apostatized, and supposed we meant only to put our government into other hands, but not other forms, is indeed, wonderful. The lesson we have had will probably be useful to the people at large, by showing to them how capable they are of being made the instruments of their own bondage. A little more prudence and moderation in those who had mounted themselves on their fears, and it would have been long and difficult to unhorse them. Their madness had done in three years, what reason alone acting against them would not have effected in many; and the more, as they might have gone on forming new entrenchments for themselves from year to year. My great anxiety at present is, to avail ourselves of our ascendency to establish good principles, and good practices; to fortify republicanism behind as many barriers as possible, that the outworks may give time to rally and save the citadel, should that be again in danger. On their part, they have retired into the judiciary as a strong hold. There the remains of federal· ism are to be preserved and fed from the treasury, and from that battery, all the works of republicanism are to be beaten down and erased. By a. fraudulent use of the constitution, which has made judges irremovable, they have multiplied useless judges merely to strengthen their phalanx.”

But of all the measures of reform recommended in the President's message, none was so auspicious, none so extensive, as the proposition to suppress all the internal taxes. This was indeed a solid inculcation of the beneficent purposes of administration. The internal institution was a distinguishing feature of the Hamiltonian system of finance, and had constituted throughout a powerful entrenchment to the ancient order of things. It is a surprising fact, that the officers employed in its management, embraced three fourths of all the officers in the pay of the government. They were spread over the country, stationed in every town and hamlet, like so many centinels on the outposts of the citadel, and comprised, in the aggregate, an army of stipendiaries at the beck of the treasury chief. In proposing to disband all these at a stroke, the President meditated the disarming the government of an immense resource of executive patronage and preponderance, besides relieving the people of an arbitrary and oppressive surcharge of taxation. The disinterestedness and beneficence of the transaction were only equalled by its boldness, at which the republicans themselves were considerably alarmed. In a letter to one of them, dated December 19, 1801, the President wrote:

"You will perhaps have been alarmed, as some have been, at the

proposition to abolish the whole of the internal taxes. But it is perfectly safe. They are under a million of dollars and we can economize the government two or three millions a year. The impost alone gives us ten or eleven millions annually, increasing at a compound ratio of six and two thirds per cent. per annum, and consequently doubling in ten years. But leaving that increase for contingencies, the present amount will support the government, pay the interest of the public debt, and discharge the principal in fifteen years. If the increase proceeds, and no contingencies demand it, it will pay off the principal in a shorter time. Exactly one half of the public debt, to wit, thirty-seven millions of dollars, is owned in the United States. That capital then will be set afloat, to be employed in rescuing our commerce from the hands of foreigners, or in agriculture, canals, bridges, or other useful enterprises. By suppressing at once the whole external taxes, we abolish three fourths of the offices now existing, and spread over the land. Seeing the interest you take in the public affairs, I have indulged myself in observations flowing from a sincere and ardent desire of seeing our affairs put into an honest and advantageous train."

Fortunately, the first Congress which assembled after Mr. Jefferson came into power, contained an ascendency of republicanism in ' both Houses; with just enough of opposition to hoop the majority indissolubly together, and enable the Legislature to move in strong and harmonious co-operation with the Executive. They erected into laws all the fundamental reformations recommended by the President, and thereby enabled him to carry through a system of administration which abolished the former regimen generally, and substantially revolutionized the government. To notice the single feature of frugality, by the extensive economies which he introduced, he diminished the expenses of the government 3,000,000 of dollars! and, after answering the regular exigences of the government, he discharged eight millions of the national debt, principal and interest, the first year of his administration, and left four and a half millions of dollars in the treasury, for application to the further discharge of debt and current demands! The result is unparalleled in the annals of civil government. "When effects, so salutary," says the President in his second annual message, "result from the plans you have already sanctioned, when merely by avoiding false objects of expense, we are able, without a direct tax, without internal taxes, and without borrowing, to make large and effectual payments towards the discharge of our public debt, and the emancipation of our posterity from that mortal canker, it is an en

couragement, fellow citizens, of the highest order, to proceed as we have begun in substituting economy for taxation, in pursuing what is useful for a nation placed as we are, rather than what is practised by others under different circumstances. And whensoever we are destined to meet events which shall call forth all the energies of our countrymen, we have the firmest reliance on those energies, and the comfort of leaving for calls like these, the extraordinary resources of loans and internal taxes. In the mean time, by payments of the principal of our debt, we are liberating, annually, portions of the external taxes, and forming from them a growing fund, still further to lessen the necessity of recurring to extraordinary resources."

The following paragraph, extracted from a letter of the President to General Kosciusko, dated April 2, 1802, presents a very modest and comprehensive outline of the proceedings of the Legislature in pursuance of the executive recommendations.

"The session of the first Congress convened since republicanism has recovered its ascendency, is now drawing to a close. They will pretty completely fulfil all the desires of the people. They have reduced the army and navy to what is barely necessary. They are disarming executive patronage and preponderance, by putting down one half the offices of the United States, which are no longer necessary. These economies have enabled them to suppress all the internal taxes, and still to make such provision for the payment of their public debt as to discharge that in eighteen years. They have lopped off a parasite limb, planted by their predecessors on their judiciary body for party purposes; they are opening the doors of hospitality to the fugitives from the oppressions of other countries; and we have suppressed all those public forms and ceremonies which tended to familiarize the public eye to the harbingers of another form of government. The people are nearly all united; their quondam leaders, infuriated with the sense of their impotence, will soon be seen or heard only in the newspapers, which serve as chimneys to carry off noxious vapors and smoke, and all is now tranquil, firm, and well, as it should be."

The Sedition Law, not included in the above glance, which protected from popular scrutiny and discussion the extravagancies, delinquencies, and heresies of the government authorities, was permitted to expire by its own limitation. It experienced a natural death, in the course of this session, without even the hope of a day of resurrection. To these specific improvements might be added the general simplification of the system of finance, in which he was

acter, 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 impossible that France and the United States can continue long friends, when they meet in so irritable a position. They, as well as we, must be blind, if they do not see this; and we must be very improvident if we do not begin to make arrangements on that hypothesis. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans, fixes the sentence which is to restrain her for ever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. We must turn all our attentions to a maritime force, for which our resources place us on very high ground and having formed and connected together a power which may render reinforcement of her settlements here impossible to France, make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the United British and American nations. This is not a state of things we seek or desire. It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us as necessarily, as any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect. It is not from a fear of France that we deprecate this measure proposed by her. For however greater her force is than ours, compared in the abstract, it is nothing in comparison of ours, when to be exerted on our soil. But it is from a sincere love of peace, and a firm persuasion, that, bound to France by the interests and the strong sympathies still existing in the minds of our citizens, and holding relative positions which insure their continuance, we are secure of a long course of peace. Whereas, the change of friends, which will be rendered necessary if France changes that position, embarks us necessarily as a belligerent power in the first war of Europe. In that case, France will have held possession of New Orleans during the interval of a peace, long or short, at the end of which it will be wrested from her. Will this short-lived possession have been an equivalent to her for the transfer of such a weight into the scale of her enemy? Will not the amalgamation of a young, thriving nation, continue to that enemy the health and force which are at present so evidently on the decline? And will a few years possession of New Orleans add equal. ly to the strength of France? She may say she needs Louisiana for the supply of her West Indies. She does not need it in time of peace, and in war she could not depend on them, because they would be so easily intercepted. I should suppose that all these considerations might, in some proper form, be brought into view of the government of France. Though stated by us, it ought not to give offence; because we do not bring them forward as a menace, but as

consequences not controllable by us, but inevitable from the course of things. We mention them, not as things which we desire by any means, but as things we deprecate; and we beseech a friend to look forward and to prevent them for our common interests."

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"I have no doubt you have urged these considerations, on every proper occasion, with the government where you are. They are such as must have effect, if you can find means of producing thorough reflection on them by that government. The idea here is, that the troops sent to St. Domingo, were to proceed to Louisiana after finishing their work in that island. If this were the arrangement, it will give you time to return again and again to the charge. For the conquest of St. Domingo will not be a short work. It will take considerable time, and wear down a great number of soldiers. Every eye in the United States is now fixed on the affairs of Louisiana. Perhaps nothing, since the revolutionary war, has produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation. Notwithstanding temporary bickerings have taken place with France, she has still a strong hold on the affections of our citizens generally. I have thought it not amiss, by way of supplement to the letters of the Secretary of State, to write you this private one, to impress you with the importance we affix to this transaction. I pray you to cherish Dupont. He has the best dispositions for the continuance of friendship between the two nations, and perhaps you may be able to make a good use of him."

On the 30th of April 1803, the negotiation was concluded, and the entire province of Louisiana ceded to the United States for the sum of fifteen millions of dollars. The American negotiators seized the favorable moment to urge the claims of American merchants on the French Government, for spoliations on their property, which were allowed to the amount of three millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the bargain was thus closed. This important acquisition more than doubled the territory of the United States, trebled the quantity of fertile country, secured the uncon.. trolled navigation of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and opened an independent outlet for the produce of the Western States, free from collision with other Powers, and the perpetual dangers to our peace from that source. The treaty was received with unbounded approbation by the great majority of the nation. The monarchical federalists, particularly in the Eastern States, wrote and declaimed furiously against it. They saw in the great enlargement of our territory the seeds of a future dismemberment of the Union, by a separation into Eastern and Western confederacies, which they were

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