Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/16

4 policy which contradicted the famous sentiment of Jefferson's first annual message: "Sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not perhaps happen but from the temptations offered by that treasure." Yet pregnant as this new principle might be in connection with the Constitution and the Union, its bearing on foreign affairs was more startling. Jefferson, the apostle of peace, asked for a war fund which should enable his government to wage indefinite hostilities without borrowing money!

Quitting this dangerous ground, the President spoke of the Louisiana purchase. Then followed a paragraph upon religion. Next he came to the subject of the Indians, and chose this unusual medium for enforcing favorite philosophical doctrines. The memorandum written to explain his address declared the reasons that led him to use the mask of Indian philanthropy to disguise an attack upon conservatism.


 * "Every respecter of science," said this memorandum, "every friend to political reformation, must have observed with indignation the hue-aud-cry raised against philosophy and the rights of man; and it really seems as if they would be overborne, and barbarism, bigotry, and despotism would recover the ground they have lost by the advance of the public understanding. I have thought the occasion justified some discountenance of these anti-social