CHAPTER XII.

MR. JEFFERSON ELECTED VICE-PRESIDENT-HIS RELATIONS TO THE PRESI DENT-THE NEW CABINET-DISPUTES WITH THE FRENCH GOVERNMENTAMERICAN ENVOYS SENT TO PARIS-THEIR RECEPTION THERE-MR. JEFFERSON'S POLITICAL CREED-INDIGNATION IN THE UNITED STATES AGAINST FRANCE-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE SUCCEEDS TO THE FRENCH Directory, AND MAKES A TREATY WITH THE UNITED STATES—TERMINATION OF MR. ADAMS' ADMINISTRATION-THE Approaching elECTION-Dr. LOGAN'S PRIVATE MISSION TO FRANCE.

MR. JEFFERSON's retirement from public office continued during the space of three years. In October, 1796, John Adams was elected President, and Mr. Jefferson Vice-President of the United States. The former received seventy-one votes, the latter sixty-eight. In spite of his prodigious devotion to the cultivation of Lucerne and potatoes, Mr. Jefferson at once accepted the proffered dignity. In February, 1797, he prepared to leave Monticello for Philadelphia, where the Federal Government was then located. Previous to this period he had not been on very friendly terms with the President elect; but on December 28th, he addressed him a conciliatory letter, and immediately on his arrival

Philadelphia paid his respects to Mr. Adams in

person.

The next day Mr. Adams returned the visit. Their former friendly feelings were again revived, a circumstance which augured favorably fcr the harmony of the ensuing administration. The Cabinet of Mr. Adams consisted of Timothy Pickering as Secretary of State, Mr. Wolcott as Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. McHenry as Secretary of War, and Mr. Lee as Attorney-General. The relative strength of parties in the legislature stood fifty-two in favor of the administration and forty-eight against it. The President and Cabinet were Federal, the Vice-President alone was Democratic. This antagonism was not of much consequence, inasmuch as Mr. Jefferson's duties consisted merely in presiding over the deliberations of the Senate. He was not admitted to the consultations of the Cabinet. In his letters to James Sullivan, Eldredge Gerry, Mr. Madison, Colonel Burr and General Gates, of the year 1797, he expresses his great disappointment that such an invitation had not been extended to him. The letter addressed by Mr. Jefferson to the new President, already referred to, is as follows:

"Monticello, Dec. 28, 1796.

"DEAR SIR: The public and the public papers, have been much occupied lately in placing us in a point of opposition to each other. I confidently

trust we have felt less of it ourselves. In the retired canton where I live, we know little of what is passing. Our last information from Philadelphia is of the 16th inst. At that date the issue of the late election seems not to have been known as a matter of fact. With me, however, its issue was never doubted. I knew the impossibility of your losing a single vote north of the Delaware; and even if you should lose that of Pennsylvania in the mass, you would get enough south of it to make your election sure. I never, for a single moment, expected any other issue, and though I shall not be believed, yet it is not the less true, that I never wished any other. My neighbors, as my compurgators, could aver this fact, as seeing my occupations and my attachment to them. It is possible, indeed, that even you may be cheated of your succession by a trick worthy the subtlety of your arch friend of New York, who has been able to make of your real friends tools for defeating their and your just wishes. Probably, how ever, he will be disappointed as to you; and my inclinations put me out of his reach. I leave to others the sublime delights of riding in the storm, better pleased with a sound sleep and a warmer birth below it, encircled with the society of my neighbors, friends, and fellow-laborers of the earth, rather than with spies and sycophants. Still, I shall

value highly the share I may have had in the late vote, as a measure of the share I hold in the esteem of my fellow-citizens. In this point of view, a few votes less are but little sensible, while a few more would have been in their effect very sensible and oppressive to me. I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office. And never since the day you signed the treaty of Paris, has our horizon been so overcast. I devoutly wish you may be able to shun for us this war, which will destroy our agriculture, commerce and credit. If you do, the glory will be all your own. And that your administration may be filled with glory and happiness to yourself, and advantage to us, is the sincere prayer of one, who, though in the course of our voyage, various little incidents have happened or been contrived, to separate us, yet retains for you the solid esteem of the times when we were working for our independence, and sentiments of sincere respect and attachment."

No one can carefully peruse this singular document without perceiving that its author therein utters sentiments unworthy of his talents and his patriotism. He is not consistent or true to his own party and professions; for how could he say that he 66. never wished for any other issue" than the election

of Mr. Adams, whom he knew to be an ultra-federalist, and yet claim the least pretense to consistency? The truth is, Mr. Jefferson was extremely desirous of conciliating the President elect, in order that he might be invited to share the deliberations of the Cabinet; and to attain that end, he was willing to make concessions which true moral courage would have condemned and disdained.

Congress had been convened under the new administration for the 15th of May. The chief questions which agitated the country during the ensuing session were the spoliations of France on American commerce, the insulting treatment of the American envoys at Paris, and the anticipations of a furious. conflict with that nation. Mr. Jefferson was opposed to a war with the French government and people. Indeed it must be said in justice to him, that though he hated England with an unappeasable hatred, yet he was opposed to any rupture even with that country. Mr. Pinkney, the minister sent by Mr. Adams to Paris as successor to Mr. Monroe, was refused an audience by the Directory, then acting under the influence of the artful and rapacious Talleyrand. Mr. Adams' Cabinet was divided upon the policy which it became the United States to adopt under these circumstances. A portion of them, including Mr. Pickering, thought that national