JEFFERSONIANISM.

There is not a man of intelligence in America or Europe, who has not heard of the Democratic party in America, that great political organization which has been in existence almost, if not quite, one hundred years. Many who claim allegiance to this great party know little of its tenets, and still fewer know its history. There are orators on the stump, in the halls of Congress, writers for the press, all advocating "the glorious principles of Democracy," who have never thoroughly acquainted themselves with its history. The Democratic party of to-day was originally known as the Republican party. The warm discussions on the national constitution engendered party spirit in the new republic, which speedily assumed definite forms and titles, first as Federalist and anti-Federalist, which names were changed to Federalist and Republican, or Democrat.

The Federalist party, headed by Alexander Hamilton, favored much concentration of power in a national government, but perhaps not more than we have to-day, and, in fact, not more than is really essential to the upbuilding of a stable republic like ours. There can be no question but that Washington held to the same views; but Washington was the only great man America ever produced who rose so far above political parties as to absorb them all. He has never been classed as belonging to either party. The Republican or Democratic party favored State sovereignty and the diffusion of power among the people.

The American people had had such bitter experiences with monarchs that they dreaded anything which savored of monarchy, and it was argued that a centralized government was but a step in that direction. On the other hand, Federalists pointed out the danger of State sovereignty, which would surely in the end disrupt the general government. Subsequent history has proven that the Federalists were right. We have said that Washington was a Federalist at heart. His enemies, meanly jealous of his popularity, often declared that he was a monarchist.

Meanwhile, a revolution, violent in its nature and far-reaching in its consequences, had broken out in France.

It was the immediate consequences of the teachings of the American revolution. The people of France had long endured almost irresponsible despotism, and were yearning for freedom when the French officers and soldiers, who had served in America during the latter years of our struggles for independence, returned to their country full of republican ideas and aspirations. They questioned the right of the few to oppress the many, and the public heart was soon stirred by new ideas, and in a movement that followed, Lafayette was conspicuous for a while. The king, like many tyrants, was weak and vacillating, and soon a body called the states-general assumed the reins of government, while the king was in fact a prisoner. The terrible Bastile, whose history represented royal despotism, was assailed by the citizens of Paris and pulled down. The privileges of the nobility and clergy were abolished, and the church property was seized. The king's brothers and many of the nobles fled in affright across the frontier, and tried to induce other sovereigns to take up the cause of royalty in France and restore the former order of things. The emperor of Austria (brother of the French queen) and the king of Prussia entered into a treaty to that effect, at Pilnitz, in 1791.

When this treaty became known, war at once followed. Robespierre and other self-constituted leaders in Paris held sway for a while, and the most frightful massacres of nobles and priests ensued. The weak and unfortunate king, who had accepted constitution after constitution, was now deposed and a republic was established. Affairs had assumed the nature of anarchy and blood, and Lafayette and other moderate men disappeared from the arena. The king was tried on charge of inviting foreigners to invade France, was found guilty and was beheaded in January, 1793. His queen soon shared a like fate. The English troops sent to Flanders were called to fight the French, for the rulers of France had declared war against Great Britain, Spain and Holland in February.

Thomas Jefferson who entered Washington's cabinet in 1789, had just returned from France, where he had witnessed the uprising of the people against their oppressors. Regarding the movement as kindred to the late uprising of his own countrymen against Great Britain, it enlisted his warmest sympathies, and he expected to find the bosoms of the people of the United States glowing with feelings like his own. He was sadly disappointed. Washington was wisely conservative. His wisdom saw that the cruelty of the anarchists of Paris was not patriotism, but the worst sort of despotism. The society of New York, in which some of the leaven of Toryism yet lingered, chilled Jefferson. He became suspicious of all around him, for he regarded the indifference of the people to the struggles of the French, their old allies, as an evil omen. Though the Tories of New York were cool toward the French republic from far different motives than Washington, yet the same cause was attributed to both.

Jefferson had scarcely taken his seat as Secretary of State in Washington's first cabinet before he declared that some of his colleagues held decidedly monarchical views; and the belief became fixed in his mind that there was a party in the United States continually at work, secretly and sometimes openly, for the overthrow of American republicanism. The idea became a monomania with Jefferson from which he never recovered till his death, more than thirty years afterward. Jefferson soon rallied under his standard a large party of sympathizers with the French revolutionists. Regarding Hamilton as the head and front of the monarchical party, he professed to believe that the financial plans of that statesman were designed to enslave the people, and that the rights and liberties of the States and of individuals were in danger. On the other hand, Hamilton regarded the national constitution as inadequate in strength to perform its required functions and believed its weakness to be its greatest defect. With this idea Jefferson took issue. He charged his political opponents, and especially Hamilton, with corrupt and anti-republican designs, selfish motives and treacherous intentions, and so was inaugurated that system of personal abuse and vituperation, which has ever been a disgrace to the press and political leaders of this country. Bitter partisan quarrels now prevailed, in which Jefferson and Hamilton were the chief actors. The populace was greatly excited. The Republicans who hated the British intensely, called the Federalists the "British party," and the Federalists called their opponents the "French party." The Jeffersonians hailed with joy the news of the death of the French king, and applauded the declaration of war against England and Holland, forgetting the friendship which the latter had shown for Americans during the struggle for independence.

Amid all this uproar which proceeded from his cabinet, only Washington remained calm. No other American at that day nor since could have remained neutral and guided the ship of state through such breakers of discontent. He was the safe middle water between the dangerous reefs of concentration and State sovereignty.

Had not the Federal party been the victim of many unfortunate circumstances, it would certainly in time have become popular in the nation. It was beyond question Washington's party, and, notwithstanding the false charges of monarchism and British sovereignty, it was patriotic. Had it existed forty or fifty years longer, until that incubus which haunted Jefferson's brain had passed away, and the republic become so firmly established that people would no longer fear British dependency, the Federal party would have been a firmly fixed institution. Had Federal ideas been fully inculcated instead of Jeffersonianism and Calhounism, the rebellion of 1861 would not have occurred; but Aaron Burr murdered Hamilton, the friend of Washington, the bright genius of American politics and the hope of the Federal party, and the Federalists were left without any great leader. When the war of 1812 came, the Federalists were so embittered against the Democrats, then in power, that they became lukewarm and threw so many obstacles in the way of the patriots who were making the second fight for freedom, as to almost confirm the suspicion that they were the friends of Great Britain rather than America. This forever blighted the Federal party.

In the year 1800, Thomas Jefferson was elected the third president of the United States, and the first of Democratic proclivities.

Although the city of Washington, the great American capital, had been laid out on a magnificent scale, in 1791, and George Washington, with masonic ceremonies, laid the corner-stone of the capitol building in 1793, the seat of government was not removed there until the year 1800. The site for the city was a dreary one. At the time when the seat of government was first moved there, only a path, leading through an alder swamp on the line of the present Pennsylvania Avenue, was the way of communication between the president's house and the capitol. For a while, the executive and legislative officers of the government were compelled to suffer many privations. In the fall of 1800, Oliver Wolcott wrote:

"There is one good tavern about forty rods from the capitol, and several houses are built or erecting; but I don't see how the members of congress can possibly secure lodgings, unless they will consent to live like scholars in a college or monks in a monastery, crowded ten or twenty in one house. The only resource for such as wish to live comfortably will be found in Georgetown, three miles distant, over as bad a road in winter as the clay grounds near Hartford.

"... There are, in fact, but few houses in any one place, and most of them are small, miserable huts, which present an awful contrast to the public buildings. The people are poor and, as far as I can judge, live like fishes by eating each other. ... You may look in any direction over an extent of ground nearly as large as the city of New York, without seeing a fence or any object except brick kilns and temporary huts for laborers. ... There is no industry, society or business."

On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated and commenced his first term under favorable auspices. He was then fifty-eight years of age--a tall, bony man, with grizzled sandy hair and rather slovenly dress--a man who practised his Democratic simplicity in all things, and sometimes carried it to extremes. A senator, writing of him in 1802, said:

"The next day after my arrival I visited the president, accompanied by some democratic members. In a few moments after our arrival a tall, high-boned man came into the room. He was dressed, or rather undressed, in an old brown coat, red waistcoat, old corduroy smallclothes, much soiled, woollen hose, and slippers without heels. I thought him a servant, when General Varnum surprised me by announcing it was the president."

In brief, Mr. Jefferson outlined his policy as follows, in a letter to Nathaniel Macon:

"1. Levees are done made away with. 2. The first communication to the next congress will be, like all subsequent ones, by message to which no answer will be expected. 3. The diplomatic establishment in Europe will be reduced to three ministers. 4. The compensation of collectors depends on you (Congress) and not on me. 5. The army is undergoing a chaste reformation. 6. The navy will be reduced to the legal establishment by the last of the month (May, 1801). 7. Agencies in every department will be revised. 8. We shall push you to the uttermost in economizing. 9. A very early recommendation has been given to the postmaster-general to employ no printer, foreigner or Revolutionary Tory in any of his offices."

James Madison was Mr. Jefferson's secretary of state; Henry Dearborn was secretary of war, and Levi Lincoln, attorney-general. Jefferson retained Mr. Adams's secretaries of the treasury and navy, until the following Autumn, when Albert Gallatin, a naturalized foreigner, was appointed to the first named office and Robert Smith to the second. The president early resolved to reward his political friends when he came to "revise" the agencies in every department. Three days after his inauguration, he wrote to Colonel Monroe, "I have firmly refused to follow the counsels of those who have desired the giving of offices to some of the Federalist leaders in order to reconcile. I have given, and will give, only to Republicans, under existing circumstances."

The doctrine, ever since acted upon, that "to the victor belong the spoils," was then practically promulgated from the fountain-head of government patronage; and with a cabinet wholly Democratic, when congress met in December, 1801, and with the minor offices filled with his political friends, Mr. Jefferson began his presidential career of eight years' duration. In his inaugural address he said, "Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Federalists--we are all Republicans."

Vigor and enlightened views marked his course, so that even his political enemies were compelled to confess his foresight and sound judgment in regard to the national policy.

The administration of Jefferson was not marked with perfect peace abroad. Napoleon Bonaparte, the outgrowth of the French revolution, had overthrown monarchy in France and conquered almost all Europe. He was not a Washington, however, and the French people were only exchanging one tyrant for another.

The Algerians, those barbarous North African pirates, had been forcing the Americans to pay tribute. Captain Bainbridge, who commanded the frigate George Washington, for refusing to convey an Algerian ambassador to the court of the sultan at Constantinople, was threatened by the haughty governor with imprisonment.

"You pay me tribute, by which you become my slave, and therefore I have a right to order you as I think proper," said the dey.

Bainbridge was forced to obey the orders of the Barbarian.

[Illustration: Stephen Decatur.]

The Americans resolved to humble the Algerians, and a fleet was sent to Tripoli in 1803. The frigate Philadelphia, while reconnoitering the harbor, struck on a rock and was captured by the Tripolitans, who made her officers prisoners of war and her crew slaves.

Lieutenant Decatur, on February 3, 1804, by a stratagem, got alongside the Philadelphia with seventy-four brave young sailors like himself and carried the ship by the board after a terrible hand-to-hand conflict. The Tripolitans were defeated, and the Philadelphia was burned. The American seamen continued to bombard Tripoli and blockaded their ports, until the terrified Bashaw made a treaty of peace.

While the Americans were winning laurels on the Mediterranean, the infant republic was growing in political and moral strength. During Mr. Jefferson's first term, one State (Ohio) and two Territories (Indiana and Illinois) had been formed out of the great Northwestern Territory. Ohio was organized as an independent territory in the year 1800, and in the fall of 1802, it was admitted into the Union as a State. Long before the Northwestern Territory had been divided into different territories, the present limits of Ohio and Kentucky had already become quite populous. Emigrants like Albert Stevens were pushing out on the frontier and building up a great commonwealth.

About 1802, there was great excitement in the country west of the Alleghany Mountains, in consequence of a violation of the treaty made with Spain in 1795, by the governor of Louisiana in closing the port of New Orleans against American commerce. There was a proposition before congress for taking forcible possession of that region, when it was ascertained that, by a secret treaty, Spain had retroceded Louisiana to France. The United States immediately began negotiations for the purchase of that domain from France. Robert R. Livingston, the American minister at the court of the First Consul, found very little difficulty in making a bargain with Bonaparte, for the latter wanted money and desired to injure England. He sold that magnificent domain, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the present State of Minnesota, and from the Mississippi westward to the Pacific Ocean, for fifteen million dollars. The bargain was made in the spring of 1803, and in the fall the country, and the new domain, which added nine hundred thousand square miles to our territory, was taken possession of by the United States. When the bargain was closed, Bonaparte said:

"This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States, and I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride."

It was the prevailing opinion in the country, that the Spanish inhabitants, who were forming states in the great valley, would not submit to the rule of American government. Aaron Burr, a wily and unscrupulous politician, who, having murdered the noble Hamilton in a duel, was an outcast from society, began scheming for setting up a separate government in the West. Burr was unscrupulous and dishonest and at the same time shrewd. The full extent of his plans were really never known, and the historian is in doubt whether he intended a severance of the Union, or an invasion of Mexico. Herman Blennerhassett, an excellent Irish gentleman, became his ally and suffered ruin with Burr. Burr was arrested and tried, but was found not guilty. His speech in his own defence was so eloquent, that it is said to have melted his enemies to tears, though all believed him guilty. Burr's life was a wreck after that. His fame was blasted, and he was placed beside Benedict Arnold as a traitor to his country.

With the acquisition of Louisiana, there grew up a powerful opposition to Jefferson in the North and East. The idea was disseminated that the purchase was only a scheme to strengthen the south and the southern democracy. Mr. Jefferson came almost to having a wholesome dose of his doctrine of State sovereignty exemplified. A convention of Federalists was called at Boston, in 1804, in which a proposition of secession was made. Fortunately, however, there was too much patriotism in the body for the proposition to carry, and the government was saved.