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language, which should, if it does not, constitute permanently a part of the very soul of our relations with foreign nations:

"We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience; we abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other nations, we have hoped that our distance and our disposition would have left us free in the example and indulgence of peace with all the world. . . . We confide in our strength without boasting of it; we respect that of others without fearing it.”

That is crisp and lofty. Its style is Demosthenic. The two wise heads in the Cabinet were determined, if they could help it, not to have war with anybody, although our relations with Great Britain and France both, as well as with Spain, were becoming daily more and more embarrassing. In addition, the people of the United States, as some foreigner, then visiting us, reported, "were all either Englishmen, or Frenchmen, and none Americans." Washington was standing firm and prudent. His critics said, as others said a dozen years later of Jefferson, that his course was "overcautious" and "pusillanimous.'

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Jefferson's request for the recall of Genet was dated August 16th. In his dispatch he uses this language: "If our citizens here have not already been shedding each other's blood, it is not owing to the moderation of Mr. Genet." This from Jefferson had greater effect in France than if written by any man in the world, not a Frenchman. Genet was not only recalled, but in such spirit, that he was afraid to return to France, and settled in America.

While Secretary of State, in a letter to Chancellor

Livingston, who was on the eve of departing for France, to be our Minister there, he wrote, on September 9th, a letter upon the question as to whether neutral ships should make free goods, in which he touched upon the question of blockade. The letter has, upon the whole, constituted the American doctrine upon these subjects, though some of the reasons given are in themselves curious, starting out, as Jefferson always liked to start, from grounds of natural and abstract right. This letter is well worth close study. To some extent, his doctrine concerning contraband is in advance even of the present European practice, but has constituted since, in the main, the American contention.

For reasons unconnected with Diplomatic affairs Jefferson had determined to retire from the Cabinet. Washington had thus far kept him in office by appealing to him on the ground that it was not the part of a "general officer to resign upon the anticipated outbreak of war. Madison and his friends had added their voices for a far different reason. They wanted his party leadership on the spot. But on July 31, 1793, in spite of the solicitations of both President and friendsthe ship of state being seemingly in safe harbor, so far as international billows could threaten her- he sent in his letter of resignation to take effect the 1st of September.

On August 6th, after the receipt of this letter, the President called upon him. I think there was something pathetic in George Washington's being chained to office, as a post of duty, and trying to chain Jefferson to it, at a time when both were tired nigh unto death

of it all, and were yearning for the large and restful spaces of the plantation. He seems, even after all the warning he had had, to have taken Jefferson's letter in a hurt sort of way, because, upon this visit, he expressed his repentance at not having resigned himself, and said that that repentance was "increased by seeing that he was to be deserted by those on whose aid he had counted."

Finally, the President said, that if Jefferson could "only stay to the end of another quarter," which would be till the last of December, instead of the 1st of September, the date fixed in Jefferson's note, "it would get us through the difficulties of this year," because he was "satisfied that the affairs of Europe would be settled at the end of the pending campaign either France being overwhelmed, or the coalition retiring from the contest." Jefferson's party friends had begged him to do this too. He had positively refused them, but a few days afterwards he conceded that postponement to Washington, which he had refused to them. The President, in a letter, dated the 12th of August, puts in another plea to extend further the period for the resignation "until the close of the next session of Congress," for which he proffers many weighty reasons, relating to foreign powers, Indian disturbances, and internal policies. This persistency is touching. Washington concludes his letter: "If this cannot be, my next wish is that your absence from the seat of Government in autumn may be as short as you can conveniently make it.” All this, notwithstanding the fact that many months had elapsed since Washington had lost his temper and sworn about Freneau, since Jeffer

son had entered in his diary that it was plain that he wanted him to dismiss Freneau, and then had added these measured words: "but I will not do it," and did not; thereby giving Washington his choice of dismissing both Freneau and him, or neither. Washington seems to have understood. Federalist "history writers" and their political descendants are so dense! On December 21st, the President, who was untiring in his persistency, made another effort by letter to get Jefferson to postpone his resignation yet further, but this time without effect, and on December 31st, the last day of the quarter, as previously determined, Jefferson sent it in. Read that letter, following it with the perusal of Washington's reply. I think the reader must agree with me that the insinuations and charges of historians with Federalistic leanings some of them writing not unrecently that Washington "had grown to distrust Jefferson," and was "glad to get him out of the Cabinet," that Jefferson "was compelled to resign," are sufficiently refuted by the history of their relations up to this moment; in fact, proven to be stupendous ignorance, or else stupendous lies. If not, they are conclusively refuted by these two letters, unless the reader be prepared to consider both men thorough-paced hypocrites. Jefferson's was dated December 31, 1793. Washington's reply was dated the next day, January 1, 1794, at the same place.

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The message to the next Congress concerning our international relations, which was sent in on the fourth Monday in December, was prepared and left by Mr. Jefferson and signed by President Washington. A draft of it in his handwriting was among his literary

remains, as was also the Presidential confidential message containing our diplomatic correspondence with Spain, which was sent in by the President on the 16th of December. On this same day, in response to a resolution of the House, passed February 23, 1791, Jefferson's celebrated "Report on the Privileges and Restrictions of the Commerce of the United States in Foreign Countries" was sent in.

When Jefferson's diplomatic state papers were sent to Congress their tone, their total want of any foreign bias, their felicity, facility and lucidness of expression, their "sweet reasonableness," their dignity and firmness, their lack of either bullying or cringing, were the causes of spontaneous and irrestrainable public and private applause.

Daniel Webster writes of Jefferson as Secretary of State as follows:

"Immediately upon his return to his native country . . . his talents and experience recommended him to President Washington for the first office in his gift. He was placed at the head of the Department of State. In this situation, also, he manifested conspicuous ability. His correspondence with the ministers of other powers residing here, and his instructions to our diplomatic agents abroad, are among our ablest State papers. A thorough knowledge of the laws and usages of nations, perfect acquaintance with the immediate subjects before him, great felicity, and still greater facility in writing, show themselves in whatever effort his official situation called on him to make."

Senator Vest, of Missouri, in an address at Columbia, Missouri, on June 4, 1885, expressed himself yet more glowingly.

Even Judge Marshall writes grudgingly: "This gentleman withdrew from public station in a moment,

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