History of the United States During Thomas Jefferson's Administrations (Complete 4 Volumes). Henry Adams

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СКАЧАТЬ than the moderate Federalists in holding their own. Thus these three influences in Massachusetts had nearly reached an equilibrium, and Jefferson was at a loss to understand why the growth of his popularity had been checked. He saw that provincial jealousies were strengthened, and this consequence of isolation he chose to look upon as its cause. Even an ode of the Massachusetts poet Thomas Paine, whose better-known name of Robert Treat Paine recorded the political passions which caused him to petition for the change, served to console Jefferson for the partial defeat of his consolidating schemes. Paine's refrain ran,—

      "Rule, New England! New England rules and saves!"

and this echo of Virginia sentiments in 1798, this shadowy suggestion of a New England Confederacy, jarred on the President's ear. Toward autumn he wrote to his friend Langdon, of New Hampshire:23—

      "Although we have not yet got a majority into the fold of Republicanism in your State, yet one long pull more will effect it. We can hardly doubt that one twelve-month more will give an executive and legislature in that State whose opinions may harmonize with their sister States,—unless it be true, as is sometimes said, that New Hampshire is but a satellite of Massachusetts. In this last State the public sentiment seems to be under some influence additional to that of the clergy and lawyers. I suspect there must be a leaven of State pride at seeing itself deserted by the public opinion, and that their late popular song of 'Rule, New England,' betrays one principle of their present variance from the Union. But I am in hopes they will in time discover that the shortest road to rule is to join the majority."

      The struggle was full of interest; for if Jefferson had never yet failed to break down every opponent, from King George III. to Aaron Burr, the New England oligarchy for near two hundred years were a fatal enemy to every ruler not of their own choice, from King Charles I. to Thomas Jefferson.

      Had the clergy and lawyers, the poets and magistrates of Massachusetts been the only troublesome element with which Jefferson had to deal, the task of the Republican party would have been simple; but virulent as party feeling was in New England during the summer of 1802, a feud broke out in New York which took a darker hue. Vice-President Burr, by his birthday toast to the "Union of honest men" and by his vote on the Judiciary Bill, flung down a challenge to the Virginians which De Witt Clinton, on their behalf, hastened to take up. With a violence that startled uninitiated bystanders, Cheetham in his "American Citizen" flung one charge after another at Burr: first his Judiciary vote; then his birthday toast; then the suppression of a worthless history of the last Administration written by John Wood, another foreign adventurer, whose book Burr bought in order, as Cheetham believed, to curry favor with the New England Federalists; finally, with the rhetorical flourish of an American Junius, Cheetham charged that Burr had tried to steal the Presidency from Jefferson in February, 1801, when the House of Representatives was divided. All the world knew that not Cheetham, but De Witt Clinton thus dragged the Vice-President from his chair, and that not Burr's vices but his influence made his crimes heinous; that behind De Witt Clinton stood the Virginia dynasty, dangling Burr's office in the eyes of the Clinton family, and lavishing honors and money on the Livingstons. All this was as clear to Burr and his friends as though it were embodied in an Act of Congress. No one ever explained why Burr did not drag De Witt Clinton from his ambush and shoot him, as two years later he shot Alexander Hamilton with less provocation. At midsummer the city was startled by the report that John Swartwout the marshal, one of Burr's intimates, had charged Clinton with attacking the Vice-Presidnt from personal and selfish motives; that Clinton had branded Swartwout as a liar, a scoundrel, and a villain; that they had met at Weehawken, where, after lodging two bullets in his opponent, Clinton had flung down his pistol at the sixth shot, swearing that he would have no more to do with the bloody business. Among the stories current was one that Clinton had expressed regret at not having Swartwout's principal before his pistol. Swartwout, wounded as he was, returned directly to Burr's house. In the face of all this provocation, the Vice-President behaved with studied caution and reserve. Never in the history of the United States did so powerful a combination of rival politicians unite to break down a single man as that which arrayed itself against Burr; for as the hostile circle gathered about him, he could plainly see not only Jefferson, Madison, and the whole Virginia legion, with Duane and his "Aurora" at their heels: not only De Witt Clinton and his whole family interest, with Cheetham and his "Watchtower" by their side; but—strangest of companions—Alexander Hamilton himself joining hands with his own bitterest enemies to complete the ring.

Under the influence of these personal hatreds, which raged from the Penobscot to the Potomac, American politics bade fair to become a faction-fight. The President proposed no new legislation; he had come to the end of his economies, and was even beginning to renew expenditures; he had no idea of amending the Constitution or reconstructing the Supreme Court; he thought only of revolutionizing the State governments of New England.24 "The path we have to pursue is so quiet, that we have nothing scarcely to propose to our Legislature,"—so he wrote a few days before Congress was to meet. "If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." The energy of reform was exhausted, the point of departure no longer in sight; the ever-increasing momentum of a governmental system required constant care; and with all this, complications of a new and unexpected kind began, which henceforward caused the chief interest of politics to centre in foreign affairs.

1 Jefferson to Peter Carr, Oct. 25, 1801; Jefferson MSS.

2 Jefferson to M. Dupont, Jan. 18, 1802; Jefferson MSS.

3 Jefferson to Cæsar A. Rodney, April 24, 1802; Jefferson's Writings (Ford), viii. 147.

4 Jefferson to Joel Barlow, May 3, 1802; Works, iv. 437.

5 Life of Benjamin Silliman, i. 90-96.

6 Jefferson to Priestly, March 21, 1801; Works, iv. 373.

7 Jefferson to John Taylor, June 1, 1798; Works, iv. 247.

8 Jefferson to Moses Robinson, March 23, 1801; Works, iv. 379.

9 Jefferson to Gideon Granger, May 3, 1801; Works, iv. 395.

10 Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, Aug. 26, 1801; Works, iv. 406.

11 Jefferson to Pierpont Edwards, July 21, 1801; Jefferson's Writings (Ford), viii. 74.

12 Jefferson to Thomas Paine, March 18, 1801; Works, iv. 370.

13 Randall's Jefferson, ii. 643.

14 Jefferson to Paine, June 5, 1805; Works, iv. 582.

15 Jefferson to W. B. Giles, March 23, 1801; Works, iv. 382.

16 Jefferson to Governor СКАЧАТЬ