HAMILTON'S MOURNFUL PREDICTION. 239 States has sacrificed or done more for the present constitution than myself, and, contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know from the very beginning, I am still labouring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes for my reward. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me.' Hamilton was more afflicted than surprised at this triumph of the democratic party. In his eyes the natural play of American institutions must necessarily cast up into power those who were likely to make it subservient to the passions of the multitude. He had never believed in the success of the great experiment yet under trial in his adopted country. Never yet had a democratic republic been attempted on so vast a scale. It seemed to him also impossible that the various populations of this immense empire could simultaneously pursue the course prescribed by reason; and, in the absence of any permanent power, of any authority independent of popular caprice, that the government could discharge its functions and retain sufficient strength to resist its masters, to protect them from their own evil inclinations, to prevent their dividing, quarrelling, fighting; in a word, to save North America from that scourge which has become the chronic malady of South America social war within its states, and civil war between them. The danger was evidently not so great nor the calamity so imminent as Hamilton * Hamilton's Works, vol. vi. p. 530; Letter to Gouverneur Morris, Feb. 27, 1802. [Hamilton was right. It was in England that his great qualities and talents would have obtained their brilliant and just reward. He loved her as the great exemplar of political and civil liberty. Time has shown how well and wisely he bestowed his love.] 240 BITTER REPLY OF THE PORTUGUESE MINISTER. fancied; his melancholy predictions as to the fate of the American constitution have not been realized. The democratic republic of North America has found an element of stability precisely in that division of the country into distinct states, and in that gigantic extent of its territory, which so much alarmed some of its founders. But was Hamilton wrong in doubting the duration of his own work? The future will one day say.* Jefferson himself at times threw an uneasy glance into the distance. He who boasted, if not of having effected, at least of having desired, the pacific revolution of 1801, which had given free vent to the instincts of the country, one day complained to M. Correa de Serra, the Portuguese Minister to the United States, of the resistless force of the democratic torrent, which no dyke was now strong enough to confine. • What a pity you did not stop up the gap by which you passed!' was the ironical reply. *[The future has replied with fearful promptness. Since this work was published (1861) Hamilton's predictions have been verified. The Federal Union is in ruins! The work of Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay and Madison is broken asunder, and smeared and smoking with blood!] CHAPTER IX. 1801-1805. I JEFFERSON'S FIRST PRESIDENCY -INTENDS TO BE VERY CON CILIATORY REMOVALS FROM OFFICE ON A LARGE SCALE DISCONTINUANCE OF INTERNAL TAXATION; REDUCTION OF ARMY AND NAVY PRO HAMILTON IS KILLED IN A DUEL BY COLONEL BURR JEFFERSON IS RE-ELECTED BY AN 6 AM well,' said Washington, towards the close of his life, because I sleep well, and I sleep well because I have never written a line without figuring to myself that I saw it in print.' Jefferson was not quite so circumspect. He had a great fear of the public, but he persuaded himself a little too easily that he could screen himself from its observation. As long as he felt he was under the superintendence of public opinion, he wrote and talked with an infinity of reason, ability, and moderation, but when he fancied himself well concealed from observation, when he had urgently pressed on his correspondents the necessity of secresy, he gave vent to his imagination and passion in language singularly indiscreet. He recklessly threw upon paper whatever came into his head, without much respect for the in telligence of his readers, and without much care about R 242 FEDERALIST DISTRUST OF JEFFERSON. the effect of his words; his friends passed them on in a whisper, the one to the other; in the end his adversaries got wind of them, and Jefferson was then highly indignant at finding the Federalists citing against him some of his secret crotchets, taking his theories in earnest, and confounding them with his policy. He insisted on being judged by his acts only. It was no doubt unquestionably true that it had occurred to him to lay down as a principle that the state might lawfully declare itself bankrupt every nineteen years, and to affirm that, like the Chinese, the Americans should shut themselves up at home, and abstain from maritime. commerce; true it was too he had pushed his partiality for France so far as to excuse the massacres of September, and his hatred for Great Britain to such a point as to desire the rupture of all commercial ties between her and the United States.* But then he had never opposed the payment of the national debt; he had often supported in Paris, as well as in Philadelphia, the interests of American navigation; he had always faithfully carried out the neutral policy under Washington, and he had never caused anyone to be massacred. But all this did not at all remove the fears of the Federalists; and when a majority of the nation indicated Jefferson for the Presidency, they shuddered at the idea of the government of the country passing into the hands of a fanatical visionary, the advocate of bankruptcy, the enemy of commerce, a mad admirer of the French, a bitter enemy of England, and a Jacobin. A little fact, which Jefferson himself tells us of, shows plainly enough how sincere their objections to him were. * [Even the conquest of England by the French was, as we have seen, one of his agreeable speculations.] INTERVIEW BETWEEN ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. 243 It occurred in the month of February 1801. The House of Representatives were still determining which of the two candidates for the Presidency should be selected. The Federalists, by their persisting to support Burr, made it impossible to come to a decision, and were thinking, so it is said, of conferring the power on a temporary president of the senate in the event of their being able to prevent a regular election. Jefferson, in consequence, paid a visit to President Adams to beseech him to oppose his veto to an act of usurpation which might lead to civil war. Adams received him very ungraciously: 'Sir,' he said with vehemence, 'the event of the election is within your own power. You have only to say that you will do justice to the public creditors, maintain the navy, and not disturb those holding offices, and the government will be instantly put into your hands.'' Mr. Adams,' said I, 'I know not what part of my conduct, in either private or public life, can have authorized a doubt of my fidelity to the public engagements. I say, however, I will not come into the government by capitulation; I will not enter on it but in perfect freedom to follow the dictates of my own judgement.' "Then,' said he, things must take their course.'* And they parted in anger- Jefferson enraged because the President refused to understand his hint, John Adams indignant at not having received a formal promise. Even after finding that they could no longer, without losing themselves in the opinion of their own party, prolong their resistance to the wish of the nation, the Federal representatives would not surrender without giving Jefferson a last mark of their implacable Jefferson's Works, vol. v. p. 561; Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, January 16, 1801. |