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CHAPTER XII.

THE new administration, under John Adams, commenced on the 4th of March, 1797.

Mr Jefferson arrived at the seat of government on the 2d of March. Though there was no necessity for his attendance, he had determined to come on, from a principle of respect to the public and the new president. He had taken the precaution, however, to manifest his disapprobation of the forms and ceremonies, established at the first inauguration, by declining all participation in the homage of the occasion. As soon as he was certified by the public papers of the event of the election, he addressed a letter to Mr Tazewell, senator of Virginia, expressing his particular desire to dispense with the formality of notification by a special messenger. At the first election of president and vice president, gentlemen of considerable distinction were deputed to notify the parties chosen; and it was made an office of much dignity. But this expensive formality was as unnecessary as it was repugnant to the genius of our government; and he was anxious that the precedent should not be drawn into custom. He therefore authorized Mr Tazewell to request the senate, if not incompatible with their views of propriety, to discontinue the practice in relation to himself, and to adopt the channel of the post, as the least troublesome, the most rapid, and by the use of duplicates and triplicates, always capable of being rendered the most certain. He

addressed another letter at the same time to Mr Madison, requesting him to discountenance in his behalf, all parade of reception, induction, &c.

There was another point, involving an important constitutional principle, on which Mr Jefferson improved the occasion of his election to introduce a salutary reformation in the practice of the government. During the previous administration, the vice president was made a member of the cabinet, and occasionally participated in the executive consultations, equally with the members of the cabinet proper. This practice he regarded as a combination of legislative with executive powers, which the constitution had wisely separated. He availed himself, therefore, of the first opening from a friendly quarter, to announce his determination to consider the office of vice president as legitimately confined to legislative functions, and to sustain no part whatever in the executive consultations. In a letter to Mr Madison, dated Monticello, January 22, 1797, he says: 'My letters inform me that Mr Adams speaks of me with great friendship, and with satisfaction in the prospect of administering the government in concurrence with me. I am glad of the first information, because, though I saw that our ancient friendship was affected by a little leaven, produced partly by his constitution, partly by the contrivance of others, yet I never felt a diminution of confidence in his integrity, and retained a solid affection for him. His principles of government I knew to be changed, but conscientiously changed. As to my participation in the administration, if by that he meant. the executive cabinet, both duty and inclination will shut that door to me. As to duty, the constitution will know me only as the member of a legislative body; and its principle is, that of a separation of legislative, executive, and judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, yet it is clearly the spirit of the constitution, and it

ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend to free government.'

In the first moments of the enthusiasm of the inauguration, Mr Adams forgot party sentiments, and indicated a disposition to harmonize with the republican body of his fellow citizens. He called upon Mr Jefferson on the 3d of March, and expressed great pleasure at finding him alone, as he wished a free conversation with him. He entered immediately on an explanation of the situation of our affairs with France, and the danger of a rupture with that nation; that he was impressed with the necessity of an immediate mission to the directory; that it would have been the first wish of his heart to have got Mr Jefferson to go there, but that he supposed it was now out of the question. That he had determined on sending an embassy, which by its dignity should satisfy France, and by its selection from the three great divisions of the continent, should satisfy all parts of the United States; in short, that he determined to join Madison and Gerry to Pinckney, and he wished Mr Jefferson to consult Madison in his behalf. He did so, but Mr Madison declined, as was expected. After that he never said a word to Mr Jefferson on the subject, nor ever consulted him as to any measures of the administration.

From the warmth with which Mr Jefferson embarked in opposition to the administration, it might be inferred that he permitted his political feelings to influence him in the discharge of his official duties. But this was not the case. He presided over the senate with dignity, and, although it was composed for the most part of his political enemies, with an impartiality, which the rancor of the times never attempted to impeach. How attentive he was to the duties of his station, and how accurately he understood the rules of parliamentary order, is attested by his 'MANUAL,' a work which he at this

time published, and which has ever since been the guide of both houses of Congress.

Soon after the election of Mr Adams, the political contest for his successor was renewed with increased vehemence. Mr Jefferson was again, with one accord, selected as the republican candidate for the presidency, and Aaron Burr of New York, for the office of Vice President. With equal unanimity, John Adams, the incumbent, and Charles C. Pinkney of South Carolina, were designated as the candidates of the federal party.

It would be tedious to describe the opposition offered to Mr Jefferson. The press cast the strongest reflections upon his political principles, and in some instances the pulpit was made the organ of party. The strife which then raged was of a nature, the vehemence of which has seldom been equalled. Mr Jefferson was accused of having betrayed his native State into the hands of the enemy on two occasions while at the head of the government, by a cowardly abandonment of Richmond on the sudden invasion of Arnold, and subsequently, by an ignominious flight from Monticello on the approach of Tarlton, with circumstances of such panic and precipitation as to occasion a fall from his horse, and the dislocation of his shoulder. He was charged with being the libeller of Washington, and the retainer of mercenary libellers to blast the reputation of the father of his country. He was accused of implacable hostility to the constitution, of employing foreign scribblers to write it down; and of aiming at the annihilation of all law, order, and government, and the introduction of general anarchy and licentiousness. He was characterized as an atheist, and the patron of French atheists, whom he encouraged to migrate to this country; as a demagogue and disorganizer, industriously sapping the foundations of religion and virtue, and paving the way for the establishment of a legalized system of infidelity and libertinism. Decency would revolt were we to pursue the

catalogue into that region of invective, which was employed to vilify his private character, and which abounded in fabrications that have been the theme of infinite ridand verse.

icule, in prose

While the madness of party was thus raging, and attempting to despoil him of his reputation, Mr Jefferson remained a passive spectator of the scene. Supported by a consciousness of his innocence, he surveyed, with composure, the tempest of detraction which was howling around him. His confidence in the justice of public opinion was stronger than his sensibility under its temporary reproaches, and he quietly submitted to the licentiousness of the press, as an alloy which was inseparable from the boon of its freedom. Besides, he felt an animating pride in being made the subject of the first great experiment in the world, which was to test the soundness of his favorite principle, 'that freedom of discussion, unaided by power, was sufficient for the protection and propagation of truth.' Although frequently solicited by his friends, he never would descend to a newspaper refutation of calumny; and he never, in any instance, appealed to the retribution of the laws. 'I know,' he wrote to a friend in Connecticut, that I might have filled the courts of the United States with actions for these slanders, and have ruined, perhaps, many persons who are not innocent. But this would be no equivalent for the loss of character. I leave them, therefore, to the reproof of their own consciences. If these do not condemn them, there will yet come a day when the false witness will meet a judge who has not slept over his slanders. If the Rev. Cotton Mather Smith, of Shena, believed this as firmly as I do, he would surely never have affirmed that I had obtained my property by fraud and robbery; that in one instance I had defrauded and robbed a widow and fatherless children of an estate to which I was executor, of ten thousand pounds sterling, by keeping the property and paying them in money at

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