which power passed from a party that wished to establish a monarchy to one that was opposed to a monarchy. But it is doubtful if there was a single man of any note in the Federalist party who had any such wish. There were doubtless some who would have preferred that form of government, if the temper of the American people had made it expedient to try it. But they knew that the American people would not submit to a monarchy. The contrast, therefore, between the Federalists and the Republicans was not that between monarchists and those who were opposed to monarchy, but between those who did not heartily believe, and those who did, in the success of the American experiment. In 1801, for the first time in the history of the country, the party in power did intensely and enthusiastically sympathize in what we have come to call American ideas. The followers of Jefferson were profoundly convinced of the truth of the theory on which the American Constitution is basedthat man is capable of self-government. That is why their accession to power was an event of such importance in the history of the world.

1798?

QUESTIONS.

1. What warlike measures were passed in June and July,

2. What effect did they have upon the French government?

3. What was the outcome of the naval conflicts between France and the United States?

other?

4. Were the United States and France at war with each

5. What converts a state of hostility into a state of war? 6. Is an act of Congress always necessary to make a state of war?

7. What instructions were given to the envoys to France? 8. What convention was agreed upon, and why?

9. In what form was it finally ratified by both countries? 10. Do you think that the Americans who sustained losses because of French spoliations, had a just claim on their own government after the ratification of that convention?

11. Was Hamilton or Adams more responsible for the downfall of the Federalists?

12. Explain why it was that the Federalists had to vote for Jefferson or Burr?

13. State at length the Federalist opinion of Jefferson and of Burr.

14. Why did the Federalists decide to support Burr?

15. Why did Hamilton use his influence in behalf of Jef ferson?

16. How was it that Bayard was able to decide the election of Jefferson?

17. Show that the Federalists were probably in a minority during the greater part of the twelve years that they were in power.

18. The text says that they represented the conservative prejudices of the country. Explain.

19. Show that a party that distrusts the people must be overthrown in a popular government sooner or later.

20. In what did the so-called revolution of 1800 consist? 21. Contrast the meaning of "revolution" in the above sentence with its meaning in the chapter entitled "The revolution of 1787."

CHAPTER XXIII.

JEFFERSON AS A STATES-RIGHTS REPUBLICAN AND JEFFERSON AS A DEMOCRAT.

'HE man who took the oath of office as President of

THE

Jefferson's optimism.

the United States in 1801, believed that his administration was to introduce a new era in the history of the world. For the first time, as he believed, men were to see a government for the sake of the governed. When government was devoted to such a purpose he believed that its customary incidents, armies, navies, national debts, banking systems, internal taxes, wars-could be entirely dispensed with. The confident optimism and serene disregard of the teachings of the past which were so characteristic of Americans found their perfect expression in Jefferson, and in the selfishness of the governing classes Jefferson saw a satisfactory explanation of the miseries of mankind.

As

It never occurred to him that his administration should signalize itself merely by its rigid and consistent adherence to a strict construction of the constitution. Hamilton hoped to increase the powers conferred upon the government by the constitution through construction, so Jefferson, consciously or unconsciously, aimed to decrease them by disuse.

The changes which Jefferson hoped in this way to

make in the constitution related both to foreign and domestic matters. Regarding the general Jefferson's thegovernment as the guardian of the liberties

ory of the proper

work of the Fed

eral govern

of the people, he thought it should ex- ment. ercise none of the powers conferred upon it by the constitution, the exercise of which tended to increase its powers at the expense of those of the states. He did, indeed, use language which implied that he thought that the constitution had intended to confine the general government to foreign affairs, leaving all matters of domestic concern to the states. In an important letter to Gideon Granger in 1800, he said: "The true theory of our constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization and a very inexpensive one-a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants." Twenty-one years later, in 1821, he repeated the same idea, although in not quite so unqualified a form: "The people to whom all authority belongs have divided the powers of government into two distinct departments, the leading characters of

*Italics are mine.

which are foreign and domestic; and they have appointed for each a distinct set of functionaries. These they have made co-ordinate, checking and balancing each other, like the three cardinal departments in the individual stateseach equally supreme as to the powers delegated to itself, and neither authorized ultimately to decide what belongs to itself or to its copartner in government. As independent, in fact, as different nations, a spirit of forbearance and compromise, therefore, and not of encroachment and usurpation is the healing balm of such a constitution." Three years later, in 1824, he expressed the same opinion: "The Federal is in truth our foreign government, which department alone is taken from the sovereignty of the separate states."

But Jefferson was not in the habit of expressing himself with scientific accuracy, and the evidence makes it clear that he did not mean what an accurate writer would have meant by such language. For he expressed the same idea in 1787 in speaking of the sort of constitution he thought the country ought to have, although in the same letter he expressed his disapproval of the constitution. "My own general idea was," he wrote in 1787, "that the states should severally preserve their sovereignty in whatever concerns themselves alone, and that whatever may concern another state or any foreign nation, should be made a part of the Federal sovereignty."

It is clear, therefore, that in saying that the general government was the foreign, and the state governments