true principles. The atrocious proceedings of France towards this country had well nigh destroyed its liberties. The anglomen and monocrats had so artfully confounded the cause of France with that of freedom, that both went down in the same scale." He here commends a course of policy, which repeated in his first inaugural address, afterwards obtained the currency and authority of a maxim among the republican party. "Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.'

After the turmoil of the state elections was over, and the indignation against France had been suspended by her pacific overtures and the appointment of new ministers, there was nothing which so much occupied the public attention as the sedition law. Assailed by the opposition papers in every state by reiterated attacks and unremitting ardour, and feebly defended or excused by their adversaries, public opinion seemed fast settling down that it was a violation of the constitution. But there was another principle which had been recently asserted by some of the judges who supported the administration, which excited the vehement opposition of their antagonists, and which furnished fresh ground of increasing the popular distrust of a settled design to overturn the constitution. This principle was, that that system of rules and principles which is called the common law of England, and which is not to be found in any legislative act, but the evidence of which exists only in the decisions of the courts, and in immemorial usages, had authority in the federal government; and that thus its courts had cognisance of offences under the common law, though they were not made such by any act of congress. This claim of jurisdiction called forth volleys of attack in the form of newspaper disquisitions and pamphlets. Several of the state legislatures also took the subject into consideration; some giving the doctrine their sanc tion, and others strenuously and indignantly denying it.

Among those who employed their pens on this topic was Mr. Edmund Randolph, the late secretary of state, who wrote to Mr. Jefferson on the subject. Mr. Jefferson in his answer, spoke of the doctrine as, of all others which had been broached by the federal government, the most formidable; "that the bank law, the

treaty doctrine, the sedition act, &c. &c., have been solitary, unconsequential, timid things, in comparison with the audacious, barefaced, and sweeping pretension to a system of law for the United States, without the adoption of their legislature, and so infinitely beyond their power to adopt." He proceeds to show that the common law could become a part of the law of the general government only by positive adoption; and, being neither adopted, nor capable of being adopted, by reason of the limited powers of the federal government, it could constitute no part of its law.

During this summer, as the year before, Mr. Jefferson with his confidential friends, Mr. Madison, Mr. Monroe, and Colonel Wilson C. Nicholas, held consultations about the most effectual plan of proceeding relative to the recent violations of the constitution. Mr. Jefferson thought that a declaration should be made by the Virginia legislature for the purpose-first, of answering the reasonings of those states which had supported the acts of Congress: secondly, of protesting against the precedent and the principles involved, but reserving the right of doing in future whatever this palpable violation of the federal compact would now justify us in doing, if repetition of the wrong should render it expedient: thirdly, expressing in conciliatory language the attachment of Virginia to the Union, to the other states, and to the constitution; that she was willing to sacrifice to those objects every thing but the right of self-government in those important points which she had never vielded, and in which alone she saw liberty, safety, and happiness; "that far from wishing to make every measure a cause of separation, she was willing to wait till the delusions which had been artfully excited, had passed away, in the confidence that the good sense of the American people and their attachment to their rights would rally around the true principles of the constitution: fourthly, animadversions on the new pretensions to a common law of the United States.

It seems that Mr. Madison, with his characteristic moderation and prudence, and warm attachment to the Union, objected to the reservation proposed by Mr. Jefferson. But it does not ap

pear whether his objection arose from his denial of the right, or from his unwillingness to see the destruction of that union and constitution which he had contributed to create, even obscurely threatened.

Mr. Jefferson declined preparing resolutions for the legislature of Kentucky; but he suggested the above topics to Colonel Nicholas, who was about to go to that state, for the purpose of procuring a concert of action between Virginia and Kentucky.

A few weeks before he set out for Philadelphia he was preparing to make a visit to Mr. Madison, to have a further consultation on the plan of operations, but was dissuaded from it by Mr. Monroe, on the ground that all his actions were watched, and furnished grounds of suspicion and attack to be circulated through the newspapers. He regretted this the more because some recent circumstances had changed the aspect of their situation, and from his determination to trust the post-offices with nothing confidential.

One of the schemes deemed advisable by the republican party in Virginia, was a change in the mode of choosing the electors of president in Virginia. It had previously been by separate districts, by reason of which the vote at the preceding election had not been unanimous; whereas in most of the states, the electors were chosen either by the legislature, or by a general vote of the people, by which modes the votes of the electors in those states were always for the same individuals, and the voice of their minorities was entirely drowned. To give Virginia the same political weight, in this important matter of choosing the chief magistrate of the nation, it was proposed to change, at the next session of the legislature, the mode of election from districts to that by general ticket; and the public mind was prepared for the change through the agency of the press.

When Congress met in December, it appeared that the assurances required by the executive of the French government previous to the sending other ministers there, had been given, in consequence of which the three ministers had proceeded on their mission. No doubt was now entertained that all differences would be amicably terminated; and as is usual on these occaVOL. II.-9

sions both parties sought to profit by this happy issue; the administration party attributing the change of tone in the French government to the unexpected spirit of resentment which had been manifested by the people of the United States; and their opponents, regarding the conciliatory temper exhibited by France, as evidence that she had always wished to be on friendly terms with this country; but that her wishes had been counteracted by the policy of the federalists. It seems probable that both parties were partly right; and that the government of France did not really desire a rupture with this country, but they meant to avail themselves of the aversion to war on the part of the American people to preserve the influence and ascendancy of their friends here; and they never would have sought to preserve peace by conciliation, and still less by concessions, if they had not found they had overrated their influence, and miscalculated the temper of the people.

About a fortnight after the meeting of Congress, the whole United States were thrown into mourning by the unexpected death of General Washington, who being caught in a rain while taking a ride on his estate, was attacked by a quinsy and fever, which terminated his existence at the end of the second day. There never had been a moment since the peace of 1783, when his death would have excited such lively and sincere regret by one half the nation as at present, or probably so little by the other; yet the recollection of his eminent public services, his purity of purpose, and the unequalled elevation of his character, softened for a time even the fierce spirit of party zealots, and his political opponents united with his warm and almost idolatrous friends to pay to his memory unprecedented public honours.

Public processions and funeral solemnities took place in every city and town in the United States, in testimony of the respect in which he had been held. By an unanimous vote of both Houses of Congress a funeral procession was ordered to take place on the 26th, and an oration to be delivered by one of their body; a monument was voted to be erected over his remains in the city

which bears his name, and the people of the United States were recommended to wear crape for thirty days.

It was the 30th of the month before Mr. Jefferson took his seat in the Senate. On the 12th of January he gave to Mr. Monroe, who was then Governor of Virginia, the state of parties at that time in Congress, and communicated favourable intelligence from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Mr. Madison was then also in Richmond, where, as a member of the legislature, he introduced that celebrated report and resolutions on the alien and sedition laws, which had, no doubt, been carefully prepared in the summer, and which then met the admiration and assent of the whole republican party in the United States, and has since become the manual of all asserters of the rights of the separate states against the supposed encroachments of the general government. Though he was supported by numbers as well as his own talents and political weight, the victory over the federalists in the legislature was not obtained without a struggle. The question was long and ably debated, and a respectable minority voted against the report. It is supposed that this able document contributed not a little to increase and confirm the effect which the direct tax, and the alien and sedition laws had produced in the northern states.

However Mr. Jefferson may have been heretofore misled by his hopes to consider the cause of France to be that of civil liberty, he was soon undeceived. The course of Bonaparte was no longer equivocal to him. He thus writes to the venerable Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, on the 26th of February: "I fear our friends on the other side of the water, labouring in the same cause, have yet a great deal of crime and misery to wade through. My confidence had been placed in the head, not in the heart of Bonaparte. I hoped he would calculate truly the difference between the fame of a Washington and a Cromwell. Whatever his views may be, he has at least transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military Some will use this as a lesson against the practicability of republican government. I read it as a lesson against the danger of standing armies."

arm.