The federal party, on the other hand, congratulated themselves on this state of policy, and felt secure of the issue. As things were they had the whole corps of the judiciary of their party, and this number of corps greatly increased, and diffused throughout the Union; and what was a minor concern to the party, secured places of distinction and emolument to partizans. These circumstances favoured the continuance of the law. If, however, the triumphant party should attempt to repeal it, they believed it would afford them abundant materials to bring their adversaries into discredit with the people, who would thus have their eyes opened, and see that those who had been advocates for a strict interpretation of the constitution, could be ultra latitudinarian in construing it when it suited their purpose: and that with all their pretended fears of the designs of the federalists and their noisy clamours for the interests of the people, they had only the acquisition of power and office in view. So confident were the federalists of the advantage they would have over their adversaries in this argument, that they actually wished the latter would carry their purpose into execution. They, at all events, hoped they would attempt it, as whether they succeeded or failed, it would furnish them with the same fruitful theme of party reproach, and of making eloquent appeals in behalf of the violated constitution.

It appears by a letter which Mr. Jefferson wrote to his venerable friend John Dickinson on the 19th of December, that he did not then look forward to the repeal of the judiciary law. "My great anxiety," he says, "is at present to avail ourselves of an ascendancy to establish good principles and good practices; to fortify republicanism behind as many barriers as possible, that the outworks may give time to rally and save the citadel, should that be again in danger. On their part they have retired with the judiciary as a strong hold. There the remains of federalism are to be preserved and fed from the treasury, and from that battery all the works of republicanism are to be beaten down and erased. By a fraudulent use of the constitution, which has made judges irremoveable, they have multiplied useless judges merely to strengthen their phalanx.”

It was, however, finally decided by the majority to attempt its repeal, and after a warm and protracted debate of sixteen days it was effected by a vote in the House of Representatives of 59 to 32. In the Senate where parties were more nearly balanced, the repeal had been carried by a single vote.

The other principal acts of this session were the repeal of the internal taxes of every kind: the reduction of the military establishment: and a law for the final extinguishment of the debt, and an alteration in the laws of naturalization so as to reduce the previous residence of a foreigner from fourteen years to five.

On the repeal of the taxes Mr. Jefferson thus speaks in his letter to Mr. Dickinson: "You will, perhaps, have been alarmed, as some have been, at the proposition to abolish the whole of the internal taxes. But it is perfectly safe. They are under a million of dollars, and we can economize the government two or three millions a year. The impost alone gives us ten or eleven millions annually, increasing at a compound ratio of six and two-thirds per cent. per annum, and consequently doubling in ten years. But leaving that increase for contingencies, the present amount will support the government, pay the interest of the public debt, and discharge the principal in fifteen years. If the increase proceeds, and no contingencies demand it, it will pay off the principal in a shorter time. Exactly one half of the public debt, to wit, thirty-seven millions of dollars, is owned in the United States. That capital will then be set afloat, to be employed in rescuing our commerce from the hands of foreigners, or in agriculture, canals, bridges, or other useful enterprises. By suppressing at once the whole internal taxes, we abolish three-fourths of the offices now existing, and spread over the land." It seems scarcely to be doubted that if he had been as ambitious of power or as insincere in his professions of economy as his enemies represented him, he would have sought to continue these taxes, and consequently his means of rewarding friends and adherents, for which he could have been at no loss. for plausible pretexts; and that by the weight of his popularity, and the intrinsic recommendations of the offices themselves, he VOL. II.-15

would have been supported in it by a majority of the nation. He shewed himself, however, throughout his administration, as opposed to executive patronage, in his own case, as when the power was to be wielded by another.

The course taken by the majority of the legislature in the repeal of the judiciary act, did not receive the unanimous support of the republican party. To those who regarded the independence of the judges as a cardinal principle in free governments, the repeal appeared to be contrary to the spirit and meaning of the constitution; as if the judges could be deprived of their office by the abolition of their courts, the provision in the constitution by which they were to hold it "during good behaviour," was rendered nugatory, and the judiciary were virtually rendered dependent on the legislature. Nor were there wanting moderate men in the republican ranks who believed the repeal of this law to be as clear an infraction of the constitution as the sedition law had been. The number of these was, however, too small to produce effect, and their disapprobation, together with the louder voice of the opposition, were drowned in the popular huzzas which were every where heard for the new administration.

One of the favourite political objects of Mr. Jefferson, in common with the whole republican party, was the discharge of the public debt. He believed that in creating a class of men of influence who were interested in supporting the measures of government, more mischief was likely to be done in aiding it to enlarge its powers, than good in assisting to preserve the Union, which he believed could be maintained by no means so effectually as by a mild, economical, and beneficent course of policy. He always supposed that it was the purpose of Alexander Hamilton not to pay off the debt, or even to lessen it, but rather to increase it; and that with this view, he had rendered it so complicated as to make its real state unintelligible to the nation. In truth the leading politicians of both parties had not yet sufficiently learnt to disengage themselves from European notions in policy and government, but unconsciously adopted principles and maxims from that quarter, and especially from

England, which were inapplicable to the peculiar circumstances of the United States; and some of which time had shown to be erroneous every where. Both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Hamilton seemed to have been thus led into a course of false reasoning on this subject. The former, convinced of the ruinous consequences of a large public debt, from the speculations of all best English political writers, and of its tendency to increase after a beginning was once made, deprecated the creation of a national debt here as fraught with the same mischiefs as it produced, and the same dangers it threatened in England. Influenced by these views, the effect of our rapid increase in numbers and wealth, in gradually lightening the public burdens was not sufficiently regarded. If we compare the debt of the United States in the beginning of General Washington's administration with that of England, we find that here the proportion of debt was but twenty dollars to each individual, and of annual interest but one dollar: whereas, in England the proportion of the debt was more than two hundred dollars to each person, and of interest, eight dollars; and moderate as was this comparative burthen, it must, in the nature of things, continually diminish. In Mr. Jefferson's administration the proportion of debt to each individual had already declined to ten dollars. In the year 1830, it was reduced to less than four dollars, and the annual interest to about sixteen cents; though in the intervening time, it had been more than doubled by the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, and the war of 1813. Nor were those calculations of the future better founded, which regarded the public debt as an important cement of the Union; because the proportion of the fundholders always bore an insignificant proportion to the whole number of voters, and that proportion was constantly growing less, even had the debt remained stationary. The support to the government from this class of men was equally overrated by both parties; and therefore it was that as a party, the republicans viewed the funding system with unwarranted fear and apprehension, and the others, the federalists, with extravagant favour and approbation.

Entertaining such views, Mr. Jefferson patriotically lost no

time in adopting measures which would, in a given term, and that not a long one, extinguish the debt; and of simplifying the whole system of finance. With this view, Mr. Gallatin, the secretary of the treasury, in the first year of the administration, had set about providing an adequate sinking fund, by which the debt would be discharged in about fifteen years, and the operation of which every one was able to understand and appreciate. On the 1st of April, 1801, Mr. Jefferson addressed a letter to him on this subject, in which, after approving the secre tary's plan of having one aggregate fund from which every thing was to be paid, he further suggests that all the money in the treasury should form a consolidated mass, from which the whole expenditure should be paid, and should have preference in the following order-1. The interest of the public debt. 2. Such parts of the principal as the creditors had a right to demand. 3. The expenses of the government. 4. Such parts of the debt as the government had the right of paying. To this he proposes that degree of clearness and simplicity in the accounts that every intelligent man in the Union could readily understand them, and detect abuses. "Our predecessors," he remarks, "have endeavoured, by intricacies of system, and shuffling over the investigation from one officer to another, to cover every thing from detection. I hope we shall go in the contrary direction, and that by our honest and judicious reformations, we may be able, within the limits of our time, to bring things back to that simple and intelligible system on which they should have been organized at first." He further proposed a reduction in the officers of the treasury to a keeper of the money, a keeper of accounts, and the head of the department; but this reform, it would seem, was not found advisable, as it was never tried.

On the general pacification of Europe in 1801, it appeared that Spain had ceded Louisiana to France, in pursuance of a wish which had been long entertained by the French government, and as had been several years before predicted. As soon as the fact was certainly known in the United States, which was in the spring of 1802, it filled the whole United States with