Thomas Jefferson, a Character Sketch Part 3

The irascible Adams made an exhibition of himself on the 4th of March, when in a fit of rage, he rose before day-light and set out in his coach for Ma.s.sachusetts, refusing to wait and take part in the inauguration of his successor. With the mellowness of growing years, he realized the silliness of the act, and he and Jefferson became fully reconciled and kept up an affectionate correspondence to the end of their lives.

Jefferson did all he could to soothe the violent party feeling that had been roused during the election. This spirit ran like a golden thread through his first excellently conceived inaugural. He reminded his fellow citizens that while they differed in opinion, there was no difference in principle, and put forth the following happy thought:

"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us, who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

There can be little doubt that he had Hamilton in mind when he answered, as follows, in his own forceful way the radical views of that gifted statesman.

"Some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong, that this government is not strong enough. I believe this, on the contrary, is 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."

It was characteristic of Jefferson's n.o.bility that one of his first efforts was to undo, so far as he could, the mischief effected by the detested Sedition law. Every man who was in durance because of its operation was pardoned, and he looked upon the law as "a nullity as obsolete and palpable, as if congress had ordered us to fall down and wors.h.i.+p a golden image."

He addressed friendly and affectionate letters to Kosciusko and others, and invited them to be his guests at the White House. Samuel Adams of Ma.s.sachusetts had been shamefully abused during the canvas, but he felt fully compensated by the touching letter from the president. Thomas Paine was suffering almost the pangs of starvation in Paris, and Jefferson paid his pa.s.sage home. Everywhere that it was possible for Jefferson to extend the helping hand he did so with a delicacy and a tact, that won him mult.i.tudes of friends and stamped him as one of nature's n.o.blemen.

The new president selected an able cabinet, consisting of James Madison, Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury; Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War; Robert Smith, Secretary of the Navy; Gideon Granger, Postmaster-general; Levi Lincoln, Attorney General. This household proved a veritable "happy family," all working together in harmony throughout the two terms, and Jefferson declared that if he had his work to do over again, he would select the same advisers without exception.

Although the policy, "to the victors belong the spoils," had not been formulated at that time, its spirit quickened the body politic.

Jefferson's supporters expected him to turn out a part at least of the Federalists, who held nearly all the offices, but he refused, on the principle that a competent and honest office holder should not be removed because of his political opinions. When he, therefore, made a removal, it was as a rule, for other and sufficient reasons.

But he did not hesitate to show his dislike of the ceremony that prevailed around him. He stopped the weekly levee at the White House, and the system of precedence in force at the present time; also the appointment of fast and thanksgiving days. He dressed with severe simplicity and would not permit any attention to be paid him as president which would be refused him as a private citizen. In some respects, it must be conceded that this remarkable man carried his views to an extreme point.

The story, however, that he rode his horse alone to the capitol, and, tying him to the fence, entered the building, unattended, lacks confirmation.

Jefferson was re-elected in 1804, by a vote of 162 to 14 for Pinckney, who carried only two States out of the seventeen.

The administrations of Jefferson were marked not only by many important national events, but were accompanied by great changes in the people themselves. Before and for some years after the Revolution, the majority were content to leave the task of thinking, speaking and acting to the representatives, first of the crown and then to their influential neighbors. The property qualification abridged the right to vote, but the active, hustling nature of the Americans now began to a.s.sert itself.

The universal custom of wearing wigs and queues was given up and men cut their own hair short and insisted that every free man should have the right to vote.

Jefferson was the founder and head of the new order of things, and of the republican party, soon to take the name of democratic, which controlled all the country with the exception of New England.

Our commerce increased enormously, for the leading nations of Europe were warring with one another; money came in fast and most of the national debt was paid.

Louisiana with an area exceeding all the rest of the United States, was bought from France in 1803, for $15,000,000, and from the territory were afterward carved the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Oklahoma, the Indian Territory and most of the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and Wyoming.

The upper Missouri River and the Columbia River country to the Pacific Ocean were explored in 1804-6, by Lewis and Clarke, the first party of white men to cross the continent north of Mexico. Ohio was admitted to the Union in 1802. Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont made her maiden trip from New York to Albany in 1807. The first boatload of anthracite coal was s.h.i.+pped to Philadelphia, and it was a long time before the people knew what to do with it.

The Tripolitan Pirates were snuffed out (1801-1805). The blight of the Embargo Act settled upon our commerce in 1807, in which year the opening gun of the War of 1812 was fired when the Leopard outraged the Chesapeake.

The Embargo Act was a grievous mistake of Jefferson, though its purpose was commendable. Under the plea of securing our s.h.i.+ps against capture, its real object was to deprive England and France of the commodities which could be secured only in the United States. This measure might have been endurable for an agricultural people, but it could not be borne by a commercial and manufacturing one, like New England, whose goods must find their market abroad. Under the Embargo Act, the New England s.h.i.+ps were rotting and crumbling to pieces at her wharves. It was not long before she became restless. The measure was first endorsed by the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature, but the next session denounced it.

Early in 1809, congress pa.s.sed an act allowing the use of the army and navy to enforce the embargo and make seizures.

The Boston papers printed the act in mourning and, meetings were called to memorialize the legislature. That body took strong ground, justifying the course of Great Britain, demanding of congress that it should repeal the embargo and declare war against France. Moreover, the enforcement act was declared "not legally binding," and resistance to it was urged.

This was as clear a case of nullification as that of South Carolina in 1832.

Connecticut was as hot-headed as Ma.s.sachusetts.

John Quincy Adams has stated that at that time the "Ess.e.x Junto" agreed upon a New England convention to consider the expediency of secession.

Adams denounced the plotters so violently that the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature censured him by vote, upon which he resigned his seat in the United States senate.

The Embargo Act was pa.s.sed by congress, December 22, 1807, at the instance of Jefferson, and repealed February 28, 1809, being succeeded by the Non-Intercourse Act, which forbade French and British vessels to enter American ports. It was mainly due to Jefferson's consummate tact that war with Great Britain was averted after the Leopard and Chesapeake affair, and he always maintained that had his views been honestly carried out by the entire nation, we should have obtained all we afterward fought for, without the firing of a hostile gun.

When on March 4, 1809, Jefferson withdrew forever from public life, he was in danger of being arrested in Was.h.i.+ngton for debt. He was in great distress, but a Richmond bank helped him for a time with a loan. He returned to Monticello, where he lived with his only surviving daughter Martha, her husband and numerous children, and with the children of his daughter Maria, who had died in 1804.

He devoted hard labor and many years to the perfection of the common school system in Virginia, and was so pleased with his establishment of the college at Charlottesville, out of which grew the University of Virginia, that he had engraved on his tombstone, "Father of the University of Virginia," and was prouder of the fact than of being the author of the Declaration of Independence.

Meanwhile, his lavish hospitality carried him lower and lower into poverty. There was a continual procession of curious visitors to Monticello, and old women poked their umbrellas through the window panes to get a better view of the grand old man. Congress in 1814, paid him $23,000 for his library which was not half its value. Some time afterward a neighbor obtained his name as security on a note for $20,000 and left him to pay it all.

In the last year of his life, when almost on the verge of want, $16,500 was sent to him as a present from friends in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, more than one-half being raised by Mayor Hone of New York.

Jefferson was moved to tears, and in expressing his grat.i.tude said, he was thankful that not a penny had been wrung from taxpayers.

In the serene sunset of life, the "Sage of Monticello" peacefully pa.s.sed away on the afternoon of July 4, 1826, and a few hours later, John Adams, at his home in Quincy, Ma.s.s., breathed his last. A reverent hush fell upon the country, at the thought of these two great men, one the author of the Declaration of Independence and the other the man who brought about its adoption, dying on the fiftieth anniversary of its signing, and many saw a sacred significance in the fact.

Horace Greeley in referring to the co-incidence, said there was as much probability of a bushel of type flung into the street arranging themselves so as to print the Declaration of Independence, as there was of Jefferson and Adams expiring on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of that instrument; and yet one alternative of the contingency happened and the other never can happen.

Jefferson's liberal views have caused him to be charged with infidelity.

He profoundly respected the moral character of Christ, but did not believe in divine redemption through Christ's work. His dearest aim was to bring down the aristocracy and elevate the ma.s.ses.

He regarded slavery as a great moral and political evil, and in referring to it said: "I tremble for my country when I remember that G.o.d is just."

No more humane slave owner ever lived, and his servants regarded him with almost idolatrous affection, while his love of justice, his hospitality, his fairness to all and his winning personality disarmed enmity and gave him many of his truest and warmest friends from among his political opponents.

A peculiar fact connected with Jefferson is the difference among his portraits. This is due to the varying periods at which they were made.

As we have stated, he was raw-boned, freckled and ungainly in his youth, but showed a marked improvement in middle life. When he became old, many esteemed him good looking, though it can hardly be claimed that he was handsome.

When Jefferson was eighty years old, Daniel Webster wrote the following description of the venerable "Sage of Monticello:"

"Never in my life did I see his countenance distorted by a single bad pa.s.sion or unworthy feeling. I have seen the expression of suffering, bodily and mental, of grief, pain, sadness, disagreeable surprise and displeasure, but never of anger, impatience, peevishness, discontent, to say nothing of worse or more ign.o.ble emotions. To the contrary, it was impossible to look on his face without being struck with the benevolent, intelligent, cheerful and placid expression. It was at once intellectual, good, kind and pleasant, whilst his tall, spare figure spoke of health, activity and that helpfulness, that power and will, 'never to trouble another for what he could do himself,' which marked his character."

This sketch may well be closed with Jefferson's own words regarding life and happiness.

"Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that He has very much put it in our power the nearness of our approach to it, is what I have steadfastly believed.

"The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes, which may greatly afflict us; and to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the princ.i.p.al studies and endeavors of our lives.

"The only method of doing this is to a.s.sume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen must happen, and that by our uneasiness we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen.

"These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way, to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burden of life, and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation till we arrive at our journey's end, when we may deliver up our trust into the hands of Him who gave it, and receive such reward as to Him shall seem proportionate to our merits."

THOMAS JEFFERSON. (1743-1826), By G. Mercer Adam

JEFFERSON, when he penned the famous Declaration of Independence, which broke all hope of reconciliation with the motherland and showed England what the deeply-wronged Colonies of the New World unitedly desired and would in the last resort fight for, had then just pa.s.sed his thirty-third birthday. Who was the man, and what were his upbringings and status in the then young community, that inspired the writing of this great historic doc.u.ment--a doc.u.ment that on its adoption gave these United States an ever-memorable national birthday, and seven years later, by the Peace of Versailles, wrung from Britain recognition of the independence of the country and ushered it into the great sisterhood of Nations? To his contemporaries and a later political age, Jefferson, in spite of his culture and the aristocratic strain in his blood, is known as the advocate of popular sovereignty and the champion of democracy in matters governmental, as United States minister to France between the years 1784-89, as Secretary of State under Was.h.i.+ngton, and as U. S.

President from 1801 to 1809. By education and bent of mind, he was, however, an idealist in politics, a thinker and writer, rather than a debater and speaker, and one who in his private letters, State papers, and public doc.u.ments did much to throw light, in his era, on the origin and development of American political thought. A man of fine education and of n.o.ble, elevated character, he earned distinction among his fellows, and though opposed politically by many prominent statesmen of the day, who, like Was.h.i.+ngton, Hamilton, and Adams, were in favor of a strong centralized government, while Jefferson, in the interests of the ma.s.ses, feared encroachments on State and individual liberty, he was nevertheless paid the respect, consideration, and regard of his generation, as his services have earned the grat.i.tude and his memory the endearing commendation of posterity.