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 govern ment, 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 Jopped 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

powerfully aided by the logical mind of a Gallatin; and the establishment of the permanent rule of definite appropriations of money for. all objects susceptible of definition, so that every person in the United States might know for what purpose, and to what amount, every fraction of public expenditure was applied. His personal watchfulness over this department of administration, the operations of which are so intimately interwoven with all human concerns, is forcibly illustrated by the following letter to the Secretary of the Treasury.

"I have read and considered your report on the operations of the sinking fund, and entirely approve of it, as the best plan on which we can set out. I think it an object of great importance, to be kept in view and to be undertaken at a fit season, to simplify our system of finance, and bring it within the comprehension of every member of Congress. Hamilton set out on a different plan. In order that he might have the entire government of his machine, he determined so to complicate it as that neither the President nor Congress should be able to understand it, or to control him. He succeeded in doing this, not only beyond their reach, but so that he at length could not unravel it himself. He gave to the debt, in the first instance, in funding it, the most artificial and mysterious form he could devise. He then moulded up his appropriations of a number of scraps and remnants, many of which were nothing at all, and applied them to different objects in reversion and remainder, until the whole system was involved in impenetrable fog; and while he was giving himself the airs of providing for the payment of the debt, he left himself free to add to it continually, as he did in fact, instead of paying it. I like your idea of kneading all his little scraps and fragments into one batch, and adding to it a complementary sum, which, while it forms it into a single mass from which every thing is to be paid, will enable us, should a breach of appropriation ever be charged on us, to prove that the sum appropriated, and more, has been applied to its specific object.

"But there is a point beyond this, on which I should wish to keep my eye, and to which I should aim to approach by every tack which previous arrangements force on us. That is, to form into one consolidated mass all the monies received into the treasury, and to marshal the several expenditures, giving them a preference of payment according to the order in which they shall be arranged. As for example. 1. The interest of the public debt. 2. Such portions of principal as are exigible. 3. The expenses of government. 4. Such other portions of principal as, though not exigible, we are still free to pay when we please. The last object might be made to take up the residuum of money remaining in the treasury at the end of

every year, after the three first objects were complied with, and would be the barometer whereby to test the economy of the administration. It would furnish a simple measure by which every one could mete their merit, and by which every one could decide when taxes were deficient or superabundant. If to this can be added a simplification of the form of accounts in the treasury department, and in the organization of its officers, so as to bring every thing to a single centre, we might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligi ble as a merchant's books, so that every member of Congress, and every man of any mind in the Union, should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and consequently to control them. Our predecessors have endeavored by intricacies of system, and shuffling the investigator over from one officer to another, to cover every thing from detection. I hope we shall go in the contrary direction, and that, by our honest and judicious reformations, we may be able, within the limits of our time, to bring things back to that simple and intelligible system, on which they should have been organized at first.

"I have suggested only a single alteration in the report, which is merely verbal and of no consequence. We shall now get rid of the commissioner of the internal revenue, and superintendant of stamps. It remains to amalgamate the comptroller and auditor into one, and reduce the register to a clerk of accounts; and then the organization will consist, as it should at first, of a keeper of money, a keeper of accounts, and the head of the department. This constellation of great men in the treasury department was of a piece with the rest of Hamilton's plans. He took his own stand as a Lieutenant General, surrounded by his Major Generals, and stationed his Brigadiers and Colonels under the name of Supervisors, Inspectors, &c. in the different States. Let us deserve well of our country by making her interests the end of all our plans, and not our own pomp, patronage, and irresponsibility. I have hazarded these hasty and crude ideas, which occurred on contemplating your report. They may be the subject of future conversation and correction."

Being now identified, as it were, with the Republic, to write the history of Mr. Jefferson would be to write the history of the United States, during one of the most plethoric portions of their political existence. But this would be an undertaking as disproportioned to the means of the writer, as to the limits by which he is circumscribed. Nothing more can be expected in the present plan, than an outline of the general policy, foreign and domestic, pursued by the President, and of the prominent measures which distinguished his administration.

Among these, the purchase of Louisiana from France, as it was of the first in point of time, was incomparably the first in magnitude and importance. It had long been a favorite object with Mr. Jefferson, as essential to removing from the United States a point of eternal friction, and cause of war with the European possessor, besides securing to us the exclusive navigation of the western waters, and an immeasurable region of fertile country. The territory of Louisiana was originally colonized by France. In 1762, the greater part of it, including the island of New Orleans, was ceded to Spain; and by the general treaty of peace which followed the Canadian war in '63, the whole territory of France and Spain, eastward of the Mississippi to the Ibberville, thence through the middle of that river to the sea, was ceded to Great Britain. Under the former possession by France, the territory embraced what is denominated West Florida. Spain, during the war of the Revolution, conquered this, with East Florida, from Great Britain, and acquired the right to them both by the treaty of '83. While in the hands of Spain. the United States acquired the right to a free navigation of the Mississippi, and to an entrepot at New-Orleans. About this time, to wit. in 1800, Spain retroceded to France the whole of Louisiana according to its ancient and proper limits. This transfer was attended with a suspension of our right of deposite at New-Orleans, and opened to us, in the opinion of the President, the dreadful prospect of a complete reversal of all our friendly relations with France. In view of the threatening crisis, he immediately joined Mr. Monroe as Envoy Extraordinary, to R. R. Livingston, Minister resident at the French Court, with instructions joint and several to negotiate the purchase of Louisiana from France. In the letter to Mr. Monroe conveying the notice of his appointment, the President says: "All eyes, all hopes are now fixed on you; and were you to decline, the chagrin would be universal, and would shake under your feet the high ground on which you stand with the public. Indeed, I know nothing which would produce such a shock. For on the event of this mission depend the future destinies of this republic. If we cannot, by a purchase of the country, insure to ourselves a course of perpetual peace and friendship with all nations, then, as war cannot be distant, it behooves us immediately to be preparing for that course, without, however, hastening it; and it may be necessary, on your failure on the continent, to cross the channel. We shall