Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/139

Rh 1812 was no longer the Republicanism of frugal economy, simple, unpretentious, narrowly circumscribed government, and peace and friendship with all the world, which the famous triumvirate, Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin, had set out with in 1801, and which was the political ideal of bucolic democracy. The rough jostle with the strong powers of the external world had made sad havoc of the idyl. Instead of the least possible government there had been, even before the war, while Jefferson himself was President, during that painful struggle under the oppressive practices of the European belligerents, enormous stretches of power, such as the laws enforcing the embargo, which equaled, if not outstripped, anything the Federalists had ever done. Instead of frugal economy and regular debt paying, there had been enormous war expenses with new taxes and heavy loans. Instead of unbroken peace and general friendship, there had been a long and bloody war with the nearest of kin. Now, with that war finished, there was a large public debt, a frightfully disordered currency, a heavy budget of yearly expenditures, and a people awakened to new wants and new ambitions, for the satisfaction of which they looked, more than ever before, to the government. The old triumvirate of leaders were indeed still alive; but Jefferson was sitting in his lofty Monticello, the sage of the period, giving forth oracular sounds, many of them very wise, always respectfully received, but apt to be minded only when what he said corresponded