Page images
PDF
EPUB

The federal candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency were Adams and Pinckney; the republican candidates were Jefferson and Burr.

At that time (for the law has since been altered) the State electors did not vote for President and Vice-President distinctly, but the highest number of votes determined the President, and the next highest number the Vice-President. The intention of the republicans was to have Jefferson President, and Burr Vice-President; but the votes for them were equal: the numbers being, Jefferson 73; Burr 73; Adams 65; Pinckney 64. The choice between the two highest candidates devolved on Congress, and it became the object of the federalists to defeat the intention of the republicans, by making Burr President. The law required that the successful candidate should have, not merely a majority in Congress, but a majority of all the States. There were then sixteen States in the Union. Two of these neutralised their votes by taking opposite sides. Eight voted for Jefferson, six for Burr. Nine votes were required for a majority of the States. The Congress voted thirty-five times on this question. At length some of the less factious of the federalists became alarmed, and the first votes were ten for Jefferson, and four for Burr.

If the original opposition had been persevered in, there would have been no election, and the federalists had it in contemplation to nominate a President of the Senate pro tempore by what, they said, would be only a stretch of the constitution. The republican party met this menace by declaring their intention, in the event of the constitution being so stretched, to call a convention for re-organising and amending the government. This was and is the constitutional remedy for abuses of power in the American Legislature.

If they could have been permitted,' says Jefferson to Monroe, to pass a law for putting the government into the hands of an officer, they would certainly have prevented an election. But we thought it best to declare, openly and firmly, one and all, that the day such an act passed, the middle States would arm, and that no such usurpation, even for a single day, should be submitted to.

This first shook them, and they were completely alarmed at the resource for which we declared; to wit, a convention to re-organise the government, and to amend it. The very word convention gives them the horrors, as in the present democratical spirit of America, they fear they should lose some of the favourite morsels of the constitution. Many attempts have been made to obtain terms and promises from me. I have declared to them unequivocally, that I would not receive the government on capitulation-that I would not go into it with my hands tied.'Vol. iii. p. 460,

In another place Jefferson says;

'When the election between Burr and myself was kept in suspense by the federalists, and they were meditating to place the President of the Senate at the head of the government, I called on Mr. Adams, with a view to have this desperate measure prevented by his negative. He grew warm in an instant, and said, with a vehemence he had not used towards me before, "Sir, the event of the election is within your own power. You have only to say you will do justice to the public creditors, maintain the navy, and not disturb those holding offices, and the government will instantly be put into your hands. We know it is the wish of the people it should be so." ،، Mr. Adams,"

said I, “I know not what part of my conduct in either public or private life, can have authorised a doubt of my fidelity to the public engagements. I say, however, I will not come into the government by capitulation; I will not enter on it but in perfect freedom to follow the dictates of my own judgment."'—Vol. iv. p. 161.

When the election was determined in Jefferson's favour he expressed himself as follows, to John Dickinson :—

The storm through which we have passed has been tremendous indeed. The tough sides of our argosie 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 shew, by the beauty of her motion, the skill of her builders. Figure to yourself apart, our fellow citizens have been led hood-winked from their principles, by a most extraordinary combination of circumstances. But the band is removed, and they now see for themselves. I hope to see shortly a perfect consolidation, to effect which, nothing shall be spared on my part, short of the abandonment of the principles of our revolution. A just and solid republican government maintained here, will be a standing monument and example for the aim and imitation of the people of other countries; and I join with you in the hope and belief that they will see, from our example, that a free government is of all others the most energetic; that the inquiry which has been excited among the mass of mankind by our revolution, and its consequences, will ameliorate the condition of man over a great portion of the globe. What a satisfaction have we in the contemplation of the benevolent effects of our efforts, compared with those of the leaders on the other side, who have discountenanced all advances in science as dangerous innovations, have endeavoured to render philosophy and republicanism terms of reproach, to persuade us that man cannot be governed but by the rod, &c. I shall have the happiness of living and dying in the contrary hope.'-Vol. iii. p. 462.

Jefferson, in one of his subsequent letters calls the result of this first contest the Revolution of 1800 :

"It was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form; not effected, indeed, by the sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform-the suf

frages of the people. The nation declared its will by dismissing functionaries of one principle and electing those of another, in the two branches, executive and legislative, submitted to their election.'— Vol. iv. p. 324.

The principles then established have been the governing principles from that time to the present. At Jefferson's second election in 1804, he received 162 votes against 14; and it is a most remarkable circumstance, and one which speaks volumes in favour of the elective system and the manner of conducting it in America, that the two men who appear in the whole course of his previous correspondence to have been most after his own heart-Madison and Monroe,—were those who succeeded him for eight years each in the Presidency, accomplishing "twentyfour years of administration in republican forms and principles," which (changing, as we confidently may do, the language of Jefferson from the future to the past) have "so consecrated them in the eyes of the people as to secure them against the danger of change." The election of General Jackson, after the younger Adams had served four years only, strongly confirms this opinion.

The administration of Jefferson was, as has been observed by Waden,+"perhaps the first instance in the history of parties, of a body of men raised to power abiding faithfully by the principles they had professed during their exclusion, and with selfdenying honesty labouring to diminish the amount of influence and patronage they received from their predecessors." This administration was distinguished by many important events :The entire abolition of internal taxes-the repeal of the alien law-the extinction of the seditious libel law-the effective diminution of the national debt-the reduction of the annual expenditure-the discarding of all forms of state-the extinction of the native right to a hundred million acres of the national domain-the purchase of Louisiana--and "the preservation of peace with the civilized world through a season of uncommon difficulty and trial."+

To this catalogue of inestimable benefits to his country and the world it would, be idle to look for anything simile aut secun

[ocr errors]

* Nor is the election of Monroe an inefficient circumstance in our felicities. Four-and-twenty years, which he will accomplish, of administration in republican forms and principles, will so consecrate them in the eyes of the people as to secure them against the danger of change.'— Jefferson to La Fayette, May 14, 1817.-Vol. iv. p. 312.

"Statistical, Political, and Historical Account of the United States," vol. iii. p. 489.

Address of the General Assembly of Virginia, vol. iv. p. 449.

dum in the longest reigns which history calls glorious. Of contrasts there is a miserable superabundance; and will be, till men shall be wise enough, throughout the world, to give more honour to their benefactors than to their destroyers.

Jefferson established the inviolate liberty of the press, and maintained it inviolate in spite of the strongest personal temptations to the contrary; for never were mendacity, calumny, and scurrility carried to a more unblushing extent, than in the attacks on his character in the federal papers during his administration. We speak from our most distinct recollection of the American newspapers of that time. His forbearance only stimulated further outrages; but he opposed to them, in calmness and silence, the shield of his own undeviating rectitude; and wisely did he so, as the immense majority by which he was re-elected, and the testimonials of public approbation which accompanied him into retirement, abundantly testify.

He had very early expressed an opinion, that it would be "better to have newspapers without a government, than a government without newspapers." When at a time long subsequent to this he expressed his conviction of " the melancholy truth, that a complete suppression of the press could not more effectually deprive the nation of its benefits than was done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood," and by " the demoralising practice of feeding the public mind habitually on slander, and the depravity of taste which this nauseous aliment induces," he still never thought for a moment of repressing or circumscribing public discussion by positive law. He placed the strongest reliance on the good sense of the people to counteract the misleadings of the press; and at a still later period (Nov. 1823) he repeated his original and unaltered opinion:The only security for honest and unoppressive government is in a free press. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary to keep the waters pure.

[ocr errors]

After his retirement from the presidency he was elected a visitor and rector of the University which was founded within a few miles of his seat, Monticello; and he divided his time between the superintendence of this institution, the business of his farm, and reading; carrying on at the same time a very extensive correspondence, much of it against his will; but he seems, though free from most superstitions, to have been not free from that of thinking it necessary to answer letters; and as he received one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven in a single year, we may see to what an extent he was a victim to his urbanity. He says he had rather be a cabbage than have to write so many letters; this, too, with a crippled wrist. The

majority of these were "letters of inquiry, always of good will -sometimes from friends-oftener from persons unknown, but written kindly and civilly, and to which, therefore, civility required answers."

Barring this dreadful infliction, his submission to which is wonderful, his life in retirement seems to have been a happy one, though latterly embittered by pecuniary difficulties. He had necessarily neglected his patrimonial estate during the course of his public life. He had gained nothing in the public service, and had retired from office "with hands as clean as they were empty." He had to pay 1200 dollars on account of some guarantee for a friend, and he felt this very severely on the depreciation of land and produce, which was consequent on one of the periodical explosions in the wretched papercurrency of America. He applied to Congress for permission to dispose of his estate by lottery. The application was rejected; wisely, we think, on general principles: though, if an exception were ever to be admitted, this was undoubtedly the case. There is much to be said on both sides, and we have not space for the discussion.

[ocr errors]

The friendship between Jefferson and Adams, which had existed for years, when it was interrupted by the circumstances which placed them in opposition to each other as the heads of the federal and republican parties, was renewed after Jefferson's retirement, and appears to have continued uninterrupted till their deaths. Jefferson and Adams, by a singular coincidence, died both on the same day, the 4th of July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: Jefferson being then eighty-two, and Adams nearly ninety.

The last letter in these volumes is from Jefferson to Mr. Weightman, dated ten days before his death, June 24th, 1826, expressing his sorrow at being unable to be present at the celebration of this fiftieth anniversary in Washington. The calm judgment of his age adhered with undiminished earnestness to the deliberately-adopted principles of his earliest political life, and the repetition of his principles and his hopes, in these his last recorded words, will be read with double interest, from the occasion on which they were written, and because they may be justly regarded as the divini hominis cycnea vox et oratio.

'Monticello, June 24, 1826.

'The kind invitation I received from you, on the part of the citizens of the City of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as one of the surviving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and

« PreviousContinue »