Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

so as to apply only to England and France. Jefferson consented reluctantly even to this degree of pressure, but he wrote,

[graphic][merged small]

looking back upon the affair in 1816, "I felt the foundations of the government shaken under my feet by the New England township;" and he always urged thenceforward that the town.

system organized the voice of the people in a way with which no unwieldy county organization, such as prevailed at the South, could compete. Yet all but the commercial States sustained the embargo, and the Federalist party was left a broken and hopeless minority. Jefferson remained strong in popularity. His second time had secured a triumphant end to the long contest with Tripoli, whose insolent claims were checked by the successes of Decatur, and by a treaty (1805). An act had also been passed forever prohibiting the African slave-trade after January 1, 1808. Jefferson was urged to become for a third time a candidate for the Presidency, but wisely declined in favor of his friend Madison. In the election of 1808, James Madison, of Virginia, had 122 votes, C. C. Pinckney 47, and George Clinton 6, Mr. Madison being therefore elected; while on the vote for Vice-president George Clinton had a smaller majority. The third Chief Magistrate of the United States thus retired to private life after a career which has influenced American institutions to this day more profoundly than that of any other President.

Jefferson was a man full of thoughts and of studious purposes; trustful of the people, distrustful of the few; a generous friend, but a vehement and unscrupulous foe; not so much. deliberately false as without a clear sense of truth; courageous for peace, but shrinking and vacillating in view of war; ignorant of his own limitations; as self-confident in financial and commercial matters, of which he knew little, as in respect to the principles of republican government, about which he showed more foresight than any man of his time. He may have underrated the dangers to which the nation might be exposed from ignorance and vice, but he never yielded, on the other hand, to the cowardice of culture; he never relaxed his faith in the permanence of popular government or in the high destiny of man.

Meanwhile John Adams, on his farm in Quincy, had been superintending his haymakers with something as near to peace

of mind as a deposed President can be expected to attain. He was not a person of eminent humility, nor is it usually agreeable to a public man when his correspondence ceases to be counted by the thousand, and his letters shrink to two a week. His high-minded wife, more cordially accepting the situation, wrote with sincere satisfaction of skimming milk in her dairy at five o'clock in the morning. Each had perhaps something to say, when Jefferson was mentioned, about “Cæsar with a Senate at his heels," but it did not prevent the old friendship with Cæsar from reviving in later life. Jefferson had written to Washington long before, that even Adams's "apostasy to hereditary monarchy and nobility" had not alienated them; Adams saw in Jefferson, as time went on, the friend and even political adviser of his own son. Old antagonisms faded; old associations grew stronger; and the two aged men floated on, like two ships becalmed at nightfall, that drift together into port, and cast anchor side by side.

XV.

THE SECOND War for indePÈNDENCE.

EFFERSON'S period of office lasted technically for eight

JH

years, but it is not wholly incorrect to estimate, as Mr. Parton suggests, that it endured for nearly a quarter of a century. Madison's and Monroe's administrations were but the continuation of it. The fourth and fifth Presidents had, indeed, so much in common that it was about an even chance which should take the Presidency first. Both had long been friends. of Jefferson; both had something to do with reconciling him to the United States Constitution, which he had at first opposed. He himself would have rather preferred Monroe for his immediate successor, but the Legislature of Virginia pronounced in favor of Madison, who, like the two others, was a native of that then powerful State. It really made little difference which preceded. Josiah Quincy, in a famous speech, designated them simply as James I. and James II. The two were alike Jeffersonian; their administrations moved professedly in the line indicated by their predecessor, and the success of his policy must be tested in a degree by that of theirs. Both inherited something of his unpopularity with the Federalists, but Madison partially lived it down, and Monroe saw nearly the extinction of it. The Jeffersonian policy may, therefore, fairly be judged, not alone by its early storms, but by the calm which at last followed.

James Madison had been Secretary of State for eight years under Jefferson, and had not only borne his share carlier than

this in public affairs, but had furnished a plan which formed the basis of the Constitution, and had afterwards aided Hamilton and Jay in writing The Federalist in support of it. For these reasons, and because he was the last survivor of those who signed the great act of national organization, he was called, before his death, "The Father of the Constitution." He was a man of clear head, modest manners, and peaceful disposition. His bitter political opponents admitted that he was honorable, well informed, and even, in his own way, patriotic; not mean or malignant. As to his appearance, he is described by one of these opponents, William Sullivan, as one who had “a calm expression, a penetrating blue eye, and who looked like a thinking man." In figure, he was small and rather stout; he was partially bald, wore powder in his hair, and dressed in black, without any of Jefferson's slovenliness. In speech he was slow and grave. Mrs. Madison was a pleasing woman, twenty years younger than himself, and they had no children.

Their arrival brought an immediate change in the manners of the President's house; they were both fond of society and ceremony, and though the new President claimed to be the most faithful of Jeffersonians, he found no difficulty in restoring the formal receptions which his predecessor had disused. These levees were held in what a British observer of that day called the "President's palace," a building which the same observer (Gleig) afterwards described as "small, incommodious, and plain," although its walls were the same with those of the present White House, only the interior having been burned by the British in the war soon to be described. Such as it was, it was thrown open at these levees, which every one was free to attend, while music played, and the costumes of foreign ambassadors gave, as now, some gayety to the scene. Mrs. Madison, according to a keen observer, Mrs. Quincy, wore on these occasions her carriage dress, the same in which she appeared on Sunday at the Capitol, where religious services were then held-" a pur.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »