Shortly after coming back to Monticello, he discovered, somewhat to his dismay, that the rank and file of the good people of the country did not pay much attention to the political battle which was still raging in Philadelphia. He went to "court" at Charlottesville at the beginning of February and was amazed to find that his neighbors had not heard of Madison's speeches in Congress or even of the recall of Genet.

This would tend to give confirmation to the supposition I timidly ventured in the last chapter. Neither the inflammatory speeches made in Congress, nor the foundation of democratic clubs, nor the newspaper battle between different editors had been able to rouse the people of the country. In America, as in every other country, the rural population, at that time the majority of the population, remained passive and took little interest in discussions that did not immediately affect their interests. Then, too, as in our days, the press was able to modify and to influence to some extent public opinion, but did not express it. Editors were years in advance of the slow-moving masses in their prognostications. It takes a national emergency, a violent crisis or a well-organized political machine to coalesce the great majority of a people and force them to see beyond the limited horizon of their village, their county or their State. This is so even now, and it was certainly so a century and a half ago, when the parochial and provincial spirit was still stronger than the national spirit.

Since this was realized by Jefferson, it is difficult to understand how he did not come to the conclusion that his clear duty was to go back to Philadelphia and do his utmost to educate an apathetic people. But he was not the man to enjoy strife and struggle; he was too sensitive of personal criticism and attacks, too timid also to care to exchange blows with an opponent. He was the type of man who likes to play chess by correspondence, to suggest solutions, but not the one "to knead the dough", as the French say, and to take an active part in the daily game of politics.

From his retirement he found time to answer letters from Madison and Monroe. Before leaving Philadelphia, he had transmitted to the House of Representatives a Report on the Privileges and Restrictions of the Commerce of the United States.[313] It was incumbent upon Madison to draw from it specific recommendations. Jefferson pointed out in a dispassionate way the obstacles put by Great Britain to the growth of American commerce, her lack of reciprocal treatment, her prohibitions and restrictions. He ended by indicating that France had, of her own accord, proposed negotiations for improving the commercial relations between the two countries by a new treaty on fair and equal principles; that her internal disturbances alone had prevented her from doing it, though the government had repeatedly manifested reassuring dispositions. On the contrary, "in spite of friendly advances and arrangements proposed to Great Britain, they being already on as good a footing in law, and a better in fact, than the most favored nation, they have not, as yet, discovered any disposition to have it meddled with." As a remedy, pending the conclusion of treaties, Jefferson laid down five principles to protect American commerce and retaliate in so far as would not hurt the interests of the American people, although at the beginning trade might suffer from it. A storm broke out in Congress, and once more Jefferson became the target of the Federalists.

He was not uninformed of these developments, for Madison and Monroe sent him several letters at short intervals at the beginning of March; nor did he leave his lieutenants without directions. He still hoped that a war could be avoided; but he could not conceive that it would be possible in any event to let Great Britain seize the French West Indies: "I have no doubt that we ought to interpose at a proper time, and declare both to France and England that these islands are to rest with France, and that we will make a common cause with the latter for that object." Having thus outlined these policies, he relapsed into his ataraxy, affirming that he had not seen a Philadelphia paper until he had received those inclosed by Madison. The patience of Monroe must have been taxed to the breaking point when, after sending to his chief a long letter full of detailed information, he received in answer an equally long letter replete with agricultural disquisitions—"on such things as you are too little of a farmer to take much interest in."[314]

The supposed leader of the Republicans was not more encouraging in his letters to Madison when he wrote a month later: "I feel myself so thoroughly weaned from the interest I took in the proceedings there, while there, that I have never a wish to see one [a newspaper], and believe that I shall never take another paper of any sort. I find my mind totally absorbed by my rural occupation."[315] Yet the old fame flared up occasionally, as when he learned that Hamilton was being considered to succeed Pinckney who would be recalled from England: "a more degrading measure could not have been proposed," he wrote to Monroe. In regard to Hamilton, he foresaw an investigation on the Treasury and had wanted to withdraw before it took place.[316]

But he fell back into the same detached attitude of mind, when he wrote to Washington the next day: "I return to farming with an ardor which I scarcely knew in my youth, and which has got the better entirely of my love of study. Instead of writing ten or twelve letters a day, which I have been in the habit of doing as a thing of course, I put off answering my letters now, farmer-like, till a rainy day."

As a matter of fact, I doubt very much whether he had reached any such equanimity. For if he was unwilling to reënter public life, he was not averse to giving his opinion and advice in critical circumstances. While Madison's resolutions were still before Congress, news arrived in Philadelphia of the seizure of American ships in the Caribbean, under the Order in Council of November 6. Indignation was running high and democratic societies held patriotic meetings throughout the country. War seemed imminent, and although Jefferson preferred to contemplate the tranquil growth "of his lucern and potatoes", he still felt indignant when thinking "of these scoundrels" (the British). Yet he believed that war should be avoided and wrote to that effect to Tench Coxe:

To Washington he wrote two weeks later a most amusing letter, starting with a dissertation on crop rotation and "a certain essence of dung, one pint of which would manure an acre according to Lord Kaims", but not forgetting, in a negligent way, to slip in at the end a piece of political advice: "to try to extricate ourselves from the event of a war; at the same time to try to rouse public opinion in Great Britain and the only way to do it being to distress their commerce." But he added once more, "I cherish tranquillity too much to suffer political things to enter my mind at all."[318] This was nothing but the non-intercourse policy then debated by the government and of which Jefferson had evidently heard. When his letter reached the President, a solution had already been adopted and Jay had sailed for England on the mission which was to end with his signing the famous or infamous treaty. The summer went on without any new letter from Jefferson. A letter of the Secretary of State, asking him whether he would not consider lending a hand to the President in the present emergency, found him in bed "under a paroxysm of rheumatism which had kept him for ten days in constant torment." Then he emphatically added,

This was the very time when the Whisky Boys of Eastern Pennsylvania revolted against the excise laws of Hamilton which fell on them harder than on any other part of the rural population, for they could not market their grain for lack of transportation facilities and their only means of living was distilling it into whisky. Individual acts of resistance to the agents of the excise culminated in August, 1794, in an armed convention denouncing the law and defying the government on Braddock field, under the leadership of the chief expert of the Jeffersonians, Albert Gallatin. Not only was the militia called but the President and Hamilton went to visit the camp at Carlisle. The insurrection ended without bloodshed, but the side of the insurrectionists was taken up in the large cities by the Democratic societies in which the Irish element was largely represented—hot-headed people, recently come from an oppressed land, who felt an ingrained spirit of revolt against soldiers and men in uniform,—until dressed in a uniform themselves. The immediate effect of the Hamiltonian policy was to amalgamate rural population and urban groups of mechanics and small operatives in a hostile attitude towards the aristocratic government. Hamilton thought the time had come to crush the vanguard of the Jeffersonian troops, and Washington, who had an inveterate hatred of anything smacking of disorder and mob rule, lent a favorable ear. He wrote a stinging denunciation of the Democratic societies in his yearly message to Congress.

This time Jefferson was aroused, although personally he had never had anything to do with Tammany in New York nor any of the Democratic societies in Philadelphia. He fairly exploded in a letter to James Madison: the denunciation of the Democratic societies was "one of the extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the faction of monocrats." How could one condemn the Democratic societies and let alone the Society of the Cincinnati, "a self-created one, carving out for itself hereditary distinctions, lowering over our Constitution eternally." It was an inexcusable aggression. With regard to the transactions against the excise law, he refused to take seriously the "meeting of Braddock field", and ridiculed the mobilizing of an army against men who were not thinking seriously of separating, "simply consulting about it."—"But to consult on a question does not amount to a determination of that question in the affirmative, still less to the acting on such determination," he advised. A fine legal distinction which Jefferson forgot at the time of the Burr conspiracy! But "the first and only cause of the whole trouble was the infernal excise law." The first error was "to admit it by the Constitution"; the second, to act on that admission; the third and last will be to "make it the instrument of dismembering the Union." In conclusion he advised Madison to stay at his post, "to take the front of the battle" for Jefferson's own security, and once again he reaffirmed that he would not give up his retirement for the empire of the universe.[320]

On April 23, 1795, he wrote to James Madison to refuse categorically any resumption of office high or low. That was already his firm resolution when he had left Philadelphia and it was even stronger then, since his health had broken down during the last eight months: "My age requires that I should place my affairs in a clear state. The question is forever closed with me." To propose his name would only mean a division of votes in the party and that was to be avoided before everything.[321] To Giles he repeated that his days "were busy with now and then a pious ejaculation for the French and Dutch, returning with due despatch to my clover, potatoes, wheat, etc."[322] In the meantime Jay had returned with the treaty surrendering practically all the claims of the United States, placing the country in a position of constant inferiority with reference to England, opening the Mississippi to the British trade and forbidding American vessels to carry molasses, sugar, and cotton to any ports except their own. It was laid in special session before the Senate on June 8, ratified on June 24, and sent to the President without the contents being known to any one. It would have remained secret if Thomson Mason of Virginia had not taken a copy of it to Bache, who published it the next day in the Aurora. It was a most humiliating and scarcely defensible transaction: Jay had been outgeneraled at every step by Grenville and, in a way, betrayed by Hamilton. But although it was distinctly a Federalist victory, it offered good campaign material for the Republicans.[323]

On August 30, Jefferson sent to Thomas Mann a sort of apologia, telling him how, "while all hands were below deck, every one at his own business and the captain in his cabin attending to the log book a rogue of a pilot had run the ship into an enemy's port." Not that he wanted to express any opinion of his own but, "metaphor apart, there is much dissatisfaction with Mr. Jay and his treaty.... For my part, I consider myself now but as a passenger leaving the world and its government to those who are likely to live longer in it."[324]

With H. Tazewell he was more outspoken: a glance at the treaty had been enough to convince him that the United States would be much better without any treaty than with a treaty of that sort. "Acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war," and he could only hope that the Executive's sense of public honor and spirit would be awakened. To Madison he gave the benefit of his advice. There was no leader in the camp of the Republicans to take advantage of the situation; rioting in the streets could not influence favorably the judgment of Washington, who had not yet signed, and there was always Hamilton, who had retired to be sure, but was "a host in himself"; the Federalists were in a defile, but "too much security will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them." He ended with an appeal to Madison: "We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth, when he comes forward, there is nobody but yourself who can meet him.... For God's sake take your pen, and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillus."[325]

With real perspicacity Jefferson had put his finger on the fundamental weakness of the Republicans. They were only the yeomanry; they counted a number of very honest and distinguished men; some of them were even brilliant in debates and could flatter themselves that they were victorious, as long as the Federalist chieftain did not appear in person on the battlefield. When he did, however, they had no outstanding man with the same capacity for work, the same ability to marshal facts, to present cogent arguments and to use biting sarcasm. Jefferson alone, with his great felicity of expression and his mastery of style, could have opposed successfully the Federalist leader, but, as he wrote to Rutledge: "after five and twenty years' continual employment (in the service of our country), I trust it will be thought I have fulfilled my tour, like a punctual soldier and may claim my discharge."[326]

That he would have been a redoubtable opponent, had he chosen to be so, appears in a letter he sent at the time to William B. Giles. The treaty once ratified by the Senate and signed by the President, it was thought that the House, on which fell the duty of making the necessary appropriations for the enforcement of the different articles, might possibly pass in their turn on the merits of the document. Randolph had been requested by the President to give his opinion on the subject and did it in one of those written consultations which Jefferson had so often been asked to prepare himself, when in the official family of Washington. To Giles, who was to attack the treaty in the House with Gallatin and Madison, Jefferson sent an elaborate and cruel dissection of Randolph's opinion:

Clearly he was getting back into his stride and when thoroughly aroused, as he had been once or twice in his career, he could also hit back or rather pierce with rapid thrust of the rapier. And yet he was not really thinking of reëntering the arena, for at the same time he was offering to George Wythe to superintend an edition of the laws of Virginia, of which he had made as complete a collection as he could, "either the manuscripts crumbling into dust or printed."[328] Yet he had an eye upon the budding geniuses of the Democratic party. Soon he realized the value of Albert Gallatin, who had undertaken a thorough analysis and demolition of Hamilton's administration:

With such sentences, simple and easily remembered, such felicity of expression and of thought, one can make a lasting impression on the people, without addressing directly the Indians of Tammany Hall or participating in whisky riots. One can also throw suspicion of intentional dishonesty on one's adversaries, coin mottoes which, repeated in a political campaign, fix themselves easily in the unsophisticated minds of the common people. But it does not ensue necessarily that Jefferson was an arch plotter, pulling the strings and laying plots to explode years later. He was quite sincere in his dislike of Hamilton's budgets, for the simple reason that he did not understand them himself. The master financier and expert was beyond Jefferson's comprehension; in many respects he was even far ahead of his own time, while Jefferson, in matters of finance at least, remained all his life an eighteenth-century man. But the young Swiss-American who had made his mark in the whisky insurrection must have felt himself elated at Jefferson's approval. By such appropriate compliments and encouragements, great tacticians create and foster party and personal loyalty, and Jefferson was a past master in this difficult art.

As he had encouraged Gallatin, he encouraged Giles, kept in touch with him and through him sent a word of congratulation to a new Republican recruit, Doctor Leib: "I know not when I have received greater satisfaction than on reading the speech of Doctor Leib in the Pennsylvania Assembly. He calls himself a new member. I congratulate honest republicanism on such an acquisition, and promise myself much from a career which begins on such elevated ground."[330] He reminded him that Democratic societies were proscribed in England and that it would be interesting to know the terms of the bill proposed by Pitt against them. Gallatin again called for his commendation for a speech printed in Bache's Aurora, the sole organ of the Republicans since Freneau had discontinued his Gazette: "It is worthy of being printed at the end of the Federalist, as the only rational commentary on the part of the law to which it relates."[331] Then Jefferson raved over the indignities heaped upon the country by the treaty, over the point made by the Federalists that the House had nothing to say in the matter, and in his fury he even went so far as to treat Washington more severely than he had ever done before. "Curse on his virtues," he exclaimed; "they have undone his country." This political advice was naturally buried under rural news: "Mercury at twenty degrees in the morning. Corn fallen at Richmond to twenty shillings." But this bucolic note stopped short and the political thermometer was consulted again and indicated that "Nicholas was sure of his election, R. Joue and Jo. Monroe, in competition for the other vote of the county."

Three weeks later Jefferson dug in his files to send Madison more ammunition, showing clearly that, at least in one case, Washington himself had recognized formerly the authority of the legislature, that is to say both branches of the House, when it came to ratifying the treaty with the new Emperor of Morocco.[332] Then he wrote to his former neighbor, Philip Mazzei, a letter which was to cause him more difficulties than any of the previous acts of his career. He thought that he could and should give news of the country to this curious character, who had come to Virginia as a vine-grower to engage in agricultural experiments but who was also the former agent of the Duke of Tuscany and of Stanislas of Poland, a Grimm "au petit pied", a literary correspondent and a philosopher. In all fairness to Jefferson a preliminary remark is here necessary. He was apt in conversation to take his cue from his interlocutors rather than to force on them any topic, and he was apt also to speak in the same tone and same diapason. In his letters he instinctively yielded to the same tendency, changing his tone and style according to his correspondent. Writing to an Italian he adopted a flowery, metaphoric, and emphatic manner not often found in his letters, and in his desire to flatter the Tuscan ear of his friend, he overshot the mark and overemphasized what he would have stated much more moderately to an American:

But these men had not realized the great strength of the party then coming into being: "We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors." Then came the customary mention of his health, even more mournful than usual: "I begin to feel the effects of age. My health has suddenly broken down, with symptoms which give me to believe that I shall not have much to encounter of the tedium vitae."[333] Little did he believe when he indulged in this rhetorical outburst that Mazzei would give the letter to an Italian paper, that it would be translated from the Italian into French, from French into English and finally appear in America.

For Jefferson was eager to remain on good personal terms with Washington, even if he strongly disapproved of his policies, and this appeared when a few months later he denied having communicated to Bache's Aurora the questionnaire on the Little Sarah, and he seized the occasion to assure Washington once again of his affectionate sentiments. But he was already thinking of protecting himself, for in the same letter he asked the President to send him copies of the opinions presented by Hamilton and Randolph as "they had his opinion and he never had been able to obtain copy of theirs." And significantly he added, "Though I do not know that it will ever be of the least importance to me, yet one loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them."[334]

The summer was apparently entirely occupied in agricultural and scientific pursuits. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, the former president of the National Assembly, at whose house Jefferson used to visit when in Paris to meet the "républicains", was then traveling through the United States and stopped at Monticello for a week. The Duke has left us a most valuable description of Jefferson's establishment and the country around it. He praised the house "which will deserve when completed to be ranked with the most pleasant mansions in France and in Europe." He admired the view from the hill: for "Mr. Jefferson's house commands one of the most extensive prospects you can meet with." But his eye was that of a refined and overcivilized Frenchman of the eighteenth century accustomed to limited horizons, limited forests, to a certain balance between the woods, the rivers and the lands inclosed with hedges, to a nature stamped, modified, remolded by centuries of human labor. The contrast between the "moderate French landscapes" and the unlimited vistas in which plowed fields occupied a negligible space, impressed him almost painfully.

It was a magnificent view, but too vast; and rather than look at the scene as it presented itself, he preferred to call on fancy "to picture to us those plains and mountains such as population and culture will render them in a greater or smaller number of years." He looked with some suspicion at the numerous agricultural experiments of Jefferson, who seemed "to have derived his knowledge from books." He was not alone in this opinion. In any farming country, innovations are looked upon askance and we are not surprised to learn that "his system is entirely confined to himself; it is censured by some of his neighbours, who are also employed in improving their culture with ability and skill, but he adheres to it, and thinks it founded on just observation." Finally came the picture of the master himself and life at Monticello, worth preserving and reproducing.

It is pleasant to have the direct testimony of a foreigner and a philosopher on the way Jefferson treated his slaves. But how can we believe that a man who could supervise all the details of the agricultural and industrial life around Monticello and endure the harvest sun was absolutely broken down in health? If he had ever been, Jefferson certainly was picking up. It seems probable that he did not discuss politics with the noble traveler. Perhaps he heard another recital of the excesses of the French Revolution,—a painful subject and one that did not serve any purpose; far better was it to exchange views on crop rotation, sheep raising, dung and manure, clover and potatoes and to demonstrate the new plow he had invented with a mold board of least resistance, which was to bring him some years later the "grande médaille" of the Agricultural Society of Paris.[335]

The first mention of the coming presidential election occurs in a letter to Monroe of July 10, 1796. The treaty had finally passed, but the party of the monocrats was shaken to its very foundation, "Mr. Jay and his advocates are treaty-foundered." The result was not doubtful. Even if a monocrat were elected, he would be overborne by the republican sense of his constituents. "If a republican, he will, of course, give fair play to that sense and lead things into the channel of harmony between the governors and the governed. In the meantime, patience!" He mentions that in order to operate a division and to split the Virginia vote, they had unsuccessfully endeavored to run Patrick Henry for vice president and would probably fall back on Pinckney, "in which they regard his southern position rather than his principles." But curiously enough the presidential nominees or preferences are not even mentioned. Could Monroe really believe that Hamlet was going to be played without Hamlet, and that the election of a vice president was the only thing that mattered? This omission was far more significant than any expressed preference. If Jefferson mentioned no candidates, it was simply because he already knew at that date that his faithful lieutenants in Congress were thinking of him as the only logical candidate, the only one who had not participated actively in the last three years' fierce debates in Congress, the only one who had not officially and openly taken a definite position, and consequently would be entirely free to make whatever concessions were necessary to reëstablish harmony in the divided camps of the voters. The result of the election was certainly in doubt; but at a time when foreign affairs were the dominant question, when in spite of the Jay treaty England was multiplying almost unbearable insults, when the nation was deeply humiliated, and even the Federalists resented the terms of the treaty, there were only two men of the first rank in America who had maintained the prestige of the United States before foreign nations and had shown themselves to be able negotiators: the man who with Franklin had put his signature to the Treaty of Peace, and the man who had concluded treaties of commerce with the nations of Europe; Adams and Jefferson.

A strange campaign it was, in which the champion of the Republicans seemed to remain completely silent. The middle of December came, and Jefferson had not yet manifested any desire to run, nor had he made any declaration concerning his program. He had to come out however when, on the night of the sixteenth, he received a letter from Madison informing him that there was no longer any doubt about the logical choice of the Republicans and that Madison would decline to be candidate. Jefferson took up his pen at once to define his position to his friend. He hoped that Adams would be elected; and in that case he would be satisfied with the second place although he would prefer the third, that is, his rejection, since he would be free to remain at home. It was desirable, however, in case of a tie, that Madison be instructed to request on his behalf that Mr. Adams should be preferred. Some of the reasons he gave were highly honorable, the best being that Mr. Adams was his senior and had always "ranked" him in public life, either in France or in America. Other reasons he did not indicate: one was evidently that the situation had never worn so gloomy an aspect since the year 1783 and that Jefferson did not believe he could steer clear of the present difficulties.[336]

Ten days later he wrote more at length to Rutledge. No news had come from Philadelphia, but he protested that he had no political ambition: "Before my God, I shall from the bottom of my heart, rejoice at escaping." Scrutinizing himself, he found that the unmerited abuse he had been subjected to still rankled; he was convinced that "no man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it." The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred. Frankly he had no heart for the job. Nor was this a declaration of philosophical principles, but another instance of his political foresight, and a simple admission of facts, for not only had Franklin been bitterly attacked after his death, but Washington himself was not immune from public abuse, and such would be the fate of Adams.

Jefferson was quite sincere when he declared: "I have no ambition to govern men; no passion which would lead me to delight to ride in a storm." In advance, he repeated the suave mari magno of the old poet and hoped that he would not be elected, his only wish was that the newspapers would permit him "to plant his corn, beans, peas, etc. in hills or drills as he pleased, while our eastern friend will be struggling with the storm which is gathering over us, perhaps be shipwrecked in it! This is certainly not a moment to covet the helm." If this was not a sincere and true statement, then language certainly has been given to man to conceal his thought. If Jefferson was thirsty for power at that time he was more Machiavellian than Machiavelli himself. But in spite of the inferences of ill-intentioned historians, I do not see that there is the slightest ground to doubt Jefferson's sincerity ... except that he accepted finally the vice presidency, as he clearly hinted he would if it were offered to him.[337] He ended with a picturesque and energetic phrase and said in French what he could not say in English. He had not forgotten the words he had heard in the streets of Paris and perhaps in some salons after dinner, but certainly not in the mouth of Madame de Tessé or Madame de Corny: "Au diable les bougres!"

The next day he started writing to John Adams: he had not received any direct news of the election, but from his own calculations he had every reason to believe that barring a "trick worthy of your arch-friend of New York, Hamilton", Adams would be elected. In that eventuality he wished to send his best wishes, and had only one hope to express, that Adams would be able to avoid the war. A friendly, sincere letter which Adams never saw. As Jefferson was going to send it, came Madison's letter of the seventeenth, announcing the complete results of the election.

It caused a certain amount of surprise to Jefferson; the vote had come much nearer an equality than he had expected, and, as he wrote a week later to Volney, "the difference between sixty-eight and seventy-one votes is little sensible." The presidency would have been decidedly distasteful to him; the vice presidency was something different and he could not in his own mind decide whether he "had rather have it or not have it." Then he went into a curious piece of philosophizing which marks him as very different from eighteenth-century philosophers and eighteenth-century optimists. More of a realist in politics than he is given credit for, he showed himself once more a disciple of Hobbes in his vision of society:

For the first time Jefferson was going to occupy a position of prestige in the American Government and to become President of the Senate, second only to the President, the "heir apparent", as Adams had termed himself during the preceding administration. Far from rejoicing over the honor, he expressed his reluctance to attend elaborate ceremonies for the inauguration, and he did his best to wriggle out of them. He asked whether it would not be possible for him to be notified of his election by mail instead of being waited upon by a special delegation from the Senate; then he looked up the Constitution and decided that he could just as well take oath of office in Charlottesville as in Philadelphia, and that it was hardly worth the trouble, since Congress was to adjourn at once, to undertake the long journey over muddy roads for such an ordeal. Finally he set out for Philadelphia. He had reëntered public life for twelve more years and little suspected that it would be so long before he could come back to dear Monticello and resume his agricultural experiments.

CHAPTER IV

"THE DICTATES OF REASON AND PURE AMERICANISM"

When Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia to attend the inauguration of the new President, he had not seen Adams for four years and only insignificant communications had passed between them, since Madison had thought it proper to suppress the letter written by Jefferson at the end of December, not knowing "whether the rather difficult temper of Mr. Adams would not construe certain passages as a personal criticism."[339] With Adams, however, the first impulse was often the best. At the time he felt in a very conciliating mood; he even indulged in the hope that it would be possible to announce a sort of political armistice and to bring about a union of the different parties.

The two old friends had a cordial interview. Both of them, years later, wrote accounts of this historical meeting; though differing in a few details they agreed as to Adams' intention of burying the hatchet and beginning anew. He offered to send Jefferson to Paris as special envoy, insisting that he alone had the confidence of the French and would be able to bring about an arrangement. Jefferson being both unwilling and unavailable, Madison's name was mentioned, but nothing was decided as both knew that Madison had refused such an offer when tendered by Washington.

In his inaugural address Adams discreetly sounded a note of reconciliation. He praised the Constitution, declared that it was "better adapted to the genius, character, situation and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested"; he added, much to the disgust of the Federalists, that he did not think of "promoting any alteration in it but such as the people themselves in the course of their experience should see and feel to be necessary or expedient"; finally, he seemed to desert the Federalist camp when he averred that, since he had seen the Constitution for the first time, "it was not then, nor had been since, any objection to it in his mind that the Executive and Senate were not more permanent."

Not without good reason had Hamilton failed to show any enthusiasm over the candidacy of Adams, and the Hamiltonians had some ground for declaring that the speech "was temporizing" and "was a lure for the favor of his opponents at the expense of his sincerity." Two days later Jefferson and Adams attended a dinner offered by Washington to the new administration. When they left the house they started walking home together and the name of Madison being mentioned, Adams declared that objections to the nomination had been raised. The President and the Vice President had come to Fifth Street, where their roads separated; they took leave of each other and the subject was never mentioned again. It was really the parting of the ways after a timid effort toward reconciliation. Adams in the meantime had called together his Cabinet and the Cabinet, as he himself admitted afterwards, had proposed to resign en bloc if he insisted on Madison's nomination.

For the "incongruous portrait gallery" that constituted the Cabinet inherited by Adams from Washington, we may refer to the vivid picture of Mr. Bowers: "Ali Baba among his Forty Thieves is no more deserving of sympathy than John Adams shut up within the seclusion of his Cabinet room with his official family of secret enemies" may seem to some a rather severe characterization. The least that can be said, however, is that it was a Cabinet hand-picked by Hamilton and that neither Pickering, Wolcott nor McHenry were the best minds Adams could have chosen in his party. But there again the term party is inaccurate; if Adams had, in some respect, Federalist tendencies, he was not a party man or a party leader. The irritable, impulsive, patriotic, peevish old New Englander was too individualistic to belong to any party; he was not the man either to rally the hesitating, to uphold the vacillating, or to encourage and educate the blind. Curiously enough, he has found very few defenders. Severely treated by the friends of Jefferson, he has not been spared by the admirers of Hamilton. He stands alone, one of the most complicated and contradictory figures in American history—a pure patriot, whose patriotic work is almost forgotten, a catholic spirit who loved to play with ideas and paradoxes, a contrary mind, but in my opinion more widely read than any of his American contemporaries, not excepting Jefferson. A man who spent his life by the side of the severe and haughty "New England Juno", but who had more ideas in his brain than any sultan of the Arabian Nights had favorites in his harem.

He had taken the helm at the climax of external difficulties. Complicated and delicate as were the problems of domestic administration, they were overshadowed by the difficulties with France. The misunderstandings, the incidents repeated on both sides, had accumulated with such an effect that, at the beginning of 1797, war with France seemed to be almost unavoidable. Though Jefferson had very little to do with it, it is not out of place to recall the main facts.

Genet had unfortunately his American parallel in Gouverneur Morris. As witty and devoid of ordinary morals and honesty as Talleyrand himself, elegant, refined, and corrupt, Gouverneur Morris had been, since his arrival in Paris, the toast of French aristocrats. His activities in favor of the king and his partisans were not unknown to the French, and when Genet was sent to America he had been requested to present discreetly the situation to the American Government. Genet had made no official representation, but he discussed Morris' attitude in a private conversation with Jefferson, and Washington, apprised of the facts, had seen the necessity of acting.

Monroe, on the contrary, had attempted to resume the Jeffersonian tradition. A disciple of the former minister, a true Liberal, and friendly to the French Revolution, he had been enthusiastically received at once, in spite of the many difficult problems he had to present to the government. But the Jay treaty had proved a bitter pill to swallow, and the Directory had made strong representations to the American minister: America was accused of having violated the treaties of Alliance and Commerce, and when Monroe was recalled, the Directory not only refused to receive the successor that had been appointed but even ordered him to leave the French territory at once.

Without entering into the merits of the question, we may say that Jefferson was still decidedly for peace, although somewhat doubtful of Adams' intentions. Shortly after the inauguration he analyzed his position as follows: