THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION

                                  OF

                           THOMAS JEFFERSON

                               1801-1805




                     HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.

                                  BY

                             HENRY ADAMS.


 VOLS. I. AND II.--THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON. 1801-1805.

 VOLS. III. AND IV.--THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON. 1805-1809.

 VOLS. V. AND VI.--THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF MADISON. 1809-1813.

 VOLS. VII., VIII., AND IX.--THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF MADISON.
 1813-1817. WITH AN INDEX TO THE ENTIRE WORK.




                                HISTORY

                                OF THE

                       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

                  DURING THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF

                           THOMAS JEFFERSON


                            BY HENRY ADAMS


                                VOL. I.


                               NEW YORK
                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
                                 1891




                          _Copyright, 1889_,

                      BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.


                           University Press:

                    JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.




CONTENTS OF VOL. I.


  CHAPTER                                      PAGE

     I. PHYSICAL AND ECONOMICAL CONDITIONS        1

    II. POPULAR CHARACTERISTICS                  41

   III. INTELLECT OF NEW ENGLAND                 75

    IV. INTELLECT OF THE MIDDLE STATES          108

     V. INTELLECT OF THE SOUTHERN STATES        131

    VI. AMERICAN IDEALS                         156

   VII. THE INAUGURATION                        185

  VIII. ORGANIZATION                            218

    IX. THE ANNUAL MESSAGE                      247

     X. LEGISLATION                             264

    XI. THE JUDICIARY DEBATE                    284

   XII. PERSONALITIES                           307

  XIII. THE SPANISH COURT                       334

   XIV. THE RETROCESSION                        352

    XV. TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE                    377

   XVI. CLOSURE OF THE MISSISSIPPI              399

  XVII. MONROE’S MISSION                        423




HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.


CHAPTER I.


ACCORDING to the census of 1800, the United States of America
contained 5,308,483 persons. In the same year the British Islands
contained upwards of fifteen millions; the French Republic, more than
twenty-seven millions. Nearly one fifth of the American people were
negro slaves; the true political population consisted of four and a
half million free whites, or less than one million able-bodied males,
on whose shoulders fell the burden of a continent. Even after two
centuries of struggle the land was still untamed; forest covered every
portion, except here and there a strip of cultivated soil; the minerals
lay undisturbed in their rocky beds, and more than two thirds of the
people clung to the seaboard within fifty miles of tide-water, where
alone the wants of civilized life could be supplied. The centre of
population rested within eighteen miles of Baltimore, north and east of
Washington. Except in political arrangement, the interior was little
more civilized than in 1750, and was not much easier to penetrate than
when La Salle and Hennepin found their way to the Mississippi more than
a century before.

A great exception broke this rule. Two wagon-roads crossed the
Alleghany Mountains in Pennsylvania,--one leading from Philadelphia
to Pittsburg; one from the Potomac to the Monongahela; while a third
passed through Virginia southwestward to the Holston River and
Knoxville in Tennessee, with a branch through the Cumberland Gap
into Kentucky. By these roads and by trails less passable from North
and South Carolina, or by water-ways from the lakes, between four
and five hundred thousand persons had invaded the country beyond the
Alleghanies. At Pittsburg and on the Monongahela existed a society,
already old, numbering seventy or eighty thousand persons, while on the
Ohio River the settlements had grown to an importance which threatened
to force a difficult problem on the union of the older States. One
hundred and eighty thousand whites, with forty thousand negro slaves,
made Kentucky the largest community west of the mountains; and about
ninety thousand whites and fourteen thousand slaves were scattered over
Tennessee. In the territory north of the Ohio less progress had been
made. A New England colony existed at Marietta; some fifteen thousand
people were gathered at Cincinnati; half-way between the two, a small
town had grown up at Chillicothe, and other villages or straggling
cabins were to be found elsewhere; but the whole Ohio territory
contained only forty-five thousand inhabitants. The entire population,
both free and slave, west of the mountains, reached not yet half a
million; but already they were partly disposed to think themselves, and
the old thirteen States were not altogether unwilling to consider them,
the germ of an independent empire, which was to find its outlet, not
through the Alleghanies to the seaboard, but by the Mississippi River
to the Gulf.

Nowhere did eastern settlements touch the western. At least one hundred
miles of mountainous country held the two regions everywhere apart.
The shore of Lake Erie, where alone contact seemed easy, was still
unsettled. The Indians had been pushed back to the Cuyahoga River,
and a few cabins were built on the site of Cleveland; but in 1800, as
in 1700, this intermediate region was only a portage where emigrants
and merchandise were transferred from Lake Erie to the Muskingum and
Ohio valleys. Even western New York remained a wilderness: Buffalo was
not laid out; Indian titles were not extinguished; Rochester did not
exist; and the county of Onondaga numbered a population of less than
eight thousand. In 1799 Utica contained fifty houses, mostly small
and temporary. Albany was still a Dutch city, with some five thousand
inhabitants; and the tide of immigration flowed slowly through it into
the valley of the Mohawk, while another stream from Pennsylvania,
following the Susquehanna, spread toward the Genesee country.

The people of the old thirteen States, along the Atlantic seaboard,
thus sent westward a wedge-shaped mass of nearly half a million
persons, penetrating by the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio rivers
toward the western limit of the Union. The Indians offered sharp
resistance to this invasion, exacting life for life, and yielding only
as their warriors perished. By the close of the century the wedge of
white settlements, with its apex at Nashville and its flanks covered
by the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, nearly split the Indian country in
halves. The northern half--consisting of the later States of Wisconsin,
Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and one third of Ohio--contained
Wyandottes and Shawanese, Miamis, Kickapoos, and other tribes, able
to send some five thousand warriors to hunt or fight. In the southern
half, powerful confederacies of Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and
Choctaws lived and hunted where the States of Mississippi, Alabama, and
the western parts of Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky were to extend;
and so weak was the State of Georgia, which claimed the southwestern
territory for its own, that a well-concerted movement of Indians
might without much difficulty have swept back its white population of
one hundred thousand toward the ocean or across the Savannah River.
The Indian power had been broken in halves, but each half was still
terrible to the colonists on the edges of their vast domain, and was
used as a political weapon by the Governments whose territory bounded
the Union on the north and south. The governors-general of Canada
intrigued with the northwestern Indians, that they might hold in check
any aggression from Washington; while the Spanish governors of West
Florida and Louisiana maintained equally close relations with the
Indian confederacies of the Georgia territory.

With the exception that half a million people had crossed the
Alleghanies and were struggling with difficulties all their own, in an
isolation like that of Jutes or Angles in the fifth century, America,
so far as concerned physical problems, had changed little in fifty
years. The old landmarks remained nearly where they stood before. The
same bad roads and difficult rivers, connecting the same small towns,
stretched into the same forests in 1800 as when the armies of Braddock
and Amherst pierced the western and northern wilderness, except that
these roads extended a few miles farther from the sea-coast. Nature was
rather man’s master than his servant, and the five million Americans
struggling with the untamed continent seemed hardly more competent
to their task than the beavers and buffalo which had for countless
generations made bridges and roads of their own.

Even by water, along the seaboard, communication was as slow and almost
as irregular as in colonial times. The wars in Europe caused a sudden
and great increase in American shipping employed in foreign commerce,
without yet leading to general improvement in navigation. The ordinary
sea-going vessel carried a freight of about two hundred and fifty
tons; the largest merchant ships hardly reached four hundred tons;
the largest frigate in the United States navy, the “line-of-battle
ship in disguise,” had a capacity of fifteen hundred and seventy-six
tons. Elaborately rigged as ships or brigs, the small merchant craft
required large crews and were slow sailers; but the voyage to Europe
was comparatively more comfortable and more regular than the voyage
from New York to Albany, or through Long Island Sound to Providence.
No regular packet plied between New York and Albany. Passengers
waited till a sloop was advertised to sail; they provided their own
bedding and supplies; and within the nineteenth century Captain Elias
Bunker won much fame by building the sloop “Experiment,” of one
hundred and ten tons, to start regularly on a fixed day for Albany,
for the convenience of passengers only, supplying beds, wine, and
provisions for the voyage of one hundred and fifty miles. A week on the
North River or on the Sound was an experience not at all unknown to
travellers.

While little improvement had been made in water-travel, every increase
of distance added to the difficulties of the westward journey. The
settler who after buying wagon and horses hauled his family and goods
across the mountains, might buy or build a broad flat-bottomed ark,
to float with him and his fortunes down the Ohio, in constant peril
of upsetting or of being sunk; but only light boats with strong
oars could mount the stream, or boats forced against the current by
laboriously poling in shallow water. If he carried his tobacco and
wheat down the Mississippi to the Spanish port of New Orleans, and
sold it, he might return to his home in Kentucky or Ohio by a long and
dangerous journey on horseback through the Indian country from Natchez
to Nashville, or he might take ship to Philadelphia, if a ship were
about to sail, and again cross the Alleghanies. Compared with river
travel, the sea was commonly an easy and safe highway. Nearly all the
rivers which penetrated the interior were unsure, liable to be made
dangerous by freshets, and both dangerous and impassable by drought;
yet such as they were, these streams made the main paths of traffic.
Through the mountainous gorges of the Susquehanna the produce of
western New York first found an outlet; the Cuyahoga and Muskingum were
the first highway from the Lakes to the Ohio; the Ohio itself, with its
great tributaries the Cumberland and the Tennessee, marked the lines
of western migration; and every stream which could at high water float
a boat was thought likely to become a path for commerce. As General
Washington, not twenty years earlier, hoped that the brawling waters of
the Cheat and Youghiogheny might become the channel of trade between
Chesapeake Bay and Pittsburg, so the Americans of 1800 were prepared to
risk life and property on any streamlet that fell foaming down either
flank of the Alleghanies. The experience of mankind proved trade to be
dependent on water communications, and as yet Americans did not dream
that the experience of mankind was useless to them.

If America was to be developed along the lines of water communication
alone, by such means as were known to Europe, Nature had decided that
the experiment of a single republican government must meet extreme
difficulties. The valley of the Ohio had no more to do with that of the
Hudson, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the Roanoke, and the Santee, than
the valley of the Danube with that of the Rhone, the Po, or the Elbe.
Close communication by land could alone hold the great geographical
divisions together either in interest or in fear. The union of New
England with New York and Pennsylvania was not an easy task even as a
problem of geography, and with an ocean highway; but the union of New
England with the Carolinas, and of the sea-coast with the interior,
promised to be a hopeless undertaking. Physical contact alone could
make one country of these isolated empires, but to the patriotic
American of 1800, struggling for the continued existence of an embryo
nation, with machinery so inadequate, the idea of ever bringing the
Mississippi River, either by land or water, into close contact with Now
England, must have seemed wild. By water, an Erie Canal was already
foreseen; by land, centuries of labor could alone conquer those
obstacles which Nature permitted to be overcome.

In the minds of practical men, the experience of Europe left few
doubts on this point. After two thousand years of public labor and
private savings, even despotic monarchs, who employed the resources of
their subjects as they pleased, could in 1800 pass from one part of
their European dominions to another little more quickly than they might
have done in the age of the Antonines. A few short canals had been
made, a few bridges had been built, an excellent post-road extended
from Madrid to St. Petersburg; but the heavy diligence that rumbled
from Calais to Paris required three days for its journey of one hundred
and fifty miles, and if travellers ventured on a trip to Marseilles
they met with rough roads and hardships like those of the Middle Ages.
Italy was in 1800 almost as remote from the north of Europe as when
carriage-roads were first built. Neither in time nor in thought was
Florence or Rome much nearer to London in Wordsworth’s youth than in
the youth of Milton or Gray. Indeed, such changes as had occurred were
partly for the worse, owing to the violence of revolutionary wars
during the last ten years of the eighteenth century. Horace Walpole at
his life’s close saw about him a world which in many respects was less
civilized than when as a boy he made the grand tour of Europe.

While so little had been done on the great highways of European
travel, these highways were themselves luxuries which furnished no
sure measure of progress. The post-horses toiled as painfully as ever
through the sand from Hamburg to Berlin, while the coach between York
and London rolled along an excellent road at the rate of ten miles an
hour; yet neither in England nor on the Continent was the post-road a
great channel of commerce. No matter how good the road, it could not
compete with water, nor could heavy freights in great quantities be
hauled long distances without extravagant cost. Water communication
was as necessary for European commerce in 1800 as it had been for the
Phœnicians and Egyptians; the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, the Elbe,
were still the true commercial highways, and except for government
post-roads, Europe was as dependent on these rivers in the eighteenth
century as in the thirteenth. No certainty could be offered of more
rapid progress in the coming century than in the past; the chief hope
seemed to lie in the construction of canals.

While Europe had thus consumed centuries in improving paths of trade,
until merchandise could be brought by canal a few score miles from the
Rhone to the Loire and Seine, to the Garonne and the Rhine, and while
all her wealth and energy had not yet united the Danube with other
river systems, America was required to construct, without delay, at
least three great roads and canals, each several hundred miles long,
across mountain ranges, through a country not yet inhabited, to points
where no great markets existed,--and this under constant peril of
losing her political union, which could not even by such connections
be with certainty secured. After this should be accomplished, the
Alleghanies must still remain between the eastern and western States,
and at any known rate of travel Nashville could not be reached in
less than a fortnight or three weeks from Philadelphia. Meanwhile
the simpler problem of bringing New England nearer to Virginia and
Georgia had not advanced even with the aid of a direct ocean highway.
In becoming politically independent of England, the old thirteen
provinces developed little more commercial intercourse with each other
in proportion to their wealth and population than they had maintained
in colonial days. The material ties that united them grew in strength
no more rapidly than the ties which bound them to Europe. Each group of
States lived a life apart.

Even the lightly equipped traveller found a short journey no slight
effort. Between Boston and New York was a tolerable highway, along
which, thrice a week, light stage-coaches carried passengers and
the mail, in three days. From New York a stage-coach started every
week-day for Philadelphia, consuming the greater part of two days in
the journey; and the road between Paulus Hook, the modern Jersey City,
and Hackensack, was declared by the newspapers in 1802 to be as bad
as any other part of the route between Maine and Georgia. South of
Philadelphia the road was tolerable as far as Baltimore, but between
Baltimore and the new city of Washington it meandered through forests;
the driver chose the track which seemed least dangerous, and rejoiced
if in wet seasons he reached Washington without miring or upsetting his
wagon. In the Northern States, four miles an hour was the average speed
for any coach between Bangor and Baltimore. Beyond the Potomac the
roads became steadily worse, until south of Petersburg even the mails
were carried on horseback. Except for a stage-coach which plied between
Charleston and Savannah, no public conveyance of any kind was mentioned
in the three southernmost States.

The stage-coach was itself a rude conveyance, of a kind still familiar
to experienced travellers. Twelve persons, crowded into one wagon,
were jolted over rough roads, their bags and parcels, thrust inside,
cramping their legs, while they were protected from the heat and
dust of mid-summer and the intense cold and driving snow of winter
only by leather flaps buttoned to the roof and sides. In fine, dry
weather this mode of travel was not unpleasant, when compared with
the heavy vehicles of Europe and the hard English turnpikes; but when
spring rains drew the frost from the ground the roads became nearly
impassable, and in winter, when the rivers froze, a serious peril was
added, for the Susquehanna or the North River at Paulus Hook must
be crossed in an open boat,--an affair of hours at best, sometimes
leading to fatal accidents. Smaller annoyances of many kinds were
habitual. The public, as a rule, grumbled less than might have been
expected, but occasionally newspapers contained bitter complaints. An
angry Philadelphian, probably a foreigner, wrote in 1796 that, “with
a few exceptions, brutality, negligence, and filching are as naturally
expected by people accustomed to travelling in America, as a mouth,
a nose, and two eyes are looked for in a man’s face.” This sweeping
charge, probably unjust, and certainly supported by little public
evidence, was chiefly founded on the experience of an alleged journey
from New York:--

 “At Bordentown we went into a second boat where we met with very
 sorry accommodation. This was about four o’clock in the afternoon. We
 had about twenty miles down the Delaware to reach Philadelphia. The
 captain, who had a most provoking tongue, was a boy about eighteen
 years of age. He and a few companions despatched a dozen or eighteen
 bottles of porter. We ran three different times against other vessels
 that were coming up the stream. The women and children lay all night
 on the bare boards of the cabin floor.... We reached Arch Street
 wharf about eight o’clock on the Wednesday morning, having been about
 sixteen hours on a voyage of twenty miles.”

In the Southern States the difficulties and perils of travel were so
great as to form a barrier almost insuperable. Even Virginia was no
exception to this rule. At each interval of a few miles the horseman
found himself stopped by a river, liable to sudden freshets, and rarely
bridged. Jefferson in his frequent journeys between Monticello and
Washington was happy to reach the end of the hundred miles without
some vexatious delay. “Of eight rivers between here and Washington,” he
wrote to his Attorney-General in 1801, “five have neither bridges nor
boats.”

Expense caused an equally serious obstacle to travel. The usual charge
in the Northern States was six cents a mile by stage. In the year
1796, according to Francis Baily, President of the Royal Astronomical
Society, three or four stages ran daily from Baltimore to Philadelphia,
the fare six dollars, with charges amounting to two dollars and a
quarter a day at the inns on the road. Baily was three days in making
the journey. From Philadelphia to New York he paid the same fare and
charges, arriving in one day and a half. The entire journey of two
hundred miles cost him twenty-one dollars. He remarked that travelling
on the main lines of road in the settled country was about as expensive
as in England, and when the roads were good, about as rapid. Congress
allowed its members six dollars for every twenty miles travelled. The
actual cost, including hotel expenses, could hardly have fallen below
ten cents a mile.

Heavy traffic never used stage routes if it could find cheaper.
Commerce between one State and another, or even between the seaboard
and the interior of the same State, was scarcely possible on any large
scale unless navigable water connected them. Except the great highway
to Pittsburg, no road served as a channel of commerce between different
regions of the country. In this respect New England east of the
Connecticut was as independent of New York as both were independent
of Virginia, and as Virginia in her turn was independent of Georgia
and South Carolina. The chief value of inter-State communication by
land rested in the postal system; but the post furnished another
illustration of the difficulties which barred progress. In the year
1800 one general mail-route extended from Portland in Maine to
Louisville in Georgia, the time required for the trip being twenty
days. Between New York and Petersburg in Virginia was a daily service;
between New York and Boston, and also between Petersburg and Augusta,
the mail was carried thrice a week. Branching from the main line at
New York, a mail went to Canandaigua in ten days; from Philadelphia
another branch line went to Lexington in sixteen days, to Nashville in
twenty-two days. Thus more than twenty thousand miles of post-road,
with nine hundred post-offices, proved the vastness of the country and
the smallness of the result; for the gross receipts for postage in the
year ending Oct. 1, 1801, were only $320,000.

Throughout the land the eighteenth century ruled supreme. Only within
a few years had the New Englander begun to abandon his struggle with
a barren soil, among granite hills, to learn the comforts of easier
existence in the valleys of the Mohawk and Ohio; yet the New England
man was thought the shrewdest and most enterprising of Americans.
If the Puritans and the Dutch needed a century or more to reach the
Mohawk, when would they reach the Mississippi? The distance from New
York to the Mississippi was about one thousand miles; from Washington
to the extreme southwestern military post, below Natchez, was about
twelve hundred. Scarcely a portion of western Europe was three hundred
miles distant from some sea, but a width of three hundred miles was
hardly more than an outskirt of the United States. No civilized country
had yet been required to deal with physical difficulties so serious,
nor did experience warrant conviction that such difficulties could be
overcome.

       *       *       *       *       *

If the physical task which lay before the American people had advanced
but a short way toward completion, little more change could be seen
in the economical conditions of American life. The man who in the
year 1800 ventured to hope for a new era in the coming century, could
lay his hand on no statistics that silenced doubt. The machinery of
production showed no radical difference from that familiar to ages
long past. The Saxon farmer of the eighth century enjoyed most of
the comforts known to Saxon farmers of the eighteenth. The eorls
and ceorls of Offa and Ecgbert could not read or write, and did not
receive a weekly newspaper with such information as newspapers in that
age could supply; yet neither their houses, their clothing, their
food and drink, their agricultural tools and methods, their stock,
nor their habits were so greatly altered or improved by time that
they would have found much difficulty in accommodating their lives to
that of their descendants in the eighteenth century. In this respect
America was backward. Fifty or a hundred miles inland more than half
the houses were log-cabins, which might or might not enjoy the luxury
of a glass window. Throughout the South and West houses showed little
attempt at luxury; but even in New England the ordinary farmhouse was
hardly so well built, so spacious, or so warm as that of a well-to-do
contemporary of Charlemagne. The cloth which the farmer’s family wore
was still homespun. The hats were manufactured by the village hatter;
the clothes were cut and made at home; the shirts, socks, and nearly
every other article of dress were also home-made. Hence came a marked
air of rusticity which distinguished country from town,--awkward shapes
of hat, coat, and trousers, which gave to the Yankee caricature those
typical traits that soon disappeared almost as completely as coats of
mail and steel headpieces. The plough was rude and clumsy; the sickle
as old as Tubal Cain, and even the cradle not in general use; the
flail was unchanged since the Aryan exodus; in Virginia, grain was
still commonly trodden out by horses. Enterprising gentlemen-farmers
introduced threshing-machines and invented scientific ploughs; but
these were novelties. Stock was as a rule not only unimproved, but ill
cared for. The swine ran loose; the cattle were left to feed on what
pasture they could find, and even in New England were not housed until
the severest frosts, on the excuse that exposure hardened them. Near
half a century afterward a competent judge asserted that the general
treatment of cows in New England was fair matter of presentment by
a grand jury. Except among the best farmers, drainage, manures, and
rotation of crops were uncommon. The ordinary cultivator planted his
corn as his father had planted it, sowing as much rye to the acre,
using the same number of oxen to plough, and getting in his crops on
the same day. He was even known to remove his barn on account of the
manure accumulated round it, although the New England soil was never so
rich as to warrant neglect to enrich it. The money for which he sold
his wheat and chickens was of the Old World; he reckoned in shillings
or pistareens, and rarely handled an American coin more valuable than a
large copper cent.

At a time when the wealth and science of London and Paris could
not supply an article so necessary as a common sulphur-match, the
backwardness of remote country districts could hardly be exaggerated.
Yet remote districts were not the only sufferers. Of the whole United
States New England claimed to be the most civilized province, yet
New England was a region in which life had yet gained few charms of
sense and few advantages over its rivals. Wilson, the ornithologist, a
Pennsylvania Scotchman, a confirmed grumbler, but a shrewd judge, and
the most thorough of American travellers, said in 1808: “My journey
through almost the whole of New England has rather lowered the Yankees
in my esteem. Except a few neat academies, I found their schoolhouses
equally ruinous and deserted with ours; fields covered with stones;
stone fences; scrubby oaks and pine-trees; wretched orchards; scarcely
one grain-field in twenty miles; the taverns along the road dirty,
and filled with loungers brawling about lawsuits and politics; the
people snappish and extortioners, lazy, and two hundred years behind
the Pennsylvanians in agricultural improvements.” The description
was exaggerated, for Wilson forgot to speak of the districts where
fields were not covered with stones, and where wheat could be grown to
advantage. Twenty years earlier, Albert Gallatin, who knew Pennsylvania
well, having reached Hartford on his way to Boston, wrote: “I have
seen nothing in America equal to the establishments on the Connecticut
River.” Yet Wilson’s account described the first general effect of
districts in the New England States, where agriculture was backward
and the country poor. The houses were thin wooden buildings, not
well suited to the climate; the churches were unwarmed; the clothing
was poor; sanitary laws were few, and a bathroom or a soil-pipe was
unknown. Consumption, typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and rheumatic
fevers were common; habits of drinking were still a scourge in every
family, and dyspepsia destroyed more victims than were consumed by
drink. Population increased slowly, as though the conditions of life
were more than usually hard. A century earlier, Massachusetts was
supposed to contain sixty thousand inhabitants. Governor Hutchinson
complained that while the other colonies quadrupled their numbers,
Massachusetts failed to double its population in fifty years. In 1790
the State contained 378,000 people, not including the province of
Maine; in 1800 the number rose to 423,000, which showed that a period
of more rapid growth had begun, for the emigration into other States
was also large.

A better measure of the difficulties with which New England struggled
was given by the progress of Boston, which was supposed to have
contained about eighteen thousand inhabitants as early as 1730, and
twenty thousand in 1770. For several years after the Revolution it
numbered less than twenty thousand, but in 1800 the census showed
twenty-five thousand inhabitants. In appearance, Boston resembled an
English market-town, of a kind even then old-fashioned. The footways or
sidewalks were paved, like the crooked and narrow streets, with round
cobblestones, and were divided from the carriage way only by posts and
a gutter. The streets were almost unlighted at night, a few oil-lamps
rendering the darkness more visible and the rough pavement rougher.
Police hardly existed. The system of taxation was defective. The town
was managed by selectmen, the elected instruments of town-meetings
whose jealousy of granting power was even greater than their objection
to spending money, and whose hostility to city government was not to be
overcome.

Although on all sides increase of ease and comfort was evident, and
roads, canals, and new buildings, public and private, were already in
course of construction on a scale before unknown, yet in spite of more
than a century and a half of incessant industry, intelligent labor,
and pinching economy Boston and New England were still poor. A few
merchants enjoyed incomes derived from foreign trade, which allowed
them to imitate in a quiet way the style of the English mercantile
class; but the clergy and the lawyers, who stood at the head of
society, lived with much economy. Many a country clergyman, eminent for
piety and even for hospitality, brought up a family and laid aside some
savings on a salary of five hundred dollars a year. President Dwight,
who knew well the class to which he belonged, eulogizing the life of
Abijah Weld, pastor of Attleborough, declared that on a salary of two
hundred and twenty dollars a year Mr. Weld brought up eleven children,
besides keeping a hospitable house and maintaining charity to the poor.

On the Exchange a few merchants had done most of the business of Boston
since the peace of 1783, but a mail thrice a week to New York, and an
occasional arrival from Europe or the departure of a ship to China,
left ample leisure for correspondence and even for gossip. The habits
of the commercial class had not been greatly affected by recent
prosperity. Within ten or fifteen years before 1800 three Banks had
been created to supply the commercial needs of Boston. One of these
was a branch Bank of the United States, which employed there whatever
part of its capital it could profitably use; the two others were local
Banks, with capital of $1,600,000, toward which the State subscribed
$400,000. Altogether the banking capital of Boston might amount to two
millions and a half. A number of small Banks, representing in all about
two and a half millions more, were scattered through the smaller New
England towns. The extraordinary prosperity caused by the French wars
opened to Boston a new career. Wealth and population were doubling; the
exports and imports of New England were surprisingly large, and the
shipping was greater than that of New York and Pennsylvania combined;
but Boston had already learned, and was to learn again, how fleeting
were the riches that depended on foreign commerce, and conservative
habits were not easily changed by a few years of accidental gain.

Of manufactures New England had many, but none on a large scale. The
people could feed or clothe themselves only by household industry;
their whale-oil, salt fish, lumber, and rum were mostly sent abroad;
but they freighted coasters with turners’ articles, home-made linens
and cloths, cheese, butter, shoes, nails, and what were called Yankee
Notions of all sorts, which were sent to Norfolk and the Southern
ports, and often peddled from the deck, as goods of every sort were
peddled on the flat-boats of the Ohio. Two or three small mills
spun cotton with doubtful success; but England supplied ordinary
manufactures more cheaply and better than Massachusetts could hope
to do. A tri-weekly mail and a few coasting sloops provided for the
business of New England with domestic ports. One packet sloop plied
regularly to New York.

The State of New York was little in advance of Massachusetts and Maine.
In 1800 for the first time New York gained the lead in population by
the difference between 589,000 and 573,000. The valuation of New York
for the direct tax in 1799 was $100,000,000; that of Massachusetts was
$84,000,000. New York was still a frontier State, and although the city
was European in its age and habits, travellers needed to go few miles
from the Hudson in order to find a wilderness like that of Ohio and
Tennessee. In most material respects the State was behind New England;
outside the city was to be seen less wealth and less appearance of
comfort. The first impression commonly received of any new country was
from its inns, and on the whole few better tests of material condition
then existed. President Dwight, though maintaining that the best
old-fashioned inns of New England were in their way perfect, being in
fact excellent private houses, could not wholly approve what he called
the modern inns, even in Connecticut; but when he passed into New
York he asserted that everything suffered an instant change for the
worse. He explained that in Massachusetts the authorities were strict
in refusing licenses to any but respectable and responsible persons,
whereas in New York licenses were granted to any one who would pay for
them,--which caused a multiplication of dram-shops, bad accommodations,
and a gathering of loafers and tipplers about every tavern porch,
whose rude appearance, clownish manners, drunkenness, swearing, and
obscenity confirmed the chief of Federalist clergymen in his belief
that democracy had an evil influence on morals.

Far more movement was to be seen, and accumulation was more rapid than
in colonial days; but little had yet been done for improvement, either
by Government or by individuals, beyond some provision for extending
roads and clearing watercourses behind the advancing settlers. If
Washington Irving was right, Rip Van Winkle, who woke from his long
slumber about the year 1800, saw little that was new to him, except the
head of President Washington where that of King George had once hung,
and strange faces instead of familiar ones. Except in numbers, the city
was relatively no farther advanced than the country. Between 1790 and
1800 its population rose from 33,000 to 60,000; and if Boston resembled
an old-fashioned English market-town, New York was like a foreign
seaport, badly paved, undrained, and as foul as a town surrounded by
the tides could be. Although the Manhattan Company was laying wooden
pipes for a water supply, no sanitary regulations were enforced, and
every few years--as in 1798 and 1803--yellow fever swept away crowds of
victims, and drove the rest of the population, panic stricken, into the
highlands. No day-police existed; constables were still officers of the
courts; the night-police consisted of two captains, two deputies, and
seventy-two men. The estimate for the city’s expenses in 1800 amounted
to $130,000. One marked advantage New York enjoyed over Boston, in
the possession of a city government able to introduce reforms. Thus,
although still mediæval in regard to drainage and cleanliness, the town
had taken advantage of recurring fires to rebuild some of the streets
with brick sidewalks and curbstones. Travellers dwelt much on this
improvement, which only New York and Philadelphia had yet adopted,
and Europeans agreed that both had the air of true cities: that while
Boston was the Bristol of America, New York was the Liverpool, and
Philadelphia the London.

In respect to trade and capital, New York possessed growing advantages,
supplying half New Jersey and Connecticut, a part of Massachusetts,
and all the rapidly increasing settlements on the branches of the
Hudson; but no great amount of wealth, no considerable industry or new
creation of power was yet to be seen. Two Banks, besides the branch
Bank of the United States, supplied the business wants of the city, and
employed about the same amount of capital in loans and discounts as
was required for Boston. Besides these city institutions but two other
Banks existed in the State,--at Hudson and at Albany.

The proportion of capital in private hands seemed to be no larger.
The value of exports from New York in 1800 was but $14,000,000; the
net revenue on imports for 1799 was $2,373,000, against $1,607,000
collected in Massachusetts. Such a foreign trade required little
capital, yet these values represented a great proportion of all the
exchanges. Domestic manufactures could not compete with foreign, and
employed little bank credit. Speculation was slow, mostly confined to
lands which required patience to exchange or sell. The most important
undertakings were turnpikes, bridges such as Boston built across the
Charles, or new blocks of houses; and a canal, such as Boston designed
to the Merrimac, overstrained the resources of capital. The entire
banking means of the United States in 1800 would not have answered the
stock-jobbing purposes of one great operator of Wall Street in 1875.
The nominal capital of all the Banks, including the Bank of the United
States, fell short of $29,000,000. The limit of credit was quickly
reached, for only the richest could borrow more than fifteen or twenty
thousand dollars at a time, and the United States Government itself
was gravely embarrassed whenever obliged to raise money. In 1798 the
Secretary of the Treasury could obtain five million dollars only by
paying eight per cent interest for a term of years; and in 1814 the
Government was forced to stop payments for the want of twenty millions.

The precise value of American trade was uncertain, but in 1800 the
gross exports and imports of the United States may have balanced at
about seventy-five million dollars. The actual consumption of foreign
merchandise amounted perhaps to the value of forty or fifty million
dollars, paid in wheat, cotton, and other staples, and by the profits
on the shipping employed in carrying West India produce to Europe. The
amount of American capital involved in a trade of fifty millions, with
credits of three, six, and nine months, must have been small, and the
rates of profit large.

As a rule American capital was absorbed in shipping or agriculture,
whence it could not be suddenly withdrawn. No stock-exchange existed,
and no broker exclusively engaged in stock-jobbing, for there were few
stocks. The national debt, of about eighty millions, was held abroad,
or as a permanent investment at home. States and municipalities had
not learned to borrow. Except for a few banks and insurance offices,
turnpikes, bridges, canals, and land-companies, neither bonds nor
stocks were known. The city of New York was so small as to make
extravagance difficult; the Battery was a fashionable walk, Broadway a
country drive, and Wall Street an uptown residence. Great accumulations
of wealth had hardly begun. The Patroon was still the richest man in
the State. John Jacob Astor was a fur-merchant living where the Astor
House afterward stood, and had not yet begun those purchases of real
estate which secured his fortune. Cornelius Vanderbilt was a boy six
years old, playing about his father’s ferry-boat at Staten Island. New
York city itself was what it had been for a hundred years past,--a
local market.

As a national capital New York made no claim to consideration. If
Bostonians for a moment forgot their town-meetings, or if Virginians
overcame their dislike for cities and pavements, they visited and
admired, not New York, but Philadelphia. “Philadelphia,” wrote the
Duc de Liancourt, “is not only the finest city in the United States,
but may be deemed one of the most beautiful cities in the world.” In
truth, it surpassed any of its size on either side of the Atlantic
for most of the comforts and some of the elegancies of life. While
Boston contained twenty-five thousand inhabitants and New York sixty
thousand, the census of 1800 showed that Philadelphia was about the
size of Liverpool,--a city of seventy thousand people. The repeated
ravages of yellow fever roused there a regard for sanitary precautions
and cleanliness; the city, well paved and partly drained, was
supplied with water in wooden pipes, and was the best-lighted town in
America; its market was a model, and its jail was intended also for
a model,--although the first experiment proved unsuccessful, because
the prisoners went mad or idiotic in solitary confinement. In and
about the city flourished industries considerable for the time. The
iron-works were already important; paper and gunpowder, pleasure
carriages and many other manufactures, were produced on a larger scale
than elsewhere in the Union. Philadelphia held the seat of government
until July, 1800, and continued to hold the Bank of the United States,
with its capital of ten millions, besides private banking capital to
the amount of five millions more. Public spirit was more active in
Pennsylvania than in New York. More roads and canals were building; a
new turnpike ran from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and the great highway
to Pittsburg was a more important artery of national life than was
controlled by any other State. The exports of Pennsylvania amounted
to $12,000,000, and the custom-house produced $1,350,000. The State
contained six hundred thousand inhabitants,--a population somewhat
larger than that of New York.

Of all parts of the Union, Pennsylvania seemed to have made most use of
her national advantages; but her progress was not more rapid than the
natural increase of population and wealth demanded, while to deal with
the needs of America, man’s resources and his power over Nature must
be increased in a ratio far more rapid than that which governed his
numbers. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania was the most encouraging spectacle
in the field of vision. Baltimore, which had suddenly sprung to a
population and commerce greater than those of Boston, also offered
strong hope of future improvement; but farther South the people showed
fewer signs of change.

The city of Washington, rising in a solitude on the banks of the
Potomac, was a symbol of American nationality in the Southern States.
The contrast between the immensity of the task and the paucity of
means seemed to challenge suspicion that the nation itself was a
magnificent scheme like the federal city, which could show only a few
log-cabins and negro quarters where the plan provided for the traffic
of London and the elegance of Versailles. When in the summer of 1800
the government was transferred to what was regarded by most persons
as a fever-stricken morass, the half-finished White House stood in
a naked field overlooking the Potomac, with two awkward Department
buildings near it, a single row of brick houses and a few isolated
dwellings within sight, and nothing more; until across a swamp, a mile
and a half away, the shapeless, unfinished Capitol was seen, two wings
without a body, ambitious enough in design to make more grotesque the
nature of its surroundings. The conception proved that the United
States understood the vastness of their task, and were willing to stake
something on their faith in it. Never did hermit or saint condemn
himself to solitude more consciously than Congress and the Executive
in removing the government from Philadelphia to Washington: the
discontented men clustered together in eight or ten boarding-houses as
near as possible to the Capitol, and there lived, like a convent of
monks, with no other amusement or occupation than that of going from
their lodgings to the Chambers and back again. Even private wealth
could do little to improve their situation, for there was nothing
which wealth could buy; there were in Washington no shops or markets,
skilled labor, commerce, or people. Public efforts and lavish use of
public money could alone make the place tolerable; but Congress doled
out funds for this national and personal object with so sparing a hand,
that their Capitol threatened to crumble in pieces and crush Senate and
House under the ruins, long before the building was complete.

A government capable of sketching a magnificent plan, and willing to
give only a half-hearted pledge for its fulfilment; a people eager to
advertise a vast undertaking beyond their present powers, which when
completed would become an object of jealousy and fear,--this was the
impression made upon the traveller who visited Washington in 1800,
and mused among the unraised columns of the Capitol upon the destiny
of the United States. As he travelled farther south his doubts were
strengthened, for across the Potomac he could detect no sign of a
new spirit. Manufactures had no existence. Alexandria owned a bank
with half a million of capital, but no other was to be found between
Washington and Charleston, except the branch Bank of the United States
at Norfolk, nor any industry to which loans and discounts could safely
be made. Virginia, the most populous and powerful of all the States,
had a white population of 514,000, nearly equal to that of Pennsylvania
and New York, besides about 350,000 slaves. Her energies had pierced
the mountains and settled the western territory before the slow-moving
Northern people had torn themselves from the safer and more comfortable
life by the seaboard; but the Virginia ideal was patriarchal, and an
American continent on the Virginia type might reproduce the virtues
of Cato, and perhaps the eloquence of Cicero, but was little likely
to produce anything more practical in the way of modern progress. The
Shenandoah Valley rivalled Pennsylvania and Connecticut in richness
and skill of husbandry; but even agriculture, the favorite industry in
Virginia, had suffered from the competition of Kentucky and Tennessee,
and from the emigration which had drawn away fully one hundred thousand
people. The land was no longer very productive. Even Jefferson, the
most active-minded and sanguine of all Virginians,--the inventor of the
first scientific plough, the importer of the first threshing-machine
known in Virginia, the experimenter with a new drilling-machine,
the owner of one hundred and fifty slaves and ten thousand acres
of land, whose negroes were trained to carpentry, cabinet-making,
house-building, weaving, tailoring, shoe-making,--claimed to get
from his land no more than six or eight bushels of wheat to an acre,
and had been forced to abandon the more profitable cultivation of
tobacco. Except in a few favored districts like the Shenandoah
Valley, land in Virginia did not average eight bushels of wheat to an
acre. The cultivation of tobacco had been almost the sole object of
land-owners, and even where the lands were not exhausted, a bad system
of agriculture and the force of habit prevented improvement.

The great planters lavished money in vain on experiments to improve
their crops and their stock. They devoted themselves to the task with
energy and knowledge; but they needed a diversity of interests and
local markets, and except at Baltimore these were far from making their
appearance. Neither the products, the markets, the relative amount
of capital, nor the machinery of production had perceptibly changed.
“The Virginians are not generally rich,” said the Duc de Liancourt,
“especially in net revenue. Thus one often finds a well-served table,
covered with silver, in a room where for ten years half the window
panes have been missing, and where they will be missed for ten years
more. There are few houses in a passable state of repair, and of all
parts of the establishment those best cared for are the stables.”
Wealth reckoned in slaves or land was plenty; but the best Virginians,
from President Washington downward, were most outspoken in their
warnings against the Virginia system both of slavery and agriculture.

The contrast between Virginia and Pennsylvania was the subject of
incessant comment.

 “In Pennsylvania,” said Robert Sutcliffe, an English Friend who
 published travels made in 1804-1806, “we meet great numbers of wagons
 drawn by four or more fine fat horses, the carriages firm and well
 made, and covered with stout good linen, bleached almost white; and it
 is not uncommon to see ten or fifteen together travelling cheerfully
 along the road, the driver riding on one of his horses. Many of these
 come more than three hundred miles to Philadelphia from the Ohio,
 Pittsburg, and other places, and I have been told by a respectable
 Friend, a native of Philadelphia, that more than one thousand covered
 carriages frequently come to Philadelphia market.... The appearance of
 things in the Slave States is quite the reverse of this. We sometimes
 meet a ragged black boy or girl driving a team consisting of a lean
 cow and a mule; sometimes a lean bull or an ox 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. The carriage or wagon, if it may be called
 such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the team and its driver.
 Sometimes a couple of horses, mules, or cows would be dragging a
 hogshead of tobacco, with a pivot or axle driven into each end of the
 hogshead, and something like a shaft attached, by which it was drawn
 or rolled along the road. I have seen two oxen and two slaves pretty
 fully employed in getting along a single hogshead; and some of these
 come from a great distance inland.”

In the middle of these primitive sights, Sutcliffe was startled by
a contrast such as Virginia could always show. Between Richmond and
Fredericksburg,--

 “In the afternoon, as our road lay through the woods, I was surprised
 to meet a family party travelling along in as elegant a coach as
 is usually met with in the neighborhood of London, and attended by
 several gayly dressed footmen.”

The country south of Virginia seemed unpromising even to Virginians.
In the year 1796 President Washington gave to Sir John Sinclair his
opinion upon the relative value of American lands. He then thought the
valley of Virginia the garden of America; but he would say nothing to
induce others to settle in more southern regions.

 “The uplands of North and South Carolina and Georgia are not
 dissimilar in soil,” he wrote, “but as they approach the lower
 latitudes are less congenial to wheat, and are supposed to be
 proportionably more unhealthy. Towards the seaboard of all the
 Southern States, and farther south more so, the lands are low, sandy,
 and unhealthy; for which reason I shall say little concerning them,
 for as I should not choose to be an inhabitant of them myself, I ought
 not to say anything that would induce others to be so.... I understand
 that from thirty to forty dollars per acre may be denominated the
 medium price in the vicinity of the Susquehanna in the State of
 Pennsylvania, from twenty to thirty on the Potomac in what is called
 the Valley, ... and less, as I have noticed before, as you proceed
 southerly.”

Whatever was the cause, the State of North Carolina seemed to offer few
temptations to immigrants or capital. Even in white population ranking
fifth among the sixteen States, her 478,000 inhabitants were unknown
to the world. The beautiful upper country attracted travellers neither
for pleasure nor for gain, while the country along the sea-coast was
avoided except by hardy wanderers. The grumbling Wilson, who knew
every nook and corner of the United States, and who found New England
so dreary, painted this part of North Carolina in colors compared
with which his sketch of New England was gay. “The taverns are the
most desolate and beggarly imaginable; bare, bleak, and dirty walls,
one or two old broken chairs and a bench form all the furniture. The
white females seldom make their appearance. At supper you sit down to
a meal the very sight of which is sufficient to deaden the most eager
appetite, and you are surrounded by half-a-dozen dirty, half-naked
blacks, male and female, whom any man of common scent might smell a
quarter of a mile off. The house itself is raised upon props four or
five feet, and the space below is left open for the hogs, with whose
charming vocal performance the wearied traveller is serenaded the whole
night long.” The landscape pleased him no better,--“immense solitary
pine savannahs through which the road winds among stagnant ponds; dark,
sluggish creeks of the color of brandy, over which are thrown high
wooden bridges without railings,” crazy and rotten.

North Carolina was relatively among the poorest States. The exports and
imports were of trifling value, less than one tenth of those returned
for Massachusetts, which were more than twice as great as those of
North Carolina and Virginia together. That under these conditions
America should receive any strong impulse from such a quarter seemed
unlikely; yet perhaps for the moment more was to be expected from the
Carolinas than from Virginia. Backward as these States in some respects
were, they possessed one new element of wealth which promised more for
them than anything Virginia could hope. The steam-engines of Watt had
been applied in England to spinning, weaving, and printing cotton;
an immense demand had risen for that staple, and the cotton-gin had
been simultaneously invented. A sudden impetus was given to industry;
land which had been worthless and estates which had become bankrupt
acquired new value, and in 1800 every planter was growing cotton,
buying negroes, and breaking fresh soil. North Carolina felt the strong
flood of prosperity, but South Carolina, and particularly the town
of Charleston, had most to hope. The exports of South Carolina were
nearly equal in value to those of Massachusetts or Pennsylvania; the
imports were equally large. Charleston might reasonably expect to rival
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In 1800 these cities
still stood, as far as concerned their foreign trade, within some range
of comparison; and between Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston, many
plausible reasons could be given for thinking that the last might have
the most brilliant future. The three towns stood abreast. If Charleston
had but about eighteen thousand inhabitants, this was the number
reported by Boston only ten years before, and was five thousand more
than Baltimore then boasted. Neither Boston nor Baltimore saw about
them a vaster region to supply, or so profitable a staple to export. A
cotton crop of two hundred thousand pounds sent abroad in 1791 grew to
twenty millions in 1801, and was to double again by 1803. An export of
fifty thousand bales was enormous, yet was only the beginning. What use
might not Charleston, the only considerable town in the entire South,
make of this golden flood?

The town promised hopefully to prove equal to its task. Nowhere in the
Union was intelligence, wealth, and education greater in proportion
to numbers than in the little society of cotton and rice planters
who ruled South Carolina; and they were in 1800 not behind--they
hoped soon to outstrip--their rivals. If Boston was building a canal
to the Merrimac, and Philadelphia one along the Schuylkill to the
Susquehanna, Charleston had nearly completed another which brought the
Santee River to its harbor, and was planning a road to Tennessee which
should draw the whole interior within reach. Nashville was nearer to
Charleston than to any other seaport of the Union, and Charleston lay
nearest to the rich trade of the West Indies. Not even New York seemed
more clearly marked for prosperity than this solitary Southern city,
which already possessed banking capital in abundance, intelligence,
enterprise, the traditions of high culture and aristocratic ambition,
all supported by slave-labor, which could be indefinitely increased by
the African slave-trade.

If any portion of the United States might hope for a sudden and
magnificent bloom, South Carolina seemed entitled to expect it. Rarely
had such a situation, combined with such resources, failed to produce
some wonderful result. Yet as Washington warned Sinclair, these
advantages were counterbalanced by serious evils. The climate in summer
was too relaxing. The sun was too hot. The sea-coast was unhealthy, and
at certain seasons even deadly to the whites. Finally, if history was
a guide, no permanent success could be prophesied for a society like
that of the low country in South Carolina, where some thirty thousand
whites were surrounded by a dense mass of nearly one hundred thousand
negro slaves. Even Georgia, then only partially settled, contained
sixty thousand slaves and but one hundred thousand whites. The cotton
States might still argue that if slavery, malaria, or summer heat
barred civilization, all the civilization that was ever known must have
been blighted in its infancy; but although the future of South Carolina
might be brilliant, like that of other oligarchies in which only a few
thousand freemen took part, such a development seemed to diverge far
from the path likely to be followed by Northern society, and bade fair
to increase and complicate the social and economical difficulties with
which Americans had to deal.

A probable valuation of the whole United States in 1800 was eighteen
hundred million dollars, equal to $328 for each human being, including
slaves; or $418 to each free white. This property was distributed with
an approach to equality, except in a few of the Southern States. In New
York and Philadelphia a private fortune of one hundred thousand dollars
was considered handsome, and three hundred thousand was great wealth.
Inequalities were frequent; but they were chiefly those of a landed
aristocracy. Equality was so far the rule that every white family of
five persons might be supposed to own land, stock, or utensils, a
house and furniture, worth about two thousand dollars; and as the only
considerable industry was agriculture, their scale of life was easy to
calculate,--taxes amounting to little or nothing, and wages averaging
about a dollar a day.

Not only were these slender resources, but they were also of a kind
not easily converted to the ready uses required for rapid development.
Among the numerous difficulties with which the Union was to struggle,
and which were to form the interest of American history, the
disproportion between the physical obstacles and the material means for
overcoming them was one of the most striking.




CHAPTER II.


THE growth of character, social and national,--the formation of men’s
minds,--more interesting than any territorial or industrial growth,
defied the tests of censuses and surveys. No people could be expected,
least of all when in infancy, to understand the intricacies of its
own character, and rarely has a foreigner been gifted with insight to
explain what natives did not comprehend. Only with diffidence could the
best-informed Americans venture, in 1800, to generalize on the subject
of their own national habits of life and thought. Of all American
travellers President Dwight was the most experienced; yet his four
volumes of travels were remarkable for no trait more uniform than their
reticence in regard to the United States. Clear and emphatic wherever
New England was in discussion, Dwight claimed no knowledge of other
regions. Where so good a judge professed ignorance, other observers
were likely to mislead; and Frenchmen like Liancourt, Englishmen like
Weld, or Germans like Bülow, were almost equally worthless authorities
on a subject which none understood. The newspapers of the time were
little more trustworthy than the books of travel, and hardly so well
written. The literature of a higher kind was chiefly limited to
New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. From materials so poor no
precision of result could be expected. A few customs, more or less
local; a few prejudices, more or less popular; a few traits of thought,
suggesting habits of mind,--must form the entire material for a study
more important than that of politics or economics.

The standard of comfort had much to do with the standard of character;
and in the United States, except among the slaves, the laboring class
enjoyed an ample supply of the necessaries of life. In this respect,
as in some others, they claimed superiority over the laboring class in
Europe, and the claim would have been still stronger had they shown
more skill in using the abundance that surrounded them. The Duc de
Liancourt, among foreigners the best and kindest observer, made this
remark on the mode of life he saw in Pennsylvania:--

 “There is a contrast of cleanliness with its opposite which to
 a stranger is very remarkable. The people of the country are as
 astonished that one should object to sleeping two or three in the same
 bed and in dirty sheets, or to drink from the same dirty glass after
 half a score of others, as to see one neglect to wash one’s hands and
 face of a morning. Whiskey diluted with water is the ordinary country
 drink. There is no settler, however poor, whose family does not take
 coffee or chocolate for breakfast, and always a little salt meat; at
 dinner, salt meat, or salt fish, and eggs; at supper again salt meat
 and coffee. This is also the common regime of the taverns.”

An amusing, though quite untrustworthy Englishman named Ashe, who
invented an American journey in 1806, described the fare of a Kentucky
cabin:--

 “The dinner consisted of a large piece of salt bacon, a dish of
 hominy, and a tureen of squirrel broth. I dined entirely on the last
 dish, which I found incomparably good, and the meat equal to the
 most delicate chicken. The Kentuckian eat nothing but bacon, which
 indeed is the favorite diet of all the inhabitants of the State, and
 drank nothing but whiskey, which soon made him more than two-thirds
 drunk. In this last practice he is also supported by the public
 habit. In a country, then, where bacon and spirits form the favorite
 summer repast, it cannot be just to attribute entirely the causes of
 infirmity to the climate. No people on earth live with less regard to
 regimen. They eat salt meat three times a day, seldom or never have
 any vegetables, and drink ardent spirits from morning till night.
 They have not only an aversion to fresh meat, but a vulgar prejudice
 that it is unwholesome. The truth is, their stomachs are depraved by
 burning liquors, and they have no appetite for anything but what is
 high-flavored and strongly impregnated by salt.”

Salt pork three times a day was regarded as an essential part of
American diet. In the “Chain-bearer,” Cooper described what he called
American poverty as it existed in 1784. “As for bread,” said the
mother, “I count that for nothing. We always have bread and potatoes
enough; but I hold a family to be in a desperate way when the mother
can see the bottom of the pork-barrel. Give me the children that’s
raised on good sound pork afore all the game in the country. Game’s
good as a relish, and so’s bread; but pork is the staff of life.... My
children I calkerlate to bring up on pork.”

Many years before the time to which Cooper referred, Poor Richard
asked: “Maids of America, who gave you bad teeth?” and supplied the
answer: “Hot soupings and frozen apples.” Franklin’s question and
answer were repeated in a wider sense by many writers, but none was so
emphatic as Volney:--

 “I will venture to say,” declared Volney, “that if a prize were
 proposed for the scheme of a regimen most calculated to injure the
 stomach, the teeth, and the health in general, no better could be
 invented than that of the Americans. In the morning at breakfast they
 deluge their stomach with a quart of hot water, impregnated with tea,
 or so slightly with coffee that it is mere colored water; and they
 swallow, almost without chewing, hot bread, half baked, toast soaked
 in butter, cheese of the fattest kind, slices of salt or hung beef,
 ham, etc., all which are nearly insoluble. At dinner they have boiled
 pastes under the name of puddings, and the fattest are esteemed the
 most delicious; all their sauces, even for roast beef, are melted
 butter; their turnips and potatoes swim in hog’s lard, butter, or fat;
 under the name of pie or pumpkin, their pastry is nothing but a greasy
 paste, never sufficiently baked. To digest these viscous substances
 they take tea almost instantly after dinner, making it so strong that
 it is absolutely bitter to the taste, in which state it affects the
 nerves so powerfully that even the English find it brings on a more
 obstinate restlessness than coffee. Supper again introduces salt
 meats or oysters. As Chastellux says, the whole day passes in heaping
 indigestions on one another; and to give tone to the poor, relaxed,
 and wearied stomach, they drink Madeira, rum, French brandy, gin, or
 malt spirits, which complete the ruin of the nervous system.”

An American breakfast never failed to interest foreigners, on account
of the variety and abundance of its dishes. On the main lines of
travel, fresh meat and vegetables were invariably served at all meals;
but Indian corn was the national crop, and Indian corn was eaten three
times a day in another form as salt pork. The rich alone could afford
fresh meat. Ice-chests were hardly known. In the country fresh meat
could not regularly be got, except in the shape of poultry or game; but
the hog cost nothing to keep, and very little to kill and preserve.
Thus the ordinary rural American was brought up on salt pork and Indian
corn, or rye; and the effect of this diet showed itself in dyspepsia.

One of the traits to which Liancourt alluded marked more distinctly the
stage of social development. By day or by night, privacy was out of the
question. Not only must all men travel in the same coach, dine at the
same table, at the same time, on the same fare, but even their beds
were in common, without distinction of persons. Innkeepers would not
understand that a different arrangement was possible. When the English
traveller Weld reached Elkton, on the main road from Philadelphia to
Baltimore, he asked the landlord what accommodation he had. “Don’t
trouble yourself about that,” was the reply; “I have no less than
eleven beds in one room alone.” This primitive habit extended over the
whole country from Massachusetts to Georgia, and no American seemed to
revolt against the tyranny of innkeepers.

“At New York I was lodged with two others, in a back room on the ground
floor,” wrote, in 1796, the Philadelphian whose complaints have already
been mentioned. “What can be the reason for that vulgar, hoggish
custom, common in America, of squeezing three, six, or eight beds into
one room?”

Nevertheless, the Americans were on the whole more neat than their
critics allowed. “You have not seen the Americans,” was Cobbett’s
reply, in 1819, to such charges; “you have not seen the nice, clean,
neat houses of the farmers of Long Island, in New England, in the
Quaker counties of Pennsylvania; you have seen nothing but the
smoke-dried ultra-montanians.” Yet Cobbett drew a sharp contrast
between the laborer’s neat cottage familiar to him in Surrey and
Hampshire, and the “shell of boards” which the American occupied, “all
around him as barren as a sea-beach.” He added, too, that “the example
of neatness was wanting;” no one taught it by showing its charm. Felix
de Beaujour, otherwise not an enthusiastic American, paid a warm
compliment to the country in this single respect, although he seemed
to have the cities chiefly in mind:--

 “American neatness must possess some very attractive quality, since it
 seduces every traveller; and there is no one of them who, in returning
 to his own country, does not wish to meet again there that air of ease
 and neatness which rejoiced his sight during his stay in the United
 States.”

Almost every traveller discussed the question whether the Americans
were a temperate people, or whether they drank more than the English.
Temperate they certainly were not, when judged by a modern standard.
Every one acknowledged that in the South and West drinking was
occasionally excessive; but even in Pennsylvania and New England the
universal taste for drams proved habits by no means strict. Every
grown man took his noon toddy as a matter of course; and although few
were seen publicly drunk, many were habitually affected by liquor.
The earliest temperance movement, ten or twelve years later, was
said to have had its source in the scandal caused by the occasional
intoxication of ministers at their regular meetings. Cobbett thought
drinking the national disease; at all hours of the day, he said, young
men, “even little boys, at or under twelve years of age, go into stores
and tip off their drams.” The mere comparison with England proved that
the evil was great, for the English and Scotch were among the largest
consumers of beer and alcohol on the globe.

In other respects besides sobriety American manners and morals were
subjects of much dispute, and if judged by the diatribes of travellers
like Thomas Moore and H. W. Bülow, were below the level of Europe.
Of all classes of statistics, moral statistics were least apt to be
preserved. Even in England, social vices could be gauged only by
the records of criminal and divorce courts; in America, police was
wanting and a divorce suit almost, if not quite, unknown. Apart from
some coarseness, society must have been pure; and the coarseness was
mostly an English inheritance. Among New Englanders, Chief-Justice
Parsons was the model of judicial, social, and religious propriety;
yet Parsons, in 1808, presented to a lady a copy of “Tom Jones,” with
a letter calling attention to the adventures of Molly Seagrim and
the usefulness of describing vice. Among the social sketches in the
“Portfolio” were many allusions to the coarseness of Philadelphia
society, and the manners common to tea-parties. “I heard from married
ladies,” said a writer in February, 1803, “whose station as mothers
demanded from them a guarded conduct,--from young ladies, whose age
forbids the audience of such conversation, and who using it modesty
must disclaim,--indecent allusions, indelicate expressions, and even at
times immoral innuendoes. A loud laugh or a coarse exclamation followed
each of these, and the young ladies generally went through the form of
raising their fans to their faces.”

Yet public and private records might be searched long, before they
revealed evidence of misconduct such as filled the press and formed one
of the commonest topics of conversation in the society of England and
France. Almost every American family, however respectable, could show
some victim to intemperance among its men, but few were mortified by a
public scandal due to its women.

If the absence of positive evidence did not prove American society
to be as pure as its simple and primitive condition implied, the
same conclusion would be reached by observing the earnestness with
which critics collected every charge that could be brought against
it, and by noting the substance of the whole. Tried by this test, the
society of 1800 was often coarse and sometimes brutal, but, except
for intemperance, was moral. Indeed, its chief offence, in the eyes
of Europeans, was dulness. The amusements of a people were commonly a
fair sign of social development, and the Americans were only beginning
to amuse themselves. The cities were small and few in number, and
the diversions were such as cost little and required but elementary
knowledge. In New England, although the theatre had gained a firm
foothold in Boston, Puritan feelings still forbade the running of
horses.

 “The principal amusements of the inhabitants,” said Dwight, “are
 visiting, dancing, music, conversation, walking, riding, sailing,
 shooting at a mark, draughts, chess, and unhappily, in some of the
 larger towns, cards and dramatic exhibitions. A considerable amusement
 is also furnished in many places by the examination and exhibitions
 of the superior schools; and a more considerable one by the public
 exhibitions of colleges. Our countrymen also fish and hunt. Journeys
 taken for pleasure are very numerous, and are a very favorite object.
 Boys and young men play at foot-ball, cricket, quoits, and at many
 other sports of an athletic cast, and in the winter are peculiarly
 fond of skating. Riding in a sleigh, or sledge, is also a favorite
 diversion in New England.”

President Dwight was sincere in his belief that college commencements
and sleigh-riding satisfied the wants of his people; he looked upon
whist as an unhappy dissipation, and upon the theatre as immoral.
He had no occasion to condemn horse-racing, for no race-course was
to be found in New England. The horse and the dog existed only in
varieties little suited for sport. In colonial days New England
produced one breed of horses worth preserving and developing,--the
Narragansett pacer; but, to the regret even of the clergy, this animal
almost disappeared, and in 1800 New England could show nothing to
take its place. The germ of the trotter and the trotting-match, the
first general popular amusement, could be seen in almost any country
village, where the owners of horses were in the habit of trotting
what were called scratch-races, for a quarter or half a mile from the
door of the tavern, along the public road. Perhaps this amusement had
already a right to be called a New-England habit, showing defined
tastes; but the force of the popular instinct was not fully felt
in Massachusetts, or even in New York, although there it was given
full play. New York possessed a race-course, and made in 1792 a
great stride toward popularity by importing the famous stallion
“Messenger” to become the source of endless interest for future
generations; but Virginia was the region where the American showed his
true character as a lover of sport. Long before the Revolution the
race-course was commonly established in Virginia and Maryland; English
running-horses of pure blood--descendants of the Darley Arabian and
the Godolphin Arabian--were imported, and racing became the chief
popular entertainment. The long Revolutionary War, and the general
ruin it caused, checked the habit and deteriorated the breed; but with
returning prosperity Virginia showed that the instinct was stronger
than ever. In 1798 “Diomed,” famous as the sire of racers, was imported
into the State, and future rivalry between Virginia and New York could
be foreseen. In 1800 the Virginia race-course still remained at the
head of American popular amusements.

In an age when the Prince of Wales and crowds of English gentlemen
attended every prize-fight, and patronized Tom Crib, Dutch Sam, the
Jew Mendoza, and the negro Molyneux, an Englishman could hardly have
expected that a Virginia race-course should be free from vice; and
perhaps travellers showed best the general morality of the people
by their practice of dwelling on Virginia vices. They charged the
Virginians with fondness for horse-racing, cock-fighting, betting,
and drinking; but the popular habit which most shocked them, and with
which books of travel filled pages of description, was the so-called
rough-and-tumble fight. The practice was not one on which authors
seemed likely to dwell; yet foreigners like Weld, and Americans like
Judge Longstreet in “Georgia Scenes,” united to give it a sort of
grotesque dignity like that of a bull-fight, and under their treatment
it became interesting as a popular habit. The rough-and-tumble fight
differed from the ordinary prize-fight, or boxing-match, by the absence
of rules. Neither kicking, tearing, biting, nor gouging was forbidden
by the law of the ring. Brutal as the practice was, it was neither
new nor exclusively Virginian. The English travellers who described
it as American barbarism, might have seen the same sight in Yorkshire
at the same date. The rough-and-tumble fight was English in origin,
and was brought to Virginia and the Carolinas in early days, whence it
spread to the Ohio and Mississippi. The habit attracted general notice
because of its brutality in a society that showed few brutal instincts.
Friendly foreigners like Liancourt were honestly shocked by it; others
showed somewhat too plainly their pleasure at finding a vicious habit
which they could consider a natural product of democratic society.
Perhaps the description written by Thomas Ashe showed best not only
the ferocity of the fight but also the antipathies of the writer, for
Ashe had something of the artist in his touch, and he felt no love for
Americans. The scene was at Wheeling. A Kentuckian and a Virginian were
the combatants.

 “Bulk and bone were in favor of the Kentuckian; science and craft
 in that of the Virginian. The former promised himself victory from
 his power; the latter from his science. Very few rounds had taken
 place or fatal blows given, before the Virginian contracted his whole
 form, drew up his arms to his face, with his hands nearly closed in
 a concave by the fingers being bent to the full extension of the
 flexors, and summoning up all his energy for one act of desperation,
 pitched himself into the bosom of his opponent. Before the effects
 of this could be ascertained, the sky was rent by the shouts of the
 multitude; and I could learn that the Virginian had expressed as much
 beauty and skill in his retraction and bound, as if he had been bred
 in a menagerie and practised action and attitude among panthers and
 wolves. The shock received by the Kentuckian, and the want of breath,
 brought him instantly to the ground. The Virginian never lost his
 hold. Like those bats of the South who never quit the subject on which
 they fasten till they taste blood, he kept his knees in his enemy’s
 body; fixing his claws in his hair and his thumbs on his eyes, gave
 them an instantaneous start from their sockets. The sufferer roared
 aloud, but uttered no complaint. The citizens again shouted with joy.”

Ashe asked his landlord whether this habit spread down the Ohio.

 “I understood that it did, on the left-hand side, and that I would
 do well to land there as little as possible.... I again demanded
 how a stranger was to distinguish a good from a vicious house of
 entertainment. ‘By previous inquiry, or, if that was impracticable, a
 tolerable judgment could be formed from observing in the landlord a
 possession or an absence of ears.’”

The temper of the writer was at least as remarkable in this description
as the scene he pretended to describe, for Ashe’s Travels were believed
to have been chiefly imaginary; but no one denied the roughness of the
lower classes in the South and Southwest, nor was roughness wholly
confined to them. No prominent man in Western society bore himself with
more courtesy and dignity than Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, who in 1800
was candidate for the post of major-general of State militia, and had
previously served as Judge on the Supreme Bench of his State; yet the
fights in which he had been engaged exceeded belief.

Border society was not refined, but among its vices, as its virtues,
few were permanent, and little idea could be drawn of the character
that would at last emerge. The Mississippi boatman and the squatter
on Indian lands were perhaps the most distinctly American type then
existing, as far removed from the Old World as though Europe were a
dream. Their language and imagination showed contact with Indians. A
traveller on the levee at Natchez, in 1808, overheard a quarrel in a
flatboat near by:--

 “I am a man; I am a horse; I am a team,” cried one voice; “I can whip
 any man in all Kentucky, by God!” “I am an alligator,” cried the
 other; “half man, half horse; can whip any man on the Mississippi,
 by God!” “I am a man,” shouted the first; “have the best horse, best
 dog, best gun, and handsomest wife in all Kentucky, by God!” “I am a
 Mississippi snapping-turtle,” rejoined the second; “have bear’s claws,
 alligator’s teeth, and the devil’s tail; can whip _any_ man, by God!”

And on this usual formula of defiance the two fire-eaters began their
fight, biting, gouging, and tearing. Foreigners were deeply impressed
by barbarism such as this, and orderly emigrants from New England and
Pennsylvania avoided contact with Southern drinkers and fighters;
but even then they knew that with a new generation such traits must
disappear, and that little could be judged of popular character from
the habits of frontiersmen. Perhaps such vices deserved more attention
when found in the older communities, but even there they were rather
survivals of English low-life than products of a new soil, and they
were given too much consequence in the tales of foreign travellers.

This was not the only instance where foreigners were struck by what
they considered popular traits, which natives rarely noticed. Idle
curiosity was commonly represented as universal, especially in the
Southern settler who knew no other form of conversation:--

 “Frequently have I been stopped by one of them,” said Weld, “and
 without further preface asked where I was from, if I was acquainted
 with any news, where bound to, and finally my name. ‘Stop, Mister!
 why, I guess now you be coming from the new State?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Why,
 then, I guess as how you be coming from Kentuck?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Oh,
 why, then, pray now where might you be coming from?’ ‘From the low
 country.’ ‘Why, you must have heard all the news, then; pray now,
 Mister, what might the price of bacon be in those parts?’ ‘Upon my
 word, my friend, I can’t inform you.’ ‘Ay, ay; I see, Mister, you
 be’ent one of us. Pray now, Mister, what might your name be?’”

Almost every writer spoke with annoyance of the inquisitorial habits
of New England and the impertinence of American curiosity. Complaints
so common could hardly have lacked foundation, yet the Americans as a
people were never loquacious, but inclined to be somewhat reserved, and
they could not recognize the accuracy of the description. President
Dwight repeatedly expressed astonishment at the charge, and asserted
that in his large experience it had no foundation. Forty years later,
Charles Dickens found complaint with Americans for taciturnity. Equally
strange to modern experience were the continual complaints in books
of travel that loungers and loafers, idlers of every description,
infested the taverns, and annoyed respectable travellers both native
and foreign. Idling seemed to be considered a popular vice, and was
commonly associated with tippling. So completely did the practice
disappear in the course of another generation that it could scarcely
be recalled as offensive; but in truth less work was done by the
average man in 1800 than in aftertimes, for there was actually less
work to do. “Good country this for lazy fellows,” wrote Wilson from
Kentucky; “they plant corn, turn their pigs into the woods, and in
the autumn feed upon corn and pork. They lounge about the rest of
the year.” The roar of the steam-engine had never been heard in the
land, and the carrier’s wagon was three weeks between Philadelphia and
Pittsburg. What need for haste when days counted for so little? Why not
lounge about the tavern when life had no better amusement to offer? Why
mind one’s own business when one’s business would take care of itself?

Yet however idle the American sometimes appeared, and however large
the class of tavern loafers may have actually been, the true American
was active and industrious. No immigrant came to America for ease or
idleness. If an English farmer bought land near New York, Philadelphia,
or Baltimore, and made the most of his small capital, he found that
while he could earn more money than in Surrey or Devonshire, he worked
harder and suffered greater discomforts. The climate was trying; fever
was common; the crops ran new risks from strange insects, drought, and
violent weather; the weeds were annoying; the flies and mosquitoes
tormented him and his cattle; laborers were scarce and indifferent; the
slow and magisterial ways of England, where everything was made easy,
must be exchanged for quick and energetic action; the farmer’s own
eye must see to every detail, his own hand must hold the plough and
the scythe. Life was more exacting, and every such man in America was
required to do, and actually did, the work of two such men in Europe.
Few English farmers of the conventional class took kindly to American
ways, or succeeded in adapting themselves to the changed conditions.
Germans were more successful and became rich; but the poorer and more
adventurous class, who had no capital, and cared nothing for the
comforts of civilization, went West, to find a harder lot. When, after
toiling for weeks, they reached the neighborhood of Genessee or the
banks of some stream in southern Ohio or Indiana, they put up a rough
cabin of logs with an earthen floor, cleared an acre or two of land,
and planted Indian corn between the tree-stumps,--lucky if, like the
Kentuckian, they had a pig to turn into the woods. Between April and
October, Albert Gallatin used to say, Indian corn made the penniless
immigrant a capitalist. New settlers suffered many of the ills that
would have afflicted an army marching and fighting in a country of
dense forest and swamp, with one sore misery besides,--that whatever
trials the men endured, the burden bore most heavily upon the women
and children. The chance of being shot or scalped by Indians was
hardly worth considering when compared with the certainty of malarial
fever, or the strange disease called milk-sickness, or the still more
depressing home-sickness, or the misery of nervous prostration,
which wore out generation after generation of women and children on
the frontiers, and left a tragedy in every log-cabin. Not for love of
ease did men plunge into the wilderness. Few laborers of the Old World
endured a harder lot, coarser fare, or anxieties and responsibilities
greater than those of the Western emigrant. Not merely because he
enjoyed the luxury of salt pork, whiskey, or even coffee three times a
day did the American laborer claim superiority over the European.

A standard far higher than the average was common to the cities; but
the city population was so small as to be trifling. Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore together contained one hundred and eighty
thousand inhabitants; and these were the only towns containing a white
population of more than ten thousand persons. In a total population of
more than five millions, this number of city people, as Jefferson and
his friends rightly thought, was hardly American, for the true American
was supposed to be essentially rural. Their comparative luxury was
outweighed by the squalor of nine hundred thousand slaves alone.

From these slight notices of national habits no other safe inference
could be drawn than that the people were still simple. The path their
development might take was one of the many problems with which their
future was perplexed. Such few habits as might prove to be fixed,
offered little clew to the habits that might be adopted in the process
of growth, and speculation was useless where change alone could be
considered certain.

If any prediction could be risked, an observer might have been
warranted in suspecting that the popular character was likely to be
conservative, for as yet this trait was most marked, at least in the
older societies of New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Great as
were the material obstacles in the path of the United States, the
greatest obstacle of all was in the human mind. Down to the close
of the eighteenth century no change had occurred in the world which
warranted practical men in assuming that great changes were to come.
Afterward, as time passed, and as science developed man’s capacity
to control Nature’s forces, old-fashioned conservatism vanished from
society, reappearing occasionally, like the stripes on a mule, only
to prove its former existence; but during the eighteenth century
the progress of America, except in political paths, had been less
rapid than ardent reformers wished, and the reaction which followed
the French Revolution made it seem even slower than it was. In 1723
Benjamin Franklin landed at Philadelphia, and with his loaf of bread
under his arm walked along Market Street toward an immortality such as
no American had then conceived. He died in 1790, after witnessing great
political revolutions; but the intellectual revolution was hardly as
rapid as he must, in his youth, have hoped.

In 1732 Franklin induced some fifty persons to found a subscription
library, and his example and energy set a fashion which was generally
followed. In 1800 the library he founded was still in existence;
numerous small subscription libraries on the same model, containing
fifty or a hundred volumes, were scattered in country towns; but all
the public libraries in the United States--collegiate, scientific,
or popular, endowed or unendowed--could hardly show fifty thousand
volumes, including duplicates, fully one third being still theological.

Half a century had passed since Franklin’s active mind drew the
lightning from heaven, and decided the nature of electricity. No one in
America had yet carried further his experiments in the field which he
had made American. This inactivity was commonly explained as a result
of the long Revolutionary War; yet the war had not prevented population
and wealth from increasing, until Philadelphia in 1800 was far in
advance of the Philadelphia which had seen Franklin’s kite flying among
the clouds.

In the year 1753 Franklin organized the postal system of the American
colonies, making it self-supporting. No record was preserved of the
number of letters then carried in proportion to the population, but
in 1800 the gross receipts for postage were $320,000, toward which
Pennsylvania contributed most largely,--the sum of $55,000. From
letters the Government received in gross $290,000. The lowest rate of
letter-postage was then eight cents. The smallest charge for letters
carried more than a hundred miles was twelve and a half cents. If on
an average ten letters were carried for a dollar, the whole number of
letters was 2,900,000,--about one a year for every grown inhabitant.

Such a rate of progress could not be called rapid even by
conservatives, and more than one stanch conservative thought it
unreasonably slow. Even in New York, where foreign influence was active
and the rewards of scientific skill were comparatively liberal, science
hardly kept pace with wealth and population.

Noah Webster, who before beginning his famous dictionary edited
the “New York Commercial Advertiser,” and wrote on all subjects
with characteristic confidence, complained of the ignorance of his
countrymen. He claimed for the New Englanders an acquaintance with
theology, law, politics, and light English literature; “but as to
classical learning, history (civil and ecclesiastical), mathematics,
astronomy, chemistry, botany, and natural history, excepting here
and there a rare instance of a man who is eminent in some one of
these branches, we may be said to have no learning at all, or a mere
smattering.” Although defending his countrymen from the criticisms
of Dr. Priestley, he admitted that “our learning is superficial in a
shameful degree, ... our colleges are disgracefully destitute of books
and philosophical apparatus, ... and I am ashamed to own that scarcely
a branch of science can be fully investigated in America for want of
books, especially original works. This defect of our libraries I
have experienced myself in searching for materials for the History of
Epidemic Diseases.... As to libraries, we have no such things. There
are not more than three or four tolerable libraries in America, and
these are extremely imperfect. Great numbers of the most valuable
authors have not found their way across the Atlantic.”

This complaint was made in the year 1800, and was the more significant
because it showed that Webster, a man equally at home in Philadelphia,
New York, and Boston, thought his country’s deficiencies greater than
could be excused or explained by its circumstances. George Ticknor
felt at least equal difficulty in explaining the reason why, as late
as 1814, even good schoolbooks were rare in Boston, and a copy of
Euripides in the original could not be bought at any book-seller’s shop
in New England. For some reason, the American mind, except in politics,
seemed to these students of literature in a condition of unnatural
sluggishness; and such complaints were not confined to literature
or science. If Americans agreed in any opinion, they were united in
wishing for roads; but even on that point whole communities showed
an indifference, or hostility, that annoyed their contemporaries.
President Dwight was a somewhat extreme conservative in politics and
religion, while the State of Rhode Island was radical in both respects;
but Dwight complained with bitterness unusual in his mouth that Rhode
Island showed no spirit of progress. The subject of his criticism was
an unfinished turnpike-road across the State.

 “The people of Providence expended upon this road, as we are informed,
 the whole sum permitted by the Legislature. This was sufficient to
 make only those parts which I have mentioned. The turnpike company
 then applied to the Legislature for leave to expend such an additional
 sum as would complete the work. The Legislature refused. The principal
 reason for the refusal, as alleged by one of the members, it is
 said, was the following: that turnpikes and the establishment of
 religious worship had their origin in Great Britain, the government
 of which was a monarchy and the inhabitants slaves; that the people
 of Massachusetts and Connecticut were obliged by law to support
 ministers and pay the fare of turnpikes, and were therefore slaves
 also; that if they chose to be slaves they undoubtedly had a right
 to their choice, but that free-born Rhode Islanders ought never to
 submit to be priest-ridden, nor to pay for the privilege of travelling
 on the highway. This demonstrative reasoning prevailed, and the road
 continued in the state which I have mentioned until the year 1805. It
 was then completed, and free-born Rhode Islanders bowed their necks to
 the slavery of travelling on a good road.”

President Dwight seldom indulged in sarcasm or exaggeration such as he
showed in this instance; but he repeated only matters of notoriety in
charging some of the most democratic communities with unwillingness to
pay for good roads. If roads were to exist, they must be the result
of public or private enterprise; and if the public in certain States
would neither construct roads nor permit corporations to construct
them, the entire Union must suffer for want of communication. So
strong was the popular prejudice against paying for the privilege of
travelling on a highway that in certain States, like Rhode Island and
Georgia, turnpikes were long unknown, while in Virginia and North
Carolina the roads were little better than where the prejudice was
universal.

In this instance the economy of a simple and somewhat rude society
accounted in part for indifference; in other cases, popular prejudice
took a form less easily understood. So general was the hostility to
Banks as to offer a serious obstacle to enterprise. The popularity of
President Washington and the usefulness of his administration were
impaired by his support of a national bank and a funding system.
Jefferson’s hostility to all the machinery of capital was shared by
a great majority of the Southern people and a large minority in the
North. For seven years the New York legislature refused to charter the
first banking company in the State; and when in 1791 the charter was
obtained, and the Bank fell into Federalist hands, Aaron Burr succeeded
in obtaining banking privileges for the Manhattan Company only by
concealing them under the pretence of furnishing a supply of fresh
water to the city of New York.

This conservative habit of mind was more harmful in America than in
other communities, because Americans needed more than older societies
the activity which could alone partly compensate for the relative
feebleness of their means compared with the magnitude of their task.
Some instances of sluggishness, common to Europe and America, were
hardly credible. For more than ten years in England the steam-engines
of Watt had been working, in common and successful use, causing a
revolution in industry that threatened to drain the world for England’s
advantage; yet Europe during a generation left England undisturbed to
enjoy the monopoly of steam. France and Germany were England’s rivals
in commerce and manufactures, and required steam for self-defence;
while the United States were commercial allies of England, and needed
steam neither for mines nor manufactures, but their need was still
extreme. Every American knew that if steam could be successfully
applied to navigation, it must produce an immediate increase of
wealth, besides an ultimate settlement of the most serious material
and political difficulties of the Union. Had both the national and
State Governments devoted millions of money to this object, and had the
citizens wasted, if necessary, every dollar in their slowly filling
pockets to attain it, they would have done no more than the occasion
warranted, even had they failed; but failure was not to be feared, for
they had with their own eyes seen the experiment tried, and they did
not dispute its success. For America this question had been settled
as early as 1789, when John Fitch--a mechanic, without education or
wealth, but with the energy of genius--invented engine and paddles of
his own, with so much success that during a whole summer Philadelphians
watched his ferry-boat plying daily against the river current. No one
denied that his boat was rapidly, steadily, and regularly moved against
wind and tide, with as much certainty and convenience as could be
expected in a first experiment; yet Fitch’s company failed. He could
raise no more money; the public refused to use his boat or to help him
build a better; they did not want it, would not believe in it, and
broke his heart by their contempt. Fitch struggled against failure,
and invented another boat moved by a screw. The Eastern public still
proving indifferent, he wandered to Kentucky, to try his fortune on the
Western waters. Disappointed there, as in Philadelphia and New York,
he made a deliberate attempt to end his life by drink; but the process
proving too slow, he saved twelve opium pills from the physician’s
prescription, and was found one morning dead.

Fitch’s death took place in an obscure Kentucky inn, three years before
Jefferson, the philosopher president, entered the White House. Had
Fitch been the only inventor thus neglected, his peculiarities and the
defects of his steamboat might account for his failure; but he did
not stand alone. At the same moment Philadelphia contained another
inventor, Oliver Evans, a man so ingenious as to be often called the
American Watt. He, too, invented a locomotive steam-engine which he
longed to bring into common use. The great services actually rendered
by this extraordinary man were not a tithe of those he would gladly
have performed, had he found support and encouragement; but his success
was not even so great as that of Fitch, and he stood aside while
Livingston and Fulton, by their greater resources and influence, forced
the steamboat on a sceptical public.

While the inventors were thus ready, and while State legislatures were
offering mischievous monopolies for this invention, which required only
some few thousand dollars of ready money, the Philosophical Society of
Rotterdam wrote to the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia,
requesting to know what improvements had been made in the United
States in the construction of steam-engines. The subject was referred
to Benjamin H. Latrobe, the most eminent engineer in America, and
his Report, presented to the Society in May, 1803, published in the
Transactions, and transmitted abroad, showed the reasoning on which
conservatism rested.

 “During the general lassitude of mechanical exertion which succeeded
 the American Revolution,” said Latrobe, “the utility of steam-engines
 appears to have been forgotten; but the subject afterward started
 into very general notice in a form in which it could not possibly
 be attended with much success. A sort of mania began to prevail,
 which indeed has not yet entirely subsided, for impelling boats
 by steam-engines.... For a short time a passage-boat, rowed by a
 steam-engine, was established between Bordentown and Philadelphia,
 but it was soon laid aside.... There are indeed general objections
 to the use of the steam-engine for impelling boats, from which no
 particular mode of application can be free. These are, first, the
 weight of the engine and of the fuel; second, the large space it
 occupies; third, the tendency of its action to rack the vessel and
 render it leaky; fourth, the expense of maintenance; fifth, the
 irregularity of its motion and the motion of the water in the boiler
 and cistern, and of the fuel-vessel in rough water; sixth, the
 difficulty arising from the liability of the paddles or oars to break
 if light, and from the weight, if made strong. Nor have I ever heard
 of an instance, verified by other testimony than that of the inventor,
 of a speedy and agreeable voyage having been performed in a steamboat
 of any construction. I am well aware that there are still many very
 respectable and ingenious men who consider the application of the
 steam-engine to the purpose of navigation as highly important and as
 very practicable, especially on the rapid waters of the Mississippi,
 and who would feel themselves almost offended at the expression of an
 opposite opinion. And perhaps some of the objections against it may be
 obviated. That founded on the expense and weight of the fuel may not
 for some years exist in the Mississippi, where there is a redundance
 of wood on the banks; but the cutting and loading will be almost as
 great an evil.”

Within four years the steamboat was running, and Latrobe was its
warmest friend. The dispute was a contest of temperaments, a
divergence between minds, rather than a question of science; and a few
visionaries such as those to whom Latrobe alluded--men like Chancellor
Livingston, Joel Barlow, John Stevens, Samuel L. Mitchill, and Robert
Fulton--dragged society forward. What but scepticism could be expected
among a people thus asked to adopt the steamboat, when as yet the
ordinary atmospheric steam-engine, such as had been in use in Europe
for a hundred years, was practically unknown to them, and the engines
of Watt were a fable? Latrobe’s Report further said that in the spring
of 1803, when he wrote, five steam-engines were at work in the United
States,--one lately set up by the Manhattan Water Company in New York
to supply the city with water; another in New York for sawing timber;
two in Philadelphia, belonging to the city, for supplying water and
running a rolling and slitting mill; and one at Boston employed in some
manufacture. All but one of these were probably constructed after 1800,
and Latrobe neglected to say whether they belonged to the old Newcomen
type, or to Watt’s manufacture, or to American invention; but he added
that the chief American improvement on the steam-engine had been the
construction of a wooden boiler, which developed sufficient power to
work the Philadelphia pump at the rate of twelve strokes, of six feet,
per minute. Twelve strokes a minute, or one stroke every five seconds,
though not a surprising power, might have answered its purpose, had
not the wooden boiler, as Latrobe admitted, quickly decomposed, and
steam-leaks appeared at every bolt-hole.

If so eminent and so intelligent a man as Latrobe, who had but recently
emigrated in the prime of life from England, knew little about Watt,
and nothing about Oliver Evans, whose experience would have been well
worth communicating to any philosophical society in Europe, the more
ignorant and unscientific public could not feel faith in a force of
which they knew nothing at all. For nearly two centuries the Americans
had struggled on foot or horseback over roads not much better than
trails, or had floated down rushing streams in open boats momentarily
in danger of sinking or upsetting. They had at length, in the Eastern
and Middle States, reached the point of constructing turnpikes and
canals. Into these undertakings they put sums of money relatively
large, for the investment seemed safe and the profits certain. Steam as
a locomotive power was still a visionary idea, beyond their experience,
contrary to European precedent, and exposed to a thousand risks. They
regarded it as a delusion.

About three years after Latrobe wrote his Report on the steam-engine,
Robert Fulton began to build the boat which settled forever the value
of steam as a locomotive power. According to Fulton’s well-known
account of his own experience, he suffered almost as keenly as Fitch,
twenty years before, under the want of popular sympathy:--

 “When I was building my first steamboat at New York,” he said,
 according to Judge Story’s report, “the project was viewed by the
 public either with indifference or with contempt as a visionary
 scheme. My friends indeed were civil, but they were shy. They
 listened with patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast
 of incredulity upon their countenances. I felt the full force of the
 lamentation of the poet,--

  ‘Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land,
  All fear, none aid you, and few understand.’

 As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the building-yard while
 my boat was in progress, I have often loitered unknown near the idle
 groups of strangers gathering in little circles, and heard various
 inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle. The language was
 uniformly that of scorn, or sneer, or ridicule. The loud laugh often
 rose at my expense; the dry jest; the wise calculation of losses and
 expenditures; the dull but endless repetition of the Fulton Folly.
 Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish
 cross my path.”

Possibly Fulton and Fitch, like other inventors, may have exaggerated
the public apathy and contempt; but whatever was the precise force
of the innovating spirit, conservatism possessed the world by right.
Experience forced on men’s minds the conviction that what had ever
been must ever be. At the close of the eighteenth century nothing had
occurred which warranted the belief that even the material difficulties
of America could be removed. Radicals as extreme as Thomas Jefferson
and Albert Gallatin were contented with avowing no higher aim than
that America should reproduce the simpler forms of European republican
society without European vices; and even this their opponents thought
visionary. The United States had thus far made a single great step
in advance of the Old World,--they had agreed to try the experiment
of embracing half a continent in one republican system; but so little
were they disposed to feel confidence in their success, that Jefferson
himself did not look on this American idea as vital; he would not
stake the future on so new an invention. “Whether we remain in one
confederacy,” he wrote in 1804, “or form into Atlantic and Mississippi
confederations, I believe not very important to the happiness of either
part.” Even over his liberal mind history cast a spell so strong, that
he thought the solitary American experiment of political confederation
“not very important” beyond the Alleghanies.

The task of overcoming popular inertia in a democratic society was new,
and seemed to offer peculiar difficulties. Without a scientific class
to lead the way, and without a wealthy class to provide the means of
experiment, the people of the United States were still required, by
the nature of their problems, to become a speculating and scientific
nation. They could do little without changing their old habit of mind,
and without learning to love novelty for novelty’s sake. Hitherto
their timidity in using money had been proportioned to the scantiness
of their means. Henceforward they were under every inducement to
risk great stakes and frequent losses in order to win occasionally a
thousand fold. In the colonial state they had naturally accepted old
processes as the best, and European experience as final authority.
As an independent people, with half a continent to civilize, they
could not afford to waste time in following European examples, but
must devise new processes of their own. A world which assumed that
what had been must be, could not be scientific; yet in order to make
the Americans a successful people, they must be roused to feel the
necessity of scientific training. Until they were satisfied that
knowledge was money, they would not insist upon high education; nor
until they saw with their own eyes stones turned into gold, and vapor
into cattle and corn, would they learn the meaning of science.




CHAPTER III.


WHETHER the United States were to succeed or fail in their economical
and political undertakings, the people must still develop some
intellectual life of their own, and the character of this development
was likely to interest mankind. New conditions and hopes could hardly
fail to produce a literature and arts more or less original. Of all
possible triumphs, none could equal that which might be won in the
regions of thought if the intellectual influence of the United States
should equal their social and economical importance. Young as the
nation was, it had already produced an American literature bulky and
varied enough to furnish some idea of its probable qualities in the
future, and the intellectual condition of the literary class in the
United States at the close of the eighteenth century could scarcely
fail to suggest both the successes and the failures of the same class
in the nineteenth.

In intellectual tastes, as in all else, the Union showed well-marked
divisions between New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and the Southern
States. New England was itself divided between two intellectual
centres,--Boston and New Haven. The Massachusetts and Connecticut
schools were as old as the colonial existence; and in 1800 both were
still alive, if not flourishing.

Society in Massachusetts was sharply divided by politics. In 1800 one
half the population, represented under property qualifications by only
some twenty thousand voters, was Republican. The other half, which
cast about twenty-five thousand votes, included nearly every one in
the professional and mercantile classes, and represented the wealth,
social position, and education of the Commonwealth; but its strength
lay in the Congregational churches and in the cordial union between
the clergy, the magistracy, the bench and bar, and respectable society
throughout the State. This union created what was unknown beyond New
England,--an organized social system, capable of acting at command
either for offence or defence, and admirably adapted for the uses of
the eighteenth century.

Had the authority of the dominant classes in Massachusetts depended
merely on office, the task of overthrowing it would have been as simple
as it was elsewhere; but the New England oligarchy struck its roots
deep into the soil, and was supported by the convictions of the people.
Unfortunately the system was not and could not be quickly adapted to
the movement of the age. Its starting-point lay in the educational
system, which was in principle excellent; but it was also antiquated.
Little change had been made in it since colonial times. The common
schools were what they had been from the first; the academies and
colleges were no more changed than the schools. On an average of ten
years, from 1790 to 1800, thirty-nine young men annually took degrees
from Harvard College; while during the ten years, 1766-1776, that
preceded the Revolutionary War, forty-three bachelors of arts had been
annually sent into the world, and even in 1720-1730 the average number
had been thirty-five. The only sign of change was that in 1720-1730
about one hundred and forty graduates had gone into the Church, while
in 1790-1800 only about eighty chose this career. At the earlier
period the president, a professor of theology, one of mathematics,
and four tutors gave instruction to the under-graduates. In 1800 the
president, the professor of theology, the professor of mathematics, and
a professor of Hebrew, created in 1765, with the four tutors did the
same work. The method of instruction had not changed in the interval,
being suited to children fourteen years of age; the instruction itself
was poor, and the discipline was indifferent. Harvard College had not
in eighty years made as much progress as was afterward made in twenty.
Life was quickening within it as within all mankind,--the spirit and
vivacity of the coming age could not be wholly shut out; but none the
less the college resembled a priesthood which had lost the secret of
its mysteries, and patiently stood holding the flickering torch before
cold altars, until God should vouchsafe a new dispensation of sunlight.

Nevertheless, a medical school with three professors had been founded
in 1783, and every year gave degrees to an average class of two doctors
of medicine. Science had already a firm hold on the college, and a
large part of the conservative clergy were distressed by the liberal
tendencies which the governing body betrayed. This was no new thing.
The college always stood somewhat in advance of society, and never
joined heartily in dislike for liberal movements; but unfortunately
it had been made for an instrument, and had never enjoyed the free
use of its powers. Clerical control could not be thrown off, for if
the college was compelled to support the clergy, on the other hand
the clergy did much to support the college; and without the moral and
material aid of this clerical body, which contained several hundred of
the most respected and respectable citizens, clad in every town with
the authority of spiritual magistrates, the college would have found
itself bankrupt in means and character. The graduates passed from
the college to the pulpit, and from the pulpit attempted to hold the
college, as well as their own congregations, facing toward the past.
“Let us guard against the insidious encroachments of _innovation_,”
they preached,--“that evil and beguiling spirit which is now stalking
to and fro through the earth, seeking whom he may destroy.” These
words were spoken by Jedediah Morse, a graduate of Yale in 1783,
pastor of the church at Charlestown, near Boston, and still known in
biographical dictionaries as “the father of American geography.” They
were contained in the Election Sermon of this worthy and useful man,
delivered June 6, 1803; but the sentiment was not peculiar to him, or
confined to the audience he was then addressing,--it was the burden of
a thousand discourses enforced by a formidable authority.

The power of the Congregational clergy, which had lasted unbroken
until the Revolution, was originally minute and inquisitory,
equivalent to a police authority. During the last quarter of the
century the clergy themselves were glad to lay aside the more odious
watchfulness over their parishes, and to welcome social freedom within
limits conventionally fixed; but their old authority had not wholly
disappeared. In country parishes they were still autocratic. Did an
individual defy their authority, the minister put his three-cornered
hat on his head, took his silver-topped cane in his hand, and walked
down the village street, knocking at one door and another of his best
parishioners, to warn them that a spirit of license and of French
infidelity was abroad, which could be repressed only by a strenuous
and combined effort. Any man once placed under this ban fared badly
if he afterward came before a bench of magistrates. The temporal
arm vigorously supported the ecclesiastical will. Nothing tended so
directly to make respectability conservative, and conservatism a fetich
of respectability, as this union of bench and pulpit. The democrat
had no caste; he was not respectable; he was a Jacobin,--and no such
character was admitted into a Federalist house. Every dissolute
intriguer, loose-liver, forger, false-coiner, and prison-bird; every
hair-brained, loud-talking demagogue; every speculator, scoffer, and
atheist,--was a follower of Jefferson; and Jefferson was himself the
incarnation of their theories.

A literature belonging to this subject exists,--stacks of newspapers
and sermons, mostly dull, and wanting literary merit. In a few of
them Jefferson figured under the well-remembered disguises of Puritan
politics: he was Ephraim, and had mixed himself among the people; had
apostatized from his God and religion; gone to Assyria, and mingled
himself among the heathen; “gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet
he knoweth not;” or he was Jeroboam, who drave Israel from following
the Lord, and made them sin a great sin. He had doubted the authority
of revelation, and ventured to suggest that petrified shells found
embedded in rocks fifteen thousand feet above sea-level could hardly
have been left there by the Deluge, because if the whole atmosphere
were condensed as water, its weight showed that the seas would be
raised only fifty-two and a half feet. Sceptic as he was, he could
not accept the scientific theory that the ocean-bed had been uplifted
by natural forces; but although he had thus instantly deserted this
battery raised against revelation, he had still expressed the opinion
that a universal deluge was _equally_ unsatisfactory as an explanation,
and had avowed preference for a profession of ignorance rather than a
belief in error. He had said, “It does me no injury for my neighbors to
say there are twenty gods, or no god,” and that all the many forms of
religious faith in the Middle States were “good enough, and sufficient
to preserve peace and order.” He was notoriously a deist; he probably
ridiculed the doctrine of total depravity; and he certainly would never
have part or portion in the blessings of the New Covenant, or be saved
because of grace.

No abler or more estimable clergyman lived than Joseph Buckminster, the
minister of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, and in his opinion Jefferson
was bringing a judgment upon the people.

 “I would not be understood to insinuate,” said he in his sermon on
 Washington’s death, “that contemners of religious duties, and even
 men void of religious principle, may not have an attachment to their
 country and a desire for its civil and political prosperity,--nay,
 that they may not even expose themselves to great dangers, and make
 great sacrifices to accomplish this object; but by their impiety ...
 they take away the heavenly defence and security of a people, and
 render it necessary for him who ruleth among the nations in judgment
 to testify his displeasure against those who despise his laws and
 contemn his ordinances.”

Yet the congregational clergy, though still greatly respected, had
ceased to be leaders of thought. Theological literature no longer held
the prominence it had enjoyed in the days of Edwards and Hopkins. The
popular reaction against Calvinism, felt rather than avowed, stopped
the development of doctrinal theology; and the clergy, always poor as a
class, with no weapons but their intelligence and purity of character,
commonly sought rather to avoid than to challenge hostility. Such
literary activity as existed was not clerical but secular. Its field
was the Boston press, and its recognized literary champion was Fisher
Ames.

The subject of Ames’s thought was exclusively political. At that
moment every influence combined to maintain a stationary condition
in Massachusetts politics. The manners and morals of the people were
pure and simple; their society was democratic; in the worst excesses
of their own revolution they had never become savage or bloodthirsty;
their experience could not explain, nor could their imagination excuse,
wild popular excesses; and when in 1793 the French nation seemed mad
with the frenzy of its recovered liberties, New England looked upon
the bloody and blasphemous work with such horror as religious citizens
could not but feel. Thenceforward the mark of a wise and good man was
that he abhorred the French Revolution, and believed democracy to be
its cause. Like Edmund Burke, they listened to no argument: “It is a
vile, illiberal school, this French Academy of the sans-culottes; there
is nothing in it that is fit for a gentleman to learn.” The answer to
every democratic suggestion ran in a set phrase, “Look at France!”
This idea became a monomania with the New England leaders, and took
exclusive hold of Fisher Ames, their most brilliant writer and talker,
until it degenerated into a morbid illusion. During the last few months
of his life, even so late as 1808, this dying man could scarcely speak
of his children without expressing his fears of their future servitude
to the French. He believed his alarms to be shared by his friends. “Our
days,” he wrote, “are made heavy with the pressure of anxiety, and
our nights restless with visions of horror. We listen to the clank of
chains, and overhear the whispers of assassins. We mark the barbarous
dissonance of mingled rage and triumph in the yell of an infuriated
mob; we see the dismal glare of their burnings, and scent the loathsome
steam of human victims offered in sacrifice.” In theory the French
Revolution was not an argument or a proof, but only an illustration, of
the workings of divine law; and what had happened in France must sooner
or later happen in America if the ignorant and vicious were to govern
the wise and good.

The bitterness against democrats became intense after the month of
May, 1800, when the approaching victory of Jefferson was seen to be
inevitable. Then for the first time the clergy and nearly all the
educated and respectable citizens of New England began to extend to
the national government the hatred which they bore to democracy. The
expressions of this mixed antipathy filled volumes. “Our country,”
wrote Fisher Ames in 1803, “is too big for union, too sordid for
patriotism, too democratic for liberty. What is to become of it, he
who made it best knows. Its vice will govern it, by practising upon
its folly. This is ordained for democracies.” He explained why this
inevitable fate awaited it. “A democracy cannot last. Its nature
ordains that its next change shall be into a military despotism,--of
all known governments perhaps the most prone to shift its head, and
the slowest to mend its vices. The reason is that the tyranny of what
is called the people, and that by the sword, both operate alike to
debase and corrupt, till there are neither men left with the spirit to
desire liberty, nor morals with the power to sustain justice. Like the
burning pestilence that destroys the human body, nothing can subsist
by its dissolution but vermin.” George Cabot, whose political opinions
were law to the wise and good, held the same convictions. “Even in New
England,” wrote Cabot in 1804, “where there is among the body of the
people more wisdom and virtue than in any other part of the United
States, we are full of errors which no reasoning could eradicate, if
there were a Lycurgus in every village. We are democratic altogether,
and I hold democracy in its natural operation to be the government of
the worst.”

Had these expressions of opinion been kept to the privacy of
correspondence, the public could have ignored them; but so strong were
the wise and good in their popular following, that every newspaper
seemed to exult in denouncing the people. They urged the use of force
as the protection of wisdom and virtue. A paragraph from Dennie’s
“Portfolio,” reprinted by all the Federalist newspapers in 1803,
offered one example among a thousand of the infatuation which possessed
the Federalist press, neither more extravagant nor more treasonable
than the rest:--

 “A democracy is scarcely tolerable at any period of national history.
 Its omens are always sinister, and its powers are unpropitious. It is
 on its trial here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and
 anarchy. No wise man but discerns its imperfections, no good man but
 shudders at its miseries, no honest man but proclaims its fraud, and
 no brave man but draws his sword against its force. The institution
 of a scheme of policy so radically contemptible and vicious is a
 memorable example of what the villany of some men can devise, the
 folly of others receive, and both establish in spite of reason,
 reflection, and sensation.”

The Philadelphia grand jury indicted Dennie for this paragraph as a
seditious libel, but it was not more expressive than the single word
uttered by Alexander Hamilton, who owed no small part of his supremacy
to the faculty of expressing the prejudices of his followers more
tersely than they themselves could do. Compressing the idea into one
syllable, Hamilton, at a New York dinner, replied to some democratic
sentiment by striking his hand sharply on the table and saying, “Your
people, sir,--your people is a great _beast_!”

The political theories of these ultra-conservative New Englanders
did not require the entire exclusion of all democratic influence from
government. “While I hold,” said Cabot, “that a government altogether
popular is in effect a government of the populace, I maintain that no
government can be relied on that has not a material portion of the
democratic mixture in its composition.” Cabot explained what should
be the true portion of democratic mixture: “If no man in New England
could vote for legislators who was not possessed in his own right of
two thousand dollars’ value _in land_, we could do something better.”
The Constitution of Massachusetts already restricted the suffrage to
persons “having a freehold estate within the commonwealth of an annual
income of three pounds, or any estate of the value of sixty pounds.” A
further restriction to freeholders whose estate was worth two thousand
dollars would hardly have left a material mixture of any influence
which democrats would have recognized as theirs.

Meanwhile even Cabot and his friends Ames and Colonel Hamilton
recognized that the reform they wished could be effected only with
the consent of the people; and firm in the conviction that democracy
must soon produce a crisis, as in Greece and Rome, in England and
France, when political power must revert to the wise and good, or to
the despotism of a military chief, they waited for the catastrophe
they foresaw. History and their own experience supported them. They
were right, so far as human knowledge could make them so; but the
old spirit of Puritan obstinacy was more evident than reason or
experience in the simple-minded, overpowering conviction with which
the clergy and serious citizens of Massachusetts and Connecticut,
assuming that the people of America were in the same social condition
as the contemporaries of Catiline and the adherents of Robespierre, sat
down to bide their time until the tempest of democracy should drive
the frail government so near destruction that all men with one voice
should call on God and the Federalist prophets for help. The obstinacy
of the race was never better shown than when, with the sunlight of the
nineteenth century bursting upon them, these resolute sons of granite
and ice turned their faces from the sight, and smiled in their sardonic
way at the folly or wickedness of men who could pretend to believe the
world improved because henceforth the ignorant and vicious were to rule
the United States and govern the churches and schools of New England.

Even Boston, the most cosmopolitan part of New England, showed no
tendency in its educated classes to become American in thought or
feeling. Many of the ablest Federalists, and among the rest George
Cabot, Theophilus Parsons, and Fisher Ames, shared few of the narrower
theological prejudices of their time, but were conservatives of the
English type, whose alliance with the clergy betrayed as much policy as
religion, and whose intellectual life was wholly English. Boston made
no strong claim to intellectual prominence. Neither clergy, lawyers,
physicians, nor literary men were much known beyond the State. Fisher
Ames enjoyed a wider fame; but Ames’s best political writing was
saturated with the despair of the tomb to which his wasting body was
condemned. Five years had passed since he closed his famous speech on
the British Treaty with the foreboding that if the treaty were not
carried into effect, “even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon
life is, may outlive the government and constitution of my country.”
Seven years more were to pass in constant dwelling upon the same theme,
in accents more and more despondent, before the long-expected grave
closed over him, and his warning voice ceased to echo painfully on the
air. The number of his thorough-going admirers was small, if his own
estimate was correct. “There are,” he said, “not many, perhaps not five
hundred, even among the Federalists, who yet allow themselves to view
the progress of licentiousness as so speedy, so sure, and so fatal as
the deplorable experience of our country shows that it is, and the
evidence of history and the constitution of human nature demonstrate
that it must be.” These five hundred, few as they were, comprised most
of the clergy and the State officials, and overawed large numbers more.

Ames was the mouthpiece in the press of a remarkable group, of which
George Cabot was the recognized chief in wisdom, and Timothy Pickering
the most active member in national politics. With Ames, Cabot, and
Pickering, joined in confidential relations, was Theophilus Parsons,
who in the year 1800 left Newburyport for Boston. Parsons was an abler
man than either Cabot, Ames, or Pickering, and his influence was great
in holding New England fast to an independent course which could end
only in the overthrow of the Federal constitution which these men had
first pressed upon an unwilling people; but though gifted with strong
natural powers, backed by laborious study and enlivened by the ready
and somewhat rough wit native to New England, Parsons was not bold on
his own account; he was felt rather than seen, and although ever ready
in private to advise strong measures, he commonly let others father
them before the world.

These gentlemen formed the Essex Junto, so called from the county of
Essex where their activity was first felt. According to Ames, not more
than five hundred men fully shared their opinions; but Massachusetts
society was so organized as to make their influence great, and
experience foretold that as the liberal Federalists should one by one
wander to the Democratic camp where they belonged, the conservatism of
those who remained would become more bitter and more absolute as the
Essex Junto represented a larger and larger proportion of their numbers.

Nevertheless, the reign of old-fashioned conservatism was near its
end. The New England Church was apparently sound; even Unitarians and
Baptists were recognized as parts of one fraternity. Except a few
Roman and Anglican bodies, all joined in the same worship, and said
little on points of doctrinal difference. No one had yet dared to throw
a firebrand into the temple; but Unitarians were strong among the
educated and wealthy class, while the tendencies of a less doctrinal
religious feeling were shaping themselves in Harvard College. William
Ellery Channing took his degree in 1798, and in 1800 was a private
tutor in Virginia. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, thought by his admirers
a better leader than Channing, graduated in 1800, and was teaching boys
to construe their Latin exercises at Exeter Academy. Only the shell
of orthodoxy was left, but respectable society believed this shell to
be necessary as an example of Christian unity and a safeguard against
more serious innovations. No one could fail to see that the public had
lately become restive under its antiquated discipline. The pulpits
still fulminated against the fatal tolerance which within a few years
had allowed theatres to be opened in Boston, and which scandalized
God-fearing men by permitting public advertisements that “Hamlet” and
“Othello” were to be performed in the town founded to protest against
worldly pageants. Another innovation was more strenuously resisted.
Only within the last thirty years had Sunday travel been allowed even
in England; in Massachusetts and Connecticut it was still forbidden by
law, and the law was enforced. Yet not only travellers, but inn-keepers
and large numbers of citizens connived at Sunday travel, and it could
not long be prevented. The clergy saw their police authority weakening
year by year, and understood, without need of many words, the tacit
warning of the city congregations that in this world they must be
allowed to amuse themselves, even though they were to suffer for it in
the next.

The longing for amusement and freedom was a reasonable and a modest
want. Even the young theologians, the Buckminsters and Channings, were
hungry for new food. Boston was little changed in appearance, habits,
and style from what it had been under its old king. When young Dr. J.
C. Warren returned from Europe about the year 1800, to begin practice
in Boston, he found gentlemen still dressed in colored coats and
figured waistcoats, short breeches buttoning at the knee, long boots
with white tops, ruffled shirts and wristbands, a white cravat filled
with what was called a “pudding,” and for the elderly, cocked hats, and
wigs which once every week were sent to the barber’s to be dressed,--so
that every Saturday night the barbers’ boys were seen carrying home
piles of wig-boxes in readiness for Sunday’s church. At evening parties
gentlemen appeared in white small-clothes, silk stockings and pumps,
with a colored or white waistcoat. There were few hackney-coaches, and
ladies walked to evening entertainments. The ancient minuet was danced
as late as 1806. The waltz was not yet tolerated.

Fashionable society was not without charm. In summer Southern visitors
appeared, and admired the town, with its fashionable houses perched on
the hillsides, each in its own garden, and each looking seaward over
harbor and islands. Boston was then what Newport afterward became, and
its only rival as a summer watering-place in the North was Ballston,
whither society was beginning to seek health before finding it a
little farther away at Saratoga. Of intellectual amusement there was
little more at one place than at the other, except that the Bostonians
devoted themselves more seriously to church-going and to literature.
The social instinct took shape in varied forms, but was highly educated
in none; while the typical entertainment in Boston, as in New York,
Philadelphia, and Charleston, was the state dinner,--not the light,
feminine triviality which France introduced into an amusement-loving
world, but the serious dinner of Sir Robert Walpole and Lord North,
where gout and plethora waited behind the chairs; an effort of animal
endurance.

There was the arena of intellectual combat, if that could be called
combat where disagreement in principle was not tolerated. The talk
of Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke was the standard of excellence to
all American society that claimed intellectual rank, and each city
possessed its own circle of Federalist talkers. Democrats rarely
figured in these entertainments, at least in fashionable private
houses. “There was no exclusiveness,” said a lady who long outlived
the time; “but I should as soon have expected to see a cow in a
drawing-room as a Jacobin.” In New York, indeed, Colonel Burr and
the Livingstons may have held their own, and the active-minded Dr.
Mitchill there, like Dr. Eustis in Boston, was an agreeable companion.
Philadelphia was comparatively cosmopolitan; in Baltimore the Smiths
were a social power; and Charleston, after deserting Federal principles
in 1800, could hardly ignore Democrats; but Boston society was still
pure. The clergy took a prominent part in conversation, but Fisher Ames
was the favorite of every intelligent company; and when Gouverneur
Morris, another brilliant talker, visited Boston, Ames was pitted
against him.

The intellectual wants of the community grew with the growing
prosperity; but the names of half-a-dozen persons could hardly be
mentioned whose memories survived by intellectual work made public in
Massachusetts between 1783 and 1800. Two or three local historians
might be numbered, including Jeremy Belknap, the most justly
distinguished. Jedediah Morse the geographer was well known; but not
a poet, a novelist, or a scholar could be named. Nathaniel Bowditch
did not publish his “Practical Navigator” till 1800, and not till then
did Dr. Waterhouse begin his struggle to introduce vaccination. With
the exception of a few Revolutionary statesmen and elderly clergymen,
a political essayist like Ames, and lawyers like Samuel Dexter and
Theophilus Parsons, Massachusetts could show little that warranted a
reputation for genius; and, in truth, the intellectual prominence of
Boston began as the conservative system died out, starting with the
younger Buckminster several years after the century opened.

The city was still poorer in science. Excepting the medical profession,
which represented nearly all scientific activity, hardly a man in
Boston got his living either by science or art. When in the year 1793
the directors of the new Middlesex Canal Corporation, wishing to bring
the Merrimac River to Boston Harbor, required a survey of an easy route
not thirty miles long, they could find no competent civil engineer
in Boston, and sent to Philadelphia for an Englishman named Weston,
engaged on the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal.

Possibly a few Bostonians could read and even speak French; but Germany
was nearly as unknown as China, until Madame de Staël published her
famous work in 1814. Even then young George Ticknor, incited by its
account of German university education, could find neither a good
teacher nor a dictionary, nor a German book in the shops or public
libraries of the city or at the college in Cambridge. He had discovered
a new world.

Pope, Addison, Akenside, Beattie, and Young were still the reigning
poets. Burns was accepted by a few; and copies of a volume were
advertised by book-sellers, written by a new poet called Wordsworth.
America offered a fair demand for new books, and anything of a light
nature published in England was sure to cross the ocean. Wordsworth
crossed with the rest, and his “Lyrical Ballads” were reprinted in
1802, not in Boston or New York, but in Philadelphia, where they were
read and praised. In default of other amusements, men read what no
one could have endured had a choice of amusements been open. Neither
music, painting, science, the lecture-room, nor even magazines
offered resources that could rival what was looked upon as classical
literature. Men had not the alternative of listening to political
discussions, for stump-speaking was a Southern practice not yet
introduced into New England, where such a political canvass would have
terrified society with dreams of Jacobin license. The clergy and the
bar took charge of politics; the tavern was the club and the forum
of political discussion; but for those who sought other haunts, and
especially for women, no intellectual amusement other than what was
called “belles-lettres” existed to give a sense of occupation to an
active mind. This keen and innovating people, hungry for the feast that
was almost served, the Walter Scotts and Byrons so near at hand, tried
meanwhile to nourish themselves with husks.

Afraid of Shakspeare and the drama, trained to the standards of Queen
Anne’s age, and ambitious beyond reason to excel, the New Englanders
attempted to supply their own wants. Massachusetts took no lead in the
struggle to create a light literature, if such poetry and fiction could
be called light. In Connecticut the Muses were most obstinately wooed:
and there, after the Revolutionary War, a persistent effort was made
to give prose the form of poetry. The chief of the movement was Timothy
Dwight, a man of extraordinary qualities, but one on whom almost every
other mental gift had been conferred in fuller measure than poetical
genius. Twenty-five years had passed since young Dwight, fresh from
Yale College, began his career by composing an epic poem, in eleven
books and near ten thousand lines, called “The Conquest of Canaan.”
In the fervor of patriotism, before independence was secured or the
French Revolution imagined, he pictured the great Hebrew leader Joshua
preaching the Rights of Man, and prophesying the spread of his “sons”
over America:--

  “Then o’er wide lands, as blissful Eden bright,
  Type of the skies, and seats of pure delight,
  Our sons with prosperous course shall stretch their sway,
  And claim an empire spread from sea to sea;
  In one great whole th’ harmonious tribes combine,
  Trace Justice’ path, and choose their chiefs divine;
  On Freedom’s base erect the heavenly plan.
  Teach laws to reign, and save the Rights of Man.
  Then smiling Art shall wrap the fields in bloom,
  Fine the rich ore, and guide the useful loom;
  Then lofty towers in golden pomp arise,
  Then spiry cities meet auspicious skies;
  The soul on Wisdom’s wing sublimely soar,
  New virtues cherish and new truths explore;
  Through Time’s long tract our name celestial run,
  Climb in the east and circle with the sun;
  And smiling Glory stretch triumphant wings
  O’er hosts of heroes and o’er tribes of kings.”

A world of eighteenth-century thought, peopled with personifications,
lay buried in the ten thousand lines of President Dwight’s youthful
poem. Perhaps in the year 1800, after Jefferson’s triumph, Dwight would
have been less eager that his hero should save the Rights of Man; by
that time the phrase had acquired a flavor of French infidelity which
made it unpalatable to good taste. Yet the same Jeffersonian spirit ran
through Dwight’s famous national song, which was also written in the
Revolutionary War:--

  “Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,
  The queen of the world and child of the skies!

      .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

  Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend,
  And triumph pursue them, and glory attend.

      .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

  While the ensigns of union in triumph unfurled
  Hush the tumult of war and give peace to the world.”

“Peace to the world” was the essence of Jeffersonian principles, worth
singing in something better than jingling metre and indifferent rhyme;
but President Dwight’s friends in 1800 no longer sang this song.
More and more conservative as he grew older, he published in 1797
an orthodox “Triumph of Infidelity,” introduced by a dedication to
Voltaire. His rebuke to mild theology was almost as severe as that to
French deism:--

  “There smiled the smooth divine, unused to wound
  The sinner’s heart with Hell’s alarming sound.”

His poetical career reached its climax in 1794 in a clerical
Connecticut pastoral in seven books, called “Greenfield Hill.” Perhaps
his verses were not above the level of the Beatties and Youngs he
imitated; but at least they earned for President Dwight no mean
reputation in days when poetry was at its lowest ebb, and made him the
father of a school.

One quality gave respectability to his writing apart from genius. He
loved and believed in his country. Perhaps the uttermost depths of
his nature were stirred only by affection for the Connecticut Valley;
but after all where was human nature more respectable than in that
peaceful region? What had the United States then to show in scenery and
landscape more beautiful or more winning than that country of meadow
and mountain? Patriotism was no ardent feeling among the literary men
of the time, whose general sentiment was rather expressed by Cliffton’s
lines:--

  “In these cold shades, beneath these shifting skies,
  Where Fancy sickens, and where Genius dies,
  Where few and feeble are the Muse’s strains,
  And no fine frenzy riots in the veins,
  There still are found a few to whom belong
  The fire of virtue and the soul of song.”

William Cliffton, a Pennsylvania Friend, who died in 1799 of
consumption, in his twenty-seventh year, knew nothing of the cold
shades and shifting skies which chilled the genius of European poets;
he knew only that America cared little for such genius and fancy as he
could offer, and he rebelled against the neglect. He was better treated
than Wordsworth, Keats, or Shelley; but it was easy to blame the public
for dulness and indifference, though readers were kinder than authors
had a right to expect. Even Cliffton was less severe than some of his
contemporaries. A writer in the “Boston Anthology,” for January, 1807,
uttered in still stronger words the prevailing feeling of the literary
class:--

 “We know that in this land, where the spirit of democracy is
 everywhere diffused, we are exposed as it were to a poisonous
 atmosphere, which blasts everything beautiful in nature, and corrodes
 everything elegant in art; we know that with us ‘the rose-leaves fall
 ungathered,’ and we believe that there is little to praise and nothing
 to admire in most of the objects which would first present themselves
 to the view of a stranger.”

Yet the American world was not unsympathetic toward Cliffton and
his rivals, though they strained prose through their sieves of
versification, and showed open contempt for their audience. Toward
President Dwight the public was even generous; and he returned the
generosity with parental love and condescension which shone through
every line he wrote. For some years his patriotism was almost as
enthusiastic as that of Joel Barlow. He was among the numerous rivals
of Macaulay and Shelley for the honor of inventing the stranger to sit
among the ruins of St. Paul’s; and naturally America supplied the
explorer who was to penetrate the forest of London and indulge his
national self-complacency over ruined temples and towers.

    “Some unknown wild, some shore without a name,
    In all thy pomp shall then majestic shine
    As silver-headed Time’s slow years decline.
    Not ruins only meet th’ inquiring eye;
    Where round yon mouldering oak vain brambles twine,
    The filial stem, already towering high,
  Erelong shall stretch his arms and nod in yonder sky.”

From these specimens of President Dwight’s poetry any critic, familiar
with the time, could infer that his prose was sensible and sound. One
of the few books of travel which will always retain value for New
Englanders was written by President Dwight to describe his vacation
rambles; and although in his own day no one would have ventured to
insult him by calling these instructive volumes amusing, the quaintness
which here and there gave color to the sober narrative had a charm of
its own. How could the contrast be better expressed between volatile
Boston and orthodox New Haven than in Dwight’s quiet reproof, mixed
with paternal tenderness? The Bostonians, he said, were distinguished
by a lively imagination, ardor, and sensibility; they were “more like
the Greeks than the Romans;” admired where graver people would only
approve; applauded or hissed where another audience would be silent;
their language was frequently hyperbolical, their pictures highly
colored; the tea shipped to Boston was destroyed,--in New York and
Philadelphia it was stored; education in Boston was superficial, and
Boston women showed the effects of this misfortune, for they practised
accomplishments only that they might be admired, and were taught from
the beginning to regard their dress as a momentous concern.

Under Dwight’s rule the women of the Connecticut Valley were taught
better; but its men set to the Bostonians an example of frivolity
without a parallel, and they did so with the connivance of President
Dwight and under the lead of his brother Theodore. The frivolity of
the Hartford wits, as they were called, was not so light as that of
Canning and the “Anti-Jacobin,” but had it been heavier than the
“Conquest of Canaan” itself, it would still have found no literary
rivalry in Boston. At about the time when Dwight composed his serious
epic, another tutor at Yale, John Trumbull, wrote a burlesque epic in
Hudibrastic verse, “McFingal,” which his friend Dwight declared to be
not inferior to “Hudibras” in wit and humor, and in every other respect
superior. When “Hudibras” was published, more than a hundred years
before, Mr. Pepys remarked: “It hath not a good liking in me, though
I had tried but twice or three times reading to bring myself to think
it witty.” After the lapse of more than another century, the humor of
neither poem may seem worth imitation; but to Trumbull in 1784 Butler
was a modern classic, for the standard of taste between 1663 and
1784 changed less than in any twenty years of the following century.
“McFingal” was a success, and laid a solid foundation for the coming
school of Hartford wits. Posterity ratified the verdict of Trumbull’s
admirers by preserving for daily use a few of his lines quoted
indiscriminately with Butler’s best:--

  “What has posterity done for us?”

  “Optics sharp it needs, I ween,
  To see what is not to be seen.”

  “A thief ne’er felt the halter draw
  With good opinion of the law.”

Ten years after the appearance of “McFingal,” and on the strength
of its success, Trumbull, Lemuel Hopkins, Richard Alsop, Theodore
Dwight, Joel Barlow, and others began a series of publications, “The
Anarchiad,” “The Echo,” “The Guillotine,” and the like, in which they
gave tongue to their wit and sarcasm. As Alsop described the scene,--

  “Begrimed with blood where erst the savage fell,
  Shrieked the wild war-whoop with infernal yell,
  The Muses sing; lo, Trumbull wakes the lyre.

      .    .    .    .    .    .    .

  Majestic Dwight, sublime in epic strain,
  Paints the fierce horrors of the crimson plain;
  And in Virgilian Barlow’s tuneful lines
  With added splendor great Columbus shines.”

Perhaps the Muses would have done better by not interrupting the
begrimed savage; for Dwight, Trumbull, Alsop, and Hopkins, whatever
their faults, were Miltonic by the side of Joel Barlow. Yet Barlow
was a figure too important in American history to be passed without
respectful attention. He expressed better than any one else that side
of Connecticut character which roused at the same instant the laughter
and the respect of men. Every human influence twined about his career
and lent it interest; every forward movement of his time had his
sympathy, and few steps in progress were made which he did not assist.
His ambition, above the lofty ambition of Jefferson, made him aspire
to be a Connecticut Mæcenas and Virgil in one; to patronize Fulton and
employ Smirke; counsel Jefferson and contend with Napoleon. In his own
mind a figure such as the world rarely saw,--a compound of Milton,
Rousseau, and the Duke of Bridgewater,--he had in him so large a share
of conceit, that tragedy, which would have thrown a solemn shadow
over another man’s life, seemed to render his only more entertaining.
As a poet, he undertook to do for his native land what Homer had
done for Greece and Virgil for Rome, Milton for England and Camoens
for Portugal,--to supply America with a great epic, without which no
country could be respectable; and his “Vision of Columbus,” magnified
afterward into the “Columbiad,” with a magnificence of typography
and illustration new to the United States, remained a monument of
his ambition. In this vision Columbus was shown a variety of coming
celebrities, including all the heroes of the Revolutionary War:--

  “Here stood stern Putnam, scored with ancient scars,
  The living records of his country’s wars;
  Wayne, like a moving tower, assumes his post,
  Fires the whole field, and is himself a host;
  Undaunted Stirling, prompt to meet his foes,
  And Gates and Sullivan for action rose;
  Macdougal, Clinton, guardians of the State,
  Stretch the nerved arm to pierce the depth of fate;
  Moultrie and Sumter lead their banded powers;
  Morgan in front of his bold riflers towers,
  His host of keen-eyed marksmen, skilled to pour
  Their slugs unerring from the twisted bore;
  No sword, no bayonet they learn to wield,
  They gall the flank, they skirt the battling field,
  Cull out the distant foe in full horse speed,
  Couch the long tube and eye the silver bead,
  Turn as he turns, dismiss the whizzing lead,
  And lodge the death-ball in his heedless head.”

More than seven thousand lines like these furnished constant pleasure
to the reader, the more because the “Columbiad” was accepted by the
public in a spirit as serious as that in which it was composed. The
Hartford wits, who were bitter Federalists, looked upon Barlow as an
outcast from their fold, a Jacobin in politics, and little better than
a French atheist in religion; but they could not deny that his poetic
garments were of a piece with their own. Neither could they without
great ingratitude repudiate his poetry as they did his politics, for
they themselves figured with Manco Capac, Montezuma, Raleigh, and
Pocahontas before the eyes of Columbus; and the world bore witness
that Timothy Dwight, “Heaven in his eye and rapture on his tongue,”
tuned his “high harp” in Barlow’s inspired verses. Europe was as little
disposed as America to cavil; and the Abbé Grégoire assured Barlow in
a printed letter that this monument of genius and typography would
immortalize the author and silence the criticisms of Pauw and other
writers on the want of talent in America.

That the “Columbiad” went far to justify those criticisms was true;
but on the other hand it proved something almost equivalent to genius.
Dwight, Trumbull, and Barlow, whatever might be their differences,
united in offering proof of the boundless ambition which marked the
American character. Their aspirations were immense, and sooner or later
such restless craving was sure to find better expression. Meanwhile
Connecticut was a province by itself, a part of New England rather
than of the United States. The exuberant patriotism of the Revolution
was chilled by the steady progress of democratic principles in the
Southern and Middle States, until at the election of Jefferson in
1800 Connecticut stood almost alone with no intellectual companion
except Massachusetts, while the breach between them and the Middle
States seemed to widen day by day. That the separation was only
superficial was true; but the connection itself was not yet deep. An
extreme Federalist partisan like Noah Webster did not cease working
for his American language and literature because of the triumph of
Jeffersonian principles elsewhere; Barlow became more American when
his friends gained power; the work of the colleges went on unbroken;
but prejudices, habits, theories, and laws remained what they had been
in the past, and in Connecticut the influence of nationality was less
active than ten, twenty, or even thirty years before. Yale College was
but a reproduction of Harvard with stricter orthodoxy, turning out
every year about thirty graduates, of whom nearly one fourth went into
the Church. For the last ten years the number tended rather to diminish
than to increase.

Evidently an intellectual condition like that of New England could
not long continue. The thoughts and methods of the eighteenth century
held possession of men’s minds only because the movement of society
was delayed by political passions. Massachusetts, and especially
Boston, already contained a younger generation eager to strike into
new paths, while forcibly held in the old ones. The more decidedly the
college graduates of 1800 disliked democracy and its habits of thought,
the more certain they were to compensate for political narrowness
by freedom in fields not political. The future direction of the New
England intellect seemed already suggested by the impossibility of
going further in the line of President Dwight and Fisher Ames. Met by a
barren negation on that side, thought was driven to some new channel;
and the United States were the more concerned in the result because,
with the training and literary habits of New Englanders and the new
models already established in Europe for their guidance, they were
likely again to produce something that would command respect.




CHAPTER IV.


BETWEEN New England and the Middle States was a gap like that between
Scotland and England. The conceptions of life were different. In New
England society was organized on a system,--a clergy in alliance with
a magistracy; universities supporting each, and supported in turn,--a
social hierarchy, in which respectability, education, property, and
religion united to defeat and crush the unwise and vicious. In New
York wisdom and virtue, as understood in New England, were but lightly
esteemed. From an early moment no small number of those who by birth,
education, and property were natural leaders of the wise and virtuous,
showed themselves ready to throw in their lot with the multitude. Yet
New York, much more than New England, was the home of natural leaders
and family alliances. John Jay, the governor; the Schuylers, led by
Philip Schuyler and his son-in-law Alexander Hamilton; the Livingstons,
led by Robert R. Livingston the chancellor, with a promising younger
brother Edward nearly twenty years his junior, and a brother-in-law
John Armstrong, whose name and relationship will be prominent in this
narrative, besides Samuel Osgood, Morgan Lewis, and Smith Thompson,
other connections by marriage with the great Livingston stock; the
Clintons, headed by Governor George Clinton, and supported by the
energy of De Witt his nephew, thirty years of age, whose close friend
Ambrose Spencer was reckoned as one of the family; finally, Aaron Burr,
of pure Connecticut Calvinistic blood, whose two active lieutenants,
William P. Van Ness and John Swartwout, were socially well connected
and well brought up,--all these Jays, Schuylers, Livingstons, Clintons,
Burrs, had they lived in New England, would probably have united in the
support of their class, or abandoned the country; but being citizens of
New York they quarrelled. On one side Governor Jay, General Schuyler,
and Colonel Hamilton were true to their principles. Rufus King, the
American minister in London, by birth a New Englander, adhered to the
same connection. On the other hand, George Clinton, like Samuel Adams
in Boston, was a Republican by temperament, and his protest against the
Constitution made him leader of the Northern Republicans long before
Jefferson was mentioned as his rival. The rest were all backsliders
from Federalism,--and especially the Livingston faction, who, after
carefully weighing arguments and interests, with one accord joined
the mob of free-thinking democrats, the “great beast” of Alexander
Hamilton. Aaron Burr, who prided himself on the inherited patrician
quality of his mind and manners, coldly assuming that wisdom and virtue
were powerless in a democracy, followed Chancellor Livingston into
the society of Cheetham and Paine. Even the influx of New Englanders
into the State could not save the Federalists; and in May, 1800, after
a sharp struggle, New York finally enrolled itself on the side of
Jefferson and George Clinton.

Fortunately for society, New York possessed no church to overthrow, or
traditional doctrines to root out, or centuries of history to disavow.
Literature of its own it had little; of intellectual unity, no trace.
Washington Irving was a boy of seventeen wandering along the banks of
the river he was to make famous; Fenimore Cooper was a boy of eleven
playing in the primitive woods of Otsego, or fitting himself at Albany
for entrance to Yale College; William Cullen Bryant was a child of six
in the little village of Cummington, in western Massachusetts.

Political change could as little affect the educational system as
it could affect history, church, or literature. In 1795, at the
suggestion of Governor Clinton, an attempt had been made by the New
York legislature to create a common-school system, and a sum of fifty
thousand dollars was for five years annually applied to that object:
but in 1800 the appropriation was exhausted, and the thirteen hundred
schools which had been opened were declining. Columbia College, with a
formidable array of unfilled professorships, and with fifteen or twenty
annual graduates, stood apart from public affairs, although one of its
professors, Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, gave scientific reputation to the
whole State. Like the poet Barlow, Mitchill was a universal genius,--a
chemist, botanist, naturalist, physicist, and politician, who, to use
the words of a shrewd observer, supported the Republican party because
Jefferson was its leader, and supported Jefferson because he was a
philosopher. Another professor of Columbia College, Dr. David Hosack,
was as active as Dr. Mitchill in education, although he contented
himself with private life, and did not, like Mitchill, reach the
dignity of congressman and senator.

Science and art were still less likely to be harmed by a democratic
revolution. For scientific work accomplished before 1800 New York
might claim to excel New England; but the result was still small. A
little botany and mineralogy, a paper on the dispute over yellow fever
or vaccination, was the utmost that medicine could show; yet all the
science that existed was in the hands of the medical faculty. Botany,
chemistry, mineralogy, midwifery, and surgery were so closely allied
that the same professor might regard them all as within the range of
his instruction; and Dr. Mitchill could have filled in succession,
without much difficulty, every chair in Columbia College as well as
in the Academy of Fine Arts about to be established. A surgeon was
assumed to be an artist. The Capitol at Washington was designed, in
rivalry with a French architect, by Dr. William Thornton, an English
physician, who in the course of two weeks’ study at the Philadelphia
Library gained enough knowledge of architecture to draw incorrectly
an exterior elevation. When Thornton was forced to look for some one
to help him over his difficulties, Jefferson could find no competent
native American, and sent for Latrobe. Jefferson considered himself a
better architect than either of them, and had he been a professor of
materia medica at Columbia College, the public would have accepted his
claim as reasonable.

The intellectual and moral character of New York left much to be
desired; but on the other hand, had society adhered stiffly to what
New England thought strict morals, the difficulties in the path of
national development would have been increased. Innovation was the
most useful purpose which New York could serve in human interests, and
never was a city better fitted for its work. Although the great tide of
prosperity had hardly begun to flow, the political character of city
and State was already well defined in 1800 by the election which made
Aaron Burr vice-president of the United States, and brought De Witt
Clinton into public life as Burr’s rival. De Witt Clinton was hardly
less responsible than Burr himself for lowering the standard of New
York politics, and indirectly that of the nation; but he was foremost
in creating the Erie Canal. Chancellor Livingston was frequently
charged with selfishness as great as that of Burr and Clinton; but he
built the first steamboat, and gave immortality to Fulton. Ambrose
Spencer’s politics were inconsistent enough to destroy the good name
of any man in New England; but he became a chief-justice of ability
and integrity. Edward Livingston was a defaulter under circumstances
of culpable carelessness, as the Treasury thought; but Gallatin,
who dismissed him from office, lived to see him become the author
of a celebrated code of civil law, and of the still more celebrated
Nullification Proclamation. John Armstrong’s character was so little
admired that his own party could with difficulty be induced to give
him high office; yet the reader will judge how Armstrong compared in
efficiency of public service with the senators who distrusted him.

New York cared but little for the metaphysical subtleties of
Massachusetts and Virginia, which convulsed the nation with spasms
almost as violent as those that, fourteen centuries before, distracted
the Eastern Empire in the effort to establish the double or single
nature of Christ. New York was indifferent whether the nature of the
United States was single or multiple, whether they were a nation or
a league. Leaving this class of questions to other States which were
deeply interested in them, New York remained constant to no political
theory. There society, in spite of its aristocratic mixture, was
democratic by instinct; and in abandoning its alliance with New England
in order to join Virginia and elect Jefferson to the Presidency, it
pledged itself to principles of no kind, least of all to Virginia
doctrines. The Virginians aimed at maintaining a society so simple
that purity should suffer no danger, and corruption gain no foothold;
and never did America witness a stranger union than when Jefferson,
the representative of ideal purity, allied himself with Aaron Burr,
the Livingstons and Clintons, in the expectation of fixing the United
States in a career of simplicity and virtue. George Clinton indeed, a
States-rights Republican of the old school, understood and believed
the Virginia doctrines; but as for Aaron Burr, Edward Livingston, De
Witt Clinton, and Ambrose Spencer,--young men whose brains were filled
with dreams of a different sort,--what had such energetic democrats to
do with the plough, or what share had the austerity of Cato and the
simplicity of Ancus Martius in their ideals? The political partnership
between the New York Republicans and the Virginians was from the first
that of a business firm; and no more curious speculation could have
been suggested to the politicians of 1800 than the question whether New
York would corrupt Virginia, or Virginia would check the prosperity of
New York.

In deciding the issue of this struggle, as in every other issue that
concerned the Union, the voice which spoke in most potent tones was
that of Pennsylvania. This great State, considering its political
importance, was treated with little respect by its neighbors; and yet
had New England, New York, and Virginia been swept out of existence
in 1800, democracy could have better spared them all than have lost
Pennsylvania. The only true democratic community then existing in the
eastern States, Pennsylvania was neither picturesque nor troublesome.
The State contained no hierarchy like that of New England; no great
families like those of New York; no oligarchy like the planters of
Virginia and South Carolina. “In Pennsylvania,” said Albert Gallatin,
“not only we have neither Livingstons nor Rensselaers, but from the
suburbs of Philadelphia to the banks of the Ohio I do not know a single
family that has any extensive influence. An equal distribution of
property has rendered every individual independent, and there is among
us true and real equality.” This was not all. The value of Pennsylvania
to the Union lay not so much in the democratic spirit of society as
in the rapidity with which it turned to national objects. Partly for
this reason the State made an insignificant figure in politics. As
the nation grew, less and less was said in Pennsylvania of interests
distinct from those of the Union. Too thoroughly democratic to fear
democracy, and too much nationalized to dread nationality, Pennsylvania
became the ideal American State, easy, tolerant, and contented. If
its soil bred little genius, it bred still less treason. With twenty
different religious creeds, its practice could not be narrow, and a
strong Quaker element made it humane. If the American Union succeeded,
the good sense, liberality, and democratic spirit of Pennsylvania had a
right to claim credit for the result; and Pennsylvanians could afford
to leave power and patronage to their neighbors, so long as their own
interests were to decide the path of administration.

The people showed little of that acuteness which prevailed to the
eastward of the Hudson. Pennsylvania was never smart, yet rarely failed
to gain her objects, and never committed serious follies. To politics
the Pennsylvanians did not take kindly. Perhaps their democracy was so
deep an instinct that they knew not what to do with political power
when they gained it; as though political power were aristocratic in its
nature, and democratic power a contradiction in terms. On this ground
rested the reputation of Albert Gallatin, the only Pennsylvanian who
made a mark on the surface of national politics. Gallatin’s celebrated
financial policy carried into practice the doctrine that the powers of
government, being necessarily irresponsible, and therefore hostile to
liberty, ought to be exercised only within the narrowest bounds, in
order to leave democracy free to develop itself without interference
in its true social, intellectual, and economical strength. Unlike
Jefferson and the Virginians, Gallatin never hesitated to claim for
government all the powers necessary for whatever object was in hand;
but he agreed with them in checking the practical use of power, and
this he did with a degree of rigor which has been often imitated but
never equalled. The Pennsylvanians followed Gallatin’s teachings. They
indulged in endless factiousness over offices, but they never attempted
to govern, and after one brief experience they never rebelled. Thus
holding abstract politics at arm’s length, they supported the national
government with a sagacious sense that their own interests were those
of the United States.

Although the State was held by the New Englanders and Virginians in
no high repute for quickness of intellect, Philadelphia in 1800 was
still the intellectual centre of the nation. For ten years the city had
been the seat of national government, and at the close of that period
had gathered a more agreeable society, fashionable, literary, and
political, than could be found anywhere, except in a few capital cities
of Europe. This Quaker city of an ultra-democratic State startled
travellers used to luxury, by its extravagance and display. According
to the Duc de Liancourt, writing in 1797,--

 “The profusion and luxury of Philadelphia on great days, at the tables
 of the wealthy, in their equipages, and the dresses of their wives and
 daughters, are extreme. I have seen balls on the President’s birthday
 where the splendor of the rooms and the variety and richness of the
 dresses did not suffer in comparison with Europe; and it must be
 acknowledged that the beauty of the American ladies has the advantage
 in the comparison. The young women of Philadelphia are accomplished in
 different degrees, but beauty is general with them. They want the ease
 and fashion of French women, but the brilliancy of their complexion is
 infinitely superior. Even when they grow old they are still handsome;
 and it would be no exaggeration to say, in the numerous assemblies
 of Philadelphia it is impossible to meet with what is called a plain
 woman. As to the young men, they for the most part seem to belong to
 another species.”

For ten years Philadelphia had attracted nearly all the intelligence
and cultivation that could be detached from their native stocks.
Stagnation was impossible in this rapid current of men and ideas. The
Philadelphia press showed the effect of such unusual movement. There
Cobbett vociferated libels against democrats. His career was cut short
by a blunder of his own; for he quitted the safe field of politics in
order to libel the physicians, and although medical practice was not
much better than when it had been satirized by Le Sage some eighty
years before, the physicians had not become less sensitive. If ever
medical practice deserved to be libelled, the bleeding which was the
common treatment not only for fevers but for consumption, and even
for old age, warranted all that could be said against it; but Cobbett
found to his cost that the Pennsylvanians were glad to bleed, or at
least to seize the opportunity for silencing the libeller. In 1800 he
returned to England; but the style of political warfare in which he was
so great a master was already established in the Philadelphia press. An
Irish-American named Duane, who had been driven from England and India
for expressing opinions too liberal for the time and place, came to
Philadelphia and took charge of the opposition newspaper, the “Aurora,”
which became in his hands the most energetic and slanderous paper in
America. In the small society of the time libels rankled, and Duane
rivalled Cobbett in the boldness with which he slandered. Another
point of resemblance existed between the two men. At a later stage in
his career Duane, like Cobbett, disregarded friend as well as foe; he
then attacked all who offended him, and denounced his party leaders as
bitterly as he did his opponents; but down to the year 1800 he reserved
his abuse for his enemies, and the “Aurora” was the nearest approach to
a modern newspaper to be found in the country.

Judged by the accounts of his more reputable enemies, Duane seemed
beneath forbearance; but his sins, gross as they were, found abettors
in places where such conduct was less to be excused. He was a
scurrilous libeller; but so was Cobbett; so was William Coleman, who
in 1801 became editor of the New York “Evening Post” under the eye
of Alexander Hamilton; so was the refined Joseph Dennie, who in the
same year established at Philadelphia the “Portfolio,” a weekly paper
devoted to literature, in which for years to come he was to write
literary essays, diversified by slander of Jefferson. Perhaps none of
these habitual libellers deserved censure so much as Fisher Ames, the
idol of respectability, who cheered on his party to vituperate his
political opponents. He saw no harm in showing “the knaves,” Jefferson
and Gallatin, “the cold-thinking villains who lead, ‘whose black blood
runs temperately bad,’” the motives of “their own base hearts.... The
vain, the timid, and trimming must be made by examples to see that
scorn smites and blasts and withers like lightning the knaves that
mislead them.” Little difference could be seen between the two parties
in their use of such weapons, except that democrats claimed a right to
slander opponents because they were monarchists and aristocrats, while
Federalists thought themselves bound to smite and wither with scorn
those who, as a class, did not respect established customs.

Of American newspapers there was no end; but the education supposed to
have been widely spread by eighteenth-century newspapers was hardly to
be distinguished from ignorance. The student of history might search
forever these storehouses of political calumny for facts meant to
instruct the public in any useful object. A few dozen advertisements
of shipping and sales; a marine list; rarely or never a price-list,
unless it were European; copious extracts from English newspapers,
and long columns of political disquisition,--such matter filled the
chief city newspapers, from which the smaller sheets selected what
their editors thought fit. Reporters and regular correspondents were
unknown. Information of events other than political--the progress of
the New York or Philadelphia water-works, of the Middlesex Canal,
of Fitch’s or Fulton’s voyages, or even the commonest details of a
Presidential inauguration--could rarely be found in the press. In
such progress as newspapers had made Philadelphia took the lead, and
in 1800 was at the height of her influence. Not until 1801 did the
extreme Federalists set up the “Evening Post” under William Coleman,
in New York, where at about the same time the Clinton interest put
an English refugee named Cheetham in charge of their new paper, the
“American Citizen and Watchtower,” while Burr’s friends established the
“Morning Chronicle,” edited by Dr. Peter Irving. Duane’s importance
was greatly reduced by this outburst of journalism in New York, and by
the rise of the “National Intelligencer” at Washington, semi-official
organ of Jefferson’s administration. After the year 1800 the “Aurora”
languished; but between 1795 and 1800 it was the leading newspaper
of the United States, and boasted in 1802 of a circulation of four
thousand copies, at least half of which its rivals declared to be
imaginary.

Although Philadelphia was the literary as well as the political capital
of America, nothing proved the existence of a highly intellectual
society. When Joseph Dennie, a graduate of Harvard College, quitted
Boston and established his “Portfolio” in Philadelphia in 1801, he
complained as bitterly as the Pennsylvanian Cliffton against the land
“where Genius sickens and where Fancy dies;” but he still thought
Philadelphia more tolerable than any other city in the United States.
With a little band of literary friends he passed his days in defying
the indifference of his countrymen. “In the society of Mr. Dennie and
his friends at Philadelphia I passed the few agreeable moments which
my tour through the States afforded me,” wrote in 1804 the British
poet whom all the world united in calling by the familiar name of
Tom Moore. “If I did not hate as I ought the rabble to which they are
opposed, I could not value as I do the spirit with which they defy it;
and in learning from them what Americans _can be_, I but see with the
more indignation what Americans _are_.”

  “Yet, yet forgive me, O you sacred few,
  Whom late by Delaware’s green banks I knew;
  Whom, known and loved, through many a social eve
  ’T was bliss to live with, and ’twas pain to leave.
  Oh, but for _such_, Columbia’s days were done!
  Rank without ripeness, quickened without sun,
  Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,
  Her fruits would fall before her spring were o’er.”

If Columbia’s days were to depend on “_such_,” they were scarcely worth
prolonging; for Dennie’s genius was but the thin echo of an English
classicism thin at its best. Yet Moore’s words had value, for they gave
a lifelike idea of the “sacred few” who sat with him, drinking deep,
and reviling America because she could not produce poets like Anacreon
and artists like Phidias, and still more because Americans cared little
for Addisonian essays. An adventurer called John Davis, who published
in London a book of American travels, mentioned in it that he too met
the Philadelphia authors. “Dennie passed his mornings in the shop of
Mr. Dickens, which I found the rendezvous of the Philadelphia sons
of literature,--Blair [Linn], author of a poem called the ‘Powers of
Genius;’ Ingersoll, known by a tragedy of which I forget the title;
Stock, celebrated for his dramatic criticisms.” C. J. Ingersoll did
in fact print a tragedy called “Edwy and Elgiva,” which was acted in
1801, and John Blair Linn’s “Powers of Genius” appeared in the same
year; but Dennie’s group boasted another member more notable than
these. Charles Brockden Brown, the first American novelist of merit,
was a Philadelphian. Davis called upon Brown. “He occupied a dismal
room in a dismal street. I asked him whether a view of Nature would not
be more propitious to composition, or whether he should not write with
more facility were his window to command the prospect of the Lake of
Geneva. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘good pens, thick paper, and ink well diluted
would facilitate my composition more than the prospect of the broadest
expanse of water or mountains rising against the clouds.’”

Pennsylvania was largely German and the Moravians were not without
learning, yet no trace of German influence showed itself in the
educated and literary class. Schiller was at the end of his career,
and Goethe at the zenith of his powers; but neither was known in
Pennsylvania, unless it might be by translations of the “Robbers” or
the “Sorrows of Werther.” As for deeper studies, search in America
would be useless for what was rare or unknown either in England
or France. Kant had closed and Hegel was beginning his labors;
but the Western nations knew no more of German thought than of
Egyptian hieroglyphics, and America had not yet reached the point of
understanding that metaphysics apart from theology could exist at all.
Locke was a college text-book, and possibly a few clergymen had learned
to deride the idealism of Berkeley; but as an interest which concerned
life, metaphysics, apart from Calvinism, had no existence in America,
and was to have none for another generation. The literary labors of
Americans followed easier paths, and such thought as prevailed was
confined within a narrow field,--yet within this limit Pennsylvania had
something to show, even though it failed to please the taste of Dennie
and Moore.

Not far from the city of Philadelphia, on the banks of the Schuylkill,
lived William Bartram, the naturalist, whose “Travels” through Florida
and the Indian country, published in 1791, were once praised by
Coleridge, and deserved reading both for the matter and the style.
Not far from Bartram, and his best scholar, was Alexander Wilson,
a Scotch poet of more than ordinary merit, gifted with a dogged
enthusiasm, which in spite of obstacles gave to America an ornithology
more creditable than anything yet accomplished in art or literature.
Beyond the mountains, at Pittsburg, another author showed genuine
and original qualities. American humor was not then so marked as it
afterward became, and good-nature was rarer; but H. H. Brackenridge
set an example of both in a book once universally popular throughout
the South and West. A sort of prose “Hudibras,” it had the merit
of leaving no sting, for this satire on democracy was written by a
democrat and published in the most democratic community of America.
“Modern Chivalry” told the adventures of a militia captain, who riding
about the country with a raw Irish servant, found this red-headed,
ignorant bog-trotter, this Sancho Panza, a much more popular person
than himself, who could only with difficulty be restrained from
becoming a clergyman, an Indian chief, a member of the legislature, of
the philosophical society, and of Congress. At length his employer got
for him the appointment of excise officer in the Alleghanies, and was
gratified at seeing him tarred and feathered by his democratic friends.
“Modern Chivalry” was not only written in good last-century English,
none too refined for its subject, but was more thoroughly American than
any book yet published, or to be published until the “Letters of Major
Jack Downing” and the “Georgia Scenes” of forty years later. Never
known, even by title, in Europe, and little enjoyed in the seaboard
States, where bog-trotters and weavers had no such prominence, Judge
Brackenridge’s book filled the place of Don Quixote on the banks of the
Ohio and along the Mississippi.

Another man whose literary merits were not to be overlooked, had
drifted to Philadelphia because of its varied attractions. If in the
last century America could boast of a poet who shared some of the
delicacy if not the grandeur of genius, it was Philip Freneau; whose
verses, poured out for the occasion, ran freely, good and bad, but the
bad, as was natural, much more freely than the good. Freneau proved
his merit by an experience unique in history. He was twice robbed by
the greatest English poets of his day. Among his many slight verses
were some pleasing lines called “The Indian Burying Ground”:--

  “His bow for action ready bent,
    And arrows with a head of stone,
  Can only mean that life is spent,
    And not the finer essence gone.

  “By midnight moons, o’er moistening dews,
    In vestments for the chase arrayed,
  The hunter still the deer pursues,
    The hunter and the deer,--a shade.”

The last line was taken by the British poet Campbell for his own poem
called “O’Connor’s Child,” and Freneau could afford to forgive the
theft which thus called attention to the simple grace of his melody;
but although one such compliment might fall to the lot of a common man,
only merit could explain a second accident of the same kind. Freneau
saw a greater genius than Campbell borrow from his modest capital. No
one complained of Walter Scott for taking whatever he liked wherever
he chose, to supply that flame of genius which quickened the world;
but Freneau had the right to claim that Scott paid him the highest
compliment one poet could pay to another. In the Introduction to the
third canto of “Marmion” stood and still stands a line taken directly
from the verse in Freneau’s poem on the Heroes of Eutaw:--

  “They took the spear--but left the shield.”

All these men--Wilson, Brackenridge, Freneau--were democrats, and came
not within the Federalist circle where Moore could alone see a hope for
Columbia; yet the names of Federalists also survived in literature.
Alexander Graydon’s pleasant Memoirs could never lose interest. Many
lawyers, clergymen, and physicians left lasting records. Dallas was
bringing out his reports; Duponceau was laboring over jurisprudence
and languages; William Lewis, William Rawle, and Judge Wilson were
high authorities at the bar; Dr. Wistar was giving reputation to the
Philadelphia Medical School, and the famous Dr. Physic was beginning
to attract patients from far and near as the best surgeon in America.
Gilbert Stuart, the best painter in the country, came to Philadelphia,
and there painted portraits equal to the best that England or France
could produce,--for Reynolds and Gainsborough were dead, and Sir Thomas
Lawrence ruled the fashion of the time. If Franklin and Rittenhouse no
longer lived to give scientific fame to Philadelphia, their liberal and
scientific spirit survived. The reputation of the city was not confined
to America, and the accident that made a Philadelphian, Benjamin West,
President of the Royal Academy in succession to Sir Joshua Reynolds,
was a tacit compliment, not undeserved, to the character of the
American metropolis.

There manners were milder and more humane than elsewhere. Societies
existed for lessening the hardships of the unfortunate. A society
labored for the abolition of slavery without exciting popular passion,
although New York contained more than twenty thousand slaves, and
New Jersey more than twelve thousand. A society for alleviating the
miseries of prisons watched the progress of experiments in the model
jail, which stood alone of its kind in America. Elsewhere the treatment
of criminals was such as it had ever been. In Connecticut they were
still confined under-ground, in the shafts of an abandoned copper-mine.
The Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs gave some idea of the prisons and
prison discipline of Massachusetts. The Pennsylvania Hospital was also
a model, for it contained a department for the insane, the only one of
the sort in America except the Virginia Lunatic Asylum at Williamsburg.
Even there the treatment of these beings, whom a later instinct of
humanity thought peculiarly worthy of care and lavish expenditure,
was harsh enough,--strait-jackets, whippings, chains, and dark-rooms
being a part of the prescribed treatment in every such hospital in the
world; but where no hospitals existed, as in New England, New York,
and elsewhere, the treatment was apt to be far worse. No horror of the
Middle Ages wrung the modern conscience with a sense of disgust more
acute than was felt in remembering the treatment of the insane even
within recent times. Shut in attics or cellars, or in cages outside
a house, without warmth, light, or care, they lived in filth, with
nourishment such as was thrown to dogs. Philadelphia led the way in
humanitarian efforts which relieved man from incessant contact with
these cruel and coarsening associations.

The depth of gratitude due to Pennsylvania as the model democratic
society of the world was so great as to risk overestimating what had
been actually done. As yet no common-school system existed. Academies
and colleges were indifferent. New Jersey was no better provided than
Pennsylvania. The Englishman Weld, a keen if not a friendly critic,
visited Princeton,--

 “A large college,” he said, “held in much repute by the neighboring
 States. The number of students amounts to upwards of seventy; from
 their appearance, however, and the course of studies they seem to be
 engaged in, like all the other American colleges I ever saw, it better
 deserves the title of a grammar-school than of a college. The library
 which we were shown is most wretched, consisting for the most part of
 old theological books not even arranged with any regularity. An orrery
 contrived by Mr. Rittenhouse stands at one end of the apartment,
 but it is quite out of repair, as well as a few detached parts of
 a philosophical apparatus enclosed in the same glass-case. At the
 opposite end of the room are two small cupboards which are shown as
 the museum. These contain a couple of small stuffed alligators and a
 few singular fishes in a miserable state of preservation, from their
 being repeatedly tossed about.”

Philadelphia made no claim to a wide range of intellectual interests.
As late as 1811, Latrobe, by education an architect and by genius an
artist, wrote to Volney in France,--

 “Thinking only of the profession and of the affluence which it yields
 in Europe to all who follow it, you forget that I am an engineer in
 America; that I am neither a mechanic nor a merchant, nor a planter
 of cotton, rice, or tobacco. You forget--for you know it as well as
 I do--that with us the labor of the hand has precedence over that of
 the mind; that an engineer is considered only as an overseer of men
 who dig, and an architect as one that watches others who hew stone or
 wood.”

The labor of the hand had precedence over that of the mind throughout
the United States. If this was true in the city of Franklin,
Rittenhouse, and West, the traveller who wandered farther toward the
south felt still more strongly the want of intellectual variety, and
found more cause for complaint.




CHAPTER V.


BETWEEN Pennsylvania and Virginia stretched no barrier of mountains or
deserts. Nature seemed to mean that the northern State should reach
toward the Chesapeake, and embrace its wide system of coasts and
rivers. The Susquehanna, crossing Pennsylvania from north to south,
rolled down wealth which in a few years built the city of Baltimore by
the surplus of Pennsylvania’s resources. Any part of Chesapeake Bay,
or of the streams which flowed into it, was more easily accessible to
Baltimore than any part of Massachusetts or Pennsylvania to New York.
Every geographical reason argued that the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and
the James should support one homogeneous people; yet the intellectual
difference between Pennsylvania and Virginia was already more sharply
marked than that between New England and the Middle States.

The old Virginia society was still erect, priding itself on its
resemblance to the society of England, which had produced Hampden and
Chatham. The Virginia gentleman, wherever met, was a country gentleman
or a lawyer among a society of planters. The absence of city life was
the sharpest characteristic of Virginia, even compared with South
Carolina. In the best and greatest of Virginians, the virtues which
always stood in most prominence 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, which could exist only where the struggle for
life was hardly a struggle at all. No visitor could resist the charm of
kindly sympathy which softened the asperities of Virginian ambition.
Whether young Albert Gallatin went there, hesitating between Europe and
America, or the still younger William Ellery Channing, with all New
England on his active conscience, the effect was the same:--

 “I blush for my own people,” wrote Channing from Richmond in 1799,
 “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. There is one single trait which
 attaches me to the people I live with more than all the virtues
 of New England,--they _love money less_ than we do; they are more
 disinterested; their patriotism is not tied to their purse-strings.
 Could I only take from the Virginians their sensuality and their
 slaves, I should think them the greatest people in the world. As it
 is, with a few great virtues, they have innumerable vices.”

Even forty years afterward, so typical a New Englander as the poet
Bryant acknowledged that “whatever may be the comparison in other
respects, the South certainly has the advantage over us in point of
manners.” Manners were not all their charm; for the Virginians at the
close of the eighteenth century were inferior to no class of Americans
in the sort of education then supposed to make refinement. The Duc de
Liancourt bore witness:--

 “In spite of the Virginian love for dissipation, the taste for reading
 is commoner there among men of the first class than in any other part
 of America; but the populace is perhaps more ignorant there than
 elsewhere.”

Those whom Liancourt called “men of the first class” were equal to any
standard of excellence known to history. Their range was narrow, but
within it they were supreme. The traditions of high breeding were still
maintained, and a small England, much as it existed in the time of the
Commonwealth, was perpetuated in the Virginia of 1800. Social position
was a birthright, not merely of the well born, but of the highly
gifted. Nearly all the great lawyers of Virginia were of the same
social stock as in New England,--poor and gifted men, welcomed into a
landed aristocracy simple in tastes and genial in temper. Chief-Justice
Marshall was such a man, commanding respect and regard wherever he
was seen,--perhaps most of all from New Englanders, who were least
familiar with the type. George Mason was an ideal republican,--a
character as strong in its way as Washington or Marshall. George Wythe
the Chancellor stood in the same universal esteem; and even his young
clerk Henry Clay, “the mill-boy of the slashes,” who had lately left
Chancellor Wythe’s office to set up one of his own at Lexington in
Kentucky, inherited that Virginia geniality which, as it ripened with
his years, made him an idol among Northern and Western multitudes who
knew neither the source nor secret of his charm. Law and politics
were the only objects of Virginian thought; but within these bounds
the Virginians achieved triumphs. What could America offer in legal
literature that rivalled the judicial opinions of Chief-Justice
Marshall? What political essay equalled the severe beauty of George
Mason’s Virginia Bill of Rights? What single production of an American
pen reached the fame of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence?
“The Virginians are the best orators I ever heard,” wrote the young
Channing: although Patrick Henry, the greatest of them all, was no
longer alive.

Every one admitted that Virginia society was ill at ease. In colonial
days it rested on a few great props, the strongest being its close
connection with England; and after this had been cut away by the
Revolutionary War, primogeniture, the Church, exemption of land from
seizure for debt, and negro slavery remained to support the oligarchy
of planters. The momentum given by the Declaration of Independence
enabled Jefferson and George Wythe to sweep primogeniture from the
statute book. After an interval of several years, Madison carried the
law which severed Church from State. There the movement ended. All the
great Virginians would gladly have gone on, but the current began to
flow against them. They suggested a bill for emancipation, but could
find no one to father it in the legislature, and they shrank from the
storm it would excite.

President Washington, in 1796, in a letter already quoted, admitted
that land in Virginia was lower in price than land of the same quality
in Pennsylvania. For this inferiority he suggested, among other
reasons, the explanation that Pennsylvania had made laws for the
gradual abolition of slavery, and he declared nothing more certain than
that Virginia must adopt similar laws at a period not remote. Had the
Virginians seen a sure prospect that such a step would improve their
situation, they would probably have taken it; but the slave-owners
were little pleased at the results of reforms already effected, and
they were in no humor for abolishing more of their old institutions.
The effects of disestablishing the Church were calculated to disgust
them with all reform. From early times the colony had been divided
into parishes, and each parish owned a church building. The system was
the counterpart of that established in New England. The church lands,
glebes, and endowments were administered by the clergyman, wardens,
and vestry. Good society in Virginia recognized no other religion than
was taught in this branch of English episcopacy. “Sure I am of one
thing,” was the remark in the Virginia legislature of an old-fashioned
Federalist, with powdered hair, three-cornered hat, long queue, and
white top-boots,--“Sure I am of one thing, that no _gentleman_ would
choose any road to heaven but the Episcopal.” Every plantation was
attached to a parish, and the earliest associations of every well-bred
man and woman in Virginia were connected with the Church service. In
spite of all this, no sooner had Madison and his friends taken away the
support of the State than the Church perished. They argued that freedom
of religion worked well in Pennsylvania, and therefore must succeed in
Virginia; but they were wrong. The Virginia gentry stood by and saw
their churches closed, the roofs rot, the aisles and pews become a
refuge for sheep and foxes, the tombstones of their ancestry built into
strange walls or turned into flagging to be worn by the feet of slaves.
By the year 1800, Bishop Madison found his diocese left so nearly
bare of clergy and communicants that after a few feeble efforts to
revive interest he abandoned the struggle, and contented himself with
the humbler task of educating boys at the ancient College of William
and Mary in the deserted colonial capital of Williamsburg. There the
English traveller Weld visited him about the year 1797, and gave a
curious picture of his establishment:--

 “The Bishop,” he said, “is president of the college, and has
 apartments in the buildings. Half-a-dozen or more of the students,
 the eldest about twelve years old, dined at his table one day that
 I was there. Some were without shoes or stockings, others without
 coats. During dinner they constantly rose to help themselves at the
 sideboard. A couple of dishes of salted meat and some oyster-soup
 formed the whole of the dinner.”

Such a state of society was picturesque, but not encouraging. An
aristocracy so lacking in energy and self-confidence was a mere
shell, to be crushed, as one might think, by a single vigorous blow.
Nevertheless, Jefferson and Madison, after striking it again and again
with the full force of Revolutionary violence, were obliged to desist,
and turned their reforming axes against the Church and hierarchy of New
England. There they could do nothing but good, for the society of New
England was sound, whatever became of the Church or of slavery; but in
Virginia the gap which divided gentry from populace was enormous; and
another gap, which seemed impassable, divided the populace from the
slaves. Jefferson’s reforms crippled and impoverished the gentry, but
did little for the people, and for the slaves nothing.

Nowhere in America existed better human material than in the
middle and lower classes of Virginians. As explorers, adventurers,
fighters,--wherever courage, activity, and force were wanted,--they had
no equals; but they had never known discipline, and were beyond measure
jealous of restraint. With all their natural virtues and indefinite
capacities for good, they were rough and uneducated to a degree that
shocked their own native leaders. Jefferson tried in vain to persuade
them that they needed schools. Their character was stereotyped, and
development impossible; for even Jefferson, with all his liberality
of ideas, was Virginian enough to discourage the introduction of
manufactures and the gathering of masses in cities, without which no
new life could grow. Among the common people, intellectual activity was
confined to hereditary commonplaces of politics, resting on the axiom
that Virginia was the typical society of a future Arcadian America. To
escape the tyranny of Cæsar by perpetuating the simple and isolated
lives of their fathers was the sum of their political philosophy;
to fix upon the national government the stamp of their own idyllic
conservatism was the height of their ambition.

Debarred from manufactures, possessed of no shipping, and enjoying no
domestic market, Virginian energies necessarily knew no other resource
than agriculture. Without church, university, schools, or literature in
any form that required or fostered intellectual life, the Virginians
concentrated their thoughts almost exclusively upon politics; and
this concentration produced a result so distinct and lasting, and in
character so respectable, that American history would lose no small
part of its interest in losing the Virginia school.

No one denied that Virginia, like Massachusetts, in the War of
Independence, believed herself competent to follow independently of
other provinces whatever path seemed good. The Constitution of Virginia
did not, like that of Massachusetts, authorize the governor to “be
the commander-in-chief of the army and navy,” in order “to take and
surprise, by all ways and means whatsoever, all and every such person
or persons (with their ships, arms, ammunition, and other goods) as
shall in a hostile manner invade or attempt the invading, conquering,
or annoying this Commonwealth;” but although Massachusetts expressed
the power in language more detailed, Virginia held to its essence with
equal tenacity. When experience showed the necessity of “creating a
more perfect union,” none of the great States were unanimous for the
change. Massachusetts and New York were with difficulty induced to
accept the Constitution of 1787. Their final assent was wrung from
them by the influence of the cities and of the commercial class;
but Virginia contained no cities and few merchants. The majority by
which the State Convention of Virginia, after an obstinate contest,
adopted the Constitution, was influenced by pure patriotism as far
as any political influence could be called pure; but the popular
majority was probably hostile to the Constitution, and certainly
remained hostile to the exercise of its powers. From the first the
State took an attitude of opposition to the national government, which
became more and more decided, until in 1798 it found expression in a
formal announcement, through the legislature and governor, that the
limit of further obedience was at hand. The General Assembly adopted
Resolutions promising support to the government of the United States
in all measures warranted by the Constitution, but declaring the
powers of the federal government “no further valid than they are
authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case
of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not
granted by said compact, the States who are parties thereto have the
right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress
of the evil and for maintaining within their respective limits the
authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.”

Acting immediately on this view, the General Assembly did interpose
by declaring certain laws, known as the Alien and Sedition Laws,
unconstitutional, and by inviting the other States to concur, in
confidence “that the necessary and proper measures will be taken by
each for co-operating with this State in maintaining unimpaired the
authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the States respectively
or to the people.”

These Virginia Resolutions, which were drawn by Madison, seemed strong
enough to meet any possible aggression from the national government;
but Jefferson, as though not quite satisfied with these, recommended
the Kentucky legislature to adopt still stronger. The draft of the
Kentucky Resolutions, whether originally composed or only approved by
him, representing certainly his own convictions, declared that “where
powers are assumed which have not been delegated a nullification of the
Act is the rightful remedy,” and “that every State has a natural right,
in cases not within the compact, to nullify of their own authority
all assumptions of power by others within their limits.” Jefferson
did not doubt “that the co-States, recurring to their natural right
in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these acts void
and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing
that neither these acts, nor any others of the federal government not
plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be
exercised within their respective territories.”

In the history of Virginia thought, the personal opinions of Jefferson
and Madison were more interesting, if not more important, than the
official opinion of State legislatures. Kentucky shrank from using
language which seemed unnecessarily violent, but still declared,
with all the emphasis needed, that the national government was not
“the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated
to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the
Constitution, the measure of its powers,” but that each party had an
equal right to judge for itself as to an infraction of the compact, and
the proper redress; that in the case of the Alien and Sedition Laws the
compact had been infringed, and that these Acts, being unconstitutional
and therefore void, “may tend to drive these States into revolution
and blood;” finally, the State of Kentucky called for an expression
of sentiment from other States, like Virginia not doubting “that the
co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal,
will concur in declaring these Acts void and of no force.”

These famous Resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky, historically the
most interesting of all the intellectual products of the Virginia
school, were adopted in 1798 and 1799. In 1800, Jefferson their chief
author was chosen President of the United States, and Madison became
his Secretary of State. Much discussion then and afterward arose over
the Constitutional theory laid down by Virginia and Kentucky, and thus
apparently adopted by the Union; but in such cases of disputed powers
that theory was soundest which was backed by the strongest force, for
the sanction of force was the most necessary part of law. The United
States government was at that time powerless to enforce its theories;
while, on the other hand, Virginia had all the power necessary for
the object desired. The Republican leaders believed that the State
was at liberty to withdraw from the Union if it should think that
an infraction of the Constitution had taken place; and Jefferson in
1798 preferred to go on by way of Resolution rather than by way of
Secession, not because of any doubt as to the right, but because, “if
we now reduce our Union to Virginia and North Carolina, immediately
the conflict will be established between those two States, and they
will end by breaking into their simple units.” In other letters he
explained that the Kentucky Resolutions were intended “to leave the
matter in such a train as 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.” Union was a question of expediency, not
of obligation. This was the conviction of the true Virginia school, and
of Jefferson’s opponents as well as his supporters; of Patrick Henry,
as well as John Taylor of Caroline and John Randolph of Roanoke.

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, giving form to ideas that
had not till then been so well expressed, left a permanent mark in
history, and fixed for an indefinite time the direction and bounds of
Virginia politics; but if New England could go no further in the lines
of thought pursued by Fisher Ames and Timothy Dwight, Virginia could
certainly expect no better results from those defined by Jefferson
and Madison. The science of politics, if limited by the Resolutions
of Virginia and Kentucky, must degenerate into an enumeration of
powers reserved from exercise. Thought could find little room for free
development where it confined its action to narrowing its own field.

This tendency of the Virginia school was the more remarkable because
it seemed little suited to the tastes and instincts of the two men who
gave it expression and guided its course. By common consent Thomas
Jefferson was its intellectual leader. According to the admitted
standards of greatness, Jefferson was a great man. After all deductions
on which his enemies might choose to insist, his character could not
be denied elevation, versatility, breadth, insight, and delicacy;
but neither as a politician nor as a political philosopher did he
seem at ease in the atmosphere which surrounded him. As a leader of
democracy he appeared singularly out of place. As reserved as President
Washington in the face of popular familiarities, he never showed
himself in crowds. During the last thirty years of his life he was not
seen in a Northern city, even during his Presidency; nor indeed was
he seen at all except on horseback, or by his friends and visitors in
his own house. With manners apparently popular and informal, he led
a life of his own, and allowed few persons to share it. His tastes
were for that day excessively refined. His instincts were those of a
liberal European nobleman, like the Duc de Liancourt, and he built for
himself at Monticello a château above contact with man. The rawness of
political life was an incessant torture to him, and personal attacks
made him keenly unhappy. His true delight was in an intellectual life
of science and art. To read, write, speculate in new lines of thought,
to keep abreast of the intellect of Europe, and to feed upon Homer
and Horace, were pleasures more to his mind than any to be found in a
public assembly. He had some knowledge of mathematics, and a little
acquaintance with classical art; but he fairly revelled in what he
believed to be beautiful, and his writings often betrayed subtile
feeling for artistic form,--a sure mark of intellectual sensuousness.
He shrank from whatever was rough or coarse, and his yearning for
sympathy was almost feminine. That such a man should have ventured
upon the stormy ocean of politics was surprising, the more because
he was no orator, and owed nothing to any magnetic influence of voice
or person. Never effective in debate, for seventeen years before his
Presidency he had not appeared in a legislative body except in the
chair of the Senate. He felt a nervous horror for the contentiousness
of such assemblies, and even among his own friends he sometimes
abandoned for the moment his strongest convictions rather than support
them by an effort of authority.

If Jefferson appeared ill at ease in the position of a popular leader,
he seemed equally awkward in the intellectual restraints of his own
political principles. His mind shared little in common with the
provincialism on which the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were
founded. His instincts led him to widen rather than to narrow the
bounds of every intellectual exercise; and if vested with political
authority, he could no more resist the temptation to stretch his powers
than he could abstain from using his mind on any subject merely because
he might be drawn upon ground supposed to be dangerous. He was a deist,
believing that men could manage their own salvation without the help of
a state church. Prone to innovation, he sometimes generalized without
careful analysis. He was a theorist, prepared to risk the fate of
mankind on the chance of reasoning far from certain in its details.
His temperament was sunny and sanguine, and the atrabilious philosophy
of New England was intolerable to him. He was curiously vulnerable,
for he seldom wrote a page without exposing himself to attack. He
was superficial in his knowledge, and a martyr to the disease of
omniscience. Ridicule of his opinions and of himself was an easy task,
in which his Federalist opponents delighted, for his English was often
confused, his assertions inaccurate, and at times of excitement he
was apt to talk with indiscretion; while with all his extraordinary
versatility of character and opinions, he seemed during his entire life
to breathe with perfect satisfaction nowhere except in the liberal,
literary, and scientific air of Paris in 1789.

Jefferson aspired beyond the ambition of a nationality, and embraced in
his view the whole future of man. That the United States should become
a nation like France, England, or Russia, should conquer the world
like Rome, or develop a typical race like the Chinese, was no part of
his scheme. He wished to begin a new era. Hoping for a time when the
world’s ruling interests should cease to be local and should become
universal; when questions of boundary and nationality should become
insignificant; when armies and navies should be reduced to the work of
police, and politics should consist only in non-intervention,--he set
himself to the task of governing, with this golden age in view. Few
men have dared to legislate as though eternal peace were at hand, in a
world torn by wars and convulsions and drowned in blood; but this was
what Jefferson aspired to do. Even in such dangers, he believed that
Americans might safely set an example which the Christian world should
be led by interest to respect and at length to imitate. As he conceived
a true American policy, war was a blunder, an unnecessary risk; and
even in case of robbery and aggression the United States, he believed,
had only to stand on the defensive in order to obtain justice in the
end. He would not consent to build up a new nationality merely to
create more navies and armies, to perpetuate the crimes and follies of
Europe; the central government at Washington should not be permitted to
indulge in the miserable ambitions that had made the Old World a hell,
and frustrated the hopes of humanity.

With these humanitarian ideas which passed beyond the bounds of
nationality, Jefferson held other views which seemed narrower than
ordinary provincialism. Cities, manufactures, mines, shipping, and
accumulation of capital led, in his opinion, to corruption and tyranny.

 “Generally speaking,” said he, in his only elaborate work, the Notes
 on Virginia, “the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes
 of citizens bears in any State to that of its husbandmen is the
 proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough
 barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption.... Those who
 labor in the earth are the chosen people of God if ever he had a
 chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for
 substantial and genuine virtue.”

This doctrine was not original with Jefferson, but its application to
national affairs on a great scale was something new in the world, and
the theory itself clashed with his intellectual instincts of liberality
and innovation.

A school of political thought, starting with postulates like these,
was an interesting study, and would have been more interesting had
Jefferson’s friends undertaken to develop his ideas in the extent
he held them. Perhaps this was impossible. At all events, Madison,
although author of the Virginia Resolutions, showed little earnestness
in carrying out their principles either as a political or as a literary
task; and John Taylor of Caroline, the only consistent representative
of the school, began his writings only when political power had
established precedents inconsistent with their object.

With such simple conceptions as their experience gave them in politics,
law, and agriculture, the Virginians appeared to be satisfied; and
whether satisfied or not, they were for the time helpless to produce
other literature, science, or art. From the three States lying farther
south, no greater intellectual variety could be expected. In some
respects North Carolina, though modest in ambition and backward in
thought, was still the healthiest community south of the Potomac.
Neither aristocratic like Virginia and South Carolina, nor turbulent
like Georgia, nor troubled by a sense of social importance, but above
all thoroughly democratic, North Carolina tolerated more freedom of
political action and showed less family and social influence, fewer
vested rights in political power, and less tyranny of slaveholding
interests and terrors than were common elsewhere in the South. Neither
cultivated nor brilliant in intellect, nor great in thought, industry,
energy, or organization, North Carolina was still interesting and
respectable. The best qualities of the State were typified in its
favorite representative, Nathaniel Macon.

The small society of rice and cotton planters at Charleston, with
their cultivated tastes and hospitable habits, delighted in whatever
reminded them of European civilization. They were travellers, readers,
and scholars; the society of Charleston compared well in refinement
with that of any city of its size in the world, and English visitors
long thought it the most agreeable in America. In the southern
wilderness which stretched from the Appomattox to the St. Mary’s,
Charleston was the only oasis. The South Carolinians were ambitious
for other distinctions than those which could be earned at the bar
or on the plantation. From there Washington Allston went to study at
Harvard College, and after taking his degree in the same class with
young Buckminster, sailed in the same year, 1800, for Europe with his
friend Malbone, to learn to express in color and form the grace and
dignity of his imagination. In South Carolina were felt the instincts
of city life. During two or three weeks of the winter, the succession
of dinners, balls, and races at Charleston rivalled the gayety of
Philadelphia itself; and although the city was dull during the rest
of the year, it was not deserted even in the heat of summer, for
the sea-breeze made it a watering-place, like Boston, and the deadly
fevers sure to kill the white man who should pass a night on one bank
of the Ashley River were almost unknown on the other. In the summer,
therefore, the residents remained or returned; the children got their
schooling, and business continued. For this reason South Carolina knew
less of the country hospitality which made Virginia famous; city life
had the larger share in existence, although in the hot weather torpor
and languor took the place of gayety. In certain respects Charleston
was more Northern in habits than any town of the North. In other warm
countries, the summer evening was commonly the moment when life was
best worth living; music, love-making, laughter, and talk turned night
into day; but Charleston was Puritanic in discipline. Every night at
ten o’clock the slamming of window-blinds and locking of doors warned
strangers and visitors to go not only to their houses, but to their
beds. The citizens looked with contempt on the gayety of Spanish or
Italian temper. Beneath all other thoughts, the care of the huge slave
population remained constant. The streets were abandoned at an early
hour to the patrol, and no New England village was more silent.

Confident as the Carolinian was in the strength of the slave-system,
and careless as he seemed and thought himself to be on that account,
the recent fate of St. Domingo gave him cause for constant anxiety;
but even without anxiety, he would have been grave. The gentry of the
lower country belonged to the same English class which produced the
gentry of Virginia and Massachusetts. The austerity of the Puritan may
have been an exaggerated trait, but among the Middletons, Pinckneys,
Rutledges, and Lowndeses the seriousness of the original English stock
was also not without effect in the habit of their minds. They showed it
in their treatment of the slave-system, but equally in their churches
and houses, their occupations and prejudices, their races and sports,
the character of their entertainments, the books they read, and the
talk at their tables. No gentleman belonged to any church but the
Anglican, or connected himself with trade. No court departed from the
practice and precedents of English law, however anomalous they might
be. Before the Revolution large numbers of young men had been educated
in England, and their influence was still strong in the society of
Charleston. The younger generation inherited similar tastes. Of this
class the best-known name which will appear in this narrative was that
of William Lowndes; and no better example could be offered of the
serious temper which marked Carolinian thought, than was given by the
career of this refined and highly educated gentleman, almost the last
of his school.

Charleston was more cosmopolitan than any part of Virginia, and enjoyed
also a certain literary reputation on account of David Ramsay, whose
works were widely read; and of Governor Drayton, whose “Letters written
during a Tour through the Northern and Eastern States,” and “View of
South Carolina,” gave an idea of the author as well as of the countries
he described. Charleston also possessed a library of three or four
thousand well-selected books, and maintained a well-managed theatre.
The churches were almost as strictly attended as those in Boston. The
fashionable wine-party was even more common, and perhaps the guests
took pride in drinking deeper than they would have been required to do
in New York or Philadelphia.

Politics had not mastered the thought of South Carolina so completely
as that of Virginia, and the natural instincts of Carolinian society
should have led the gentry to make common cause with the gentry of
New England and the Middle States against democratic innovations. The
conservative side in politics seemed to be that which no Carolinian
gentleman could fail to support. The oligarchy of South Carolina,
in defiance of democratic principles, held the political power of
the State, and its interests could never harmonize with those of a
theoretic democracy, or safely consent to trust the national government
in the hands of Jefferson and his friends, who had founded their power
by breaking down in Virginia an oligarchy closely resembling that of
the Carolinian rice-planters. Yet in 1800 enough of these gentlemen,
under the lead of Charles Pinckney, deserted their Northern friends, to
secure the defeat of the Federalist candidates, and to elect Jefferson
as President. For this action, no satisfactory reason was ever given.
Of all States in the Union, South Carolina, under its actual system
of politics, was the last which could be suspected of democratic
tendencies.

Such want of consistency seemed to show some peculiarity of character.
Not every educated and privileged class has sacrificed itself to a
social sentiment, least of all without understanding its object. The
eccentricity was complicated by another peculiar element of society.
In South Carolina the interesting union between English tastes and
provincial prejudices, which characterized the wealthy planters of
the coast, was made more striking by contrast with the character of
the poor and hardy yeomanry of the upper country. The seriousness
of Charleston society changed to severity in the mountains. Rude,
ignorant, and in some of its habits half barbarous, this population,
in the stiffness of its religious and social expression, resembled
the New England of a century before rather than the liberality of the
Union. Largely settled by Scotch and Irish emigrants, with the rigid
Presbyterian doctrine and conservatism of their class, they were
democratic in practice beyond all American democrats, and were more
conservative in thought than the most aristocratic Europeans. Though
sharply divided both socially and by interest from the sea-coast
planters, these up-country farmers had one intellectual sympathy with
their fellow-citizens in Charleston,--a sympathy resting on their
common dislike for change, on the serious element which lay at the
root of their common characters; and this marriage of two widely
divergent minds produced one of the most extraordinary statesmen of
America. In the year 1800 John Caldwell Calhoun, a boy of eighteen,
went from the upper country to his brother-in-law’s academy in Georgia.
Grown nearly to manhood without contact with the world, his modes of
thought were those of a Connecticut Calvinist; his mind was cold,
stern, and metaphysical; but he had the energy and ambition of youth,
the political fervor of Jeffersonian democracy, and little sympathy
with slavery or slave-owners. At this early age he, like many other
Republicans, looked on slavery as a “scaffolding,” to be taken down
when the building should be complete. A radical democrat, less liberal,
less cultivated, and much less genial than Jefferson, Calhoun was the
true heir to his intellectual succession; stronger in logic, bolder
in action. Upon him was to fall the duty of attempting to find for
Carolina an escape from the logical conclusions of those democratic
principles which Jefferson in 1800 claimed for his own, but which in
the full swing of his power, and to the last day of his life, he shrank
from pressing to their results.

Viewed from every side by which it could be approached, the society
of South Carolina, more than that of any other portion of the Union,
seemed to bristle with contradictions. The elements of intellectual
life existed without a sufficient intellectual atmosphere. Society,
colonial by origin and dependent by the conditions of its existence,
was striving to exist without external support. Whether it would stand
or fall, and whether, either standing or falling, it could contribute
any new element to American thought, were riddles which, with so many
others, American history was to answer.




CHAPTER VI.


NEARLY every foreign traveller who visited the United States during
these early years, carried away an impression sober if not sad. A
thousand miles of desolate and dreary forest, broken here and there
by settlements; along the sea-coast a few flourishing towns devoted
to commerce; no arts, a provincial literature, a cancerous disease of
negro slavery, and differences of political theory fortified within
geographical lines,--what could be hoped for such a country except to
repeat the story of violence and brutality which the world already
knew by heart, until repetition for thousands of years had wearied and
sickened mankind? Ages must probably pass before the interior could be
thoroughly settled; even Jefferson, usually a sanguine man, talked of a
thousand years with acquiescence, and in his first Inaugural Address,
at a time when the Mississippi River formed the Western boundary,
spoke of the country as having “room enough for our descendants to the
hundredth and thousandth generation.” No prudent person dared to act
on the certainty that when settled, one government could comprehend
the whole; and when the day of separation should arrive, and America
should have her Prussia, Austria, and Italy, as she already had her
England, France, and Spain, what else could follow but a return to the
old conditions of local jealousies, wars, and corruption which had made
a slaughter-house of Europe?

The mass of Americans were sanguine and self-confident, partly by
temperament, but partly also by reason of ignorance; for they knew
little of the difficulties which surrounded a complex society. The
Duc de Liancourt, like many critics, was struck by this trait. Among
other instances, he met with one in the person of a Pennsylvania
miller, Thomas Lea, “a sound American patriot, persuading himself
that nothing good is done, and that no one has any brains, except
in America; that the wit, the imagination, the genius of Europe are
already in decrepitude;” and the duke added: “This error is to be
found in almost all Americans,--legislators, administrators, as well
as millers, and is less innocent there.” In the year 1796 the House
of Representatives debated whether to insert in the Reply to the
President’s Speech a passing remark that the nation was “the freest and
most enlightened in the world,”--a nation as yet in swaddling-clothes,
which had neither literature, arts, sciences, nor history; nor even
enough nationality to be sure that it was a nation. The moment was
peculiarly ill-chosen for such a claim, because Europe was on the verge
of an outburst of genius. Goethe and Schiller, Mozart and Haydn, Kant
and Fichte, Cavendish and Herschel were making way for Walter Scott,
Wordsworth, and Shelley, Heine and Balzac, Beethoven and Hegel,
Oersted and Cuvier, great physicists, biologists, geologists, chemists,
mathematicians, metaphysicians, and historians by the score. Turner
was painting his earliest landscapes, and Watt completing his latest
steam-engine; Napoleon was taking command of the French armies, and
Nelson of the English fleets; investigators, reformers, scholars, and
philosophers swarmed, and the influence of enlightenment, even amid
universal war, was working with an energy such as the world had never
before conceived. The idea that Europe was in her decrepitude proved
only ignorance and want of enlightenment, if not of freedom, on the
part of Americans, who could only excuse their error by pleading that
notwithstanding these objections, in matters which for the moment most
concerned themselves Europe was a full century behind America. If
they were right in thinking that the next necessity of human progress
was to lift the average man upon an intellectual and social level
with the most favored, they stood at least three generations nearer
than Europe to their common goal. The destinies of the United States
were certainly staked, without reserve or escape, on the soundness of
this doubtful and even improbable principle, ignoring or overthrowing
the institutions of church, aristocracy, family, army, and political
intervention, which long experience had shown to be needed for the
safety of society. Europe might be right in thinking that without
such safeguards society must come to an end; but even Europeans must
concede that there was a chance, if no greater than one in a thousand,
that America might, at least for a time, succeed. If this stake of
temporal and eternal welfare stood on the winning card; if man actually
should become more virtuous and enlightened, by mere process of growth,
without church or paternal authority; if the average human being could
accustom himself to reason with the logical processes of Descartes and
Newton!--what then?

Then, no one could deny that the United States would win a stake
such as defied mathematics. With all the advantages of science and
capital, Europe must be slower than America to reach the common goal.
American society might be both sober and sad, but except for negro
slavery it was sound and healthy in every part. Stripped for the
hardest work, every muscle firm and elastic, every ounce of brain
ready for use, and not a trace of superfluous flesh on his nervous
and supple body, the American stood in the world a new order of man.
From Maine to Florida, society was in this respect the same, and was
so organized as to use its human forces with more economy than could
be approached by any society of the world elsewhere. Not only were
artificial barriers carefully removed, but every influence that could
appeal to ordinary ambition was applied. No brain or appetite active
enough to be conscious of stimulants could fail to answer the intense
incentive. Few human beings, however sluggish, could long resist the
temptation to acquire power; and the elements of power were to be had
in America almost for the asking. Reversing the old-world system, the
American stimulant increased in energy as it reached the lowest and
most ignorant class, dragging and whirling them upward as in the blast
of a furnace. The penniless and homeless Scotch or Irish immigrant was
caught and consumed by it; for every stroke of the axe and the hoe made
him a capitalist, and made gentlemen of his children. Wealth was the
strongest agent for moving the mass of mankind; but political power was
hardly less tempting to the more intelligent and better-educated swarms
of American-born citizens, and the instinct of activity, once created,
seemed heritable and permanent in the race.

Compared with this lithe young figure, Europe was actually in
decrepitude. Mere class distinctions, the _patois_ or dialect of the
peasantry, the fixity of residence, the local costumes and habits
marking a history that lost itself in the renewal of identical
generations, raised from birth barriers which paralyzed half the
population. Upon this mass of inert matter rested the Church and the
State, holding down activity of thought. Endless wars withdrew many
hundred thousand men from production, and changed them into agents
of waste; huge debts, the evidence of past wars and bad government,
created interests to support the system and fix its burdens on the
laboring class; courts, with habits of extravagance that shamed
common-sense, helped to consume private economies. All this might
have been borne; but behind this stood aristocracies, sucking their
nourishment from industry, producing nothing themselves, employing
little or no active capital or intelligent labor, but pressing on
the energies and ambition of society with the weight of an incubus.
Picturesque and entertaining as these social anomalies were, they were
better fitted for the theatre or for a museum of historical costumes
than for an active workshop preparing to compete with such machinery as
America would soon command. From an economical point of view, they were
as incongruous as would have been the appearance of a mediæval knight
in helmet and armor, with battle-axe and shield, to run the machinery
of Arkwright’s cotton-mill; but besides their bad economy they also
tended to prevent the rest of society from gaining a knowledge of
its own capacities. In Europe, the conservative habit of mind was
fortified behind power. During nearly a century Voltaire himself--the
friend of kings, the wit and poet, historian and philosopher of his
age--had carried on, in daily terror, in exile and excommunication, a
protest against an intellectual despotism contemptible even to its own
supporters. Hardly was Voltaire dead, when Priestley, as great a man
if not so great a wit, trying to do for England what Voltaire tried
to do for France, was mobbed by the people of Birmingham and driven
to America. Where Voltaire and Priestley failed, common men could not
struggle; the weight of society stifled their thought. In America
the balance between conservative and liberal forces was close; but in
Europe conservatism held the physical power of government. In Boston a
young Buckminster might be checked for a time by his father’s prayers
or commands in entering the path that led toward freer thought; but
youth beckoned him on, and every reward that society could offer was
dangled before his eyes. In London or Paris, Rome, Madrid, or Vienna,
he must have sacrificed the worldly prospects of his life.

Granting that the American people were about to risk their future on
a new experiment, they naturally wished to throw aside all burdens
of which they could rid themselves. Believing that in the long run
interest, not violence, would rule the world, and that the United
States must depend for safety and success on the interests they could
create, they were tempted to look upon war and preparations for war as
the worst of blunders; for they were sure that every dollar capitalized
in industry was a means of overthrowing their enemies more effective
than a thousand dollars spent on frigates or standing armies. The
success of the American system was, from this point of view, a question
of economy. If they could relieve themselves from debts, taxes,
armies, and government interference with industry, they must succeed
in outstripping Europe in economy of production; and Americans were
even then partly aware that if their machine were not so weakened by
these economies as to break down in the working, it must of necessity
break down every rival. If their theory was sound, when the day of
competition should arrive, Europe might choose between American and
Chinese institutions, but there would be no middle path; she might
become a confederated democracy, or a wreck.

Whether these ideas were sound or weak, they seemed self-evident to
those Northern democrats who, like Albert Gallatin, were comparatively
free from slave-owning theories, and understood the practical forces of
society. If Gallatin wished to reduce the interference of government
to a minimum, and cut down expenditures to nothing, he aimed not so
much at saving money as at using it with the most certain effect. The
revolution of 1800 was in his eyes chiefly political, because it was
social; but as a revolution of society, he and his friends hoped to
make it the most radical that had occurred since the downfall of the
Roman empire. Their ideas were not yet cleared by experience, and were
confused by many contradictory prejudices, but wanted neither breadth
nor shrewdness.

Many apparent inconsistencies grew from this undeveloped form of
American thought, and gave rise to great confusion in the different
estimates of American character that were made both at home and abroad.

That Americans should not be liked was natural; but that they should
not be understood was more significant by far. After the downfall of
the French republic they had no right to expect a kind word from
Europe, and during the next twenty years they rarely received one.
The liberal movement of Europe was cowed, and no one dared express
democratic sympathies until the Napoleonic tempest had passed. With
this attitude Americans had no right to find fault, for Europe cared
less to injure them than to protect herself. Nevertheless, observant
readers could not but feel surprised that none of the numerous
Europeans who then wrote or spoke about America seemed to study the
subject seriously. The ordinary traveller was apt to be little more
reflective than a bee or an ant, but some of these critics possessed
powers far from ordinary; yet Talleyrand alone showed that had he but
seen America a few years later than he did, he might have suggested
some sufficient reason for apparent contradictions that perplexed him
in the national character. The other travellers--great and small, from
the Duc de Liancourt to Basil Hall, a long and suggestive list--were
equally perplexed. They agreed in observing the contradictions,
but all, including Talleyrand, saw only sordid motives. Talleyrand
expressed extreme astonishment at the apathy of Americans in the
face of religious sectarians; but he explained it by assuming that
the American ardor of the moment was absorbed in money-making. The
explanation was evidently insufficient, for the Americans were capable
of feeling and showing excitement, even to their great pecuniary
injury, as if they frequently proved; but in the foreigner’s range of
observation, love of money was the most conspicuous and most common
trait of American character. “There is, perhaps, no civilized country
in the world,” wrote Félix de Beaujour, soon after 1800, “where there
is less generosity in the souls and in the heads fewer of those
illusions which make the charm or the consolation of life. Man here
weighs everything, calculates everything, and sacrifices everything
to his interest.” An Englishman named Fearon, in 1818, expressed
the same idea with more distinctness: “In going to America, I would
say generally, the emigrant must expect to find, not an economical
or cleanly people; not a social or generous people; not a people of
enlarged ideas; not a people of liberal opinions, or toward whom you
can express your thoughts free as air; not a people friendly to the
advocates of liberty in Europe; not a people who understand liberty
from investigation and principle; not a people who comprehend the
meaning of the words ‘honor’ and ‘generosity.’” Such quotations
might be multiplied almost without limit. Rapacity was the accepted
explanation of American peculiarities; yet every traveller was troubled
by inconsistencies that required explanations of a different kind. “It
is not in order to hoard that the Americans are rapacious,” observed
Liancourt as early as 1796. The extravagance, or what economical
Europeans thought extravagance, with which American women were allowed
and encouraged to spend money, was as notorious in 1790 as a century
later; the recklessness with which Americans often risked their money,
and the liberality with which they used it, were marked even then,
in comparison with the ordinary European habit. Europeans saw such
contradictions, but made no attempt to reconcile them. No foreigner
of that day--neither poet, painter, nor philosopher--could detect in
American life anything higher than vulgarity; for it was something
beyond the range of their experience, which education and culture had
not framed a formula to express. Moore came to Washington, and found
there no loftier inspiration than any Federalist rhymester of Dennie’s
school.

  “Take Christians, Mohawks, democrats and all,
  From the rude wigwam to the Congress hall,--
  From man the savage, whether slaved or free,
  To man the civilized, less tame than he:
  ’Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife
  Betwixt half-polished and half-barbarous life;
  Where every ill the ancient world can brew
  Is mixed with every grossness of the new;
  Where all corrupts, though little can entice,
  And nothing’s known of luxury but vice.”

Moore’s two small volumes of Epistles, printed in 1807, contained much
more so-called poetry of the same tone,--poetry more polished and less
respectable than that of Barlow and Dwight; while, as though to prove
that the Old World knew what grossness was, he embalmed in his lines
the slanders which the Scotch libeller Callender invented against
Jefferson:--

  “The weary statesman for repose hath fled
  From halls of council to his negro’s shed;
  Where, blest, he woos some black Aspasia’s grace,
  And dreams of freedom in his slave’s embrace.”

To leave no doubt of his meaning, he explained in a footnote that his
allusion was to the President of the United States; and yet even Moore,
trifler and butterfly as he was, must have seen, if he would, that
between the morals of politics and society in America and those then
prevailing in Europe, there was no room for comparison,--there was room
only for contrast.

Moore was but an echo of fashionable England in his day. He seldom
affected moral sublimity; and had he in his wanderings met a race of
embodied angels, he would have sung of them or to them in the slightly
erotic notes which were so well received in the society he loved to
frequent and flatter. His remarks upon American character betrayed
more temper than truth; but even in this respect he expressed only
the common feeling of Europeans, which was echoed by the Federalist
society of the United States. Englishmen especially indulged in
unbounded invective against the sordid character of American society,
and in shaping their national policy on this contempt they carried
their theory into practice with so much energy as to produce its own
refutation. To their astonishment and anger, a day came when the
Americans, in defiance of self-interest and in contradiction of all the
qualities ascribed to them, insisted on declaring war; and readers of
this narrative will be surprised at the cry of incredulity, not unmixed
with terror, with which Englishmen started to their feet when they
woke from their delusion on seeing what they had been taught to call
the meteor flag of England, which had burned terrific at Copenhagen
and Trafalgar, suddenly waver and fall on the bloody deck of the
“Guerriere.” Fearon and Beaujour, with a score of other contemporary
critics, could see neither generosity, economy, honor, nor ideas of
any kind in the American breast; yet the obstinate repetition of these
denials itself betrayed a lurking fear of the social forces whose
strength they were candid enough to record. What was it that, as they
complained, turned the European peasant into a new man within half an
hour after landing at New York? Englishmen were never at a loss to
understand the poetry of more prosaic emotions. Neither they nor any
of their kindred failed in later times to feel the “large excitement”
of the country boy, whose “spirit leaped within him to be gone before
him,” when the lights of London first flared in the distance; yet none
seemed ever to feel the larger excitement of the American immigrant.
Among the Englishmen who criticised the United States was one greater
than Moore,--one who thought himself at home only in the stern beauty
of a moral presence. Of all poets, living or dead, Wordsworth felt most
keenly what he called the still, sad music of humanity; yet the highest
conception he could create of America was not more poetical than that
of any Cumberland beggar he might have met in his morning walk:--

  “Long-wished-for sight, the Western World appeared;
  And when the ship was moored, I leaped ashore
  Indignantly,--resolved to be a man,
  Who, having o’er the past no power, would live
  No longer in subjection to the past,
  With abject mind--from a tyrannic lord
  Inviting penance, fruitlessly endured.
  So, like a fugitive whose feet have cleared
  Some boundary which his followers may not cross
  In prosecution of their deadly chase,
  Respiring, I looked round. How bright the sun,
  The breeze how soft! Can anything produced
  In the Old World compare, thought I, for power
  And majesty, with this tremendous stream
  Sprung from the desert? And behold a city
  Fresh, youthful, and aspiring!...
                                Sooth to say,
  On nearer view, a motley spectacle
  Appeared, of high pretensions--unreproved
  But by the obstreperous voice of higher still;
  Big passions strutting on a petty stage,
  Which a detached spectator may regard
  Not unamused. But ridicule demands
  Quick change of objects; and to laugh alone,
  ... in the very centre of the crowd
  To keep the secret of a poignant scorn,
                                ... is least fit
  For the gross spirit of mankind.”

Thus Wordsworth, although then at his prime, indulging in what sounded
like a boast that he alone had felt the sense sublime of something
interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the
round ocean, and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of
man,--even he, to whose moods the heavy and the weary weight of all
this unintelligible world was lightened by his deeper sympathies with
nature and the soul, could do no better, when he stood in the face of
American democracy, than “keep the secret of a poignant scorn.”

Possibly the view of Wordsworth and Moore, of Weld, Dennie, and Dickens
was right. The American democrat possessed little art of expression,
and did not watch his own emotions with a view of uttering them either
in prose or verse; he never told more of himself than the world might
have assumed without listening to him. Only with diffidence could
history attribute to such a class of men a wider range of thought or
feeling than they themselves cared to proclaim. Yet the difficulty
of denying or even ignoring the wider range was still greater, for
no one questioned the force or the scope of an emotion which caused
the poorest peasant in Europe to see what was invisible to poet and
philosopher,--the dim outline of a mountain-summit across the ocean,
rising high above the mist and mud of American democracy. As though
to call attention to some such difficulty, European and American
critics, while affirming that Americans were a race without illusions
or enlarged ideas, declared in the same breath that Jefferson was a
visionary whose theories would cause the heavens to fall upon them.
Year after year, with endless iteration, in every accent of contempt,
rage, and despair, they repeated this charge against Jefferson.
Every foreigner and Federalist agreed that he was a man of illusions,
dangerous to society and unbounded in power of evil; but if this view
of his character was right, the same visionary qualities seemed also to
be a national trait, for every one admitted that Jefferson’s opinions,
in one form or another, were shared by a majority of the American
people.

Illustrations might be carried much further, and might be drawn from
every social class and from every period in national history. Of all
presidents, Abraham Lincoln has been considered the most typical
representative of American society, chiefly because his mind, with
all its practical qualities, also inclined, in certain directions, to
idealism. Lincoln was born in 1809, the moment when American character
stood in lowest esteem. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a more distinct idealist,
was born in 1803. William Ellery Channing, another idealist, was born
in 1780. Men like John Fitch, Oliver Evans, Robert Fulton, Joel Barlow,
John Stevens, and Eli Whitney were all classed among visionaries. The
whole society of Quakers belonged in the same category. The records
of the popular religious sects abounded in examples of idealism and
illusion to such an extent that the masses seemed hardly to find
comfort or hope in any authority, however old or well established. In
religion as in politics, Americans seemed to require a system which
gave play to their imagination and their hopes.

Some misunderstanding must always take place when the observer is at
cross-purposes with the society he describes. Wordsworth might have
convinced himself by a moment’s thought that no country could act on
the imagination as America acted upon the instincts of the ignorant and
poor, without some quality that deserved better treatment than poignant
scorn; but perhaps this was only one among innumerable cases in which
the unconscious poet breathed an atmosphere which the self-conscious
poet could not penetrate. With equal reason he might have taken the
opposite view,--that the hard, practical, money-getting American
democrat, who had neither generosity nor honor nor imagination, and
who inhabited cold shades where fancy sickened and where genius died,
was in truth living in a world of dream, and acting a drama more
instinct with poetry than all the avatars of the East, walking in
gardens of emerald and rubies, in ambition already ruling the world
and guiding Nature with a kinder and wiser hand than had ever yet been
felt in human history. From this point his critics never approached
him,--they stopped at a stone’s throw; and at the moment when they
declared that the man’s mind had no illusions, they added that he
was a knave or a lunatic. Even on his practical and sordid side, the
American might easily have been represented as a victim to illusion.
If the Englishman had lived as the American speculator did,--in the
future,--the hyperbole of enthusiasm would have seemed less monstrous.
“Look at my wealth!” cried the American to his foreign visitor. “See
these solid mountains of salt and iron, of lead, copper, silver, and
gold! See these magnificent cities scattered broadcast to the Pacific!
See my cornfields rustling and waving in the summer breeze from ocean
to ocean, so far that the sun itself is not high enough to mark where
the distant mountains bound my golden seas! Look at this continent of
mine, fairest of created worlds, as she lies turning up to the sun’s
never-failing caress her broad and exuberant breasts, overflowing with
milk for her hundred million children! See how she glows with youth,
health, and love!” Perhaps it was not altogether unnatural that the
foreigner, on being asked to see what needed centuries to produce,
should have looked about him with bewilderment and indignation.
“Gold! cities! cornfields! continents! Nothing of the sort! I see
nothing but tremendous wastes, where sickly men and women are dying of
home-sickness or are scalped by savages! mountain-ranges a thousand
miles long, with no means of getting to them, and nothing in them when
you get there! swamps and forests choked with their own rotten ruins!
nor hope of better for a thousand years! Your story is a fraud, and you
are a liar and swindler!”

Met in this spirit, the American, half perplexed and half defiant,
retaliated by calling his antagonist a fool, and by mimicking his heavy
tricks of manner. For himself he cared little, but his dream was his
whole existence. The men who denounced him admitted that they left him
in his forest-swamp quaking with fever, but clinging in the delirium
of death to the illusions of his dazzled brain. No class o£ men could
be required to support their convictions with a steadier faith, or pay
more devotedly with their persons for the mistakes of their judgment.
Whether imagination or greed led them to describe more than actually
existed, they still saw no more than any inventor or discoverer must
have seen in order to give him the energy of success. They said to
the rich as to the poor, “Come and share our limitless riches! Come
and help us bring to light these unimaginable stores of wealth and
power!” The poor came, and from them were seldom heard complaints of
deception or delusion. Within a moment, by the mere contact of a moral
atmosphere, they saw the gold and jewels, the summer cornfields and the
glowing continent. The rich for a long time stood aloof,--they were
timid and narrow-minded; but this was not all,--between them and the
American democrat was a gulf.

The charge that Americans were too fond of money to win the confidence
of Europeans was a curious inconsistency; yet this was a common
belief. If the American deluded himself and led others to their death
by baseless speculations; if he buried those he loved in a gloomy
forest where they quaked and died while he persisted in seeing there
a splendid, healthy, and well-built city,--no one could deny that he
sacrificed wife and child to his greed for gain, that the dollar was
his god, and a sordid avarice his demon. Yet had this been the whole
truth, no European capitalist would have hesitated to make money
out of his grave; for, avarice against avarice, no more sordid or
meaner type existed in America than could be shown on every ’Change
in Europe. With much more reason Americans might have suspected that
in America Englishmen found everywhere a silent influence, which they
found nowhere in Europe, and which had nothing to do with avarice or
with the dollar, but, on the contrary, seemed likely at any moment
to sacrifice the dollar in a cause and for an object so illusory
that most Englishmen could not endure to hear it discussed. European
travellers who passed through America noticed that everywhere, in the
White House at Washington and in log-cabins beyond the Alleghanies,
except for a few Federalists, every American, from Jefferson and
Gallatin down to the poorest squatter, seemed to nourish an idea that
he was doing what he could to overthrow the tyranny which the past
had fastened on the human mind. Nothing was easier than to laugh at
the ludicrous expressions of this simple-minded conviction, or to cry
out against its coarseness, or grow angry with its prejudices; to
see its nobler side, to feel the beatings of a heart underneath the
sordid surface of a gross humanity, was not so easy. Europeans seemed
seldom or never conscious that the sentiment could possess a noble
side, but found only matter for complaint in the remark that every
American democrat believed himself to be working for the overthrow of
tyranny, aristocracy, hereditary privilege, and priesthood, wherever
they existed. Even where the American did not openly proclaim this
conviction in words, he carried so dense an atmosphere of the sentiment
with him in his daily life as to give respectable Europeans an uneasy
sense of remoteness.

Of all historical problems, the nature of a national character is
the most difficult and the most important. Readers will be troubled,
at almost every chapter of the coming narrative, by the want of some
formula to explain what share the popular imagination bore in the
system pursued by government. The acts of the American people during
the administrations of Jefferson and Madison were judged at the time
by no other test. According as bystanders believed American character
to be hard, sordid, and free from illusion, they were severe and
even harsh in judgment. This rule guided the governments of England
and France. Federalists in the United States, knowing more of the
circumstances, often attributed to the democratic instinct a visionary
quality which they regarded as sentimentality, and charged with many
bad consequences. If their view was correct, history could occupy
itself to no better purpose than in ascertaining the nature and force
of the quality which was charged with results so serious; but nothing
was more elusive than the spirit of American democracy. Jefferson, the
literary representative of the class, spoke chiefly for Virginians,
and dreaded so greatly his own reputation as a visionary that he seldom
or never uttered his whole thought. Gallatin and Madison were still
more cautious. The press in no country could give shape to a mental
condition so shadowy. The people themselves, although millions in
number, could not have expressed their finer instincts had they tried,
and might not have recognized them if expressed by others.

In the early days of colonization, every new settlement represented
an idea and proclaimed a mission. Virginia was founded by a great,
liberal movement aiming at the spread of English liberty and empire.
The Pilgrims of Plymouth, the Puritans of Boston, the Quakers of
Pennsylvania, all avowed a moral purpose, and began by making
institutions that consciously reflected a moral idea. No such character
belonged to the colonization of 1800. From Lake Erie to Florida, in
long, unbroken line, pioneers were at work, cutting into the forests
with the energy of so many beavers, and with no more express moral
purpose than the beavers they drove away. The civilization they carried
with them was rarely illumined by an idea; they sought room for no new
truth and aimed neither at creating, like the Puritans, a government
of saints, nor, like the Quakers, one of love and peace; they left
such experiments behind them, and wrestled only with the hardest
problems of frontier life. No wonder that foreign observers, and even
the educated, well-to-do Americans of the sea-coast, could seldom see
anything to admire in the ignorance and brutality of frontiersmen,
and should declare that virtue and wisdom no longer guided the United
States! What they saw was not encouraging. To a new society, ignorant
and semi-barbarous, a mass of demagogues insisted on applying every
stimulant that could inflame its worst appetites, while at the same
instant taking away every influence that had hitherto helped to
restrain its passions. Greed for wealth, lust for power, yearning for
the blank void of savage freedom such as Indians and wolves delighted
in,--these were the fires that flamed under the caldron of American
society, in which, as conservatives believed, the old, well-proven,
conservative crust of religion, government, family, and even common
respect for age, education, and experience was rapidly melting away,
and was indeed already broken into fragments, swept about by the
seething mass of scum ever rising in greater quantities to the surface.

Against this Federalist and conservative view of democratic
tendencies, democrats protested in a thousand forms, but never in
any mode of expression which satisfied them all, or explained their
whole character. Probably Jefferson came nearest to the mark, for
he represented the hopes of science as well as the prejudices of
Virginia; but Jefferson’s writings may be searched from beginning
to end without revealing the whole measure of the man, far less of
the movement. Here and there in his letters a suggestion was thrown
out, as though by chance, revealing larger hopes,--as in 1815, at a
moment of despondency, he wrote: “I fear from the experience of the
last twenty-five years that morals do not of necessity advance hand in
hand with the sciences.” In 1800, in the flush of triumph, he believed
that his task in the world was to establish a democratic republic,
with the sciences for an intellectual field, and physical and moral
advancement keeping pace with their advance. Without an excessive
introduction of more recent ideas, he might be imagined to define
democratic progress, in the somewhat affected precision of his French
philosophy: “Progress is either physical or intellectual. If we can
bring it about that men are on the average an inch taller in the next
generation than in this; if they are an inch larger round the chest;
if their brain is an ounce or two heavier, and their life a year or
two longer,--that is progress. If fifty years hence the average man
shall invariably argue from two ascertained premises where he now jumps
to a conclusion from a single supposed revelation,--that is progress!
I expect it to be made here, under our democratic stimulants, on a
great scale, until every man is potentially an athlete in body and
an Aristotle in mind.” To this doctrine the New Englander replied,
“What will you do for moral progress?” Every possible answer to this
question opened a chasm. No doubt Jefferson held the faith that men
would improve morally with their physical and intellectual growth;
but he had no idea of any moral improvement other than that which
came by nature. He could not tolerate a priesthood, a state church,
or revealed religion. Conservatives, who could tolerate no society
without such pillars of order, were, from their point of view, right in
answering, “Give us rather the worst despotism of Europe,--there our
souls at least may have a chance of salvation!” To their minds vice
and virtue were not relative, but fixed terms. The Church was a divine
institution. How could a ship hope to reach port when the crew threw
overboard sails, spars, and compass, unshipped their rudder, and all
the long day thought only of eating and drinking. Nay, even should the
new experiment succeed in a worldly sense, what was a man profited if
he gained the whole world, and lost his own soul? The Lord God was a
jealous God, and visited the sins of the parents upon the children; but
what worse sin could be conceived than for a whole nation to join their
chief in chanting the strange hymn with which Jefferson, a new false
prophet, was deceiving and betraying his people: “It does me no injury
for my neighbor to say there are twenty Gods or no God!”

On this ground conservatism took its stand, as it had hitherto done
with success in every similar emergency in the world’s history, and
fixing its eyes on moral standards of its own, refused to deal with
the subject as further open to argument. The two parties stood facing
opposite ways, and could see no common ground of contact.

Yet even then one part of the American social system was proving
itself to be rich in results. The average American was more intelligent
than the average European, and was becoming every year still more
active-minded as the new movement of society caught him up and swept
him through a life of more varied experiences. On all sides the
national mind responded to its stimulants. Deficient as the American
was in the machinery of higher instruction; remote, poor; unable
by any exertion to acquire the training, the capital, or even the
elementary textbooks he needed for a fair development of his natural
powers,--his native energy and ambition already responded to the spur
applied to them. Some of his triumphs were famous throughout the world;
for Benjamin Franklin had raised high the reputation of American
printers, and the actual President of the United States, who signed
with Franklin the treaty of peace with Great Britain, was the son of
a small farmer, and had himself kept a school in his youth. In both
these cases social recognition followed success; but the later triumphs
of the American mind were becoming more and more popular. John Fitch
was not only one of the poorest, but one of the least-educated Yankees
who ever made a name; he could never spell with tolerable correctness,
and his life ended as it began,--in the lowest social obscurity.
Eli Whitney was better educated than Fitch, but had neither wealth,
social influence, nor patron to back his ingenuity. In the year 1800
Eli Terry, another Connecticut Yankee of the same class, took into
his employ two young men to help him make wooden clocks, and this
was the capital on which the greatest clock-manufactory in the world
began its operations. In 1797 Asa Whittemore, a Massachusetts Yankee,
invented a machine to make cards for carding wool, which “operated as
if it had a soul,” and became the foundation for a hundred subsequent
patents. In 1790 Jacob Perkins, of Newburyport, invented a machine
capable of cutting and turning out two hundred thousand nails a day;
and then invented a process for transferring engraving from a very
small steel cylinder to copper, which revolutionized cotton-printing.
The British traveller Weld, passing through Wilmington, stopped, as
Liancourt had done before him, to see the great flour-mills on the
Brandywine. “The improvements,” he said, “which have been made in the
machinery of the flour-mills in America are very great. The chief of
these consist in a new application of the screw, and the introduction
of what are called elevators, the idea of which was evidently borrowed
from the chain-pump.” This was the invention of Oliver Evans, a
native of Delaware, whose parents were in very humble life, but who
was himself, in spite of every disadvantage, an inventive genius of
the first order. Robert Fulton, who in 1800 was in Paris with Joel
Barlow, sprang from the same source in Pennsylvania. John Stevens, a
native of New York, belonged to a more favored class, but followed
the same impulses. All these men were the outcome of typical American
society, and all their inventions transmuted the democratic instinct
into a practical and tangible shape. Who would undertake to say that
there was a limit to the fecundity of this teeming source? Who that
saw only the narrow, practical, money-getting nature of these devices
could venture to assert that as they wrought their end and raised the
standard of millions, they would not also raise the creative power
of those millions to a higher plane? If the priests and barons who
set their names to Magna Charta had been told that in a few centuries
every swine-herd and cobbler’s apprentice would write and read with
an ease such as few kings could then command, and reason with better
logic than any university could then practise, the priest and baron
would have been more incredulous than any man who was told in 1800 that
within another five centuries the ploughboy would go a-field whistling
a sonata of Beethoven, and figure out in quaternions the relation of
his furrows. The American democrat knew so little of art that among
his popular illusions he could not then nourish artistic ambition; but
leaders like Jefferson, Gallatin, and Barlow might without extravagance
count upon a coming time when diffused ease and education should
bring the masses into familiar contact with higher forms of human
achievement, and their vast creative power, turned toward a nobler
culture, might rise to the level of that democratic genius which found
expression in the Parthenon; might revel in the delights of a new
Buonarotti and a richer Titian; might create for five hundred million
people the America of thought and art which alone could satisfy their
omnivorous ambition.

Whether the illusions, so often affirmed and so often denied to the
American people, took such forms or not, these were in effect the
problems that lay before American society: Could it transmute its
social power into the higher forms of thought? Could it provide for
the moral and intellectual needs of mankind? Could it take permanent
political shape? Could it give new life to religion and art? Could it
create and maintain in the mass of mankind those habits of mind which
had hitherto belonged to men of science alone? Could it physically
develop the convolutions of the human brain? Could it produce, or was
it compatible with, the differentiation of a higher variety of the
human race? Nothing less than this was necessary for its complete
success.




CHAPTER VII.


THE man who mounted the steps of the Capitol, March 4, 1801, to claim
the place of an equal between Pitt and Bonaparte, possessed a character
which showed itself in acts; but person and manner can be known only
by contemporaries, and the liveliest description was worth less than
a moment of personal contact. Jefferson was very tall, six feet
two-and-a-half inches in height; sandy-complexioned; shy in manner,
seeming cold; awkward in attitude, and with little in his bearing that
suggested command. Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania described him in
1790, when he had returned from France to become Secretary of State,
and appeared before a Committee of the Senate to answer questions about
foreign relations.

 “Jefferson is a slender man,” wrote the senator;[1] “has rather the
 air of stiffness in his manner. His clothes seem too small for him. He
 sits in a lounging manner, on one hip commonly, and with one of his
 shoulders elevated much above the other. His face has a sunny aspect.
 His whole figure has a loose, shackling air. He had a rambling, vacant
 look, and nothing of that firm collected deportment which I expected
 would dignify the presence of a secretary or minister. I looked for
 gravity, but a laxity of manner seemed shed about him. He spoke almost
 without ceasing; but even his discourse partook of his personal
 demeanor. It was loose and rambling; and yet he scattered information
 wherever he went, and some even brilliant sentiments sparkled from
 him.”

Maclay was one of the earliest members of the Republican party, and
his description was not unfriendly. Augustus Foster, Secretary of the
British Legation, described Jefferson as he appeared in 1804:[2]--

 “He was a tall man, with a very red freckled face, and gray neglected
 hair; his manners good-natured, frank, and rather friendly, though he
 had somewhat of a cynical expression of countenance. He wore a blue
 coat, a thick gray-colored hairy waistcoat, with a red under-waistcoat
 lapped over it, green velveteen breeches with pearl buttons, yarn
 stockings, and slippers down at the heels,--his appearance being very
 much like that of a tall, large-boned farmer.”

In the middle of the seventeenth century the celebrated Cardinal de
Retz formed a judgment of the newly-elected Pope from his remark, at a
moment when minds were absorbed in his election, that he had for two
years used the same pen. “It is only a trifle,” added De Retz, “but
I have often observed that the smallest things are sometimes better
marks than the greatest.” Perhaps dress could never be considered a
trifle. One of the greatest of modern writers first made himself famous
by declaring that society was founded upon _cloth_; and Jefferson, at
moments of some interest in his career as President, seemed to regard
his peculiar style of dress as a matter of political importance,
while the Federalist newspapers never ceased ridiculing the corduroy
small-clothes, red-plush waistcoat, and sharp-toed boots with which he
expressed his contempt for fashion.

For eight years this tall, loosely built, somewhat stiff figure, in red
waistcoat and yarn stockings, slippers down at the heel, and clothes
that seemed too small for him, may be imagined as Senator Maclay
described him, sitting on one hip, with one shoulder high above the
other, talking almost without ceasing to his visitors at the White
House. His skin was thin, peeling from his face on exposure to the
sun, and giving it a tettered appearance. This sandy face, with hazel
eyes and sunny aspect; this loose, shackling person; this rambling and
often brilliant conversation, belonged to the controlling influences
of American history, more necessary to the story than three-fourths of
the official papers, which only hid the truth. Jefferson’s personality
during these eight years appeared to be the government, and impressed
itself, like that of Bonaparte, although by a different process, on
the mind of the nation. In the village simplicity of Washington he was
more than a king, for he was alone in social as well as in political
pre-eminence. Except the British Legation, no house in Washington
was open to general society; the whole mass of politicians, even
the Federalists, were dependent on Jefferson and “The Palace” for
amusement; and if they refused to go there, they “lived like bears,
brutalized and stupefied.”[3]

Jefferson showed his powers at their best in his own house, where
among friends as genial and cheerful as himself his ideas could flow
freely, and could be discussed with sympathy. Such were the men with
whom he surrounded himself by choice, and none but such were invited
to enter his Cabinet. First and oldest of his political associates was
James Madison, about to become Secretary of State, whose character also
described itself, and whose personality was as distinct as that of
his chief. A small man, quiet, somewhat precise in manner, pleasant,
fond of conversation, with a certain mixture of ease and dignity in
his address, Madison had not so much as Jefferson of the commanding
attitude which imposed respect on the world. “He has much more the
appearance of what I have imagined a Roman cardinal to be,” wrote
Senator Mills of Massachusetts in 1815.[4] An imposing presence had
much to do with political influence, and Madison labored under serious
disadvantage in the dryness of his personality. Political opponents
of course made fun of him. “As to Jemmy Madison,--oh, poor Jemmy!--he
is but a withered little apple-john,” wrote Washington Irving in 1812,
instinctively applying the Knickerbocker view of history to national
concerns.

 “In his dress,” said one who knew him,[5] “he was not at all eccentric
 or given to dandyism, but always appeared neat and genteel, and in the
 costume of a well-bred and tasty old-school gentleman. I have heard in
 early life he sometimes wore light-colored clothes; but from the time
 I first knew him ... never any other color than black, his coat being
 cut in what is termed dress-fashion; his breeches short, with buckles
 at the knees, black silk stockings, and shoes with strings, or long
 fair top-boots when out in cold weather, or when he rode on horseback,
 of which he was fond.... He wore powder on his hair, which was dressed
 full over the ears, tied behind, and brought to a point above the
 forehead, to cover in some degree his baldness, as may be noticed in
 all the likenesses taken of him.”

Madison had a sense of humor, felt in his conversation, and detected
in the demure cast of his flexile lips, but leaving no trace in his
published writings. Small in stature, in deportment modest to the point
of sensitive reserve, in address simple and pleasing, in feature rather
thoughtful and benevolent than strong, he was such a man as Jefferson,
who so much disliked contentious and self-asserting manners, loved to
keep by his side. Sir Augustus Foster liked Mr. Madison, although in
1812 Madison sent him out of the country:--

 “I thought Mr. Jefferson more of a statesman and man of the world than
 Mr. Madison, who was rather too much the disputatious pleader; yet
 the latter was better informed, and moreover a social, jovial, and
 good-humored companion, full of anecdote, sometimes rather of a loose
 description, but oftener of a political and historical interest. He
 was a little man with small features, rather wizened when I saw him,
 but occasionally lit up with a good-natured smile. He wore a black
 coat, stockings with shoes buckled, and had his hair powdered, with a
 tail.”

The third aristocrat in this democratic triumvirate was Albert
Gallatin, marked by circumstances even more than by the President’s
choice for the post of Secretary of the Treasury. Like the President
and the Secretary of State, Gallatin was born and bred a gentleman;
in person and manners he was well fitted for the cabinet-table over
which Jefferson presided. Gallatin possessed the personal force which
was somewhat lacking in his two friends. His appearance impressed
by-standers with a sense of strength. His complexion was dark; his
eyes were hazel and full of expression; his hair black, and like
Madison he was becoming bald. From long experience, at first among
the democrats of western Pennsylvania, and afterward as a leader in
the House of Representatives, he had lost all shyness in dealing with
men. His long prominent nose and lofty forehead showed character,
and his eyes expressed humor. A slight foreign accent betrayed his
Genevan origin. Gallatin was also one of the best talkers in America,
and perhaps the best-informed man in the country; for his laborious
mind had studied America with infinite care, and he retained so much
knowledge of European affairs as to fit him equally for the State
Department or the Treasury. Three more agreeable men than Jefferson,
Madison, and Gallatin were never collected round the dinner-table of
the White House; and their difference in age was enough to add zest to
their friendship; for Jefferson was born in 1743, Madison in 1751, and
Gallatin in 1761. While the President was nearly sixty years old, his
Secretary of the Treasury had the energy and liberality of forty.

Jefferson was the first President inaugurated at Washington, and the
ceremony, necessarily simple, was made still simpler for political
reasons. The retiring President was not present at the installation of
his successor. In Jefferson’s eyes a revolution had taken place as vast
as that of 1776; and if this was his belief, perhaps the late President
was wise to retire from a stage where everything was arranged to point
a censure upon his principles, and where he would have seemed, in his
successor’s opinion, as little in place as George III. would have
appeared at the installation of President Washington. The collapse of
government which marked the last weeks of February, 1801, had been such
as to leave of the old Cabinet only Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts,
the Secretary of the Treasury, and Benjamin Stoddert of Maryland,
the Secretary of the Navy, still in office. John Marshall, the late
Secretary of State, had been appointed, six weeks before, Chief-Justice
of the Supreme Court.

In this first appearance of John Marshall as Chief-Justice, to
administer the oath of office, lay the dramatic climax of the
inauguration. The retiring President, acting for what he supposed
to be the best interests of the country, by one of his last acts of
power, deliberately intended to perpetuate the principles of his
administration, placed at the head of the judiciary, for life, a man
as obnoxious to Jefferson as the bitterest New England Calvinist could
have been; for he belonged to that class of conservative Virginians
whose devotion to President Washington, and whose education in
the common law, caused them to hold Jefferson and his theories in
antipathy. The new President and his two Secretaries were political
philanthropists, bent on restricting the powers of the national
government in the interests of human liberty. The Chief-Justice, a
man who in grasp of mind and steadiness of purpose had no superior,
perhaps no equal, was bent on enlarging the powers of government in
the interests of justice and nationality. As they stood face to face
on this threshold of their power, each could foresee that the contest
between them would end only with life.

If Jefferson and his two friends were the most aristocratic of
democrats, John Marshall was of all aristocrats the most democratic in
manners and appearance.

 “A tall, slender figure,” wrote Joseph Story in 1808,[6] “not graceful
 or imposing, but erect and steady. His hair is black, his eyes
 small and twinkling, his forehead rather low; but his features are
 in general harmonious. His manners are plain yet dignified, and an
 unaffected modesty diffuses itself through all his actions. His dress
 is very simple yet neat; his language chaste, but hardly elegant; it
 does not flow rapidly, but it seldom wants precision. In conversation
 he is quite familiar, but is occasionally embarrassed by a hesitancy
 and drawling.... I love his laugh,--it is too hearty for an intriguer;
 and his good temper and unwearied patience are equally agreeable on
 the bench and in the study.”

The unaffected simplicity of Marshall’s life was delightful to all
who knew him, for it sprang from the simplicity of his mind. Never
self-conscious, his dignity was never affected by his situation.
Bishop Meade,[7] who was proud of the Chief-Justice as one of his
flock, being in a street near Marshall’s house one morning between
daybreak and sunrise, met the Chief-Justice on horseback, with a bag of
clover-seed lying before him, which he was carrying to his little farm
at seed-time. Simple as American life was, his habits were remarkable
for modest plainness; and only the character of his mind, which seemed
to have no flaw, made his influence irresistible upon all who were
brought within its reach.

Nevertheless this great man nourished one weakness. Pure in life;
broad in mind, and the despair of bench and bar for the unswerving
certainty of his legal method; almost idolized by those who stood
nearest him, and loving warmly in return,--this excellent and amiable
man clung to one rooted prejudice: he detested Thomas Jefferson. He
regarded with quiet, unspoken, but immovable antipathy the character
and doings of the philosopher standing before him, about to take the
oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. No argument or
entreaty affected his conviction that Jefferson was not an honest man.
“By weakening the office of President he will increase his personal
power,” were Marshall’s words, written at this time;[8] “the morals of
the author of the letter to Mazzei cannot be pure.” Jefferson in return
regarded Marshall with a repugnance tinged by a shade of some deeper
feeling, almost akin to fear. “The judge’s inveteracy is profound,” he
once wrote,[9] “and his mind of that gloomy malignity which will never
let him forego the opportunity of satiating it on a victim.”

Another person, with individuality not less marked, took the oath
of office the same day. When the Senate met at ten o’clock on the
morning of March 4, 1801, Aaron Burr stood at the desk, and having
duly sworn to support the Constitution, took his seat in the chair as
Vice-President. This quiet, gentlemanly, and rather dignified figure,
hardly taller than Madison, and dressed in much the same manner,
impressed with favor all who first met him. An aristocrat imbued in
the morality of Lord Chesterfield and Napoleon Bonaparte, Colonel Burr
was the chosen head of Northern democracy, idol of the wards of New
York city, and aspirant to the highest offices he could reach by means
legal or beyond the law; for as he pleased himself with saying, after
the manner of the First Consul of the French Republic, “Great souls
care little for small morals.” Among the other party leaders who have
been mentioned,--Jefferson, Madison, Gallatin, Marshall,--not one was
dishonest. The exaggerations or equivocations that Jefferson allowed
himself, which led to the deep-rooted conviction of Marshall that he
did not tell the truth and must therefore be dangerous, amounted to
nothing when compared with the dishonesty of a corrupt man. Had the
worst political charges against Jefferson been true, he would not have
been necessarily corrupt. The self-deception inherent in every struggle
for personal power was not the kind of immorality which characterized
Colonel Burr. Jefferson, if his enemies were to be believed, might
occasionally make misstatements of fact; yet he was true to the faith
of his life, and would rather have abdicated his office and foregone
his honors than have compassed even an imaginary wrong against the
principles he professed. His life, both private and public, was pure.
His associates, like Madison, Gallatin, and Monroe, were men upon whose
reputations no breath of scandal rested. The standard of morality at
Washington, both in private society and in politics, was respectable.
For this reason Colonel Burr was a new power in the government; for
being in public and in private life an adventurer of the same school as
scores who were then seeking fortune in the antechambers of Bonaparte
and Pitt, he became a loadstone for every other adventurer who
frequented New York or whom the chances of politics might throw into
office. The Vice-President wielded power, for he was the certain centre
of corruption.

Thus when the doors of the Senate chamber were thrown open, and the
new President of the United States appeared on the threshold; when
the Vice-President rose from his chair, and Jefferson sat down in it,
with Aaron Burr on his right hand and John Marshall on his left, the
assembled senators looked up at three men who profoundly disliked and
distrusted each other.

John Davis, one of many Englishmen who were allowed by Burr to attach
themselves to him on the chance of some future benefit to be derived
from them, asserted in a book of American travels published in London
two years afterward, that he was present at the inauguration, and
that Jefferson rode on horseback to the Capitol, and after hitching
his horse to the palings, went in to take the oath. This story, being
spread by the Federalist newspapers, was accepted by the Republicans
and became a legend of the Capitol. In fact Davis was not then at
Washington, and his story was untrue. Afterward as President, Jefferson
was in the habit of going on horseback, rather than in a carriage,
wherever business called him, and the Federalists found fault with him
for doing so. “He makes it a point,” they declared,[10] “when he has
occasion to visit the Capitol to meet the representatives of the nation
on public business, to go on a single horse, which he leads into the
shed and hitches to a peg.” Davis wished to write a book that should
amuse Englishmen, and in order to give an air of truth to invention, he
added that he was himself present at the ceremony. Jefferson was then
living as Vice-President at Conrad’s boarding-house, within a stone’s
throw of the Capitol. He did not mount his horse only to ride across
the square and dismount in a crowd of observers. Doubtless he wished to
offer an example of republican simplicity, and he was not unwilling to
annoy his opponents; but the ceremony was conducted with proper form.

Edward Thornton, then in charge of the British Legation at
Washington, wrote to Lord Grenville, then Foreign Secretary in Pitt’s
administration, a despatch enclosing the new President’s Inaugural
Address, with comments upon its democratic tendencies; and after a few
remarks on this subject, he added:[11]--

 “The same republican spirit which runs through this performance,
 and which in many passages discovers some bitterness through all
 the sentiments of conciliation and philanthropy with which it is
 overcharged, Mr. Jefferson affected to display in performing the
 customary ceremonies. He came from his own lodgings to the House where
 the Congress convenes, and which goes by the name of the Capitol, on
 foot, in his ordinary dress, escorted by a body of militia artillery
 from the neighboring State, and accompanied by the Secretaries of
 the Navy and the Treasury, and a number of his political friends
 in the House of Representatives. He was received by Mr. Burr, the
 Vice-President of the United States, who arrived a day or two ago at
 the seat of government, and who was previously admitted this morning
 to the chair of the Senate; and was afterward complimented at his own
 lodgings by the very few foreign agents who reside at this place, by
 the members of Congress, and other public officials.”

Only the north wing of the Capitol had then been so far completed
as to be occupied by the Senate, the courts, and the small library
of Congress. The centre rose not much above its foundations; and
the south wing, some twenty feet in height, contained a temporary
oval brick building, commonly called the “Oven,” in which the House
of Representatives sat in some peril of their lives, for had not
the walls been strongly shored up from without, the structure would
have crumbled to pieces. Into the north wing the new President went,
accompanied by the only remaining secretaries, Dexter and Stoddert,
and by his friends from the House. Received by Vice-President Burr,
and seated in the chair between Burr and Marshall, after a short pause
Jefferson rose, and in a somewhat inaudible voice began his Inaugural
Address.

Time, which has laid its chastening hand on many reputations, and has
given to many once famous formulas a meaning unsuspected by their
authors, has not altogether spared Jefferson’s first Inaugural Address,
although it was for a long time almost as well known as the Declaration
of Independence; yet this Address was one of the few State Papers which
should have lost little of its interest by age. As the starting-point
of a powerful political party, the first Inaugural was a standard by
which future movements were measured, and it went out of fashion only
when its principles were universally accepted or thrown aside. Even
as a literary work, it possessed a certain charm of style peculiar to
Jefferson, a flavor of Virginia thought and manners, a Jeffersonian
ideality calculated to please the ear of later generations forced to
task their utmost powers in order to carry the complex trains of their
thought.

The chief object of the Address was to quiet the passions which
had been raised by the violent agitation of the past eight years.
Every interest of the new Administration required that the extreme
Federalists should be disarmed. Their temper was such as to endanger
both Administration and Union; and their power was still formidable,
for they controlled New England and contested New York. To them,
Jefferson turned:--

 “Let us unite with one heart and one mind,” he entreated; “let us
 restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without
 which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let
 us reflect, that, having banished from our land that religious
 intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet
 gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic,
 as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During
 the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing
 spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his
 long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the
 billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this
 should be more felt and feared by some than by others; that this
 should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference
 of opinion is not a difference of principle. We are all Republicans,
 we are all Federalists.”

The Federalist newspapers never ceased laughing at the “spasms” so
suddenly converted into “billows,” and at the orthodoxy of Jefferson’s
Federalism; but perhaps his chief fault was to belittle the revolution
which had taken place. In no party sense was it true that all were
Republicans or all Federalists. As will appear, Jefferson himself was
far from meaning what he seemed to say. He wished to soothe the great
body of his opponents, and if possible to win them over; but he had no
idea of harmony or affection other than that which was to spring from
his own further triumph; and in representing that he was in any sense a
Federalist, he did himself a wrong.

 “I know, indeed,” he continued, “that some honest men fear that a
 republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not
 strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of
 successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept
 us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this
 government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want energy to
 preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the
 strongest government on earth. I believe it is the only one where
 every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the
 law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal
 concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the
 government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of
 others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?
 Let history answer this question!”

That the government, the world’s best hope, had hitherto kept the
country free and firm, in the full tide of successful experiment, was a
startling compliment to the Federalist party, coming as it did from a
man who had not been used to compliment his political opponents; but
Federalists, on the other hand, might doubt whether this government
would continue to answer the same purpose when administered for no
other avowed object than to curtail its powers. Clearly, Jefferson
credited government with strength which belonged to society; and
if he meant to practise upon this idea, by taking the tone of “the
strongest government on earth” in the face of Bonaparte and Pitt,
whose governments were strong in a different sense, he might properly
have developed this idea at more length, for it was likely to prove
deeply interesting. Moreover, history, if asked, must at that day have
answered that no form of government, whether theocratic, autocratic,
aristocratic, democratic, or mixed, had ever in Western civilization
lasted long, without change or need of change. History was not the
witness to which Republicans could with entire confidence appeal, even
against kings.

The Address next enumerated the advantages which America enjoyed, and
those which remained to be acquired:--

 “With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy
 and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens,--a
 wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring
 one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate
 their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take
 from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of
 good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our
 felicities.”

A government restricted to keeping the peace, which should raise no
taxes except for that purpose, seemed to be simply a judicature and
a police. Jefferson gave no development to the idea further than to
define its essential principles, and those which were to guide his
Administration. Except the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798,
this short passage was the only official gloss ever given to the
Constitution by the Republican party; and for this reason students of
American history who would understand the course of American thought
should constantly carry in mind not only the Constitutions of 1781
and of 1787, but also the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and the
following paragraph of Jefferson’s first Inaugural Address:--

 “I will compress them,” said the President, “within the narrowest
 compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all
 its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever
 state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and
 honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;
 the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the
 most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the
 surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation
 of the general government in its whole Constitutional vigor, as the
 sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care
 of the right of election by the People,--a mild and safe corrective
 of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable
 remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of
 the majority,--the vital principle of republics, from which there is
 no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of
 despotism; a well-disciplined militia,--our best reliance in peace
 and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them;
 the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in
 the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest
 payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the public faith;
 encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the
 diffusion of information, and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of
 public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom
 of person under the protection of the _habeas corpus_; and trial
 by juries impartially selected;--these principles form the bright
 constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through
 an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the
 blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment; they should
 be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction,
 the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and
 should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten
 to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to
 peace, liberty, and safety.”

From the metaphors in which these principles appeared as a
constellation, a creed, a text, a touchstone, and a road, the world
learned that they had already guided the American people through an age
of revolution. In fact, they were mainly the principles of President
Washington, and had they been announced by a Federalist President,
would have created little remonstrance or surprise. In Jefferson’s
mouth they sounded less familiar, and certain phrases seemed even out
of place.

Among the cardinal points of republicanism thus proclaimed to the
world was one in particular, which as a maxim of government seemed
to contradict cherished convictions and the fixed practice of the
Republican party. “Absolute acquiescence” was required “in the
decisions of the majority,--the vital principle of republics, from
which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and
immediate parent of despotism.” No principle was so thoroughly entwined
in the roots of Virginia republicanism as that which affirmed the
worthlessness of decisions made by a majority of the United States
either as a nation or a confederacy, in matters which concerned the
exercise of doubtful powers. Not three years had passed since Jefferson
himself penned the draft of the Kentucky Resolutions, in which he
declared[12] “that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers,
the members of the general government being chosen by the people, a
change by the people would be the Constitutional remedy; but where
powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of
the act is the rightful remedy; that every State has a natural right,
in cases not within the compact, to nullify of their own authority
all assumptions of power by others within their limits; that without
this right they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited,
of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.” He
went so far as to advise that every State should forbid, within its
borders, the execution of any act of the general government “not
plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution;” and although
the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia softened the language,
they acted on the principle so far as to declare certain laws of the
United States unconstitutional, with the additional understanding that
whatever was unconstitutional was void. So far from accepting with
“absolute acquiescence” the decisions of the majority, Jefferson and
his followers held that freedom could be maintained only by preserving
inviolate the right of every State to judge for itself what was, and
what was not lawful for a majority to decide.

What, too, was meant by the words which pledged the new Administration
to preserve the general government “in its whole Constitutional
vigor”? The two parties were divided by a bottomless gulf in their
theories of Constitutional powers; but until the precedents established
by the Federalists should be expressly reversed, no one could deny
that those precedents, to be treated as acts of the majority with
absolute acquiescence, were a measure of the vigor which the President
pledged himself to preserve. Jefferson could not have intended such a
conclusion; for how could he promise to “preserve” the powers assumed
in the Alien and Sedition laws, which then represented the whole
vigor of the general government in fact if not in theory, when he
had himself often and bitterly denounced those powers, when he had
been a party to their nullification, and when he and his friends had
actually prepared to resist by arms their enforcement? Undoubtedly
Jefferson meant no more than to preserve the general government in
such vigor as in his opinion was Constitutional, without regard to
Federalist precedents; but his words were equivocal, and unless they
were to be defined by legislation, they identified him with the
contrary legislation of his predecessors. In history and law they did
so. Neither the Alien nor the Sedition Act, nor any other Federalist
precedent, was ever declared unconstitutional by any department of
the general government; and Jefferson’s pledge to preserve that
government in its full Constitutional vigor was actually redeemed with
no exception or limitation on the precedents established. His intention
seemed to be different; but the sweeping language of his pledge was
never afterward restricted or even more exactly defined while he
remained in power.

Hence arose a sense of disappointment for future students of the
Inaugural Address. A revolution had taken place; but the new President
seemed anxious to prove that there had been no revolution at all. A
new experiment in government was to be tried, and the philosopher
at its head began by pledging himself to follow in the footsteps of
his predecessors. Americans ended by taking him at his word, and by
assuming that there was no break of continuity between his ideas
and those of President Washington; yet even at the moment of these
assurances he was writing privately in an opposite sense. In his
eyes the past was wrong, both in method and intention; its work must
be undone and its example forgotten. His conviction of a radical
difference between himself and his predecessors was expressed in the
strongest language. His predecessors, in his opinion, had involved the
government in difficulties in order to destroy it, and to build up
a monarchy on its ruins. “The tough sides of our Argosie,” he wrote
two days after his inauguration,[13] “have been thoroughly tried. Her
strength has stood the waves into which she was steered with a view
to sink her. We shall put her on her Republican tack, and she will
now show by the beauty of her motion the skill of her builders.” “The
Federalists,” said he at one moment,[14] “wished for everything which
would approach our new government to a monarchy; the Republicans, to
preserve it essentially republican.... The real difference consisted in
their different degrees of inclination to monarchy or republicanism.”
“The revolution of 1800,” he wrote many years afterward,[15] “was as
real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776
was in its form.”

Not, therefore, in the Inaugural Address, with its amiable professions
of harmony, could President Jefferson’s full view of his own reforms
be discovered. Judged by his inaugural addresses and annual messages,
Jefferson’s Administration seemed a colorless continuation of
Washington’s; but when seen in the light of private correspondence, the
difference was complete. So strong was the new President’s persuasion
of the monarchical bent of his predecessors, that his joy at obtaining
the government was mingled with a shade of surprise that his enemies
should have handed to him, without question, the power they had so long
held. He shared his fears of monarchy with politicians like William
B. Giles, young John Randolph, and many Southern voters; and although
neither Madison nor Gallatin seemed to think monarchists formidable,
they gladly encouraged the President to pursue a conservative and
conciliatory path. Jefferson and his Southern friends took power
as republicans opposed to monarchists, not as democrats opposed to
oligarchy. Jefferson himself was not in a social sense a democrat, and
was called so only as a term of opprobrium. His Northern followers
were in the main democrats; but he and most of his Southern partisans
claimed to be republicans, opposed by secret monarchists.

The conflict of ideas between Southern republicanism, Northern
democracy, and Federal monarchism marked much of Jefferson’s writing;
but especially when he began his career as President his mind was
filled with the conviction that he had wrung power from monarchy, and
that in this sense he was the founder of a new republic. Henceforward,
as he hoped, republicanism was forever safe; he had but to conciliate
the misguided, and give an example to the world, for centralization
was only a monarchical principle. Nearly twenty years passed before
he woke to a doubt on this subject; but even then he did not admit a
mistake. In the tendency to centralization he still saw no democratic
instinct, but only the influence of monarchical Federalists “under the
pseudo-republican mask.”[16]

The republic which Jefferson believed himself to be founding or
securing in 1801 was an enlarged Virginia,--a society to be kept pure
and free by the absence of complicated interests, by the encouragement
of agriculture and of commerce as its handmaid, but not of industry in
a larger sense. “The agricultural capacities of our country,” he wrote
long afterward,[17] “constitute its distinguishing feature; and the
adapting our policy and pursuits to that is more likely to make us a
numerous and happy people than the mimicry of an Amsterdam, a Hamburg,
or a city of London.” He did not love mechanics or manufactures, or the
capital without which they could not exist.[18] “Banking establishments
are more dangerous than standing armies,” he said; and added, “that the
principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of
funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” Such theories
were republican in the Virginia sense, but not democratic; they had
nothing in common with the democracy of Pennsylvania and New England,
except their love of freedom; and Virginia freedom was not the same
conception as the democratic freedom of the North.

In 1801 this Virginia type was still the popular form of republicanism.
Although the Northern democrat had already developed a tendency toward
cities, manufactures, and “the mimicry of an Amsterdam, a Hamburg, or
a city of London,” while the republican of the South was distinguished
by his dislike of every condition except that of agriculture, the
two wings of the party had so much in common that they could afford
to disregard for a time these divergencies of interest; and if the
Virginians cared nothing for cities, banks, and manufactures, or if
the Northern democrats troubled themselves little about the dangers
of centralization, they could unite with one heart in overthrowing
monarchy, and in effecting a social revolution.

Henceforward, as Jefferson conceived, government might act directly for
the encouragement of agriculture and of commerce as its handmaid, for
the diffusion of information and the arraignment of abuses; but there
its positive functions stopped. Beyond that point only negative action
remained,--respect for States’ rights, preservation of constitutional
powers, economy, and the maintenance of a pure and simple society such
as already existed. With a political system which would not take from
the mouth of labor the bread it had earned, and which should leave men
free to follow whatever paths of industry or improvement they might
find most profitable, “the circle of felicities” was closed.

The possibility of foreign war alone disturbed this dream. President
Washington himself might have been glad to accept these ideas of
domestic politics, had not France, England, and Spain shown an
unequivocal wish to take advantage of American weakness in arms
in order to withhold rights vital to national welfare. How did
Jefferson propose to convert a government of judiciary and police
into the strongest government on earth? His answer to this question,
omitted from the Inaugural Address, was to be found in his private
correspondence and in the speeches of Gallatin and Madison as leaders
of the opposition. He meant to prevent war. He was convinced that
governments, like human beings, were on the whole controlled by their
interests, and that the interests of Europe required peace and free
commerce with America. Believing a union of European Powers to be
impossible, he was willing to trust their jealousies of each other to
secure their good treatment of the United States. Knowing that Congress
could by a single act divert a stream of wealth from one European
country to another, foreign Governments would hardly challenge the use
of such a weapon, or long resist their own overpowering interests. The
new President found in the Constitutional power “to regulate commerce
with foreign nations” the machinery for doing away with navies, armies,
and wars.

During eight years of opposition the Republican party had matured its
doctrines on this subject. In 1797, in the midst of difficulties with
France, Jefferson wrote:[19]--

 “If we weather the present storm, I hope we shall avail ourselves of
 the calm of peace to place our foreign connections under a new and
 different arrangement. We must make the interest of every nation stand
 surety for their justice, and their own loss to follow injury to us,
 as effect follows its cause. As to everything except commerce, we
 ought to divorce ourselves from them all.”

A few months before the inauguration, he wrote in terms more
general:[20]--

 “The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best,
 that the States are independent as to everything within themselves,
 and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the
 general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our
 affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to
 commerce, which the merchants will manage the better the more they are
 left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be
 reduced to a very simple organization and a very unexpensive one,--a
 few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.”

Immediately after the inauguration the new President explained his
future foreign policy to correspondents, who, as he knew, would spread
his views widely throughout both continents. In a famous letter to
Thomas Paine,[21]--a letter which was in some respects a true inaugural
address,--Jefferson told the thought he had but hinted in public.
“Determined as we are to avoid, if possible, wasting the energies of
our people in war and destruction, we shall avoid implicating ourselves
with the Powers of Europe, even in support of principles which we
mean to pursue. They have so many other interests different from ours
that we must avoid being entangled in them. We believe we can enforce
those principles as to ourselves by peaceable means, now that we are
likely to have our public counsels detached from foreign views.” A few
days later, he wrote to the well-known Pennsylvania peacemaker, Dr.
Logan, and explained the process of enforcing against foreign nations
“principles as to ourselves by peaceable means.” “Our commerce,” said
he,[22] “is so valuable to them, that they will be glad to purchase it,
when the only price we ask is to do us justice. I believe we have in
our own hands the means of peaceable coercion; and that the moment they
see our government so united as that we can make use of it, they will
for their own interest be disposed to do us justice.”

To Chancellor Livingston, in September, 1801,[23] the President wrote
his views of the principles which he meant to pursue: “Yet in the
present state of things,” he added, “they are not worth a war; nor do I
believe war the most certain means of enforcing them. Those peaceable
coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in
concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired
effect.”

That these views were new as a system in government could not be
denied. In later life Jefferson frequently asserted, and took pains
to impress upon his friends, the difference between his opinions and
those of his Federalist opponents. The radical distinction lay in their
opposite conceptions of the national government. The Federalists wished
to extend its functions; Jefferson wished to exclude its influence from
domestic affairs:--

 “The people,” he declared in 1821,[24] “to whom all authority belongs,
 have divided the powers of government into two distinct departments,
 the leading characters of which are foreign and domestic; and they
 have appointed for each a distinct set of functionaries. These they
 have made co-ordinate, checking and balancing each other, like the
 three cardinal departments in the individual States,--each equally
 supreme as to the powers delegated to itself, and neither authorized
 ultimately to decide what belongs to itself or to its coparcener in
 government. As independent, in fact, as different nations, a spirit
 of forbearance and compromise, therefore, and not of encroachment and
 usurpation, is the healing balm of such a Constitution.”

In the year 1824 Jefferson still maintained the same doctrine, and
expressed it more concisely than ever:--

 “The federal is in truth our foreign government, which department
 alone is taken from the sovereignty of the separate States.”[25] “I
 recollect no case where a question simply between citizens of the
 same State has been transferred to the foreign department, except
 that of inhibiting tenders but of metallic money, and _ex post facto_
 legislation.”[26]

These expressions, taken together, partly explain why Jefferson thought
his assumption of power to be “as real a revolution in the principles
of our government as that of 1776 was in its form.” His view of
governmental functions was simple and clearly expressed. The national
government, as he conceived it, was a foreign department as independent
from the domestic department, which belonged to the States, as though
they were governments of different nations. He intended that the
general government should “be reduced to foreign concerns only;” and
his theory of foreign concerns was equally simple and clear. He meant
to enforce against foreign nations such principles as national objects
required, not by war, but by “peaceful coercion” through commercial
restrictions. “Our commerce is so valuable to them that they will be
glad to purchase it, when the only price we ask is to do us justice.”

The history of his Administration will show how these principles were
applied, and what success attended the experiment.




CHAPTER VIII.


IN 1801, and throughout Jefferson’s Administration, the Cabinet
consisted of five heads of department,--the Secretaries of State, of
the Treasury, of the Army, and of the Navy, with the Attorney-General.
The law business of the government being light, the Attorney-General
was frequently absent, and, indeed, was not required to reside
permanently at Washington. Rather the official counsel of government
than a head of department, he had no clerks or office-room, and
his salary was lower than that of his colleagues. The true Cabinet
consisted of the four secretaries; and the true government rested
in still fewer hands, for it naturally fell within the control of
the officers whose responsibility was greatest,--the President, the
Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury.

Simple as such a system was, Jefferson found that months elapsed before
his new Cabinet could be organized and set at work. Although Madison
was instantly nominated and confirmed as Secretary of State, some
weeks passed before he arrived in Washington and assumed his duties.
Gallatin was supposed to be in danger of rejection by the Senate, and
his nomination as Secretary of the Treasury was therefore postponed
till the next session. This delay was not allowed to prevent his taking
charge of the office; but he was obliged first to make the long journey
to his residence on the Monongahela, in southwestern Pennsylvania,
in order to arrange his affairs and bring his family to Washington.
During the interval between the inauguration and the meeting of his
completed Cabinet, Jefferson was left without means of governing. For
Attorney-General he selected Levi Lincoln, a lawyer of Worcester County
in Massachusetts, who had been recently elected to fill a vacancy in
the House of Representatives, and, being on the spot, was useful in
acting as Secretary of State, or in any other capacity in which the
services of a secretary were required. For the War Department the
President chose Henry Dearborn, a resident of the District of Maine,
then a part of Massachusetts. With such assistance as Lincoln and
Dearborn could give, and with the aid of Samuel Dexter the Federalist
Secretary of the Treasury, and Benjamin Stoddert the Federalist
Secretary of the Navy, who consented to remain for a time, Jefferson
slowly set his Administration in motion.

The Navy Department seemed likely to baffle the President’s utmost
efforts. The appointment was intended for Robert R. Livingston of New
York, who refused; then it was offered to Samuel Smith of Maryland, a
prominent member of Congress; but General Smith was a merchant, and
declined to abandon his business. Next, the place was pressed upon
John Langdon of New Hampshire, although New England already supplied
two members of the Cabinet. Langdon refusing, the President wrote to
William Jones of Philadelphia, a member of the next Congress, who
declined. Meanwhile Benjamin Stoddert became weary of waiting, and
Samuel Smith consented to perform the duties in order to give the
President time for further search. At the end of March, Jefferson left
Washington to pass the month of April at Monticello, and on his return,
May 1, the Navy Department was still unfilled. Not until July did
General Smith succeed in escaping the burden of his temporary duties.
Then the President abandoned the attempt to place a man of public
importance in the position, and allowed Samuel Smith to substitute in
his place his brother Robert, a Baltimore lawyer, whose fitness for
naval duties was supposed to consist chiefly in the advice and aid
which Samuel would supply.

The appointment of Robert Smith, July 15, completed the Cabinet. Of its
five members, only two--Madison and Gallatin--were much known beyond
their States. Neither Dearborn nor Lincoln was so strong, either in
political or social connections or in force of character, as greatly to
affect the course of the Cabinet, and both were too honest to thwart it.

 “General Dearborn is a man of strong sense, great practical
 information on all the subjects connected with his department, and is
 what is called a man of business. He is not, I believe, a scholar; but
 I think he will make the best Secretary of War we have as yet had. Mr.
 Lincoln is a good lawyer, a fine scholar, a man of great discretion
 and sound judgment, and of the mildest and most amiable manners. He
 has never, I should think from his manners, been out of his own State,
 or mixed much with the world, except on business. Both are men of
 1776, sound and decided Republicans; both are men of the strictest
 integrity; and both, but Mr. Lincoln principally, have a great weight
 of character to the Eastward with both parties.”[27]

Thus Gallatin, March 12, before his own appointment, estimated the
characters of his two New England colleagues. The confidence reposed
in them was justified by the result. Neither Dearborn nor Lincoln
showed remarkable powers, but the work they had to do was done without
complaint or objection. No charge of dishonesty, of intrigue, or of
selfish ambition was made against them; and they retired from office at
last with as much modesty as they showed in entering it, after serving
Jefferson faithfully and well.

In some respects Robert Smith was better suited than either Dearborn
or Lincoln for a seat in Jefferson’s Cabinet. The Smiths were strong
not only in Maryland, but also in Virginia, being connected by marriage
with Wilson Cary Nicholas, one of the most influential Republican
politicians of the State, whose relations with Jefferson were
intimate. Robert Smith was a Baltimore gentleman, easy and cordial,
glad to oblige and fond of power and show, popular in the navy,
yielding in the Cabinet, but as little fitted as Jefferson himself for
the task of administering with severe economy an unpopular service.
The navy was wholly Federalist in tendencies and composition. The
Republican party had always denounced this Federalist creation; and
that a navy caused more dangers than it prevented or corrected, was
one of the deepest convictions that underlay the policy of Jefferson,
Madison, and Gallatin. In theory they had no use for a sea-going navy;
at the utmost they wanted only coast and harbor defences, sloops-of-war
and gunboats. During the four years of the last Administration, of a
total expenditure averaging about $11,000,000 per annum, not less than
$2,500,000 had been annually spent on the navy. The public debt itself
required only about $4,500,000, and the army less than $3,000,000.
Economics in the debt were impossible; on the contrary, a mass of
deferred annuities was to be met, and some provision must be made for
more rapid discharge of the principal. Economies in the civil list were
equally impossible; for the Federalists had there wasted little money,
and salaries were low. The army and navy could alone be cut down; and
since the Western people required regular troops for their defence
against the Indians, the most radical reformers hardly ventured to
recommend that the army should be reduced much below an aggregate of
three thousand rank-and-file. The navy, on the other hand, was believed
to be wholly superfluous, and Jefferson was anxious to lay up all the
larger ships, especially the frigates.

 “I shall really be chagrined,” he wrote from Monticello in April,[28]
 “if the water in the Eastern Branch will not admit our laying up
 the whole seven there in time of peace, because they would be under
 the immediate eye of the department, and would require but one set
 of plunderers to take care of them. As to what is to be done when
 everything shall be disposed of according to law, it shall be the
 subject of conversation when I return. It oppresses me by night and
 by day, for I do not see my way out of the difficulty. It is the
 department I understand the least, and therefore need a person whose
 complete competence will justify the most entire confidence and
 resignation.”

Robert Smith was certainly not such a person as Jefferson described,
and his appointment, however suitable in other respects, was not likely
to attain the object which Jefferson had at heart.

Hardly was the Navy Department thus bestowed, and the new Cabinet,
toward the middle of July, completely organized for the work that was
still to be defined, when another annoyance distracted the President’s
attention from the main objects of his policy. The government had
been, for eight years, in the hands of Federalist partisans. If, as
Jefferson declared in his Inaugural Address, “we are all Republicans,
we are all Federalists;” if differences of opinion were not differences
of principle; if he seriously wished all Americans to “restore to
social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty
and even life itself are but dreary things,”--he could afford to make
few removals for party reasons. On the other hand, if, as he privately
declared and as was commonly believed, the actual office-holders
were monarchists at heart, and could not be trusted to carry the new
Republican principles into practice, the public welfare required
great changes. For the first time in national experience, the use of
patronage needed some definite regulation.

The most skilful politician must have failed in the attempt to
explain that a revolution had been made which ought to satisfy every
one, by methods which no one had an excuse for opposing. Jefferson
was embarrassed, not so much by the patronage, as by the apparent
inconsistency between his professions and his acts concerning it. At
first he hoped to make few removals, and these only for misconduct or
other sufficient cause. “Of the thousands of officers in the United
States,” he wrote to Dr. Rush,[29] “a very few individuals only,
probably not twenty, will be removed; and these only for doing what
they ought not to have done.” As these removals began, the outcry of
the Federalists grew loud, until the President thought himself obliged
to defend his course. The occasion was furnished by the State of
Connecticut, where the necessity for a change in office-holders was
proved by the temper of the office-holding class. “The spirit in that
State,” wrote Madison,[30] July 10, “is so perverse that it must be
rectified by a peculiar mixture of energy and delicacy.” The spirit
of which Madison complained was illustrated, only three days before,
by an oration delivered July 7, at New Haven, by Theodore Dwight. The
government, said Dwight, which had been established under the auspices
of Washington was the sport of popular commotion, adrift without helm
or compass in a turbid and boisterous ocean.

 “The great object of Jacobinism, both in its political and moral
 revolution, is to destroy every trace of civilization in the world,
 and to force mankind back into a savage state.... That is, in plain
 English, the greatest villain in the community is the fittest person
 to make and execute the laws. Graduated by this scale, there can be no
 doubt that Jacobins have the highest qualifications for rulers.... We
 have now reached the consummation of democratic blessedness. We have a
 country governed by blockheads and knaves; the ties of marriage with
 all its felicities are severed and destroyed; our wives and daughters
 are thrown into the stews; our children are cast into the world from
 the breast and forgotten; filial piety is extinguished, and our
 surnames, the only mark of distinction among families, are abolished.
 Can the imagination paint anything more dreadful on this side hell?”

In the fervor of his representation, Dwight painted what he believed
was to happen as though it had actually come to pass. He and his
friends, at least, felt no doubt of it. Madison could hardly be blamed
for thinking this spirit perverse; and the President was as little
to be censured for wishing to rectify it. Elizur Goodrich, a person
who was quite in the same way of thinking, was Collector of New
Haven. Jefferson removed him, and appointed an old man named Bishop,
whose son had made himself conspicuous by zealous republicanism in a
community where zeal in such a cause was accounted a social crime. A
keen remonstrance was drawn up, signed by New Haven merchants, and
sent to the President. Couched, as Madison said, “in the strongest
terms that decorum would tolerate,” this vigorous paper was in effect a
challenge, for it called on the President to proclaim whether he meant
to stand by the conciliatory professions of his Inaugural Address, or
on his private convictions; and Jefferson was not slow to accept the
challenge, in order to withdraw himself from an embarrassing position
which was rapidly rousing discontent among his friends. He wrote a
reply to the New Haven remonstrants, in which, without going so far as
to assert that to the victors belonged the spoils, he contented himself
with claiming that to the victors belonged half the spoils. Without
abandoning his claim to establish harmony, he appealed to the necessity
under which he was placed by the duty of doing justice to his friends.

 “If a due participation of office,” he said,[31] “is a matter of
 right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few;
 by resignation, none. Can any other mode than that of removal be
 proposed? This is a painful office, but it is made my duty, and I meet
 it as such.”

The Federalists found much material for ridicule in these expressions,
which were certainly open to criticism; but the chief objection
was that they admitted an unwilling surrender to the demands of
office-seekers.

 “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
 would 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, 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?”

With a degree of deference to his critics which was perhaps
unnecessary, and was certainly unfortunate, Jefferson characterized the
officials who were to be first removed. “I proceed in the operation,”
he said, “with deliberation and inquiry, that it may injure the best
men least, and effect the purposes of justice and public utility with
the least private distress; that it may be thrown, as much as possible,
on delinquency, on oppression, on intolerance, on ante-Revolutionary
adherence to our enemies.” Language so mild soothed and conciliated
hundreds of voters who were glad to meet Jefferson’s advances, but at
the cost of increasing the anger felt by the great mass of Federalists
for professions which they believed to be deceptive. For this result
Jefferson was probably prepared, but he could hardly have intended that
his letter should, by a common accident of politics, serve to create
ill-feeling in his own party.

Rules which might suit New England conveyed quite another impression
elsewhere. While Jefferson professed tenderness to New England in order
to undermine a Federalist majority, nothing of the sort was needed in
other States of the Union. New York and Pennsylvania had grown used to
the abuse of political patronage, and no sooner had the Republicans
wrested these two States from Federalist hands than they rooted out all
vestige of Federalist influence. Governor McKean, in Pennsylvania, was
arbitrary enough; but when George Clinton, elected Governor of New York
in the spring of 1801, came into power, the State government showed
no disposition to imitate Jefferson’s delicacy or his professions.
August 8, 1801, a few weeks after the New Haven letter was written,
Governor Clinton called a meeting of the Council which, under the
Constitution of New York, had charge of the State patronage. Young De
Witt Clinton and his friend Ambrose Spencer controlled this Council,
and they were not persons who affected scruple in matters of political
self-interest. They swept the Federalists out of every office even down
to that of auctioneer, and without regard to appearances, even against
the protests of the Governor, installed their own friends and family
connections in power.

Had this been all, Jefferson might have ignored it. The difficulties
he encountered in New York were caused not so much by the removal of
Federalists, as by unwillingness to appoint Republicans. Jefferson did
not like the Clintons, but he liked Aaron Burr still less.

The character of Burr was well understood by the party leaders on
both sides long before 1800. The Virginians twice refused to vote for
him as Vice-President before they were induced to do so in that year.
Jefferson himself recorded that he considered Burr as for sale between
1790 and 1800; he even added that the two parties bid against each
other in the latter year for the prize. “He was told by Dayton in 1800
he might be Secretary at War; but this bid was too late; his election
as Vice-President was then foreseen.”[32] According to this view, the
Virginians bought him; but they had no sooner done so than they prayed
to be delivered from their bargain; and De Witt Clinton undertook to
deliver them, with a tacit understanding, at least on his part, that in
1808 the Virginians must reckon with him for the debt.

Not, therefore, Federalists alone were victims of the scandal in New
York. The exhibition of selfish intrigue which centred in New York
politics was calculated to startle Jefferson from his confidence in
human nature. Burr’s overthrow was a matter of offices and public
patronage; no principle of reform or pure motive in any person
was involved in it. The New York Republicans were divided into
three factions, represented by the Clinton, Livingston, and Burr
interests; and among them was so little difference in principle or
morals, that a politician as honest and an observer as keen as Albert
Gallatin inclined to Burr as the least selfish of the three.[33]
The Vice-President was popular in the city of New York, and to some
extent in the country districts throughout the State. Bad as his
morality was understood to be, he had at that time committed no offence
that warranted ostracism; but from the moment of Governor Clinton’s
accession to power, he was pursued and persecuted by the whole Clinton
interest.

Burr, aware of the dislike and jealousy with which the Clintons
regarded him, had until then depended for a counterbalance on the
Livingston interest, of which General Armstrong in the Senate and
Edward Livingston in the House were the representatives at Washington;
in alliance with them and in accord with Gallatin, he parcelled out
the federal patronage of the State. His chief anxiety was to provide
offices for his two friends, John Swartwout and Matthew L. Davis;
and he succeeded in obtaining for the first the marshalship of New
York, for the second a promise of the supervisorship. No sooner did
the news of this arrangement reach the ears of De Witt Clinton than
he remonstrated, and in a few days drew from President Jefferson a
letter addressed to Governor Clinton, which in effect surrendered Burr
into the hands of his enemies. “The following arrangement,” wrote the
President,[34] May 17, “was agreed to by Colonel Burr and some of your
senators and representatives,--Daniel Gelston, collector; Theodorus
Bailey, naval officer; and M. L. Davis, supervisor.” Objections had
been made. Would Governor Clinton express his opinion?

In a short time Burr found that the President showed no alacrity for
the removal of Federalist officials in New York. Neither Bailey nor
Davis was appointed. Bailey, hitherto a friend of Burr, withdrew from
his candidacy under a promise, as was supposed, of the postmastership;
and Davis was pressed by Burr for the post of naval officer, then
held by a Federalist named Rogers, who was charged with adhesion to
the British during the Revolution. Within six weeks after Jefferson’s
letter to Governor Clinton, Burr caught the rumor of some secret
understanding, and wrote angrily to Gallatin,[35]--

 “Strange reports are here in circulation respecting secret
 machinations against Davis.... This thing has, in my opinion, gone
 too far to be now defeated.... Davis is too important to be trifled
 with.”

His remonstrances fell on deaf ears. No entreaty, even from Gallatin
himself, could thenceforward induce the President to open his mouth
on the subject. After waiting two months longer, Davis resorted to
the desperate expedient of seeking a personal interview; and early in
September undertook the long journey to Monticello, furnished with a
strong letter from Gallatin, and supported by a private letter which
was stronger still:[36]--

 “I dislike much,” wrote the Secretary in this remarkable paper,
 “the idea of supporting a section of Republicans in New York, and
 mistrusting the great majority because that section is supposed to be
 hostile to Burr, and he is considered as the leader of that majority.
 A great reason against such policy is that the reputed leaders of that
 section,--I mean the Livingstons generally, and some broken remnants
 of the Clintonian party who hate Burr,-- ... are so selfish and so
 uninfluential that they never can obtain their great object, the State
 government, without the assistance of what is called Burr’s party, and
 will not hesitate a moment to bargain for that object with him and his
 friends, granting in exchange their support for anything he or they
 may want out of the State.... I do not know that there is hardly a
 man who meddles with politics in New York who does not believe that
 Davis’s rejection is owing to Burr’s recommendation.”

Gallatin was not in the secret. Although he was the only Cabinet
representative of the Middle States, his advice was neither asked
nor followed. Jefferson had decided to let De Witt Clinton have his
way, but he explained his intentions neither to Gallatin, Burr, nor
to Davis. In reply to Gallatin’s remonstrance, he wrote back from
Monticello:[37] “Mr. Davis is now with me. He has not opened himself.
When he does, I shall inform him that nothing is decided, nor can be
till we get together at Washington.”

That nothing had been decided was not only, as Burr called it,[38]
a “commonplace” answer, but was also incorrect. Everything had
been decided; and by the time Davis, amid the jeers of the press,
rejoined Burr in New York, the results of the Clinton intrigue had
become visible. While Jefferson withheld from Burr all sign of
support, De Witt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer, acting in unison with
the President, detached the Livingstons from Burr’s interest. The
Chancellor was already provided for. Too important to be overlooked,
he was offered and had accepted the mission to France even before the
inauguration.[39] Edward Livingston, Burr’s friend, was made mayor of
New York,--an office then in the gift of the Council, and supposed
to be worth ten thousand dollars a year.[40] He also received from
Jefferson the appointment of district attorney. The chief-justice and
two of the Supreme Court judges were of the Livingston connection. The
secretary of state was another of the family, and General Armstrong,
one of the senators in Congress, still another. In various meetings of
the Council of Appointment during the summer and autumn, the State and
city offices were taken from the Federalists and divided between the
Clintons and Livingstons, until the Livingstons were gorged; while Burr
was left to beg from Jefferson the share of national patronage which De
Witt Clinton had months before taken measures to prevent his obtaining.

That Jefferson and De Witt Clinton expected and intended to drive Burr
from the party was already clear to Burr and his friends as early as
September, 1801, when Matthew L. Davis forced himself into Jefferson’s
house at Monticello, while Burr watched the tactics of De Witt
Clinton’s Council of Appointment. On both sides the game was selfish,
and belonged rather to the intrigues of Guelfs and Ghibellines in some
Italian city of the thirteenth century than to the pure atmosphere of
Jefferson’s republicanism. The disgust of Gallatin was deep; but he
knew too well the nature of New York politics to care greatly whether
Burr or Clinton were to rule, and he was anxious only to stop the use
of federal patronage in the interests of party intrigue. The New Haven
letter had not pleased him. Within a fortnight after that letter was
written, he sent to the President[41] the draft of a Treasury Circular
which would not only have stopped the removal of inferior officers,
but would have shut them out from active politics. Jefferson declined
to approve it. He insisted that one half the tide-waiters and other
employees should be changed before he should interfere. Gallatin
replied that this had already been done. “The number of removals is not
great, but in importance they are beyond their number. The supervisors
of all the violent party States embrace all the collectors. Add to that
the intended change in the post-office, and you have in fact every man
in office out of the seaports.” Still Jefferson hung back, and declared
that it would be a poor manœuvre to revolt tried friends in order to
conciliate moderate Federalists.[42] He could not follow his true
instincts; for the pressure upon him, although trifling when compared
with what he thus helped to bring on his successors, was more than he
could bear. In New York Governor Clinton protested in vain against the
abuse of patronage, and from Pennsylvania Governor McKean wrote:[43]
“The thirst for office is immoderate; it has become an object of
serious attention, and I wish I knew how to check it.” The scandalous
proceedings of the New York Council of Appointment sharpened the tone
of Gallatin, who declared that they disgraced the Republican cause,
and sank the Administration itself to a level with its predecessor.[44]
With all this, the only removal in New York which Jefferson resolutely
resisted, was that of the supposed Revolutionary Tory whose place was
asked for Matthew L. Davis by Vice-President Burr.

No other member of the Cabinet offered active support to Gallatin in
this struggle against the use of federal patronage. Madison concurred
with the President in thinking the proposed Treasury Circular
premature.[45] Nevertheless the Secretary of State made no changes in
the bureaus of his department, although these were full of zealous
Federalists. Not even the chief clerk, Jacob Wagner, was removed, as
bitter a Federalist as any in the United States, whose presence in the
office was a disadvantage if not a danger to the Government. When Duane
came to Washington, after the New York removals had begun, and urged
sweeping measures of change, he was coldly received at the State and
Treasury departments,[46] which gave him contracts for supplying paper,
but declined to give him offices; and Duane returned to Philadelphia
bearing toward Madison and Gallatin a grudge which he never forgot,
and which, like that of Burr, was destined in due time to envenom a
party schism.

Although these disputes over patronage seemed to require more of the
President’s thoughts than were exacted by the study of general policy,
the task of government was not severe. After passing the month of April
at Monticello, Jefferson was able to rest there during the months of
August and September, leaving Washington July 30. During six months,
from April to October, he wrote less than was his custom, and his
letters gave no clear idea of what was passing in his mind. In regard
to his principles of general policy he was singularly cautious.

 “I am sensible,” he wrote, March 31,[47] “how far I should fall
 short of effecting all the reformation which reason could suggest
 and experience approve, were I free to do whatever I thought best;
 but when we reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the great
 machine of society, how impossible to advance the notions of a
 whole people suddenly to ideal right, we see the wisdom of Solon’s
 remark,--that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear,
 and that all will be chiefly to reform the waste of public money, and
 thus drive away the vultures who prey upon it, and improve some little
 on old routines.”

 “Levees are done away,” he wrote to Macon;[48] “the first
 communication to the next Congress will be, like all subsequent ones,
 by message, to which no answer will be expected; the diplomatic
 establishment in Europe will be reduced to three ministers; the
 army is undergoing a chaste reformation; the navy will be reduced
 to the legal establishment by the last of this month; agencies in
 every department will be revised; we shall push you to the utmost in
 economizing.”

His followers were not altogether pleased with his moderation of
tone. They had expected a change of system more revolutionary than
was implied by a pledge to do away with the President’s occasional
receptions and his annual speech to Congress, to cut off three
second-rate foreign missions, to chasten the army, and to execute
a Federalist law about the navy, or even to revise agencies. John
Randolph wrote, July 18, to his friend Joseph Nicholson, a member from
Maryland:[49] “In this quarter we think that the great work is only
begun, and that without a substantial reform we shall have little
reason to congratulate ourselves on the mere change of men.”

The task of devising what Randolph called a substantial reform fell
almost wholly upon Gallatin, who arrived in Washington, May 13, and set
himself to the labor of reducing to a system the theories with which he
had indoctrinated his party. Through the summer and autumn he toiled
upon this problem, which the President left in his hands. When October
arrived, and the whole Cabinet assembled at length in Washington,
under the President’s eye, to prepare business for the coming session,
Gallatin produced his scheme. First, he required common consent to the
general principle that payment of debt should take precedence of all
other expenditure. This axiom of Republicanism was a party dogma too
well settled to be disputed. Debt, taxes, wars, armies, and navies were
all pillars of corruption; but the habit of mortgaging the future to
support present waste was the most fatal to freedom and purity., Having
fixed this broad principle, which was, as Gallatin afterward declared,
the principal object of bringing him into office,[50] a harder task
remained; for if theory required prompt payment of the debt, party
interest insisted with still greater energy on reduction of taxes; and
the revenue was not sufficient to satisfy both demands. The customs
duties were already low. The highest _ad valorem_ rate was twenty per
cent; the average was but thirteen. Reduction to a lower average,
except in the specific duties on salt, coffee, and sugar, was asked
by no one; and Gallatin could not increase the rates even to relieve
taxation elsewhere. Whatever relief the party required must come from
another source.

The Secretary began by fixing the limits of his main scheme. Assuming
four Administrations, or sixteen years, as a fair allowance of time
for extinguishing the debt, he calculated the annual sum which would
be required for the purpose, and found that $7,300,000 applied every
year to the payment of interest and principal would discharge the whole
within the year 1817. Setting aside $7,300,000 as an annual fund to be
devoted by law to this primary object, he had to deal only with such
revenue as should remain.

The net receipts from customs he calculated at $9,500,000 for the
year, and from lands and postage at $450,000; or $9,950,000 in all.
Besides this sum of less than ten million dollars, internal taxes,
and especially the tax on whiskey-stills, produced altogether about
$650,000; thus raising the income to $10,600,000, or $3,300,000 in
excess of the fund set apart for the debt.

If taxation were to be reduced at all, political reasons required that
the unpopular excise should come first in order of reduction; but if
the excise were abolished, the other internal taxes were not worth
retaining. Led by the wish to relieve government and people from the
whole system of internal taxation, Gallatin consented to sacrifice the
revenue it produced. After thus parting with internal revenue to the
amount of $650,000, and setting aside $7,300,000 for the debt, he could
offer to the other heads of departments only $2,650,000 for the entire
expenses of government. Gallatin expected the army to be supported on
$930,000, while the navy was to be satisfied with $670,000,--a charge
of less than thirty-three cents a head on the white population.

Of all standards by which the nature of Jeffersonian principles could
be gauged, none was so striking as this. The highest expenditure
of the Federalists in 1799, when preparing for war with France and
constructing a navy and an army, was six million dollars for these
two branches. Peace with France being made in 1800, the expenses of
army and navy would naturally fall to a normal average of about three
million dollars. At a time when the population was small, scattered,
and surrounded by enemies, civilized and savage; when the Mississippi
River, the Gulf region, and the Atlantic coast as far as the St. Mary’s
were in the hands of Spain, which was still a great power; when English
frigates were impressing American seamen by scores, and Napoleon
Bonaparte was suspected of having bought Louisiana; when New York might
be ransomed by any line-of-battle ship, and not a road existed by which
a light field-piece could be hauled to the Lakes or to a frontier
fort,--at such a moment, the people could hardly refuse to pay sixty
cents apiece for providing some protection against dangers which time
was to prove as serious as any one then imagined them to be. Doubtless
the republican theory required the States to protect their own coasts
and to enforce order within their own jurisdiction; but the States were
not competent to act in matters which concerned the nation, and the
immense territory, the Lakes, and the Mississippi and Mobile rivers,
belonged within the exclusive sphere of national government.

Gallatin cut down by one half the natural estimate. That he should have
done this was not surprising, for he was put in office to reduce debt
and taxation, not to manage the army and navy; but he could hardly
have expected that all his colleagues should agree with him,--yet his
estimates were accepted by the Cabinet without serious objection, and
adopted as a practical scale of governmental expenditure. Encouraged
by the announcement of peace in Europe, the Secretaries of War and of
the Navy consented to reduce their establishments to suit Gallatin’s
plans, until the entire expense of both branches for the future was
to be brought within $1,900,000; while Gallatin on his side made some
concessions which saved his estimates from error. The army bore the
brunt of these economies, and was reduced to about three thousand men.
The navy was not so great a sufferer, and its calculated reductions
were less certain.

Gallatin’s scheme partially warranted the claim which Jefferson in
his old age loved to put forward, that he had made a revolution in
the principles of the government. Yet apart from the question of its
success, its rigor was less extreme than it appeared to be. Doubtless,
such excessive economy seemed to relieve government of duties as well
as responsibilities. Congress and the Executive appeared disposed to
act as a machine for recording events, without guiding or controlling
them. The army was not large enough to hold the Indians in awe; the
navy was not strong enough to watch the coasts; and the civil service
was nearly restricted to the collection and disbursement of revenue.
The country was at the mercy of any Power which might choose to
rob it, and the President announced in advance that he relied for
safety upon the soundness of his theory that every foreign country
felt a vital interest in retaining American commerce and the use of
American harbors. All this was true, and the experiment might be called
revolutionary, considering the condition of the world; nevertheless
there were shades of difference in the arguments on which it rested.
Even Jefferson wavered in asserting the permanence of the system,
while Gallatin avowedly looked forward to the time when diminished
debt and increasing resources would allow wider scope of action.
Viewed from this standpoint, the system was less rigid than it seemed,
since a period of not more than five or six years was needed to obtain
Gallatin’s object.

By an unlucky chance the system never became fully established. The
first step in foreign affairs taken by the new Administration plunged
it into difficulties which soon forced Congress to reimpose taxation
to the full amount of the internal taxes. Jefferson had not been three
months in power before he found himself, by no fault of his own or of
his predecessors, at war with a country against which he was forced
to use in his own defence some of those frigates, the construction
of which had been vehemently resisted by his party, and which he was
anxious only to leave under the care of a score of marines at the
Navy Yard in the Eastern Branch of the Potomac. From time immemorial
the northern coast of Africa had been occupied by a swarm of pirates
who played a dramatic part in the politics and literature of Europe.
They figured in the story of Don Quixote as in the lies of Scapin, and
enlivened with picturesque barbarism the semi-civilization of European
habits and manners through centuries of slow growth. The four Barbary
Powers, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, lived by blackmail. So
little sense of common interest had the nations of Europe, that they
submitted to the demands of these petty Mahometan despots, and paid
yearly sums of money, or an equivalent in ships, arms, or warlike
stores, in return for which the Barbary Powers permitted them to trade
with the ports on the coast and protected their ships and men. The
European consuls at Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli intrigued to impose
heavier conditions on rival commerce. Following the established custom,
the United States had bought treaties with all four Powers, and had
during the past ten years appropriated altogether more than two million
dollars for the account of ransoms, gifts, and tribute. The treaty with
Tripoli, negotiated in 1796, had been observed about three years and
a half. The Pacha received under it from the United States Government
$83,000 in cash and presents. He suddenly demanded more, and when his
demand was refused, May 14, 1801, he ordered the consular flagstaff to
be cut down, which was his formal declaration of war.

[Illustration: THE STATES OF NORTH AFRICA

From Map by S. Boulton, Published May 12th, 1800.

(Jeffery’s American Atlas, London, 1800.)]

The conduct of the Dey of Algiers was almost as threatening to
peace as that of the Pacha of Tripoli; for the Dey compelled Captain
Bainbridge to put his frigate, the “George Washington,” under Algerine
colors and carry an embassy and presents to the Grand Sultan. Rather
than take the responsibility of bringing on a war, Bainbridge and
Consul O’Brian submitted, under protest, to this indignity; and in
October, 1800, the United States flag was first seen at Constantinople
in this extraordinary company. At the same time, Algiers, Tunis, and
Morocco were clamorous for money, and gave reason to fear that they
would make common cause with Tripoli in the war which the Pacha was
declaring.

Under these circumstances, without knowing that war had actually begun,
Samuel Smith, as acting Secretary of the Navy, in May, 1801, sent out
Commodore Dale in command of a squadron of three frigates and an armed
schooner, the “Enterprise,” with orders to meet force by force. On her
way to Malta, August 1, the “Enterprise” met and destroyed a Tripolitan
corsair. Commodore Dale blockaded Tripoli; and his appearance in the
Mediterranean inspired Tunis and Algiers with so much respect as
caused them to leave the Pacha of Tripoli to his fate, and to accept
the presents which their treaties stipulated. Much injury to American
commerce was prevented; but Gallatin found a war and a navy fastened on
his resources.

That enlightened governments like those of England, France, and Spain
should rob and plunder like an Algerine pirate was in theory not
to be admitted; but even if they did so, a few frigates could not
prevent them, and therefore Jefferson, without regard to this partial
failure of his system, prepared to meet Congress with confidence in his
reforms.




CHAPTER IX.


PRESIDENT WASHINGTON began his administration by addressing Congress
in a speech, which Congress answered; and the precedent established
by him in 1790 was followed by his successor. The custom was regarded
by the opposition as an English habit, tending to familiarize the
public with monarchical ideas, and Jefferson gave early warning that he
should address Congress in a message, which would require no answer. In
after times the difference between oral and written communications as
signs of monarchy or republicanism became less self-evident; but the
habit of writing to Congress was convenient, especially to Presidents
who disliked public speaking, and Jefferson’s practice remained the
rule. The Federalists naturally regarded the change as a reproof, and
never admitted its advantages. The Republicans also missed some of the
conveniences of the old system. John Randolph, eight years afterward,
seemed to regret that the speech had been abandoned:[51]--

 “The answer to an Address, although that answer might finally contain
 the most exceptionable passages, was in fact the greatest opportunity
 which the opposition to the measures of the Administration had of
 canvassing and sifting its measures.... This opportunity of discussion
 of the answer to an Address, however exceptionable the answer might be
 when it had received the last seasoning for the Presidential palate,
 did afford the best opportunity to take a review of the measures of
 the Administration, to canvass them fully and fairly, without there
 being any question raised whether the gentleman was in order or not;
 and I believe the time spent in canvassing the answer to a speech was
 at least as well spent as a great deal that we have expended since we
 discontinued the practice.”

President Jefferson did not assign political reasons for changing
the custom. “I have had a principal regard,” he said,[52] “to the
convenience of the legislature, to the economy of their time, to their
relief from the embarrassment of immediate answers on subjects not yet
fully before them, and to the benefits thence resulting to the public
affairs.” With this preamble, he sent his message.

Jefferson’s first Annual Message deserved study less for what it
contained than for what it omitted. If the scope of reform was to be
measured by the President’s official recommendations, party spirit
was likely to find little excuse for violence. The Message began by
announcing, in contrast with the expectations of Republicans, that
while Europe had returned to peace the United States had begun a war,
and that a hostile cruiser had been captured “after a heavy slaughter
of her men.” The Federalist wits made fun of the moral which the
President added to soften the announcement of such an event: “The
bravery exhibited by our citizens on that element will, I trust, be a
testimony to the world that it is not the want of that virtue which
makes us seek their peace, but a conscientious desire to direct the
energies of our nation to the multiplication of the human race, and not
to its destruction.” The idea seemed a favorite one with the President,
for he next congratulated Congress on the results of the new census,
which, he said, “promises a duplication in little more than twenty-two
years. We contemplate this rapid growth and the prospect it holds up to
us, not with a view to the injuries it may enable us to do to others
in some future day, but to the settlement of the extensive country
still remaining vacant within our limits, to the multiplication of men
susceptible of happiness, educated in the love of order, habituated to
self-government, and valuing its blessings above all price.”

Just and benevolent as this sentiment might be, Jefferson rarely
invented a phrase open to more perversion than when he thus announced
his party’s “conscientious desire to direct the energies of our nation
to the multiplication of the human race.” Perhaps his want of a sense
of humor prevented his noticing this slip of the tongue which the
English language had no precise word to describe; perhaps he intended
the phrase rather for a European than for an American audience; in
any case, such an introduction to his proposed reforms, in the eyes
of opponents, injured their dignity and force. As he approached the
reforms themselves, the manner in which he preferred to present them
was characteristic. As in his Inaugural Address, he showed skill in
selecting popular ground.

 “There is reasonable ground of confidence,” he said, “that we may
 now safely dispense with all the internal taxes, ... and that the
 remaining sources of revenue will be sufficient to provide for the
 support of government, to pay the interest of the public debts, and
 to discharge the principals within shorter periods than the laws or
 the general expectation had contemplated. War, indeed, and untoward
 events may change this prospect of things, and call for expenses which
 the imposts could not meet; but sound principles will not justify our
 taxing the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for
 wars to happen we know not when, and which might not perhaps happen
 but for the temptations offered by that treasure.”

Assuming that “the States themselves have principal care of our
persons, our property, and our reputation, constituting the great field
of human concerns,” the Message maintained that the general government
was unnecessarily complicated and expensive, and that its work could be
better performed at a smaller cost.

 “Considering the general tendency,” it said, “to multiply offices and
 dependencies, and to increase expense to the ultimate term of burden
 which the citizen can bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every
 occasion which presents itself for taking off the surcharge, that
 it never may be seen here that, after leaving to labor the smallest
 portion of its earnings on which it can subsist, government shall
 itself consume the residue of what it was instituted to guard.”

No one could deny that these sentiments were likely to please a
majority of citizens, and that they announced principles of government
which, if not new, were seldom or never put into practice on a great
scale. As usual in such cases, the objections came from the two classes
who stood at the extremes of the political movement. The Federalists
denied that they had ever asked “to accumulate treasures for wars.”
They asked for cannon and muskets in the armories; for timber and
ship-stores in the navy-yards; for fortifications to defend New York,
and for readiness to resist attack. Gallatin’s economies turned on the
question whether the national debt or the risk of foreign aggression
were most dangerous to America. Freedom from debt and the taxation
which debt entailed was his object, not in order to save money, but to
prevent corruption. He was ready to risk every other danger for the
short time required. “Eight years hence,” he afterward wrote,[53] “we
shall, I trust, be able to assume a different tone; but our exertions
at present consume the seeds of our greatness, and retard to an
indefinite time the epoch of our strength.” The epoch of strength once
reached, Gallatin had no objection to tax, and tax freely, for any
good purpose, even including ships-of-the-line. “Although I have been
desirous,” he wrote some four years later,[54] “that the measure might
at least be postponed, I have had no doubt for a long time that the
United States would ultimately have a navy.” Nothing in his political
theories prevented his spending money on defensive armaments or
internal improvements or any other honest object, provided he had the
money to spend.

The Federalists disagreed with Gallatin rather on a question of fact
than of principle. They asserted that the country could not safely
disarm; Gallatin, on the other hand, thought that for a few years
military helplessness might be risked without too much danger. Time
could alone decide which opinion was correct; but in this issue the
Federalists could see no suggestion such as Jefferson made, that
“sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our
fellow-citizens to accumulate treasures for wars to happen we know
not when.” If this was the true principle of government, and if the
hands of Congress were to be tied so fast that no provision could ever
be made for national defence except in actual presence of war, this
“sound principle” should have been announced, according to Federalist
theories, not as a detail of administration but as a constitutional
amendment.

In this opinion the true Virginia school probably concurred. Economy
for its own sake was not the chief object of that class of men, and
any reform on such narrow ground was not wholly to their taste.
Even they were well aware at the moments when they complained most
of extravagance that the United States, compared with any powerful
European government, had always been a model of economy,--and indeed
the most obvious criticism of the system was that economy had been its
only extravagance. In the year 1800, when expenses were swollen to
their highest point, in consequence of a _quasi_ war with France, the
disbursements reached about $11,500,000, of which the sum of $4,578,000
was on account of public debt. The running expenses of the government,
including the creation of an army and a navy, did not then exceed
$7,000,000, or about $1.30 a head to each inhabitant. The average
annual expenditure for the past ten years had been about $9,000,000,--a
smaller sum than Jefferson ever succeeded in spending. This example of
economy was enough to strike the imagination of any observer; and still
greater parsimony, even though it should reduce the running expenses by
one half, could do no more than strengthen the same impression, or at
most create an idea that republican government was too economical for
its own safety. This was no revolution such as the Virginians wished
to effect. They aimed at restricting power even more than at relieving
taxation.

The Message put economy in the place of principle in dealing with
patronage, while in regard to constitutional powers it ignored the
existence of a problem. In this silence, which for the first time since
1787 fell on the lips of those who had hitherto shown only jealousy
of government; in this alacrity with which Republicans grasped the
powers which had, as they affirmed, made “monocrats” of their old
opponents,--a European would have seen the cynicism of conscious
selfishness. Certain phrases in the Constitution had been shown by
experience to be full of perils, and were so well established by
precedent in their dangerous meaning as to be susceptible only of
excision. The clause which gave Congress sweeping power to make all
laws which a majority might think “necessary and proper” for carrying
the Constitution into effect, was, as settled by precedents, fatal
not only to the theory of State-rights, but to the doctrine of strict
construction on which American liberties were supposed to rest. The
war and treaty making powers, with their undefined and therefore
unlimited consequences, were well understood. These loopholes for the
admission of European sovereignty into the citadel of American liberty
were seen in 1800 as clearly as when the children and grandchildren
of the Southern statesmen broke up the Union because they feared the
consequences of centralization. Yet Jefferson called no man’s attention
to the danger, took no step toward averting it, but stretched out his
hand to seize the powers he had denounced.

Even in regard to the Judiciary, the most dangerous part of the system,
he recommended no legislation but for the apparent purpose of saving
money.

 “The judiciary system of the United States,” continued the Message,
 “and especially that portion of it recently erected, will of course
 present itself to the contemplation of Congress; and that they may be
 able to judge of the proportion which the institution bears to the
 business it has to perform, I have caused to be procured from the
 several States, and now lay before Congress, an exact statement of all
 the causes decided since the first establishment of the Courts, and
 of those which were depending when additional Courts and Judges were
 brought in to their aid.”

That he should have shown no anxiety to limit the vague powers of
Legislature and Executive was less surprising, because these powers
were henceforward to remain in the hands of his own party; but the
Judiciary was in the hands of Federalists, whose constitutional
theories were centralization itself. The essence of Virginia
republicanism lay in a single maxim: THE GOVERNMENT SHALL NOT BE
THE FINAL JUDGE OF ITS OWN POWERS. The liberties of America, as
the Republican party believed, rested in this nutshell; for if
the Government, either in its legislative, executive, or judicial
departments, or in any combination of them, could define its own
powers in the last resort, then its will, and not the letter of the
Constitution, was law. To this axiom of republicanism the Federalist
Judiciary opposed what amounted to a flat negative. Chief-Justice
Marshall and his colleagues meant to interpret the Constitution as
seemed to them right, and they admitted no appeal from their decision.

The question how to deal with the Judiciary was, therefore, the only
revolutionary issue before the people to be met or abandoned; and if
abandoned then, it must be forever. No party could claim the right to
ignore its principles at will, or imagine that theories once dropped
could be resumed with equal chance of success. If the revolution of
1800 was to endure, it must control the Supreme Court. The object
might be reached by constitutional amendment, by impeachment, or by
increasing the number of judges. Every necessary power could be gained
by inserting into the United States Constitution the words of the
Constitution of Massachusetts, borrowed from English constitutional
practice, that judges might be removed by the President on address by
both Houses of the Legislature. Federalists were certain to denounce
both object and means as revolutionary and dangerous to public
repose; but such an objection could carry little weight with men who
believed themselves to have gained power for no other purpose than to
alter, as Jefferson claimed, the principles of government. Serious
statesmen could hardly expect to make a revolution that should not be
revolutionary.

Had Jefferson overlooked the danger, costly as the oversight was,
it might cause no surprise; but he perceived it clearly, and in
private denounced it with as much keenness as though he already knew
what was to be judged “necessary and proper” for the purposes of a
government which, as Virginians foresaw, would in the end interpret its
own powers. “They have retired into the Judiciary as a stronghold,”
cried he in the same breath with which he talked to Congress only of
economy.[55] “There the remains of federalism are to be preserved
and fed from the Treasury; and from that battery all the works of
republicanism are to be beaten down and destroyed.” Some twenty years
afterward Jefferson awoke to see his prophecy come true, and he then
threw responsibility on the Constitution.

 “The nation declared its will,” he said,[56] “by dismissing
 functionaries of one principle and electing those of another in the
 two branches, executive and legislative, submitted to their election.
 Over the judiciary department the Constitution had deprived them of
 their control. That, therefore, has continued the reprobated system;
 and although new matter has occasionally been incorporated into the
 old, yet the leaven of the old mass seems to assimilate to itself the
 new; and after twenty years’ confirmation of the federated system by
 the voice of the nation, declared through the medium of elections,
 we find the Judiciary, on every occasion, still driving us into
 consolidation.”

Such was the fact; and when Jefferson spoke of “the leaven of the old
mass,” he meant Chief-Justice Marshall, who had won a slow, certain
victory over State-rights, and had thrust powers on the national
government which, if Jefferson were right, must end in corrupting and
destroying it. Whose was the fault? Was it true that the Constitution
deprived the people of their control over the Judiciary? Even if it
were so, did not Jefferson for years control with autocratic power
the strength necessary for altering the Constitution? When at last,
four years before his death, the impending certainty of defeat forced
itself on Jefferson’s mind, he made what amounted to a confession
of his oversight, and withdrew the apology which threw blame on
the Constitution: “Before the canker is become inveterate,--before
its venom has reached so much of the body politic as to get beyond
control,--remedy should be applied. Let the future appointments of
judges be for four or six years, and renewable by the President and
Senate.”[57] If this could be done, as his words implied, in 1822
under the Presidency of James Monroe, when J. Q. Adams, Calhoun, Clay,
and Andrew Jackson were each in his own way laboring to consolidate a
nation still hot with the enthusiasm of foreign war, why was it not
attempted in 1801, when a word from Jefferson would have decided the
action of his party?

If this were all, some explanation of the President’s silence might be
offered; for in 1801-1802 his majority in the Senate was small, and
only a political leader as bold as Andrew Jackson would have dared
to risk his popularity on such a venture. The judges held office
for life; the Constitution required for amendment two thirds of the
Senate and three fourths of the States; any violent shock might have
thrown Connecticut and Massachusetts into open secession; but these
objections to a revolution in constitutional law did not apply to
partisan Federalist legislation. Why did not Jefferson officially
invite Congress to confirm the action of Virginia and Kentucky by
declaring the Alien and Sedition Laws to be unconstitutional and null
as legislative precedents? In the absence of such a declaratory act,
the Republican party left on the statute book the precedent established
by those laws, which had expired only by limitation. Had the Alien and
Sedition Laws been alone in dispute, the negligence might have seemed
accidental; but the statute-book contained another Federalist law,
aimed against State-rights, which had roused alarm on that account. The
Judiciary Act of 1789, the triumph of Federalist centralization, had
conferred on the Supreme Court jurisdiction over the final judgment of
State courts in cases where the powers of the general government had
been “drawn in question” and the decision was unfavorable to them. This
concession of power to the Supreme Court,--a concession often alleged
to be more dangerous to the States than the “necessary and proper”
clause itself,--was believed to be dictated by a wish to make the State
judiciaries inferior courts of the central government, because the
powers of the general government might be “drawn in question” in many
ways and on many occasions, and thus the authority of the State courts
made contemptible. Chief-Justice Marshall achieved one of his greatest
triumphs by causing Judge Story, a republican raised to the bench in
1811 for the purpose of contesting his authority, to pronounce in 1816
the opinion of the court in the case of Martin _vs._ Hunter’s Lessee,
by which the Virginia Court of Appeals was overruled upon the question
of constitutionality raised by the State court in regard to Section
25 of the Judiciary Act. Such a result would hardly have happened
had the Republicans in 1801 revised the laws which they considered
unconstitutional; but with what propriety could Virginia in 1816 assert
the unconstitutionality of a law which she had for fifteen years
possessed the power to repeal, without making an attempt or expressing
a wish to exercise it?

Whatever was the true cause of the inaction, it was certainly
intentional. President Jefferson wished to overthrow the Federalists
and annihilate the last opposition before attempting radical reforms.
Confident that State-rights were safe in his hands, he saw no occasion
to alarm the people with legislation directed against past rather than
future dangers. His party acquiesced, but not without misgivings.
John Taylor of Caroline, most consistent of the State-rights school,
thought that reforms should have been made. John Randolph, eight years
afterward, expressed his opinion with characteristic frankness:--

 “You know very well,” he said,[58] addressing Speaker Varnum, “that
 there were many of us, and I was one, who thought that at the
 commencement of Mr. Jefferson’s administration it would be proper for
 us to pass a sort of declaratory Act on the subject of the Sedition
 Law; ... but on this subject, as well as the reduction of the army
 below its then standard, as on some others, I had the honor, or
 dishonor as some might esteem it, to be in the minority. I had thought
 that we ought to have returned the fines of all those who suffered
 under the law; ... but you know that it was said that we came in
 as reformers; that we should not do too much; that we should go on
 little by little; that we should fire minute-guns, I think was the
 expression,--which produced no other effect, that I ever found, than
 the keeping up a spirit of irritation.”

Speaker Macon, Joseph Nicholson, and William B. Giles were probably
among those who held the same opinion, and were overruled by the
Northern democrats. They never quite forgave Madison, to whose
semi-Federalist influence they ascribed all Jefferson’s sins.
Distrust of Madison was natural, for neither Virginian nor New
Englander understood how Madison framed the Constitution and wrote the
“Federalist” with the same hand which drafted the Virginia Resolutions
of 1798; but Jefferson himself would have been last to admit the
correctness of such an explanation. He could point to the sentence of
his Inaugural Address which pledged him to “the preservation of the
general government in its whole constitutional vigor.” If in redeeming
the pledge he preserved vigor that his friends deemed unconstitutional,
his own habits of mind, not Madison’s semi-Federalist tendencies,
explained the error.

Another reason partly accounted for the President’s silence. In
theory the Executive received its instructions from the Legislature.
Upon no point had the Republican party, when in opposition, laid
more stress than on the necessity of reducing Executive influence.
President Washington’s personal authority, even more than the supposed
monarchical tendencies of his successor, inspired anger, if not terror,
in the minds of his opponents. Jefferson wished to avoid this error,
and to restore the true constitutional theory to its place in practice.
His recommendations were studiously restrained, and the Federalists
were so far silenced that they could only say with Chief-Justice
Marshall, “By weakening the office of President, he will increase his
personal power.” The concluding sentences of the Message expressed in a
few words the two leading ideas which Jefferson wished most to impress
on the people,--his abnegation of power and his wish for harmony:--

 “Nothing shall be wanting on my part to inform, as far as in my
 power, the legislative judgment, nor to carry that judgment into
 faithful execution. The prudence and temperance of your discussions
 will promote, within your own walls, that conciliation which so much
 befriends rational conclusion, and by its example will encourage among
 our constituents that progress of opinion which is tending to unite
 them in object and will. That all should be satisfied with any one
 order of things is not to be expected, but I indulge the pleasing
 persuasion that the great body of our citizens will cordially concur
 in honest and disinterested efforts, which have for their object to
 preserve the General and State governments in their constitutional
 form and equilibrium; to maintain peace abroad, and order and
 obedience to the laws at home; to establish principles and practices
 of administration favorable to the security of liberty and property,
 and to reduce expenses to what is necessary for the useful purposes of
 government.”




CHAPTER X.


HONEST as Jefferson undoubtedly was in his wish to diminish executive
influence, the task was beyond his powers. In ability and in energy the
Executive overshadowed Congress, where the Republican party, though
strong in numbers and discipline, was so weak in leadership, especially
among the Northern democrats, that the weakness almost amounted
to helplessness. Of one hundred and five members, thirty-six were
Federalists; of the sixty-nine Republicans, some thirty were Northern
men, from whom the Administration could expect little more than votes.
Boston sent Dr. Eustis; from New York came Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill,--new
members both; but two physicians, or even two professors, were hardly
competent to take the place of leaders in the House, or to wield much
influence outside. The older Northern members were for the most part
men of that respectable mediocrity which followed where others led. The
typical Northern democrat of that day was a man disqualified for great
distinction by his want of the habits of leadership; he was obliged, in
spite of his principles, to accept the guidance of aristocrats like the
Livingstons, Clintons, and Burrs, or like Gallatin, Jefferson, John
Randolph, and the Smiths, because he had never been used to command,
and could not write or speak with perfect confidence in his spelling
and grammar, or enter a room without awkwardness. He found himself
ill at ease at the President’s dinner-table; he could talk only upon
subjects connected with his district, and he could not readily accustom
himself to the scale of national affairs. Such men were thrust aside
with more or less civility by their leaders, partly because they were
timid, but chiefly because they were unable to combine under the lead
of one among themselves. The moment true democrats produced a leader
of their own, they gave him the power inherent in leadership, and by
virtue of this power he became an aristocrat, was admitted into the
circle of Randolphs and Clintons, and soon retired to an executive
office, a custom-house or a marshalship; while the never-failing
succession of democratic Congressmen from the North continued to act
as before at the command of some aristocratic Virginian or educated
gentleman from the city of New York.

Owing to this peculiarity, the Northern democrats were and always
remained, in their organization as a party, better disciplined than
their opponents. Controlling the political power of New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania, they wielded it as they were bid. Their
influence was not that of individuality, but of mass; they affected
government strongly and permanently, but not consciously; their steady
attraction served to deflect the Virginia compass several degrees from
its supposed bearings; but this attraction was commonly mechanical.
Jefferson might honestly strip himself of patronage, and abandon the
receptions of other Presidents; he might ride every day on horseback
to the Capitol in “overalls of corduroy, faded, by frequent immersions
in soapsuds, from yellow to a dull white,” and hitch his horse in the
shed,--he alone wielded power. The only counterpoise to his authority
was to be found among his Southern equals and aristocratic Northern
allies, whose vantage-ground was in the United States Senate or at the
head of State governments; but the machinery of faction was not yet
well understood. In the three former Administrations, the House had
been the most powerful part of the body politic, and the House was
ill-suited for factious purposes. The Senate was not yet a favorite
place for party leaders to fortify themselves in power; its debates
were rarely reported, and a public man who quitted the House for the
Senate was thrown into the background rather than into prominence.
In 1803 De Witt Clinton resigned a seat there in order to become
mayor of New York. In the same year Theodorus Bailey resigned the
other seat, in order to become postmaster of New York, leaving the
State unrepresented. While senators had not yet learned their power,
representatives were restrained by party discipline, which could be
defied only by men so strong as to resist unpopularity. As long as
this situation lasted, Jefferson could not escape the exercise of
executive influence even greater than that which he had blamed in his
predecessors.

The House chose for Speaker Nathaniel Macon, a typical, homespun
planter, honest and simple, erring more often in his grammar and
spelling than in his moral principles, but knowing little of the world
beyond the borders of Carolina. No man in American history left a
better name than Macon; but the name was all he left. An ideal Southern
republican, independent, unambitious, free from intrigue, true to his
convictions, a kindly and honorable man, his influence with President
Jefferson was not so great as that of some less respectable and more
busy politicians.

The oldest members of much authority were William B. Giles of Virginia,
and Samuel Smith of Maryland. In the characters of both these men was
something which, in spite of long service and fair abilities, kept them
subordinate. Whether on account of indolence or temper, restlessness
or intrigue, they seldom commanded the full weight to which their
service entitled them. Speaker Macon, in appointing his standing
committees, passed over both in order to bring forward a young favorite
of his own,--a Virginian barely twenty-eight years old, whose natural
quickness of mind and faculty for ready speaking gave him prominence in
a body of men so little marked by ability as was the Seventh Congress.
During several years the Federalist newspapers never wearied of gibing
at the long lean figure, the shrill voice and beardless face of the
boyish Republican leader, among whose peculiarities of mind and person
common shrewishness seemed often to get the better of intense masculine
pride. Besides his natural abilities and his superior education, the
young man had the advantage of belonging to the most widely-connected
of all Virginia families; and this social distinction counted for
everything in a party which, although reviled as democratic, would
be led by no man without birth and training. Incomprehensible to New
England Federalists, who looked on him as a freak of Nature; obnoxious
to Northern democrats, who groaned in secret under his insane spur
and curb; especially exasperating to those Southern Republicans whose
political morality or whose manners did not suit him,--Randolph,
by his independence, courage, wit, sarcasm, and extreme political
orthodoxy, commanded strong influence among the best Virginians of the
State-rights school. More than half the Virginia delegation belonged to
the same social and political caste; but none of them could express so
well as Randolph the mixture of contradictory theories, the breadth and
narrowness, the aspirations and ignorance, the genius and prejudices of
Virginia.

The experiment of placing Randolph at the head of the Ways and Means
Committee was hazardous; and to support him the Speaker put as second
member their friend Joseph Nicholson of Maryland, while General Smith
retained his old place at the head of the Committee on Commerce, and
Giles was quite neglected. The Federalists even in their reduced
condition, numbering barely one third of the House, still overmatched
the majority in debate. Randolph, Nicholson, Samuel Smith, and Giles
were hardly equal to Bayard, Griswold, Dana, John Cotton Smith, and
John Rutledge.

No member of the House wielded serious influence over the President, or
represented with authority the intentions of the party; and although in
the Senate the Republicans were stronger in ability, they were weaker
in numbers, and therefore more inclined to timidity. The ablest of
the Republican senators was a new man, John Breckinridge of Kentucky,
another Virginia aristocrat, chiefly known as the putative father of
the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. Breckinridge was bold enough to
support any policy that the Administration would consent to impose;
but he was new to the Senate, and, like Randolph, had yet to win the
authority of a leader against a strong Federalist opposition.

The business of the first session of the Seventh Congress quickly
took shape in two party struggles on the lines marked out by the
Message; and the same caution which made the Message disappointing as a
declaration of principles, affected the debates and laws. Although the
Federalists offered challenge after challenge, charging the majority
with revolutionary schemes which no honest democrat needed to deny, the
Republicans, abiding carefully for the most part within the defences
selected by the President, seemed unwilling to avow the legitimate
objects of their acts. The two measures over which the struggle took
place were not so important as to touch the foundations of government,
unless they were parts of more sweeping changes to come. They required
the overthrow of two Federalist creations, but not expressly of any
Federalist principle. They abolished the internal taxes and the circuit
courts, but touched no vital power of government.

Resistance to the abolition of taxes was impossible after the promise
which the President’s Message held out. The Federalists themselves had
made peace with France, and hostilities between France and England
had ceased. For the first time in ten years no danger of foreign war
was apparent, and if the Administration offered to effect economies
in the public service, Congress could hardly deny that economies were
possible. The opposition preferred not to question the estimates, but
to rival the Government in zeal for reduction of taxes; and on this
point they argued with some force that although the _ad valorem_ duties
were low,--averaging about thirteen per cent,--the specific duties on
necessaries of life like salt and sugar, tea and coffee, amounted to
fifty and a hundred per cent; and reduction of these would surely give
more relief than would be afforded by repealing the tax on whiskey,--a
proper object of taxation,--or the stamp-duty, which was one of the
best and cheapest taxes on the list. The majority replied that to
abolish the internal revenue system was to diminish by one half
the Executive patronage. Forcible as this reasoning was, it did not
convince the Federalist leaders in the House, who insisted upon moving
amendments. The majority became irritated; a Kentucky member advised
that the Federalists should be left unanswered, and their motions voted
down. A Republican caucus decided to adopt for a time this course; and
the next day, Jan. 25, 1802, when a New York Federalist called for
returns in regard to the stamp-tax, the House by a vote of fifty-four
to thirty-four bluntly refused the information. Such motions were
usually adopted by courtesy, and the Federalists, in their twelve years
of rule, were rarely accused of a course so high-handed as that of the
new majority. James A. Bayard, of Delaware, who led the Federalists,
instantly called up another motion of the same class. After he had
spoken in its favor, John Randolph rose and ordered the clerk to read
an extract from Gallatin’s report. No other reply was offered. One
Federalist member after another remonstrated against this tyranny of
silence; but not a member of the majority spoke, and the returns were
refused by a vote of fifty-seven to thirty-seven. Immediately John
Rutledge called up a third resolution of the same nature, and Samuel
Dana of Connecticut made a sensation long remembered, by quoting to the
majority the remark, then quite new, of Bonaparte to Sieyès: “That dumb
legislature will immortalize your name.”

Neither in the Senate nor in the House did Gallatin’s financial schemes
meet with serious question; they were accepted without change, and
embodied in legislation evidently the work of the secretary’s own hand.
So cautious was Gallatin, that notwithstanding the assertions of the
President’s Message, he would not make himself responsible for the
repeal of internal taxes, but left his colleagues of the War and Navy
to pledge themselves to John Randolph for economies to the amount of
$600,000, which the event proved to be not wholly practicable. Dearborn
and Robert Smith in good faith gave to Randolph the required pledges,
and Congress gladly acted upon them. The internal taxes were swept
away, and with them one half the government patronage; while a sinking
fund was organized, by means of which the public debt, amounting to a
nominal capital of about $80,000,000, was to be paid off in sixteen
years.

This financial legislation was the sum of what was accomplished by
Congress toward positive reform. The whole of Jefferson’s theory of
internal politics, so far as it was embodied in law, rested in the
Act making an annual appropriation of $7,300,000 for paying interest
and capital of the public debt; and in the Act for repealing the
internal taxes. In these two measures must be sought the foundation
for his system of politics abroad and at home, as this system has been
described; for his policy flowed in a necessary channel as soon as
these measures were adopted.

Great as the change was which under the guise of economy Congress
thus quietly effected,--a change which in Jefferson’s intention was
to substitute commercial restrictions in the place of armaments, for
purposes of national defence,--so skilfully was it done that the
Federalists could muster only twenty-four votes against it. Jefferson
succeeded in carrying his preliminary measures through Congress without
meeting, or even raising, the question of their ultimate objects and
practical scope; but this manner of dealing with a free people had
disadvantages, for it caused them to adopt a system which they did
not wholly understand, and were not fully prepared to carry out. A
few Virginians knew what Jefferson meant; a clique of members in the
House and Senate might have foretold every step in the movement of
Government: but the Northern and Western democrats thought only of
economy, and accepted the President’s partial reasoning as sufficient;
while the Federalists, although they saw the truth more clearly,
could not oblige the Administration to enter into a full and candid
discussion, which, without affecting the result, would have educated
the public and saved much misunderstanding in the future.

The Federalists, left to an issue involving mere details of taxation,
wasted their strength on a subordinate point. Perhaps their exertions
were not wholly wasted, for their outcries may have had some effect
in persuading the majority that the new reforms were extreme; but in
reality the opposition resisted feebly the vital financial scheme,
and exerted all its energies against the second and less serious
Administration measure,--the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801.

The previous history of the Judiciary Act belonged to the
administration of Jefferson’s predecessor and to the records of the
Federalist party. Before 1801 the Supreme Court consisted of six
justices, who held two terms a year at Washington, and twice a year
rode their circuits, each justice then sitting in association with a
district judge. The system pleased no one. The justices, men of age and
dignity, complained that they were forced twice a year, in the most
trying seasons and through the roughest country, to ride hundreds of
miles on horseback “with the agility of post-boys;” the lawyers found
fault because the errors of the inferior court were corrected by the
judges who had made them; the suitors were annoyed by the delays and
accidents inevitable to such journeys and such judges. In the last year
of Federalist power a new arrangement was made, and the Judiciary Act
of 1801 reduced the Supreme Court to five judges, who were fixed at
Washington, while their circuit duties were transferred to a new class
of circuit judges, eighteen in number. Twenty-three districts were
divided into six circuits, and the circuit judges sat independently of
the district judges, as well as of the Supreme Bench. This separation
of the machinery of the District, Circuit, and Supreme Courts caused a
multiplication of judicial offices and an increased annual expense of
some thirty thousand dollars.

No sooner did this Bill become law, Feb. 13, 1801, than the Federalists
used their last moments of power to establish themselves in the posts
it created. In Jefferson’s words, they retreated into the Judiciary as
a stronghold. They filled the new courts as well as the vacancies on
the old bench with safe men, at whose head, as Chief-Justice of the
Supreme Court, was placed the Secretary of State, John Marshall. That
Jefferson should have been angry at this manœuvre was natural; but,
apart from greed for patronage, the Federalists felt bound to exclude
Republicans from the bench, to prevent the overthrow of those legal
principles in which, as they believed, national safety dwelt. Jefferson
understood the challenge, and was obliged to accept or decline it.

On one ground alone could the President and his party fully meet
the issue thus offered. They had sought and won popularity on the
principle of State-rights. The Judiciary Act of 1789, even more than
its supplement of 1801, was notoriously intended to work against the
object they had most at heart. The effect of both these Acts was,
in their belief, to weaken the State judiciaries and to elevate the
national judiciary at their expense, until the national courts should
draw to themselves all litigation of importance, leaving the State
courts without character or credit. From their point of view, the whole
judiciary system should be remodelled, with the purpose of reversing
this centralizing movement; and that such a reform must begin with the
Supreme Court was too evident for discussion. The true question for
Congress to consider was not so much the repeal of the Judiciary Act
of 1801, as the revision of that which had set in motion the whole
centripetal machine in 1789.

Jefferson’s Message, as has been shown, offered to Congress an issue
quite different, at least in appearance.

 “The judiciary system of the United States,”--so his words ran,--“and
 especially that portion of it recently erected, will of course present
 itself to the contemplation of Congress; and that they may be able to
 judge of the proportion which the institution bears to the business it
 has to perform, I have caused to be procured from the several States,
 and now lay before Congress, an exact statement of all the causes
 decided since the first establishment of the courts, and of those
 which were depending when additional courts and judges were brought in
 to their aid.”

From the true Virginia standpoint, the fewer the causes the less
danger. What the Virginians feared most was the flow of business to the
national courts; and Jefferson’s statistics tended only to show that
as yet the new courts had done no harm, inasmuch as they had little
to do. Their abolition on the ground of economy would still leave the
Judiciary establishment of 1789 untouched, merely in order to lop off
an excrescence which might be restored whenever increase of business
should require it,--and which Jefferson’s argument in a manner pledged
him in such an event to re-establish.

The contradictions in Jefferson’s character have always rendered it a
fascinating study. Excepting his rival Alexander Hamilton, no American
has been the object of estimates so widely differing and so difficult
to reconcile. Almost every other American statesman might be described
in a parenthesis. A few broad strokes of the brush would paint the
portraits of all the early Presidents with this exception, and a few
more strokes would answer for any member of their many cabinets; but
Jefferson could be painted only touch by touch, with a fine pencil, and
the perfection of the likeness depended upon the shifting and uncertain
flicker of its semi-transparent shadows. Of all the politicians and
writers of that day, none could draw portraits with a sharper outline
than Hamilton, whose clear-cut characterizations never failed to fix
themselves in the memory as distinctly as his own penetrating features
were fixed in Ceracchi’s marble or on Trumbull’s canvas; and Hamilton’s
contrasted portraits of Jefferson and Burr, drawn in an often-quoted
letter written to Bayard in January, 1801, painted what he believed to
be the shifting phase of Jefferson’s nature.

 “Nor is it true,” he said,[59] “that Jefferson is zealot enough to
 do anything in pursuance of his principles which will contravene
 his popularity or his interest. He is as likely as any man I know
 to temporize, to calculate what will be likely to promote his own
 reputation and advantage; and the probable result of such a temper is
 the preservation of systems, though originally opposed, which, being
 once established, could not be overturned without danger to the person
 who did it. To my mind, a true estimate of Mr. Jefferson’s character
 warrants the expectation of a temporizing rather than a violent
 system.”

Never was a prophecy more quickly realized. Jefferson’s suggestion that
the new Judiciary was unnecessary because it had not enough business
to keep it fully employed, although by implication admitting that more
business would justify its creation, became at once the doctrine of
his party. Jan. 8, 1802, Breckenridge undertook the task of moving in
the Senate the repeal of the Act; and his argument closely followed
the President’s suggestion, that the new courts, being unnecessary and
therefore improper, might and should be abolished. The Federalists
took the ground that the Constitution secured to the judges their
office during good behavior, and that to destroy the office was as
distinct a violation of the compact as to remove the judge. Thus from
the beginning the debate was narrowed to a technical issue. On the one
side was seen an incessant effort to avoid the broader issues which
the Federalists tried to force; on the other side, a certain dramatic
folding of robes, a theatrical declamation over the lay-figure which
Federalists chose to declare a mangled and bleeding Constitution.
Gouverneur Morris of New York, whose oratory was apt to verge on the
domain of melodrama, exceeded himself in lamentations over the grave of
the Constitution:--

 “Cast not away this only anchor of our safety. I have seen its
 progress. I know the difficulties through which it was obtained. I
 stand in the presence of Almighty God and of the world, and I declare
 to you that if you lose this charter, never, no, never will you get
 another! We are now, perhaps, arrived at the parting point. Here, even
 here, we stand on the brink of fate. Pause! pause! For Heaven’s sake,
 pause!”

If ever a party had paused, it was the Republicans. The progress of
what Gouverneur Morris, with characteristic rhetoric, called the
“anchor,” was thus far arrested only in appearance; and there were
already symptoms that the Virginians had reached not only the limit of
their supposed revolutionary projects, but also of their influence, and
that they were themselves anxious to go no farther. Signs of trouble
appeared among the Northern democrats, and sharp hints were given
that the Virginians might expect revolt, not so much against their
principles as against their patronage. Vice-President Burr did not
appear in Washington until six weeks of the session had passed; and
when he took the chair of the Senate, Jan. 15, 1802, the Virginians
had every reason to expect that he would show them no kindness. Under
the affected polish and quiet of his manner, he nursed as bitter a
hatred as his superficial temper could feel against the whole Virginia
oligarchy. Any suggestion that Burr held scruples of conscience
in regard to the Federalist judiciary would border on satire, for
Burr’s conscience was as elastic as his temper; but he made grave
inquiries as to the law, and hinted doubts calculated to alarm the
Virginians. Had he been content to affect statesmanship, Breckinridge
could have afforded to ignore his demonstrations; but the behavior
of General Armstrong, the democratic senator from New York, and the
accidental absence of Senator Bradley of Vermont unexpectedly threw
into Burr’s hands the power to do mischief. Armstrong failed to appear
at Washington, and his vote was lost. Breckinridge’s motion for a
committee of inquiry was carried, January 19, only by fifteen against
thirteen votes; and no sooner had his committee, with all practicable
speed, reported a Bill for the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801,
than it appeared that the Senate was tied, fifteen to fifteen, with
Armstrong and Bradley absent, and the Vice-President controlling the
fate of the Bill. Burr lost no time in giving a first warning to the
Virginians. Dayton of New Jersey, a Federalist, but an intimate friend
of the Vice-President, moved January 27 to recommit the Bill to a
select committee, and Burr’s casting vote carried the motion.

That Breckinridge and his friends were angry at this check need not be
said; but they were forced to wait several days for Bradley’s return,
before Breckinridge could move and obtain, February 2, the discharge
of the special committee, and recover control of the Bill. Burr was
never given another opportunity to annoy his party by using his casting
vote; but meanwhile symptoms of hesitation appeared among the Northern
democrats, even more significant than the open insubordination of Burr.
On the day when Breckinridge succeeded in discharging the special
committee, Senator Ross of Pennsylvania presented a memorial from the
Philadelphia Bar, declaring their conviction that the actual Circuit
Court was a valuable institution, which could not be abolished without
great public inconvenience; and this memorial was enforced by a letter
in strong terms, signed by A. J. Dallas, Jefferson’s own district
attorney, and by the Republican Attorney-General of Pennsylvania,
Governor McKean’s son. The behavior of Senator Armstrong raised a fear
that the Livingstons were not to be depended upon; and hardly had the
Bill passed the Senate, February 3, by a vote of sixteen to fifteen,
than Armstrong resigned his post in order to let De Witt Clinton take
it. In the House, Dr. Eustis of Boston, alone among the Republicans,
opposed the repeal; but the tone of the debate and of the press showed
that few Northern democrats cared to risk the odium of a genuine
assault on the authority of the Supreme Court.

Another and still sharper hint was soon given to the Virginians.
At the moment when the Bill coming before the House roused there
an acrimonious debate, in which the Federalists assumed a tone
that exasperated and alarmed their opponents, the anniversary of
Washington’s birthday occurred. The Federalist Congressmen were
accustomed to give, February 22, what was called a banquet,--a practice
which verged so closely on monarchism that Jefferson made a secret of
his own birthday, for fear that his followers should be misled by the
example into making him a monocrat against his will. Either at Burr’s
secret instigation, or in a spirit of mischief, the Federalists this
year, on the pretence that they had voted for Burr as President only a
year before, invited him to their banquet.

 “We knew,” wrote Bayard to Hamilton,[60] “the impression which
 the coincidence of circumstances would make upon a certain great
 personage; how readily that impression would be communicated to the
 proud and aspiring lords of the Ancient Dominion; and we have not been
 mistaken as to the jealousy we expected it would excite through the
 party.”

In the middle of the feast the door opened, and the Vice-President,
courteous and calm as though he were taking the chair of the Senate,
entered and took a seat of honor at the table. His appearance was
expected, and roused no surprise; but to the startled amusement of the
Federalists he presently rose and pronounced a toast: “The union of all
honest men!”

This dramatic insult, thus flung in the face of the President and his
Virginia friends, was the more significant to them because they alone
understood what it meant. To the world at large the toast might seem
innocent; but the Virginians had reason to know that Burr believed
himself to have been twice betrayed by them, and that his union of
honest men was meant to gibbet them as scoundrels. They had no choice
but to resent it. Henceforward the party could not contain both him
and them. Within a few days De Witt Clinton’s newspaper, the “American
Citizen,” began the attack, and its editor Cheetham henceforward
pursued Burr with a vindictiveness which perplexed and divided the
Northern democrats, who had no great confidence in Clinton. What was
of far more consequence, Duane and the Philadelphia “Aurora,” after a
moment’s hesitation, joined in the hue-and-cry.




CHAPTER XI.


THE Bill repealing the new Judiciary Act, having passed the Senate,
February 3, was taken into consideration by the House, in Committee of
the Whole, February 4, and caused the chief debate of the session. By
common consent Giles and Bayard were accepted as the champions of the
two parties, and their speeches were taken as the official arguments
on either side. The men were equal to their tasks. For ten years
William Branch Giles had been the most active leader of the extreme
Republicans. A Virginian, born in 1762, he began his career as a Member
of Congress in 1791, by opposing the creation of a national bank. In
1793 he distinguished himself by an attack on Secretary Hamilton,
charging him with peculation. In 1796 he led the opposition to Jay’s
Treaty. After opposing Washington’s administration with consistency and
severity during six years, he retired from Congress in 1798 in order to
oppose Washington’s successor with more effect in the legislature of
Virginia. With James Madison, John Taylor of Caroline, and Wilson Cary
Nicholas, he had taken an active part in the Resolutions of 1798, and
his remarks in the debate of December, 1798, showed that he carried the
extreme conclusions of the Virginia school to their extreme practical
consequences.[61] He “said that the measures of our present government
tended to the establishment of monarchy, limited or absolute.... If
... the government were a social compact, he pronounced monarchy to be
near at hand, the symptoms and causes of which he particularly pointed
out; and concluded that the State legislatures alone, at this time,
prevented monarchy.” In language perfectly intelligible to his friends
he hinted that his party “had no arms, but they would find arms.” Even
men naturally benevolent, like Jefferson, could rarely resist the
conviction that the objects of political opponents were criminal, but
Giles exceeded every prominent partisan on either side by the severity
of his imputations. As late as June, 1801, he wrote from Richmond to
President Jefferson:[62] “The ejected party is now almost universally
considered as having been employed, in conjunction with Great Britain,
in a scheme for the total destruction of the liberties of the people.”
No man in the Union was more cordially detested by the Federalists;
and even between parties that held each other in little or no respect,
few men of so much eminence were so little respected as Giles. The
dislike and distrust were mutual. Giles’s nature was capable of no
pleasure greater than that of exasperating his Federalist opponents;
and he rarely enjoyed a better opportunity for irritation than on
Feb. 18, 1802, when, with a great majority behind him, and with the
consciousness of triumph attained, he broke into the dull debate on the
Judiciary Bill.

Both sides were weary of the narrow question whether Congress had the
power to remove Judges by legislation. Whether such a power existed
or not, every one knew that the Republican majority meant to use it,
and the Federalists were chiefly anxious to profit by the odium they
could attach to its abuse. The Federalists, in a character new to
them, posed as the defenders of the Constitution against sacrilegious
attacks; while the Republicans, for the first time in their history
as a party, made light of constitutional objections, and closed their
ears to warnings in which they had themselves hitherto found their
chief rhetorical success. With Giles’s appearance on the floor the
tedious debate started into virulence. He began by insinuating motives,
as though he were still discussing the Alien and Sedition Laws in the
Virginia legislature of 1798: “A great portion of the human mind,” he
began, “has been at all times directed toward monarchy as the best form
of government to enforce obedience and insure the general happiness;
whereas another portion of the human mind has given a preference to
the republican form as best calculated to produce the same end.” On
this difference of opinion the two parties had been founded, the
one wishing “to place in executive hands all the patronage it was
possible to create for the purpose of protecting the President against
the full force of his constitutional responsibility to the people;”
the other contending “that the doctrine of patronage was repugnant
to the opinions and feelings of the people; that it was unnecessary,
expensive, and oppressive; and that the highest energy the government
could possess would flow from the confidence of the mass of the people,
founded upon their own sense of their common interest.” Thus patronage,
or in other words the creation of partial interests for the protection
and support of government, had become the guiding principle of the
Federalists. For this purpose the debt was funded; under cover of an
Indian war, an army was created; under cover of an Algerine war, a
navy was built; to support this system, taxation was extended; and
finally, by availing itself of French depredations on commerce, the
Administration succeeded in pushing all the forms of patronage to an
extreme. When the people at last rebelled, and the Federalists saw
themselves in danger, “it was natural for them to look out for some
department of the government in which they could intrench themselves
in the event of an unsuccessful issue in the election, and continue to
support those favorite principles of irresponsibility which they could
never consent to abandon.”

Whatever amount of truth was contained in these charges against the
Federalists, they had the merit of consistency; they reaffirmed what
had been the doctrine of the party when in opposition; what Jefferson
was saying in private, and what was a sufficient argument not so
much against the circuit judges as against the Federalist Judiciary
altogether; but the position seemed needlessly broad for the support of
the technical argument by which Giles proved the power of Congress in
regard to the measure under discussion:--

 “On one side it is contended that the office is the vested property
 of the judge, conferred on him by his appointment, and that his good
 behavior is the consideration of his compensation; so long, therefore,
 as his good behavior exists, so long his office must continue in
 consequence of his good behavior; and that his compensation is his
 property in virtue of his office, and therefore cannot be taken away
 by any authority whatever, although there may be no service for him
 to perform. On the other it is contended that the good behavior
 is not the consideration upon which the compensation accrues, but
 services rendered for the public good; and that if the office is to
 be considered as a property, it is a property held in trust for the
 benefit of the people, and must therefore be held subject to that
 condition of which Congress is the constitutional judge.”

Assuming that the latter view was correct, Giles gave his reasons for
holding that the new Judiciary should be abolished; and the subject led
him into a history of the circumstances under which the Act passed,
at the moment when the House of Representatives was in permanent
session, “in the highest paroxysm of party rage,” disputing over the
choice between Jefferson and Burr as President. He charged that members
of the legislature who voted for the law “were appointed to offices,
not indeed created by the law, the Constitution having wisely guarded
against an effect of that sort, but to judicial offices previously
created by the removal, or what was called the promotion, of judges
from the offices they then held to the offices newly created, and
supplying their places by members of the legislature who voted for the
creation of the new offices.” He showed that the business of the courts
“is now very much declined, and probably will decline still more.”

 “Under the view of the subject thus presented, he considered the late
 courts as useless and unnecessary, and the expense therefore was to
 him highly objectionable. He did not consider it in the nature of
 a compensation, for there was no equivalent rendition of service.
 He could not help considering it as a tribute for past services; as
 a tribute for the zeal displayed by these gentlemen in supporting
 principles which the people had denounced.”

Such arguments, if good for the new circuit courts, were still stronger
in their application to the Supreme Court itself. Giles affirmed that
the “principles advanced in opposition ... go to the establishment of a
permanent corporation of individuals invested with ultimate censorial
and controlling power over all the departments of the government,
over legislation, execution, and decision, and irresponsible to the
people.” He believed that these principles were “in direct hostility
with the great principle of representative government.” Undoubtedly
these principles, if they existed anywhere, were strongest, not in
the circuit, but in the Supreme Court; and if any judge was to be
set aside because his appointment might be considered as a reward
for zeal displayed in supporting “principles which the people had
denounced,” Chief-Justice Marshall, the person most likely to exercise
“ultimate censorial and controlling power over all the departments of
government,” was peculiarly subject to suspicion and removal. To no man
had the last President been more indebted, and to no one had he been
more grateful.

Only incidentally, at the close of his speech, Giles advanced a final,
and in his mind fatal, objection to the new courts, “because of their
tendency to produce a gradual demolition of State Courts.” Of all
arguments this seemed to be the most legitimate, for it depended
least on the imputation of evil motives to the Congress which passed
the Act. No one need be supposed criminal for wishing, as was often
admitted, to bring justice to every man’s door; and as little need
any one be blamed for wishing to maintain or to elevate the character
of his State Judiciary. Parties might honestly and wisely differ, and
local interests might widely diverge in a matter so much depending
upon circumstances; but no argument seemed to satisfy Giles unless it
carried an implication of criminality against his opponents.

Giles’s speech was such as an orator would select to answer, and James
Asheton Bayard could fairly claim the right to call himself an orator.
Born in Philadelphia, in 1767, Bayard was five years younger than
Giles, and had followed the opposite path in politics. Without being
an extreme Federalist, he had been since 1796 a distinguished member
of the Federalist party in Congress, and had greatly contributed to
moderate the extravagances of his friends. In the style of personality
which Giles affected, Bayard was easily a master. Virulence against
virulence, aristocracy had always the advantage over democracy; for the
aristocratic orator united distinct styles of acrimony, and the style
of social superiority was the most galling. Giles affected democratic
humility to the last, and partly for that reason never became a
master even of invective; while John Randolph, finding the attitude
of a democrat unsuited for his rhetoric, abandoned it, and seemed to
lose his mental balance in the intoxication of his recovered social
superiority. Giles’s charges, by an opposite illusion, seemed to crawl;
his contempt resembled fear; his democratic virtues crouched before the
aristocratic insolence they reproved. Bayard appeared to carry with him
the sympathy of all that was noble in human character when, taking the
floor as Giles sat down, he turned on the Virginian with a dignity of
retort which, whatever might be its value as argument, cut the deeper
because its justice could not be denied.

Jefferson’s administration was not yet a year old; the Federalists had
twelve long years abounding in mistakes and misfortunes to defend, and
Giles’s arraignment embraced the whole. Bayard accepted the challenge,
and his speech, too historical for compression, varied between long
periods of defence and brief intervals of attack. The defence belonged
to past history; the attack concerned the actual moment, and need alone
be noticed here. He began by refusing belief that Giles ever seriously
felt the fear of monarchy he expressed; he was led by other motives:--

 “I pray to God I may be mistaken in the opinions I entertain as to the
 designs of gentlemen to whom I am opposed. Those designs I believe
 hostile to the powers of this government. State pride extinguishes
 a national sentiment. Whatever power is taken from this government
 is given to the States. The ruins of this government aggrandize
 the States. There are States which are too proud to be controlled,
 whose sense of greatness and resource renders them indifferent to
 our protection, and induces a belief that if no general government
 existed, their influence would be more extensive and their importance
 more conspicuous. There are gentlemen who make no secret of an extreme
 point of depression to which the government is to be sunk. To that
 point we are rapidly progressing.”

The charge was certainly emphatic, and deserved as clear an answer from
Giles as Bayard gave to the charge of monarchical tendencies. On the
constitutional point involved in the Bill before the House, Bayard was
equally distinct:--

 “The point on which I rely is that you can do no act which impairs
 the independence of a judge. When gentlemen assert that the office
 may be vacated notwithstanding the incumbency of a judge, do they
 consider that they beg the very point which is in controversy? The
 office cannot be vacated without violating the express provision of
 the Constitution in relation to the tenure.... The second plain,
 unequivocal provision on this subject is that the compensation of the
 judge shall not be diminished during the term he continues in office.
 This provision is directly levelled at the power of the legislature:
 they alone could reduce the salary. Could this provision have any
 other design than to place the judge out of the power of Congress? You
 cannot reduce a part of the compensation, but you may extinguish the
 whole. What is the sum of this notable reasoning? You cannot remove
 the judge from the office, but you may take the office from the judge;
 you cannot take the compensation from the judge, but you may separate
 the judge from the compensation. If your Constitution cannot resist
 reasoning like this, then indeed is it waste paper.”

When Bayard reached Giles’s favorite doctrine that patronage was a
Federalist system, and the charge that two senators who voted for
the Judiciary Act of 1801 were rewarded by the offices vacated in
consequence of promotions to circuit judgeships, he produced a true
oratorical sensation by a retort that sank deep into the public
memory:--

 “The case to which I refer carries me once more to the scene of
 the Presidential election. I should not have introduced it into
 this debate, had it not been called up by the honorable member from
 Virginia. In that scene I had my part; it was a part not barren of
 incident, and which has left an impression which cannot easily depart
 from my recollection. I know who were rendered important characters,
 either from the possession of personal means or from the accident of
 political situation. And now, Sir, let me ask the honorable member
 what his reflections and belief will be when he observes that every
 man on whose vote the event of the election hung has since been
 distinguished by presidential favor. I fear, Sir, I shall violate
 the decorum of parliamentary proceeding in the mentioning of names,
 but I hope the example which has been set me will be admitted as an
 excuse. Mr. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina was not a member of the
 House, but he was one of the most active, efficient, and successful
 promoters of the election of the present chief magistrate. It was
 well ascertained that the votes of South Carolina were to turn the
 equal balance of the scales. The zeal and industry of Mr. Pinckney
 had no bounds; the doubtful politics of South Carolina were decided,
 and her votes cast in the scale of Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Pinckney
 has since been appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of
 Madrid,--an appointment as high and honorable as any within the gift
 of the Executive. I will not deny that this preferment is the reward
 of talents and services, although, Sir, I have never yet heard of
 the talents or services of Mr. Charles Pinckney. In the House of
 Representatives I know what was the value of the vote of Mr. Claiborne
 of Tennessee; the vote of a State was in his hands. Mr. Claiborne has
 since been raised to the high dignity of Governor of the Mississippi
 Territory. I know how great, and how greatly felt, was the importance
 of the vote of Mr. Linn of New Jersey. The delegation of the State
 consists of five members; two of the delegation were decidedly for Mr.
 Jefferson, two were decidedly for Mr. Burr. Mr. Linn was considered as
 inclining to one side, but still doubtful; both parties looked up to
 him for the vote of New Jersey. He gave it to Mr. Jefferson; and Mr.
 Linn has since had the profitable office of supervisor of his district
 conferred upon him. Mr. Lion of Vermont was in this instance an
 important man; he neutralized the vote of Vermont; his absence alone
 would have given the vote of a State to Mr. Burr. It was too much to
 give an office to Mr. Lion,--his character was low; but Mr. Lion’s
 son has been handsomely provided for in one of the Executive offices.
 I shall add to the catalogue but the name of one more gentleman, Mr.
 Edward Livingston of New York. I knew well--full well I knew--the
 consequence of this gentleman. His means were not limited to his own
 vote; nay, I always considered more than the vote of New York within
 his power. Mr. Livingston has been made the Attorney for the District
 of New York; the road of preferment has been opened to him, and
 his brother has been raised to the distinguished place of Minister
 Plenipotentiary to the French Republic.”

Such charges would have caused little feeling at any subsequent period,
but the Republican party was the first opposition that gained power
in the United States, and hitherto it had believed in its own virtue.
Such a state of things could never occur again, for only a new country
could be inexperienced in politics; but the cynical indifference with
which Europe looked on while patriots were bought, was as yet unknown
to Jefferson’s friends. They were honest; they supposed themselves to
have crushed a corrupt system, and to have overthrown in especial the
influence of Executive patronage upon Congress. Men like Gallatin,
Giles, Randolph, Macon, Nicholson, Stanford, and John Taylor of
Caroline listened to Bayard’s catalogue of Executive favors as though
it were a criminal indictment. They knew that he might have said more,
had he been deeper in Executive secrets. Not only had he failed to
include all the rewards given to Jefferson’s friends, but he omitted
the punishments inflicted on those who were believed to be Jefferson’s
enemies. He did not know that Theodorus Bailey, another of Burr’s
friends who had voted for Jefferson, was soon to be made postmaster of
New York, while Burr himself was not only refused the appointment of
Matthew L. Davis, but was to be condemned without a trial.

The acrimony which Giles’s tongue thus threw into the debate continued
to the end of the session, but had no deeper effect than to make the
majority cautious. They were content to show that the Constitution
did not expressly forbid the act they meant to perform. In truth the
legality of the act depended on the legitimacy of the motive. Of
all the root-and-branch Virginians, John Randolph was perhaps the
most extreme; and his speech of February 20 laid down an honest
principle of action. “It is not on account of the paltry expense of the
establishment that I want to put it down,” he protested; and with still
more energy he said, “I am free to declare that if the intent of this
Bill is to get rid of the judges, it is a perversion of your power to a
base purpose; it is an unconstitutional act.”

As a matter of expediency and public convenience, no one seriously
denied that the Federalists were altogether in the right. The
introduction of railways and steamboats greatly altered the problem of
judicial organization; but no system could have been better adapted
to its time and purposes than that of 1801. The only solid argument
brought against it was that it attained its object too completely,
bringing Federal justice to every man’s door, and removing every
difficulty or objection to suing in Federal courts. There was truth
in the complaint that it thus placed the State judiciaries at a
disadvantage. Beyond and above this, the controversy involved another
question of far-reaching consequences which the Republicans were too
timid to avow. A true democrat might have said openly that he wanted
an elective judiciary, or would have insisted that the whole judiciary
must be made subject to removal by the legislature. In neither of
these opinions was anything disgraceful or improper; yet such was the
dread of Federalist and conservative outcry, that although many of the
Republican speakers went to the verge of the avowal, none dared make
the issue.

Their timidity cost the Virginians dear. They knew, and never ceased
to complain, that power grew mechanically; and only their want of
experience excused them for over-confidence in the strength of their
own virtue. They saw that the only part of Federalist centralization
still remaining beyond their control was the judiciary; and they knew
that if the judiciary were allowed to escape them in their first fervor
of Republican virtue, they never could grapple with it after their own
hands had learned the use of centralized power and felt the charm of
office. Instead of acting, they temporized, threatened without daring
to strike, and were made to appear like secret conspirators, planning
what they feared to avow.

The repeal of the Judiciary Act passed the House, March 3, by a party
vote of fifty-nine to thirty-two; but the Federalists were far from
feeling themselves beaten. They had measured the strength of the
majority, and felt that the revolutionary impulse was exhausted. As the
Federalists grew bolder, the Republicans grew more timid. They passed
a supplementary Judiciary Act, to quiet complaint and to prevent the
Supreme Court from holding its customary autumn term, lest Marshall
should declare the abolition of the circuit courts unconstitutional.
The evidences of timidity were not confined to judiciary measures. On
no subject had the Republicans expressed stronger convictions than
against the navy; yet when Michael Leib of Pennsylvania, in the heat of
the judiciary debate, moved for a committee to consider the question
of abolishing the navy, his motion was allowed to lie on the table
until Roger Griswold, an extreme Connecticut Federalist, called it
up, March 5, in a spirit of defiance. The House sustained Griswold,
and took up the Resolution; whereat Leib withdrew his own motion, and
evaded the issue he had challenged. In regard to another Federalist
creation which had been the subject of Republican attacks, a similar
failure occurred. The mint cost nearly as much as the circuit courts,
and accomplished less. Since its foundation it had coined, in gold,
silver, and copper, only $3,000,000, at a cost of nearly $300,000;
while a gold or silver coin of the United States was still a rare
sight. The Republican party when in opposition had opposed the mint
as a monarchical institution,--unnecessary, expensive, and symbolic
of centralized power. Giles accordingly moved, January 29, that the
Act under which it existed should be repealed. In a speech, February
8, he avowed his hostility to the establishment from the beginning;
he thought none but self-supporting establishments should exist.
“There is a difference,” said he, “between this and other countries.
Other nations need to coin their own money; it is not with them the
general but the partial good; it is aggrandizement of individuals,
the trappings of royalty. Here, it is true, you established a mint,
you have raised armies and fleets, to create an Executive influence;
but what do the people say now? They send men here now to govern,
who shall not govern for themselves but for the people.” This was
party doctrine. John Randolph adopted it in principle, asserting that
nineteen-twentieths of the silver in circulation was Spanish-milled
dollars or their parts, and that sovereignty was no more affected by
using foreign coin than by using foreign cordage or cannon. The House
accepted these views; Giles brought in his Bill for abolishing the
mint; and after a short debate the House passed it, April 26, without a
division. On the same day the Senate, quietly, without discussion or a
call of yeas and nays, rejected it.

Perhaps the limit of Virginian influence was shown with most emphasis
in the fate of a fugitive-slave Bill reported Dec. 18, 1801, by a
committee of which Joseph Nicholson was chairman. The Bill imposed a
fine of five hundred dollars on any one who should employ a strange
negro without advertising in two newspapers a description of the man.
Every free negro in the North must under this law carry about him a
certificate of his freedom. To this sweeping exercise of a “centralized
despotism” the Northern democrats objected, and, with only half-a-dozen
exceptions, voted against it, although Bayard and several Southern
Federalists joined Giles, Michael Leib, and John Randolph in its
support. The Bill was rejected, January 18, by a vote of forty-six to
forty-three.

Before the session closed, sensible Federalists were reassured, and the
Administration was glad to repose on such triumphs as had been won.

 “The President’s party in Congress,” wrote Bayard to Hamilton,[63]
 “is much weaker than you would be led to judge from the printed state
 of the votes. Here we plainly discern that there is no confidence,
 nor the smallest attachment prevails among them. The spirit which
 existed at the beginning of the session is entirely dissipated; a
 more rapid and radical change could not have been anticipated. An
 occasion is only wanting for Virginia to find herself abandoned by all
 her auxiliaries, and she would be abandoned upon the ground of her
 inimical principles to an efficient federal government.”

The general legislation of the year showed no partisan character. A
naturalization law was adopted, re-establishing the term of five years’
residence as a condition of citizenship,--a measure recommended by the
annual Message. A new apportionment Act was passed, fixing the ratio
of Congressional representation at one member for 33,000 citizens.
During the next ten years the House was to consist of one hundred and
forty-one members. The military peace establishment was fixed at three
regiments, one of artillery and two of infantry, comprising in all
about three thousand men, under one brigadier-general. By Sections
26 and 27 of the Act, approved March 16, 1802, the President was
authorized to establish a corps of engineers, to be stationed at West
Point in the State of New York, which should constitute a military
academy; and the Secretary of War was authorized to procure the
necessary apparatus for the institution. Great as the influence of
this new establishment was upon the army, its bearing on the general
education of the people was still greater, for the government thus
assumed the charge of introducing the first systematic study of science
in the United States.

Perhaps the most important legislation of the year was an Act approved
April 30, which authorized the people of Ohio to form a Constitution
and enter the Union; for not only was the admission of Ohio a
formidable increase of power to the Northern democracy, but Gallatin
inserted into the law a contract, which bound the State and nation
to set aside the proceeds of a certain portion of the public lands
for the use of schools and for the construction of roads between the
new State and the seaboard. This principle, by which education and
internal improvements were taken under the protection of Congress, was
a violation of State-rights theories, against which, in after years,
the strict constructionists protested; but in this first year of their
sway Gallatin and the Northern democrats were allowed to manage their
own affairs without interference. John Randolph would not vote for the
admission of a new State, but Giles and Nicholson gave their votes for
the bill, which passed without a murmur.

Gallatin’s influence carried another point, more annoying to the
Southern Republicans, although less serious. After years of wrangling,
Georgia surrendered to the United States government all right and
title to the territory which was afterward to become the States of
Alabama and Mississippi. This immense region, shut from the Gulf of
Mexico by the Spaniards, who owned every river-mouth, was inhabited
by powerful Indian tribes, of whom the Georgians stood in terror. The
Creeks and Cherokees, Choctaws and Chickasaws, owned the land, and were
wards of the United States government. No one could say what was the
value of Georgia’s title, for it depended on her power to dispossess
the Indians; but however good the title might be, the State would have
been fortunate to make it a free gift to any authority strong enough to
deal with the Creeks and Cherokees alone. In the year 1795, ignoring
the claims of the national government, the Georgia Legislature sold its
rights over twenty million acres of Indian land to four land-companies
for the gross sum of five hundred thousand dollars. With one exception,
every member of the Legislature appeared to have a pecuniary interest
in the transaction; yet no one could say with certainty that the
title was worth more than half a million dollars, or indeed was worth
anything to the purchasers, unless backed by the power of the United
States government, which was not yet the case. Nevertheless, the
people of Georgia, like the people of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania,
being at the moment in the fever of land-speculation, partly because
they thought the land too cheap, partly because they believed their
representatives to have been bribed, rose in anger against their
Legislature and elected a new one, which declared the sales “null and
void,” burned the Yazoo Act, as it was called, in the public square of
Louisville, and called a State Convention which made the repealing Act
a part of the Constitution.

This series of measures completed the imbroglio. No man could say to
whom the lands belonged. President Washington interposed on the part of
the central government; the Indians quietly kept possession; hundreds
of individuals in the Eastern States who had bought land-warrants
from the Yazoo companies, claimed their land; while Georgia ignored
President Washington, the Indians, the claimants, and the law,
insisting that as a sovereign State she had the right to sell her own
land, and to repudiate that sale for proper cause. In this case the
State maintained that the sale was vitiated by fraud.

Doubtless the argument had force. If a sovereign State had not the
power to protect itself from its own agents, it had, in joining the
Union, entered into a relation different from anything hitherto
supposed. Georgia put the utmost weight on the Rescinding Act as a
measure of State-rights, and the true Virginia school made common
cause with Georgia. Republicans who believed in the principles of 1798
considered the maintenance of the Rescinding Act a vital issue.

At length Congress took the matter in hand. Madison, Gallatin, and Levi
Lincoln were appointed commissioners to make a settlement; and Senator
James Jackson, the anti-Yazoo leader, supported by his colleague
Senator Baldwin and by Governor Milledge, met them on behalf of
Georgia,--a formidable array of high officials, whose whole authority
was needed to give their decision weight. April 24, 1802, they reached
a settlement so liberal to Georgia that Jackson and his associates
took the risk of yielding more than they liked to concede. The western
boundary was fixed to please the State; an immediate cession of land
was obtained from the Indians, and the United States undertook to
extinguish at their own expense, as early as they could reasonably do
it, the Indian title to all lands within the limits of Georgia; the sum
of $1,250,000 was to be paid to the State from the first net proceeds
of land-sales; the ceded territory was to be admitted as a State,
with slavery, whenever its population should reach sixty thousand;
and in consideration for these advantages the Georgians unwillingly
agreed that five million acres should be set aside for the purpose
of compromising claims. The commissioners did not venture to affirm
the legality of the Yazoo sale, but, while expressing the opinion
that “the title of the claimants cannot be supported,” declared that
“the interest of the United States, the tranquillity of those who may
hereafter inhabit that territory, and various equitable considerations
which may be urged in favor of most of the present claimants, render
it expedient to enter into a compromise on reasonable terms.” With
this concession to the principle of State-rights, the Georgians
were appeased, and the commissioners hoped that all parties would be
satisfied. The brunt of the negotiation fell upon Gallatin; but Madison
found no difficulty in giving his support to the compromise.

These two measures greatly affected the Government and increased its
power. The admission of Ohio into the Union gave two more senators to
the Administration, and the acquisition of the southwestern territory
relieved it from an annoying conflict of authority. Jefferson was
henceforward better able to carry out his humane policy toward the
Indians,--a policy which won him praise from some of his bitterest
enemies; while Gallatin turned his energies toward developing the
public-land system, in which he had, when in opposition, taken active
interest. The machinery of government worked more easily every day.




CHAPTER XII.


WHEN the session of Congress closed, May 3, the Administration was
left to administer a system greatly reduced in proportions. In
Jefferson’s own words, he had “put the ship on her republican tack,”
where she was to show by the beauty of her motion the skill of her
builders. Nothing remained, with respect to internal politics, but
to restore harmony by winning recalcitrant New England, a task which
he confidently hoped to accomplish within the course of the year.
“If we are permitted,” he wrote,[64] in October, 1801, “to go on so
gradually in the removals called for by the Republicans, as not to
shock or revolt our well-meaning citizens who are coming over to us in
a steady stream, we shall completely consolidate the nation in a short
time,--excepting always the royalists and priests.” So hopeful was he
of immediate success, that he wrote to his French correspondent, Dupont
de Nemours,[65] in January, 1802: “I am satisfied that within one year
from this time, were an election to take place between two candidates,
merely Republican and Federal, where no personal opposition existed
against either, the Federal candidate would not get the vote of a
single elector in the United States.” To revolutionize New England, he
concentrated Executive influence, and checked party spirit. He began by
placing two Massachusetts men in his Cabinet; before long he appointed
as Postmaster-General an active Connecticut politician, Gideon Granger.
The Postmaster-General was not then a member of the Cabinet, but his
patronage was not the less important. Granger and Lincoln carried on a
sapper’s duty of undermining and weakening the Federalists’ defences,
while the Republican party refrained from acts that could rouse alarm.

Although in cooler moments Jefferson was less sanguine, he still so
far miscalculated the division between himself and New England, that
when the spring elections showed less increase than he expected in the
Republican vote, he could not explain the cause of his error. “I had
hoped,” he wrote,[66] in April, 1802, “that the proceedings of this
session of Congress would have rallied the great body of citizens at
once to one opinion; but the inveteracy of their quondam leaders has
been able, by intermingling the grossest lies and misrepresentations,
to check the effect in some small degree until they shall be exposed.”
Nevertheless, he flattered himself that the work was practically
done.[67] “In Rhode Island the late election gives us two to one
through the whole State. Vermont is decidedly with us. It is said and
believed that New Hampshire has got a majority of Republicans now in
its Legislature, and wanted a few hundreds only of turning out their
Federal governor. He goes assuredly the next trial. Connecticut is
supposed to have gained for us about fifteen or twenty per cent since
the last election; but the exact issue is not yet known here, nor is
it certainly known how we shall stand in the House of Representatives
of Massachusetts; in the Senate there we have lost ground. The candid
Federalists acknowledge that their party can never more raise its
head.” This was all true; he had won also in national politics a
triumph that warranted confidence. “Our majority in the House of
Representatives has been about two to one; in the Senate, eighteen
to fifteen. After another election it will be of two to one in the
Senate, and it would not be for the public good to have it greater.
A respectable minority is useful as censors; the present one is not
respectable, being the bitterest remains of the cup of Federalism
rendered desperate and furious by despair.”

Jefferson resembled all rulers in one peculiarity of mind. Even
Bonaparte thought that a respectable minority might be useful as
censors; but neither Bonaparte nor Jefferson was willing to agree that
any particular minority was respectable. Jefferson could not persuade
himself to treat with justice the remnants of that great party which
he himself, by opposition not more “respectable” than theirs, had
driven from power and “rendered desperate and furious by despair.”
Jefferson prided himself on his services to free-thought even more than
on those he had rendered to political freedom: in the political field
he had many rivals, but in the scientific arena he stood, or thought
he stood, alone. His relations with European philosophers afforded him
deep enjoyment; and in his Virginian remoteness he imagined his own
influence on thought, abroad and at home, to be greater than others
supposed it. His knowledge of New England was so slight that he readily
adopted a belief in the intolerance of Puritan society toward every
form of learning; he loved to contrast himself with his predecessor
in the encouragement of science, and he held that to break down the
theory and practice of a state-church in New England was necessary not
only to his own complete triumph, but to the introduction of scientific
thought. Had he known the people of New England better, he would have
let them alone; but believing that Massachusetts and Connecticut were
ruled by an oligarchy like the old Virginia tobacco-planters, with no
deep hold on the people, he was bent upon attacking and overthrowing
it. At the moment when he was thus preparing to introduce science
into New England by political methods, President Dwight, the head of
New England Calvinism, was persuading Benjamin Silliman to devote
his life to the teaching of chemistry in Yale College.[68] Not long
afterward, the Corporation of Harvard College scandalized the orthodox
by electing as Professor of Theology, Henry Ware, whose Unitarian
sympathies were notorious. All three authorities were working in their
own way for the same result; but Jefferson preferred to work through
political revolution,--a path which the people of New England chose
only when they could annoy their rulers. To effect this revolution from
above, to seduce the hesitating, harass the obstinate, and combine the
champions of free-thought against the priests, was Jefferson’s ardent
wish. Soon after his inauguration he wrote to Dr. Priestley,[69]--

 “Yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind, and for the
 continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous. Bigots may be
 an exception. What an effort, my dear sir, of bigotry, in politics
 and religion, have we gone through! The barbarians really flattered
 themselves they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism,
 when ignorance put everything into the hands of power and priestcraft.
 All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended
 to praise and encourage education, but it was to be the education
 of our ancestors. We were to look backwards, not forwards, for
 improvement,--the President himself declaring, in one of his Answers
 to Addresses, that we were never to expect to go beyond them in real
 science. This was the real ground of all the attacks on you. Those
 who live by mystery and _charlatanerie_, fearing you would render
 them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy,--the most
 sublime and benevolent, but most perverted, system that ever shone on
 man,--endeavored to crush your well-earned and well-deserved fame.”

Who was it that lived “by mystery and _charlatanerie_?” Some three
years before, in the excitement of 1798, Jefferson wrote to his friend
John Taylor of Caroline his opinion of the New Englanders, with the
serious air which sometimes gave to his occasional exaggerations the
more effect of humor because no humor was intended:[70]--

 “Seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel with, I had rather
 keep our New England associates for that purpose than to see our
 bickerings transferred to others. They are circumscribed within such
 narrow limits, and their population so full, that their numbers will
 ever be the minority; and they are marked, like the Jews, with such a
 perversity of character as to constitute, from that circumstance, the
 natural division of our parties. A little patience, and we shall see
 the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people
 recovering their true sight, restoring their government to its true
 principles.”

The letters to Priestley and Taylor gave comparatively mild expression
of this dislike for New Englanders and Jews. Another letter, written at
the same time with that to Priestley, spoke more plainly:[71]--

 “The Eastern States will be the last to come over, on account of the
 dominion of the clergy, who had got a smell of union between Church
 and State, and began to indulge reveries which can never be realized
 in the present state of science. If, indeed, they could have prevailed
 on us to view all advances in science as dangerous innovations, and
 to look back to the opinions and practices of our forefathers instead
 of looking forward for improvement, a promising groundwork would have
 been laid; but I am in hopes their good sense will dictate to them
 that since the mountain will not come to them, they had better go to
 the mountain; that they will find their interest in acquiescing in the
 liberty and science of their country; and that the Christian religion,
 when divested of the rags in which they have enveloped it, and brought
 to the original purity and simplicity of its benevolent institutor, is
 a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the
 freest expansion of the human mind.”

If the New England Calvinists ever laughed, one might suppose that
they could have found in this letter, had it been published, material
for laughter as sardonic as the letter itself. Their good sense was
not likely then to dictate, their interest certainly would not induce
them to believe, that they had best adopt Jefferson’s views of the
“benevolent institutor” of Christianity; and Jefferson, aware of the
impossibility, regarded his quarrel with them as irreconcilable. “The
clergy,” he wrote again, a few weeks later,[72] “who have missed their
union with the State, the Anglo-men who have missed their union with
England, and the political adventurers who have lost the chance of
swindling and plunder in the waste of public money, will never cease to
bawl on the breaking up of their sanctuary.” Of all these classes the
clergy alone were mortal enemies. “Of the monarchical Federalists,” he
wrote to his attorney-general,[73] “I have no expectations; they are
incurables, to be taken care of in a mad-house if necessary, and on
motives of charity.” The monarchical Federalists, as he chose to call
them, were the Essex Junto,--George Cabot, Theophilus Parsons, Fisher
Ames, Timothy Pickering, Stephen Higginson, and their followers; but it
was not with them or their opinions that Jefferson was angriest. “The
‘Palladium,’” he went on, “is understood to be the clerical paper, and
from the clergy I expect no mercy. They crucified their Saviour, who
preached that their kingdom was not of this world; and all who practise
on that precept must expect the extreme of their wrath. The laws of the
present day withhold their hands from blood, but lies and slander still
remain to them.”

This was strong language. When Jefferson cried that law alone withheld
the hands of the New England clergy from taking his blood, his words
were not wholly figures of speech. He had fought a similar battle in
Virginia, and still felt its virulence. What was more to the purpose,
every politician could see that his strategy was correct. The New
England church was the chief obstacle to democratic success, and New
England society, as then constituted, was dangerous to the safety of
the Union. Whether a reform could be best accomplished by external
attack, or whether Massachusetts and Connecticut had best be left in
peace to work out their own problems, was a matter of judgment only. If
Jefferson thought he had the power to effect his object by political
influence, he could hardly refuse to make the attempt, although he
admitted that his chance of success in Connecticut was desperate. “I
consider Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire,” he
wrote to Pierpoint Edwards, of Connecticut,[74] “as coming about in
the course of this year, ... but the nature of your government being
a subordination of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, I consider
it as desperate for long years to come. Their steady habits exclude
the advances of information, and they seem exactly where they were
when they separated from the Saints of Oliver Cromwell; and there your
clergy will always keep them if they can. You will follow the bark of
Liberty only by the help of a tow-rope.”

Expecting no mercy from the clergy, Jefferson took pains to show that
they were to look for no mercy from him. At the moment he began the
attempt to “completely consolidate the nation,” he gave what amounted
to a formal notice that with the clergy he would neither make peace nor
accept truce. A few days after announcing in his Inaugural Address,
“We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists,” and appealing
for harmony and affection in social intercourse, Jefferson wrote a
letter to the famous Thomas Paine, then at Paris waiting for means of
conveyance to America. A sloop-of-war, the “Maryland,” was under orders
for Havre to carry the ratification of the new treaty with France, and
the President made his first use of the navy to pay a public compliment
to Paine.

 “You expressed a wish,” he wrote,[75] “to get a passage to this
 country in a public vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with orders to
 the captain of the ‘Maryland’ to receive and accommodate you with a
 passage back, if you can be ready to depart at such short warning....
 I am in hopes you will find us returned generally to sentiments worthy
 of former times. In these it will be your glory steadily to have
 labored, and with as much effect as any man living. That you may long
 live to continue your useful labors, and to reap their reward in the
 thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept assurances of my
 high esteem and affectionate attachment.”

The sentiments in which Paine gloried “steadily to have labored,” so
far as they were recent, chiefly consisted in applause of the French
Revolution, in libels on President Washington and his successor, and
in assaults on the Christian religion. Whether he was right or wrong
need not be discussed. Even though he were correct in them all, and was
entitled to higher respect than any which Jefferson could show him,
he was at that time regarded by respectable society, both Federalist
and Republican, as a person to be avoided, a character to be feared.
Among the New England churches the prejudice against him amounted to
loathing, which epithets could hardly express. Had Jefferson written
a letter to Bonaparte applauding his “useful labors” on the 18th
Brumaire, and praying that he might live long to continue them, he
would not have excited in the minds of the New England Calvinists so
deep a sense of disgust as by thus seeming to identify himself with
Paine. All this was known to him when he wrote his letter; he knew too
that Paine would be likely to make no secret of such a compliment; and
even if Paine held his tongue, the fact of his return in a national
vessel must tell the story.

Jefferson’s friends took a tone of apology about the letter to Paine,
implying that he acted without reflection. They treated the letter as
a formal civility, such as might without complaint have been extended
to Gates or Conway or Charles Lee,[76]--a reminiscence of Revolutionary
services which implied no personal feeling. Had Jefferson meant no more
than this, he would have said only what he meant. He was not obliged to
offer Paine a passage in a ship-of-war; or if he felt himself called
upon to do so, he need not have written a letter; or if a letter must
be written, he might have used very cordial language without risking
the charge of applauding Paine’s assaults on Christianity, and without
seeming to invite him to continue such “useful labors” in America. No
man could express more delicate shades of sympathy than Jefferson when
he chose. He had smarted for years under the lashing caused by his
Mazzei letter, and knew that a nest of hornets would rise about him the
moment the “Maryland” should arrive; yet he wrote an assurance of his
“high esteem and affectionate attachment” to Paine, with a “sincere
prayer” that he might “long live to continue” his “useful labors.”
These expressions were either deceptive, or they proved the President’s
earnestness and courage. The letter to Paine was not, like the letter
to Mazzei, a matter of apology or explanation. Jefferson never withdrew
or qualified its language, or tried to soften its effect. “With respect
to the letter,” he wrote[77] to Paine in 1805, “I never hesitated to
avow and to justify it in conversation. In no other way do I trouble
myself to contradict anything which is said.” Believing that the clergy
would have taken his blood if the law had not restrained them, he meant
to destroy their church if he could; and he gave them fair notice of
his intention.

Although the letter to Paine was never explained away, other
expressions of the President seemed to contradict the spirit of this
letter, and these the President took trouble to explain. What had
he meant by his famous appeal in behalf of harmony and affection
in social intercourse, “without which liberty and even life itself
are but dreary things”? What was to become of the still more famous
declaration, “We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists”? Hardly
had he uttered these words than he hastened to explain them to his
friends. “It was a conviction,” he wrote to Giles,[78] “that these
people did not differ from us in principle which induced me to define
the principles which I deemed orthodox, and to urge a reunion on those
principles; and I am induced to hope it has conciliated many. I do not
speak of the desperadoes of the quondam faction in and out of Congress.
These I consider as incurables, on whom all attentions would be lost,
and therefore will not be wasted; but my wish is to keep their flock
from returning to them.” He intended to entice the flock with one hand
and to belabor the shepherds with the other. In equally clear language
he wrote to Governor McKean of Pennsylvania:[79]--

 “My idea is that the mass of our countrymen, even of those who call
 themselves Federalist, are Republican. They differ from us but in a
 shade of more or less power to be given to the Executive or Executive
 organs.... To restore that harmony which our predecessors so wickedly
 made it their object to break up, to render us again one people acting
 as one nation,--should be the object of every man really a patriot.
 I am satisfied it can be done, and I own that the day which should
 convince me to the contrary would be the bitterest of my life.”

This motive, he said, had dictated his answer to the New Haven
remonstrants,--a paper, he added, which “will furnish new texts for
the monarchists; but from them I ask nothing: I wish nothing but their
eternal hatred.”

The interest of Jefferson’s character consisted, to no small extent, in
these outbursts of temper, which gave so lively a tone to his official,
and still more to his private, language. The avowal in one sentence of
his duty as a patriot to restore the harmony which his predecessors
(one of whom was President Washington) had “so wickedly made it their
object to break up,” and the admission that the day of his final
failure would be the bitterest of his life, contrasted strangely with
his wish, in the next sentence, for the eternal hatred of a class
which embraced most of the bench and bar, the merchants and farmers,
the colleges and the churches of New England! In any other man such
contradictions would have argued dishonesty. In Jefferson they proved
only that he took New England to be like Virginia,--ruled by a petty
oligarchy which had no sympathies with the people, and whose artificial
power, once broken, would vanish like that of the Virginia church.
He persuaded himself that if his system were politically successful,
the New England hierarchy could be safely ignored. When he said that
all were Republicans and all Federalists, he meant that the churches
and prejudices of New England were, in his opinion, already so much
weakened as not to be taken into his account.

At first the New Englanders were half inclined to believe his
assurances. The idea of drawing a line between the people on one side
and the bulk of their clergy, magistrates, political leaders, learned
professions, colleges, and land-owners on the other did not occur to
them, and so thoroughly Virginian was this idea that it never came to
be understood; but when they found Jefferson ejecting Federalists from
office and threatening the clergy with Paine, they assumed, without
refined analysis, that the President had deliberately deceived them.
This view agreed with their previous prejudices against Jefferson’s
character, and with their understanding of the Mazzei letter. Their
wrath soon became hot with the dry white heat peculiar to their
character. The clergy had always hated Jefferson, and believed him not
only to be untruthful, but to be also a demagogue, a backbiter, and a
sensualist. When they found him, as they imagined, actually at work
stripping not only the rags from their religion, but the very coats
from their backs, and setting Paine to bait them, they were beside
themselves with rage and contempt.

Thus the summer of 1802, which Jefferson’s hopes had painted as the
term of his complete success, was marked by an outburst of reciprocal
invective and slander such as could not be matched in American
history. The floodgates of calumny were opened. By a stroke of evil
fortune Jefferson further roused against himself the hatred of a man
whose vileness made him more formidable than the respectability of New
England could ever be. James Thompson Callender, a Scotch adventurer
compared with whom the Cobbetts, Duanes, Cheethams, and Woods who
infested the press were men of moral and pure life, had been an ally of
Jefferson during the stormy days of 1798, and had published at Richmond
a volume called “The Prospect before us,” which was sufficiently
libellous to draw upon him a State prosecution, and a fine and some
months’ imprisonment at the rough hands of Judge Chase. A few years
later the Republicans would have applauded the sentence, and regretted
only its lightness. In 1800 they were bound to make common cause with
the victim. When Jefferson became President, he pardoned Callender,
and by a stretch of authority returned to him the amount of his fine.
Naturally Callender expected reward. He hastened to Washington, and
was referred to Madison. He said that he was in love, and hinted that
to win the object of his affection nothing less than the post-office
at Richmond was necessary for his social standing.[80] Meeting with a
positive refusal, he returned to Richmond in extreme anger, and became
editor of a newspaper called “The Recorder,” in which he began to wage
against Jefferson a war of slander that Cobbett and Cheetham would
have shrunk from. He collected every story he could gather, among
overseers and scandal-mongers, about Jefferson’s past life,--charged
him with having a family of negro children by a slave named Sally;
with having been turned out of the house of a certain Major Walker
for writing a secret love-letter to his wife; with having swindled
his creditors by paying debts in worthless currency, and with having
privately paid Callender himself to write “The Prospect before us,”
besides furnishing materials for the book. Disproof of these charges
was impossible. That which concerned Black Sally, as she was called,
seems to have rested on a confusion of persons which could not be
cleared up; that relating to Mrs. Walker had a foundation of truth,
although the parties were afterward reconciled;[81] that regarding
the payment of debt was true in one sense, and false only in the
sense which Callender gave it; while that which referred to “The
Prospect before us” was true enough to be serious. All these charges
were welcomed by the Federalist press, reprinted even in the New York
“Evening Post,” and scattered broadcast over New England. There men’s
minds were ready to welcome any tale of villany that bore out their
theory of Jefferson’s character; and, at the most critical moment, a
mistake made by himself went far to confirm their prejudice.

Jefferson’s nature was feminine; he was more refined than many women
in the delicacy of his private relations, and even men as shameless
as Callender himself winced under attacks of such a sort. He was
sensitive, affectionate, and, in his own eyes, heroic. He yearned for
love and praise as no other great American ever did. He hated the
clergy chiefly because he knew that from them he could expect neither
love nor praise, perhaps not even forbearance. He had befriended
Callender against his own better judgment, as every party leader
befriended party hacks, not because the leaders approved them, but
because they were necessary for the press. So far as license was
concerned, “The Prospect before us” was a mild libel compared with
Cobbett’s, Coleman’s, and Dennie’s cataracts of abuse; and at the
time it was written, Callender’s character was not known and his
habits were still decent. In return for kindness and encouragement,
Callender attempted an act of dastardly assassination, which the whole
Federalist press cheered. That a large part of the community, and the
part socially uppermost, should believe this drunken ruffian, and
should laugh while he bespattered their President with his filth, was
a mortification which cut deep into Jefferson’s heart. Hurt and angry,
he felt that at bottom it was the old theological hatred in Virginia
and New England which sustained this mode of warfare; that as he had
flung Paine at them, they were flinging Callender at him. “With the aid
of a lying renegade from Republicanism, the Federalists have opened
all their sluices of calumny,” he wrote;[82] and he would have done
wisely to say no more. Unluckily for him, he undertook to contradict
Callender’s assertions.

James Monroe was Governor of Virginia. Some weakness in Monroe’s
character caused him more than once to mix in scandals which he might
better have left untouched. July 7, 1802, he wrote to the President,
asking for the facts in regard to Jefferson’s relations with Callender.
The President’s reply confessed the smart of his wound:[83]--

 “I am really mortified at the base ingratitude of Callender. It
 presents human nature in a hideous form. It gives me concern because
 I perceive that relief which was afforded him on mere motives of
 charity, may be viewed under the aspect of employing him as a writer.”

He explained how he had pitied Callender, and repeatedly given him
money.

 “As to myself,” he continued, “no man wished more to see his pen
 stopped; but I considered him still as a proper object of benevolence.
 The succeeding year [1800] he again wanted money to buy paper for
 another volume. I made his letter, as before, the occasion of giving
 him another fifty dollars. He considers these as proofs of my
 approbation of his writings, when they were mere charities, yielded
 under a strong conviction that he was injuring us by his writings.”

Unfortunately, Jefferson could not find the press-copies of his letters
to Callender, and let Monroe send out these apologies without stopping
to compare them with his written words. No sooner had the Republican
newspapers taken their tone from Monroe, and committed themselves
to these assertions of fact, than Callender printed the two letters
which Jefferson had written to him,[84] which proved that not only had
Jefferson given him at different times some two hundred dollars, but
had also supplied information, of a harmless nature, for “The Prospect
before us,” and under an injunction of secrecy had encouraged Callender
to write. His words were not to be explained away: “I thank you for the
proof-sheets you enclosed me; such papers cannot fail to produce the
best effect.”[85]

No man who stood within the circle of the President’s intimates could
be perplexed to understand how this apparent self-contradiction
might have occurred. Callender was neither the first nor the last
to take advantage of what John Randolph called the “easy credulity”
of Jefferson’s temper. The nearest approach Jefferson could make
toward checking an over-zealous friend was by shades of difference
in the strength of his encouragement. To tell Callender that his
book could not fail to produce the best effect was a way of hinting
that it might do harm; and, however specious such an excuse might
seem, this language was in his mind consistent with a secret wish
that Callender should not write. More than one such instance of this
kindly prevarication, this dislike for whatever might seem harsh or
disobliging, could be found in Jefferson’s correspondence.

A man’s enemies rarely invent specious theories of human nature in
order to excuse what they prefer to look upon as falsehood and treason.
July 17, 1803, Callender was drowned in some drunken debauch; but the
Federalists never forgot his calumnies, or ceased ringing the changes
on the President’s self-contradictions,--and throughout New England the
trio of Jefferson, Paine, and Callender were henceforward held in equal
abhorrence. That this prejudice did not affect Jefferson’s popular
vote was true, but it seriously affected his social relations; and it
annoyed and mortified him more than coarser men could understand, to
feel in the midst of his utmost popularity that large numbers of his
worthiest fellow-citizens, whose respect he knew himself to deserve,
despised him as they did the vermin they trod upon.

In the ferment of the Callender scandal, October 29, Paine arrived
from Europe. Unable to come by the “Maryland,” he had waited a year,
and then appeared at Baltimore. The Republican newspapers made the
same blunder in regard to Paine which they had made in regard to
Callender,--they denied at first that he had been invited to return in
a Government ship, or that Jefferson had written him any such letter
as was rumored; and they were altogether perplexed to know how to
deal with so dangerous an ally, until the President invited Paine to
the White House and gave him all the support that political and social
influence could command. In a few days the “National Intelligencer,”
Jefferson’s more than semi-official organ, published the first of a
series of letters addressed by Paine to the American people; and no one
could longer doubt what kind of “useful labors” Jefferson had invited
him to continue. Fourteen years of absence had not abated the vigor
of that homely style which once roused the spirits of Washington’s
soldiers; and age lent increased virulence to powers of invective
which had always been great. His new series of letters overflowed with
abuse of the Federalists, and bristled with sarcasms on the Federalist
Presidents. Unfortunately for Jefferson’s object Paine had exhausted
the effect of such weapons, which resemble the sting of a bee lost in
the wound it makes. The bee dies of her own mutilation. Paine, too,
was dying from the loss of his sting. Only once in any man’s career
could he enjoy the full pleasure of saying, as Paine said to President
Washington: “You are treacherous in private friendship, and a hypocrite
in public life.” To repeat it in other forms, to fumble and buzz about
a wound meant to be deadly, was to be tiresome and ridiculous. Paine,
too, was no longer one of a weak minority struggling for freedom
of speech or act; he represented power, and was the mouthpiece of
a centralized Government striking at the last remnants of Puritan
independence. The glory of wounding Cæsar on his throne was one thing;
that of adding one more stab to his prostrate body was another. Paine’s
weapon no longer caused alarm. The Federalist newspapers were delighted
to reprint his letters, and to hold the President responsible for them.
The clergy thundered from their pulpits. The storm of recrimination
raged with noisy violence amid incessant recurrence to the trio of
godless ruffians,--Jefferson, Paine, and Callender; but the only
permanent result was to leave a fixed prejudice in the New England
mind,--an ineradicable hatred for President Jefferson, in due time to
bear poisonous fruit.

The summer of 1802 was a disappointment to Jefferson. He had
hoped for better things. The time-servers and those voters whose
love of nationality was stronger than their local interests or
personal prejudices were for the most part drawn over to the
Administration,--even Boston and Salem chose Republican Congressmen;
yet Massachusetts as a whole was still Federalist, and of course, as
the Federalists became fewer, the extreme wing became more influential
in the party. The Essex Junto were still far from control, but they
succeeded better than the moderate Federalists in holding their own.
Thus these three influences in Massachusetts had nearly reached an
equilibrium, and Jefferson was at a loss to understand why the growth
of his popularity had been checked. He saw that provincial jealousies
were strengthened, and this consequence of isolation he chose to look
upon as its cause. Even an ode of the Massachusetts poet Thomas Paine,
whose better-known name of Robert Treat Paine recorded the political
passions which caused him to petition for the change, served to console
Jefferson for the partial defeat of his consolidating schemes. Paine’s
refrain ran,--

 “Rule, New England! New England rules and saves!”

and this echo of Virginia sentiments in 1798, this shadowy suggestion
of a New England Confederacy, jarred on the President’s ear. Toward
autumn he wrote to his friend Langdon, of New Hampshire:[86]--

 “Although we have not yet got a majority into the fold of
 Republicanism in your State, yet one long pull more will effect it.
 We can hardly doubt that one twelve-month more will give an executive
 and legislature in that State whose opinions may harmonize with their
 sister States,--unless it be true, as is sometimes said, that New
 Hampshire is but a satellite of Massachusetts. In this last State the
 public sentiment seems to be under some influence additional to that
 of the clergy and lawyers. I suspect there must be a leaven of State
 pride at seeing itself deserted by the public opinion, and that their
 late popular song of ‘Rule, New England,’ betrays one principle of
 their present variance from the Union. But I am in hopes they will in
 time discover that the shortest road to rule is to join the majority.”

The struggle was full of interest; for if Jefferson had never yet
failed to break down every opponent, from King George III. to Aaron
Burr, the New England oligarchy for near two hundred years were a fatal
enemy to every ruler not of their own choice, from King Charles I. to
Thomas Jefferson.

Had the clergy and lawyers, the poets and magistrates of Massachusetts
been the only troublesome element with which Jefferson had to deal,
the task of the Republican party would have been simple; but virulent
as party feeling was in New England during the summer of 1802, a feud
broke out in New York which took a darker hue. Vice-President Burr, by
his birthday toast to the “Union of honest men” and by his vote on the
Judiciary Bill, flung down a challenge to the Virginians which De Witt
Clinton, on their behalf, hastened to take up. With a violence that
startled uninitiated bystanders, Cheetham in his “American Citizen”
flung one charge after another at Burr: first his Judiciary vote; then
his birthday toast; then the suppression of a worthless history of the
last Administration written by John Wood, another foreign adventurer,
whose book Burr bought in order, as Cheetham believed, to curry favor
with the New England Federalists; finally, with the rhetorical flourish
of an American Junius, Cheetham charged that Burr had tried to steal
the Presidency from Jefferson in February, 1801, when the House of
Representatives was divided. All the world knew that not Cheetham, but
De Witt Clinton thus dragged the Vice-President from his chair, and
that not Burr’s vices but his influence made his crimes heinous; that
behind De Witt Clinton stood the Virginia dynasty, dangling Burr’s
office in the eyes of the Clinton family, and lavishing honors and
money on the Livingstons. All this was as clear to Burr and his friends
as though it were embodied in an Act of Congress. No one ever explained
why Burr did not drag De Witt Clinton from his ambush and shoot him,
as two years later he shot Alexander Hamilton with less provocation.
At midsummer the city was startled by the report that John Swartwout
the marshal, one of Burr’s intimates, had charged Clinton with
attacking the Vice-President from personal and selfish motives; that
Clinton had branded Swartwout as a liar, a scoundrel, and a villain;
that they had met at Weehawken, where, after lodging two bullets in
his opponent, Clinton had flung down his pistol at the sixth shot,
swearing that he would have no more to do with the bloody business.
Among the stories current was one that Clinton had expressed regret
at not having Swartwout’s _principal_ before his pistol. Swartwout,
wounded as he was, returned directly to Burr’s house. In the face of
all this provocation, the Vice-President behaved with studied caution
and reserve. Never in the history of the United States did so powerful
a combination of rival politicians unite to break down a single man
as that which arrayed itself against Burr; for as the hostile circle
gathered about him, he could plainly see not only Jefferson, Madison,
and the whole Virginia legion, with Duane and his “Aurora” at their
heels: not only De Witt Clinton and his whole family interest,
with Cheetham and his “Watchtower” by their side; but--strangest of
companions--Alexander Hamilton himself joining hands with his own
bitterest enemies to complete the ring.

Under the influence of these personal hatreds, which raged from the
Penobscot to the Potomac, American politics bade fair to become
a faction-fight. The President proposed no new legislation; he
had come to the end of his economies, and was even beginning to
renew expenditures; he had no idea of amending the Constitution or
reconstructing the Supreme Court; he thought only of revolutionizing
the State governments of New England.[87] “The path we have to
pursue is so quiet, that we have nothing scarcely to propose to our
Legislature,”--so he wrote a few days before Congress was to meet. “If
we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people
under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.” The
energy of reform was exhausted, the point of departure no longer in
sight; the ever-increasing momentum of a governmental system required
constant care; and with all this, complications of a new and unexpected
kind began, which henceforward caused the chief interest of politics to
centre in foreign affairs.




CHAPTER XIII.


MOST picturesque of all figures in modern history, Napoleon Bonaparte,
like Milton’s Satan on his throne of state, although surrounded by a
group of figures little less striking than himself, sat unapproachable
on his bad eminence; or, when he moved, the dusky air felt an
unusual weight. His conduct was often mysterious, and sometimes so
arbitrary as to seem insane; but later years have thrown on it a lurid
illumination. Without the mass of correspondence and of fragmentary
writings collected under the Second Empire in not less than thirty-two
volumes of printed works, the greatness of Napoleon’s energies or the
quality of his mind would be impossible to comprehend. Ambition that
ground its heel into every obstacle; restlessness that often defied
common-sense; selfishness that eat like a cancer into his reasoning
faculties; energy such as had never before been combined with equal
genius and resources; ignorance that would have amused a school-boy;
and a moral sense which regarded truth and falsehood as equally useful
modes of expression,--an unprovoked war or secret assassination as
equally natural forms of activity,--such a combination of qualities as
Europe had forgotten since the Middle Ages, and could realize only by
reviving the Eccelinos and Alberics of the thirteenth century, had to
be faced and overawed by the gentle optimism of President Jefferson and
his Secretary of State.

As if one such character were not riddle enough for any single epoch,
a figure even more sinister and almost as enigmatical stood at its
side. On the famous 18th Brumaire, the 9th November, 1799, when
Bonaparte turned pale before the Five Hundred, and retired in terror
from the hall at St. Cloud, not so much his brother Lucien, or the
facile Sieyès, or Barras, pushed him forward to destroy the republic,
but rather Talleyrand, the ex-Bishop of Autun, the Foreign Secretary
of the Directory. Talleyrand was most active in directing the _coup
d’état_, and was chiefly responsible for the ruin of France.[88] Had
he profited by his exile in America, he would have turned to Moreau
rather than to Bonaparte; and some millions of men would have gone more
quietly to their graves. Certainly he did not foresee the effects of
his act; he had not meant to set a mere soldier on the throne of Saint
Louis. He betrayed the republic only because he believed the republic
to be an absurdity and a nuisance, not because he wanted a military
despotism. He wished to stop the reign of violence and scandal, restore
the glories of Louis XIV., and maintain France in her place at the head
of civilization. To carry out these views was the work of a lifetime.
Every successive government was created or accepted by him as an
instrument for his purposes; and all were thrown aside or broke in
his hands. Superior to Bonaparte in the breadth and steadiness of his
purpose, Talleyrand was a theorist in his political principles; his
statecraft was that of the old _régime_, and he never forgave himself
for having once believed in a popular revolution.

This was the man with whom Madison must deal, in order to reach the
ear of the First Consul. In diplomacy, a more perplexing task could
scarcely be presented than to fathom the policy which might result from
the contact of a mind like Talleyrand’s with a mind like Bonaparte’s.
If Talleyrand was an enigma to be understood only by those who lived
in his confidence, Bonaparte was a freak of nature such as the world
had seen too rarely to comprehend. His character was misconceived even
by Talleyrand at this early period; and where the keenest of observers
failed to see through a mind he had helped to form, how were men like
Jefferson and Madison, three thousand miles away, and receiving at
best only such information as Chancellor Livingston could collect and
send them every month or six weeks,--how were they, in their isolation
and ignorance, to solve a riddle that depended on the influence which
Talleyrand could maintain over Bonaparte, and the despotism which
Bonaparte could establish over Talleyrand?

Difficult as this riddle was, it made but a part of the problem. France
had no direct means of controlling American policy. Within the last
four years she had tried to dictate, and received severe discipline. If
France was a political factor of the first class in Jefferson’s mind,
it was not because of her armies or fleets, or her almost extinguished
republican character, or her supposed friendship for Jefferson’s party
in its struggle with Anglican federalism. The 18th Brumaire severed
most of these sentimental ties. The power which France wielded over
American destinies sprang not from any direct French interest or fear
of French arms, but from the control which Napoleon exercised over the
Spanish government at Madrid. France alone could not greatly disturb
the repose of Jefferson; but France, acting through Spain on the hopes
and fears of the Southern States, exercised prodigious influence on the
Union.

Don Carlos IV. reigned at Madrid,--a Bourbon, but an ally of the French
republic, and since the 18th Brumaire a devoted admirer of the young
Corsican who had betrayed the republic. So far as Don Carlos was king
of Spain only, his name meant little to Americans; but as an American
ruler his empire dwarfed that of the United States. From the sources of
the Missouri and Mississippi to the borders of Patagonia, two American
continents acknowledged his rule. From the mouth of the St. Mary’s,
southward and westward, the shores of Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and
Mexico were Spanish; Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans closed all the
rivers by which the United States could reach the gulf. The valley of
the Ohio itself, as far as Pittsburg, was at the mercy of the King of
Spain; the flour and tobacco that floated down the Mississippi, or any
of the rivers that fell into the Gulf, passed under the Spanish flag,
and could reach a market only by permission of Don Carlos IV. Along
an imaginary line from Fernandina to Natchez, some six hundred miles,
and thence northward on the western bank of the Mississippi River to
the Lake of the Woods, some fourteen hundred miles farther, Spanish
authority barred the path of American ambition. Of all foreign Powers
Spain alone stood in such a position as to make violence seem sooner or
later inevitable even to the pacific Jefferson; and every Southern or
Western State looked to the military occupation of Mobile, Pensacola,
and New Orleans as a future political necessity.

By a sort of tacit agreement, the ordinary rules of American politics
were admitted not to apply to this case. To obtain Pensacola, Mobile,
and New Orleans, the warmest State-rights champions in the South, even
John Taylor of Caroline and John Randolph of Roanoke, were ready to
employ every instrument of centralization. On the Southern and Western
States this eagerness to expel Spain from their neighborhood acted
like a magnet, affecting all, without regard to theories or parties.
The people of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia could not easily admit
restrictions of any sort; they were the freest of the free; they felt
keenly their subjection to the arbitrary authority of a king,--and a
king of Spain. They could not endure that their wheat, tobacco, and
timber should have value only by sufferance of a Spanish official and
a corporal’s guard of Spanish soldiers at New Orleans and Mobile.
Hatred of a Spaniard was to the Tennessean as natural as hatred of an
Indian, and contempt for the rights of the Spanish government was no
more singular than for those of an Indian tribe. Against Indians and
Spaniards the Western settler held loose notions of law; his settled
purpose was to drive both races from the country, and to take their
land.

Between the Americans and the Spaniards no permanent friendship could
exist. Their systems were at war, even when the nations were at peace.
Spain, France, and England combined in maintaining the old colonial
system; and Spain, as the greatest owner of American territory, was
more deeply interested than any other Power in upholding the rule that
colonies belonged exclusively to the mother country, and might trade
only with her. Against this exclusive system, although it was one with
which no foreign Power had the legal right to meddle, Americans always
rebelled. Their interests required them to maintain the principles
of free-trade; and they persuaded themselves that they had a natural
right to sell their produce and buy their home cargoes in the best
market, without regard to protective principles. Americans were the
professional smugglers of an age when smuggling was tolerated by
custom. Occasionally the laws were suddenly enforced, and the American
trader was ruined; but in war times the business was comparatively safe
and the profits were large. Naturally Americans wanted the right to
do always what they did by sufferance as neutrals; and they were bent
not only upon gaining foothold on the Gulf of Mexico, but on forcing
Spain and England to admit them freely to their colonial ports. To do
these two things they needed to do more. That the vast and inert mass
of Spanish possessions in America must ultimately be broken up, became
the cardinal point of their foreign policy. If the Southern and Western
people, who saw the Spanish flag flaunted every day in their faces,
learned to hate the Spaniard as their natural enemy, the Government
at Washington, which saw a wider field, never missed an opportunity
to thrust its knife into the joints of its unwieldy prey. In the end,
far more than half the territory of the United States was the spoil of
Spanish empire, rarely acquired with perfect propriety. To sum up the
story in a single word, Spain had immense influence over the United
States; but it was the influence of the whale over its captors,--the
charm of a huge, helpless, and profitable victim.

Throughout the period of Spain’s slow decomposition, Americans took
toward her the tone of high morality. They were ostensibly struggling
for liberty of commerce; and they avowed more or less openly their
wish to establish political independence and popular rights throughout
both continents. To them Spain represented despotism, bigotry, and
corruption; and they were apt to let this impression appear openly in
their language and acts. They were persistent aggressors, while Spain,
even when striking back, as she sometimes timidly did, invariably acted
in self-defence. That the Spaniards should dread and hate the Americans
was natural; for the American character was one which no Spaniard could
like, as the Spanish character had qualities which few Americans could
understand. Each party accused the other of insincerity and falsehood;
but the Spaniards also charged the Americans with rapacity and
shamelessness. In their eyes, United States citizens proclaimed ideas
of free-trade and self-government with no other object than to create
confusion, in order that they might profit by it.

With the characters of English and French rulers--of George III. and
Bonaparte, Pitt, Canning, Castlereagh, and Talleyrand--Americans
were more or less familiar. The face and mind of King George III.
were almost as well known to them as those of George Washington. Of
Spaniards and Spanish rulers Americans knew almost nothing; yet Spanish
weaknesses were to enrich the Union with more than half a continent
from the ruin of an empire which would hardly have felt the privation
had it been the chief loss the Spanish Crown was forced to suffer.

Europe could show no two men more virtuous in their private lives than
King George III. of England and King Charles IV. of Spain. If personal
purity was a test of political merit, these two rulers were the best
of kings. Had George III. been born a Spanish prince, he might perhaps
have grown into another Charles IV.; and Don Carlos was a kind of
Spanish George. Every morning throughout the whole year King Charles
rose at precisely five o’clock and heard Mass.[89] Occasionally he read
a few minutes in some book of devotion, then breakfasted and went to
his workrooms, where the most skilful gunsmiths in his kingdom were
always busy on his hunting weapons. His armory was a part of his court;
the gunsmiths, joiners, turners, and cabinet-makers went with him from
Madrid to Aranjuez, and from Aranjuez to La Granja. Among them he was
at his ease; taking off his coat, and rolling his shirt-sleeves up to
the shoulder, he worked at a dozen different trades within the hour,
in manner and speech as simple and easy as the workmen themselves. He
was skilful with his tools, and withal a dilettante in his way, capable
of enjoying not only the workmanship of a gunlock, but the beauties
of his glorious picture-gallery,--the “Feconditá” of Titian, and the
“Hilanderas” of Velasquez.

From his workshops he went to his stables, chatted familiarly with the
grooms, and sometimes roughly found fault with them. After this daily
duty was done, he received the Queen and the rest of his family,
who came to kiss his hand,--a ceremony which took some ten minutes;
after which, precisely at noon, he sat down to dinner. He dined alone,
eat enormously, and drank only water. “Find if you can,” said the
Spaniards, “another king who never got out of his bed later than five
o’clock; never drank wine, coffee, or liqueur; and in his whole life
never so much as looked at any woman but his wife!” After dinner,
every day at one o’clock, except when court etiquette interfered, King
Charles set out, no matter what might be the weather, and drove post
with guards and six coaches of companions to the ground where he was
to shoot. Three hundred men drove the game toward him; seven hundred
men and five hundred horses were daily occupied in this task of amusing
him. The expenses were enormous; but the King was one of the best shots
in Europe, and his subjects had reason to be grateful that his ambition
took so harmless a path as the destruction of vast swarms of game.

From this sport he returned toward evening, and always found the Queen
and the Court waiting his arrival. For some fifteen minutes he chatted
with them; then his ministers were admitted, each separately presenting
his business, while the Queen was present; and about half an hour was
thus devoted to the welfare of many million subjects scattered in
several continents. Cabinet councils were rare at this court, and no
other council or assembly for legislative or executive purposes was
imagined. Business disposed of, Don Carlos took his violin, which
was as dear to him as his gun,--although in playing he gave himself
no trouble to keep time with the other musicians, but played faster
or slower, without apparent consciousness. After music he sat down to
cards, and played ombre with two old courtiers, who for fifteen years
had been required to perform this daily service; and he regularly went
to sleep with the cards in his hand. Almost as regularly the other
players, as well as the lookers-on, went to sleep also, and aroused
themselves only when the major-domo came to announce supper. This meal
at an end, the King gave his orders for the next day, and at eleven
o’clock went to bed.

Such, word for word, was the official account of the Spanish court
given by the French minister at Madrid to his Government in the year
1800; but it told only half the story. Charles was a religious man,
and strictly observed all the fasts of the Church. To rouse in his
mind an invincible repugnance against any individual, one had only
to say that such a person had no religion. He held the priesthood in
deep respect; his own character was open and frank; he possessed the
rare quality of being true at any cost to his given word; he was even
shrewd in his way, with a certain amount of common-sense; but with all
this he was a nullity, and his career was that of a victim. Far above
all distinctions of rank or class, the King was alone in Spain, as
isolated as an Eastern idol; even the great nobles who in the feudal
theory stood next him, and should have been his confidential advisers,
appeared to have no more influence than ploughboys. So extreme was
this isolation, even for the traditions of Spanish etiquette, that the
Court believed it to be intentionally encouraged by the Queen, Doña
Maria Luisa de Parma, who was supposed to have many reasons for keeping
her husband under watch. The society of Madrid was never delicate in
such matters, nor was there a court in Europe which claimed to be
free from scandal; but hardened as Europe was to royal license, Queen
Luisa became notorious from Madrid to Petersburg. Her conduct was the
common talk of Spain, and every groom and chambermaid about the royal
palaces had the list of the Queen’s lovers at their tongue’s end; yet
Don Carlos shut his eyes and ears. Those who knew him best were first
to reject the idea that this conduct was the mere blindness of a weak
mind. Charles’s religion, honor, personal purity, and the self-respect
of a king of Spain made it impossible for him to believe ill of one who
stood toward him in such a relation. Never for a moment was he known to
swerve in his loyalty.

Of all supposed facts in history, scandal about women was the commonest
and least to be trusted. Queen Luisa’s character may have been good,
notwithstanding the gossip of diplomats and courtiers; but her real or
supposed vices, and her influence over the King had much to do with
the fate of Louisiana. Sooner or later, no doubt, Louisiana must have
become a part of the American Union; but if court intrigues had little
to do with actual results, they had, at least in Spain, everything to
do with the way in which results were reached. At the court of Madrid
the Queen was, in some respects, more influential than the King, and a
man who was supposed to be one of the Queen’s old lovers exercised the
real authority of both.

In the year 1792 King Charles, then in his forty-fifth year, suddenly
raised to the post of his prime minister a simple gentleman of his
guard, Don Manuel Godoy, barely twenty-five years old. The scandalous
chronicle of the court averred that two of the Queen’s children bore on
their faces incontrovertible evidence of their relation to Godoy. From
1792 until 1798 he was prime minister; he conducted a war with France,
and made a treaty which procured for him the remarkable title of the
Principe de la Paz,--the Prince of Peace. In 1798 he retired from
office, but retained his personal favor. In 1800 he was not a minister,
nor did even the scandal-mongers then charge him with improper
relations with the Queen, for all were agreed that the Queen had found
another lover. The stories of the palace were worthy of Saint-Simon.
The King himself was far from refined in manners or conversation, and
gave even to his favors some of the roughness of insults. If a servant
suffered from any personal infirmity, he was forced to hear cruel
derision from the King’s lips; while the commonest of royal jokes
was to slap courtiers and grooms on the back with a violence that
brought tears into their eyes, followed by shouts of royal laughter
and by forced smiles from the victim. This roughness of manner was
not confined to the King. Most of the stories told about the Queen
would not bear repeating, and, whether true or false, reflected the
rottenness of a society which could invent or believe them; but among
the many tales echoed by the gentlemen and ladies who were nearest her
chamber was one worthy of Gil Blas, and as such was officially reported
to Talleyrand and Bonaparte. The Queen’s favorite in the year 1800 was
a certain Mallo, whom she was said to have enriched, and who, according
to the women of the bed-chamber, beat her Majesty in return as though
she were any common Maritornes. One day in that year, when the Prince
of Peace had come to San Ildefonso to pay his respects to the King,
and as usual was having his interview in the Queen’s presence, Charles
asked him a question: “Manuel,” said the King, “what is this Mallo? I
see him with new horses and carriages every day. Where does he get so
much money?” “Sire,” replied Godoy, “Mallo has nothing in the world;
but he is kept by an ugly old woman who robs her husband to pay her
lover.” The King shouted with laughter, and turning to his wife, said:
“Luisa, what think you of that?” “Ah, Charles!” she replied; “do you
not know that Manuel is always joking?”

Europe rang with such stories, which were probably as old as the tales
of folk-lore, but none the less characterized the moral condition of
Spain. Whatever had been Godoy’s relations with the Queen they had long
ceased, yet the honors, the wealth, and the semi-royal position of the
Prince of Peace still scandalized the world. According to the common
talk of Madrid, his riches and profligacy had no limits; his name was
a by-word for everything that was shameless and corrupt. A young man,
barely thirty-three years old, on whose head fortune rained favors,
in an atmosphere of corruption, was certainly no saint; yet this
creature, Manuel Godoy, reeking with vice, epitome of the decrepitude
and incompetence of Spanish royalty, was a mild, enlightened, and
intelligent minister so far as the United States were concerned,
capable of generosity and of courage, quite the equal of Pitt or
Talleyrand in diplomacy, and their superior in resource. In the eyes
of Spain, Godoy may have been the most contemptible of mortals; but
American history cannot estimate his character so low.

Godoy negotiated the treaty of 1795 with the United States, and did
it in order to redress the balance which Jay’s treaty with England
disturbed.[90] The Spanish treaty of 1795 never received the credit
it deserved; its large concessions were taken as a matter of course
by the American people, who assumed that Spain could not afford to
refuse anything that America asked, and who resented the idea that
America asked more than she had a right to expect. Fearing that the
effect of Jay’s treaty would throw the United States into the arms of
England at a moment when Spain was about to declare war, Godoy conceded
everything the Americans wanted. His treaty provided for a settlement
of the boundary between Natchez and New Orleans; accepted the principle
of “free ships, free goods,” so obnoxious to England; gave a liberal
definition of contraband such as Jay had in vain attempted to get from
Lord Grenville; created a commission to settle the claims of American
citizens against Spain on account of illegal captures in the late war;
granted to citizens of the United States for three years the right
to deposit their merchandise at New Orleans without paying duty; and
pledged the King of Spain to continue this so-called _entrepôt_, or
“right of deposit,” at the same place if he found it not injurious
to his interests, or if it were so, to assign some similar place of
deposit on another part of the banks of the Mississippi.

This treaty came before the Senate at the same time with that which Jay
negotiated with Lord Grenville; and in the midst of the bitter attacks
made upon the British instrument, not a voice was raised against the
Spanish. Every one knew that it was the most satisfactory treaty
the United States had yet negotiated with any foreign Power; and if
Frederick the Great of Prussia deserved praise for the liberality of
his treaty of 1785,--a liberality which implied no concessions and led
to no consequences,--King Charles IV. had right to tenfold credit for
the settlement of 1795.

If the Americans said but little on the subject, they felt the full
value of their gain. Doubtless they grumbled because the Spanish
authorities were slow to carry out the provisions of the treaty; but
they had reason to know that this was not the fault of Godoy. Had
France been as wisely directed as Spain, no delay would have occurred;
but the French Directory resented the course taken by the United States
in accepting Jay’s treaty, and being angry with America, they turned
a part of their wrath against Godoy. Before his American treaty was
known to the world, Spain was driven to declare war against England,
and thenceforth became an almost helpless appendage to France. The
French government not only tried to prevent the delivery of the Spanish
forts on the Mississippi, but, in defiance of law, French privateers
made use of Spanish ports to carry on their depredations against
American commerce; and scores of American vessels were brought into
these ports and condemned by French consuls without right to exercise
such a jurisdiction, while the Spanish government was powerless to
interfere. In the end, Godoy’s want of devotion to the interests of
France became so evident that he could no longer remain prime minister.
In March, 1798, he announced to King Charles that one of two measures
must be chosen,--either Spain must prepare for a rupture with France,
or must be guided by a new ministry. His resignation was accepted, and
he retired from office. Fortunately for the United States, the last
days of his power were marked by an act of friendship toward them which
greatly irritated Talleyrand. March 29, 1798, the Spanish posts on the
eastern bank of the Mississippi were at last delivered to the United
States government; and thus Godoy’s treaty of 1795 was faithfully
carried out.




CHAPTER XIV.


IN July, 1797, eight months before Godoy’s retirement from power at
Madrid, Talleyrand became Minister for Foreign Affairs to the French
Directory. If the Prince of Peace was a man of no morals, the ex-Bishop
of Autun was one of no morality. Colder than Pitt, and hardly less
corrupt than Godoy, he held theories in regard to the United States
which differed from those of other European statesmen only in being
more aggressive. Chateaubriand once said, “When M. Talleyrand is not
conspiring, he traffics.” The epigram was not an unfair description of
Talleyrand’s behavior toward the United States. He had wandered through
America in the year 1794, and found there but one congenial spirit.
“Hamilton avait deviné l’Europe,” was his phrase: Hamilton had felt by
instinct the problem of European conservatives. After returning from
America and obtaining readmission to France, Talleyrand made almost his
only appearance as an author by reading to the Institute, in April,
1797, a memoir upon America and the Colonial System.[91] This paper was
the clew to his ambition, preparing his return to power by laying the
foundation for a future policy. The United States, it said, were wholly
English, both by tastes and by commercial necessity; from them France
could expect nothing; she must build up a new colonial system of her
own,--but “to announce too much of what one means to do, is the way not
to do it at all.”

In Talleyrand’s new colonial scheme lay the germ of the ideas and
measures which were to occupy his life. From first to last, he had the
great purpose of restoring France to a career of sound and conservative
development. France had never ceased to regret the loss of Louisiana.
The creation of Louis XIV., whose name it bore, this province was
always French at heart, although in 1763 France ceded it to Spain in
order to reconcile the Spanish government to sacrifices in the treaty
of Paris. By the same treaty Florida was given by Spain to England,
and remained twenty years in English hands, until the close of the
Revolutionary War, when the treaty of 1783 restored it to Spain. The
Spanish government of 1783, in thus gaining possession of Florida
and Louisiana together, aimed at excluding the United States, not
France, from the Gulf. Indeed, when the Count de Vergennes wished to
recover Louisiana for France, Spain was willing to return it, but
asked a price which, although the mere reimbursement of expenses,
exceeded the means of the French treasury, and only for that reason
Louisiana remained a Spanish province. After Godoy’s war with France,
at the Peace of Bâle the French Republic again tried to obtain the
retrocession of Louisiana, but in vain. Nevertheless some progress
was made, for by that treaty, July 22, 1795, Spain consented to cede
to France the Spanish, or eastern, part of St. Domingo,--the cradle
of her Transatlantic power, and the cause of yearly deficits to the
Spanish treasury. Owing to the naval superiority of England, the French
republic did not ask for immediate possession. Fearing Toussaint
Louverture, whose personal authority in the French part of the island
already required forbearance, France retained the title, and waited
for peace. Again, in 1797, Carnot and Barthelemy caused the Directory
to offer the King of Spain a magnificent bribe for Louisiana.[92] They
proposed to take the three legations just wrung from the Pope, and
joining them with the Duchy of Parma, make a principality for the son
of the Duke of Parma, who had married a daughter of Don Carlos IV.
Although this offer would have given his daughter a splendid position,
Charles refused it, because he was too honest a churchman to share in
the spoils of the Church.

These repeated efforts proved that France, and especially the Foreign
Office, looked to the recovery of French power in America. A strong
party in the Government aimed at restoring peace in Europe and
extending French empire abroad. Of this party Talleyrand was, or
aspired to be, the head; and his memoir, read to the Institute in April
and July, 1797, was a cautious announcement of the principles to be
pursued in the administration of foreign affairs which he immediately
afterward assumed.

July 24, 1797, commissioners arrived from the United States to treat
for a settlement of the difficulties then existing between the two
countries; but Talleyrand refused to negotiate without a gift of twelve
hundred thousand francs,--amounting to about two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. Two of the American commissioners, in the middle of
April, 1798, returned home, and war seemed inevitable.

Thus the month of April, 1798, was a moment of crisis in American
affairs. Talleyrand had succeeded in driving Godoy from office, and
in securing greater subservience from his successor, Don Mariano Luis
de Urquijo, who had been chief clerk in the Foreign Department, and
who acted as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Simultaneously Talleyrand
carried his quarrel with the United States to the verge of a rupture;
and at the same time Godoy’s orders compelled Governor Gayoso of
Louisiana to deliver Natchez to the United States. The actual delivery
of Natchez was hardly yet known in Europe; and the President of
the United States at Philadelphia had but lately heard that the
Spaniards were fairly gone, when Talleyrand drafted instructions for
the Citizen Guillemardet, whom he was sending as minister to Madrid.
These instructions offered a glimpse into the heart of Talleyrand’s
policy.[93]

 “The Court of Madrid,” said he, “ever blind to its own interests, and
 never docile to the lessons of experience, has again quite recently
 adopted a measure which cannot fail to produce the worst effects upon
 its political existence and on the preservation of its colonies. The
 United States have been put in possession of the forts situated along
 the Mississippi which the Spaniards had occupied as posts essential to
 arrest the progress of the Americans in those countries.”

The Americans, he continued, meant at any cost to rule alone in
America, and to exercise a preponderating influence in the political
system of Europe, although twelve hundred leagues of ocean rolled
between.

 “Moreover, their conduct ever since the moment of their independence
 is enough to prove this truth: the Americans are devoured by pride,
 ambition, and cupidity; the mercantile spirit of the city of London
 ferments from Charleston to Boston, and the Cabinet of St. James
 directs the Cabinet of the Federal Union.”

Chateaubriand’s epigram came here into pointed application. Down to
the moment of writing this despatch, Talleyrand had for some months
been engaged in trafficking with these Americans, who were devoured by
cupidity, and whom he had required to pay him two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars for peace. He next conspired.

 “There are,” he continued, “no other means of putting an end to the
 ambition of the Americans than that of shutting them up within the
 limits which Nature seems to have traced for them; but Spain is not
 in a condition to do this great work alone. She cannot, therefore,
 hasten too quickly to engage the aid of a preponderating Power,
 yielding to it a small part of her immense domains in order to
 preserve the rest.”

This small gratuity consisted of the Floridas and Louisiana.

 “Let the Court of Madrid cede these districts to France, and from that
 moment the power of America is bounded by the limit which it may suit
 the interests and the tranquillity of France and Spain to assign her.
 The French Republic, mistress of these two provinces, will be a wall
 of brass forever impenetrable to the combined efforts of England and
 America. The Court of Madrid has nothing to fear from France.”

This scheme was destined to immediate failure, chiefly through the
mistakes of its author; for not only had Talleyrand, a few weeks
before, driven the United States to reprisals, and thus sacrificed
what was left of the French colonies in the West Indies, but at the
same moment he aided and encouraged young Bonaparte to carry a large
army to Egypt, with the idea, suggested by the Duc de Choiseul many
years before, that France might find there compensation for the loss
of her colonies in America. Two years were consumed in retrieving
these mistakes. Talleyrand first discovered that he could not afford
a war with the United States; and even at the moment of writing these
instructions to his minister at Madrid, he was engaged in conciliating
the American commissioner who still remained unwillingly at Paris. The
unexpected revelation by the United States government of his demands
for money roused him, May 30, to consciousness of his danger. He made
an effort to recover his lost ground.[94] “I do not see what delay
I could have prevented. I am mortified that circumstances have not
rendered our progress more rapid.” When Gerry coldly refused to hear
these entreaties, and insisted upon receiving his passport, Talleyrand
was in genuine despair. “You have not even given me an opportunity
of proving what liberality the executive Directory would use on the
occasion.”[95] He pursued Gerry with entreaties to use his influence on
the President for peace; he pledged himself that no obstacle should be
put in the path of negotiation if the American government would consent
to renew it. At first the Americans were inclined to think his humility
some new form of insult; but it was not only real, it was unexampled.
Talleyrand foresaw that his blunder would cost France her colonies,
and this he could bear; but it would also cost himself his office,
and this was more than he could endure. His fears proved true. A year
later, July 20, 1799, he was forced to retire, with little hope of soon
recovering his character and influence, except through subservience to
some coming adventurer.

Thus occurred a delay in French plans. By a sort of common agreement
among the discontented factions at Paris, Bonaparte was recalled from
Egypt. Landing at Fréjus early in October, 1799, a month afterward,
November 9, he effected the _coup d’état_ of the 18th Brumaire. He
feared to disgust the public by replacing Talleyrand immediately in
the office of foreign minister, and therefore delayed the appointment.
“The place was naturally due to Talleyrand,” said Napoleon in his
memoirs,[96] “but in order not too much to shock public opinion,
which was very antagonistic to him, especially on account of American
affairs, Reinhard was kept in office for a short time.” The delay
was of little consequence, for internal reorganization preceded the
establishment of a new foreign policy; and Talleyrand was in no haste
to recall the blunders of his first experiment.

Although Talleyrand had mismanaged the execution of his plan, the
policy itself was a great one. The man who could pacify Europe and turn
the energies of France toward the creation of an empire in the New
World was the more sure of success because, in the reactionary spirit
of the time, he commanded the sympathies of all Europe in checking the
power of republicanism in its last refuge. Even England would see with
pleasure France perform this duty, and Talleyrand might safely count
upon a tacit alliance to support him in curbing American democracy.
This scheme of uniting legitimate governments in peaceful combination
to crush the spirit of license ran through the rest of Talleyrand’s
political life, and wherever met, whether in France, Austria, or
England, was the mark of the school which found its ablest chief in him.

The first object of the new policy was to restore the peace of
Europe; and the energy of Bonaparte completed this great undertaking
within two years after the 18th Brumaire. France was at variance with
the United States, Great Britain, and Austria. Peace with Austria
could be obtained only by conquering it; and after passing a winter
in organizing his government, Bonaparte sent Moreau to attack the
Austrians on the line of the Danube, while he himself was to take
command in Italy. As yet diplomacy could not act with effect; but early
in the spring, March 1, 1800, before campaigning began, new American
commissioners reached Paris, rather as dictators than as suppliants,
and informed Talleyrand that the President of the United States was
still ready to take him at his word. They were received with marked
respect, and were instantly met by French commissioners, at whose
head was Joseph Bonaparte, the First Consul’s brother. While their
negotiations were beginning, Bonaparte left Paris, May 20, crossed the
Alps, and wrung from the Austrians, June 14, a victory at Marengo,
while Moreau on the Danube pressed from one brilliant success to
another. Hurrying back to Paris, July 2, Bonaparte instantly began the
negotiations for peace with Austria; and thus two problems were solved.

Yet Talleyrand’s precipitation in pledging France to prompt negotiation
with the United States became a source of annoyance to the First
Consul, whose shrewder calculation favored making peace first with
Europe, in order to deal with America alone, and dictate his own terms.
His brother Joseph, who was but an instrument in Napoleon’s hands, but
who felt a natural anxiety that his first diplomatic effort should
succeed, became alarmed at the First Consul’s coldness toward the
American treaty, and at the crisis of negotiation, when failure was
imminent, tried to persuade him that peace with the United States was
made necessary by the situation in Europe. Napoleon met this argument
by one of his characteristic rebuffs. “You understand nothing of the
matter,” he said;[97] “within two years we shall be the masters of the
world.” Within two years, in fact, the United States were isolated.
Nevertheless Joseph was allowed to have his way. The First Consul
obstinately refused to admit in the treaty any claim of indemnity for
French spoliations on American commerce; and the American commissioners
as resolutely refused to abandon the claim. They in their turn insisted
that the new treaty should abrogate the guaranties and obligations
imposed on the United States government by the old French treaty
of alliance in 1778; and although Bonaparte cared nothing for the
guaranty of the United States, he retained this advantage in order that
he might set it off against the claims. Thus the negotiators were at
last obliged to agree, by the second article of the treaty, that these
two subjects should be reserved for future negotiation; and Sept. 30,
1800, the Treaty of Morfontaine, as Joseph Bonaparte wished to call
it, was signed. It reached America in the confusion of a presidential
election which threatened to overthrow the government; but the Senate
voted, Feb. 3, 1801, to ratify it, with the omission of the second
article. The instrument, with this change, was then sent back to Paris,
where Bonaparte in his turn set terms upon his ratification. He agreed
to omit the second article, as the Senate wished, “provided that by
this retrenchment the two States renounced the respective pretensions
which are the object of the said article.” The treaty returned to
America with this condition imposed upon it, and Jefferson submitted it
to the Senate, which gave its final approval Dec. 19, 1801.

Thus Bonaparte gained his object, and won his first diplomatic success.
He followed an invariable rule to repudiate debts and claims wherever
repudiation was possible. For such demands he had one formula:[98]
“Give them a very civil answer,--that I will examine the claim, etc.;
but of course one never pays that sort of thing.” In this case he
meant to extinguish the spoliation claims; and nothing could be more
certain than that he would thenceforward peremptorily challenge and
resist any claim, direct or indirect, founded on French spoliations
before 1800, and would allege the renunciation of Article II. in the
treaty of Morfontaine as his justification. Equally certain was it
that he had offered, and the Senate had approved his offer, to set
off the guaranties of the treaty of alliance against the spoliation
claims,--which gave him additional reason for rejecting such claims in
future. The United States had received fair consideration from him for
whatever losses American citizens had suffered.

Meanwhile the First Consul took action which concerned America more
closely than any of the disputes with which Joseph Bonaparte was
busied. However little admiration a bystander might feel for Napoleon’s
judgment or morals, no one could deny the quickness of his execution.
Within six weeks after the battle of Marengo, without waiting for
peace with the United States, England, or Austria, convinced that
he held these countries in the hollow of his hand, he ordered[99]
Talleyrand to send a special courier to the Citizen Alquier, French
minister at Madrid, with powers for concluding a treaty by which Spain
should retrocede Louisiana to France, in return for an equivalent
aggrandizement of the Duchy of Parma. The courier was at once
despatched, and returned with a promptitude and success which ought to
have satisfied even the restlessness of Bonaparte. The Citizen Alquier
no sooner received his orders than he went to Señor Urquijo, the
Spanish Secretary for Foreign Relations, and passing abruptly over the
well-worn arguments in favor of retrocession, he bluntly told Urquijo
to oppose it if he dared.

 “‘France expects from you,’ I said to him,[100] ‘what she asked in
 vain from the Prince of Peace. I have dispersed the prejudice which
 had been raised against you in the mind of the French government. You
 are to-day distinguished by its esteem and its consideration. Do not
 destroy my work; do not deprive yourself of the only counterpoise
 which you can oppose to the force of your enemies. The Queen, as you
 know, holds by affection as much as by vanity to the aggrandizement
 of her house; she will never forgive you if you oppose an exchange
 which can alone realize the projects of her ambition,--for I declare
 to you formally that your action will decide the fate of the Duke
 of Parma, and should you refuse to cede Louisiana you may count on
 getting nothing for that Prince. You must bear in mind, too, that
 your refusal will necessarily change my relations with you. Obliged
 to serve the interests of my country and to obey the orders of the
 First Consul, who attaches the highest value to this retrocession, I
 shall be forced to receive for the first time the offers of service
 that will inevitably be made to me; for you may be sure that your
 enemies will not hesitate to profit by that occasion to increase
 their strength--already a very real force--by the weight of the
 French influence; they will do what you will not do, and you will be
 abandoned at once by the Queen and by us.”

Urquijo’s reply measured the degradation of Spain:

 “‘Eh! who told you that I would not give you Louisiana? But we must
 first have an understanding, and you must help me to convince the
 King.’”

At this reply, which sounded like Beaumarchais’ comedies, Alquier saw
that his game was safe. “Make yourself easy on that score,” he replied;
“the Queen will take that on herself.” So the conference ended.

Alquier was right. The Queen took the task on herself, and Urquijo soon
found that both King and Queen were anxious to part with Louisiana
for their daughter’s sake. They received the offer with enthusiasm,
and lavished praises upon Bonaparte. The only conditions suggested
by Urquijo were that the new Italian principality should be clearly
defined, and that Spain should be guaranteed against the objections
that might be made by other Governments.

Meanwhile Bonaparte reiterated his offer on a more definite scale.
August 3, immediately after the interview with Urquijo, Alquier put
the first demand on record in a note important chiefly because it laid
incidental stress on Talleyrand’s policy of restraining the United
States:[101]--

 “The progress of the power and population of America, and her
 relations of interest always maintained with England, may and must
 some day bring these two powers to concert together the conquest of
 the Spanish colonies. If national interest is the surest foundation
 for political calculations, this conjecture must appear incontestable.
 The Court of Spain will do, then, at once a wise and great act if it
 calls the French to the defence of its colonies by ceding Louisiana
 to them, and by replacing in their hands this outpost of its richest
 possessions in the New World.”

Before this note was written, the First Consul had already decided
to supersede Alquier by a special agent who should take entire
charge of this negotiation. July 28 he notified Talleyrand[102]
that General Berthier, Bonaparte’s right hand in matters of secrecy
and importance, was to go upon the mission. Talleyrand drafted the
necessary instructions,[103] which were framed to meet the fears of
Spain lest the new arrangement should cause complications with other
Powers; and toward the end of August Berthier started for Madrid,
carrying a personal letter of introduction from the First Consul to
King Charles[104] and the _projet_ of a treaty of retrocession drawn
by Talleyrand. This _projet_ differed in one point from the scheme
hitherto put forward, and, if possible, was still more alarming to the
United States.[105]

 “The French Republic,” it ran, “pledges itself to procure for the Duke
 of Parma in Italy an aggrandizement of territory to contain at least
 one million inhabitants; the Republic charges itself with procuring
 the consent of Austria and the other States interested, so that the
 Duke may be put in possession of his new territory at the coming
 peace between France and Austria. Spain on her side pledges herself
 to retrocede to the French Republic the colony of Louisiana, with the
 same extent it actually has in the hands of Spain, and such as it
 should be according to the treaties subsequently passed between Spain
 and other States. Spain shall further join to this cession that of the
 two Floridas, eastern and western, with their actual limits.”

Besides Louisiana and the two Floridas, Spain was to give France six
ships of war, and was to deliver the provinces to France whenever the
promised territory for the Duke of Parma should be delivered by France
to Spain. The two Powers were further to make common cause against any
person or persons who should attack or threaten them in consequence of
executing their engagement.

In the history of the United States hardly any document, domestic or
foreign, to be found in their archives has greater interest than this
_projet_; for from it the United States must trace whatever legal
title they obtained to the vast region west of the Mississippi.
The treaties which followed were made merely in pursuance of this
engagement, with such variations as seemed good for the purpose of
carrying out the central idea of restoring Louisiana to France.

That the recovery of colonial power was the first of all Bonaparte’s
objects was proved not only by its being the motive of his earliest
and most secret diplomatic step, but by the additional evidence that
every other decisive event in the next three years of his career was
subordinated to it. Berthier hastened to Madrid, and consumed the
month of September, 1800, in negotiations. Eager as both parties were
to conclude their bargain, difficulties soon appeared. So far as
these concerned America, they rose in part from the indiscretion of
the French Foreign Office, which announced the object of Berthier’s
mission in a Paris newspaper, and thus brought on Urquijo a demand from
the American minister at Madrid for a categorical denial. Urquijo and
Alquier could silence the attack only by denials not well calculated
to carry conviction. This was not all. Alquier had been told to ask
for Louisiana; Berthier was instructed to demand the Floridas and six
ships of war in addition. The demand for the Floridas should have
been made at first, if Bonaparte expected it to be successful. King
Charles was willing to give back to France a territory which was
French in character, and had come as the gift of France to his father;
but he was unwilling to alienate Florida, which was a part of the
national domain. Urquijo told Berthier[106] that “for the moment the
King had pronounced himself so strongly against the cession of any
portion whatever of Florida as to make it both useless and impolitic
to talk with him about it;” but he added that, “after the general
peace, the King might decide to cede a part of the Floridas between
the Mississippi and the Mobile, on the special demand which the First
Consul might make for it.” Berthier was embarrassed, and yielded.

Thus at last the bargain was put in shape. The French government
held out the hope of giving Tuscany as the equivalent for Louisiana
and six seventy-fours. If not Tuscany, the three legations, or their
equivalent, were stipulated. The suggestion of Tuscany delighted
the King and Queen. Thus far the secret was confined to the parties
directly interested; but after the principle had been fixed, another
person was intrusted with it. The Prince of Peace was suddenly called
to the Palace by a message marked “luego, luego, luego!”--the sign of
triple haste.[107] He found Don Carlos in a paroxysm of excitement; joy
sparkled in his eyes. “Congratulate me,” he cried, “on this brilliant
beginning of Bonaparte’s relations with Spain! The Prince-presumptive
of Parma, my son-in-law and nephew, a Bourbon, is invited by France
to reign, on the delightful banks of the Arno, over a people who
once spread their commerce through the known world, and who were
the controlling power of Italy,--a people mild, civilized, full of
humanity; the classical land of science and art!” The Prince of Peace
could only offer congratulations; his opinion was asked without being
followed, and a few days later the treaty was signed.[108]

On the last day of September, 1800, Joseph Bonaparte signed the
so-called Treaty of Morfontaine, which restored relations between
France and the United States. The next day, October 1, Berthier signed
at San Ildefonso the treaty of retrocession, which was equivalent to
a rupture of the relations established four-and-twenty hours earlier.
Talleyrand was aware that one of these treaties undid the work of the
other. The secrecy in which he enveloped the treaty of retrocession,
and the pertinacity with which he denied its existence showed his
belief that Bonaparte had won a double diplomatic triumph over the
United States.

Moreau’s great victory at Hohenlinden, December 3, next brought Austria
to her knees. Joseph Bonaparte was sent to Lunéville in Lorraine,
and in a few weeks negotiated the treaty which advanced another step
the cession of Louisiana. The fifth article of this treaty, signed
Feb. 9, 1801, deprived the actual Grand Duke of his Grand Duchy, and
established the young Duke of Parma in Tuscany. To complete the
transaction, Lucien Bonaparte was sent as ambassador to Madrid.

Lucien had the qualities of his race. Intelligent, vivacious, vain, he
had been a Jacobin of the deepest dye; and yet his hands were as red
with the crime of the 18th Brumaire as those of his brother Napoleon.
Too troublesome at Paris to suit the First Consul’s arbitrary views,
he was sent to Spain, partly to remove him, partly to flatter Don
Carlos IV. The choice was not wise; for Lucien neither could nor would
execute in good faith the wishes of his dictatorial brother, and had
no idea of subordinating his own interests to those of the man whose
blunders on the 18th Brumaire, in his opinion, nearly cost the lives
of both, and whose conduct since had turned every democrat in France
into a conspirator. To make the selection still more dangerous, Lucien
had scarcely reached Madrid before Urquijo was sent into retirement
and Godoy restored to power in some anomalous position of general
superintendence, supporting the burden, but leaving to Don Pedro
Cevallos the title of Foreign Secretary. The secret of this restoration
was told by Godoy himself with every appearance of truth.[109] The King
insisted on his return, because Godoy was the only man who could hold
his own against Bonaparte; and at that moment Bonaparte was threatening
to garrison Spain with a French army, under pretence of a war with
Portugal. The measure showed that Charles IV. was not wanting in
shrewdness, for Godoy was well suited to deal with Lucien. He was more
subtle, and not less corrupt.

Lucien’s first act was to negotiate a new treaty closing the bargain
in regard to Parma and Tuscany. Here Godoy offered no resistance. The
Prince of Parma was created King of Tuscany, and the sixth article
provided that the retrocession of Louisiana should at once be carried
out. This treaty was signed at Madrid, March 21, 1801. The young King
and Queen of Tuscany--or, according to their title, of Etruria--were
despatched to Paris. Lucien remained to overlook the affair of
Portugal. To the extreme irritation of Napoleon, news soon came that
the Prince of Peace had signed at Badajos, June 5, 1801, a treaty with
Portugal, to which Lucien had put his name as ambassador of France, and
which baffled Napoleon’s military designs in the Peninsula.

Lucien, with inimitable effrontery, wrote to his brother two days
later:[110] “For the treaty of Tuscany I have received twenty good
pictures out of the Gallery of the Retiro for my gallery, and diamonds
to the value of one hundred thousand crowns have been set for me. I
shall receive as much more for the Peace of Portugal.” Two hundred
thousand crowns and twenty pictures from the Retiro, besides flattery
that would have turned the head of Talleyrand himself, were what Lucien
acknowledged receiving; but there was reason to believe that this was
not all, and that the Prince of Peace gorged him with spoil, until he
carried back to France wealth which made him the richest member of his
family, and gave him an income of sixty or eighty thousand dollars a
year. Godoy paid this price to save Spain for seven years.

The treaty of Badajos into which Godoy thus drew Lucien not only
checked Napoleon’s schemes, but came on the heels of other reverses
which threatened to place the First Consul in an awkward position,
unless he should hasten the general pacification to which he was
tending. The assassination of his ally, the Czar Paul I. March 23,
1801, cost him the aid of Russia, as Godoy’s return to power cost
him the control of Spain. A few days after Paul’s murder, April 9,
1801, Nelson crushed the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, and tore Denmark
from his grasp. More serious than all, the fate of the French army
which Bonaparte had left in Egypt could not be long delayed, and its
capitulation would give a grave shock to his credit. All these reasons
forced the First Consul to accept the check he had received from Godoy
and Lucien, and to hasten peace with England; but he yielded with a
bad grace. He was furious with Godoy.[111] “If this prince, bought by
England, draws the King and Queen into measures contrary to the honor
and interests of the republic, the last hour of the Spanish monarchy
will have sounded.” So he wrote to Talleyrand in anger at finding
himself checked, and Talleyrand instructed Lucien accordingly.[112]
Within a fortnight Bonaparte sent orders to London which rendered peace
with England certain;[113] and without waiting to hear further, acting
at length on the conviction that nothing could be gained by delay, he
ordered Talleyrand to demand of the Court of Spain the authority to
take possession of Louisiana.[114]

Supple and tenacious as any Corsican, Godoy’s temper was perfect and
his manners charming; he eluded Bonaparte with the skill and coolness
of a picador. After causing the First Consul to stumble and fall
on the very threshold of Portugal, Godoy kept Louisiana out of his
control. As the affair then stood, surrender of Louisiana except at the
sword’s point would have been inexcusable. The young King of Etruria
had been entertained at Paris by the First Consul with a patronizing
hospitality that roused more suspicion than gratitude; he had been sent
to Italy, and had there been told that he possessed a kingdom and wore
a crown,--but French armies occupied the territory; French generals
administered the government; no foreign Power recognized the new
kingdom, and no vestige of royal authority went with the royal title.
Godoy and Cevallos gave it to be understood that they did not consider
the First Consul to have carried out his part of the bargain in such
a sense as to warrant Charles IV. in delivering Louisiana. They were
in the right; but Bonaparte was angrier than ever at their audacity,
and drafted with his own hand the note which Talleyrand was to send in
reply.[115]

 “It is at the moment when the First Consul gives such strong proofs
 of his consideration for the King of Spain, and places a prince of
 his house on a throne which is fruit of the victories of French arms,
 that a tone is taken toward the French Republic such as might be taken
 with impunity toward the Republic of San Marino. The First Consul,
 full of confidence in the personal character of his Catholic Majesty,
 hopes that from the moment he is made aware of the bad conduct of some
 of his ministers, he will look to it, and will recall them to the
 sentiments of esteem and consideration which France does not cease
 to entertain for Spain. The First Consul will never persuade himself
 that his Catholic Majesty wishes to insult the French people and their
 Government at the moment when these are doing so much for Spain. This
 would suit neither his heart nor his loyalty, nor the interest of his
 crown.”

In a note written the same day to Talleyrand,[116] Bonaparte spoke in
a still stronger tone of the “misérable” who was thus crossing his
path, and he ordered that Lucien should let the King and Queen know
“that I am long-suffering, but that already I am warmly affected by
this tone of contempt and deconsideration which is taken at Madrid; and
that if they continue to put the republic under the necessity either
of enduring the shame of the outrages publicly inflicted on it, or of
avenging them by arms, they may see things they do not expect.”

Nevertheless Godoy held his ground, well aware that the existence of
Spain was at stake, but confident that concession would merely tempt
encroachment. History might render what judgment it would of Godoy’s
character or policy,--with this moral or political question the
United States had nothing to do; but Bonaparte’s hatred of Godoy and
determination to crush him were among the reasons why Louisiana fell
at a sudden and unexpected moment into the hands of Jefferson, and no
picture of American history could be complete which did not show in the
background the figures of Bonaparte and Godoy, locked in struggle over
Don Carlos IV.




CHAPTER XV.


FORTUNATELY for the Prince of Peace, the world contained at that moment
one man for whom Bonaparte entertained more hatred and contempt, and
whom he was in still more haste to crush. The policy which Talleyrand
had planned, and into which he had drawn the First Consul, could not
be laid aside in order to punish Spain. On the contrary, every day
rendered peace with England more necessary, and such a peace was
inconsistent with a Spanish war. That Bonaparte felt no strong sympathy
with Talleyrand’s policy of peace in Europe and peaceful development
abroad, is more than probable; but he was not yet so confident of his
strength as to rely wholly on himself,--he had gone too far in the path
of pacification to quit it suddenly for one of European conquest and
dynastic power. He left Godoy and Spain untouched, in order to rebuild
the empire of France in her colonies. Six weeks after he had threatened
war on Charles IV., his agent at London, Oct. 1, 1801, signed with
Lord Hawkesbury preliminary articles of peace which put an end to
hostilities on the ocean. No sooner did Bonaparte receive the news[117]
than he summoned his brother-in-law Leclerc to Paris. Leclerc was
a general of high reputation, who had married the beautiful Pauline
Bonaparte and was then perhaps the most promising member of the family
next to Napoleon himself. To him, October 23, Napoleon entrusted the
command of an immense expedition already ordered to collect at Brest,
to destroy the power of Toussaint Louverture and re-establish slavery
in the Island of St. Domingo.[118]

The story of Toussaint Louverture has been told almost as often as
that of Napoleon, but not in connection with the history of the United
States, although Toussaint exercised on their history an influence
as decisive as that of any European ruler. His fate placed him at a
point where Bonaparte needed absolute control. St. Domingo was the
only centre from which the measures needed for rebuilding the French
colonial system could radiate. Before Bonaparte could reach Louisiana
he was obliged to crush the power of Toussaint.

The magnificent Island of St. Domingo was chiefly Spanish. Only its
western end belonged by language as well as by history to France; but
this small part of the island, in the old days of Bourbon royalty, had
been the most valuable of French possessions. Neither Martinique nor
Guadeloupe compared with it. In 1789, before the French Revolution
began, nearly two thirds of the commercial interests of France centred
in St. Domingo;[119] its combined exports and imports were valued at
more than one hundred and forty million dollars; its sugar, coffee,
indigo, and cotton supplied the home market, and employed in prosperous
years more than seven hundred ocean-going vessels, with seamen to the
number, it was said, of eighty thousand. Paris swarmed with creole
families who drew their incomes from the island, among whom were many
whose political influence was great; while, in the island itself,
society enjoyed semi-Parisian ease and elegance, the natural product
of an exaggerated slave-system combined with the manners, ideas, and
amusements of a French proprietary caste.

In 1789 the colony contained about six hundred thousand inhabitants,
five sixths of whom were full-blooded negroes held in rigid slavery.
Of the eighty or hundred thousand free citizens, about half were
mulattoes, or had some infusion of negro blood which disqualified them
from holding political power. All social or political privileges were
held by forty or fifty thousand French creoles, represented by the
few hundred planters and officials who formed the aristocracy of the
island. Between the creoles and the mulattoes, or mixed-breeds, existed
the jealousy sure to result from narrow distinctions of blood marking
broad differences in privilege. These were not the only jealousies
which raged in the colony; for the creoles were uneasy under the
despotism of the colonial system, and claimed political rights which
the home government denied. Like all colonists of that day, in the
quiet of their plantations they talked of independence, and thought
with envy of their neighbors in South Carolina, who could buy and sell
where they pleased.

When in 1789 France burst into a flame of universal liberty, the
creoles of St. Domingo shared the enthusiasm so far as they hoped to
gain by it a relaxation of the despotic colonial system; but they were
alarmed at finding that the mulattoes, who claimed to own a third of
the land and a fourth of the personalty in the colony, offered to make
the Republic a free gift of one fifth of their possessions on condition
of being no longer subjected to the creole tyranny of caste. The white
and mulatto populations were thus brought into collision. The National
Assembly of France supported the mulattoes. The creoles replied that
they preferred death to sharing power with what they considered a
bastard and despicable race. They turned royalists. Both parties took
up arms, and in their struggle with each other they at length dropped a
match into the immense powder-magazine upon which they both lived. One
August night in the year 1791 the whole plain of the north was swept
with fire and drenched with blood. Five hundred thousand negro slaves
in the depths of barbarism revolted, and the horrors of the massacre
made Europe and America shudder.

For several years afterward the colony was torn by convulsions; and
to add another element of confusion, the Spaniards and English came
in, hoping to effect its conquest. Feb. 4, 1794, the National Assembly
of France took the only sensible measure in its power by proclaiming
the abolition of slavery; but for the moment this step only embroiled
matters the more. Among its immediate results was one of great
importance, though little noticed at the time. A negro chief, who
since the outbreak had become head of a royalist band in Spanish pay,
returned, in April, 1794, within French jurisdiction and took service
under the Republic. This was Toussaint Louverture, whose father, the
son of a negro chief on the slave-coast of Africa, had been brought to
St. Domingo as a slave. Toussaint was born in 1746. When he deserted
the Spanish service, and with some four thousand men made the sudden
attack which resulted in clearing the French colony of Spanish troops,
he was already forty-eight years old.

Although Toussaint was received at once into the French service,
not until more than a year later, July 23, 1795, did the National
Convention recognize his merits by giving him the commission of
brigadier-general. Within less than two years, in May, 1797, he was
made General-in-Chief, with military command over the whole colony.
The services he rendered to France were great, and were highly
rewarded. His character was an enigma. Hated by the mulattoes with
such vindictiveness as mutual antipathies and crimes could cause, he
was liked by the whites rather because he protected and flattered
them at the expense of the mulattoes than because they felt any love
for him or his race. In return they flattered and betrayed him. Their
praise or blame was equally worthless; yet to this rule there were
exceptions. One of the best among the French officers in St. Domingo,
Colonel Vincent, was deep in Toussaint’s confidence, and injured his
own career by obstinate attempts to intervene between Bonaparte and
Bonaparte’s victim. Vincent described Toussaint, in colors apparently
unexaggerated, as the most active and indefatigable man that could
be imagined,--one who was present everywhere, but especially where
his presence was most needed; while his great sobriety, his peculiar
faculty of never resting, of tiring out a half-dozen horses and as
many secretaries every day; and, more than all, his art of amusing
and deceiving all the world,--an art pushed to the limits of
imposture,--made him so superior to his surroundings that respect and
submission to him were carried to fanaticism.[120]

Gentle and well-meaning in his ordinary relations, vehement in his
passions, and splendid in his ambition, Toussaint was a wise, though a
severe, ruler so long as he was undisturbed; but where his own safety
or power was in question he could be as ferocious as Dessalines and as
treacherous as Bonaparte. In more respects than one his character had
a curious resemblance to that of Napoleon,--the same abnormal energy
of body and mind; the same morbid lust for power, and indifference
to means; the same craft and vehemence of temper; the same fatalism,
love of display, reckless personal courage, and, what was much more
remarkable, the same occasional acts of moral cowardice. One might
suppose that Toussaint had inherited from his Dahomey grandfather
the qualities of primitive society; but if this was the case, the
conditions of life in Corsica must have borne some strong resemblance
to barbarism, because the rule of inheritance which applied to
Toussaint should hold good for Bonaparte. The problem was the more
interesting because the parallelism roused Napoleon’s anger, and
precipitated a conflict which had vast influence on human affairs. Both
Bonaparte and Louverture were the products of a revolution which gave
its highest rewards to qualities of energy and audacity. So nearly
identical were the steps in their career, that after the 18th Brumaire
Toussaint seemed naturally to ape every action which Bonaparte wished
to make heroic in the world’s eyes. There was reason to fear that
Toussaint would end in making Bonaparte ridiculous; for his conduct
was, as it seemed to the First Consul, a sort of negro travesty on the
consular _régime_.

When the difficulties between France and America became serious, after
Talleyrand’s demand for money and sweeping attacks upon American
commerce, Congress passed an Act of June 13, 1798, suspending
commercial relations with France and her dependencies. At that time
Toussaint, although in title only General-in-Chief, was in reality
absolute ruler of St. Domingo. He recognized a general allegiance
to the French Republic, and allowed the Directory to keep a civil
agent--the Citizen Roume--as a check on his power; but in fact Roume
was helpless in his hands. Toussaint’s only rival was Rigaud, a
mulatto, who commanded the southern part of the colony, where Jacmel
and other ports were situated. Rigaud was a perpetual danger to
Louverture, whose safety depended on tolerating no rival. The Act of
Congress threatened to create distress among the blacks and endanger
the quiet of the colony; while Rigaud and the French authority would
be strengthened by whatever weakened Louverture. Spurred both by fear
and ambition, Toussaint took the character of an independent ruler. The
United States government, counting on such a result, had instructed its
consul to invite an advance; and, acting on the consul’s suggestion,
Toussaint sent to the United States an agent with a letter to the
President[121] containing the emphatic assurance that if commercial
intercourse were renewed between the United States and St. Domingo
it should be protected by every means in his power. The trade was
profitable, the political advantages of neutralizing Toussaint were
great; and accordingly the President obtained from Congress a new
Act, approved Feb. 9, 1799, which was intended to meet the case. He
also sent a very able man--Edward Stevens--to St. Domingo, with the
title of Consul-General, and with diplomatic powers. At the same time
the British Ministry despatched General Maitland to the same place,
with orders to stop at Philadelphia and arrange a general policy in
regard to Toussaint. This was rapidly done. Maitland hurried to the
island, which he reached May 15, 1799, within a month after the arrival
of Stevens. Negotiations followed, which resulted, June 13, in a
secret treaty[122] between Toussaint and Maitland, by which Toussaint
abandoned all privateering and shipping, receiving in return free
access to those supplies from the United States which were needed to
content his people, fill his treasury, and equip his troops.

To this treaty Stevens was not openly a party; but in Toussaint’s eyes
he was the real negotiator, and his influence had more to do with the
result than all the ships and soldiers at Maitland’s disposal. Under
this informal tripartite agreement, Toussaint threw himself into the
arms of the United States, and took an enormous stride toward the goal
of his ambition,--a crown.

Louverture had waited only to complete this arrangement before
attacking Rigaud. Then the fruits of his foreign policy ripened.
Supplies of every kind flowed from the United States into St. Domingo;
but supplies were not enough. Toussaint began the siege of Jacmel,--a
siege famous in Haytian history. His position was hazardous. A
difficult war in a remote province, for which he could not bring the
necessary supplies and materials by land; a suspicious or hostile
French agent and government; a population easily affected by rumors
and intrigues; finally, the seizure by English cruisers of a flotilla
which, after his promise to abandon all shipping, was bringing his
munitions of war along the coast for the siege,--made Toussaint
tremble for the result of his civil war. He wrote once more to the
President,[123] requesting him to send some frigates to enforce the
treaty by putting an end to all trade with the island except such as
the treaty permitted. Stevens again came to his assistance. The United
States frigate, “General Greene,” was sent to cruise off Jacmel in
February and March, 1800, and was followed by other vessels of war.
Rigaud’s garrison was starved out; Jacmel was abandoned; and Rigaud
himself, July 29, 1800, consented to quit the country.

Toussaint’s gratitude was great, and his confidence in Stevens
unbounded. Even before the fall of Jacmel, Stevens was able to inform
Secretary Pickering that Toussaint was taking his measures slowly
but certainly to break connection with France.[124] “If he is not
disturbed, he will preserve appearances a little longer; but as soon
as France interferes with this colony, he will throw off the mask and
declare it independent.” Hardly was Rigaud crushed, when the first
overt act of independence followed. Toussaint imprisoned Roume, and
on an invitation from the municipalities assumed the civil as well as
military authority, under the title of governor. In announcing to his
Government that this step was to be taken, Stevens added:[125] “From
that moment the colony may be considered as forever separated from
France. Policy perhaps may induce him to make no open declaration of
independence before he is compelled.” A few days afterward Toussaint
took the Napoleonic measure of seizing by force the Spanish part of
the island, which had been ceded to France by the treaty of Bâle five
years before, but had not yet been actually transferred. In thus making
war on the ally of France, Toussaint had no other motive, as Stevens
explained,[126] than to prevent the French government from getting a
footing there. Bonaparte had given a new Constitution to France after
the 18th Brumaire. Toussaint, after the deposition of Roume, which was
his _coup d’état_ and 18th Brumaire, gave a new Constitution to St.
Domingo in the month of May, 1801, by which he not only assumed all
political power for life, but also ascribed to himself the right of
naming his own successor. Bonaparte had not yet dared to go so far,
although he waited only another year, and meanwhile chafed under the
idea of being imitated by one whom he called a “gilded African.”

Perhaps audacity was Louverture’s best policy; yet no wise man would
intentionally aggravate his own dangers by unnecessary rashness,
such as he showed in Bonaparte’s face. He was like a rat defying a
ferret; his safety lay not in his own strength, but in the nature
of his hole. Power turned his head, and his regular army of twenty
thousand disciplined and well-equipped men was his ruin. All his acts,
and much of his open conversation, during the years 1800 and 1801,
showed defiance to the First Consul. He prided himself upon being
“First of the Blacks” and “Bonaparte of the Antilles.” Warning and
remonstrance from the Minister of Marine in France excited only his
violent anger.[127] He insisted upon dealing directly with sovereigns,
and not with their ministers, and was deeply irritated with Bonaparte
for answering his letters through the Minister of Marine. Throwing one
of these despatches aside unopened, he was heard to mutter before all
his company the words, “_Ministre!... valet!..._”[128] He was right in
the instinct of self-assertion, for his single hope lay in Bonaparte’s
consent to his independent power; but the attack on Spanish St.
Domingo, and the proclamation of his new Constitution, were unnecessary
acts of defiance.

When Jefferson became President of the United States and the Senate
confirmed the treaty of Morfontaine, had Louverture not lost
his balance he would have seen that Bonaparte and Talleyrand had
out-manœuvred him, and that even if Jefferson were not as French in
policy as his predecessor had been hostile to France, yet henceforth
the United States must disregard sympathies, treat St. Domingo as
a French colony, and leave the negro chief to his fate. England
alone, after the month of February, 1801, stood between Toussaint and
Bonaparte. Edward Stevens, who felt the storm that was in the air,
pleaded ill-health and resigned his post of consul-general. Jefferson
sent Tobias Lear to Cap Français in Stevens’s place, and Lear’s first
interview showed that Toussaint was beginning to feel Talleyrand’s
restraints. The freedom he had enjoyed was disappearing, and he chafed
at the unaccustomed limitations. He complained bitterly that Lear
had brought him no personal letter from the President; and Lear in
vain explained the custom of the Government, which warranted no such
practice in the case of consuls. “It is because of my color!” cried
Toussaint.[129] Justice to President Jefferson and a keener sense of
the diplomatic situation would have shown him that such a letter could
not be written by the President consistently with his new relations of
friendship toward France; and in fact almost the first act of Pichon,
on taking charge of the French Legation in Washington after the treaty,
was to remonstrate against any recognition of Toussaint, and to cause
Lear’s want of diplomatic character which offended Louverture.[130]

Rarely has diplomacy been used with more skill and energy than by
Bonaparte, who knew where force and craft should converge. That in this
skill mendacity played a chief part, need hardly be repeated. Toussaint
was flattered, cajoled, and held in a mist of ignorance, while one by
one the necessary preparations were made to prevent his escape; and
then, with scarcely a word of warning, at the First Consul’s order the
mist rolled away, and the unhappy negro found himself face to face
with destruction. The same ships that brought news of the preliminary
treaty signed at London brought also the rumor of a great expedition
fitting at Brest and the gossip of creole society in Paris, which made
no longer a secret that Bonaparte meant to crush Toussaint and restore
slavery at St. Domingo. Nowhere in the world had Toussaint a friend
or a hope except in himself. Two continents looked on with folded
arms, more and more interested in the result, as Bonaparte’s ripening
schemes began to show their character. As yet President Jefferson
had no inkling of their meaning. The British government was somewhat
better informed, and perhaps Godoy knew more than all the rest; but
none of them grasped the whole truth, or felt their own dependence on
Toussaint’s courage. If he and his blacks should succumb easily to
their fate, the wave of French empire would roll on to Louisiana and
sweep far up the Mississippi; if St. Domingo should resist, and succeed
in resistance, the recoil would spend its force on Europe, while
America would be left to pursue her democratic destiny in peace.

Bonaparte hurried his preparations. The month of October, 1801, saw
vast activity in French and Spanish ports, for a Spanish squadron
accompanied the French fleet. Not a chance was to be left for
Toussaint’s resistance or escape. To quiet English uneasiness,
Bonaparte dictated to Talleyrand a despatch explaining to the British
government the nature of the expedition.[131] “In the course which
I have taken of annihilating the black government at St. Domingo,”
he said, “I have been less guided by considerations of commerce and
finance than by the necessity of stifling in every part of the world
every kind of germ of disquiet and trouble; but it could not escape me
that St. Domingo, even after being reconquered by the whites, would
be for many years a weak point which would need the support of peace
and of the mother country; ... that one of the principal benefits of
peace, at the actual moment, for England was its conclusion at a time
when the French government had not yet recognized the organization of
St. Domingo, and in consequence the power of the blacks; and if it had
done so, the sceptre of the new world would sooner or later have fallen
into the hands of the blacks.”

No such explanations were given to the United States, perhaps because
no American minister asked for them. Livingston landed at Lorient
November 12, the day before Bonaparte wrote these words; Leclerc’s
expedition sailed from Brest November 22; and Livingston was presented
to the First Consul in the diplomatic audience of December 6. Caring
nothing for Toussaint and much for France, Livingston did not come
prepared to find that his own interests were the same with those of
Toussaint, but already by December 30 he wrote to Rufus King: “I know
that the armament, destined in the first instance for Hispaniola, is to
proceed to Louisiana provided Toussaint makes no opposition.”

While the First Consul claimed credit with England for intending to
annihilate the black government and restore slavery at St. Domingo, he
proclaimed to Toussaint and the negroes intentions of a different kind.
He wrote at last a letter to Toussaint, and drew up a proclamation
to the inhabitants of the island, which Leclerc was to publish. “If
you are told,” said this famous proclamation,[132] “that these forces
are destined to ravish your liberty, answer: The Republic has given
us liberty, the Republic will not suffer it to be taken from us!”
The letter to Toussaint was even more curious, when considered as a
supplement to that which had been written to the British government
only five days before. “We have conceived esteem for you,” wrote
Bonaparte to the man he meant to destroy,[133] “and we take pleasure in
recognizing and proclaiming the great services you have rendered to the
French people. If their flag floats over St. Domingo, it is to you and
to the brave blacks that they owe it.” Then, after mildly disapproving
certain of Toussaint’s acts, and hinting at the fatal consequences
of disobedience, the letter continued: “Assist the Captain-General
[Leclerc] with your counsels, your influence, and your talents. What
can you desire?--the liberty of the blacks? You know that in all the
countries where we have been, we have given it to the peoples who had
it not.” In order to quiet all alarms of the negroes on the subject of
their freedom, a pledge still more absolute was given in what Americans
might call the Annual Message sent to the French Legislature a week
afterward. “At St. Domingo and at Guadeloupe there are no more slaves.
All is free there; all will there remain free.”[134]

A few days afterward Leclerc’s expedition sailed; and the immense
fleet, with an army of ten thousand men and all their equipments,
arrived in sight of St. Domingo at the close of January, 1802.
Toussaint was believed to have watched them from a look-out in the
mountains while they lay for a day making their preparations for
combined action. Then Leclerc sailed for Cap Français, where Christophe
commanded. After a vain attempt to obtain possession of the town as a
friend, he was obliged to attack. February 5 Christophe set the place
in flames, and the war of races broke out.

The story of this war, interesting though it was, cannot be told here.
Toussaint’s resistance broke the force of Bonaparte’s attack. Although
it lasted less than three months, it swept away one French army, and
ruined the industry of the colony to an extent that required years
of repair. Had Toussaint not been betrayed by his own generals, and
had he been less attached than he was to civilization and despotic
theories of military rule, he would have achieved a personal triumph
greater than was won by any other man of his time. His own choice was
to accept the war of races, to avoid open battle where his troops
were unequal to their opponents, and to harass instead of fighting in
line. He would have made a war of guerillas, stirred up the terror and
fanaticism of the negro laborers, put arms into their hands, and relied
on their courage rather than on that of his army. He let himself be
overruled. “Old Toussaint,” said Christophe afterward, “never ceased
saying this, but no one would believe him. We had arms; pride in using
them destroyed us.”[135] Christophe, for good reasons, told but half
the story. Toussaint was not ruined by a few lost battles, but by
the treachery of Christophe himself and of the other negro generals.
Jealous of Toussaint’s domination, and perhaps afraid of being sent to
execution like Moyse--the best general officer in their service--for
want of loyalty to his chief, Christophe, after one campaign, April 26,
1802, surrendered his posts and forces to Leclerc without the knowledge
and against the orders of Toussaint. Then Louverture himself committed
the fatal mistake of his life, which he of all men seemed least likely
to commit,--he trusted the word of Bonaparte. May 1, 1802, he put
himself in Leclerc’s hands in reliance on Leclerc’s honor.

Surprising as such weakness was in one who had the sensitiveness of a
wild animal to danger,--Leclerc himself seemed to be as much surprised
that the word of honor of a French soldier should be believed as any
bystander at seeing the negro believe it,--the act had a parallel in
the weakness which led Bonaparte, twelve years afterward, to mount the
deck of the “Bellerophon,” and without even the guaranty of a pledge
surrender himself to England. The same vacillations and fears, the same
instinct of the desperate political gambler, the same cowering in the
face of fate, closed the active lives of both these extraordinary men.
Such beings should have known how to die when their lives were ended.
Toussaint should have fought on, even though only to perish under the
last cactus on his mountains, rather than trust himself in the hands of
Bonaparte.

The First Consul’s orders to Leclerc were positive, precise, and
repeated.[136] “Follow exactly your instructions,” said he, “and the
moment you have rid yourself of Toussaint, Christophe, Dessalines,
and the principal brigands, and the masses of the blacks shall be
disarmed, send over to the continent all the blacks and mulattoes
who have played a _rôle_ in the civil troubles.... Rid us of these
gilded Africans, and we shall have nothing more to wish.”[137] With
the connivance and at the recommendation of Christophe, by a stratagem
such as Bonaparte used afterward in the case of the Duc d’Enghien and
of Don Carlos IV., Toussaint was suddenly arrested, June 10, 1802, and
hurried on ship-board. Some weeks later he was landed at Brest; then he
disappeared. Except a few men who were in the secret, no one ever again
saw him. Plunged into a damp dungeon in the fortress of Joux, high in
the Jura Mountains on the Swiss frontier, the cold and solitude of a
single winter closed this tropical existence. April 7, 1803, he died
forgotten, and his work died with him. Not by Toussaint, and still less
by Christophe or Dessalines, was the liberty of the blacks finally
established in Hayti, and the entrance of the Mississippi barred to
Bonaparte.

The news of Leclerc’s success reached Paris early in June,[138] and set
Bonaparte again in motion. Imagining that the blacks were at his mercy,
orders were at once issued to provide for restoring them to slavery.
The truth relating to this part of the subject, habitually falsified
or concealed by Bonaparte and his admirers,[139] remained hidden among
the manuscript records of the Empire; but the order to restore slavery
at Guadeloupe was given, June 14, by the Minister of the Marine to
General Richepanse, who commanded there, and on the same day a similar
instruction was sent to General Leclerc at St. Domingo, in each case
leaving the general to act according to his discretion in the time and
manner of proceeding.

 “As regards the return of the blacks to the old _régime_,” wrote the
 Minister to General Leclerc,[140] “the bloody struggle out of which
 you have just come victorious with glory commands us to use the utmost
 caution. Perhaps we should only entangle ourselves in it anew if we
 wished precipitately to break that idol of liberty in whose name so
 much blood has flowed till now. For some time yet vigilance, order,
 a discipline at once rural and military, must take the place of the
 positive and pronounced slavery of the colored people of your colony.
 Especially the master’s good usage must reattach them to his rule.
 When they shall have felt by comparison the difference between a
 usurping and tyrannical yoke and that of the legitimate proprietor
 interested in their preservation, then the moment will have arrived
 for making them return to their original condition, from which it has
 been so disastrous to have drawn them.”




CHAPTER XVI.


SIMULTANEOUSLY with the order to restore slavery at Guadeloupe and St.
Domingo, Bonaparte directed his Minister of Marine to prepare plans
and estimates for the expedition which was to occupy Louisiana. “My
intention is to take possession of Louisiana with the shortest delay,
and that this expedition be made in the utmost secrecy, under the
appearance of being directed on St. Domingo.”[141] The First Consul
had allowed Godoy to postpone for a year the delivery of Louisiana,
but he would wait no longer. His Minister at Madrid, General Gouvion
St.-Cyr, obtained at length a promise that the order for the delivery
of Louisiana should be given by Charles IV. to the First Consul on two
conditions: first, that Austria, England, and the dethroned Grand Duke
of Tuscany should be made to recognize the new King of Etruria; second,
that France should pledge herself “not to alienate the property and
usufruct of Louisiana, and to restore it to Spain in case the King of
Tuscany should lose the whole or the greater part of his estates.”

To these demands Talleyrand immediately replied in a letter of
instructions to Gouvion St.-Cyr, which was destined to a painful
celebrity.[142] After soothing and reassuring Spain on the subject of
the King of Etruria, this letter came at last to the required pledge in
regard to Louisiana:--

 “Spain wishes that France should engage herself not to sell or
 alienate in any manner the property or enjoyment of Louisiana. Her
 wish in this respect perfectly conforms with the intentions of the
 French government, which parted with it in 1762 only in favor of
 Spain, and has wished to recover it only because France holds to a
 possession which once made part of French territory. You can declare
 in the name of the First Consul that France will never alienate it.”

St.-Cyr accordingly gave a formal written pledge in the name of the
First Consul that France would never alienate Louisiana.[143]

Even yet the formal act of delivery was delayed. Bonaparte gave
orders[144] that the expedition should be ready to sail in the last
week of September; but the time passed, and delays were multiplied. For
once the First Consul failed to act with energy. His resources were
drained to St. Domingo as fast as he could collect them,[145] and the
demands of the colonies on his means of transportation exceeded his
supply of transports. The expedition to Louisiana was postponed, but,
as he hoped, only to give it more scope.

From the time of Berthier’s treaty of retrocession, Bonaparte had tried
to induce the King of Spain to part with the Floridas; but Charles
IV. refused to talk of another bargain. In vain Bonaparte wrote to
the young King of Etruria, offering to give him Parma, Piacenza, and
Guastalla, if Don Carlos would add Florida to Louisiana.[146] When
at length the King signed at Barcelona, October 15, the order which
delivered Louisiana to France, Bonaparte pressed more earnestly than
ever for the Floridas. Talleyrand made a report on the subject,
dissuading him from acquiring more than West Florida.[147]

 “West Florida,” he wrote, “suffices for the desired enlargement of
 Louisiana; it completes the retrocession of the French colony, such
 as it was given to Spain; it carries the eastern boundary back to
 the river Appalachicola; it gives us the port of Pensacola, and a
 population which forms more than half that of the two Floridas. By
 leaving East Florida to Spain we much diminish the difficulties of
 our relative position in regard to the United States,--difficulties
 little felt to-day, but which some day may become of the gravest
 importance.”

Bonaparte did not follow this advice. On the death of the Duke of Parma
he wrote with his own hand to the King of Spain, offering the old
family estate of Parma as a gift for the King of Tuscany, in return for
which France was to receive the Floridas.[148] The Queen, as before,
favored the exchange, and all her influence was exerted to effect it;
but Godoy was obstinate in evading or declining the offer, and after
months of diplomatic effort Bonaparte received at last, toward the
end of January, 1803, a despatch from General Beurnonville, his new
representative at Madrid, announcing that the Prince of Peace, with
the aid of the British Minister John Hookham Frere, had succeeded in
defeating the scheme.[149]

 “The Prince told me that the British Minister had declared to him, in
 the name of his Government, that his Britannic Majesty, being informed
 of the projects of exchange which existed between France and Spain,
 could never consent that the two Floridas should become an acquisition
 of the Republic; that the United States of America were in this
 respect of one mind with the Court of London; and that Russia equally
 objected to France disposing of the estates of Parma in favor of
 Spain, since the Emperor Alexander intended to have them granted as
 indemnity to the King of Sardinia. In imparting to me this proceeding
 of the British Minister, the Prince had a satisfied air, which showed
 how much he wished that the exchange, almost agreed upon and so warmly
 desired by the Queen, may not take place.”

Europe would have acted more wisely in its own interest by offering
Bonaparte every inducement to waste his strength on America. Had
England, Spain, and Russia united to give him Florida on his own
terms, they would have done only what was best for themselves. A
slight impulse given to the First Consul would have plunged him into
difficulties with the United States from which neither France nor the
United States could have easily escaped. Both Godoy and the Emperor
Alexander would have done well to let French blood flow without
restraint in St. Domingo and on the Mississippi, rather than drown with
it the plains of Castile and Smolensk.

Although the retrocession of Louisiana to France had been settled in
principle by Berthier’s treaty of Oct. 1, 1800, six months before
Jefferson came into office, the secret was so well kept that Jefferson
hardly suspected it. He began his administration by anticipating a
long period of intimate relations with Spain and France. In sending
instructions to Claiborne as governor of the Mississippi Territory,--a
post of importance, because of its relations with the Spanish authority
at New Orleans,--President Jefferson wrote privately,[150]--

 “With respect to Spain, our disposition is sincerely amicable, and
 even affectionate. We consider her possession of the adjacent country
 as most favorable to our interests, and should see with an extreme
 pain any other nation substituted for them.”

Disposed to be affectionate toward Spain, he assumed that he
should stand in cordial relations with Spain’s ally, the First
Consul. Convinced that the quarrels of America with France had been
artificially created by the monarchical Federalists, he believed that
a policy of open confidence would prevent such dangers in the future.
The First Consul would naturally cultivate his friendship, for every
Federalist newspaper had for years proclaimed Jefferson as the head of
French influence in America, and every Republican newspaper had branded
his predecessors as tools of Great Britain. In spite of the 18th
Brumaire, Jefferson had not entirely lost faith in Bonaparte, and knew
almost nothing of his character or schemes. At the moment when national
interest depended on prompt and exact information, the President
withdrew half his ministers from Europe, and paid little attention to
the agents he retained. He took diplomatic matters into his own hands,
and meant to conduct them at Washington with diplomatists under his
personal influence,--a practice well suited to a power superior in will
and force to that with which it dealt, but one which might work badly
in dealing with Bonaparte. When Chancellor Livingston, the new minister
to Paris, sailed for France, Jefferson wrote him a private letter[151]
in regard to the appointment of a new French minister at Washington.
Two names had been suggested,--La Forest and Otto. Neither of these was
quite satisfactory; some man would be preferred whose sympathies should
be so entire as to make reticences and restraints unnecessary. The idea
that Jefferson could put himself in Bonaparte’s hands without reticence
or restraint belonged to old theories of opposition,--a few months
dispelled it; and when he had been a year in office, he wrote again to
Livingston, withdrawing the objection to La Forest and Otto. “When I
wrote that letter,” said he,[152] “I did not harbor a doubt that the
disposition on that side the water was as cordial as I knew ours to
be.” He had discovered his mistake,--“the dispositions now understood
to exist there impose of themselves limits to the openness of our
communications.”

Even before Livingston sailed, the rumors of the retrocession of
Louisiana had taken such definite shape[153] that, in June, 1801,
Secretary Madison instructed the ministers at London, Paris, and
Madrid on the subject. These instructions were remarkable for their
mildness.[154] No protest was officially ordered against a scheme so
hostile to the interests of the Union. On the contrary, Livingston was
told, in September, 1801, that if he could obtain West Florida from
France, or by means of French influence, “such a proof on the part
of France of good-will toward the United States would contribute to
reconcile the latter” to seeing Bonaparte at New Orleans. Even after
Rufus King, the United States minister at London, sent home a copy
of Lucien Bonaparte’s treaty of Madrid, in which the whole story was
told,[155] this revelation, probably managed by Godoy in order to put
the United States and England on their guard, produced no immediate
effect. Jefferson yielded with reluctance to the conviction that he
must quarrel with Bonaparte. Had not Godoy’s delays and Toussaint’s
resistance intervened, ten thousand French soldiers, trained in the
school of Hoche and Moreau, and commanded by a future marshal of
France, might have occupied New Orleans and St. Louis before Jefferson
could have collected a brigade of militia at Nashville.

By the spring of 1802 Jefferson became alive to the danger. He then saw
what was meant by the French expedition against Toussaint. Leclerc had
scarcely succeeded, Feb. 5, 1802, in taking possession of the little
that Christophe left at Cap Français, when his difficulties of supply
began. St. Domingo drew its supplies chiefly from the United States.
Toussaint’s dependence on the American continent had been so complete
as to form one of the chief complaints of French merchants. General
Leclerc disliked the United States,--not without reason, since the
Government of that country, as was notorious, had done its utmost to
punish France, and had succeeded beyond expectation. Leclerc was a
soldier,--severe, impatient, quick to take offence, and also quick to
forget it. He knew that he could expect no sympathy from Americans, and
he found that all the supplies in St. Domingo were American property.
Of course the owners asked extortionate prices; and had Leclerc paid
them, he would within six weeks have seen his harbors glutted with
goods from Baltimore and New York. Instead of doing this, he seized
them, and insulted the American shipmasters and merchants. By the month
of March the newspapers of the United States were filled with stories
of Leclerc’s arbitrary and violent conduct. He was reported as saying
that the Americans were no better than Arabs; and one of his general
officers was said to have told Lear, the American consul-general, that
they were the scum of nations. Cargoes were taken without payment,
American shipmasters were seized and imprisoned for offences unknown
to the law; while Lear was notified that no consul could be received
in St. Domingo as a colony of France, and that he must quit the island
within a fortnight. No protest availed against such summary discipline.
Lear obeyed; and returning to Madison at Washington, told him of
American property confiscated and American citizens in prison.

Madison sent for Pichon, then in charge of the French legation at
Washington pending the appointment of a minister. Pichon was a relic
of the French republic; he had been long in the United States, and
felt little apparent sympathy with the consular _régime_ or its plans.
At Madison’s request, Pichon undertook to interfere, and wrote to
Leclerc letter upon letter of remonstrance.[156] America, he said,
could either feed or famish the French army: “Experience proves it; our
colonies were brought into revolt only by our unlucky misunderstanding
with her; through her alone can we raise them up again.” Leclerc
resented the tone of these letters, and wrote to Bonaparte that Pichon
was a scoundrel and a wretch, with whom he would hold no further
relations;[157] but before Leclerc’s letter could have arrived, the
First Consul had already ordered[158] Talleyrand to rebuke the _chargé_
at Washington for his American officiousness. Pichon’s diplomatic
career was closed; he retired into private life as soon as the new
minister arrived, but meanwhile his remonstrances were not without
effect upon Leclerc, whose anger rarely became vindictive.

The conduct of Leclerc in expelling Lear and imprisoning American
shipmasters because munitions of war were found among the cargoes
lying in the ports of Toussaint, first opened President Jefferson’s
eyes to the situation into which he was drifting; but other evidences
were not wanting that Bonaparte was no friend of the United States.
Talleyrand’s conduct was almost as exasperating as when he provoked
reprisals four years before. Chancellor Livingston reached France
about Nov. 10, 1801, just in time to see Leclerc’s expedition sail.
He was met by private assurances that Louisiana and the Floridas had
been bought by France, and he went to Talleyrand with inquiries.[159]
The imperturbable Talleyrand looked him in the face and denied the
fact. “It had been a subject of conversation,” he said, “but nothing
concluded.” At that moment Rufus King was sending from London the
text of Lucien Bonaparte’s treaty, dated eight months before, which
fixed the details of the retrocession. President Jefferson received at
the same instant Talleyrand’s explicit denial and the explicit proof
that Talleyrand was trying to deceive him. Jefferson soon satisfied
himself that Talleyrand’s conduct rested on a system; and he became
angrier with every act of the French foreign minister. Livingston,
naturally somewhat suspicious and fretful, soon became restive under
the treatment he received; for his notes and remonstrances were left
equally without answer or attention, whether they related to Louisiana
or to the debts due by the Government of France to American citizens.
As Livingston grew hot, and Leclerc’s temper burst into violence,
Madison became irritable, and by the month of May had reached the point
of saying that if such conduct should continue, “the worst events are
to be apprehended.”[160]

The President himself then intervened. A French gentleman, Dupont de
Nemours, happened to be in the United States on the point of returning
to France. Dupont’s name was then as well and honorably known in France
as that of his descendants was to become in the annals of the United
States. To him Jefferson turned as a medium of unofficial communication
with the First Consul. He enclosed to Dupont a letter addressed to
Livingston on the Louisiana affair, which he requested Dupont to read,
and, after reading, to seal.

 “I wish you to be possessed of the subject,” he wrote,[161] “because
 you may be able to impress on the Government of France the inevitable
 consequences of their taking possession of Louisiana; and though, as
 I here mention, the cession of New Orleans and the Floridas to us
 would be a palliation, yet I believe it would be no more, and that
 this measure will cost France, and perhaps not very long hence, a war
 which will annihilate her on the ocean, and place that element under
 the despotism of two nations,--which I am not reconciled to the more
 because my own would be one of them.”

This idea was still more strongly expressed in the enclosure to
Livingston, which Dupont was to read, in order that he might
communicate its sense to Bonaparte:[162]--

 “The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the
 sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water
 mark. It seals the union of two nations, who in conjunction can
 maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must
 marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.... Will not the
 amalgamation of a young and thriving nation continue to that enemy the
 health and force which are at present so evidently on the decline?
 And will a few years’ possession of New Orleans add equally to the
 strength of France?”

Dupont was to impress on the First Consul the idea that if he should
occupy Louisiana, the United States would wait “a few years,” until the
next war between France and England, but would then make common cause
with England. Even a present cession of New Orleans and the Floridas to
the United States, though it would remove the necessity of an immediate
advance to England, would not prevent the risk of a quarrel with
France, so long as France should hold the west bank of the Mississippi.
To obviate such a quarrel was the object of Dupont’s unofficial
mission. “If you can be the means of informing the wisdom of Bonaparte
of all its consequences, you have deserved well of both countries.”

As though to alarm Bonaparte were not task enough for any one man,
Jefferson suggested that it would be well to hoodwink Talleyrand.

 “There is another service you can render. I am told that Talleyrand is
 personally hostile to us. This, I suppose, has been occasioned by the
 X. Y. Z. history; but he should consider that that was the artifice of
 a party willing to sacrifice him to the consolidation of their power.
 This nation has done him justice by dismissing them.”

To do Talleyrand justice was impossible; but his reflections on the
letter which Dupont was tacitly authorized to show him could hardly
have been just to Jefferson. With the X. Y. Z. history, as Jefferson
called it, fresh in Talleyrand’s mind,--an instance of his venality
so notorious that it had cost him his office, and so outrageous that
even his associates of the 18th Brumaire had not at first ventured to
reappoint him,--hostility to the United States had become with him a
personal as well as a political passion. Accustomed to the penetrating
candor of his own untroubled avowals, he read these words of Jefferson,
announcing that an American President had been dismissed from office in
order to do him justice:--

 “This nation has done him justice by dismissing them; those in power
 are precisely those who disbelieved that story, and saw in it nothing
 but an attempt to deceive our country. We entertain toward him
 personally the most friendly dispositions. As to the government of
 France, we know too little of the state of things there to understand
 what it is, and have no inclination to meddle in their settlement.
 Whatever government they establish, we wish to be well with it.”

Talleyrand must have known enough of the American character to feel
that a Republican President could not seriously mean to represent
his own election as an act of national justice to a venal French
politician; in his eyes, the letter could have seemed to show only
simple-mindedness. One point needed no analysis of character. Jefferson
said that he did not know what sort of government the 18th Brumaire
created, or care to meddle in its affairs; he wished to be well with
it, and in any case should not go to war until England did so. Dupont
remonstrated against the nature of the message. “A young soldier,”
he wrote back,[163] “whose ministers can keep their places only by
perpetually flattering his military pride, will be much more offended
than touched by this reasoning; and if this be all that is advanced, we
may regard the negotiation as a failure.” To make its chances worse,
it crossed the ocean at the same time with the news that Toussaint
had submitted, and that no obstacle to the immediate occupation of
Louisiana remained. Dupont talked in vain. Bonaparte answered only
by pressing Spain for the Floridas, and demanding possession of New
Orleans.

Thus far American diplomacy was not successful; Jefferson’s efforts
were no more effective than Madison’s more cautious suggestions. As the
summer began, the President watched anxiously the course of events at
St. Domingo, and found consolation there for the baseness of Callender
and the assaults on Paine at home. “Though I take for granted,” he
wrote to Governor McKean,[164] “that the colonization of Louisiana is a
settled point, yet I suspect they must be much stronger in St. Domingo
before they can spare troops to go there. What has been called a
surrender of Toussaint to Leclerc, I suspect was in reality a surrender
of Leclerc to Toussaint.”

The seizure of Toussaint and his disappearance from the island,
which occurred as Jefferson wrote this letter, overthrew its hopeful
theories; but before long, reports began to arrive in the United States
that Leclerc had met with a new disaster, so terrible as to surpass
the horrors even of St. Domingo history. The first French army, of
seventeen thousand men, had been consumed in the task of subjecting
the negroes. A second army was next swept away by yellow fever. In
the middle of September, 1802, Leclerc wrote to the First Consul that
of twenty-eight thousand three hundred men sent to St. Domingo, four
thousand remained fit for service.[165] “Add to our losses that of
five thousand sailors, and the occupation of St. Domingo has cost
us till now twenty-four thousand men, and we are not yet definitely
masters of it.” He was depending on Toussaint’s generals and army for
his support against an insurrection of the laborers, who were maddened
by the rumor that slavery had been restored at Guadeloupe, and was soon
to be re-established at St. Domingo. Nothing could be more discouraging
than Leclerc’s letters:[166]--

 “I have no false measure to reproach myself with, Citizen Consul;
 and if my position, from being a very good one, has become very bad,
 it is necessary to blame here only the malady which has destroyed my
 army, the premature re-establishment of slavery at Guadeloupe, and the
 newspapers and letters from France, which speak only of slavery. Here
 is my opinion on this country. We must destroy all the negroes in the
 mountains, men and women, keeping only infants less than twelve years
 old; we must also destroy half those of the plain, and leave in the
 colony not a single man of color who has worn an epaulette. Without
 this the colony will never be quiet; and at the beginning of every
 year, especially after murderous seasons like this, you will have a
 civil war, which will shake your hold on the country. In order to be
 master of St. Domingo, you must send me twelve thousand men without
 losing a single day.”

Besides these twelve thousand men and twelve hundred thousand dollars
in specie, Leclerc required five thousand more men in the following
summer. “If you cannot send the troops I demand, and for the season I
point out, St. Domingo will be forever lost to France.”

Long afterward, at St. Helena, Napoleon wrote comments[167] on
the causes of his disaster at St. Domingo, severely blaming his
brother-in-law Leclerc for failing to carry out his orders to arrest
and send to Europe all the black generals, as he sent Toussaint.
Napoleon’s rule in politics, and one which cost him dear, was to
disregard masses and reckon only on leaders. Toussaint came within
a step of achieving the greatest triumph of his age. Had he been
true to himself and his color, and had he hidden himself for a few
months in the mountains, he need not have struck a blow in order to
drive Bonaparte’s generals back to Europe; the yellow fever and the
blind despair of the negro laborers would have done the work alone.
Bonaparte’s theory in regard to the negro chiefs was an illusion.
Christophe, Dessalines, Maurepas, and all Toussaint’s chief officers
served Leclerc faithfully till they saw his case to be hopeless.
“Dessalines is at this moment the butcher of the blacks,” wrote Leclerc
Sept. 16, 1802, in the midst of insurrections; “Christophe has so
maltreated them as to be execrated by them.” The negro chiefs were
traitors to both sides; and if not arrested by Leclerc, they deserved
to be shot by their own people. While they helped to exterminate the
black laboring class, Leclerc sent home reports that might have frozen
the blood of any man less callous than Bonaparte:[168]--

 “The decrees of General Richepanse [at Guadeloupe] circulate here, and
 do much harm. The one which restores slavery, in consequence of being
 published three months too soon, will cost many men to the army and
 colony of St. Domingo.... I get news of a bloody combat sustained by
 General Boyer at the Gros Morne. The rebels were exterminated; fifty
 prisoners were hung. These men die with incredible fanaticism,--they
 laugh at death; it is the same with the women. The rebels of Moustique
 have attacked and carried Jean Rabel; it should have been retaken by
 this time. This fury is the work of General Richepanse’s proclamation
 and of the inconsiderate talk of the colonists.”

As the insurrection spread, and the fever reduced Leclerc’s European
force, the black generals and troops began to desert. Shooting was
useless; drowning had no effect. No form of terror touched them. “Few
colonial troops remain with me,” wrote Leclerc in almost his last
letter. “A battalion of the Eleventh Colonial, which had been joined
with the Legion of the Cape, having furnished a number of deserters,
176 men of this battalion were embarked at Jacmel for Port Republican.
Of this number 173 strangled themselves on the way, the Chef de
Bataillon at their head. There you see the men we have to fight!”[169]
At length the report came that Leclerc himself had succumbed. Worn by
anxieties, exertions, and incessant fever, he followed his army to the
grave.

News of Leclerc’s death, Nov. 1, 1802, and of the hopelessness of
Bonaparte’s schemes against St. Domingo, reached the Government at
Washington nearly at the same time with other news which overshadowed
this. The people of the United States expected day by day to hear of
some sudden attack, from which as yet only the dexterity of Godoy and
the disasters of Leclerc had saved them. Although they could see only
indistinctly the meaning of what had taken place, they knew where to
look for the coming stroke, and in such a state of mind might easily
exaggerate its importance. A few days before Congress met, the Western
post brought a despatch from Governor Claiborne at Natchez announcing
that the Spanish Intendant, Don Juan Ventura Morales, had forbidden the
Americans to deposit their merchandise at New Orleans, as they had a
right to do under the treaty of 1795.[170]

No one doubted that although the attack might come from a Spanish
Intendant, the real party with whom America had to deal was not Spain,
but France. The secret papers of the French government show what
was said, but hardly believed at the time, that the First Consul was
not directly responsible for the act; but they also prove that the
act was a consequence of the retrocession. The colonial system of
Spain was clumsy and disconnected. Viceroys, governors, commandants,
intendants, acted in Mexico, Cuba, New Orleans, Peru, everywhere
without relation to each other. At New Orleans the Governor, Don Juan
de Salcedo, was powerless to control the Intendant, Don Juan Ventura
Morales, and no authority nearer than Madrid could decide between them.
The _entrepôt_, or right of deposit, not only prevented the Spanish
Intendant from imposing duties on American produce, but also covered
a large amount of smuggling which further diminished the revenue. The
Intendant, who had charge of the revenues, and was partly responsible
for the large deficit which every year drained the resources of Spain
to Louisiana, was forced to hear the complaints of the Treasury at
Madrid, continually asking him to find a remedy, and at last, in
one of its despatches, letting slip the remark that “after all, the
right of deposit was only for three years.” The treaty of 1795 had in
fact stipulated that the King of Spain would “permit the citizens of
the United States, for the space of three years from this time, to
deposit their merchandise and effects in the port of New Orleans, and
to export them from thence, without paying any other duty than a fair
price for the hire of the stores; and his Majesty promises either to
continue this permission if he finds during that time that it is not
prejudicial to the interests of Spain, or if he should not agree to
continue it there, he will assign to them on another part of the banks
of the Mississippi an equivalent establishment.”

According to the explanation given by Morales to Laussat,[171] the new
French prefect whom Bonaparte sent to receive possession of Louisiana,
the Spaniard acted on his own responsibility, in what he believed to
be the interests of the colony, and within the stipulations of the
treaty. Thinking that the retrocession offered a chance, which might
never recur, for reopening a question which had been wrongly decided,
Morales, defying the opposition and even the threats of Governor
Salcedo, proclaimed the right of deposit to be at an end. He reasoned
that Spain as a result of peace with England had shut her colonial
ports to strangers, and this measure, so far as it included Louisiana,
was illusory so long as the right of deposit should exist. The right
had been granted for three years from 1795; and if the practice had
been permitted to continue after these three years expired, it might
have been owing, not to the treaty, but to the general privileges
granted to neutrals during the war; and as for the Americans, it was
their own fault not to have looked more carefully to their rights
at the close of the three years, when they should have secured the
continuation or the promised substitute. As Spain was about to lose
Louisiana in any case, Morales remarked that she need not trouble
herself about the quarrel he was making with the United States; while
the French republic took Louisiana as it actually stood under the
treaties, and ought therefore to be glad of whatever improved the
actual situation, or opened the path to negotiations more advantageous.
This view of the matter, as Morales presented it, was the more
interesting because it was in the spirit of Talleyrand’s plans, and
reversed Godoy’s policy.

The rumor that Spain had closed the Mississippi roused varied
sensations as it spread eastward. Tennessee and Kentucky became eager
for war. They knew that Morales’s act was a foretaste of what they
were to expect from France; and they might well ask themselves how
many lives it would cost to dislodge a French army once fortified on
the lower Mississippi. The whole power of the United States could not
at that day, even if backed by the navy of England, have driven ten
thousand French troops out of Louisiana. On the contrary, a vigorous
French officer, with a small trained force and his Indian allies, could
make Claiborne uneasy for the safety of his villages at Natchez and
Vicksburg. No one could foresee what might be the effect of one or
two disastrous campaigns on the devotion of the Western people to the
Government at Washington. The existence of the Union and the sacrifice
of many thousand lives seemed, in the opinion of competent judges,
likely to be risked by allowing Bonaparte to make his position at New
Orleans impregnable.

The New England Federalists were satisfied that President Jefferson
must either adopt their own policy and make war on France, or risk a
dissolution of the Union. They had hardly dared hope that democracy
would so soon meet what might prove to be its crisis. They too cried
for war, and cared little whether their outcry produced or prevented
hostilities, for the horns of Jefferson’s dilemma were equally fatal to
him. All eyes were bent on the President, and watched eagerly for some
sign of his intentions.




CHAPTER XVII.


AFTER the letters sent to Europe by Dupont de Nemours in May, neither
the President nor the Secretary of State again stirred before the
meeting of Congress in December. The diplomacy of 1800 was slow.
Nearly six months were required to decide upon a policy, write to
Europe, receive a reply, and decide again upon an answer. An entire
year was needed for taking a new line of action, and ascertaining its
chances of success. In October, Madison wrote to Livingston that the
President still waited to learn the impression produced at Paris by
Dupont.[172] Livingston, on his side, had been active and unsuccessful.
The President again wrote to him, by the October packet, a letter which
would have perplexed any European diplomatist.[173]

 “We shall so take our distance between the two rival nations,” said
 Jefferson, “as, remaining disengaged till necessity compels us, we may
 haul finally to the enemy of that which shall make it necessary. We
 see all the disadvantageous consequences of taking a side, and shall
 be forced into it only by a more disagreeable alternative; in which
 event we must countervail the disadvantages by measures which will
 give us splendor and power, but not as much happiness as our present
 system. We wish, therefore, to remain well with France; but we see
 that no consequences, however ruinous to them, can secure us with
 certainty against the extravagance of her present rulers.... No matter
 at present existing between them and us is important enough to risk a
 breach of peace,--peace being indeed the most important of all things
 for us, except the preserving an erect and independent attitude.”

“Peace is our passion!” This phrase of President Jefferson, taken from
a letter written a few months later,[174] expressed his true policy.
In spite of his frequent menaces, he told Livingston in October, 1802,
that the French occupation of Louisiana was not “important enough to
risk a breach of peace.” Within a week after this letter was written,
New Orleans was closed to American commerce, and a breach of peace
seemed unavoidable. Down to that time the Executive had done nothing
to check Napoleon. The President had instructed his agents at Paris
and Madrid to obtain, if they could, the cession of New Orleans and
West Florida, and had threatened an alliance with England in case
this request were refused; but England was at peace with France, and
Bonaparte was not likely to provoke another war until he should be able
to defend Louisiana. So far as any diplomatic action by the United
States government was concerned, Madison and Jefferson might equally
well have written nothing; and when news arrived that the Mississippi
was closed, alarming as the situation became, no new action was at
first suggested. The President was contented to accept the assistance
of the Spanish and French representatives at Washington.

In Jefferson’s domestic as well as in his political household Don
Carlos Martinez de Yrujo,--created in 1802 Marquis of Casa Yrujo,--the
minister of Spain, was thoroughly at home, for he had a double title
to confidence, and even to affection. His first claim was due to his
marriage with a daughter of Governor McKean of Pennsylvania, whose
importance in the Republican party was great. His second claim was
political. Some years earlier he had so exasperated Timothy Pickering,
then Secretary of State, as to provoke a demand for his recall. One of
President Jefferson’s first diplomatic acts was to ask from the Spanish
government that Yrujo should be allowed to remain at Washington; and
Godoy, who knew even better than Jefferson the character and merits of
Yrujo, readily granted the favor.

Thus Yrujo was doubly and trebly attached to the Administration.
Proud as a typical Spaniard should be, and mingling an infusion of
vanity with his pride; irascible, headstrong, indiscreet as was
possible for a diplomatist, and afraid of no prince or president;
young, able, quick, and aggressive; devoted to his King and country;
a flighty and dangerous friend, but a most troublesome enemy;
always in difficulties, but in spite of fantastic outbursts always
respectable,--Yrujo needed only the contrast of characters such as
those of Pickering or Madison to make him the most entertaining figure
in Washington politics. He had become an American in language, family,
and political training. He loved the rough-and-tumble of democratic
habits, and remembered his diplomatic dignity only when he could
use it as a weapon against a secretary of state. If he thought the
Government to need assistance or warning, he wrote communications to
the newspapers in a style which long experience had made familiar to
the public and irritating to the Government whose acts he criticised.
For natural reasons the American Executive, which never hesitated to
use the press without limit for its own purposes, held it indecorous
that a foreign minister should attempt to affect public opinion. The
example of Genet was regarded as a proof even more than a warning
that such action was highly improper; but from Yrujo’s point of view,
as from Genet’s, the question of decorum was ridiculous in a country
which prided itself on the absence of etiquette, and the only question
he cared to consider was whether the press answered his purpose. His
success could be best measured by the exasperation it caused to the
tempers of Pickering and Madison.

Yrujo felt no love for Bonaparte, and no wish to serve his ends. At
this moment of anxiety, stepping forward to assist the President, he
asserted that there was no cause for alarm;[175] that the act of
Morales was not authorized by the King of Spain, but rose from some
excess of zeal or mistaken interpretation of the treaty on the part
of the Intendant; and that a packet-boat should be instantly sent to
New Orleans to inquire the reasons of the measure. His letter to the
Intendant was in reality extremely sharp,--“a veritable diatribe,”
according to Laussat, the new French prefect, to whom Morales showed
it. Yrujo pointed out the fatal consequences of Morales’s conduct, and
the ground it gave to United States citizens for claiming indemnity
for their commercial losses.[176] At the same time Madison instructed
Charles Pinckney at Madrid to inform the Spanish government that the
President expected it to lose not a moment in countermanding the order
of Morales, and in repairing every damage that might result from
it.[177]

There the matter rested until December 6, when Congress met. Even at
so exciting a moment, senators were slow in arriving at Washington,
and a week passed before a quorum was formed. Not till December 15
could the Annual Message be read. No message could be more pacific
in tone. The President discussed everything except the danger which
engrossed men’s minds. He talked of peace and friendship, of law,
order, and religion, of differential duties, distressed seamen, the
blockade of Tripoli, Georgia lands, Indian treaties, the increase in
revenue, “the emancipation of our posterity from that mortal canker”
a national debt, “by avoiding false objects of expense;” he said that
no change in the military establishment was deemed necessary, but that
the militia might be improved; he regretted that the behavior of the
Barbary Powers rendered a small squadron still necessary to patrol
the Mediterranean, but at the same time he strongly urged Congress to
take measures for laying up the whole navy, by constructing a large
dry-dock on the Eastern Branch, where the seven frigates might be
stowed away side by side under cover, and kept from decay or expense.
All these subjects he touched in a spirit of peace and good-will toward
mankind; but when he came to the question of Louisiana, about which
he had written so many alarming letters to Europe, he spoke in a tone
of apparent indifference. “The cession of the Spanish province of
Louisiana to France,” he said, “which took place in the course of the
late war, will, if carried into effect, make a change in the aspect
of our foreign relations which will doubtless have a just weight in
any deliberations of the Legislature connected with that subject.” No
allusion was made to the closure of the Mississippi.

Nothing could more disconcert the war party than this manner of
ignoring their existence. Jefferson afterward explained that his hope
was to gain time; but he could not more effectually have belittled his
Federalist enemies than by thus telling them that a French army at New
Orleans would “make a change in the aspect of our foreign relations.”
This manner of treating Congress was the more dexterous, because if
the President did not at once invite the Legislature to realize the
alarming state of foreign affairs, he abstained only in order to carry
out other tactics. Two days after the Message was read, December 17,
John Randolph, the Administration leader in the House, moved for the
papers relating to the violated right of deposit. Great curiosity was
felt to know what course the President meant to take.

 “However timid Mr. Jefferson may be,” wrote Pichon to Talleyrand,[178]
 “and whatever price he may put on his pacific policy, one cannot
 foresee precisely what his answer will be.... I find in general
 a bad temper as regards us; and I cannot help seeing that there
 is a tendency toward adopting an irrevocably hostile system. This
 circumstance will be decisive for Mr. Jefferson. If he acts feebly, he
 is lost among his partisans; it will be then the time for Mr. Burr to
 show himself with advantage.”

Thornton watched with equal anxiety the movement which promised to
throw the United States into the arms of England. He expected as little
as Pichon that the President would act with energy, but he hoped that
the situation would force him into taking a side.[179]

 “From the language of his ministers, and from the insinuations of
 some members of the Federal party, it will not be, I doubt, such a
 measure of vigor as would place the country on a commanding ground in
 the negotiation with Spain, or eventually with France; and the latter
 persons have some of them designated it to me as likely to be a very
 foolish thing.”

Five days passed before Jefferson answered the call of the House; and
when he did so, he sent papers which might have been prepared in five
minutes, for most of them had been long printed in the newspapers.[180]
In communicating these documents, the President added that he had not
lost a moment in causing every step to be taken which the occasion
claimed from him; but he did not say what these steps were. A week
later he sent another document, which he requested the House to return
without publication;[181] it was a letter which Governor Claiborne
had received from Governor Salcedo, denying responsibility for the
Intendant’s act, and asserting that it was not authorized by the
Spanish government. The House shut its doors and debated a week. Then
it reopened its doors, and announced to the world that by a party
vote of fifty to twenty-five, the following resolution had been
adopted:[182]--

 “Adhering to that humane and wise policy which ought ever to
 characterize a free people, and by which the United States have
 always professed to be governed; willing at the same time to ascribe
 this breach of compact to the unauthorized misconduct of certain
 individuals rather than to a want of good faith on the part of
 his Catholic Majesty; and relying with perfect confidence on the
 vigilance and wisdom of the Executive,--they will wait the issue of
 such measures as that department of the Government shall have pursued
 for asserting the rights and vindicating the injuries of the United
 States.”

Strenuously as the President exerted himself to stifle the warlike
feeling in Congress, his influence did not extend far enough to check
the same feeling elsewhere. Successful in Washington, he found himself
exposed to an alarming pressure from the West. One State legislature
after another adopted resolutions which shook the ground under his
feet. Eighteen months had passed since the seriousness of Napoleon’s
schemes became known to him, but as yet he had done nothing that could
be construed as an attempt to represent the demands of the western
country; all his ingenuity had, in fact, been exerted to evade these
demands. The West wanted troops at Natchez, to seize New Orleans at
the first sign of a French occupation; but the use of force at that
stage was not in Jefferson’s thoughts. To quiet Kentucky and Tennessee
without satisfying them was a delicate matter; but, delicate as it was,
Jefferson succeeded in doing it. He explained his plan in a letter to
Monroe, written at the moment when everything depended on Monroe’s
aid:[183]--

 “The agitation of the public mind on occasion of the late suspension
 of our right of deposit at New Orleans is extreme. In the western
 country it is natural, and grounded on honest motives; in the seaports
 it proceeds from a desire for war, which increases the mercantile
 lottery; in the Federalists generally, and especially those of
 Congress, the object is to force us into war if possible, in order to
 derange our finances; or if this cannot be done, to attach the western
 country to them as their best friends, and thus get again into power.
 Remonstrances, memorials, etc., are now circulating through the whole
 of the western country, and signed by the body of the people. The
 measures we have been pursuing, being invisible, do not satisfy their
 minds. Something sensible, therefore, has become necessary.”

This sensible, or rather this tangible, measure was the appointment
of a minister extraordinary to aid Livingston in buying New Orleans
and the Floridas. The idea was adopted after the secret debate in the
House. As Madison wrote soon afterward to Livingston,[184] “such has
been the impulse given to the public mind” by these debates and by the
press, “that every branch of the government has felt the obligation of
taking the measures most likely not only to re-establish our present
rights, but to promote arrangements by which they may be enlarged and
more effectually secured.” According to this view, the impulse of
Congress and the Press alone made the Executive feel its obligation.
For more than a year the Executive had known the danger and had done
nothing; being obliged to do something, its first object was to avoid
doing too much.

Accordingly, General Smith of Maryland, Jan. 11, 1803, carried the
House again into secret session, and moved to appropriate two million
dollars “to defray any expenses which may be incurred in relation to
the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations.” The
next day a committee reported, through Joseph Nicholson, in favor of
appropriating the money, with a view to purchasing West Florida and
New Orleans.[185] The Report argued that there was no alternative
between purchase and war. Meanwhile, January 11, the President sent
to the Senate the name of James Monroe as minister extraordinary to
France and Spain to help Livingston and Pinckney in “enlarging and more
effectually securing our rights and interests in the river Mississippi
and in the territories eastward thereof.”

The nomination was approved by the Senate January 13; and without
losing a moment, Jefferson wrote to Monroe, explaining the reasons
which made his course necessary:[186]--

 “The measure has already silenced the Federalists here. Congress will
 no longer be agitated by them; and the country will become calm as
 fast as the information extends over it. All eyes, all hopes, are now
 fixed on you; and were you to decline, the chagrin would be universal,
 and would shake under your feet the high ground on which you stand
 with the public. Indeed, I know nothing which would produce such a
 shock; for on the event of this mission depend the future destinies of
 this Republic. If we cannot, by a purchase of the country, insure to
 ourselves a course of perpetual peace and friendship with all nations,
 then, as war cannot be distant, it behooves us immediately to be
 preparing for that course, without however hastening it; and it may be
 necessary, on your failure on the Continent, to cross the Channel. We
 shall get entangled in European politics; and, figuring more, be much
 less happy and prosperous.”

With infinite pertinacity Jefferson clung to his own course. He
deserved success, although he hardly expected to win it by means of
Monroe, whom he urged to go abroad, as his letter implied, not so
much to purchase New Orleans, as to restore political quiet at home.
For the purchase of New Orleans, Livingston was fully competent; but
the opposition at home, as Jefferson candidly wrote to him,[187] were
pressing their inflammatory resolutions in the House so hard that “as a
remedy to all this we determined to name a minister extraordinary to
go immediately to Paris and Madrid to settle this matter. This measure
being a visible one, and the person named peculiarly popular with the
western country, crushed at once and put an end to all further attempts
on the Legislature. From that moment all has been quiet.” The quiet was
broken again, soon after this letter was written, by a sharp attack in
the Senate. Ross of Pennsylvania, White of Delaware, and Gouverneur
Morris of New York, assailed the Administration for the feebleness of
its measures. In private, Jefferson did not deny that his measures
were pacific, and that he had no great confidence in Monroe’s success;
he counted rather on Bonaparte’s taking possession of New Orleans and
remaining some years on the Mississippi.[188]

 “I did not expect he would yield until a war took place between France
 and England; and my hope was to palliate and endure, if Messrs. Ross,
 Morris, etc., did not force a premature rupture, until that event. I
 believed the event not very distant, but acknowledge it came on sooner
 than I expected.”

“To palliate and endure” was therefore the object of Jefferson’s
diplomacy for the moment. Whether the Western States could be persuaded
to endure or to palliate the presence of a French army at New Orleans
was doubtful; but Jefferson’s success in controlling them proved his
personal authority and political skill. Meanwhile the interest and
activity of the little diplomatic world at Washington increased.
Monroe accepted his appointment and came for his instructions. Every
one was alive with expectation. As public opinion grew more outspoken,
the President was obliged to raise his tone. He talked with a degree
of freedom which seemed more inconsistent than it really was with his
radical policy of peace. With Thornton he was somewhat cautious.[189]
Immediately after Monroe’s nomination, Thornton asked the President
whether he intended to let the new envoy pass to England and converse
with British ministers about the free navigation of the Mississippi,--a
right to which Great Britain, as well as the United States, was
entitled by treaty.

 “The inquiry was somewhat premature, and I made it with some apology.
 Mr. Jefferson replied, however, unaffectedly, that at so early a
 stage of the business he had scarcely thought himself what it might
 be proper to do; that I might be assured the right would never be
 abandoned by this country; that he wished earnestly for a tranquil
 and pacific recognition and confirmation of it; that on the whole he
 thought it very probable that Mr. Monroe might cross the Channel.
 He reiterated to me with additional force the resolution of the
 country never to abandon the claim of the free navigation,--which
 indeed cannot be without dissevering the Western States from the
 Union,--declaring that should they be obliged at last to resort to
 force, _they would throw away the scabbard_.”

Thornton added that the President still hoped the French would not for
some time take possession of Louisiana, and rested his hope on the
demand which the Island of St. Domingo would create for every soldier
that could be spared; but he also talked of building gunboats for the
navigation of the Mississippi.

 “In the mean time,” continued Thornton, “the country seems in general
 well satisfied with the resolution taken by the House and the measure
 adopted by himself; and, what is more important, authentic information
 is received that the people of Kentucky will wait with patience the
 result of the steps which the executive government may think it right
 to take, without recurring, as was apprehended would be the case to
 force, for the assertion of their claims. The President regards this
 circumstance (with great justice, it appears to me) as the surest
 pledge of the continuance of his authority, and as the death-blow of
 the Federal party.”

Upon Pichon the Government concentrated its threats, and Pichon sent to
Talleyrand cry after cry of distress:--

 “It is impossible to be more bitter than this Government is at the
 present posture of affairs and at the humiliating attitude in which
 our silence about Louisiana places them.... Mr. Jefferson will be
 forced to yield to necessity his pretensions and scruples against
 a British alliance. I noticed at his table that he redoubled his
 civilities and attentions to the British _chargé_. I should also say
 that he treats me with much consideration and politeness, in spite of
 the actual state of affairs.”

No sooner had Monroe been confirmed by the Senate, than Secretary
Madison sent for Pichon and asked him to do what he could for the
success of Monroe’s mission.[190] At ample length he explained that the
undivided possession of New Orleans and West Florida was a necessity
for the American settlements on the upper Mississippi and Mobile
rivers, and that Monroe was instructed to obtain the whole territory
east of the Mississippi, including New Orleans, at a price not
exceeding two or three million dollars. This part of the Secretary’s
argument was simple; but not content with this, “he entered into
details to prove that New Orleans had no sort of interest for us,
that its situation was acknowledged to be bad, the choice of it was
due to accident, and we might very soon build a city on the opposite
bank.” He argued further that the true policy of France required her
to make the river her boundary against the United States; for “the
United States had no interest in seeing circumstances rise which should
eventually lead their population to extend itself on the right bank. In
point of fact, was it not evident that since these emigrations tended
to weaken the State and to slacken the concentration of its forces,
sound policy ought not to encourage them? In spite of affinities in
manners and language, no colony beyond the river could exist under the
same government, but would infallibly give birth to a separate State
having in its bosom germs of collision with the East, the easier to
develop in proportion to the very affinities between the two empires.”
The Secretary ended by hinting that should the First Consul not be
persuaded by these suggestions, “it might happen that the conduct of
France would decide political combinations which, getting the upper
hand of all these considerations, would tend to produce results no
doubt disagreeable to the United States, but certainly still more so to
France and her allies.”

Pichon was a sore trial to the moderate amount of patience which
Bonaparte possessed. Instead of hinting to Madison that these arguments
would have more weight if the President proposed to support them
by acts such as a military First Consul was accustomed to respect,
Pichon wrote melancholy accounts of his situation to Talleyrand.
The Americans, he said, were throwing themselves into the arms of
England; they thought they held the balance of power between France
and Great Britain, and meant to make the nation which should force
them into war regret the inconsiderate act; the States of New York,
Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, either through their legislatures
or their governors, had energetically announced their readiness to
risk everything to maintain the dignity and rights of the nation;
Madison refused to do business, on the ground that Talleyrand’s want
of attention to Livingston required reprisals; the Secretary of the
Treasury talked of war; a public dinner had been given to Monroe, at
which General Smith offered the toast, “Peace, if peace is honorable;
war, if war is necessary!” the President was open in denouncing
Bonaparte’s ambition; Monroe who had talked long with Pichon, used
language even more startling than that of the President or the
Cabinet:--

 “He did not conceal from me that if his negotiation failed, the
 Administration had made up its mind to act with the utmost vigor, and
 to receive the overtures which England was incessantly making. He
 repeated to me several times that I could only imperfectly imagine the
 extent of those overtures, and that if the tie were once made between
 the two States, they would not stop half way.”[191]

If Monroe made such an assertion as Pichon reported, he carried his
diplomacy beyond the line of truthfulness; for although Thornton,
without instructions, had offered one or two suggestions of concert,
England had made no overture. Monroe’s own instructions rested on
the opposite principle,--that England was to receive, not to make,
overtures. Jefferson wished only to create the impression that disaster
impended over France if she persevered in closing the Mississippi. He
spoke clearly to this effect in a letter written to Dupont at the time
he was alarming Pichon:--

 “Our circumstances are so imperious as to admit of no delay as
 to our course, and the use of the Mississippi so indispensable
 that we cannot hesitate one moment to hazard our existence for its
 maintenance. If we fail in this effort to put it beyond the reach of
 accident, we see the destinies we have to run, and prepare at once for
 them.”[192]

Alarmed by such language, Pichon volunteered to imitate Yrujo and write
a letter to the future French prefect whose arrival at New Orleans was
expected, urging him to raise the interdict on American commerce.[193]
Madison was pleased with the offer, and in return communicated to
Pichon a despatch just received from Livingston, which announced that
Talleyrand had consented to speak, so far as to promise that France
would strictly observe in Louisiana the treaties which existed between
America and Spain. “I quickly saw, by the rapidity with which this
news circulated in the two houses of Congress, the salutary effect it
produced. On all sides I was talked with, and the Administration is
sincerely satisfied by it.” Small as the favor was, the Administration
had reason to be grateful, as it served for the moment to pacify
Kentucky and Tennessee.

The months of January and February passed. Not until spring came,
and the Seventh Congress was about to expire, did Monroe receive his
instructions and prepare to sail. The nature of these instructions was
so remarkable as to deserve a moment of study.[194]

They were framed to provide for three contingencies. Should the
French government be willing to sell New Orleans and the Floridas,
the President would bid high rather than lose the opportunity. Should
France refuse to cede any territory whatever, even the site for a
town, the two commissioners were to content themselves with securing
the right of deposit, with such improvements as they could obtain.
Should Bonaparte deny the right of deposit also, the commissioners were
to be guided by instructions specially adapted to the case. For New
Orleans and West Florida Monroe and Livingston were to offer any sum
within ten million dollars, commercial privileges for ten years in the
ceded ports, incorporation of the inhabitants on an equal footing with
citizens without unnecessary delay, and, if absolutely necessary, a
guaranty of the west bank of the Mississippi.

These were the main ideas of Monroe’s instructions. In brief, they
offered to admit the French to Louisiana without condition. Bonaparte
could have regarded nothing in these instructions as hostile to his
own plans, and could have satisfied every demand by giving the United
States, in the terms of the Spanish treaty, a place of deposit anywhere
on the banks of the Mississippi, or by merely allowing American
vessels to pass up and down the river.[195] In private, Jefferson
professed preference for Natchez over New Orleans as the seat of
American trade.[196] He made no secret of his intention to put off the
day of forcible resistance until the national debt should be reduced
and the Mississippi Valley filled with fighting men.

The tenor of these expressions seemed inconsistent with that of his
letters by Dupont. After telling Bonaparte that[197] “the cession of
New Orleans and the Floridas to us would be a palliation,” but no
more, to the presence of France on the west bank, which would “cost
France, and perhaps not very long hence, a war which will annihilate
her on the ocean,” then within a year to guarantee France forever in
possession of the west bank,--had an air of vacillation. After telling
Dupont again in February that if the United States failed to put the
use of the Mississippi beyond the reach of accident, they should see
the destinies they had to run, and at once prepare for them; then
within a month to admit Bonaparte to possession of all Spanish rights
at New Orleans, without guaranty of any kind for putting the use of the
river beyond accident,--looked like fear. The instructions contained
one positive expression: “The United States cannot remain satisfied,
nor the Western people be kept patient, under the restrictions which
the existing treaty with Spain authorizes.” This sentence introduced
only a moderate request: “Should it be impossible to procure a complete
jurisdiction over any convenient spot whatever, it will only remain
to explain and improve the present right of deposit by adding thereto
the express privilege of holding real estate for commercial purposes,
of providing hospitals, of having consuls residing there,” and other
commercial agents. Even this moderate condition was not an ultimatum.
Madison required only that the Spanish treaty of 1795 should be
respected, and this had already been promised by Talleyrand.

In truth the inconsistency was more apparent than real. Jefferson
explained to the French government that the war he had in his mind was
a contingent result. While assuring Dupont that if he failed to put the
use of the Mississippi beyond the reach of accident he should prepare
for war, he added in italics an explanation:[198]--

 “Not but that we shall still endeavor to go on in peace and friendship
 with our neighbors as long as we can, _if our rights of navigation
 and deposit are respected_; but as we foresee that the caprices of
 the local officers and the abuse of those rights by our boatmen and
 navigators, which neither government can prevent, will keep up a
 state of irritation which cannot long be kept inactive, we should
 be criminally improvident not to take at once eventual measures for
 strengthening ourselves for the contest.”

The essence and genius of Jefferson’s statesmanship lay in peace.
Through difficulties, trials, and temptations of every kind he held
fast to this idea, which was the clew to whatever seemed inconsistent,
feeble, or deceptive in his administration. Yielding often, with
the suppleness of his nature, to the violence of party, he allowed
himself to use language which at first sight seemed inconsistent, and
even untruthful; but such concessions were momentary: the unswerving
intent could always be detected under every superficial disguise; the
consistency of the career became more remarkable on account of the
seeming inconsistencies of the moment. He was pliant and yielding in
manner, but steady as the magnet itself in aim. His manœuvres between
the angry West and the arbitrary First Consul of France offered an
example of his political method. He meant that there should be no war.
While waiting to hear the result of Monroe’s mission he wrote to an
English correspondent a letter[199] which expressed his true feelings
with apparent candor:--

 “We see ... with great concern the position in which Great Britain is
 placed, and should be sincerely afflicted were any disaster to deprive
 mankind of the benefit of such a bulwark against the torrent which
 has for some time been bearing down all before it. But her power and
 prowess by sea seem to render everything safe in the end. Peace is our
 passion, and wrongs might drive us from it. We prefer trying _every_
 other just principle, right and safety, before we would recur to war.”


END OF VOL. I.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sketches of Debate in the First Senate, by William Maclay, p. 212.

[2] The Quarterly Review (London, 1841), p. 24.

[3] The Quarterly Review (London, 1841), p. 23.

[4] Massachusetts Historical Society’s Proceedings, vol. xix. 1881-1882.

[5] Grigsby’s Convention of 1776, p. 85.

[6] Life of Story, i. 166.

[7] Old Churches of Virginia, ii. 222.

[8] Marshall to Hamilton, Jan. 1, 1801; Hamilton’s Works, vi. 502.

[9] Jefferson to Gallatin, Sept. 27, 1810; Gallatin’s Writings, i. 492.

[10] Evening Post, April 20, 1802.

[11] Thornton to Grenville, March 4, 1801; MSS. British Archives.

[12] Jefferson’s Works, ix. 469.

[13] Jefferson to J. Dickinson, March 6, 1801; Works, iv. 365.

[14] Jefferson’s Works, ix. 480.

[15] Jefferson to Roane, Sept. 6, 1819; Works, vii. 133.

[16] Jefferson to Judge Johnson, June 12, 1823; Works, vii. 293.

[17] Jefferson to W. H. Crawford, June 20, 1816; Works, vii. 6.

[18] Jefferson to John Taylor, May 28, 1816; Works, vi. 608.

[19] Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, June 24, 1797; Works, iv. 189.

[20] Jefferson to Gideon Granger, Aug. 13, 1800; Works, iv. 330.

[21] Jefferson to Thomas Paine, March 18, 1801; Works, iv. 370.

[22] Jefferson to Dr. Logan, March 22, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

[23] Jefferson to R. R. Livingston, Sept. 9, 1801; Works, iv. 408.

[24] Jefferson to Judge Roane, June 27, 1821; Works, vii. 212.

[25] Jefferson to Robert J. Garnett, Feb. 14, 1824; Works, vii. 336.

[26] Jefferson to Edward Livingston, April 4, 1824; Works, vii. 342.

[27] Life of Gallatin, p. 276.

[28] Jefferson to S. Smith, April 17, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

[29] Jefferson to Dr. Rush, March 24, 1801; Works, iv. 382.

[30] Madison to W. C. Nicholas, July 10, 1801; Nicholas MSS.

[31] Jefferson to Elias Shipman and others, July 12, 1801; Works, iv.
402.

[32] Jefferson’s Anas; Works, ix. 207.

[33] Gallatin to Jefferson, Sept. 14, 1801; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 288.

[34] Jefferson to George Clinton, May 17, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

[35] Burr to Gallatin, June 28, 1801; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 283.

[36] Gallatin to Jefferson, Sept. 14, 1801; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 288.

[37] Jefferson to Gallatin; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 289.

[38] Burr to Gallatin, March 5, 1802; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 289.

[39] Jefferson to Livingston, Feb. 24, 1801; Jefferson’s Works, iv. 360.

[40] Hammond’s Political History, i. 180.

[41] Gallatin to Jefferson, July 25, 1801; Gallatin’s Works, i. 28.

[42] Jefferson to Gallatin, August 14, 1801; Gallatin’s Works, i. 36.

[43] McKean to Jefferson, August 10, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

[44] Gallatin to Jefferson, Sept. 12, 1801; Gallatin’s Works, i. 47.

[45] Jefferson to Gallatin, July 26, 1801; Gallatin’s Works, i. 29.
Gallatin to Jefferson, Sept. 18, 1804; Gallatin’s Works, i. 208.

[46] Gallatin to Jefferson, August 17, 1801; Gallatin’s Works, i. 38.

[47] Jefferson to Walter Jones, March 31, 1801; Works, iv. 392.

[48] Jefferson to Macon, May 14, 1801; Works, iv. 396.

[49] Adams’s Randolph, p. 51.

[50] Life of Gallatin, p. 270.

[51] Annals of Congress, May 26, 1809, XI. Congress, Part I. p. 92.

[52] Letter to the President of the Senate, Dec. 8, 1801.

[53] Gallatin to Jefferson, Aug. 16, 1802; Works, i. 88.

[54] Gallatin to Jefferson, Sept. 12, 1805; Works, i. 253.

[55] Jefferson to J. Dickinson, Dec. 19, 1801; Works, iv. 424.

[56] Jefferson to Roane, Sept. 6, 1819; Works, vii. 133.

[57] Jefferson to W. T. Barry, July 2, 1822; Works, vii. 257.

[58] Annals of Congress, May 25, 1809. XI. Congress, Part I. 87.

[59] Hamilton to Bayard, Jan. 15, 1801; Hamilton’s Works, vi. 419.

[60] Bayard to Hamilton, April 12, 1802; Hamilton’s Works, vi. 539.

[61] The Virginia Report of 1799-1800, etc. Richmond, 1850, pp. 143-148.

[62] Giles to Jefferson, June 1, 1801. Hamilton’s History, vii. 585 n.

[63] Bayard to Hamilton, April 25, 1802; Hamilton’s Works, vi. 534.

[64] Jefferson to Peter Carr, Oct. 25, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

[65] Jefferson to M. Dupont, Jan. 18, 1802; Jefferson MSS.

[66] Jefferson to Cæsar A. Rodney, April 24, 1802; Jefferson MSS.

[67] Jefferson to Joel Barlow, May 3, 1802; Works, iv. 437.

[68] Life of Benjamin Silliman, i. 90-96.

[69] Jefferson to Priestley, March 21, 1801; Works, iv. 373.

[70] Jefferson to John Taylor, June 1, 1798; Works, iv. 247.

[71] Jefferson to Moses Robinson, March 23, 1801; Works, iv. 379.

[72] Jefferson to Gideon Granger, May 3, 1801; Works, iv. 395.

[73] Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, Aug. 26, 1801; Works, iv. 406.

[74] Jefferson to Pierpoint Edwards, July 21, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

[75] Jefferson to Thomas Paine, March 18, 1801; Works, iv. 370.

[76] Randall’s Jefferson, ii. 643.

[77] Jefferson to Paine, June 5, 1805; Works, iv. 582.

[78] Jefferson to W. B. Giles, March 23, 1801; Works, iv. 382.

[79] Jefferson to Governor McKean, July 24, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

[80] Madison to Monroe, June 1, 1801; Madison’s Works, ii. 173.

[81] Madison to Monroe, April 20, 1803; Madison’s Writings, ii. 181.

[82] Jefferson to R. R. Livingston, Oct. 10, 1802; Works, iv. 448.

[83] Jefferson to Monroe, July 15 and 17, 1802; Works, iv. 444-447.

[84] The Recorder, September-October, 1802.

[85] Jefferson to Callender, Oct. 6, 1799; Jefferson MSS.

[86] Jefferson to John Langdon; Jefferson MSS.

[87] Jefferson to Dr. Cooper, Nov. 29, 1802; Works, iv. 453.

[88] M. de Talleyrand, par Sainte-Beuve, p. 70.

[89] Alquier to Talleyrand, 26 Vendémiaire, An ix. (Oct. 18, 1800);
Archives des Aff. Etr. MSS.

[90] Mémoires du Prince de la Paix, iii. 36-38.

[91] Mémoire, etc., lu à l’Institut National le 15 Germinal, An v.
(April 4, 1797).

[92] Mémoires du Prince de la Paix, iii. 23.

[93] Instructions données an Citoyen Guillemardet, Prairial, An vi.
(May 20-June 19, 1798); Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.

[94] Talleyrand to E. Gerry, June 27, 1798; State Papers, ii. 215.

[95] Talleyrand to E. Gerry, July 12, 1798; Ibid. 219.

[96] Correspondance de Napoléon Premier, xxx. 330.

[97] Mémoires de Miot de Melito, i. 288.

[98] Gallatin’s Writings, ii. 490.

[99] Correspondance, vi. 415; Bonaparte to Talleyrand, July 22, 1800.

[100] Alquier to Talleyrand, 19 Thermidor, An viii. (Aug. 7, 1800);
Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.

[101] Note adressée par l’Ambassadeur da la République, etc., 15
Thermidor, An viii. (Aug. 3. 1800); Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.

[102] Correspondance, vi. 426; Bonaparte to Talleyrand, 9 Thermidor, An
viii. (July 28, 1800).

[103] Rapport au Premier Consul, 6 Fructidor, An viii. (Aug. 24, 1800);
Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.

[104] Correspondance, vi. 445.

[105] Instructions au Général Berthier, 8 Fructidor, An viii. (Aug. 26,
1800); Projet de Traité préliminaire et secret, 10 Fructidor, An viii.
(Aug. 28, 1800); Archives des Aff. Ètr. MSS.

[106] Rapport à l’Empereur, 28 Brumaire, An xiii. (Nov. 19, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.

[107] Mémoires, iii. 20, 55.

[108] Traité préliminaire et secret, Oct. 1, 1800; Recueil de Traités
de la France, par De Clercq, i. 411.

[109] Mémoires, iii. 76-78.

[110] Lucien Bonaparte et ses Mémoires, Th. Jung, ii. 104.

[111] Correspondance, vii. 190; Bonaparte to Talleyrand, 21 Messidor,
An ix. (July 10, 1801).

[112] Lucien Bonaparte, Jung, ii. 466.

[113] Correspondance, vii. 200; Note à remettre à Lord Hawkesbury, 4
Thermidor, An ix. (July 23, 1801).

[114] Ibid.; Bonaparte to Talleyrand, 8 Thermidor, An ix. (July 27,
1801).

[115] Correspondance, vii. 225; Projets de Notes, 27 Thermidor, An ix.
(15 Aug. 1801).

[116] Correspondance, vii. 226; Talleyrand to Saint Cyr, 16 Frimaire,
An x. (6 Dec. 1801); Lucien Bonaparte, Jung, ii. 468.

[117] Correspondance, vii. 279; Bonaparte to Berthier, 16 Vendémiaire,
An x. (Oct. 8, 1801).

[118] Correspondance, vii. 298. Bonaparte to Berthier, 1 Brumaire, An
x. (23 Oct. 1801).

[119] Pamphile de Lacroix, Mémoires, ii. 277.

[120] Vie de Toussaint, par Saint-Remy, p. 322.

[121] Toussaint to President Adams, 16 Brumaire, An vii. (Nov. 6,
1798); MSS. State Department Archives.

[122] Treaty of June 13, 1799; MSS. State Department Archives.

[123] Toussaint to President Adams, Aug. 14, 1799; MSS. State
Department Archives.

[124] Stevens to Pickering, Feb. 13, 1800; MSS. State Department
Archives.

[125] Stevens to Pickering, April 19, 1800; MSS. State Department
Archives.

[126] Ibid.

[127] Stevens to Pickering, May 24, 1800; MSS. State Department
Archives.

[128] Pamphile de Lacroix, Mémoires, ii. 52.

[129] Lear to Madison, July, 1801; MSS. State Department Archives.

[130] Pichon to Decrès, 18 Fructidor, An ix. (Sept. 5, 1801); Archives
de la Marine, MSS.

[131] Correspondance, vii. 319; Bonaparte to Talleyrand, 22 Brumaire,
An x. (Nov. 13, 1801).

[132] Correspondance, vii. 315; Proclamation, 17 Brumaire, An x. (Nov.
8, 1801).

[133] Correspondance, vii. 322; Bonaparte to Toussaint, 27 Brumaire, An
x. (Nov. 18, 1801).

[134] Ibid., 327; Exposé de la situation de la République, 1 Frimaire,
An x. (Nov. 22, 1801).

[135] Pamphile de Lacroix, Mémoires, ii. 228.

[136] Correspondance, vii. 413; Bonaparte to Leclerc, 25 Ventôse, An x.
(March 16, 1802).

[137] Ibid., 503, 504; Bonaparte to Leclerc, 12 Messidor, An x. (July
1, 1802).

[138] Moniteur, 24 Prairial, An x. (June 13, 1802).

[139] Correspondance, xxx. 535; Notes sur St. Domingue.

[140] Decrès to Leclerc, 25 Prairial, An x. (June 14, 1802); Archives
de la Marine, MSS. Cf. Revue Historique, “Napoléon Premier et Saint
Domingue,” Janvier-Février, 1884.

[141] Correspondance, vii. 485; Bonaparte to Decrès, 15 Prairial, An x.
(June 4, 1802).

[142] Talleyrand to Gouvion St.-Cyr, 30 Prairial, An x. (June 19,
1802); Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.

[143] St.-Cyr to Don Pedro Cevallos, 23 Messidor, An x. (July 12,
1802). Yrujo to Madison, Sept. 4, 1803. State Papers, ii. 569.

[144] Correspondance, viii. 5; Bonaparte to Decrès, 6 Fructidor, An x.
(Aug. 24, 1802).

[145] Correspondance, viii. 112; Bonaparte to Leclerc, 6 Frimaire, An
xi. (Nov. 27, 1802).

[146] Ibid., 12; Bonaparte to the King of Tuscany, 11 Fructidor, An x.
(Aug. 29, 1802).

[147] Rapport au Premier Consul; Frimaire, An xi. (November, 1802);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.

[148] Correspondance, viii. 111; Bonaparte to the King of Spain, 6
Frimaire, An xi. (Nov. 27, 1802).

[149] Beurnonville to Talleyrand, 27 Nivôse, An xi. (Jan. 17, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.

[150] Jefferson to W. C. C. Claiborne, July 13, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

[151] Jefferson to R. R. Livingston, Aug. 28, 1801; Jefferson MSS.;
State Department Archives.

[152] Jefferson to R. R. Livingston, March 16, 1802; Jefferson MSS.

[153] Rufus King to Madison, June 1, 1801; State Papers, ii. 509.

[154] Madison to Pinckney, June 9, 1801; Madison to Livingston, Sept.
28, 1801; State Papers, ii. 510.

[155] Rufus King to Madison, Nov. 20, 1801; State Papers, ii. 511.

[156] Pichon to Leclerc, 29 Ventôse-11 Messidor, An x. (March 20-June
30, 1802); Archives de la Marine, MSS.

[157] Leclerc to Bonaparte, 17 Prairial, An x. (June 6, 1802); Archives
Nationales, MSS.

[158] Correspondance, vii. 508; Bonaparte to Talleyrand, 15 Messidor,
An x. (July 4, 1802).

[159] Livingston to Madison, Dec. 10, 1801; Livingston to King, Dec.
30; King to Madison, Nov. 20; State Papers, ii. 511, 512.

[160] Madison to Livingston, May 1, 1802; State Papers, ii. 516.

[161] Jefferson to Dupont de Nemours, April 25, 1802; Works, iv. 435.

[162] Jefferson to Livingston, April 18, 1802; Works, iv. 431.

[163] Dupont to Jefferson, April 30, 1802; Jefferson MSS.

[164] Jefferson to Governor McKean, June 14, 1802; Jefferson MSS.

[165] Leclerc to Bonaparte, 29 Fructidor, An x. (Sept. 16, 1802);
Archives Nationales, MSS.

[166] Leclerc to Bonaparte, 15 Vendémiaire, An xi. (Oct. 7, 1802);
Archives Nationales, MSS.

[167] Correspondance, xxx. 534.

[168] Leclerc to Decrès, 21 Thermidor, An x. (Aug. 9, 1802); Archives
de la Marine, MSS.

[169] Leclerc to Bonaparte, 15 Vendémiaire, An xi. (Oct. 7, 1802);
Archives Nationales, MSS.

[170] Despatch of W. C. C. Claiborne, Oct. 29, 1802; State Papers, ii.
470.

[171] Laussat to Decrès, 29 Germinal, An xi. (April 19, 1803); Archives
de la Marine, MSS.

[172] Madison to Livingston, Oct. 15, 1802; State Papers, ii. 525.

[173] Jefferson to Livingston, Oct. 10, 1802; Works, iv. 447.

[174] Jefferson to Sir John Sinclair, June 30, 1803; Works, iv. 490.

[175] Yrujo to Madison, Nov. 27, 1802; MSS. State Department Archives.

[176] Yrujo to Morales, Nov. 26, 1802; Gayarré, History of Louisiana,
iii. 576.

[177] Madison to Pinckney, Nov. 27, 1802; State Papers, ii. 527.

[178] Pichon to Talleyrand, 2 Nivôse, An xi. (Dec. 22, 1802); Archives
des Aff. Étr., MSS.

[179] Thornton to Lord Hawkesbury, Jan. 3, 1803; MSS. British Archives.

[180] Message of Dec. 22, 1802; State Papers, ii. 469.

[181] Message of Dec. 30, 1802; State Papers, ii. 471.

[182] Resolutions of Jan. 7, 1803; Annals of Congress, 1802-1803, p.
339.

[183] Jefferson to Monroe, Jan. 13, 1803; Works, iv. 453.

[184] Madison to Livingston, Jan. 18, 1803; State Papers, ii. 529.

[185] Report of Jan. 12, 1803; Annals of Congress, 1802-1803, pp.
371-374.

[186] Jefferson to Monroe, Jan. 13, 1803; Works, iv. 453.

[187] Jefferson to Livingston, Feb. 3, 1803; Works, iv. 460.

[188] Jefferson to Dr. Priestley, Jan. 29, 1804; Works, iv. 524.

[189] Thornton to Lord Hawkesbury, Jan. 31, 1803; MSS. British Archives.

[190] Pichon to Talleyrand, 4 Pluviôse, An xi. (Jan. 24, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.

[191] Pichon to Talleyrand, 29 Pluviôse, An xi. (Feb. 17, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.

[192] Jefferson to Dupont, Feb. 1, 1803; Works, iv. 456.

[193] Pichon to Talleyrand, 24 Pluviôse, An xi. (Feb. 12, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.

[194] Instructions to Livingston and Monroe, March 2, 1803; State
Papers, ii. 540.

[195] Madison to Monroe, April 20, 1803; Madison’s Writings, ii. 181.

[196] Jefferson to Hugh Williamson, April 30, 1803; Works, iv. 483.

[197] Jefferson to Dupont, April 25, 1802; Works, iv. 435.

[198] Jefferson to Dupont, Feb. 1, 1803; Works, iv. 456.

[199] Jefferson to Sir John Sinclair, 30 June, 1803; Works, iv. 490.




  Transcriber's Notes:

  Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

  Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

  Perceived typographical errors have been changed.