Part 8 (2/2)

On theof March 4, 1801, Mr Jefferson tied his horse to the fence and walked alone into the Capitol to take the oath of office as President Mr Madison was not present at that perfunctory cere him at home He soon after, however, assumed the duties of the station to which Mr Jefferson had called him, and there he reht years afterward

The new dynasty entered upon its course under happy circumstances There was, of course, much to fear from the condition of affairs in Europe; for the United States le for supreland, and that would be while Napoleon could coer imminent, since Mr AdahFederalists believed it was at the cost of ruin to his own party English aggressions upon American commerce had for the ether, when the provocation disappeared with the permanent establishment of peace in Europe In the temporary lull of the tempest the sun shone out of a serene sky, and the land was blessed with quiet and prosperity ”Peace, co alliances with none,” the President said in his inaugural address, were aovernht to shape its administration” The condition of the country was in accord with the thought and ested it ”We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists,” said Jefferson in his inaugural: it was meant, however, as an avowal of a tolerant belief in the patriotism of both parties, rather than, as has sometimes been supposed, an assertion that party lines, so clearly drawn in the election, were at length obliterated But hardly a year had passed before this seemed to be almost literally true One after another, States hitherto Federal, both at the North and at the South, went over in their state elections to the Republican or Democratic party; till, with the exception of Delaware, there was not a single Federal State outside of New England; and even in that stronghold one State, Rhode Island, had marched off with the ress of the public sentinant adversaries of the administration”

If it may not be asserted that this overthrow of the Federal rule was fortunate at that juncture,--as nothing is ht have been,--it may at least be said that Jefferson's administration for his first four years was a happy one for his country and acceptable to his countryton's has ever been so popular; and no other, except Lincoln's, has ever been so successful Nor can it be said of it that it was a happy period because it is without a history; for it included acts of moment, accepted then with an approbation and enthusiasm which time has justified Not less shallow is that view of his character and of those years of his administration, taken by many of his contemporaries, who neither loved nor respected hiood fortune This was a favorite and easy way, areeable fact Parton notes in his Life that C C Pinckney could only understand Jefferson's hold upon public confidence as ”the infatuation of the people” John Quincy Adareatest weaknesses and follies issue more successfully than if he had been inspired with the profoundest wisdo enough drunk, they will get sober; but while the frolic lasts, to reason with them is useless” There has been more than one occasion of late years, and in more than one place, where this may be truly said of popular political enthusiasm; but it was not true of that which prevailed for the first four years of this century; and Mr Adams's sarcasm can hardly fail to recall the fact that when Mr Jefferson, in his second tered eo, it was Mr Adams who co his party to give his support to the President's blunder

Though there were ht years, they were not the result of dissensions Yet he was, perhaps, more an absolute President than any other ht and listened to counsel, no doubt; but taking it was another matter He certainly did not take it if it did not suit him; and if it was not likely to suit him, he was in no hurry to ask for it It was in his own fertile brain, not in the suggestions of others, that important measures had their birth That trait in his character which phrenologists have naoverned his actions It was natural for hi others to do what he wanted done, without hih soratification of secretiveness He preferred often to suggest h the result in either case ht be the sareat importance and he was absolutely sure only of himself, he boldly took the responsibility, as he did in the purchase of Louisiana, and in the suppression of the Monroe-Pinckney treaty with England in his second ter, therefore, that Madison's part, during the eight years of Jefferson's presidency, is found to be more a secondary one than is usual with a secretary of state, or than was usual with him He was in perfect accord with his chief, who held always in the highest esteeht, no doubt, his sound and ht he needed advice from anybody But Madison's influence is less visible in Jefferson's adton's, when he was in the opposition Washi+ngton, where he doubted his own ability to decide a question and felt the need of enlightenh he did not always accept his friend's conclusions It was rarely that Jefferson was troubled with any doubt of his own judght come before him

The most important measure of his administration was peculiarly his own, and when once detere nobody doubts now, or has doubted since the abolition of slavery, that the purchase of Louisiana was an act of sound statesmanshi+p Jefferson did not foresee that the acquisition of that fertile territory would stimulate a do as to the slave-consuht prosperity and power to a class, there would grow up an oligarchy, resting on ownershi+p in negroes, which, within sixty years, would have to be uprooted at an enormous cost But his aim was to secure the peaceful possession of the Mississippi territory on both its banks, as a per as it remained open, was a perpetual er would always involve the possibility of the Appalachian range beco the western boundary of the United States; in which case the valley of the Mississippi, and the vast region west of it, would fall into the power of an alien people So far was plain to Mr Jefferson; but the result of the rebellion of 1861 proves that he iser than he knehen he acquired the territory stretching to the Sabine and the foot of the Rocky Mountains for the occupation of a free people

It is not necessary to repeat here the story of the purchase The news of it reached Washi+ngton in July and was received with enthusiasm That there was no warrant in the Constitution for an acquisition of territory by purchase was manifest; and Mr Jefferson's opponents were not in the least backward in heaping reproaches and ridicule upon the great champion of strict construction, who had no hesitation in violating the Constitution when it seemed to him wise to do so Both the President and his secretary franklyits entire justice; but at the same tieneral welfare This did not abate the ridicule, though the argument was a hard one for the Federalists to withstand; for it could not be forgotten that it was on this ground that Hamilton, as secretary of the treasury, had justified the imposition of certain taxes, and the Republicans had maintained that the plain limitations of the Constitution could not be overstepped on such a plea, even for the general good Jefferson was so sensitive to this constitutional objection that he proposed to meet it by an amendment to the Constitution; but it was soon evident that the unwritten law of manifest destiny did not need the appeal to the ballot-box ”The grumblers,”

Jefferson wrote to a friend soon after the news of the treaty was received, ”gave all the credit of the acquisition to the accident of war” ”They would see,” he added, in records on file, ”that though we could not say ould arise, yet we said with energy ould take place when it should arise” He onlyof his ade of circuland and France, as it was evident enough to the whole world that it must break out sooner or later That the particular conjunction of circumstances, however, would occur that did occur, could not have been foreseen Jefferson could have had no prescience that Spain would reconvey Louisiana to France; that Napoleon would enter at once upon extensive preparations for colonization on the banks of the Mississippi; and that he would be willing to relinquish this ireat scheht devote hi his most formidable enemy of the rival race But it is Jefferson's best title to fae of this conjunction of incidents at exactly the right ress of civilization would have been essentially the sa been born it fell to hiely to the events that have distributed the race speaking the English tongue the lobe, and to exercise a powerful influence upon the age It does not detract from the merit of his act, however, that he by no means saw all its iion beyond the Mississippi, he thought, e for Indian tribes of the East; but he neither saw nor could see then that the purchase of Louisiana was the essential though only the preliminary step toward the occupation of the continent to the Pacific by the English race The expedition of Lewis and Clarke, which he sent out the next year, was in the interest of science, and especially of geography, rather than of any possible settleion Indeed, he said that if the new acquisition of territory isely reat river, the result would be the ”condensing, instead of scattering, our population” But ”man proposes and God disposes”

The immediate consequences, however, of the acquisition of Louisiana were enough to bring almost universal popularity to the President, especially at the South and West, without any revelation of the future

Nor was the act the less popular because it was an in slave trade, partly because at the North that excited but little interest, and partly because at the South it excited a great deal The abolition societies, it is true, asked that the importation of slaves from Africa into the annexed territory should be forbidden; and an act was passed prohibiting their introduction, except by those persons from other parts of the United States who intended to be actual settlers, and were, therefore, per slaves iht properly have been entitled An Act for the Encouragearded by the older slave States South Carolina reopened the trade to Africa, and, as Congress failed to levy the constitutional tax of ten dollars a head, the raw material, so to speak, came in free The rest could be safely left to the law of supply and demand Neither South Carolina nor any other State had imported slaves since 1798 The whole slave population, therefore, could be legally taken into Louisiana by actual settlers, and its place supplied in the old States by new iulated the supply, and the supply came from Africa as truly as if the importation had been direct to New Orleans

This was the legal course of trade till 1808; thenceforward it flourished, without the protection of law but in spite of it, so long as it was profitable,--so long, that is, as the natural increase of the eastern negro was insufficient to answer the demand of the south-western market

But, besides the peaceful extension of the national domain, there was much else in the first four or five years of Jefferson's administration to co to coenerous assurance of the inaugural which could not be forgotten,--”we are all Republicans; we are all Federalists;” and the other party had reason to be thankful that, considering, as he said, ”a Federalist seldoe ere reminded, by their re either the one thing or the other It was only the politicians, however, a class much smaller then than it is noere concerned in such e were influenced by other considerations Credit was given to the President for things that he did not do, as well as for things that he did It was due to him that the adh Mr

Gallatin's skillful ement of the finances that the old public debt was in process of speedy extinction Occasional iress, which otherere as harmless as they were dull Jefferson was never so much out of his proper ele his first term, with the Barbary States which put an end forbeen needlessly submitted to It was a war, however, of only a few naval vessels in the hands of such energetic and brave e, Decatur, Preble, and Barron; and to send off the expedition was about all the governling alliances,” or entangle as they left the commerce of the United States to pursue its peaceful and profitable course without land and France did for several years, and there fell, in consequence, an i trade into the hands of Aht prosperity to the whole country such as was never known before, and was not known again, after it was lost, for near a quarter of a century All these things made Mr Jefferson acceptable to the people as almost a heaven-appointed President If, as John Quincy Adahted to beam upon him with her sunniest se of them

While they lasted, his secretary of state sat in their light and warent and faithful discharge of official duty, which could not in those years of prosperous tranquillity be over-burdensome

CHAPTER XVII

THE EMBARGO

Al of his second term, Jefferson found himself in troubled waters, as the United States was drawn slowly but surely into the vortex of European war The carrying trade at home and abroad had fallen very much into the hands of Ae of their vessels en trade and entered at the custom-houses of the United States was equal to nearly four fifths of the tonnage of British vessels engaged in the same traffic and entered at hon commerce of Great Britain was almost all carried on from her own ports, and the returns, therefore, showed its full voluely the carriers between the ports of the belligerents and of other powers in Europe, and there were no entries at the American custom-houses of their employment, or that they were eate value of this foreign trade in the hands of Alish ation of the Berlin decree of 1806, and the British orders in council of the next year Nor was it only that wealth flowed into the country as the immediate return from this trade abroad It stimulated enterprise and industry at home by the increase of capital; and there was not only more money to ith, but more to spend Consequently the increase in exports and in irew steadily In 1805, 1806, and 1807, about one half the average total exports, so over the value of twenty million dollars, went to Great Britain alone; and the value of the imports from that country for the same period was about sixty h increasing with the growing prosperity, represent a general balance of trade against the United States, as one school of political economists would insist it must have done For the ie for Aether with the profits of the carrying trade abroad, was relish land represented the returns for all exports to Europe, and the returns also--available in the first instance through bills of exchange--of the trade which had been gained by Americans, and lost by those nations whose shi+ps the war had driven from the ocean

The British manufacturer had no reason for discontent with this state of things The best , and he did not overnlish merchants ned shi+ps, looked on with neither pleasure nor patience It was i a great coh; but it was the harder to bear when it was reotten--that the rivalry caland, and that their President at that moment was one of the land was h at any effort of hers to destroy the co as that co? If that flag lish naval vessels and privateers would cruise in vain for prizes, for the h to protect theed law of nations that free shi+ps oods

But nearly the saerents could be safely carried in neutral shi+ps under the pretense of being owned by neutrals The products of the French colonies, for example, could be loaded on board of American vessels, taken to the United States and reshi+pped there for France as Aland looked upon this as an evasion of the recognized public law that property of belligerents was good prize Accordingly, when she saw that French commerce was thus put out of her reach, and that the rival sherich and powerful in the possession of it, she sought a re one

It was denied that neutrals could take advantage of a state of war to enter upon a trade which had not existed in tih seas, taken into port, and condeoods in such a trade The exercise of that right, if it were one by the recognized law of nations, would be of great injury to American commerce, unless it could be successfully resisted To show that it was not good law, Mr Madison wrote his ”Examination of the British Doctrine which Subjects to Capture a Neutral Trade not Open in the Tih discussion of the whole question, and showed by citations from the most eminent writers on international law, by the terms of treaties, and by the conduct of nations in the past, that the British doctrine was erroneous and would lead to other infringeuht the British govern behind it not so easy to disregard The appropriation for Mr

Jefferson's gunboats could not get that naval arm ready for effective service much before the year 1815, even if it could then be of use; and there was, moreover, this further difficulty in the way of its efficiency at the tio to the eneration would have to be brought to the fire-engines A ith England must be a naval war; and the United States not only had no navy of any consequence, but it was a part of Mr Jefferson's policy, in contrast with the policy of the preceding adunboats kept on wheels and under cover in readiness to repel an invasion But there was no fear of invasion, for by that England could gain nothing ”She is renewing,” Madison wrote in the autumn of 1805, ”her depredations on our coeneral indignation a our merchants than was ever before expressed”

These depredations were not confined to the seizing and confiscating Aoes were contraband

Sea British subjects and deserters, not only on the high seas in larger numbers than ever before, but within the waters of the United States No doubt these seamen were often British subjects and their seizure was justifiable, provided England could rightfully extend to all parts of the globe and to the shi+ps of all nations the merciless system of impressment to which her own people were compelled to submit at home Monroe, in a note to Madison, said that the British reat abuses were coed that ”he gave me some examples which were lish naval officers ht seize such men without recourse to laherever they should be found and without respect for the flag of another nation, it was a national insult and outrage, calling for resentment and resistance, to impress American citizens under the pretense that they were British subjects But as the remedy? As a last resort in such cases, nations have but one

Diploislation may be first tried, but, if these fail, war must be the final ordeal For this the administration made no preparation, and the more evident the unreadiness the less was the chance of redress in any other way Immediate ould, of course, have been unwise; for what could a nation almost without a shi+p hope froest and most efficient navy in the world? If this, however, was true from 1805 to 1807, it was not less true in 1812 But it need not have been true as actually resorted to, had the intervening years been years of preparation The fact was, however, that the party which supported the administration was no more in favor of war at the earlier period than the administration itself was; and ained the ascendency, the country had been growing every year less and less in a condition to appeal to war

The first lish was an act prohibiting the importation of certain British products This had always been a favorite policy with Madison He had advanced and upheld it in forress, and when Great Britain had first violated the rights and dignity of the United States by interference with her foreign trade and by i her citizens

Non-intercourse had been an effective e as an American policy It was not seen, perhaps could not be seen without experience, that a measure suited to the colonial condition was not sufficient for an independent nation But the President and secretary were in perfect accord; for Jefferson preferred anything to war, and Madison was persuaded that England would be brought to terms by the loss of the best market for her manufactures Others, and notably John Randolph, saw in the measure only the first step which, if persisted in, must lead to hile, in the reat an injury to the United States as to Great Britain Randolph was apt to blurt out a good deal of truth when it happened to suit hirievance which had been thought a sufficient provocation for hen the nation was not prepared; and it was no more ready to resort to that desperate remedy now than it had been in the past Without a navy it would be i of all the principal Alish squadrons The United States would need an ally, and he was not willing she should throw herself into the ar universal conquest France, he said, would be the tyrant of the ocean if the British navy should be driven from it The commerce, moreover, which it was proposed to protect, was not the ”honest trade of Aus of war,--a trade which, so soon as the nations of Europe are at peace, will no longer exist” It was only ”a carrying trade which covers enericultural country into war for the benefit of the shi+pping reed with him; for it was one of the cardinal principles of the Jeffersonian school of politics that between coonism