minister at Paris, did not see it then. On the contrary, he wrote to the government at Washington: ". . . I have, however, on all occasions, declared that as long as France conforms to the existing treaty between us and Spain, the government of the United States does not consider itself as having any interest in opposing the exchange.”

Mr. Jefferson's very different view was expressed in the following letter to Mr. Livingston: "... “... France, placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific disposition, her feeble state would induce her to increase our facilities there. . . . Not so can it ever be in the hands of France; the impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in a point of eternal friction with us and our character, which, though quiet and loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded, despising wealth in competition with insult or injury, enterprising and energetic as any nation on earth, these circumstances render it im

possible that France and the United States can continue long friends when they meet in so irritable a position. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. . . . From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation."

Thus, at a moment's notice, and in obedience to a vital change in circumstance, Jefferson threw aside the policy of a lifetime, suppressed his liking for France and his dislike for England, and entered upon that radically new course which, as he foresaw, the interests of the United States would require.

Livingston, thus primed, began negotiations for the purchase of New Orleans; and Jefferson hastily dispatched Monroe, as a special envoy, for the same purpose, armed, it is supposed, with secret verbal instructions, to buy, if possible, not only New Orleans, but the whole of Louisiana. Monroe had not a word in writing to show that in purchasing Louisiana-if the act should be

repudiated by the nation he did not exceed his instructions. But, as Mr. Henry Adams remarks, "Jefferson's friends always trusted him perfectly."

The moment was most propitious, for England and France were about to close in that terrific struggle which ended at Waterloo, and Napoleon was desperately in need of money. After some haggling the bargain was concluded, and, for the very moderate sum of fifteen million dollars, the United States became possessed of a territory which more than doubled its area.

The purchase of Louisiana was confessedly an unconstitutional, or at least an extra-constitutional act, for the Constitution gave no authority to the President to acquire new territory, or to pledge the credit of the United States in payment. Jefferson himself thought that the Constitution ought to be amended in order to make the purchase legal; but in this he was overruled by his advisers.

Thus, Jefferson's first administration ended with a brilliant achievement; but this public

glory was far more than outweighed by a private loss. The President's younger daughter, Mrs. Eppes, died in April, 1804; and in a letter to his old friend, John Page, he said: “Others may lose of their abundance, but I, of my wants, have lost even the half of all I had. My evening prospects now hang on the slender thread of a single life. Perhaps I may be destined to see even this last cord of parental affection broken. The hope with which I have looked forward to the moment when, resigning public cares to younger hands, I was to retire to that domestic comfort from which the last great step is to be taken, is fearfully blighted."

XI

SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM

THE purchase of Louisiana increased Jefferson's popularity, and in 1805, at the age of sixty-two, he was elected to his second term as President by an overwhelming majority. Even Massachusetts was carried by the Republicans, and the total vote in the electoral college stood: 162 for Jefferson and Clinton; 14 for C. C. Pinckney and Rufus King, the Federal candidates.

This result was due in part to the fact that Jefferson had stolen the thunder of the Federalists. His Louisiana purchase, though bitterly opposed by the leading Federalists, who were blinded by their hatred of the President, was far more consonant with Federal than with Republican principles; and in his second inaugural address Jefferson went even farther in the direction of a strong central government, for he said: "Redemption