of the Hartford convention. An attack upon the war policy of an Administration is an attack against the strongest national passion. No issue can be made more popular than that of war, when an adequate cause is involved; and especially is this true when the war is against a foreign nation. The mere criticism of the prosecution of a war is resented by the people. Every political party in this country has learned this fact, and many leaders have felt it.

convention was the Its conspicuous blun

Its general effect. The Hartford death sentence of the Federalist party. ders in the opposition to the extension of our boundary line in the purchase of Louisiana, its flirtation with Burr, its inconsistent opposition to the embargo legislation, its opposition to the war and finally the Hartford convention, were marked symptoms of speedy dissolution. The election of 1816 gave Monroe every State except Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware, and the election of 1820 the vote of every State except the single ballot of Plumer, of New Hampshire, who questioned Monroe's fitness.

We shall see in the next chapter that the elimination of party lines did not eliminate political theory.

CHAPTER III

THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE REPRESENTATIVE OF LIBERTY IN GOVERNMENT

The philosophy of Jefferson. Leadership comprehends many talents. Not infrequently the strongest, at least the most pronounced, element, is personality. This, as a factor of leadership is not abiding. It is as spasmodic as its duration is brief. It must be reinforced by a sane theory in the advocacy of which the personality may be employed. The leadership of Jefferson must be viewed in the light of his political theories. The one dominant note in his philosophy is liberty. This word comprehends most nearly his philosophy. Its realization was his ambition, its embodiment in legal enactment, his career.

Perhaps he was less positive in his nature than negative. This was due to his well defined fears of the normal tendencies of power to deny needful freedom. There is a clear note in most of his sayings which reveals a distrust. He fears not the people as he does the government. This is due to the nature of government, which seemed in a degree to be incompatible with the exercise of requisite liberty. This fear colored most of his utterances.

Sources of his philosophy. His was the freedom of the hills, of the expanse of country, of the open sky. He loved the country as distinguished from the city. He urged the pursuit of agriculture as against manufacturing. He expressed a hope that our people would remain tillers of the soil. He would

be glad to see the workshops remain in Europe. He thoroughly believed that "cultivators of the earth make the best citizens." He declared them to be the most vigorous, the most virtuous, and the most independent, since "they were tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds." He declared to John Jay that "artificers were panderers of vice and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overthrown." In referring to the scourge of yellow fever he thought its presence providential as the disseminator of the people into the rural regions, away from the great cities, which were breeders of immorality and dangers to the health and liberties of the people. The necessary restraint which pertains to the city was an evil in the degree that it denied certain enjoyment of liberty in the occupant, and in that degree prevented a healthful growth of the citizen.

Forms of its expression. The intensely practical citizen of his country can not understand why the great Democrat would choose as his residence a small mountain at least six hundred feet above the surrounding country. It appeals to his practical sense as a great inconvenience in location, which it was. However, its outlook far outweighed the inconvenience of approach, to the citizen whose very breath was freedom. Here his view was disturbed only by the distant Blue Ridge nearly fifty miles away. It was an ideal spot for the reveries of the apostle of liberty.

The growth of the commercial spirit in New England at first induced him to pity the Yankee and later to dislike him quite generally. In advising a friend on the education of his child, he urged a Southern college, such as that at Columbia, South Carolina, rather than a New England institution, upon the grounds of fears of distorted views of life so prevalent in that section.

An early experience with arbitrary rule. His experience induced a spirit of fear of governmental restraint and very

naturally accentuated the importance of the largest expression of liberty in the citizen. As he viewed it there was nothing to fear from the people of agricultural Virginia, but much from the intrusions of royal governors in their midst. This belief was intensified by an accident in his career as a legislator. He took his seat as a member of the Virginia legislature in 1769 with Washington. On the third day of the session four resolutions were adopted, declaring against taxation without representation, the transportation act, urging co-operation of the colonies for redress of grievances, and a formal remonstrance to the King. On the fifth day the royal governor dissolved the legislature. That the sovereign will of the people of a colony could be set aside at the caprice of a foreign governor, who knew but little of the truest interests of that people and seemed to care less, was incompatible with the character of this people. Here he received one of the earliest impressions of the evils of arbitrary government.

A change in his admiration. Although by cultivation and education Jefferson was an admirer of the English government he was easily stirred at the sight of any symptom of arbitrary rule. As a law student at Williamsburg he followed Patrick Henry to the old court-house where Henry was destined in a single speech to set the Old Dominion all agog with excitement. Young Jefferson standing in the doorway of the crowded house was thrilled by the voice of the orator as he poured forth torrents of eloquence in opposition to the Stamp Act. The march of events was so rapid that in a single decade he had passed from an ardent admirer of the English system to its chief prosecutor, who drew up the indictment of George III for his crimes against his people.

Jefferson as a public servant. His public career stretched over sixty-one years, thirty-nine of which he actually spent in office. His public services comprehended those of legislator in the House of Burgesses, in the Continental Congress, in the Virginia Assembly, and in Congress under the old confedera