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

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 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