The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 | Page 8

deny that Jefferson was a monster of party tactics and
strategy. He knew well how to get up a cry, to excite the odium vulgare
against his antagonists, to play skilfully upon the class feeling of poor
against rich, and to turn to profit every popular weakness and meanness.
He drilled and organized his followers, and led them well disciplined to

victory. But on the grander field of statesmanship he was wanting. He
was what Bonaparte called an ideologist. A principle, however true,
may fail in its application, because other principles, equally true, may
then come into action and vitiate the result. These collateral principles
Jefferson never deigned to consider. He had no conception of
expediency, of which a wise statesman never loses sight. Results he
thought must be advantageous, provided processes were according to
his principles. His object appears to have been rather a government
after his theories than a good government. And in this respect he is the
type of the impracticable and mischief-making class of reformers
numerous in this country.
Jefferson seems to have been unable to grasp the real political character
of the American people, the path they were destined to tread, the shape
their institutions must necessarily take. He was possessed with the idea
that liberty was in danger, and that the attempt was made to change the
republic into a monarchy, perhaps a despotism. This delirious fancy
beset him by day and was a terror by night. He was haunted by the
likeness of a kingly crown. Hamilton and Adams were writing and
planning to place it upon somebody's head. Federalist senators,
congressmen, Revolutionary soldiers, were transformed into
monarchists and Anglomen. Grave judges appeared to his distempered
vision in the guise of court lawyers and would-be ambassadors. The
Cincinnati lowered over the Constitution eternally. The Supreme Court
of the United States was the stronghold in which the principle of
tyrannical power, elsewhere only militant, was triumphant. Hamilton's
funding system was a scheme to corrupt the country. Even the stately
form of Washington rose before him in the shape of Samson shorn by
the harlot England. Strange as it may seem, Jefferson persisted in his
delusion to the end. A man in his position ought to have seen that in
spite of the old connection with the British crown, the States were and
always had been essentially republican in feelings, manners, and forms.
Nowhere in the world had local self-government been carried to such
extent and perfection. To build up a monarchy out of the thirteen
colonies was impracticable. Washington, more clear sighted, said that
any government but a republic was impossible: there were not ten men
in the United States whose opinions were worth attention who

entertained the thought of a monarchy. In his judgment the danger lay
in the other direction. The weakness of the Government, not its strength,
might lead to despotism through license and anarchy. He desired to
keep the rising tide of democracy within bounds by every legitimate
barrier that could be erected, lest it should overflow the country and
sweep away all government. Jefferson was for throwing open the
floodgates to admit it. He thought himself justified in combating the
monarchists of his hallucinations by every means, however illegal and
unconstitutional. Washington warned him and his followers that they
were 'systematically pursuing measures which must eventually dissolve
the Union or produce coercion.' Jefferson, deaf to the admonition,
pressed on, and, like Diomede at the siege of Troy, wounded a divinity
when he thought he was contending only with fellow men. With his
Kentucky Resolutions he gave the first stab to the Union and the
Constitution. What were Burr's childish schemes, which would have
fallen to the ground from their own weakness, compared with that?
From Jefferson through Calhoun to Jefferson Davis the diabolic
succession of conspirators is complete.

THE ENGLISH PRESS.
II.
It has become the fashion to sneer at the Long Parliament: but for all
this it cannot be denied that that assemblage rendered services of
incalculable importance to the state. Extreme old age forms at all times
an object of pity, and, with the thoughtless and inconsiderate, it is but
too often an object of ridicule and contempt. Many a great man has, ere
now, survived to reach this sad stage in his career; but it does not
therefore follow that the glorious deeds of his prime are to be ignored
or forgotten. As it has been with the distinguished warrior or statesman
or author, so it is with the Long Parliament. England owes it a great
debt of gratitude on many accounts, but the one with which we have
more especially to do on the present occasion is, that with it originated
the custom of making public proceedings in Parliament. By this act was
the supremacy of