Jefferson and his Colleagues, A Chronicle of the Virginia | Page 8

of fruits and
sweetmeats. The wine was the best I ever drank, particularly the
champagne, which was indeed delicious."
It was in the circle of his intimates that Jefferson appeared at his best,
and of all his intimate friends Madison knew best how to evoke the true
Jefferson. To outsiders Madison appeared rather taciturn, but among his
friends he was genial and even lively, amusing all by his ready humor
and flashes of wit. To his changes of mood Jefferson always responded.
Once started Jefferson would talk on and on, in a loose and rambling
fashion, with a great deal of exaggeration and with many vagaries, yet
always scattering much information on a great variety of topics. Here
we may leave him for the moment, in the exhilarating hours following
his inauguration, discoursing with Pinckney, Gallatin, Madison, Burr,
Randolph, Giles, Macon, and many another good Republican, and
evolving the policies of his Administration.

CHAPTER II.
PUTTING THE SHIP ON HER REPUBLICAN TACK
President Jefferson took office in a spirit of exultation which he made
no effort to disguise in his private letters. "The tough sides of our
Argosie," he wrote to John Dickinson, "have been thoroughly tried. Her
strength has stood the waves into which she was steered with a view to
sink her. We shall put her on her Republican tack, and she will now
show by the beauty of her motion the skill of her builders." In him as in
his two intimates, Gallatin and Madison, there was a touch of that
philosophy which colored the thought of reformers on the eve of the
French Revolution, a naive confidence in the perfectability of man and
the essential worthiness of his aspirations. Strike from man the shackles
of despotism and superstition and accord to him a free government, and
he would rise to unsuspected felicity. Republican government was the
strongest government on earth, because it was founded on free will and

imposed the fewest checks on the legitimate desires of men. Only one
thing was wanting to make the American people happy and prosperous,
said the President in his Inaugural Address "a wise and frugal
government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which
shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of
industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor
the bread it has earned." This, he believed, was the sum of good
government; and this was the government which he was determined to
establish. Whether government thus reduced to lowest terms would
prove adequate in a world rent by war, only the future could disclose.
It was only in intimate letters and in converse with Gallatin and
Madison that Jefferson revealed his real purposes. So completely did
Jefferson take these two advisers into his confidence, and so loyal was
their cooperation, that the Government for eight years has been
described as a triumvirate almost as clearly defined as any triumvirate
of Rome. Three more congenial souls certainly have never ruled a
nation, for they were drawn together not merely by agreement on a
common policy but by sympathetic understanding of the fundamental
principles of government. Gallatin and Madison often frequented the
President's House, and there one may see them in imagination and
perhaps catch now and then a fragment of their conversation:
Gallatin: We owe much to geographical position; we have been
fortunate in escaping foreign wars. If we can maintain peaceful
relations with other nations, we can keep down the cost of
administration and avoid all the ills which follow too much
government.
The President: After all, we are chiefly an agricultural people and if we
shape our policy accordingly we shall be much more likely to multiply
and be happy than as if we mimicked an Amsterdam, a Hamburg, or a
city like London.
Madison (quietly): I quite agree with you. We must keep the
government simple and republican, avoiding the corruption which
inevitably prevails in crowded cities.
Gallatin (pursuing his thought): The moment you allow the national
debt to mount, you entail burdens on posterity and augment the
operations of government.
The President (bitterly): The principle of spending money to be paid by

posterity is but swindling futurity on a large scale. That was what
Hamilton --
Gallatin: Just so; and if this administration does not reduce taxes, they
will never be reduced. We must strike at the root of the evil and avert
the danger of multiplying the functions of government. I would repeal
all internal taxes. These pretended tax-preparations,
treasure-preparations, and army-preparations against contingent wars
tend only to encourage wars.
The President (nodding his head in agreement): The discharge of the
debt is vital to the destinies of our government, and for the present we
must make all objects subordinate to this. We must confine our