Thomas Jefferson, a Character Sketch | Page 9

if congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a
golden image."
He addressed friendly and affectionate letters to Kosciusko and others,
and invited them to be his guests at the White House. Samuel Adams of
Massachusetts had been shamefully abused during the canvas, but he
felt fully compensated by the touching letter from the president.
Thomas Paine was suffering almost the pangs of starvation in Paris,
and Jefferson paid his passage home. Everywhere that it was possible
for Jefferson to extend the helping hand he did so with a delicacy and a
tact, that won him multitudes of friends and stamped him as one of
nature's noblemen.

The new president selected an able cabinet, consisting of James
Madison, Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury;
Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War; Robert Smith, Secretary of the
Navy; Gideon Granger, Postmaster-general; Levi Lincoln, Attorney
General. This household proved a veritable "happy family," all working
together in harmony throughout the two terms, and Jefferson declared
that if he had his work to do over again, he would select the same
advisers without exception.
Although the policy, "to the victors belong the spoils," had not been
formulated at that time, its spirit quickened the body politic. Jefferson's
supporters expected him to turn out a part at least of the Federalists,
who held nearly all the offices, but he refused, on the principle that a
competent and honest office holder should not be removed because of
his political opinions. When he, therefore, made a removal, it was as a
rule, for other and sufficient reasons.
But he did not hesitate to show his dislike of the ceremony that
prevailed around him. He stopped the weekly levee at the White House,
and the system of precedence in force at the present time; also the
appointment of fast and thanksgiving days. He dressed with severe
simplicity and would not permit any attention to be paid him as
president which would be refused him as a private citizen. In some
respects, it must be conceded that this remarkable man carried his
views to an extreme point.
The story, however, that he rode his horse alone to the capitol, and,
tying him to the fence, entered the building, unattended, lacks
confirmation.
Jefferson was re-elected in 1804, by a vote of 162 to 14 for Pinckney,
who carried only two States out of the seventeen.
The administrations of Jefferson were marked not only by many
important national events, but were accompanied by great changes in
the people themselves. Before and for some years after the Revolution,
the majority were content to leave the task of thinking, speaking and
acting to the representatives, first of the crown and then to their

influential neighbors. The property qualification abridged the right to
vote, but the active, hustling nature of the Americans now began to
assert itself. The universal custom of wearing wigs and queues was
given up and men cut their own hair short and insisted that every free
man should have the right to vote.
Jefferson was the founder and head of the new order of things, and of
the republican party, soon to take the name of democratic, which
controlled all the country with the exception of New England.
Our commerce increased enormously, for the leading nations of Europe
were warring with one another; money came in fast and most of the
national debt was paid.
Louisiana with an area exceeding all the rest of the United States, was
bought from France in 1803, for $15,000,000, and from the territory
were afterward carved the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri,
Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Oklahoma, the Indian
Territory and most of the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and
Wyoming.
The upper Missouri River and the Columbia River country to the
Pacific Ocean were explored in 1804-6, by Lewis and Clarke, the first
party of white men to cross the continent north of Mexico. Ohio was
admitted to the Union in 1802. Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont made
her maiden trip from New York to Albany in 1807. The first boatload
of anthracite coal was shipped to Philadelphia, and it was a long time
before the people knew what to do with it.
The Tripolitan Pirates were snuffed out (1801-1805). The blight of the
Embargo Act settled upon our commerce in 1807, in which year the
opening gun of the War of 1812 was fired when the Leopard outraged
the Chesapeake.
The Embargo Act was a grievous mistake of Jefferson, though its
purpose was commendable. Under the plea of securing our ships
against capture, its real object was to deprive England and France of the
commodities which could be secured only in the United States. This

measure might have been endurable for an agricultural people, but it
could not be borne