CHAPTER XIX. MESSAGES NOT SPEECHES-PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA-HISTORY OF FOUR YEARS BY THE EXECUTIVE. MR. R. JEFFERSON was not slow in starting the affairs of the Government according to his own notions. Although accused of putting into office Revolutionary Tories and their sons instead of soldiers of the Union, he very early marked this story as untrue, by notifying the Postmaster-General "to employ no printer, foreigner or Revolutionary Tory, in any of his offices." He simply and absolutely announced, unlike a republican Executive, that the army should be reduced; the navy reduced; and Congress hurry up the work of reform. When that body convened in December, 1801, composed largely of Democrats, he sent to the president of the Senate the following brief communication with his annual message: "December 8, 1801. "SIR,-The circumstances under which we find ourselves placed, rendering inconvenient the mode heretofore practiced of making by personal address the first communication between the legislative and executive branches, I have adopted that by message, as used on all subsequent occasions through the session. In doing this, I have had principal regard to the convenience of the legislature, to the economy of their time, to their relief from the embarrassment of immediate answers on subjects not yet fully before them, and to the benefits thence resulting to the public affairs. Trusting that a procedure founded in these motives will meet their approbation, I beg leave, through you, sir, to communicate the inclosed message, with the documents accompanying it, to the honorable the senate, and pray you to accept, for yourself and them, the homage of my high respect and consideration. 66 THOMAS JEFFERSON. "THE HON. THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE." "Circumstances under which we find ourselves placed," the vague reason with which the President introduced this letter, did not very clearly rest on any change in the affairs of the country, and it may not be forgotten that Mr. Jefferson's own defects had as much to do with this radical departure as the necessities of the new political school he was setting up. It would have been a sore trial to him to appear year after year in this great effort before Congress, and always at the risk of his reputation. He was utterly unfit to deliver this annual speech, and nobody knew better than Mr. Jefferson where his own strength lay. Perhaps more to his timidity and other defects as a public speaker than to any thing else does the country owe the substitution of annual messages for annual speeches at the opening of Congress. Still there was another side to this case, and there can now be little diversity of opinion as to the wisdom of the step on the part of President Jefferson. The country was really in the humor to tolerate such Executive independence, and the good sense of Mr. Jefferson had always been averse to this yearly display after the manner of European courts, and the ceremonious and useless complimentary replies of Congress to the President's address. The country received no small benefit, in several ways, from Mr. Jefferson by this bold performance of destroying the needless, if not unrepublican usage. Early in 1802, the judiciary measures of the last Administration, so offensive to the Democrats, were repealed; a new apportionment bill for Congressional representation was passed; the army was reduced to three thousand men, commanded by a brigadier-general; and the "navy" was kept up to what was considered a Mediterranean fighting standard. The grandeur of the Government had really vanished under the new order of things. Washington and Adams had introduced one custom to which Mr. Jefferson adhered with severe punctiliousness, that was visiting home during the recesses of Congress, and twice a year, at least, spending as much time as possible from the seat of government. During the term of his Vice-Presidency he had been so anxious to get away from the Capital that he seldom remained to preside in the Senate until the close of a session, and as seldom returned until after that body was organized. His circumstances made it necessary for him to avail himself of all the pecuniary advantages of his position. His lands were poorly managed and badly worked down; his hospitality was expensive; and his small army of negroes consumed nearly every thing they made. In France he had received nine thousand dollars a year, and now his salary as President was twenty-five thousand. During the first year of his Presidency his expenses footed up thirty-three thousand dollars, but this included several thousand spent at Monticello, and in the purchase of horses, etc. In this year, too, in the table of expenses, two items strike the explorer as singularly noticeable, that is, liquors over two thousand dollars; for sweet charity nine hundred and seventy-eight dollars. One of Mr. Jefferson's strongest passions was to teach, to put his views of politics and religious freedom, as he termed it, before the people. And he made it a point of studied importance to embrace as much of these in his letters and public documents as possible at all times. To his daughter, Mrs. Eppes, he wrote a great deal, as she was little with him after her marriage. In these letters he put much gossip, many small incidents, sometimes religion, and seldom neglected politics. His daughters did not, to any great extent, fall in with his so-called religious theories, as they remained attached to the Episcopal Church. But he never made the least attempt to influence or direct them in this matter. Although such a course would ordinarily be deemed reprehensible, it was not so in his case. What they possessed, as children, was better than what he had to teach, as a man. Mr. Jefferson did not follow his predecessors as to days of national fasting or thanksgiving by proclamation from the Executive, and his well-known opposition to any kind of union between church and State he freely and confidently exposed. In the early part of his Administration Spain ceded. Louisiana to France, and serious difficulties began to arise as to the use of the Mississippi River by the United States, and the possibility of complications with these nations touching that territory. With all his affection for France Mr. Jefferson was opposed to her owning this territory on our south, and in this feeling most Americans joined him. In the summer of 1802, Mr. Jefferson was greatly annoyed on account of his former patronage of James Thompson Callender. Callender was a man of dissi pated and vile habits, and it was certainly most unfortunate for Mr. Jefferson that he espoused his cause amidst his untruthful and villainous attacks upon Washington, Adams, and the Government. This is saying the least that can be justly said on the subject. When Mr. Jefferson became President he released Callender from confinement at Richmond, where he had been thrown under the operation of the "Sedition Law," and Callender not having lost any of the effrontery which had before characterized him, and believing, from his former experiences, that the Democratic leaders, besides being in debt to him for his services, were reduced to his own level, asked Mr. Jefferson for the position of Postmaster at Richmond. This the President refused without a moment's consideration. Although, to his discredit, he had paid Callender enormous prices for his low and villainous writings, and had freely given money for his support, Callender now turned and attacked him in the most scurrilous manner, which he was unable, according to his own philosophy, to check; and which some of the Federalists used every means to favor and advance with all its falsity and disgustingness, and that in the face of their former determined advocacy of the execution of the "Sedition Act," and in the case of this very man for the same offense. Through the "Richmond Recorder," and otherwise, he assailed the President from every imaginable point, even as to the alleged impurity of his private life. Efforts were put forth on every hand to fill up the Mississippi country with a population ready for any emergency in the settlement of matters concerning that river and the territory at its mouth. Great dread |