Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/88

 JEFFERSON

JEFFERSON

the hope that the appellations Excellency, Wor- ship, Esquire, or even Mister, should not apply to any holder of office in the government of the United States, He reached Norfolk, Va., Nov. 18, 1789, accompanied by his daughters, after six years' residence abroad, and after u'itnessing the marriage of his daughter Martha to Thomas Mann Randolph, Feb. 23, 1790, he reached New York, March 21, 1790, a full year after the inauguration of President Washington, who had held vacant the office of secretary of state subject to his ac- cei^tance. He took his place in Washington's cabinet with considerable reluctance, as he was not in political accord with Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, the dominant spirit in the admin- istration, whose tendencies were toward a mon- archical form of government and a distrust of republicanism. His life in France had made Jefferson a republican, and he held that "the natural law of every society and the only sure guardian of the rights of man was the will as expressed by the majority." His political views were freely and emphatically expressed in the cabinet, and Hamilton and Knox were especially antagonistic. In the election of 1792, while he supported the re-election of Washington, the numerous Democratic clubs organized throughout the country emphatically voiced opposition to the administration, and, led by George Clinton, of New York, made a feeble opposition, Clinton receiving 50 electoral votes, Jefferson 4 and Burr 1. The new party was known as Republican, and Jefferson persistently adhered to the title as more appropriate tlian that of Democrat, which name was urged by the clubs, he not deeming the people yet prepared for absolute sovereignty. His posi- tion in the cabinet during the second administra- tion was still more unpleasant, and while the President was anxious to have both political parties as advisers, Hamilton and Knox each threatened to resign, and on Jan, 2, 1794, Jefferson withdrew, and Washington appointed Edmund J, Randolph of Virginia as his successor. At the close of the year Randolph resigned, and the Pres- ident urged Jefferson to resume the portfolio, which he positively declined to do, and he retired to Monticello, In 1796 he was made the Repub- lican candidate for President, the Federalists having named Vice-President Adams, and in the election that followed the change of two electoral votes would have made Jefferson President, The election was attended with intense excitement and bitter invective. The Federalists saw in Jefferson a dangerous antagonist because of his popularity with the common people. The elec- tion resulted in John Adams receiving 71 votes; Thomas Jefferson, 68; Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina, Federalist, 59; Aaron Burr, of New York, Republican, 30; Samuel Adams, of Massa-

chusetts, Republican, 15; Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, Independent, 11; George Clinton, of New York, Republican, 7, and John Jay, of New York, Federalist, 5. This made Adams Presi- dent and Jefferson Vice-President. He presided over the deliberations of the U.S. senate dur- ing the 5th and 6th congresses, 1797-1801, and wrote the Kentucky resolutions of 1798, which voiced his opinion of the dangers of a strong centi'al government. In 1800 he received 73 elec- toral votes, Aaron Burr also receiving 73 votes, which exactly divided the Republican electoral college. John Adams received the votes of 65 of the Federalist electors, (llharles Pinckney the votes of 64, and John Jay the vote of 1 elector. The result gave the house of representatives the duty of electors, and the representatives from ten states voted for Jefferson, who was declared President, and the votes of the representatives from four states made Aaron Burr Vice-President, Jefferson was inaugurated at Washington, March 4, 1801, and in making up his cabinet he appoint- ed James Madison, of Virginia, secretary of state; Albert Gallatin, of Pennsylvania, secretary of the treasury; Henry Dearborn, of Massachusetts, secretary of war; Robert Smith, of Maryland, secretary of the navy, and Levi Lincoln, of Massachusetts, attorney-general. No change oc- curred in his cabinet during the first administra- tion. The political campaign resulting in his election had so embittered President Adams, his former friend and co-worker in carrying out the separation of the colonies from the mother coun- try, that just before the close of hisadministration Adams appropriated for the Federal party all the available offices in his gift, and in this way dis- tributed the spoils of office to the defeated party. To avoid meeting the incoming President, Adams left the White House with his family at sunrise, March 4, 1801, and began his journey to Quincy, Mass,, ignoring the ordinary courtesy of attend- ing the inauguration of his successor and of ex- tending to the new President and family a hos- pitable welcome to the President's house. Thus Thomas Jefferson, at the opening of the nine- teenth century, took up the task imposed ui^on him by a new political party that he had cre- ated, with scant courtesy from the party he had dethroned, and inaugurated a political policy that was pronounced by his enemies as the philosophy of a Jacobin, Popular government by the people was the talk of a carefully guarded conservatism, andliberalitj^ in education, religion and politics, a free press, hostility to monopolies, faith in the power of the people, in peace, in science, in material progress and in popular honesty, was to be put to trial. Paternalism, corporate greed, caste, the taint of nobility, banks sustained by government patronage for private