The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 | Page 4

'a suspected
character.' When Jefferson had felt the pricking of the Federal quills, he
began to think differently of the freedom of the press. Once, in the
safety of private station, he had got off this antithesis: if he had to

choose between a government without newspapers, and newspapers
without a government, he should prefer the latter. But when in his turn
he felt the stings that previously, under his management, had goaded
even Washington out of his self-control, Jefferson could not help
saying that 'a suspension of the press would not more completely
deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned
prostitution to falsehood.'
Before September, 1791, Mr. Jefferson thought that our affairs were
proceeding in a train of unparalleled prosperity, owing to the real
improvements of the Government, and the unbounded confidence
reposed in it by the people. Soon a jealousy of Hamilton came upon
him, and the displeasure of playing a second part: he began to look for
relief in the ranks of the malcontents. He then perceived monarchical
longings in the Administration party, and prophesied corruption,
despotism, and a loss of liberty forever, if they were to be allowed to
interpret the Constitution in their way. Washington was the Atlas
whose broad shoulders bore up the Federalists. Bache, of the Aurora,
with whom Jefferson's word was law, and Freneau, of the Gazette, who
had received from Jefferson a clerkship in the Department of State,
accused the General of a desire to subvert the Constitution: the reserve
of his manners was said to proceed from an affectation of royalty; they
even ventured to charge him with perverting the public money.
Jefferson refused to check these base attacks, and wrote in the same
vein himself in the famous letter to Mazzei. But after the battle had
been fought, he perceived that Washington had a hold stronger than
party feelings on the affections of Americans. It would never do to
leave his name and fame in the custody of Federalists. And so Mr.
Jefferson turned about and denied that he had ever made any charges
against General Washington. On the contrary, he felt certain that
Washington did not harbor one principle of Federalism. He was neither
an Angloman, a monarchist, nor a separatist. Bache he (Jefferson) knew
nothing about; over Freneau he had no control; and the Mazzei letter
had been misprinted and misinterpreted. In spite of his hatred of
England, and his fears lest the English 'form' should be adopted in the
United States, Jefferson, in 1788, had recommended the English form
to Lafayette for the use of France. And in spite of the admiration for

France, which with him and the Democrats was an essential article of
the party faith, he took offence with the French Government because
they sided with Spain in the dispute on the boundary line between
Louisiana and Florida, and proposed to Madison an alliance with
England against France and Spain. But Madison kept him steady. Six
months later he accused John Randolph, who had abandoned the party,
of entertaining the intolerable heresy of a league with England.
Mr. Jefferson once thought it necessary that the United States should
possess a naval force. It would be less dangerous to our liberties than
an army, and a cheaper and more effective weapon of offence. 'The sea
is the field on which we should meet a European enemy.' 'We can
always have a navy as strong as the weaker nations.' And he suggested
that thirty ships, carrying 1,800 guns, and manned by 14,400 men,
would be an adequate force. But the New Englanders, those bitter
Federalists, loved the sea, lived by foreign trade, and wanted a fleet to
protect their merchantmen. Mr. Jefferson's views became modified. He
took a strong dislike to the naval service. He condemned the use of the
navy by the late President, and wished to sell all the public armed
vessels. Finding, however, that the maritime tastes of the nation were
too strong for him, he hit upon the plan of a land navy as the nearest
approximation to no navy at all. Gunboats were to be hauled out of the
water, and kept in drydocks under sheds, in perfect preservation. A
fleet of this kind only needed a corps of horse marines to complete its
efficiency. The Federalists laughed at these 'mummy frigates,' and sang
in a lullaby for Democratic babes this stanza:
'In a cornfield, high and dry, Sat gunboat Number One; Wiggle waggle
went her tail, Pop went her gun.'
The pleasantry is feeble; but the inborn absurdity of this amphibious
scheme was too great even for the Democrats. Mr. Jefferson was forced,
in the teeth of theory, to send a squadron against the Barbary pirates.
He consoled himself by ordering the commodore not to overstep