sound. Fisher Ames, in one of his letters at this date, expresses himself very strongly: "There was a time when infatuation in favor of France was a popular malady. If that time has so far passed over that men can either think or feel as Americans ought, it must be apparent, that Bonaparte wants but little, and is enraged that he so long wants that little, to be the world's master. Yet at this awful crisis, when the British navy alone prevents his final success, we of the United States come forward, with an ostentation of hostility to England, to annoy her with non-intercourse laws. Are we determined to leave nothing to chance, but to volunteer our industry in forging our chains ?" 1806. gress, the other important measures discussed and passed upon, were of a domestic character. Two of these require notice; more especially, as connected with questions which have agitated the whole country on various occasions. The first related to the constitutional rights possessed by Congress, in respect to appropriations of public money for promoting internal improvements. It is evident, at a glance, that there are many and cogent arguments on both sides of this question; and it will probably ever remain open to discussion, from a constitutional point of view, although current practice may be regarded as having virtually, at least, settled the whole matter. On the 24th of March, an act was passed by a vote of sixty-six to fifty, for the construction of a national road from Cumberland, in Maryland, to the state of Ohio. "It was opposed," says Mr. Tucker, "altogether on the constitutional ground that the power of making roads was not given to Congress. But to obviate this objection, the consent of the states, through whose territories the road was to pass, (Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio,) was first required. Yet if Congress had not the power of making roads, as was contended, the consent of these states could not give it. This question continued to be long afterwards a subject of controversy between those who were severally disposed to a strict and a literal construction of the Constitution. But perhaps the strongest arguments against the power, are to be found in the mischiefs likely to arise from its inexpediency; by its being a source of local During the present session of Con- jealousy and heart-burning; by its pre The republicans, on their side, charged upon the federalists, a desire to push matters to the point of war with France and Spain, and alliance with Great Britain. But these retorted, that the administration submitted tamely to insults from Spain, fawned upon Napoleon, and sought to provoke a quarrel with England. As a late English writer phrases it, "there truly was something almost sublime in the audacity with which Jefferson, without an army, without a navy even, (for he had broken it up and sold it,) with nothing at his back but a flotilla of gunboats, lectured the mistress of the seas upon 'maritime laws,' spoke of neutral rights, and encouraged his adherents to begin a war of commercial (more correctly, anticommercial) enactments, as if by the prestige of the old war, he could carry every thing before him-there." CH. IV.] THE TAX ON IMPORTED SLAVES. senting the means of wasting the national resources in expensive and improvident undertakings; by its great extension of the influence of the federal government; and by its furnishing the means of bribing and influencing individual states, with the money of the whole."* Not only was this bill, appropriating $30,000 of the public money to this service, signed by Jefferson; but bills were also approved, appropriating $6,000 to the construction of a road from Nashville in Tennessee, to Natchez in Mississippi; $6,400 to a road from the frontier of Georgia, on the route from Athens to New Orleans; and $6,000 more to a road from the Mississippi River to the Ohio. The second question referred to above as keenly debated during this session, was that which related to the imposing a tax of ten dollars on each slave imported into the United States. South Carolina, finding the western market still open, and highly profitable, was carrying on the slave-trade with great energy, and it was impossible (according to the Constitution) to forbid this traffic, before 1808. The Representatives from this state retorted upon their northern opponents, by ascribing to the ship-owners of Rhode Island the having provided the means for carrying on this detestable commerce. If we may credit the statements of southern men, 1806. most of the slaveholding members looked forward with great satisfaction to the time when Congress could, constitutionally, prevent the fur * Tucker's "Life of Jefferson," vol. ii., p. 199. 75 ther importation of slaves; yet, as they averred, they were extremely unwilling to see any legislation on the subject by those who had no common interest or feeling with them concerning it. The truth probably was, that it was not leg islation in respect to slavery in the abstract, that roused fierce and determined opposition to the proposed tax, but it was the having this species of property, as they termed it, treated as all other property was treated, and taxed like other luxuries imported from abroad. "After several propositions to reject or postpone the bill," Mr. Tucker informs us, "which failed by a vote of twothirds of the House, it was, on the third reading, recommitted, and though afterwards reported with amendments, it was found so unpalatable to a large portion of the House, that it was never finally acted on." The proposition which had been made at the preceding session, (see p. 66,) in respect to the removal of the federal judges by the president, whenever a joint application should be presented by both Houses of Congress, was renewed at the present session, but without success; and the question was not pressed by friends or foes, in the doubtful position in which it seemed to be placed at the time. On the 21st of April, the first session of the ninth Congress was ended, and though it was not unusually long, it was one of the most animated and con tentious which had occurred in 1806. the career of the national legislature. "The House of Representatives," we are told by Mr. Jefferson's biographer, "manifestly consisted of three parties; as, besides the two known divisions of republicans and federalists, there was a schism of the former, who differed from the administration on some leading points of foreign policy, and who, while they voted with the federalists on these questions, and on some collateral points, so as to show diminished confidence and good feeling towards the executive, took especial care not to be considered by the nation as being merged in the federal party, not only by their general declarations, but by their votes on all questions not involving the policy of the administration, on which occasions they concurred with the republicans. This party consisted principally of members from the Virginia delegation, and were all personally intimate with Mr. Randolph, The same party afterwards received a great accession of strength in Virginia, by bringing forward Mr. Monroe as a candidate for the presidency, in opposition to Mr. Madison; and it was not until the reconciliation of these gentlemen, by the good offices of Mr. Jefferson, that its ranks were broken as a party, and that some of the scattered fragments united with the federalists, in opposition to the war, and all the leading measures of the administration which preceded it." This subject of "the succession," had, some years previously, occupied the anxious attention of John Adams, and he had made his wife the confidant of his hopes and his fears, when Washington was about to retire from public life. Similar anxieties, we find, now began to produce their effect upon the friends of such as were thought of favorably for filling the presidential chair. And it must be confessed, that, in this particular, a government whose head is dependent upon popular election every few years, labors under serious difficul ties and embarrassments. For, as we shall see, the further on we get in our narrative, it has not, except very rarely, been the best and fittest men who have been designated for the presidency; nor even the best men of the dominant party; but unhappily, the men whom the party have judged it most probable that they could elect to this high office. Mr. Jefferson appears to have all along assumed, that his friend and secretary of state, James Madison, was to be his successor; and perhaps there was not a person at that time in the United States to whom, personally, more citizens would have been disposed to give their confidence, as the chief magistrate of the nation. John Randolph, however, who had taken a strong dislike to the president and his purposes and wishes, determined to urge Mr. Monroe to aspire after "the succession."* He, as well as Madison, was a son of that state familiarly known as "the Old Dominion," and as Virginia seemed to look upon herself as the quarter whence the presidents were to be chosen, the claims of Monroe appeared to be quite as reasonable and proper as those of Madison. Randolph warmly urged Monroe to return from England, where he was residing at this time as ambassador; and Jefferson was 1806. *For the reasons which led Randolph to oppose the elevation of Madison, see Garland's "Life of John Randolph,” vol. i., pp. 276–79. Cп. IV.] THE PAINS AND PLEASURES OF OFFICE. afterwards charged, by Monroe's friends, with throwing impediments in his way of leaving Europe, for the purpose of keeping the field clear for his own candidate. Whatever may have been done in secret, publicly the president preserved a very fair appearance of neutrality in regard to the claims of his two friends; he did warn Monroe against reliance upon Randolph, but, according to his biographer's statement, "he abstained from any active measures in favor of either, and discharged the very delicate duties of friendship to the ri vals, with scrupulcus fidelity; as was afterwards virtually acknowledged by both." From Mr. Jefferson's letters about this time, we learn, that the cares and responsibilities of office did not grow lighter, as he became more accustomed to them; and that he smarted more than ever under the attacks of opponents like Randolph in Congress, and the press "That there is only one minister who is not opposed to me," he wrote to Duane, "is totally unfounded. There never was a more harmonious, a more cordial administration, nor even a moment when it has been otherwise." "That there is an ostensible cabinet, and a concealed one, a public profession, and a concealed counteraction, is false. That I have denounced republicans by the epithet of Jacobins, and declared that I would appoint none but those called Moderates of both parties, and that I have avowed, or entertain, any predilection for those called the third party, or quids, is in every tittle of it false. Our situation is difficult, and whatever we do is liable to the criti cisms of those who wish to represent it awry. If we recommend measures in a public message, it may be said that members are not sent here to obey the mandates of the president, or to register the edicts of a sovereign. If we express opinions in conversation, we have then our Charles Jenkinsons and back-door counsellors. If we say nothing, 'we have no opinions, no plans, no cabinet.' In truth, it is the fable of the old man, his son, and the ass, over again." Writing to Mr. Gallatin, in October, after adverting to various attempts to produce jealousy and dissension among the members of the administration, he assures him of his undiminished confi dence and esteem. He adds: “I make the declaration, that no doubts or jealousies, which often beget the 1806. facts they fear, may find a moment's harbor in either of our minds. Our administration, now drawing to a close, I have a sublime pleasure in believing will be distinguished as much by having placed itself above all the passions which could disturb its harmony, as by the great operations by which it will have advanced the wellbeing of the nation." And yet, notwithstanding Mr. Jefferson's "sublime pleasure" on this point, it was not long afterwards that he expressed himself in a very different strain. Writing to his old friend John Dickinson, under date of January 13th, he closes his letter in the following words: "I have tired you, my friend, with a long letter. But your tedium will end in a few lines more. Mine has yet two years to endure. I 1807. am tired of an office where I can do no more good than many others who would be glad to be employed in it. To myself personally, it brings nothing but unceasing drudgery, and daily loss of friends. Every office becoming vacant, every appointment made, me donne un ingrat, et cent ennemis. My only consolation is in the belief that my fellowcitizens at large, give me credit for good intentions. I will certainly endeavor to merit the continuance of the good-will which follows well-intended actions, and their approbation will be the dearest reward I can carry into retirement." 1805. The projects of Aaron Burr occupied a considerable share of public attention during the summer and autumn of 1806. This ambitious, but unprincipled man, cast off by the party which had placed him in the vice-president's chair, and looked upon with horror and deep indignation by a community which remembered that the blood of Hamilton was yet wet upon his hands, turned away in rage and disappointment from his native region, and sought in the great valley of the Mississippi some adventure adequate to his ability and his ambition. Schemes of conquest, and elevation to the height of political power, seem to have filled his mind; and we can well believe that Burr would let no scruples interfere with carrying out his plans. What these were, it is not easy, perhaps not possible, to say; indeed, it is quite probable, that he himself had no clear conception of what he purposed doing, but, like many another unprincipled adventurer, meant to be governed a good deal by circumstances and opportuni ties. Rumors ere long reached the north and east, that he was planning and organizing some vast expedition, the precise object of which no one could tell. Whether it was his design to make war on the Spanish province of Mexico; whether, knowing the discontents which existed in the west, he hoped to be able to separate this portion of the country from the Union; or whether, in the ruined condition of his fortunes, he hoped to repair them by some bold movement which promised a golden return; all was matter of conjecture; while, at the same time, there was none who doubted for a moment that he was equal to any undertaking, any desperate adventure, whether of foreign aggression or domestic treason. Mr. Jefferson, whose dislike of Aaron Burr was intensely strong, lost 1806. no time in endeavoring to ascertain the plans and purposes of his late rival before the people of the United States. He sent a confidential agent to the west, to get information and to take measures for bringing the guilty to punishment. He ordered the United States troops from the Sabine to New Orleans, and took every precaution to defeat any expedition which might be intended against Mexico. Having been informed that Burr purposed to plunder the bank at New Orleans, before invading the province of Mexico, Mr Jefferson, on the 27th of November, issued a proclamation, cautioning all citizens against joining in Burr's enterprise, and orders were issued at the same time to the different points on the Ohio and Mississippi, to seize on the boats and |