was a salt mountain eighty miles long and forty wide composed of solid rock salt without a tree or even a shrub upon it. This fable, and the probability of mammoths being found walking about the new territory at which the President had hinted in his notes - gave a good deal of amusement; and the credulity of a natural philosopher became a favorite topic with critics who were otherwise gravelled for lack of matter. CHAPTER II JEFFERSON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION - 1805-1809 Ο N March 4, 1805, Jefferson stood a second time to take the oath of office as President of the United States. He was then in his sixty-second year, having just completed a term of peaceful and prosperous achievements unparalleled before or since in American history. He had acquired the most valuable territory ever added by treaty to the Union; and yet at the same time, with the surpluses produced by thrifty finance, he had abolished all internal taxes, and had provided for a rapid extinction of the debt; he had maintained neutrality with success, and had brought a great majority of the nation to support his policy. His second Inaugural Address, less ornate than the first, reviewed what had been done. In the transaction of foreign affairs they had cultivated the friendship of all nations, cherishing mutual interests and intercourse on fair and equal terms: "We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations, as with individuals, our interests, soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties." At home they had effected steady reductions of the public debt, and he looked forward to the day when, redemption being finally effected, "the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition among the states, and a corresponding amendment to the constitution, be applied, in time of peace," to internal improvements, while in time of war it would enable the country to meet within the year all its expenses, without encroaching on the rights of future generations by burdening them with the debts of the past. War would then be but a suspension of useful works, and the return to a state of peace would be a return to the progress of improvement. In spite of newspaper calumnies he did not repent of the freedom of the press. It was not, he wrote, "uninteresting to the world, that an experiment should be fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth - whether a government, conducting itself in the true spirit of the constitution, with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness, can be written down by falsehood and defamation." The results, he thought, had amply justified their confidence. The verdict of the country was "honourable to those who had served them, and consolatory to the friend of man, who believes he may be trusted with his own affairs." Of the future he had written with cheerful confidence to a friend soon after his re-election: "The new century opened itself by committing us on a boisterous ocean; but all is now subsiding; peace is smoothing our path at home and abroad; and if we are not wanting in the practice of justice and moderation, our tranquillity and prosperity may be preserved until increasing numbers shall leave us nothing to fear from abroad. Should we be able to preserve this state of public happiness, and to see our citizens, whom we found so divided, rally to their genuine principles, I shall hope yet to enjoy the comfort of that general good will which has been so unfeelingly wrested from me, and to sing at the end of my term the Nunc dimittis Domine, with a satisfaction leaving nothing to desire but the last great audit." But clouds were already blowing up to darken these fair prospects. Dissensions arose in the republican camp. Only two months after his second Inauguration the President remarked with infinite pain on local schisms, which had divided the republican party in Pennsylvania and New York. "The main body of both sections mean well," he wrote, “but their good intentions will produce great public evil." A minority would end in coalition with the Federalists and some compromise of principle; but the administration would pursue its course steadily, knowing nothing of these 'family dissensions.' Among the dissidents the most dangerous was John Randolph of Roanoke, touchy, ambitious, resentful, eloquent, and eccentric. Chosen to manage an impeachment, before the Senate, of Samuel Chase, a Justice of the Supreme Court, for expressing party opinions from the Bench, Randolph had bungled the case badly. When the impeachment failed,1 he blamed Jefferson for a failure which was all his own, and recognising that he had lost his chance of the Presidential nomination Randolph set himself with a few Republican malcontents to embarrass the administration. These rifts in the republican lute might not have mat The acquittal was pronounced on March 1, 1805, by Aaron Burr, who had returned from hiding after his duel (July 11, 1804) with Hamilton, and was still Vice President, though he was about to be succeeded in that office by Clinton. -- tered much but for the situation which was developing abroad. Jefferson had begun his first administration in a world at peace. He began his second in a world at war. In this "battle of the lions and tigers," as Jefferson called it perhaps "sharks and tigers" would have been nearer the mark — the feelings and rights of neutrals counted for little or nothing. For a time, however, relations with England remained friendly; and when Fox succeeded Pitt, in January, 1806, Jefferson's hopes of a good understanding with the British Government rose high.1 But they were soon to be dashed to the ground by Fox's untimely death. In Jefferson's second administration the place of Lincoln, the Attorney-General, who resigned, was filled after some delay by John Breckenridge of Kentucky. Madison and Gallatin were still the mainstays of a Cabinet, whose first task was to settle if possible the boundaries of the Louisiana purchase. Spain had protested against the transfer of the territory to the United States, and steadily refused to admit that she had sold any part of Florida. On this point, after protracted discussions, Talleyrand had written to General Armstrong, the American Minister in Paris, on December 21, 1804, that Florida was not in the cession. Meanwhile Monroe, who had been sent to Madrid, pressed in vain for a settlement. The Spanish Government put him off from month to month, professing perfect indifference as to whether the result was peace or war. Finally in the middle of May, 1805, Monroe demanded his passports and returned to London in disgust, having accomplished nothing. To overcome Spanish obstinacy and secure Florida Jefferson now began to con 1 "An English ascendancy on the ocean," so he wrote to Monroe on May 4, 1806, "is safer for us than that of France." |