his conduct and rulings had not once been made the subject of complaint. The answer to his address was drawn up by his enemies. Despite that fact, and the caution with which it is worded, it is truly complimentary. It may most fittingly close this period of his career. "Sir:-While we congratulate you on those expressions of the public will which called you to the first office in the United States, we cannot but lament the loss of that intelligence, attention, and impartiality with which you have presided over our deliberations. The Senate feel themselves much gratified by the sense you have been pleased to express of their support in the performance of your late duties. Be persuaded that it will never be withheld from a chief magistrate who, in the exercise of his office, shall be influenced by a due regard to the honor and interest of our country.

"In the confidence that your official conduct will be directed to these great objects, a confidence derived from past events, we repeat to you, sir, the assurance of our constitutional support in your future administration."

THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION.

It was a striking coincidence that Jefferson's induction into office, marking, as it did, the beginning of a new era in the government of the country, should be the first one to occur in the new Capital City. The removal of the offices of the Government from Philadelphia to Washington had taken place in June, 1800, and Congress had met there in December of that year. Though for twelve years the site for the permanent capital had been designated, it was still in a rude and primitive state. Of the residence intended for the President, Mrs. Adams, the first Lady of the White House, wrote in the autumn of 1800: "The house is made habitable, but there is not a single apartment finished. We have not the least fence, yard, or other convenience without, and the great unfinished audience-room I make a drying room of, to hang up the clothes in. The principal stairs are not up and will not be this winter." The state of the White House was much improved when Jefferson

entered it, but as late as May he wrote of the town: "This may be considered as a pleasant country residence with a number of neat little villages scattered around within a distance of a mile and a half and furnishing a plain and substantially good society. They have begun their buildings in about four or five different points, and at each of which there are buildings enough to be considered as a village. The whole population is about six thousand."

The primitive nature of the surroundings was not distasteful to the newly-elected President, and the ceremonies of his inauguration were strictly in keeping with them. A half royal dignity had characterized the inauguration of Washington and Adams. Jefferson would have none of this. The story, however, that "he rode on horseback to the Capitol without a single guard or servant in his train, dismounted without assistance, and hitched the bridle of his horse to the palisades," rests solely upon the assertion of an English traveler who thought thereby to amuse his own people. The facts were truly stated in a dispatch of Mr. Thornton, then in charge of the British legation, to Lord Grenville, Foreign Secretary in Pitt's administration: "He came from his own lodgings to the house where the Congress convenes and which goes by the name of the Capitol, on foot, in his ordinary dress, escorted by a body of militia artillery from the neighboring State, and accompanied by the Secretaries of the Navy and the Treasury and a number of his political friends in the House of Representatives."

The inaugural ceremonies were held in the Senate Chamber, in the presence of the national officials and a throng of spectators. The address* was a complete summary of his political faith. It was lengthy and highly rhetorical, but kindly and tolerant. It touched skilfully upon the recent heated contest, attempted to show why no spirit except that of unity and hope should fill the bosoms of victors and vanquished alike, and enumerated what its author deemed "the essential principles of our government." After the inaugural, Jefferson, by a strange

*See text, page 245.

irony, received the oath of office from Chief Justice Marshall, a man whose political principles he held in the deepest detestation. Adams, it was well known, had thrown away all courtesy toward his successor and had raised Marshall to his new dignity after Jefferson's election, with the unconcealed purpose of checking, in one department of government at least, the overwhelming tide of Jeffersonianism. Marshall had accepted the appointment with as little scruple as it was tendered, and thus was begun a conflict which was to survive the last trace of Federalism and outlive even that particular form of Jeffersonianism which Marshall was appointed to oppose.

The President selected as his Cabinet James Madison of Virginia, Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury; Henry Dearborn of Massachusetts, Secretary of War; Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts, Attorney General; Robert Smith of Maryland, Secretary of the Navy. Gideon Granger of Connecticut was appointed Postmaster General late in the year. In the selection of these men Jefferson showed great skill and prudence. It was an able and responsible body. With the exception of Madison, they represented those States which were wavering in their allegiance to Federalism, and which he thought could be won to the Republican standard. Each was chosen on the ground of peculiar fitness. In the appointment of Gallatin, personal considerations reinforced Jefferson's appreciation of his ability. Gallatin had suffered much misrepresentation for his connection with the Whisky Rebellion. In Jefferson's opinion the Alien Act had been aimed at him as the most eminent citizen of foreign birth distasteful to the Federalists. His appointment was, therefore, in the nature of a reward for persecution.

During the first months of his administration Jefferson was kept busy answering congratulatory letters from individuals and associations in all parts of the country. It was a task to which he addressed himself with undisguised pleasure, for it afforded him an opportunity to show his thorough-going democracy. His answers were reproductions in little of his Inaugural Address. He was never weary of repeating his con

fidence in the patriotism of the great body of Federalists. His election, to his mind, meant a new era in the government of the United States and even in that of the world. To his old Revolutionary friend, John Dickinson, he wrote: "A just and solid Republican government maintained here will be a standing monument and example for the aim and imitation of the people of other countries; and I join with you in the hope and belief that they will see from our example that a free government is of all others the most energetic; that the inquiry that has been excited among the mass of mankind by our Revolution and its consequence will ameliorate the condition of man over a great portion of the globe."

These letters are also full of a subject which necessarily arose with the incoming of the new party. It was the subject of removals from and appointments to office.* Jefferson's atti tude on this question was, throughout, one of firmness and consistency. When his election by the House of Representatives hung in the balance, he had refused to bind himself to retain Federalist office-holders in their positions. Now that he had won, he as stoutly refused to yield to the importunities of those members of his own party who clamored for the dismissal of their opponents. In assuming this position, the tolerance with which he regarded the body of Federalists naturally played a large part. Nevertheless, he did not see his way to purchase their favor by undue concessions. As early as March 7th, he wrote to Monroe: "To give time for a perfect consideration seems prudent. I have firmly refused to follow the counsels of those who have desired the giving offices to some of their leaders in order to reconcile. I have given and will give only to Republicans under existing circumstances. * * * Some deprivations of office I know must be made. They must be as few as possible, done gradually, and bottomed on some malversation or inherent disqualification. Where we shall draw the line between retaining all and none is not yet settled, and will not be till we get our administration together; and perhaps

*See Offices, page 322. Also Nepotism, page 318; and Civil Service, page 156.

even then we shall proceed a talons, balancing our measures according to the impression we perceive them to make." He did not, however, regard it as a violation of this moderate course to remove arbitrarily such persons as had been appointed to office by his predecessor since the election of the preceding November. These appointments he regarded as made in open defiance of the popular will. Again and again he denounced the conduct of Adams in this respect. To Knox, his former colleague in Washington's Cabinet, he wrote: "In the class of removals I do not rank the new appointments which Mr. A. crowded in with whip and spur from the 12th of December, when the event of the election was known, and consequently that he was making appointments not for himself but his successor, until nine o'clock of the night at twelve o'clock of which he was to go out of office. This outrage on decency should not have its effect except in the life appointments which are irremovable; but as to the others I consider the nominations as nullities, and will not view the persons appointed as even candidates for their office, much less as possessing it by any title meriting respect. I mention these things that the grounds and the extent of the removals may be understood and may not disturb the tendency to union."

In reference to appointments to office he wrote to his old scientific friend Dr. Rush of Philadelphia: "I have no doubt the Federalists will concur in the fairness of the position that after they have been in the exclusive possession of all offices from the very first origin of party among us to the 3d of March at nine o'clock in the night, no Republican ever admitted and this doctrine newly avowed, it is now perfectly just that the Republicans should come in for the vacancies which may fall in until something like an equilibrium in office be restored."

The most notable instance of the application of his views was that of the collectorship of New Haven. Adams had made an appointment to the post the day after Jefferson's election. Jefferson calmly ignored this appointment and dated a new commission from the death of the former incumbent. His appointee