Thomas Jefferson Part 4

Upon receiving news of the election Jefferson had written to Madison: "If Mr. Adams can be induced to administer the government on its true principles, and to relinquish his bias to an English Const.i.tution, it is to be considered whether it would not be, on the whole, for the public good to come to a good understanding with him as to his future elections.

He is perhaps the only sure barrier against Hamilton's getting in."

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.

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: "You and I have formerly seen warm debates, and high political pa.s.sions. 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."

These party feelings were intensified in the year 1798 by what is known as the X Y Z 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 _douceur_ of $25,000 should be given to Talleyrand's agents.

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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 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, "that in the changes and chances of time we would be involved in some war which might strengthen our union and nerve our executive." So late as 1802, Hamilton wrote to Morris, "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." 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.

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 of its own weight. He was always antic.i.p.ating a "crisis," and this word is repeated over and over again in his correspondence. It even occurs in the crucial sentence of that pathetic doc.u.ment which he wrote on the eve of his fatal duel. When the "crisis" came, Hamilton meant to be on hand; and, if possible, at the head of an army.

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.

But what was Mr. Jefferson's att.i.tude 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: "Inexperienced in such manuvres, the people did not permit themselves even to suspect that the turpitude of private swindlers might mingle itself un.o.bserved, and give its own hue to the communications of the French government, of whose partic.i.p.ation there was neither proof nor probability." And again: "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."

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: "I think it is our interest to punish the first insult, because an insult unpunished is the parent of many others." It is possible that he was misled at this juncture by his liking 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 "the turpitude of private swindlers;" 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.

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-antic.i.p.ated "crisis" seemed to have arrived at last. But Jefferson coolly waited till the storm should blow over. "Our countrymen,"

he wrote to a friend, "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."

And so it proved. The ascendency of the Federalists was soon destroyed, and destroyed 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 "all such aliens as _he_ should judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States,"-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 "false, scandalous, and malicious," with intent to excite against either House of Congress or against the President, "the hatred of the good people of the United States." 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 "an order to send him to a mad-house." For this Mr.

Lyon was fined $1,000, and imprisoned in a veritable dungeon.

These unconst.i.tutional and un-American laws were vigorously opposed by Jefferson and Madison. In October, 1798, Jefferson wrote: "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 Const.i.tution. 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."

Jefferson also prepared the famous Kentucky resolutions, which were adopted by the legislature of that State,-the authors.h.i.+p, 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. 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 Const.i.tution, 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 a.s.sume the exercise by the federal government of powers not granted to it by the Const.i.tution. They are therefore void.

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 p.r.o.nounced them void? and if so, what is that authority? We understand now that the Supreme Court has sole authority to decide upon the const.i.tutionality of the acts of Congress. It was so held, for the first time, in the year 1803, in the case of Marbury _v._ Madison, by Chief Justice Marshall and his a.s.sociates; 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 a.s.sumption 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 Const.i.tution and of pa.s.sing upon the validity of national laws. In a letter written in 1804, he said: "You seem to think it devolved on the judges to decide the validity of the sedition law. But nothing in the Const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutional and what not-not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the legislature and executive also in their spheres-would make the judiciary a despotic branch."(3)

In the Kentucky resolutions, Jefferson argued, first, that the Const.i.tution was a compact between the States; secondly, that no person or body had been appointed by the Const.i.tution as a common judge in respect to questions arising under the Const.i.tution between any one State and Congress, or between the people and Congress; and thirdly, "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." It was open to him to take this view, because it had not yet been decided that the Supreme Court was the "common judge"

appointed by the Const.i.tution; and the Const.i.tution itself was not explicit upon the point. Moreover, the laws in question had not been pa.s.sed upon by the Supreme Court,-they expired by limitation before that stage was reached.

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 Const.i.tution. In 1803, as we have seen, the Const.i.tution 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.

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:-

"I think we should distinctly affirm all the important principles they contain, so as to hold to that ground in future, and leave 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."

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 n.o.body placed a higher value than he did on what he described "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."

X

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON

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 cla.s.ses 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 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.

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 "a fanatic in politics, and an atheist in religion;" 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. 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, "all of which can be proved."

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.

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 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.

As to one such interview, with Gouverneur Morris, Jefferson wrote afterward: "I told him that I should leave the world to judge of the course I meant to pursue, by that which I had pursued hitherto, believing it to be my duty to be pa.s.sive 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."

The Federalists had a characteristic plan: they proposed to pa.s.s 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. "Because," as he afterward explained, "that precedent once set, it would be artificially reproduced, and would soon end in a dictator."

Hamilton, to his credit, be it said, strongly advocated the election of Jefferson; and finally, through the action of Mr. Bayard, 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.

Mr. Adams, who was deeply chagrined by his defeat, did not attend the inauguration of his successor, but left Was.h.i.+ngton 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. "Let us," said the new President, "restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things."

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 reelected. For twenty-four years, therefore, Jefferson and Jeffersonian Democracy 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.

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.

"Electioneering activity" was the phrase used in Mr. Jefferson's time, and "offensive partisans.h.i.+p" in Mr. Cleveland's.

The following letter from President Jefferson to the Secretary of the Treasury will show how the rule was construed by him:-

"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."

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.

His principle was thus stated in a letter: "If a due partic.i.p.ation 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 circ.u.mstance of great relief, had I found a moderate partic.i.p.ation of office in the hands of the majority. I should gladly have left to time and accident to raise them to their 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 Const.i.tution?"

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 elan, which sent a thrill of vigor through every department of industry and adventure.

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 of the President's birthday; he subst.i.tuted 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: "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."

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 ineffectual efforts, while he was minister to France, to put down by force Mediterranean piracy have already been rehea.r.s.ed. During Mr. Adams's term, two million dollars were expended in bribing the bucaneers. One item in the account was as follows, "A frigate to carry thirty-six guns for the Dey of Algiers;" 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.

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 followed an example which they ought to have set, every one is supposed to know.

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 owners.h.i.+p 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 minister at Paris, did not see it then. On the contrary, he wrote to the government at Was.h.i.+ngton: "... 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."

Mr. Jefferson's very different view was expressed in the following letter to Mr. Livingston: "... France, placing herself in that door, a.s.sumes to us the att.i.tude 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 compet.i.tion with insult or injury, enterprising and energetic as any nation on earth,-these circ.u.mstances render it impossible 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."