the prosecu<pb n="60"/><anchor id="Pg60"/>tion of the war, all those agencies which
+<q>God and nature had placed in her hands.</q>
+This meant that the ferocity of the Indians
+would be invoked, a matter of special moment
+to Virginia, since her western frontier
+swarmed with Indians, the bravest of their
+race.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The colony, it must be remembered, was
+then of immense extent; for beside the present
+Virginia and West Virginia, Kentucky
+and the greater part of Ohio, Indiana, and
+Illinois were embraced in it. It stretched,
+in short, from the Atlantic Ocean to the
+Mississippi River. Upon the seaboard Virginia
+was especially vulnerable, the tide-water
+region being penetrated by numerous bays
+and rivers, which the enemy’s ships could
+easily ascend, for they were undefended by
+forts or men. The total navy of the colony
+was four vessels, mounting sixty-two guns,
+and a few armed boats. The flower of the
+Virginia soldiery, to the number of ten thousand,
+were in Washington’s army, and supplies
+of men, of arms, of ammunition and
+food were urgently called for by General
+<pb n="61"/><anchor id="Pg61"/>Gates, who was battling against Cornwallis
+in North Carolina. The militia were supposed
+to number fifty thousand, which included
+every man between sixteen and fifty
+years of age; but this was only one man for
+every square mile of territory in the present
+State of Virginia, and of these militiamen it
+was estimated that, east of the Blue Ridge,
+only about one in five was armed with a gun.
+The treasury was practically bankrupt, and
+there was a dearth of every kind of warlike
+material.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was the situation which confronted,
+as Mr. Parton puts it, <q>a lawyer of thirty-six,
+with a talent for music, a taste for art,
+a love of science, literature, and gardening.</q>
+The task was one calling rather for a soldier
+than a statesman; but Mr. Jefferson faced it
+with courage, and on the whole with success.
+In retaliating the cruel measures of the
+British, he showed a firmness which must
+have been especially difficult for a man of
+his temperament. He put in irons and confined
+in a dungeon Colonel Henry Hamilton
+and two subordinate officers who had com<pb n="62"/><anchor id="Pg62"/>mitted atrocities upon American prisoners.
+He caused a prison-ship, like the ships of
+infamous memory which were employed as
+prisons by the British at New York, to be
+prepared; and the exchange of captives between
+Virginia and the British was stopped.
+<q>Humane conduct on our part,</q> wrote Jefferson,
+<q>was found to produce no effect.
+The contrary, therefore, is to be tried. Iron
+will be retaliated by iron, prison-ships for
+prison-ships, and like for like in general.</q>
+But in November, 1779, notice was received
+that the English, under their new leader, Sir
+Henry Clinton, had adopted a less barbarous
+system of warfare; and fortunately Jefferson’s
+measures of reprisal became unnecessary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hampered as he was by want of men and
+money, Jefferson did all that he could to supply
+the needs of the Virginia soldiers with
+Washington, of the army in North Carolina,
+led by Gates, and of George Rogers Clarke,
+the heroic commander who put down the
+Indian uprising on the western frontier, and
+captured the English officer who instigated
+<pb n="63"/><anchor id="Pg63"/>it,—that same Colonel Hamilton of whom
+mention has already been made. The story
+of Clarke’s adventures in the wilderness,—he
+was a neighbor of Jefferson, only twenty-six
+years old,—of his forced marches, of
+his masterful dealing with the Indians, and
+finally of his capture of the British force,
+forms a thrilling chapter in the history of the
+American Revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many indeed of Jefferson’s constituents
+censured him as being over-zealous in his
+support of the army of Gates. He stripped
+Virginia, they said, of troops and resources
+which, as it proved afterward, were needed
+at home. But if Cornwallis were not defeated
+in North Carolina, it was certain that
+he would overrun the much more exposed
+Virginia. If he could be defeated anywhere,
+it would be in the Carolinas. Jefferson’s
+course, it is sufficient to say, was that recommended
+by Washington; and his exertions
+in behalf of the Continental armies were
+commended in the highest terms not only by
+Washington, but also by Generals Gates,
+Greene, Steuben, and Lafayette. The mili<pb n="64"/><anchor id="Pg64"/>tia were called out, leaving behind only so
+many men as were required to cultivate the
+land, wagons were impressed, including two
+belonging to the governor, and attempts were
+even made—extraordinary for Virginia—to
+manufacture certain much-needed articles.
+<q>Our smiths,</q> wrote Jefferson, <q>are making
+five hundred axes and some tomahawks for
+General Gates.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus fared the year 1779, and in 1780
+things went from bad to worse. In April
+came a letter from Madison, saying that
+Washington’s army was on the verge of
+dissolution, being only half-clothed, and in a
+way to be starved. The public treasury was
+empty and the public credit gone. In August
+occurred the disastrous defeat of General
+Gates at Camden, which left Virginia at the
+mercy of Cornwallis. In October a British
+fleet under Leslie ravaged the country about
+Portsmouth, but failing to effect a juncture
+with Cornwallis, who was detained in North
+Carolina by illness among his troops, did no
+further harm. Two months later, however,
+Benedict Arnold sailed up the James River
+<pb n="65"/><anchor id="Pg65"/>with another fleet, and, after committing
+some depredations at Richmond, sailed down
+again, escaping by the aid of a favorable
+wind, which hauled from east to west just
+in the nick of time for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In June, 1781, Cornwallis invaded Virginia,
+and no one suffered more than Jefferson
+from his depredations. Tarleton was
+dispatched to seize the governor at Monticello;
+but the latter was forewarned by a
+citizen of <anchor id="corr065"/><corr sic="Charlotteville">Charlottesville</corr>, who, being in a
+tavern at Louisa when Tarleton and his
+troop swept by on the main road, immediately
+guessed their destination, and mounting
+his horse, a fleet Virginia thoroughbred,
+rode by a short cut through the woods
+straight to Monticello, arriving there about
+three hours ahead of Tarleton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson took the matter coolly. He
+first dispatched his family to a place of
+safety, sent his best horse to be shod at a
+neighboring smithy, and then proceeded to
+sort and separate his papers. He left the
+house only about five minutes before the
+soldiers entered it.
+</p>
+
+<pb n="66"/><anchor id="Pg66"/>
+
+<p>
+Two slaves, Martin, Mr. Jefferson’s body
+servant, and Cæsar, were engaged in hiding
+plate and other articles under the floor
+of the portico, a single plank having been
+raised for that purpose. As Martin, above,
+handed the last article to Cæsar under the
+floor, the tramp of the approaching cavalry
+was heard. Down went the plank, shutting
+in Cæsar, and there he remained, without
+making any outcry, for eighteen hours, in
+darkness, and of course without food or
+water. One of the soldiers, to try Martin’s
+nerve, clapped a pistol to his breast, and
+threatened to fire unless he would tell which
+way his master had fled. <q>Fire away,
+then,</q> retorted the black, fiercely answering
+glance for glance, and not receding a hair’s
+breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tarleton and his men scrupulously refrained
+from injuring Jefferson’s property.
+Cornwallis, on the other hand, who encamped
+on Jefferson’s estate of Elk Hill, lying opposite
+Elk Island in the James River, destroyed
+the growing crops, burned all the barns and
+fences, carried off—<q>as was to be expected,</q>
+<pb n="67"/><anchor id="Pg67"/>said Mr. Jefferson—the cattle and horses,
+and committed the barbarity of killing the
+colts that were too young to be of service.
+He carried off, also, about thirty slaves.
+<q>Had this been to give them freedom,</q>
+wrote Jefferson, <q>he would have done right;
+but it was to consign them to inevitable
+death from the smallpox and putrid fever,
+then raging in his camp.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>Some of the miserable wretches crawled
+home to die,</q> Mr. Randall relates, <q>and
+giving information where others lay perishing
+in hovels or in the open air, by the wayside,
+these were sent for by their generous master;
+and the last moments of all of them were
+made as comfortable as could be done by
+proper nursing and medical attendance.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These dreadful scenes, added to the agitation
+of having twice been obliged, at a moment’s
+notice, to flee from the enemy, to say
+nothing of the anxieties which she must have
+endured on her husband’s account, were too
+much for Mrs. Jefferson’s already enfeebled
+constitution. She died on September 6,
+1782.
+</p>
+
+<pb n="68"/><anchor id="Pg68"/>
+
+<p>
+Six slave women who were household servants
+enjoyed for thirty years a kind of
+humble distinction at Monticello as <q>the
+servants who were in the room when Mrs.
+Jefferson died;</q> and the fact that they
+were there attests the affectionate relations
+which must have existed between them and
+their master and mistress. <q>They have
+often told my wife,</q> relates Mr. Bacon,
+<q>that when Mrs. Jefferson died they stood
+around the bed. Mr. Jefferson sat by her,
+and she gave him directions about a good
+many things that she wanted done. When
+she came to the children, she wept, and could
+not speak for some time. Finally she held
+up her hand, and, spreading out her four
+fingers, she told him she could not die happy
+if she thought her four children were ever to
+have a stepmother brought in over them.
+Holding her other hand in his, Mr. Jefferson
+promised her solemnly that he would
+never marry again;</q> and the promise was
+kept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After his wife’s death Jefferson sank into
+what he afterward described as <q>a stupor of
+<pb n="69"/><anchor id="Pg69"/>mind;</q> and even before that he had been,
+for the first and last time in his life, in a
+somewhat morbid mental condition. He was
+an excessively sensitive man, and reflections
+upon his conduct as governor, during the
+raids into Virginia by Arnold and Cornwallis,
+coming at a time when he was overwrought,
+rankled in his mind. He refused to serve
+again as governor, and desiring to defend
+his course when in that office, became a
+member of the House of Burgesses in 1781,
+in order that he might answer his critics
+there; but not a voice was raised against
+him. In 1782, he was again elected to the
+House, but he did not attend; and both
+Madison and Monroe endeavored in vain to
+draw him from his seclusion. To Monroe
+he replied: <q>Before I ventured to declare
+to my countrymen my determination to retire
+from public employment, I examined
+well my heart to know whether it were
+thoroughly cured of every principle of political
+ambition, whether no lurking particle
+remained which might leave me uneasy, when
+reduced within the limits of mere private
+<pb n="70"/><anchor id="Pg70"/>life. I became satisfied that every fibre of
+that passion was thoroughly eradicated.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson was an impulsive man,—in
+some respects a creature of the moment;
+certainly often, in his own case, mistaking,
+as a permanent feeling, what was really a
+transitory impression. His language to
+Monroe must, therefore, be taken as the
+sincere deliverance of a man who, at that
+time, had not the remotest expectation of
+receiving, or the least ambition to attain,
+the highest offices in the gift of the American
+people.
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="71"/><anchor id="Pg71"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="VII. Envoy at Paris"/><index index="pdf" level1="VII. Envoy at Paris"/>
+<head>VII</head>
+
+<head type="sub">ENVOY AT PARIS</head>
+
+<p>
+Two years after his wife’s death, namely,
+in 1784, Jefferson was chosen by Congress
+to serve as envoy at Paris, with John Adams
+and Benjamin Franklin. The appointment
+came at an opportune moment, when his
+mind was beginning to recover its tone, and
+he gladly accepted it. It was deemed necessary
+that the new Confederacy should make
+treaties with the various governments of
+Europe, and as soon as the envoys reached
+Paris, they drew up a treaty such as they
+hoped might be negotiated. It has been
+described as <q>the first serious attempt ever
+made to conduct the intercourse of nations
+on Christian principles;</q> and, on that account,
+it failed. To this failure there was,
+however, one exception. <q>Old Frederick of
+Prussia,</q> as Jefferson styled him, <q>met us
+<pb n="72"/><anchor id="Pg72"/>cordially;</q> and with him a treaty was soon
+concluded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In May, 1785, Franklin returned to the
+United States, and Jefferson was appointed
+minister. <q>You replace Dr. Franklin,</q>
+said the Count of Vergennes when Jefferson
+announced his appointment. <q>I succeed,—no
+one can replace him,</q> was the reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s residence in Paris at this critical
+period was a fortunate occurrence. It
+would be a mistake to suppose that he derived
+his political principles from France:—he
+carried them there; but he was confirmed
+in them by witnessing the injustice
+and misery which resulted to the common
+people from the monarchical governments of
+Europe. To James Monroe he wrote in
+June, 1785: <q>The pleasure of the trip [to
+Europe] will be less than you expect, but
+the utility greater. It will make you adore
+your own country,—its soil, its climate, its
+equality, laws, people, and manners. My
+God! how little do my countrymen know
+what precious blessings they are in possession
+of and which no other people on earth
+<pb n="73"/><anchor id="Pg73"/>enjoy! I confess I had no idea of it myself.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To George Wythe he wrote in August,
+1786: <q>Preach, my dear sir, a crusade
+against ignorance; establish and improve
+the law for educating the common people.
+Let our countrymen know that the people
+alone can protect us against these evils; and
+that the tax which will be paid for this purpose
+is not more than the thousandth part
+of what will be paid to kings, priests, and
+nobles, who will rise up among us if we
+leave the people in ignorance.</q> To Madison,
+he wrote in January, 1787: <q>This is a
+<anchor id="corr073"/><corr sic="goverment">government</corr> of wolves over sheep.</q> Jefferson
+took the greatest pains to ascertain the condition
+of the laboring classes. In the course
+of a journey in the south of France, he wrote
+to Lafayette, begging him to survey the condition
+of the people for himself. <q>To do
+it most effectually,</q> he said, <q>you must be
+absolutely incognito; you must ferret the
+people out of their hovels, as I have done;
+look into their kettles; eat their bread; loll
+on their beds on pretense of resting your<pb n="74"/><anchor id="Pg74"/>self, but in fact to find if they are soft.
+You will feel a sublime pleasure in the
+course of the investigation, and a sublimer
+one hereafter, when you shall be able to
+apply your knowledge to the softening of
+their beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat
+into their kettle of vegetables.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These excursions among the French peasantry,
+who, as Jefferson well knew, were ruinously
+taxed in order to support an extravagant
+court and an idle and insolent nobility,
+made him a fierce Republican. <q>There is
+not a crowned head in Europe,</q> he wrote to
+General Washington, in 1788, <q>whose talents
+or merits would entitle him to be elected
+a vestryman by the people of America.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But for the French race Jefferson had an
+affinity. He was glad to live with people
+among whom, as he said, <q>a man might pass
+a life without encountering a single rudeness.</q>
+He liked their polished manners and
+gay disposition, their aptitude for science, for
+philosophy, and for art; even their wines
+and cookery suited his taste, and his preference
+in this respect was so well known that
+<pb n="75"/><anchor id="Pg75"/>Patrick Henry once humorously stigmatized
+him as <q>a man who had abjured his native
+victuals.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s stay in Paris corresponded
+exactly with the <q>glorious</q> period of the
+French Revolution. He was present at the
+Assembly of the Notables in 1787, and he
+witnessed the destruction of the Bastille in
+1789.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>The change in this country,</q> he wrote
+in March, 1789, <q>is such as you can form
+no idea of. The frivolities of conversation
+have given way entirely to politics. Men,
+women, and children talk nothing else ...
+and mode has acted a wonderful part in the
+present instance. All the handsome young
+women, for example, are for the <hi rend="italic">tiers étât</hi>, and
+this is an army more powerful in France
+than the 200,000 men of the king.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The truth is that an intellectual and
+moral revolution preceded in France the
+outbreak of the populace. There was an
+interior conviction that the government of
+the country was excessively unjust and oppressive.
+A love of liberty, a feeling of
+<pb n="76"/><anchor id="Pg76"/>fraternity, a passion for equality moved the
+intellect and even the aristocracy of France.
+In this crisis the reformers looked toward
+America, for the United States had just
+trodden the path upon which France was
+entering. <q>Our proceedings,</q> wrote Jefferson
+to Madison in 1789, <q>have been
+viewed as a model for them on every occasion....
+Our [authority] has been treated
+like that of the Bible, open to explanation,
+but not to question.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s advice was continually sought
+by Lafayette and others; and his house,
+maintained in the easy, liberal style of Virginia,
+was a meeting place for the Revolutionary
+statesmen. Jefferson dined at three
+or four o’clock; and after the cloth had been
+removed he and his guests sat over their
+wine till nine or ten in the evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In July, 1789, the National Assembly
+appointed a committee to draught a constitution,
+and the committee formally invited
+the American minister to assist at their sessions
+and favor them with his advice. This
+function he felt obliged to decline, as being
+<pb n="77"/><anchor id="Pg77"/>inconsistent with his post of minister to the
+king. No man had a nicer sense of propriety
+than Jefferson; and he punctiliously
+observed the requirements of his somewhat
+difficult situation in Paris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What gave Mr. Jefferson the greatest
+anxiety and trouble, was our relations with
+the piratical Barbary powers who held the
+keys of the Mediterranean and sometimes
+extended their depredations even into the
+Atlantic. It was a question of paying tribute
+or going to war; and most of the European
+powers paid tribute. In 1784, for
+example, the Dutch contributed to <q>the
+high, glorious, mighty, and most noble,
+King, Prince, and Emperor of Morocco,</q>
+a mass of material which included thirty
+cables, seventy cannon, sixty-nine masts,
+twenty-one anchors, fifty dozen sail-needles,
+twenty-four tons of pitch, two hundred and
+eighty loaves of sugar, twenty-four China
+punch-bowls, three clocks, and one <q>very
+large watch.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson ascertained that the pirates
+would require of the United States, as the
+<pb n="78"/><anchor id="Pg78"/>price of immunity for its commerce, a tribute
+of about three hundred thousand dollars
+per annum. <q>Surely,</q> he wrote home, <q>our
+people will not give this. Would it not be
+better to offer them an equal treaty? If
+they refuse, why not go to war with them?</q>
+And he pressed upon Mr. Jay, who held the
+secretaryship of foreign affairs, as the office
+was then called, the immediate establishment
+of a navy. But Congress would do nothing;
+and it was not till Jefferson himself became
+President that the Barbary pirates were dealt
+with in a wholesome and stringent manner.
+During the whole term of his residence at
+Paris he was negotiating with the Mediterranean
+powers for the release of unfortunate
+Americans, many of whom spent the best
+part of their lives in horrible captivity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Jefferson’s self-imposed duties were
+no less arduous. He kept four colleges informed
+of the most valuable new inventions,
+discoveries, and books. He had a Yankee
+talent for mechanical improvements, and he
+was always on the alert to obtain anything
+of this nature which he thought might be
+<pb n="79"/><anchor id="Pg79"/>useful at home. Jefferson himself, by the
+way, invented the revolving armchair, the
+buggy-top, and a mould board for a plough.
+He bought books for Franklin, Madison,
+Monroe, Wythe, and himself. He informed
+one correspondent about Watt’s engine, another
+about the new system of canals. He
+smuggled rice from Turin in his coat pockets;
+and he was continually dispatching to
+agricultural societies in America seeds, roots,
+nuts, and plants. Houdin was sent over by
+him to make the statue of Washington;
+and he forwarded designs for the new capitol
+at Richmond. For Buffon he procured
+the skin of an American panther, and also
+the bones and hide of a New Hampshire
+moose, to obtain which Governor Sullivan
+of that State organized a hunting-party in
+the depth of winter and cut a road through
+the forest for twenty miles in order to bring
+out his quarry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson was the most indefatigable of
+men, and he did not relax in Paris. He
+had rooms at a Carthusian monastery to
+which he repaired when he had some special
+<pb n="80"/><anchor id="Pg80"/>work on hand. He kept a carriage and
+horses, but could not afford a saddle horse.
+Instead of riding, he took a walk every
+afternoon, usually of six or seven miles, occasionally
+twice as long. It was while returning
+with a friend from one of these
+excursions that he fell and fractured his
+right wrist; and the fracture was set so imperfectly
+that it troubled him ever afterward.
+It was characteristic of Jefferson
+that he said nothing to his friend as to the
+injury until they reached home, though his
+suffering from it was great; and, also, that
+he at once began to write with the other
+hand, making numerous entries, on the very
+night of the accident, in a writing which,
+though stiff, was, and remains, perfectly
+clear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Jefferson’s two daughters had been
+placed at a convent school near Paris, and
+he was surprised one day to receive a note
+from Martha, the elder, asking his permission
+to remain in the convent for the rest
+of her life as a nun. For a day or two she
+received no answer. Then her father called
+<pb n="81"/><anchor id="Pg81"/>in his carriage, and after a short interview
+with the abbess took his daughters away;
+and thenceforth Martha presided, so far as
+her age permitted, over her father’s household.
+Not a word upon the subject of her
+request ever passed between them; and long
+afterward, in telling the story to her own
+children, she praised Mr. Jefferson’s tact in
+dealing with what she described as a transient
+impulse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this incident, Jefferson, thinking
+that it was time to take his daughters home,
+obtained leave of absence for six months;
+and the little family landed at Norfolk, November
+18, 1789. They journeyed slowly
+homeward, stopping at one friend’s house
+after another, and, two days before Christmas,
+arrived at Monticello, where they were
+rapturously greeted by the slaves, who took
+the four horses from the carriage and drew
+it up the steep incline themselves; and
+when he alighted, Mr. Jefferson, in spite of
+himself, was carried into the house on the
+arms of his black servants and friends.
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="82"/><anchor id="Pg82"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="VIII. Secretary of State"/><index index="pdf" level1="VIII. Secretary of State"/>
+<head>VIII</head>
+
+<head type="sub">SECRETARY OF STATE</head>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Jefferson had a strong desire to
+resume his post as minister to France, but
+he yielded to Washington’s earnest request
+that he should become Secretary of State in
+the new government. He lingered long
+enough at Monticello to witness the marriage
+of his daughter Martha to Thomas
+Mann Randolph, and then set out upon a
+cold, wet journey of twenty-one days, reaching
+New York, which was then the seat of
+government, late in March, 1790. He hired
+a small house at No. 57 Maiden Lane, and
+immediately attacked the arrears of work
+which had been accumulating for six months.
+The unusual confinement, aggravated, perhaps,
+by a homesickness, clearly revealed in
+his letters, for his daughters and for Monticello,
+brought on what seems to have been a
+<pb n="83"/><anchor id="Pg83"/>neuralgic headache which lasted for three
+weeks. It may have been caused in part
+by the climate of New York, as to which
+Mr. Jefferson observed: <q>Spring and fall
+they never have, so far as I can learn. They
+have ten months of winter, two of summer,
+with some winter days interspersed.</q> But
+there were other causes beside homesickness
+and headache which made Jefferson unhappy
+in his new position. Long afterward he
+described them as follows:—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>I had left France in the first year of
+her Revolution, in the fervor of natural
+rights and zeal for reformation. My conscientious
+devotion to those rights could not
+be heightened, but it had been aroused and
+excited by daily exercise. The President
+received me cordially, and my colleagues
+and the circle of principal citizens apparently
+with welcome. The courtesies of dinners
+given to me, as a stranger newly arrived
+among them, placed me at once in their familiar
+society. But I cannot describe the
+wonder and mortification with which the
+table conversations filled me. Politics were
+<pb n="84"/><anchor id="Pg84"/>the chief topic, and a preference of kingly
+over republican government was evidently
+the favorite sentiment. An apostate I
+could not be, nor yet a hypocrite; and I
+found myself for the most part the only advocate
+on the republican side of the question,
+unless among the guests there chanced
+to be some member of that party from the
+legislative houses.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must be remembered that Jefferson’s
+absence in France had been the period of
+the Confederacy, when the inability of Congress
+to enforce its laws and to control the
+States was so evident and so disastrous that
+the need of a stronger central government
+had been impressed on men’s minds. The
+new Constitution had been devised to supply
+that need, but it was elastic in its terms, and
+it avoided all details. Should it be construed
+in an aristocratic or in a democratic spirit,
+and should the new nation be given an aristocratic
+or a democratic twist? This was a
+burning question, and it gave rise to that
+long struggle led by Hamilton on one side
+and by Jefferson on the other, which ended
+<pb n="85"/><anchor id="Pg85"/>with the election of Jefferson as President
+in the year 1800.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hamilton and his party utterly disbelieved
+in government by the people.<note place="foot">The father of Miss Catherine Sedgwick was a leading
+Federalist, and his daughter records that, though a
+most kind-hearted man, he habitually spoke of the people
+as <q>Jacobins</q> and <q>miscreants.</q></note> John Adams
+declared that the English Constitution, barring
+its element of corruption, was an ideal
+constitution. Hamilton went farther and
+asserted that the English form of government,
+corruption and all, was the best practicable
+form. An aristocratic senate, chosen
+for a long term, if not for life, was thought
+to be essential even by Mr. Adams. Hamilton’s
+notion was that mankind were incapable
+of self-government, and must be governed
+in one or two ways,—by force or by
+fraud. Property was, in his view, the ideal
+basis of government; and he was inclined to
+fix the possession of <q>a thousand Spanish
+dollars</q> as the proper qualification for a
+voter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The difference between the Hamiltonian
+and the Jeffersonian view arises chiefly from
+<pb n="86"/><anchor id="Pg86"/>a different belief as to the connection between
+education and morality. All aristocratic systems
+must, in the last analysis, be founded
+either upon brute force or else upon the
+assumption that education and morality go
+hand-in-hand, and that the well-to-do and
+best educated class is morally superior to the
+less educated. Jefferson rejected this assumption,
+and all real believers in democracy
+must take their stand with him. He once
+stated his creed upon this point in a letter as
+follows:—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>The moral sense or conscience is as
+much a part of man as his leg or arm....
+It may be strengthened by exercise, as may
+any particular limb of the body. This sense
+is submitted, indeed, in some degree to the
+guidance of reason, but it is a small stock
+which is required for this, even a less one
+than what we call common sense. State a
+moral case to a ploughman and a professor.
+The former will decide it as well and often
+better than the latter, because he has not
+been led astray by artificial rules.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is sound philosophy. The great prob<pb n="87"/><anchor id="Pg87"/>lems in government, whether they relate to
+matters external or internal, are moral, not
+intellectual. There are, indeed, purely intellectual
+problems, such as the question between
+free silver and a gold standard; and as
+to these problems, the people may go wrong.
+But they are not vital. No nation ever yet
+achieved glory or incurred destruction by taking
+one course rather than another in a matter
+of trade or finance. The crucial questions
+are moral questions, and experience has
+shown that as to such matters the people
+can be trusted. As Jefferson himself said,
+<q>The will of the majority, the natural law
+of every society, is the only sure guardian of
+the rights of man. Perhaps even this may
+sometimes err; but its errors are honest, solitary,
+and short-lived.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Washington’s cabinet was made up on the
+theory that it should represent not the party
+in power, but both parties,—for two parties
+already existed, the Federalists and the anti-Federalists,
+who, under Jefferson’s influence,
+soon became known by the better name of
+Republicans. The cabinet consisted of four
+<pb n="88"/><anchor id="Pg88"/>members, Jefferson, Secretary of State, Hamilton,
+Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Knox,
+Secretary of War, and Edmund Randolph,
+Attorney-General.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Knox sided almost always with Hamilton,
+and Randolph was an inconstant supporter
+of Jefferson. Though an able and learned
+man, he was given to hair-splitting and hesitation,
+and, in allusion to his habit of arguing
+on one side, but finally voting upon the other,
+Jefferson once remarked that he usually gave
+the shell to his friends, and reserved the
+oyster for his opponents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The political opinions of Jefferson and
+Hamilton were so diametrically opposed that
+the cabinet was soon torn by dissension.
+Hamilton was for a strong government, for
+surrounding the President with pomp and
+etiquette, for a central authority as against
+the authority of the States. In pursuance of
+these ideas, he brought forward his famous
+measures for assumption of the state debts
+by the national government, for the funding
+of the national debt, and finally for the creation
+of a national bank. Jefferson opposed
+<pb n="89"/><anchor id="Pg89"/>these measures, and, although the assumption
+and the funding laws had grave faults, and
+led to speculation, and in the case of many
+persons to financial ruin, yet it must be admitted
+that Jefferson never appreciated their
+merits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The truth is that both Hamilton and Jefferson
+were essential to the development of
+this country; and the principles of each have
+been adopted in part, and rejected in part.
+Hamilton’s conception of a central government
+predominating over the state governments
+has been realized, though not nearly
+to the extent to which he would have carried
+it. On the other hand, his various schemes
+for making the government into an aristocracy
+instead of a democracy have all been
+abandoned, or, like the Electoral College,
+turned to a use the opposite of what he intended.
+So, Jefferson’s view of state rights
+has not strictly been maintained; but his
+fundamental principles of popular government
+and popular education have made the
+United States what it is, and are destined,
+we hope, when fully developed, to make it
+something better yet.
+</p>
+
+<pb n="90"/><anchor id="Pg90"/>
+
+<p>
+No less an authority than that of Washington,
+who appreciated the merits of both
+men, could have kept the peace between
+them. Hamilton under an assumed name
+attacked Jefferson in the public prints. Jefferson
+never published a line unsigned; but
+he permitted Philip Freneau, who had slight
+employment as a translator in his department,
+and the trifling salary of $250 a year,
+to wage war against Hamilton in the gazette
+which Freneau published; and he even stood
+by while Freneau attacked Washington.
+Washington indeed once gave Jefferson a
+hint on this subject, which the latter refused
+to take. <q>He was evidently sore and warm,</q>
+wrote Jefferson, <q>and I took his intention to
+be that I should interfere in some way with
+Freneau, perhaps withdraw his appointment
+of translating clerk to my office. But I will
+not do it. His paper has saved our constitution,
+which was galloping fast into monarchy....
+And the President has not, ...
+with his usual good sense and <hi rend="italic">sang froid</hi>,
+... seen that, though some bad things had
+passed through it to the public, yet the good
+have predominated immensely.</q>
+</p>
+
+<pb n="91"/><anchor id="Pg91"/>
+
+<p>
+In the spring of 1792, Jefferson, who had
+now been two years in office, was extremely
+anxious to retire, not only because his situation
+at Washington was unpleasant, but
+because his affairs at home had been so neglected
+during his long absences that he was
+in danger of bankruptcy. His estate was
+large, but it was incumbered by a debt to
+English creditors of $13,000. Some years
+before he had sold for cash a farm near
+Monticello in order to discharge this debt;
+but at that time the Revolutionary war had
+begun, and the Virginia legislature passed
+an act inviting all men owing money to English
+creditors to deposit the same in the state
+treasury, the State agreeing to pay it over to
+the English creditors after the war. Jefferson
+accordingly deposited the $13,000 in gold
+which he had just received. Later, however,
+this law was rescinded, and the money received
+under it was paid back, not in gold,
+but in paper money of the State, which was
+then so depreciated as to be almost worthless.
+In riding by the farm thus disposed
+of, Jefferson in after years would sometimes
+<pb n="92"/><anchor id="Pg92"/>point to it and say: <q>That farm I once sold
+for an overcoat;</q>—the price of the overcoat
+having been the $13,000 in paper money.
+Cornwallis, as we have seen, destroyed Jefferson’s
+property to an amount more than
+double this debt, which might be considered
+as a second payment of it; but Jefferson
+finally paid it the third time,—and this
+time into the hands of the actual creditor.
+Meanwhile, he wrote: <q>The torment of
+mind I endure till the moment shall arrive
+when I shall not owe a shilling on earth is
+such really as to render life of little value.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Urged by all these motives, Jefferson had
+resolved to resign his office in 1792, notwithstanding
+the remonstrances of Washington;
+but the attacks made upon him by
+the Federalists, especially those made in the
+newspapers, were so violent that a retirement
+at that time would have given the public
+cause to believe that he had been driven
+from office by his enemies. Jefferson,
+therefore, concluded to remain Secretary of
+State a few months longer; and those few,
+as it happened, were the most important of
+the whole term.
+</p>
+
+<pb n="93"/><anchor id="Pg93"/>
+
+<p>
+On January 21, 1793, King Louis of
+France was executed, and within a week
+thereafter England was at war with the new
+rulers of the French. Difficult questions at
+once arose under our treaties with France.
+The French people thought that we were in
+honor bound to assist them in their struggle
+against Great Britain, as they had assisted
+us; and they sent over as minister <q>Citizen</q>
+Genet, in the frigate L’Embuscade.
+The frigate, carrying forty guns and three
+hundred men, sailed into the harbor of
+Charleston, April 8, <anchor id="corr093"/><corr sic="1795">1793</corr>, with a liberty-cap
+for her figure-head, and a British prize in
+her wake. Citizen Genet, even for a Frenchman,
+was a most indiscreet and hot-headed
+person, and before he had been a week on
+shore he had issued commissions to privateers
+manned by American citizens. L’Embuscade
+then proceeded to Philadelphia,
+where, as in Charleston, Citizen Genet was
+welcomed with the utmost enthusiasm. His
+coming was hailed by the Republicans generally
+with rapture; and their cry was for
+war. <q>I wish,</q> wrote Jefferson, in a con<pb n="94"/><anchor id="Pg94"/>fidential letter to Monroe, <q>that we may be
+able to repress the people within the limits
+of a fair neutrality.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the position taken also by
+Washington and the whole cabinet; and it
+is a striking example of Jefferson’s wisdom,
+justice, and firmness, that, although the
+bulk of the Republicans were carried off
+their feet by sympathy with France and
+with Genet, he, the very person in the United
+States who most loved the French and best
+understood the causes and motives of the
+French Revolution, withstood the storm, and
+kept his eye fixed upon the interests of his
+own country. England, contrary to the
+treaty which closed the Revolutionary War,
+still retained her military posts in the west;
+and she was the undisputed mistress of the
+sea. War with her would therefore have
+been suicidal for the United States. The
+time for that had not yet come. Moreover,
+if the United States had taken sides with
+France, a war with Spain also would inevitably
+have followed; and Spain then held
+Florida and the mouth of the Mississippi.
+</p>
+
+<pb n="95"/><anchor id="Pg95"/>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, there were different ways of
+preserving neutrality: there were the offensive
+way and the friendly way. Hamilton,
+whose extreme bias toward England made
+him bitter against France, was always for
+the one; Jefferson for the other. A single
+example will suffice as an illustration. M.
+Genet asked as a favor that the United
+States should advance an installment of its
+debt to France. Hamilton advised that the
+request be refused without a word of explanation.
+Jefferson’s opinion was that the
+request should be granted, if that were lawful,
+and if it were found to be unlawful, them
+that the refusal should be explained. Mr.
+Jefferson’s advice was followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Jefferson, also, though he firmly withstood
+the many illegal and unwarrantable
+acts attempted by Genet, did so in such a
+manner as not to lose the friendship of the
+minister or even a degree of control over
+him. To Madison Jefferson wrote of Genet:
+<q>He renders my position immensely difficult.
+He does me justice personally; and giving
+him time to vent himself and become more
+<pb n="96"/><anchor id="Pg96"/>cool, I am on a footing to advise him freely,
+and he respects it; but he will break out
+again on the very first occasion.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally Citizen Genet, becoming desperate,
+fitted out one of L’Embuscade’s prizes
+as a frigate to be used against England,
+which amounted on the part of the United
+States to a breach of neutrality; and being
+hindered in sending her to sea, he threatened
+to appeal from the President to the
+people of the United States. Thereupon
+the question arose, what shall be done with
+Genet? and upon this question the cabinet
+divided with more than usual acrimony.
+Knox was for sending him out of the country
+without ceremony; Hamilton for publishing
+the whole correspondence between
+him and the government, with a statement
+of his proceedings. Jefferson was for sending
+an account of the affair to the French
+government, with copies of the correspondence,
+and a request for Genet’s recall.
+Meanwhile the whole country was thrown
+into a state of tumultuous excitement. There
+was a riot in Philadelphia; and even the
+<pb n="97"/><anchor id="Pg97"/>sacred character of Washington was assailed
+in prose and verse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The President decided to adopt the course
+proposed by Jefferson; France appointed
+another minister, and the Genet episode
+ended by his marriage to a daughter of
+George Clinton, governor of New York, in
+which State he lived thereafter as a respectable
+citizen and a patron of agriculture.
+He died in the year 1834.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The summer of delirium at Philadelphia
+culminated in the panic and desolation of
+the yellow fever, and every member of the
+government fled from the city, Jefferson being
+the last to depart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When, in the next year, the correspondence
+between Genet and Jefferson, and between
+the English minister and Jefferson,
+was published, the Secretary was seen to
+have conducted it on his part with so much
+ability, discretion, and tact, and with so
+true a sense of what was due to each nation
+concerned, that he may be said to have retired
+to his farm in a blaze of glory.
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="98"/><anchor id="Pg98"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="IX. The Two Parties"/><index index="pdf" level1="IX. The Two Parties"/>
+<head>IX</head>
+
+<head type="sub">THE TWO PARTIES</head>
+
+<p>
+When Jefferson at last found himself at
+Monticello, having resigned his office as
+Secretary of State, he declared and believed
+that he had done with politics forever. To
+various correspondents he wrote as follows:
+<q>I think that I shall never take another
+newspaper of any sort. I find my mind
+totally absorbed in my rural occupations....
+No <anchor id="corr098"/><corr sic="circumtances">circumstances</corr>, my dear sir, will ever
+more tempt me to engage in anything public....
+I would not give up my retirement for
+the empire of the universe.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Madison wrote in 1795, soliciting
+him to accept the Republican nomination
+for the presidency, Mr. Jefferson replied:
+<q>The little spice of ambition which I had
+in my younger days has long since evaporated,
+and I set still less store by a posthumous
+than present fame. The question
+<pb n="99"/><anchor id="Pg99"/>is forever closed with me.</q> Nevertheless,
+within a few months Mr. Jefferson accepted
+the nomination, chiefly, it is probable, because,
+with his usual sagacity, he foresaw that the
+Republican candidate would be defeated as
+President, but elected as Vice-President. It
+must be remembered that at that time the
+candidate receiving the next to the highest
+number of electoral votes was declared to be
+Vice-President; so that there was always a
+probability that the presidential candidate
+of the party defeated would be chosen to the
+second office.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were several reasons why Jefferson
+would have been glad to receive the office of
+Vice-President. It involved no disagreeable
+responsibility; it called for no great expenditure
+of money in the way of entertainments;
+it carried a good salary; it required
+only a few months’ residence at Washington.
+<q>Mr. Jefferson often told me,</q> remarks
+Mr. Bacon, <q>that the office of Vice-President
+was far preferable to that of President.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Jefferson therefore became the Republican
+nominee for President, and, as he doubt<pb n="100"/><anchor id="Pg100"/>less expected, was elected Vice-President,
+the vote standing as follows: Adams, 71;
+Jefferson, 68; Pinckney, 59; Burr, 30.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is significant of Mr. Jefferson’s high
+standing in the country that many people
+believed that he would not deign to accept
+the office of Vice-President; and Madison
+wrote advising him to come to Washington
+on the 4th of March, and take the oath of
+office, in order that this belief might be dispelled.
+Jefferson accordingly did so, bringing
+with him the bones of a mastodon, lately
+discovered, and a little manuscript book written
+in his law-student days, marked <q>Parliamentary
+Pocket-Book.</q> This was the basis
+of that careful and elaborate <q>Manual of
+Parliamentary Practice</q> which Jefferson left
+as his legacy to the Senate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon receiving news of the election Jefferson
+had written to Madison: <q>If Mr.
+Adams can be induced to administer the government
+on its true principles, and to relinquish
+his bias to an English Constitution, it
+is to be considered whether it would not be,
+on the whole, for the public good to come to
+<pb n="101"/><anchor id="Pg101"/>a good understanding with him as to his
+future elections. He is perhaps the only
+sure barrier against Hamilton’s getting in.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Adams, indeed, at the outset of his
+administration, was inclined to be confidential
+with Mr. Jefferson; but soon, by one of
+those sudden turns not infrequent with him,
+he took a different course, and thenceforth
+treated the Vice-President with nothing more
+than bare civility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a time, indeed, when cordial relations
+between Federalist and Republican were almost
+impossible. In a letter written at this
+period to Mr. Edward Rutledge, Jefferson
+said: <q>You and I have formerly seen warm
+debates, and high political passions. But
+gentlemen of different politics would then
+speak to each other, and separate the business
+of the Senate from that of society. It is not
+so now. Men who have been intimate all
+their lives cross the street to avoid meeting,
+and turn their heads another way, lest they
+should be obliged to touch their hats.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These party feelings were intensified in the
+year 1798 by what is known as the X Y Z
+<pb n="102"/><anchor id="Pg102"/>business. Mr. Adams had sent three commissioners
+to Paris to negotiate a treaty.
+Talleyrand, the French Minister for Foreign
+Affairs, held aloof from them; but they were
+informed by certain mysterious agents that
+a treaty could be had on three conditions,
+(1) that the President should apologize for
+certain expressions in his recent message to
+Congress; (2) that the United States should
+loan a large sum of money to the French
+government; (3) that a <hi rend="italic">douceur</hi> of $25,000
+should be given to Talleyrand’s agents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These insulting proposals were indignantly
+rejected by the commissioners, and being reported
+in this country, they aroused a storm
+of popular indignation. Preparations for war
+were made forthwith. General Washington,
+though in failing health, was appointed
+commander-in-chief,—the real command being
+expected to devolve upon Hamilton, who
+was named second; men and supplies were
+voted; letters of marque were issued, and war
+actually prevailed upon the high seas. The
+situation redounded greatly to the advantage
+of the Federalists, for they were always as
+<pb n="103"/><anchor id="Pg103"/>eager to go to war with France as they were
+reluctant to go to war with England. The
+newly appointed officers were drawn almost,
+if not quite, without exception from the Federalist
+party, and Hamilton seemed to be on
+the verge of that military career which he
+had long hoped for. He trusted, as his most
+intimate friend, Gouverneur Morris, said after
+his death, <q>that in the changes and chances
+of time we would be involved in some war
+which might strengthen our union and nerve
+our executive.</q> So late as 1802, Hamilton
+wrote to Morris, <q>there must be a systematic
+and persevering endeavor to establish the
+future of a great empire on foundations much
+firmer than have yet been devised.</q> At this
+very time he was negotiating with Miranda
+and with the British government, his design
+being to use against Mexico the army raised
+in expectation of a war with France.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hamilton was not the man to overturn
+the government out of personal ambition,
+nor even in order to set up a monarchy in
+place of a republic. But he had convinced
+himself that the republic must some day fall
+<pb n="104"/><anchor id="Pg104"/>of its own weight. He was always anticipating
+a <q>crisis,</q> and this word is repeated
+over and over again in his correspondence.
+It even occurs in the crucial sentence of that
+pathetic document which he wrote on the eve
+of his fatal duel. When the <q>crisis</q> came,
+Hamilton meant to be on hand; and, if possible,
+at the head of an army.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, the X Y Z affair ended peacefully.
+The warlike spirit shown by the people
+of the United States had a wholesome effect
+upon the French government; and at their
+suggestion new envoys were sent over by the
+President, by whom a treaty was negotiated.
+This wise and patriotic act upon the part of
+Mr. Adams was a benefit to his country, but
+it aroused the bitter anger of the Federalists
+and ruined his position in that party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what was Mr. Jefferson’s attitude
+during this business? He was not for war,
+and he contended that a distinction should
+be made between the acts of Talleyrand and
+his agents, and the real disposition of the
+French people. He wrote as follows: <q>Inexperienced
+in such manœuvres, the people
+<pb n="105"/><anchor id="Pg105"/>did not permit themselves even to suspect
+that the turpitude of private swindlers might
+mingle itself unobserved, and give its own
+hue to the communications of the French
+government, of whose participation there was
+neither proof nor probability.</q> And again:
+<q>But as I view a peace between France and
+England the ensuing winter to be certain,
+I have thought it would have been better for
+us to have contrived to bear from France
+through the present summer what we have
+been bearing both from her and from England
+these four years, and still continue to
+bear from England, and to have required indemnification
+in the hour of peace, when, I
+firmly believe, it would have been yielded
+by both.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But this is bad political philosophy. A
+nation cannot obtain justice by submitting
+to wrongs or insults even for a time. Jefferson
+himself had written long before: <q>I
+think it is our interest to punish the first
+insult, because an insult unpunished is the
+parent of many others.</q> It is possible that
+he was misled at this juncture by his liking
+<pb n="106"/><anchor id="Pg106"/>for France, and by his dislike of the Federalists
+and of their British proclivities. It is
+true that the bribe demanded by Talleyrand’s
+agents might be considered, to use
+Mr. Jefferson’s words, as <q>the turpitude of
+private swindlers;</q> but the demand for a
+loan and for a retraction could be regarded
+only as national acts, being acts of the
+French government, although the bulk of
+the French people might repudiate them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whether Jefferson was right or wrong in
+the position which he took, he maintained it
+with superb self-confidence and aplomb. For
+the moment, the Federalists had everything
+their own way. They carried the election.
+Hamilton’s oft-anticipated <q>crisis</q> seemed
+to have arrived at last. But Jefferson coolly
+waited till the storm should blow over. <q>Our
+countrymen,</q> he wrote to a friend, <q>are essentially
+Republicans. They retain unadulterated
+the principles of ’76, and those who
+are conscious of no change in themselves
+have nothing to fear in the long run.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so it proved. The ascendency of
+the Federalists was soon destroyed, and de<pb n="107"/><anchor id="Pg107"/>stroyed forever, by the political crimes and
+follies which they committed; and especially
+by the alien and sedition laws. The reader
+need hardly be reminded that the alien law
+gave the President authority to banish from
+the country <q>all such aliens as <hi rend="italic">he</hi> should
+judge dangerous to the peace and safety
+of the United States,</q>—a despotic power
+which no king of England ever possessed.
+The sedition act made it a crime, punishable
+by fine and imprisonment, to speak or write
+anything <q>false, scandalous, and malicious,</q>
+with intent to excite against either House of
+Congress or against the President, <q>the hatred
+of the good people of the United States.</q>
+It can readily be seen what gross oppression
+was possible under this elastic law, interpreted
+by judges who, to a man, were members
+of the Federal party. Matthew Lyon, of
+Vermont, ventured to read aloud at a political
+meeting a letter which he had received
+expressing astonishment that the President’s
+recent address to the House of Representatives
+had not been answered by <q>an order
+to send him to a mad-house.</q> For this Mr.
+<pb n="108"/><anchor id="Pg108"/>Lyon was fined $1,000, and imprisoned in a
+veritable dungeon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These unconstitutional and un-American
+laws were vigorously opposed by Jefferson
+and Madison. In October, 1798, Jefferson
+wrote: <q>For my own part I consider those
+laws as merely an experiment on the American
+mind to see how far it will bear an
+avowed violation of the Constitution. If
+this goes down, we shall immediately see
+attempted another act of Congress declaring
+that the President shall continue in office
+during life, reserving to another occasion
+the transfer of the succession to his heirs,
+and the establishment of the Senate for
+life.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson also prepared the famous Kentucky
+resolutions, which were adopted by
+the legislature of that State,—the authorship,
+however, being kept secret till Jefferson
+avowed it, twenty years later. These
+much-discussed resolutions have been said
+to have originated the doctrine of nullification,
+and to contain that principle of secession
+upon which the South acted in 1861.
+<pb n="109"/><anchor id="Pg109"/>They may be summed up roughly as follows:
+The source of all political power is in
+the people. The people have, by the compact
+known as the Constitution, granted certain
+specified powers to the federal government;
+all other powers, if not granted to the several
+state governments, are retained by the
+people. The alien and sedition laws assume
+the exercise by the federal government of
+powers not granted to it by the Constitution.
+They are therefore void.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus far there can be no question that
+Jefferson’s argument was sound, and its
+soundness would not be denied, even at the
+present day. But the question then arose:
+what next? May the laws be disregarded
+and disobeyed by the States or by individuals,
+or must they be obeyed until some competent
+authority has pronounced them void?
+and if so, what is that authority? We understand
+now that the Supreme Court has
+sole authority to decide upon the constitutionality
+of the acts of Congress. It was so
+held, for the first time, in the year 1803, in
+the case of Marbury <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Madison, by Chief
+<pb n="110"/><anchor id="Pg110"/>Justice Marshall and his associates; and that
+decision, though resisted at the time, has
+long been accepted by the country as a
+whole. But this case did not arise until
+several years after the Kentucky Resolutions
+were written. Moreover, Marshall was an
+extreme Federalist, and his view was by no
+means the commonly accepted view. Jefferson
+scouted it. He protested all his life
+against the assumption that the Supreme
+Court, a body of men appointed for life, and
+thus removed from all control by the people,
+should have the enormous power of construing
+the Constitution and of passing upon
+the validity of national laws. In a letter
+written in 1804, he said: <q>You seem to
+think it devolved on the judges to decide
+the validity of the sedition law. But nothing
+in the Constitution has given them a
+right to decide for the executive more than
+the executive to decide for them. But the
+opinion which gives to the judges the right
+to decide what laws are constitutional and
+what not—not only for themselves in their
+own sphere of action, but for the legislature
+<pb n="111"/><anchor id="Pg111"/>and executive also in their spheres—would
+make the judiciary a despotic branch.</q><note place="foot">Abraham Lincoln said in his first inaugural address:—<q>But
+if the policy of the government upon a vital
+question affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably
+fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the moment
+they are made, the people will cease to be their own
+masters; having to that extent resigned their government
+into the hands of that eminent tribunal.</q></note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Kentucky resolutions, Jefferson
+argued, first, that the Constitution was a
+compact between the States; secondly, that
+no person or body had been appointed by
+the Constitution as a common judge in respect
+to questions arising under the Constitution
+between any one State and Congress,
+or between the people and Congress; and
+thirdly, <q>as in all other cases of compact
+among powers having no common judge,
+each party has an equal right to judge for
+itself, as well of infractions as of the mode
+and measure of redress.</q> It was open to
+him to take this view, because it had not
+yet been decided that the Supreme Court
+was the <q>common judge</q> appointed by the
+Constitution; and the Constitution itself
+<pb n="112"/><anchor id="Pg112"/>was not explicit upon the point. Moreover,
+the laws in question had not been passed
+upon by the Supreme Court,—they expired
+by limitation before that stage was reached.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must be admitted, then, that the Kentucky
+resolutions do contain the principles
+of nullification. But at the time when they
+were written, nullification was a permissible
+doctrine, because it was not certainly excluded
+by the Constitution. In 1803, as we
+have seen, the Constitution was interpreted
+by the Supreme Court as excluding this
+doctrine; and that decision having been reaffirmed
+repeatedly, and having been acquiesced
+in by the nation for fifty years, may
+fairly be said to have become by the year
+1861 the law of the land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson, however, by no means intended
+to push matters to their logical conclusion.
+His resolutions were intended for moral
+effect, as he explained in the following letter
+to Madison:—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>I think we should distinctly affirm all
+the important principles they contain, so as
+to hold to that ground in future, and leave
+<pb n="113"/><anchor id="Pg113"/>the matter in such a train that we may not
+be committed absolutely to push the matter
+to extremities, and yet may be free to push
+as far as events will render prudent.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As to the charge that the Kentucky Resolutions
+imply the doctrine of secession, as
+well as that of nullification, it has no basis.
+The two doctrines do not stand or fall together.
+There is nothing in the resolutions
+which implies the right of secession. Jefferson,
+like most Americans of his day, contemplated
+with indifference the possibility of an
+ultimate separation of the region beyond the
+Mississippi from the United States. But
+nobody placed a higher value than he did on
+what he described <q>as our union, the last
+anchor of our hope, and that alone which is
+to prevent this heavenly country from becoming
+an arena of gladiators.</q>
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="114"/><anchor id="Pg114"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="X. President Jefferson"/><index index="pdf" level1="X. President Jefferson"/>
+<head>X</head>
+
+<head type="sub">PRESIDENT JEFFERSON</head>
+
+<p>
+For the presidential election of 1800,
+Adams was again the candidate on the Federal
+side, and Jefferson on the Republican
+side. Jefferson, by interviews, by long and
+numerous letters, by the commanding force
+of his own intellect and character, had at
+last welded the anti-Federal elements into a
+compact and disciplined Republican party.
+The contest was waged with the utmost bitterness,
+and especially with bitterness against
+Jefferson. For this there were several causes.
+Jefferson had deeply offended two powerful
+classes in Virginia, the old aristocratic and
+Tory element, and—excluding the dissenters—the
+religious element; the former, by
+the repeal of the law of entail, and the latter
+by the statute for freedom of religion in Virginia.
+These were among the most meritorious
+acts of his life, but they produced an
+<pb n="115"/><anchor id="Pg115"/>intense enmity which lasted till his death
+and even beyond his death. Jefferson, also,
+though at times over-cautious, was at times
+rash and indiscreet, and the freedom of his
+comments upon men and measures often got
+him into trouble. His career will be misunderstood
+unless it is remembered that he
+was an impulsive man. His judgments were
+intuitive, and though usually correct, yet
+sometimes hasty and ill-considered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Above all, Jefferson was both for friends
+and foes the embodiment of Republicanism.
+He represented those ideas which the Federalists,
+and especially the New England lawyers
+and clergy, really believed to be subversive
+of law and order, of government and
+religion. To them he figured as <q>a fanatic
+in politics, and an atheist in religion;</q> and
+they were so disposed to believe everything
+bad of him that they swallowed whole the
+worst slanders which the political violence
+of the times, far exceeding that of the present
+day, could invent. We have seen with
+what tenderness Jefferson treated his widowed
+sister, Mrs. Carr, and her children.
+<pb n="116"/><anchor id="Pg116"/>It was in reference to this very family that
+the Rev. Mr. Cotton Mather Smith, of Connecticut,
+declared that Jefferson had gained
+his estate by robbery, namely, by robbing a
+widow and her children of £10,000, <q>all of
+which can be proved.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson, as we have said, was a deist.
+He was a religious man and a daily reader
+of the Bible, far less extreme in his notions,
+less hostile to orthodox Christianity than
+John Adams. Nevertheless,—partly, perhaps,
+because he had procured the disestablishment
+of the Virginia Church, partly on
+account of his scientific tastes and his liking
+for French notions,—the Federalists
+had convinced themselves that he was a violent
+atheist and anti-Christian. It was a
+humorous saying of the time that the old
+women of New England hid their Bibles in
+the well when Jefferson’s election in 1800
+became known.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The vote was as follows:—Jefferson, 73,
+Burr, 73; Adams, 65; C. C. Pinckney, 64;
+Jay, 1. There being a tie between Jefferson
+and Burr, the Republican candidate for
+<pb n="117"/><anchor id="Pg117"/>Vice-President, the election was thrown
+into the House of Representatives, voting by
+States. In that House the Federalists were
+in the majority, but they did not have a majority
+by States. They could not, therefore,
+elect Adams; but it was possible for them
+to make Burr President instead of Jefferson.
+At first, the leaders were inclined to do
+this, some believing that Burr’s utter want
+of principle was less dangerous than the pernicious
+principles which they ascribed to
+Jefferson, and others thinking that Burr, if
+elected by Federal votes, would pursue a
+Federal policy. It was feared that Jefferson
+would wipe out the national debt, abolish
+the navy, and remove every Federal officeholder
+in the land. He was approached from
+many quarters, and even President Adams
+desired him to give some intimation of his
+intended policy on these points, but Jefferson
+firmly refused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As to one such interview, with Gouverneur
+Morris, Jefferson wrote afterward: <q>I told
+him that I should leave the world to judge
+of the course I meant to pursue, by that
+<pb n="118"/><anchor id="Pg118"/>which I had pursued hitherto, believing it
+to be my duty to be passive and silent during
+the present scene; that I should certainly
+make no terms; should never go into the
+office of President by capitulation, nor with
+my hands tied by any conditions which
+would hinder me from pursuing the measures
+which I should deem for the public good.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Federalists had a characteristic plan:
+they proposed to pass a law devolving the
+Presidency upon the chairman of the Senate,
+in case the office of President should become
+vacant; and this vacancy they would be able
+to bring about by prolonging the election
+until Mr. Adams’s term of office had expired.
+The chairman of the Senate, a Federalist, of
+course, would then become President. This
+scheme Jefferson and his friends were prepared
+to resist by force. <q>Because,</q> as he
+afterward explained, <q>that precedent once
+set, it would be artificially reproduced, and
+would soon end in a dictator.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hamilton, to his credit, be it said, strongly
+advocated the election of Jefferson; and
+finally, through the action of Mr. Bayard,
+<pb n="119"/><anchor id="Pg119"/>of Delaware, a leading Federalist, who had
+sounded an intimate friend of Mr. Jefferson
+as to his views upon the points already mentioned,
+Mr. Jefferson was elected President,
+and the threatening civil war was averted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Adams, who was deeply chagrined by
+his defeat, did not attend the inauguration
+of his successor, but left Washington
+in his carriage, at sunrise, on the fourth of
+March; and Jefferson rode on horseback to
+the Capitol, unattended, and dismounting,
+fastened his horse to the fence with his own
+hands. The inaugural address, brief, and
+beautifully worded, surprised most of those
+who heard it by the moderation and liberality
+of its tone. <q>Let us,</q> said the new President,
+<q>restore to social intercourse that harmony
+and affection without which liberty,
+and even life itself, are but dreary things.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson served two terms, and he was
+succeeded first by Madison, and then by
+Monroe, both of whom were his friends and
+disciples, and imbued with his ideas. They,
+also, were reëlected. For
+twenty-four years,
+therefore, Jefferson and Jeffersonian De<pb n="120"/><anchor id="Pg120"/>mocracy predominated in the government of
+the United States, and the period was an
+exceedingly prosperous one. Not one of the
+dismal forebodings of the Federalists was
+fulfilled; and the practicability of popular
+government was proved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first problem with which Jefferson
+had to deal was that of appointments to
+office. The situation was much like that
+which afterward confronted President Cleveland
+when he entered upon his first term,—that
+is, every place was filled by a member
+of the party opposed to the new administration.
+The principle which Mr. Jefferson
+adopted closely resembles that afterward
+adopted by Mr. Cleveland, namely, no officeholder
+was to be displaced on account of his
+political belief; but if he acted aggressively
+in politics, that was to be sufficient ground
+for removal. <q>Electioneering activity</q> was
+the phrase used in Mr. Jefferson’s time, and
+<q>offensive partisanship</q> in Mr. Cleveland’s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following letter from President Jefferson
+to the Secretary of the Treasury will
+show how the rule was construed by him:—
+</p>
+
+<pb n="121"/><anchor id="Pg121"/>
+
+<p>
+<q>The allegations against Pope [collector]
+of New Bedford are insufficient. Although
+meddling in political caucuses is no part of
+that freedom of personal suffrage which
+ought to be allowed him, yet his mere presence
+at a caucus does not necessarily involve
+an active and official influence in opposition
+to the government which employs
+him.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were some lapses, but, on the whole,
+Mr. Jefferson’s rule was adhered to; and it
+is difficult to say whether he received more
+abuse from the Federalists on account of the
+removals which he did make, or from a faction
+in his own party on account of the
+removals which he refused to make.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His principle was thus stated in a letter:
+<q>If a due participation of office is a matter
+of right, how are vacancies to be obtained?
+Those by death are few; by resignation,
+none.... It would have been to me a
+circumstance of great relief, had I found a
+moderate participation of office in the hands
+of the majority. I should gladly have left
+to time and accident to raise them to their
+<pb n="122"/><anchor id="Pg122"/>just share. But their total exclusion calls
+for prompter corrections. I shall correct
+the procedure; but that done, disdain to
+follow it. I shall return with joy to that
+state of things when the only questions concerning
+a candidate shall be, Is he honest?
+Is he capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ascendency of Jefferson and of the
+Republican party produced a great change
+in the government and in national feeling,
+but it was a change the most important part
+of which was intangible, and is therefore
+hard to describe. It was such a change as
+takes place in the career of an individual,
+when he shakes off some controlling force,
+and sets up in life for himself. The common
+people felt an independence, a pride, an élan,
+which sent a thrill of vigor through every
+department of industry and adventure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The simplicity of the forms which President
+Jefferson adopted were a symbol to the
+national imagination of the change which
+had taken place. He gave up the royal custom
+of levees; he stopped the celebration
+<pb n="123"/><anchor id="Pg123"/>of the President’s birthday; he substituted
+a written message for the speech to Congress
+delivered in person at the Capitol, and
+the reply by Congress, delivered in person
+at the White House. The President’s residence
+ceased to be called the Palace. He
+cut down the army and navy. He introduced
+economy in all the departments of the
+government, and paid off thirty-three millions
+of the national debt. He procured the
+abolition of internal taxes and the repeal of
+the bankruptcy law—two measures which
+greatly decreased his own patronage, and
+which called forth John Randolph’s encomium
+long afterward: <q>I have never seen
+but one administration which seriously and
+in good faith was disposed to give up its
+patronage, and was willing to go farther
+than Congress or even the people themselves
+... desired; and that was the first administration
+of Thomas Jefferson.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two most important measures of the
+first administration were, however, the repression
+of the Barbary pirates and the
+acquisition of Louisiana. Mr. Jefferson’s
+<pb n="124"/><anchor id="Pg124"/>ineffectual efforts, while he was minister to
+France, to put down by force Mediterranean
+piracy have already been rehearsed. During
+Mr. Adams’s term, two million dollars were
+expended in bribing the bucaneers. One
+item in the account was as follows, <q>A frigate
+to carry thirty-six guns for the Dey of
+Algiers;</q> and this frigate went crammed
+with a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of
+powder, lead, timber, rope, canvas, and other
+means of piracy. One hundred and twenty-two
+captives came home in that year, 1796,
+of whom ten had been held in slavery for
+eleven years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s first important act as President
+was to dispatch to the Mediterranean three
+frigates and a sloop-of-war to overawe the
+pirates, and to cruise in protection of American
+commerce. Thus began that series of
+events which finally rendered the commerce
+of the world as safe from piracy in the
+Mediterranean as it was in the British channel.
+How brilliantly Decatur and his gallant
+comrades carried out this policy, and how at
+last the tardy naval powers of Europe fol<pb n="125"/><anchor id="Pg125"/>lowed an example which they ought to have
+set, every one is supposed to know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second important event was the acquisition
+of Louisiana. Louisiana meant the
+whole territory from the Mississippi River to
+the Pacific Ocean, embracing about one million
+square miles. All this region belonged
+to Spain by right of discovery; and early
+in the year 1801 news came from the American
+minister at Paris that Spain had ceded
+or was about to cede it to France. The
+Spanish ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi
+had long been a source of annoyance
+to the settlers on the Mississippi River; and
+it had begun to be felt that the United States
+must control New Orleans at least. If this
+vast territory should come into the hands of
+France, and Napoleon should colonize it, as
+was said to be his intention,—France then
+being the greatest power in Europe,—the
+United States would have a powerful rival on
+its borders, and in control of a seaport absolutely
+necessary for its commerce. We can
+see this now plainly enough, but even so able
+a man as Mr. Livingston, the American
+<pb n="126"/><anchor id="Pg126"/>minister at Paris, did not see it then. On
+the contrary, he wrote to the government at
+Washington: <q>... I have, however, on all
+occasions, declared that as long as France
+conforms to the existing treaty between us
+and Spain, the government of the United
+States does not consider itself as having any
+interest in opposing the exchange.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Jefferson’s very different view was
+expressed in the following letter to Mr.
+Livingston: <q>... France, placing herself
+in that door, assumes to us the attitude of
+defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly
+for years. Her pacific disposition, her feeble
+state would induce her to increase our facilities
+there.... Not so can it ever be in the
+hands of France; the impetuosity of her
+temper, the energy and restlessness of her
+character, placed in a point of eternal friction
+with us and our character, which,
+though quiet and loving peace and the pursuit
+of wealth, is high-minded, despising
+wealth in competition with insult or injury,
+enterprising and energetic as any nation on
+earth,—these circumstances render it im<pb n="127"/><anchor id="Pg127"/>possible that France and the United States
+can continue long friends when they meet
+in so irritable a position.... The day that
+France takes possession of New Orleans fixes
+the sentence which is to restrain her forever
+within her low-water mark.... From that
+moment we must marry ourselves to the
+British fleet and nation.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, at a moment’s notice, and in obedience
+to a vital change in circumstance, Jefferson
+threw aside the policy of a lifetime,
+suppressed his liking for France and his dislike
+for England, and entered upon that
+radically new course which, as he foresaw,
+the interests of the United States would require.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingston, thus primed, began negotiations
+for the purchase of New Orleans; and
+Jefferson hastily dispatched Monroe, as a
+special envoy, for the same purpose, armed,
+it is supposed, with secret verbal instructions,
+to buy, if possible, not only New Orleans,
+but the whole of Louisiana. Monroe had
+not a word in writing to show that in purchasing
+Louisiana—if the act should be
+<pb n="128"/><anchor id="Pg128"/>repudiated by the nation—he did not exceed
+his instructions. But, as Mr. Henry
+Adams remarks, <q>Jefferson’s friends always
+trusted him perfectly.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moment was most propitious, for
+England and France were about to close in
+that terrific struggle which ended at Waterloo,
+and Napoleon was desperately in need of
+money. After some haggling the bargain
+was concluded, and, for the very moderate
+sum of fifteen million dollars, the United
+States became possessed of a territory which
+more than doubled its area.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The purchase of Louisiana was confessedly
+an unconstitutional, or at least an extra-constitutional
+act, for the Constitution gave no
+authority to the President to acquire new
+territory, or to pledge the credit of the
+United States in payment. Jefferson himself
+thought that the Constitution ought to
+be amended in order to make the purchase
+legal; but in this he was overruled by his
+advisers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, Jefferson’s first administration ended
+with a brilliant achievement; but this public
+<pb n="129"/><anchor id="Pg129"/>glory was far more than outweighed by a private
+loss. The President’s younger daughter,
+Mrs. Eppes, died in April, 1804; and
+in a letter to his old friend, John Page,
+he said: <q>Others may lose of their abundance,
+but I, of my wants, have, lost even
+the half of all I had. My evening prospects
+now hang on the slender thread of a single
+life. Perhaps I may be destined to see even
+this last cord of parental affection broken.
+The hope with which I have looked forward
+to the moment when, resigning public cares
+to younger hands, I was to retire to that
+domestic comfort from which the last great
+step is to be taken, is fearfully blighted.</q>
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="130"/><anchor id="Pg130"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="XI. Second Presidential Term"/><index index="pdf" level1="XI. Second Presidential Term"/>
+<head>XI</head>
+
+<head type="sub">SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM</head>
+
+<p>
+The purchase of Louisiana increased Jefferson’s
+popularity, and in 1805, at the age
+of sixty-two, he was elected to his second term
+as President by an overwhelming majority.
+Even Massachusetts was carried by the Republicans,
+and the total vote in the electoral
+college stood: 162 for Jefferson and Clinton;
+14 for C. C. Pinckney and Rufus
+King, the Federal candidates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This result was due in part to the fact
+that Jefferson had stolen the thunder of the
+Federalists. His Louisiana purchase, though
+bitterly opposed by the leading Federalists,
+who were blinded by their hatred of the
+President, was far more consonant with Federal
+than with Republican principles; and in
+his second inaugural address Jefferson went
+even farther in the direction of a strong central
+government, for he said: <q>Redemption
+<pb n="131"/><anchor id="Pg131"/>once effected, the revenue thereby liberated
+may, by a just repartition among the States,
+and a corresponding amendment of the Constitution,
+be applied <hi rend="italic">in time of peace</hi> to
+rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education,
+and other great objects within each
+State. In time of war, ... aided by other
+measures reserved for that crisis, it may meet
+within the year all the expenses of the year
+without encroaching on the rights of future
+generations by burdening them with the debts
+of the past.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This proposal flatly contradicted what the
+President had said in his first inaugural address,
+and was in strange contrast with his
+criticism made years before upon a similar
+Federal scheme of public improvement, that
+the mines of Peru would not supply the
+moneys which would be wasted on this object.
+In later years, after his permanent
+retirement to Monticello, Jefferson seems to
+have reverted to his earlier views, and he
+condemned the measures of John Quincy
+Adams for making public improvements with
+national funds.
+</p>
+
+<pb n="132"/><anchor id="Pg132"/>
+
+<p>
+But the President was no longer to enjoy
+a smooth course. One domestic affair gave
+him much annoyance, and our foreign relations
+were a continual source of anxiety and
+mortification.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aaron Burr had been a brilliant soldier
+of the Revolution, a highly successful lawyer
+and politician, and finally, during Mr. Jefferson’s
+first administration, Vice-President
+of the United States. But in the year 1805
+he found himself, owing to a complication of
+causes, most of which, however, could be
+traced to his own moral defects, a bankrupt
+in reputation and in purse. Such being his
+condition, he applied to the President for
+a foreign appointment; and Mr. Jefferson
+very properly refused it, frankly explaining
+that Burr, whether justly or unjustly, had
+lost the confidence of the public.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Burr took this rebuff with the easy good-humor
+which characterized him, dined with
+the President a few days later, and then
+started westward to carry out a scheme which
+he had been preparing for a year. His plans
+were so shrouded in mystery that it is diffi<pb n="133"/><anchor id="Pg133"/>cult to say exactly what they were, but it is
+certain that he contemplated an expedition
+against Mexico, with the intention of making
+himself the ruler of that country; and
+it is possible that he hoped to capture New
+Orleans, and, after dividing the United
+States, to annex the western half to his
+Mexican empire. Burr had got together a
+small supply of men and arms, and he floated
+down the Ohio, gathering recruits as he went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson, with his usual good sense, perceived
+the futility of Burr’s designs, which
+were based upon a false belief as to the want
+of loyalty among the western people; but he
+took all needful precautions. General Wilkinson
+was ordered to protect New Orleans,
+Burr’s proceedings were denounced by a
+proclamation, and finally Burr himself was
+arrested in Alabama, and brought to Richmond
+for trial.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trial at once became a political affair,
+the Federalists, to spite the President, making
+Burr’s cause their own, though he had
+killed Alexander Hamilton but three years
+before, and pretending to regard him as an
+<pb n="134"/><anchor id="Pg134"/>innocent man persecuted by the President
+for political reasons. Jefferson himself took
+a hand in the prosecution to the extent of
+writing letters to the district attorney full of
+advice and suggestions. It would have been
+more dignified had he held aloof, but the
+provocation which he received was very great.
+Burr and his counsel used every possible
+means of throwing odium upon the President;
+and in this they were assisted by Chief
+Justice Marshall, who presided at the trial.
+Marshall, though in the main a just man,
+was bitterly opposed to Jefferson in political
+affairs, and in this case he harshly blamed
+the executive for not procuring evidence with
+a celerity which, under the circumstances,
+was impossible. He also summoned the
+President into court as a witness. The President,
+however, declined to attend, and the
+matter was not pressed. Burr was acquitted,
+chiefly on technical grounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Burr affair, however, was but a trifle
+compared with the difficulties arising from
+our relations with England. That country
+had always asserted over the United States
+<pb n="135"/><anchor id="Pg135"/>the right of impressment, a right, namely, to
+search American ships, and to take therefrom
+any Englishmen found among the crew. In
+many cases, Englishmen who had been naturalized
+in the United States were thus taken.
+This alleged right had always been denied
+by the United States, and British perseverance
+in it finally led to the war of 1812.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another source of contention was the neutral
+trade. During the European wars in
+the early part of the century the seaport
+towns of the United States did an immense
+and profitable business in carrying goods to
+European ports, and from one European port
+to another. Great Britain, after various
+attempts to discourage American commerce
+with her enemies, undertook to put it down
+by confiscating vessels of the United States
+on the ground that their cargoes were not
+neutral but belligerent property,—the property,
+that is, of nations at war with Great
+Britain. And, no doubt, in some cases this
+was the fact,—foreign merchandise having
+been imported to this country to get a neutral
+name for it, and thence exported to a
+<pb n="136"/><anchor id="Pg136"/>country to which it could not have been
+shipped directly from its place of origin. In
+April, 1806, the President dispatched Mr.
+Monroe to London in order, if possible, to
+settle these disputed matters by a treaty.
+Monroe, in conjunction with Mr. Pinckney,
+our minister to England, sent back a treaty
+which contained no reference whatever to
+the matter of impressments. It was the best
+treaty which they could obtain, but it was
+silent upon this vital point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The situation was a perilous one; England
+had fought the battle of Trafalgar the
+year before; and was now able to carry
+everything before her upon the high seas.
+Nevertheless, the President’s conduct was
+bold and prompt. The treaty had been negotiated
+mainly by his own envoy and friend,
+Monroe, and great pressure was exerted in
+favor of it,—especially by the merchants
+and shipowners of the east. But Jefferson
+refused even to lay it before the Senate,
+and at once sent it back to England. His
+position, and history has justified it, was
+that to accept a treaty which might be con<pb n="137"/><anchor id="Pg137"/>strued as tacitly admitting the right of impressment
+would be a disgrace to the country.
+The other questions at issue were more
+nearly legal and technical, but this one
+touched the national honor; and with the
+same right instinct which Jefferson showed
+in 1807, the people of the United States,
+five years later, fixed upon this grievance,
+out of the fog in which diplomacy had enveloped
+our relations with England, as the
+true and sufficient cause of the war of 1812.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, Jefferson treated Monroe
+with the greatest consideration. At this
+period Monroe and Madison were both
+candidates for the Republican nomination
+for the presidency. Jefferson’s choice was
+Madison, but he remained impartial between
+them; and he withheld Monroe’s treaty from
+publication at a time when to publish it would
+have given a fatal blow to Monroe’s prospects.
+In every way, in fact, he exerted himself to
+disguise and soften Monroe’s discredit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wisdom of Jefferson’s course as to the
+treaty was shown before three months had
+elapsed by an act of British aggression, which,
+<pb n="138"/><anchor id="Pg138"/>had the Monroe treaty been accepted, might
+fairly have been laid to its door. In June,
+1807, the British frigate Leopard, having
+been refused permission to search the American
+frigate Chesapeake, fired upon the Chesapeake,
+which was totally unprepared for
+action, and, after killing three men and
+wounding eighteen, refused to accept the
+surrender of the ship, but carried off three
+alleged deserters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This event roused a storm of indignation,
+which never quite subsided until the insult
+had been effaced by the blood which was
+shed in the war of 1812. <q>For the first
+time in their history,</q> says Mr. Henry Adams,
+<q>the people of the United States learned in
+June, 1807, the feeling of a true national
+emotion.</q> <q>Never since the battle of Lexington,</q>
+wrote Jefferson, <q>have I seen this
+country in such a state of exasperation as at
+present.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+War might easily have been precipitated,
+had Jefferson been carried away by the popular
+excitement. He immediately dispatched
+a frigate to England demanding reparation,
+<pb n="139"/><anchor id="Pg139"/>and he issued a proclamation forbidding all
+British men-of-war to enter the waters of the
+United States, unless in distress or bearing
+dispatches. Jefferson expected war, but he
+meant to delay it for a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To his son-in-law, John Eppes, he wrote:
+<q>Reason and the usage of civilized nations
+require that we should give them an opportunity
+of disavowal and reparation. Our
+own interests, too, the very means of making
+war, require that we should give time to our
+merchants to gather in their vessels and
+property and our seamen now afloat.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury,
+even criticised the President’s annual message
+at this time as being too warlike and <q>not
+in the style of the proclamation, which has
+been almost universally approved at home
+and abroad.</q> It cannot truly be said, therefore,
+that Jefferson had any unconquerable
+aversion to war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Canning, the British Foreign Minister,
+went through the form of expressing his
+regrets for the Chesapeake affair, and sent a
+special envoy to Washington to settle the
+<pb n="140"/><anchor id="Pg140"/>difficulty. Reparation was made at last, but
+not till the year 1811.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the mean time, both Great Britain and
+France had given other causes of offense,
+which may be summarized as follows: In
+May, 1806, Great Britain declared the
+French ports from Brest to the Elbe closed to
+American as to all other shipping. In the
+following November, Napoleon retorted with
+a decree issued from Berlin, prohibiting all
+commerce with Great Britain. That power
+immediately forbade the coasting trade between
+one port and another in the possession
+of her enemies. And in November, 1807,
+Great Britain issued the famous Orders in
+Council, which forbade all trade whatsoever
+with France and her allies, except on payment
+of a tribute to Great Britain, each vessel to
+pay according to the value of its cargo. Then
+followed Napoleon’s Milan decree prohibiting
+trade with Great Britain, and declaring that
+all vessels which paid the tribute demanded
+were lawful prizes to the French marine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was the series of acts which assailed
+the foreign commerce of the United States,
+<pb n="141"/><anchor id="Pg141"/>and wounded the national honor by attempting
+to prostrate the country at the mercy of
+the European powers. Diplomacy had been
+exhausted. The Chesapeake affair, the right
+of impressment, the British decrees and orders
+directed against our commerce,—all these
+causes of offense had been tangled into a
+complication which no man could unravel.
+Retaliation on our part had become absolutely
+necessary. What form should it take? Jefferson
+rejected war, and proposed an embargo
+which prohibited commerce between
+the United States and Europe. The measure
+was bitterly opposed by the New England
+Federalists; but the President’s influence
+was so great that Congress adopted it
+almost without discussion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s design, to use his own words,
+was <q>to introduce between nations another
+umpire than arms;</q> and he expected that
+England would be starved into submission.
+The annual British exports to the United
+States amounted to $50,000,000. Cutting
+off this trade meant the throwing out of
+work of thousands of British sailors and tens
+<pb n="142"/><anchor id="Pg142"/>of thousands of British factory hands, who
+had no other means of livelihood. Mr. Jefferson
+felt confident that the starvation of
+this class would bring such pressure to bear
+upon the English government, then engaged
+in a death struggle with Bonaparte, that it
+would be forced to repeal the laws which
+obstructed American commerce. It is possible
+that this would have been the result
+had the embargo been observed faithfully
+by all citizens of the United States. Jefferson
+maintained till the day of his death that
+such would have been the case; and Madison,
+no enthusiast, long afterward asserted
+that the American state department had
+proofs that the English government was on
+the point of yielding. The embargo pressed
+hardest of all upon Virginia, for it stopped
+the exportation of her staples,—wheat and
+tobacco. It brought about, by the way, the
+financial ruin of Jefferson himself and of his
+son-in-law, Colonel Randolph. But the Virginians
+bore it without a murmur. <q>They
+drained the poison which their own President
+held obstinately to their lips.</q>
+</p>
+
+<pb n="143"/><anchor id="Pg143"/>
+
+<p>
+It was otherwise in New England. There
+the disastrous effect of the embargo was not
+only indirect but direct. The New England
+farmers, it is true, could at least exist
+upon the produce of their farms; but the
+mariners, the sea-captains, and the merchants
+of the coast towns, saw a total suspension of
+the industry by which they lived. New
+England evaded the embargo by smuggling,
+and resisted it tooth and nail. Some of the
+Federal leaders in that section believing, or
+pretending to believe, that it was a pro-French
+measure, were in secret correspondence
+with the British government, and meditated
+a secession of the eastern States from
+the rest of the country. They went so far,
+in private conversation at least, as to maintain
+the British right of impressment; and
+even the Orders in Council were defended
+by Gardenier, a leading Federalist, and a
+member of Congress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The present generation has witnessed a
+similar exhibition of anglomania, when, upon
+the assertion of the Monroe doctrine in respect
+to Venezuela, by President Cleveland,
+<pb n="144"/><anchor id="Pg144"/>his attitude was criticised more severely by
+a group in New York and Boston than it
+was by the English themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s effort to enforce the embargo
+and his calm resistance to New England
+fury showed extraordinary firmness of will
+and tenacity of purpose. In August, 1808,
+he wrote to General Dearborn, Secretary of
+War, who was then in Maine: <q>The Tories
+of Boston openly threaten insurrection if
+their importation of flour is stopped. The
+next post will stop it.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Blood was soon shed; but Jefferson did
+not shrink. The army was stationed along
+the Canadian frontier, to prevent smuggling;
+gunboats and frigates patrolled the coast.
+The embargo failed; but Mr. Henry Adams,
+the ablest and fairest historian of this period,
+declares that it <q>was an experiment in politics
+well worth making. In the scheme of
+President Jefferson, non-intercourse was the
+substitute for war.... Failure of the embargo
+meant in his mind not only a recurrence
+to the practice of war, but to every
+political and social evil that war had always
+<pb n="145"/><anchor id="Pg145"/>brought in its train. In such a case the
+crimes and corruptions of Europe, which
+had been the object of his political fears,
+must, as he believed, sooner or later, teem
+in the fat soil of America. To avert a disaster
+so vast was a proper motive for statesmanship,
+and justified disregard for smaller
+interests.</q> Mr. Parton observes, with almost
+as much truth as humor, that the
+embargo was approved by the two highest
+authorities in Europe, namely, Napoleon
+Bonaparte and the <q>Edinburgh Review.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps the fundamental error in Jefferson’s
+theory was that nations are governed
+mainly by motives of self-interest. He
+thought that England would cease to legislate
+against American commerce, when it
+was once made plain that such a course was
+prejudicial to her own interests. But nations,
+like individuals, are influenced in their
+relations to others far more by pride and
+patriotism, and even by prejudice, than by
+material self-interest. The only way in
+which America could win respect and fair
+treatment from Europe was by fighting, or
+<pb n="146"/><anchor id="Pg146"/>at least by showing a perfect readiness to
+fight. This she did by the war of 1812.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The embargo was an academic policy,—the
+policy of a philosopher rather than that
+of a practical man of affairs. Turreau, the
+French ambassador, wrote to Talleyrand,
+in May, 1806, that the President <q>has little
+energy and still less of that audacity which
+is indispensable in a place so eminent, whatever
+may be the form of government. The
+slightest event makes him lose his balance,
+and he does not even know how to disguise
+the impression which he receives.... He
+has made himself ill, and has grown ten
+years older.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson had energy and audacity,—but
+he was energetic and audacious only by fits
+and starts. He was too sensitive, too full of
+ideas, too far-sighted, too conscious of all
+possible results for a man of action. During
+the last three months of his term he made
+no attempt to settle the difficulties in which
+the country was involved, declaring that he
+felt bound to do nothing which might embarrass
+his successor. But it may be doubted
+<pb n="147"/><anchor id="Pg147"/>if he did not unconsciously decline the task
+rather from its difficulty than because he
+felt precluded from undertaking it. Self-knowledge
+was never Mr. Jefferson’s strong
+point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he had done his best, and if his
+scheme had failed, the failure was not an
+ignoble one. He was still the most beloved,
+as well as the best hated man in the United
+States; and he could have had a third term,
+if he would have taken it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He retired, permanently, as it proved, to
+Monticello, wearied and harassed, but glad
+to be back on his farm, in the bosom of his
+family, and among his neighbors. His fellow-citizens
+of Albemarle County desired to
+meet the returning President, and escort
+him to his home; but Mr. Jefferson, characteristically,
+avoided this demonstration, and
+received instead an address, to which he
+made a reply that closed in a fit and pathetic
+manner his public career. <q>... The
+part which I have acted on the theatre of
+public life has been before them [his countrymen],
+and to their sentence I submit it;
+<pb n="148"/><anchor id="Pg148"/>but the testimony of my native county, of
+the individuals who have known me in
+private life, to my conduct in its various
+duties and relations, is the more grateful as
+proceeding from eyewitnesses and observers,
+from triers of the vicinage. Of you, then,
+my neighbors, I may ask in the face of the
+world, <q>whose ox have I taken, or whom
+have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed,
+or of whose hand have I received a bribe to
+blind mine eyes therewith?</q> On your verdict
+I rest with conscious security.</q>
+</p>
+
+</div><div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n="149"/><anchor id="Pg149"/>
+<index index="toc" level1="XII. A Public Man in Private Life"/><index index="pdf" level1="XII. A Public Man in Private Life"/>
+<head>XII</head>
+
+<head type="sub">A PUBLIC MAN IN PRIVATE LIFE</head>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s second term as President
+ended March 4, 1809, and during the rest
+of his life he lived at Monticello, with occasional
+visits to his more retired estate at Poplar
+Forest, and to the homes of his friends,
+but never going beyond the confines of Virginia.
+Just before leaving Washington, he
+had written: <q>Never did a prisoner released
+from his chains feel such relief as I shall on
+shaking off the shackles of power. Nature
+intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science
+by rendering them my supreme delight.
+But the enormities of the times in which
+I have lived have forced me to take a part
+in resisting them, and to commit myself on
+the boisterous ocean of political passions.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though no longer in office, Jefferson remained
+till his death the chief personage in
+the United States, and his authority continued
+<pb n="150"/><anchor id="Pg150"/>to be almost supreme among the leaders as
+well as among the rank and file of the Republican
+party. Madison first, and Monroe
+afterward, consulted him in all the most
+important matters which arose during the
+sixteen years of their double terms as President.
+Long and frequent letters passed between
+them; and both Madison and Monroe
+often visited Jefferson at Monticello.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Monroe doctrine, as it is called, was
+first broached by Jefferson. In a letter of
+August 4, 1820, to William Short, he
+said: <q>The day is not far distant, when we
+may formally require a meridian through
+the ocean which separates the two hemispheres
+on the hither side of which no
+European gun shall ever be heard, nor an
+American on the other;</q> and he spoke of
+<q>the essential policy of interdicting in the
+seas and territories of both Americas the
+ferocious and sanguinary contests of Europe.</q>
+Later, when applied to by Monroe himself,
+in October, 1823, Jefferson wrote to him:
+<q>Our first and fundamental maxim should
+be never to entangle ourselves in the broils
+<pb n="151"/><anchor id="Pg151"/>of Europe. Our second, never to suffer
+Europe to meddle in cisatlantic affairs.</q>
+The whole letter, a long one, deserves to be
+read as the first exposition of what has since
+become a famous doctrine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The darling object of Mr. Jefferson’s last
+years was the founding of the University of
+Virginia at Charlottesville. For this purpose
+he gave $1000; many of his neighbors
+in Albemarle County joined him with gifts;
+and through Jefferson’s influence, the legislature
+appropriated considerable sums. But
+money was the least of Jefferson’s endowment
+of the University. He gave of the maturity
+of his judgment and a great part of
+his time. He was made regent. He drew
+the plans for the buildings, and overlooked
+their construction, riding to the University
+grounds almost every day, a distance of four
+miles, and back, and watching with paternal
+solicitude the laying of every brick and
+stone. His design was the perhaps over-ambitious
+one of displaying in the University
+buildings the various leading styles of
+architecture; and certain practical inconven<pb n="152"/><anchor id="Pg152"/>iences, such as the entire absence of closets
+from the houses of the professors, marred
+the result. Some offense also was given to
+the more religious people of Virginia, by the
+selection of a Unitarian as the first professor.
+However, Jefferson’s enthusiasm, ingenuity,
+and thoroughness carried the scheme through
+with success; and the University still stands
+as a monument to its founder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It should be recorded, moreover, that
+under Jefferson’s regency the University of
+Virginia adopted certain reforms, which even
+Harvard, the most progressive of eastern
+universities, did not attain till more than
+half a century later. These were, an elective
+system of studies; the abolition of rules and
+penalties for the preservation of order, and
+the abolition of compulsory attendance at
+religious services.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Jefferson’s daily life was simple and
+methodical. He rose as soon as it was light
+enough for him to see the hands of a clock
+which was opposite his bed. Till breakfast
+time, which was about nine o’clock, he
+employed himself in writing. The whole
+<pb n="153"/><anchor id="Pg153"/>morning was devoted to an immense correspondence;
+the discharge of which was not
+only mentally, but physically distressing,
+inasmuch as his crippled hands, each wrist
+having been fractured, could not be used
+without pain. In a letter to his old friend,
+John Adams, he wrote: <q>I can read by
+candle-light only, and stealing long hours
+from my rest; nor would that time be indulged
+to me could I by that light see to
+write. From sunrise to one or two o’clock,
+and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging
+at the writing-table. And all this to
+answer letters, in which neither interest nor
+inclination on my part enters; and often
+from persons whose names I have never
+before heard. Yet writing civilly, it is hard
+to refuse them civil answers.</q> At his death
+Jefferson left copies of 16,000 letters, being
+only a part of those written by himself, and
+26,000 letters written by others to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At one o’clock he set out upon horseback,
+and was gone for one or two hours,—never
+attended by a servant, even when he became
+old and infirm. He continued these rides
+<pb n="154"/><anchor id="Pg154"/>until he had become so feeble that he had
+to be lifted to the saddle; and his mount
+was always a fiery one. Once, in Mr. Jefferson’s
+old age, news came that a serious
+accident had happened in the neighboring
+village to one of his grandsons. Immediately
+he ordered his horse to be brought
+round, and though it was night and very
+dark, he mounted, despite the protests of
+the household, and, at a run, dashed down
+the steep ascent by which Monticello is
+reached. The family held their breath till
+the tramp of his horse’s feet, on the level
+ground below, could faintly be heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At half past three or four he dined; and
+at six he returned to the drawing-room,
+where coffee was served. The evening was
+spent in reading or conversation, and at
+nine he went to bed. <q>His diet,</q> relates a
+distinguished visitor, Daniel Webster, <q>is
+simple, but he seems restrained only by his
+taste. His breakfast is tea and coffee, bread
+always fresh from the oven, of which he
+does not seem afraid, with at times a slight
+accompaniment of cold meat. He enjoys
+<pb n="155"/><anchor id="Pg155"/>his dinner well, taking with his meat a large
+proportion of vegetables.</q> The fact is that
+he used meat only as a sort of condiment to
+vegetables. <q>He has a strong preference
+for the wines of the continent, of which he
+has many sorts of excellent quality....
+Dinner is served in half Virginian, half
+French style, in good taste and abundance.
+No wine is put on the table till the cloth is
+removed. In conversation, Mr. Jefferson is
+easy and natural, and apparently not ambitious;
+it is not loud as challenging general
+attention, but usually addressed to the person
+next him.</q> His health remained good till
+within a few months of his death, and he
+never lost a tooth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Scarcely less burdensome than his correspondence
+was the throng of visitors at Monticello,
+of all nationalities, from every State
+in the Union, some coming from veneration,
+some from curiosity, some from a desire to
+obtain free quarters. Groups of people often
+stood about the house and in the halls to see
+Jefferson pass from his study to his dining-room.
+It is recorded that <q>a female once
+<pb n="156"/><anchor id="Pg156"/>punched through a window-pane of the house
+with her parasol to get a better view of him.</q>
+As many as fifty guests sometimes lodged
+in the house. <q>As a specimen of Virginia
+life,</q> relates one biographer, <q>we will
+mention that a friend from abroad came to
+Monticello, with a family of six persons, and
+remained ten months.... Accomplished
+young kinswomen habitually passed two or
+three of the summer months there, as they
+would now at a fashionable watering-place.
+They married the sons of Mr. Jefferson’s
+friends, and then came with their families.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The immense expense entailed by these
+hospitalities, added to the debt, amounting
+to $20,000, which Mr. Jefferson owed when
+he left Washington, crippled him financially.
+Moreover, Colonel Randolph, who managed
+his estate for many years, though a good
+farmer, was a poor man of business. It was
+a common saying in the neighborhood that
+nobody raised better crops or got less money
+for them than Colonel Randolph. The embargo,
+and the period of depression which
+followed the war of 1812, went far to impov<pb n="157"/><anchor id="Pg157"/>erish the Virginia planters. Monroe died
+a bankrupt, and Madison’s widow was left
+almost in want of bread. Jefferson himself
+wrote in 1814: <q>What can we raise for the
+market? Wheat? we can only give it to our
+horses, as we have been doing since harvest.
+Tobacco? It is not worth the pipe it is
+smoked in. Some say whiskey, but all mankind
+must become drunkards to consume it.</q>
+Jefferson, also, was so anxious lest his slaves
+should be overworked, that the amount of
+labor performed upon his plantation was
+much less than it should have been. And,
+to cap the climax of his financial troubles, he
+lost $20,000 by indorsing to that amount
+for his intimate friend, Governor Nicholas,
+an honorable but unfortunate man. It
+should be added that Mr. Nicholas, in his last
+hours, <q>declared with unspeakable emotion
+that Mr. Jefferson had never by a word, by
+a look, or in any other way, made any allusion
+to his loss by him.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1814, Mr. Jefferson sold his library
+to Congress for $23,950, about one half its
+cost; and in the very year of his death he
+<pb n="158"/><anchor id="Pg158"/>requested of the Virginia legislature that a
+law might be passed permitting him to sell
+some of his farms by means of a lottery,—the
+times being such that they could be
+disposed of in no other way. He even published
+some <q>Thoughts on Lotteries,</q>—by
+way of advancing this project. The legislature
+granted his request, with reluctance;
+but in the mean time his necessities became
+known throughout the country, and subscriptions
+were made for his relief. The lottery
+was suspended, and Jefferson died in the
+belief that Monticello would be saved as a
+home for his family.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In March, 1826, Mr. Jefferson’s health
+began to fail; but so late as June 24 he
+was well enough to write a long letter in
+reply to an invitation to attend the fiftieth
+celebration, at Washington, of the 4th of
+July. During the 3d of July he dozed hour
+after hour under the influence of opiates,
+rousing occasionally, and uttering a few
+words. It was evident that his end was
+very near. His family and he himself fervently
+desired that he might live till the 4th
+<pb n="159"/><anchor id="Pg159"/>of July. At eleven in the evening of July 3
+he whispered to Mr. Trist, the husband of
+one of his granddaughters, who sat by him:
+<q>This is the fourth?</q> Not bearing to disappoint
+him, Mr. Trist remained silent; and
+Mr. Jefferson feebly asked a second time:
+<q>This is the fourth?</q> Mr. Trist nodded assent.
+<q>Ah!</q> he breathed, and sank into a
+slumber from which he never awoke; but his
+end did not come till half past twelve in the
+afternoon of Independence Day. On the
+same day, at Quincy, died John Adams, his
+last words being, <q>Thomas Jefferson still
+lives!</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The double coincidence made a strong impression
+upon the imagination of the American
+people. <q>When it became known,</q> says
+Mr. Parton, <q>that the author of the Declaration
+and its most powerful defender had
+both breathed their last on the Fourth of
+July, the fiftieth since they had set it apart
+from the roll of common days, it seemed as
+if Heaven had given its visible and unerring
+sanction to the work which they had done.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s body was buried at Monticello,
+<pb n="160"/><anchor id="Pg160"/>and on the tombstone is inscribed, as he
+desired, the following: <q>Here was buried
+Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration
+of American Independence, of the Statute of
+Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father
+of the University of Virginia.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s expectation that Monticello
+would remain the property of his descendants
+was not fulfilled. His debts were paid
+to the uttermost farthing by his executor
+and grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph;
+but Martha Randolph and her family were
+left homeless and penniless. When this became
+known, the legislatures of South Carolina
+and Louisiana each voted to Mrs. Randolph
+a gift of $10,000. She died suddenly,
+in 1836, at the age of sixty-three. Monticello
+passed into the hands of strangers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson had his faults and defects. As
+a statesman and ruler, he showed at times
+irresolution, want of energy and of audacity,
+and a misunderstanding of human nature;
+and at times his judgment was clouded by
+the political prejudices which were common
+in his day. His attitude in the X Y Z
+<pb n="161"/><anchor id="Pg161"/>business, his embargo policy, and his policy
+or want of policy after the failure of the
+embargo,—in these cases, and perhaps in
+these alone, his defects are exhibited. It
+is certain also that although at times frank
+and outspoken to a fault, he was at other
+times over-complaisant and insincere. To
+Aaron Burr, for example, he expressed himself
+in terms of friendship which he could
+hardly have felt; and, once, in writing to a
+minister of the gospel he implied, upon his
+own part, a belief in revelation which he did
+not really feel. It seems to be true also that
+Jefferson had an overweening desire to win
+the approbation of his fellow-countrymen;
+and at times, though quite unconsciously to
+himself, this motive led him into courses
+which were rather selfish than patriotic.
+This was the case, perhaps, in his negotiations
+with the English minister after the failure
+of the embargo. It is charged against
+him, also, that he avoided unpleasant situations;
+and that he said or did nothing to
+check the Republican slanders which were
+cast upon Washington and upon John
+<pb n="162"/><anchor id="Pg162"/>Adams. But when this much has been
+said, all has been said. As a citizen, husband,
+father, friend, and master, Jefferson
+was almost an ideal character. No man was
+ever more kind, more amiable, more tender,
+more just, more generous. To her children,
+Mrs. Randolph declared that never, never
+had she witnessed a <hi rend="italic">particle</hi> of injustice in
+her father,—never had she heard him say a
+word or seen him do an act which she at the
+time or afterward regretted. He was magnanimous,—as
+when he frankly forgave
+John Adams for the injustice of his midnight
+appointments. Though easily provoked,
+he never bore malice. In matters of
+business and in matters of politics he was
+punctiliously honorable. How many times
+he paid his British debt has already been related.
+On one occasion he drew his cheque
+to pay the duties on certain imported wines
+which might have come in free,—yet made
+no merit of the action, for it never came to
+light until long after his death. In the presidential
+campaigns when he was a candidate,
+he never wrote a letter or made a sign
+<pb n="163"/><anchor id="Pg163"/>to influence the result. He would not say
+a word by way of promise in 1801, when a
+word would have given him the presidency,
+and when so honorable a man as John Adams
+thought that he did wrong to withhold it.
+There was no vanity or smallness in his
+character. It was he and not Dickinson
+who wrote the address to the King, set forth
+by the Continental Congress of 1775; but
+Dickinson enjoyed the fame of it throughout
+Jefferson’s lifetime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Above all, he was patriotic and conscientious.
+When he lapsed, it was in some
+subordinate matter, and because a little self-deception
+clouded his sight. But in all important
+matters, in all emergencies, he stood
+firm as a rock for what he considered to
+be right, unmoved by the entreaties of his
+friends or by the jeers, threats, and taunts of
+his enemies. He shrank with almost feminine
+repugnance from censure and turmoil,
+but when the occasion demanded it, he
+faced even these with perfect courage and
+resolution. His course as Secretary of State,
+and his enforcement of the embargo, are
+examples.
+</p>
+
+<pb n="164"/><anchor id="Pg164"/>
+
+<p>
+Jefferson’s political career was bottomed
+upon a great principle which he never, for
+one moment, lost sight of or doubted, no
+matter how difficult the present, or how dark
+the future. He believed in the people, in
+their capacity for self-government, and in their
+right to enjoy it. This belief shaped his
+course, and, in spite of minor inconsistencies,
+made it consistent. It was on account of
+this belief, and of the faith and courage with
+which he put it in practice, that he became
+the idol of his countrymen, and attained a
+unique position in the history of the world.
+</p>
+        </div></body>
+        <back>
+<div>
+            <pgIf output="pdf">
+                <then/>
+                <else>
+                    <div id="footnotes" rend="page-break-before: right">
+                        <head>Footnotes</head>
+                        <divGen type="footnotes"/>
+                    </div>
+                </else>
+            </pgIf>
+            </div>
+<div rend="page-break-before:right; x-class: boxed">
+                <index index="pdf"/><index index="toc"/>
+                <head>Transcriber’s Note</head>
+                <pgIf output="txt"><then><p>Italic type is marked by underscore (_), black letter by asterisk (*).</p></then>
+                <else><p>Black letter has been rendered as boldface.</p></else>
+                </pgIf>
+                
+                <p>The following changes have been made to the text:</p>
+            <list>
+                <item><ref target="corr065">page 65</ref>, <q>Charlotteville</q> changed to <q>Charlottesville</q></item>
+                <item><ref target="corr073">page 73</ref>, <q>goverment</q> changed to <q>government</q></item>
+                <item><ref target="corr093">page 93</ref>, <q>1795</q> changed to <q>1793</q></item>
+                <item><ref target="corr098">page 98</ref>, <q>circumtances</q> changed to <q>circumstances</q></item>
+                </list>
+                <p>Both <q>draught</q> and <q>draft</q> are used in the text.</p>
+</div>
+            <div rend="page-break-before: right">
+    <divGen type="pgfooter" />
+  </div>
+        </back>
+    </text>
+</TEI.2>
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