IV. influence over the course of events than they actually CHAPTER possess. Having but little confidence either in the virtue or the judgment of the mass of mankind, he thought 1791. the administration of affairs most safe in the hands of a select few; nor in private conversation did he disguise his opinion that, to save her liberties from foreign attack or intestine commotions, America might yet be driven into serious alterations of her Constitution, giving to it more of a monarchical and aristocratical cast. He had the sagacity to perceive, what subsequent experience has abundantly confirmed, that the Union had rather to dread resistance of the states to federal power than executive usurpation; but he was certainly mistaken in supposing that a president and senate for life or good behavior, such as he had suggested in the Federal Convention, could have given any additional strength to the government. That strength, under all elective systems, must depend on public confidence, and public confidence is best tested and secured by frequent appeals to the popular vote. Hardly was Jefferson warm in his new office as a member of the cabinet, when he appears to have adopted the idea, founded, it would seem, on casual expressions of speculative opinion dropped in the freedom of unreserved social intercourse, that a conspiracy was on foot, headed by Adams and Hamilton, to overturn the republican institutions of the United States, and to substitute a monarchy and an aristocracy in their place, the monarchy being principally patronized by Hamilton and the aristocracy by Adams, and both being inclined to give to the wealthier and more intelligent few a very disproportionate influence in the government. Though a great advocate for toleration and liberality in matters of religion, in politics Jefferson was a com IV. CHAPTER plete bigot. One single speculative error outweighed, in his estimation, the most devoted patriotism, the most 1791. unquestionable public services. Assuming to himself the office at once of spy and censor on his colleagues, he adopted the practice of setting down in a note-book every heretical opinion carelessly dropped-every little piece of gossip reported to him by others which might tend to convict his associates in the cabinet of political infidelity anecdotes recorded, not as instances of the speculative errors into which the wisest and the best may fall, but carefully laid up as evidences against political rivals of settled designs hostile to the liberties of their country. Nor was he content with merely making this remarkable record. After the lapse of twenty-five years or more, "when the passions of the times were passed away, and the reasons of the transactions act alone upon the judgment," such is his own account of the matter, he gave the whole a "calm perusal,” and having cut out certain parts because he had ascertained that they were "incorrect or doubtful," or because they were merely personal or private," he prefixed a characteristic preface to the rest, and left them to be published after his death, as proofs of the services he had rendered to his country in saving it from a monarchical and aristocratical conspiracy. It was against Hamilton that the bitterness of a hatred at once personal and political was most keenly directed. The splendid reputation gained by the success of Hamilton's financial measures, fixing all eyes upon him as the leading spirit of the government, though Jefferson nominally held the first place in the cabinet; his great popularity thereby acquired with the mercantile and moneyed class; more than all, his weight and influence with Washington, excited in the mind of Jefferson a most violent antipathy, IV. partly growing out of mere personal jealousy, partly CHAPTER based on imagined dangers to the liberties of the country-who can tell in what precise proportions? All the 1791. measures adopted on Hamilton's recommendation, even those which he had himself concurred to bring aboutas in the case of the assumption of the state debts-began to be seen by Jefferson through a most discolored medium. Overlooking the justice and the expediency of a provision for the national creditors, and the great benefits to the country at large resulting from that measure, in his private correspondence, on which he principally relied for the diffusion of his political ideas, he already began to denounce the entire funding system, especially the assumption of the state debts, as a mere piece of jugglery and corruption, intended to purchase up friends for the new government, and especially for Hamilton, and designed to pave the way toward an aristocracy and a monarchy. The recently chartered bank was denounced with no less vehemence as another step in the same direction. All these measures had been warmly opposed by a minority of the late Congress, many of whom, with some others inclined to the same opinions, had been elected to the new one; and of this minority Jefferson soon came to be the out-of-door leader, as Hamilton was of the majority. That majority, or, at least, an undefined portion of it, including some of the most eminent names in American history, Jefferson and his friends did not hesitate to denounce as a "corrupt squadron," actually bought up by the Secretary of the Treasury, or, at least, secured to his service, by being enabled, through his means, to enrich themselves by unwarrantable speculations in the public stocks, and ready, at all times, to sell themselves and their country for the privilege of public plunder. Abjuring the name of anti IV. CHAPTER Federalists for the Federal Constitution was growing every day more popular-Jefferson and his friends of the 1791. opposition assumed to themselves the title of REPUBLICANS, as if they alone were the true friends of republican government, while they sought to fix on the Federal leaders the stigma of being monarchists and aristocrats. Shortly after the meeting of Congress, to counteract the influence of Fenno's Gazette, considered to be at the beck of the Treasury, and in which Adams's Discourses on Davilla were published, an opposition journal was got up, called the "National Gazette," edited by Philip Freneau, formerly a classmate of Madison's at Princeton College, known as a writer of fugitive verses and other pieces of a satirical character. Though he disclaimed any connection with this paper, about the time that its publication began Jefferson gave Freneau the place of translating clerk in his office. The salary was but a trifle; but then this place was the only piece of patronage in Jefferson's gift, who contrasted, not without some feeling, his position in this respect with that of Hamilton, who had so many collectorships, supervisorships, and other lucrative posts to dispose of. The new paper, not without wit as well as malice, began with throwing out slurs at Adams and Hamilton, the "corrupt squadron," the funding system, and treasury influence. Very soon it became, as Hamilton presently described it, "intemperately devoted to the abuse of the government and all the conspicuous actors in it, except the Secretary of State and his coadjutors, who were the constant theme of its panegyric." Parties in the new Congress still retained, in a great measure, their originally geographical character. The opposition members were mostly from the Southern States, particularly Virginia and North Carolina. But IV. party lines were not, as yet, very definitely drawn, and CHAPTER there were a considerable number of members who occupied an intermediate position, voting sometimes on one 1791. side and sometimes on the other. The first subject which engaged attention was the reapportionment of representatives, according to the census just completed. The following table shows the result of that census, together with the number of representatives allotted to each state under the new distribution: 105 1 Delaware Territory south of the Ohio.. 6,271 10,227 15,365 361 3,417 36,691 Northwest Territory, no return: only a few hundred inhabitants. 1814,396 802,077|1,536,638|59,481 697,697|3,921,326 Totals.... The smallness of the House of Representatives had furnished one great topic of complaint to the opponents of the Federal Constitution; yet to increase the number would increase the expense, and the expense of the new system had also been a great matter of complaint with the party in opposition. It was resolved, however, to make the number as large as possible by adopting a ratio of thirty thousand, the lowest which the Constitution admitted. As the bill first passed the House, a dis- Nov. 24 tribution was agreed upon, giving a total of one hundred |