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

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 the strict line of defence, and to make no captures. It was to be a display of latent force. Strange as it may seem, he once