CHAPTER ter, and being told that the refusal to assume the state

V. debts endangered the stability of the Union, he had con 1792. curred in bringing about an arrangement; not being

aware at the time that this assumption was soon to be come one of the principal grounds of opposition to the financial policy of the government, of which opposition he was himself to be the leader.

"If it has been supposed," the letter adds, "that I have ever intrigued among the members of the Legisla ture to defeat the plans of the Secretary of the Treasury, it is contrary to all truth. As I never had the desire to influence the members, so neither had I any other means than my friendships, which I valued too highly to risk by usurpations on their freedom of judgment, and the conscientious pursuit of their own sense of duty." He had not intrigued, it seems, he had only denounced; for the letter immediately adds, "That I have utterly, in my private conversations, disapproved of the system of the Secretary of the Treasury, I acknowledge and avow: and this was not merely a speculative difference. His system flowed from principles adverse to liberty, and was calculated to undermine and demolish the republic, by creating an influence of his department over the members of the Legislature. I saw this influence actually produced, and its first fruits to be the establishment of the great outlines of his project by the votes of the very persons who, having swallowed his bait, were laying themselves out to profit by his plans; and that, had these persons withdrawn, as those interested in a question ever should, the vote of the disinterested majority was clearly the reverse of what they made it. These were no longer, then, the votes of the representatives of the people, but of deserters from the rights and interests of the people, and it was impossible to consider their decision, which

V.

had nothing in view but to enrich themselves, as the CHAPTER measures of the fair majority, which ought always to be respected." Not content with thus denouncing his rival, 1792. as having secured the control of Congress by corrupt means, Jefferson proceeded to conjure up similar dangers yet to come. "If what was actually done begat uneasiness in those who wished for virtuous government, what was further proposed was not less threatening to the friends of the Constitution. For, in a report on the subject of manufactures (still to be acted on), it was expressly assumed that the general government has a right to exercise all powers which may be for the general welfare; that is to say, all the legitimate powers of government, since no government has a legitimate right to do what is not for the welfare of the governed. There was, indeed, a sham limitation of the universality of this power to cases where money is to be employed. But about what is it that money can not be employed? Thus the object of these plans, taken together, is to draw all the powers of government into the hands of the general Legislature, to establish means for corrupting a sufficient corps in that Legislature to divide the honest votes and preponderate by their own the scale which suited, and to have that corps under the command of the Secretary of the Treasury, for the purpose of subverting, step by step, the principles of the Constitution, which he has so often declared a thing of nothing, which must be changed."

But while Jefferson had thus, in his own opinion, very delicately and scrupulously abstained from any interference with the Treasury Department-contenting himself with privately denouncing to such members of Congress as he was intimate with, and, indeed, to the president himself, the whole policy of the Secretary of the Treasury as totally corrupt, both in theory and practice, and

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CHAPTER threatening speedy destruction to the liberties of the country-Hamilton, he complained, had exhibited no such 1792. delicacy toward him. The management of foreign affairs belonged to his department, yet Hamilton had repeatedly interfered, " by cabals with members of the Leg. islature, and high-toned declamations on other occasions," to defeat Jefferson's favorite scheme of discriminating duties in favor of France and to the disadvantage of England, and to force down his own system of equal duties upon all imports, whether from nations in treaty or not.

Having thus explained his differences with Hamilton as arising solely out of a disinterested devotion on his part to the purity of the administration and the liberties of the country, while Hamilton was the desperate enemy of both, Jefferson's letter proceeds to advert, in the same bitter spirit, to the recent strictures on his conduct, published under the signature of "an American," but which, from "their style, manner, and venom," he did not hesitate to ascribe to Hamilton. The charge of anti-Federalism he pronounces "most false," and attempts to retort it upon Hamilton. The charge of being opposed to the payment of the public debt is disposed of in the same cursory manner. According to his account, the difference between him and Hamilton was this: he would wish the debt paid to-morrow, while Hamilton wished it never to be paid, but always to be a thing wherewith to corrupt and manage the Legislature. But how the debt could have been paid to-morrow, or paid at all-unless drawing a sponge through it was to be called paymentwithout a funding system, the same in its general features with that actually adopted, and against which he raised such perpetual clamors, neither on this nor on any other occasion did Jefferson ever attempt to explain. The whole burden, in fact, of his objections to the fund

V.

ing system might, by critical examination, be resolved CHAPTER into this the leading position in public affairs which Hamilton, as the author of it, had been enabled to assume. 1792. But the most curious part of this letter was Jefferson's exculpation of himself from the charge of connection with Freneau's Gazette, especially considering the very remarkable coincidence of spirit, opinions, feelings, and even expressions, between this very letter and that newspaper. After repeated applications made to him on Freneau's behalf, such was his statement-he does not say by whom, but no doubt by Madison, the mutual friend of both parties, and whom Hamilton had pointed out in his articles as the active party in setting up the National Gazette-a vacancy having happened, shortly after the removal of the government to Philadelphia, in one of the four clerkships, the only patronage attached to his office, he had given that place to Freneau. The place, however, was a paltry one, the salary being only $250 per annum. Whether it was before or after this appointment he could not tell, but he was very well pleased to hear that Freneau intended to set up a newspaper. Indeed, he had been anxious, and had already ineffectually attempted, in one or two other newspapers, to bring under Washington's eye and before the public the most material parts of the Leyden Gazette, in order to give a juster view of the affairs of Europe and of the progress of events in France than could be obtained by the commonly published extracts from the English papers. The union of the business of editor of a newspaper with that of translating clerk seemed to afford an excellent opportunity to give effect to this idea; and he had accordingly furnished Freneau with the Leyden Gazettes as they came, and had expressed a wish that he would translate and insert their most material

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CHAPTER parts. As this was about the time that the writings of Publicola and the Discourses on Davilla were exciting 1792. a good deal of public attention, and as Freneau was recommended to him as a good Whig, he took it for granted that free place would be given in the new paper to pieces against the aristocratical and monarchical principles of those writers. Perhaps he had recommended the paper on that ground; but in doing so he had looked only to the chastisement of the aristocratical and monarchical writers, and not to any criticisms on the proceedings of the government. Out of regard for Freneau as a man of genius, he had obtained subscriptions for his paper both before its publication and since; but he disclaimed any responsibility whatever for its contents, protesting, "in the presence of Heaven," that, except as to the extracts from the Leyden Gazette, he had never given any indication of a wish how the paper should be conducted. "I can further protest," so ran the letter, "in the same awful presence, that I never did, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, write, dictate, or procure any one sentence or sentiment to be inserted in his or any other gazette to which my name was not affixed or that of my office. I surely need not except here a thing so foreign to my present subject as a little paragraph about our Algerine captives, which I put once into Fenno's paper."

Nothing, indeed, could be more different or remarkable than the positions respectively occupied by Jefferson and Hamilton in relation to the public press. Jefferson always spoke of the newspapers with all the marked contempt of old-fashioned times, as little better than vehicles of slander and abuse. He affected not to read them, and to write for them he seemed to think a degradation or worse. Yet no one was better aware than he of their