The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 | Page 7

means he employed to reach his object.
The same envious vanity and inability to resist his feelings which
warped his judgment into so many contradictions, led him into actions
that have damaged his character as a gentleman. For instance, his
behavior to Washington. When a member of Washington's cabinet,
protesting the warmest friendship to him, his confidential adviser by
virtue of the office he held, he permitted, not to say encouraged, those
attacks in Freneau's paper which were outrages on common decency.
His intimacy with the President enabled him to judge of the effect of

the blows. He noticed, with the cool precision of an experimental
observer, the symptoms of pain and annoyance which Washington
could not always conceal. Freneau was Jefferson's clerk; a word would
have stopped him. 'But I will not do it,' Jefferson says; 'his paper has
saved our Constitution, which was galloping forth into monarchy.'
Jefferson's underhand attack upon Vice-President Adams, in the note he
wrote by way of preface to the American publisher of Paine's 'Rights of
Man,' is a domestic treachery of the same kind, though very much less
in degree. That note might have been written on the impulse of the
moment; but what shall we say of his practice of committing to paper
Hamilton's sayings in the freedom of after-dinner conversation--a time
when open-hearted men are apt to forget that there may be a Judas at
table--and of saving them up to be used against him in the future?
Jefferson explains away these and other dubious passages in his life
with great ingenuity. He had to make such explanations too often. An
apology implies a mistake, wilful or accidental. Too many indicate, to
say the least, a lack of discretion. What a difference between these
explanations, evasions, excuses, denials, and the majestic manliness of
Washington, who never did or wrote or said anything which he
hesitated to avow openly and without qualification!
Another dissimilarity between these two worth heeding, is Jefferson's
want of that thrift which produces independence, comfort, and
self-respect. He lived beyond his means, and died literally a beggar.
Jefferson was deficient in that happy combination of courage, energy,
judgment, and probity, which mankind call character, for want of a
more distinctive word--but which, in fact, in its highest expression, is
genius on the moral side. It commands the respect of mankind more
than the most brilliant faculties--and it accomplishes more. We have
only to look at Washington's life to see what can be done by it.
When Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson
showed a want of spirit and of action; the same deficiency was more
painfully conspicuous in his dealings with the Barbary pirates and in
the affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake. The insults and spoliations of
the English and French under the orders in council and the Berlin and

Milan decrees were borne with equal meekness. He was for peace at all
hazards, and economy at any price. When at last he found he had
exhausted his favorite method, and that neither 'time, reason, justice,
nor a truer sense of their own interests' produced any effect upon the
obstinate aggressors, he could desire no better means of checking their
depredations upon our trade than to order our merchants to lay up their
ships and shut up their shops. It was a Japanese stroke of policy--to
revenge an insult by disembowelling oneself--hari kari applied to a
nation.
His was indeed a brilliant theory of government, if we take him at his
word. At home, freedom was to be invigorated by occasional rebellions,
not to be put down too sharply, for fear of discouraging the people--the
tree of liberty was to be watered with blood. Abroad, custom-house
regulations would keep the peace of the seas. Embargo and
non-intercourse must bring France and England to their good behavior.
Mr. Jefferson had his political panacea: all disorders would infallibly
be cured by it. He puffed it in his journals and extolled its virtues in his
state papers. He congratulated his countrymen upon his election; he
called it the revolution of 1800. Now at length they could try the
panacea. What wonders did it work? The Federalists can point to the
results of their twelve years of power: credit created out of bankruptcy;
prosperity out of union; a great nation made out of thirteen small
ones--an achievement far beyond that Themistocles could boast of.
Jefferson added the Louisiana Territory to the Union; but this, the only
solid result of his Administration, was totally inconsistent with his
principles. Did he render any other service to the country? We know of
none. His 'Quaker' theories and 'terrapin' policy increased the contempt
of our enemies, cost the nation millions of money to no purpose, and
made the war of 1812 inevitable.
No one can