respondence of Jefferson, may be surprised but convinced of the truth in this particular. We find him at one time the warm admirer and professed friend of Washington, to whom he unbosoms himself with a most abundant show of esteem and regard.* At the same time James Madison had in his possession the written evidence of abuse and want of confidence in the President, a copy of which was carefully preserved by Jefferson.† No doubt exists that Jefferson's honest opinion was, that Washington was an upright, able, and efficient statesman and patriot; this is apparent from many passages in his works. Yet it is evidently as apparent that he used the weapon of defamation without restraint, which all must believe was done in the first instance to render the administration of Washington unpopular; and when, in the second place, we find it continued even to the death of Washington, that it was solely the outpouring of a malevolent temper. In the daylight, his was the open voice of friendship; in the darkness of the night, it was the low and stealthy whisper of enmity and slander. In the cabinet, one of the pillars of the administration of Washington; but from the heights of his "little Olympus," he endeavored to scatter the poison that he hoped would undermine his Administration. He united with the cabinet in the endeavor to put down the "Democratic societies," which Genet had been instrumental in establishing, and which deserved universal odium; yet he thought the denunciation of the Democratic societies "one of the extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the faction of monocrats. It is wonderful, indeed, that the President should have permitted himself to be the organ of such an attack on the freedom of discussion, the freedom of writing, printing, and publishing."§ The reader will remember the offensive character these societies assumed to our Government, and the treatment Genet received, who was the chief instigator of all their disorder and public disturbance, and which so justly excited the indignation not only of the President, but a large part of the community. * Jefferson's Works, vol. iii. p. 330, Letter to the President, June 19, 1796. Jefferson's Works, vol. iii. p. 307, Letter to Madison, Dec. 23, 1794. Ibid., vol. iii. pp. 14, 15, 17, 19, 23, 27, 28, 35, 37, 49, 53, 57, 58, 307; vol. iv. pp. 184-5, Letter to Melish; vol. iii. p. 393, Letter to Colonel Taylor; vol. iv. p. 234, Letter to Dr. Jones. Jefferson's Works, vol. iii. p. 307. The same spirit of duplicity is exhibited towards the wellknown and venerable society of the Cincinnati, the object of which was a friendly affiliation of the war-worn officers of the Revolution, with Washington as their President. It is well known that he prepared the article on the "Cincinnati," for Meusnier, the author of that part of the Encyclopédie Méthodique entitled Economie Politique et Diplomatique,* which he afterwards corrected, under the inspection of La Fayette and Colonel Humphreys, and which he sent to General Washington.† In this paper he not only spoke in the most favorable, respectful, and affectionate manner, but corrected the views Meusnier had inserted, because it contained a philippic against the society. The reader will be surprised to learn, after this, that the most violent philippic ever published against this society was from the pen of Jefferson himself. If the history which he took so much pains to correct (which he had prepared whilst in Paris for Meusnier) be true, the reader can form but one opinion in reference to a totally dissimilar one furnished to Madison. Upon a further inspection into the deceitful character of Jefferson, we find it manifested to a most disgusting extent for mere selfish ends towards the unfortunate Burr, who, it will be remembered, was his competitor for the Presidency, in reference to whom he says, "I had never seen Colonel Burr, until he came as a member to the Senate. His conduct very soon inspired me with distrust; I habitually cautioned. Madison against trusting him too much; I saw afterwards, that under General Washington's and Mr. Adams's administrations, whenever a great military appointment or a diplomatic one was to be made, he came post to Philadelphia to show himself; and, in fact, he was always at market if they had wanted him. He was, indeed, told by Dayton in 1800, that he might be Secretary at War; but this bid was too late; his election as Vice-President was then foreseen. With these impressions of Colonel Burr, there never had been any intimacy between us, and but little association."S These, it will be seen, were the long standing opinions of Jefferson, running back to Washington's first administration. * Jefferson's Works, vol. i. p. 398. + Ibid., vol. ii. p. 62. Ibid., vol. iii. p. 307, Letter to Madison. With what honesty of purpose, then, could he write to this man on the 17th of June, 1807,-"Perhaps, however, some general view of our situation and prospects since you left us, may not be unacceptable; at any rate, it will give me opportunity of recalling myself to your memory, and of evidencing my esteem for you;"* in which letter, after his usual indulgence of taunts against the Administration, he has the boldness to style himself "With great and sincere esteem, dear sir, your friend and servant." But at another time, when Jefferson thought that he had been elected President and Burr Vice-President, whilst he congratulates him on the issue of the contest, he feels the loss sustained in his aid of the new Administration; and evidently alluding to his desire to have placed him in the cabinet, he says, "I had endeavored to compose an Administration whose talents, integrity, names, and disposition, should at once inspire unbounded public confidence, and insure a perfect harmony in the conduct of the public business. I lose from the list, and I am not sure of all the others."† you At a later date, when it appears a letter was received by Judge Breckenridge from Jefferson, reflecting severely upon Burr, he wrote to him again, that it was a forgery, if it contained anything unfriendly or disrespectful; sending him at the same time a press copy, leaving the question of veracity to be decided between it and those who saw the letter. This was the man against whom he habitually cautioned Madison, and of whom he said in 1807,-"Against Burr personally, I never had one hostile sentiment. I never, indeed, thought him an honest, frank-dealing man, but considered him as a crooked gun or other perverted machine, whose aim or shot you could never be sure of."§ Notwithstanding the blemishes so apparent on the character of Jefferson, he has been justly esteemed in some respects a good man, as well as a patriot, and one whose political career was not only remarkable for its decided influence upon the * Jefferson's Works, vol. iii. p. 536. (Whilst Jefferson was Vice-President.) Ibid., vol. iii. p. 445, Letter to Burr, December 15, 1800. Ibid., vol. iii. p. 449. Ibid., vol. iv. p. 74, Letter to Giles. See also Lee's Remarks on the Writings of Jefferson; see Jefferson's Letter to Mazzei, vol. iii. p. 327, highly abusive of the different branches of the Government, and his futile attempt to explain it in his Letter to Madison, vol. iii. p. 362; Letter to Martin Van Buren, 29th of June, 1824, and the remarks of Lee on the Writings of Jefferson, p. 91. Government, but stamping the age in which he lived with the deep and lasting impress of the principles of human liberty and human rights, with which his own mind was so strongly imbued. He retired from office with the warmest applause of a large majority of his fellow-citizens, many of whom were desirous that he should serve another term, but he could not be induced to violate the precedent which had been set by Washington, and he voluntarily retired to the shades and quiet of his mountain-home, devoting his time alternately to the pursuits of philosophy and the cultivation of his farm.* There existed a wide difference between the administrations of Washington and Jefferson; the one was conducted with reference to the firm establishment of the Federal Government which was to receive vigor and efficiency in contradistinction to the weak and inefficient Articles of Confederation, the deficiencies of which were to be supplied by the Constitution. It was necessary that the Government should be administered with sufficient force in its beginning, to give it that dignity and character which would satisfy the public mind that it possessed a self-sustaining power. There were many conflicts between the General and State governments, and the great difficulty in the first stages of its operation, was to define the proper limits to each. The State governments were each jealous of their own prerogatives, and evinced a strong tendency to encroach on the Federal domain. The same tendency would always be suspected (as has always been the case with the General Government) towards the State governments. Washington, placed at the head of the first administration, could not have sustained the Constitution had he yielded to the clamors against it; it was inevitable that he should maintain the Federal doctrine. It will be easily perceived, however, that the tendency to increase the exercise of power, which is almost inseparable from the nature of the Government, was early manifested under the operations of the Constitution. It was the imperi * He received addresses from the legislatures of Vermont, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, the House of Delegates of Virginia, and the Senate of New York, to serve a third term; and from the legislature of Virginia he received a flattering and complimentary address for the model of an Administration conducted on the purest principles of republicanism." The paper was drawn up by Wirt, and passed the House of Delegates by a vote of 116 to 24. ous necessity for proper checks and balances that called into existence the States-right doctrine, and this accretive tendency to power in the Government has sustained it ever since. There is no inconsistency in bestowing a just and due praise upon the administration of Washington, under the circumstances that surrounded him and the exigencies that beset the Government, when first the Ship of State was launched, and at the same time bestowing a like due approval of that policy which afterwards regulated its machinery, tempered the force that first wafted it from shore, and controlled that immense motive power by a scale which the hand of experience had defined. If the principles of the Federal party had continued to be administered, it must be apparent that the rights of the States would soon have been destroyed; and instead of the Federal Government working in unison with those of the States, instead of each moving harmoniously with the other in its respective orbit, a powerful and consolidated empire would be wielding its massive agency in the place of the present well-defined and restricted forms of Federal and State governments. Jefferson's policy was formed more in accordance with the current of popular opinion than Washington's; he placed more confidence in men, more reliance in their capacity for government, as well as in their common integrity. It was in exact accordance with those enlarged ideas of human rights and human liberty, which had signalized his public career, and forms the most conspicuous feature among his political sentiments. It cannot be denied that danger lurks in such policy. Every Government must possess a principle of energy and coercion, a self-sustaining power, else it is liable to be prostrated by the first outbreak of popular feeling. In a republic, where the Government rests entirely on popular opinion, the greater is the danger of sudden downfall and destruction; a slight cause more easily affects the people; the minds of the citizens of a republic are more inflammable than those of a monarchy, especially from slight causes. It should always be remembered by those who seek the favor of the masses that they are playing upon the strongest passion of the mind, the excitement of self-interest; that man has always been prone to think himself oppressed by Government, and ever ready to raise his arm against the authority that is over him; and in a Government like that of the United States, where political power is directly wielded by the peo |