REFERENCES AND QUESTIONS

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Mitchell, Red City. - Twining, Travels in Am.

Wallington, Am. Hist.

by Am. Poets, I. 297–313.

Pictures. Avery, Un. States, VII. — Wilson, Am. People, III.

QUESTIONS

(§ 138) 1. How was the government organized in 1789? 2 (For an essay). The inauguration of President Washington.

(§ 139) 3. What were the first executive departments of the government? 4. Whom did Washington make heads of the new departments?

(§ 140) 5. How was the Supreme Court organized? 6. How did Washington select men for appointment?

(§ 141) 7. Why were United States bonds so low in value? 8. What was the tariff of 1789? 9. What were Secretary Hamilton's plans for the public debt? 10 (For an essay). Account of Alexander Hamilton.

(§ 142) 11. What is a corporation? 12. What are shares of stock? 13. What was the United States Bank?

(§ 143) 14. What were Jefferson's ideas about government? 15. What were Hamilton's ideas?

(§ 144) 16. What was the Federalist party? 17. What was the early Democratic or Republican party? 18. How were the principal public men divided between the two parties?

(§ 145) 19. How was the union of thirteen states completed? 20. How and when was Vermont admitted to the Union? 21. How and when was Kentucky admitted? 22. How and when was Tennessee admitted? 23. How was Washington founded as the capital? 24 (For an essay). Early descriptions of the city of Washington.

(§ 146) 25. What was the French Revolution? 26. Why was the United States neutral in the European war? 27. How did Americans open up trade with Asia? 28 (For an essay). Account of an early American voyage to Asia.

(§ 147) 29. What is meant by contraband; by blockade; by impressment? 30. What was the Jay Treaty with Great Britain? 31. What was the X, Y, Z mission?

(§ 148) 32. What were the Alien and Sedition Acts? 33. What were the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions? 34 (For an essay). Account of the death of Washington and public mourning. 35. How did the election of 1800 come out? 36. How was the President chosen in 1801?

CHAPTER XIV

EXPANSION AND NEUTRAL TRADE (1801-1812)

150. President Jefferson (1801-1809). When Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated in 1801, the Federalists felt that the end of the Republic was at hand, for they looked upon him in much the same way as conservative people now look upon a reckless reformer or an anarchist. Jefferson was a reserved man and did not tell everybody all that he knew, and hence some thought him false. He was a believer in government by the people, which many of the Federalists thought shocking, and they were sure that he could not be sincere.

He was keenly interested in education and science, and urged his state to set up public schools and a state university. He was a natural reformer. As President he had large ideas of making the government better and more efficient. He appointed Albert Gallatin Secretary of the Treasury with instructions to aid in cutting down the cost of government; and they succeeded.

Silhouette of Thomas
Jefferson

Jefferson desired to be the President of the whole people, and in his inaugural address appealed to the Federalists in golden words: "Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. . . . We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists."

One of the things that Jefferson liked was what he called "republican simplicity." He sent in written messages to Congress instead of making speeches, as had been the habit of Washington and Adams. He would have no ceremony at the

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White House, and shocked the minister of Great Britain by opening the door himself when that great man came to call, and by receiving him in dressing gown and slippers. Jefferson was never what we should call a

good mixer." He hated speechmaking and meeting crowds of people whom he had never seen before. Yet no President has had more influence in Congress; none has ever made warmer friends among the people; and none but Lincoln has ever done so much to extend the idea that all the people ought to have a share in their own government.

Jefferson's

151. Control of the Government (1801-1809). party had a good majority in both branches of Congress, and were able to pass a new set of laws. But John Marshall, the leading Federalist in Virginia, had just become Chief Justice and set out to teach Jefferson a lesson. Taking advantage of a dispute over a small appointment, Marshall held that a certain order given by the President was not legal; and that part of an act of Congress was contrary to the higher law of the Constitution (§ 127) and hence was no law. Jefferson paid no attention to this decision, which seemed a kind of political trick.

The President had great trouble with the federal officers. Unless he would use his power to remove some of the Federalist officeholders, there would be hardly any vacancies; for, as Jefferson said, "Few die and none resign." However, he refused to make a "clean sweep" of the persons whom he found in office, but did change about a third of those who drew good salaries. Those whom he appointed removed the clerks and other subordinates within their offices. Many officeholders were saved by changing their politics. Large numbers of Federalists voted for Jefferson for a second term in 1804; and he carried almost every state in the Union.

152. Napoleon Bonaparte (1796-1804). — Soon after Jefferson became President, Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself to be emperor of the French. During twenty years he was the greatest man in the world. Napoleon was of an Italian family living in Corsica, which was a part of France. He entered the army, and during the French Revolution (§ 146)

helped to put down the mob in Paris with his cannon. To get rid of him, the government sent him with an army to Italy (1796), where he won so many victories that he became the foremost man in France (§ 147). As emperor, his word was law in every part of the French dominions, and in the many European countries and provinces that he conquered.

Napoleon had a magnificent plan to construct a new French Empire with colonies all over the world; and therefore he wanted Louisiana, which for about forty years had been a Spanish colony (§ 71). In his direct relations with the United States, Napoleon always showed himself slippery and false. He had not the least idea of courtesy or of keeping promises; hence the Americans often suffered in their dealings with him. In 1800 he forced the king of Spain to make a treaty ceding Louisiana back to France. Then he sent a fleet and army to conquer Haiti, which, though formerly a French colony, had broken away and was under an independent negro government.

When in 1802 Jefferson heard of the transfer of Louisiana he took alarm and wrote a letter which was probably shown to Napoleon, in which he said: "There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans."

153. Interest of the West in Louisiana (1802-1803). The West was urgent that the United States should secure New Orleans. Out of the 5,300,000 Americans in 1800, 500,000 were living west of the mountains. The Northwest Territory was growing fast. In 1800 Connecticut gave up the Western Reserve (§ 121); that area was then united with the settlements on the Ohio and in the interior; and they were all admitted to the Union in 1803, as the state of Ohio (17th state) with about 65,000 people. In 1803 a government post was established at Fort Dearborn, the site of Chicago.

The westerners had no good roads or waterways to the east, and sent their surplus products down the Mississippi; and they were much annoyed by the Spanish control of the river's mouth. They were still more disturbed when they learned that Louisiana was about to pass to France, which was then the strongest country in the world.

Jefferson was already trying to buy the triangular strip known as the Island of Orleans (§ 71), which included the city of New Orleans; and also to buy Spanish West Florida, which extended from the Apalachicola River west to the Iberville and the Mississippi. He now sent James Monroe as a special envoy, to act with Robert R. Livingston, the regular minister to France, in making clear to Napoleon that the United States must have part of the sea front of Louisiana.

New Orleans and West Florida

154. Annexation of Louisiana (1803). Meanwhile Napoleon's army in Haiti had been almost destroyed by disease and by the negro troops. War with Great Britain was at hand, and he saw that the British would capture Louisiana if he annexed it. Suddenly he changed his mind and directed his ministers to offer to the Americans the whole vast territory of