Had Washington been willing to accept the presidentship yet a third time, the wishes of the nation would gladly have retained him in that office; but this not being the case, the two great political parties were each anxious to see its leader at the head of the administration. The federalists claiming to be the sole adherents of the measures adopted by Washington, and dreading the influence of French sentiments and principles, made the most active efforts to elect John Adams; while the republicans, declaring themselves to be the only true friends of liberty, and accusing their opponents of a dangerous tendency to Great Britain and her institutions, were no less strenuous to elect Thomas Jefferson. The result of the election was that Adams was president, and Jefferson vice-president.

The new president was inaugurated on the 4th of March, Washington being present as a spectator, and well pleased to see his place filled by one whom he considered worthy of so high a trust.

Scarcely had the president assumed his authority, when intelligence reached him that the Directory of Paris had refused to receive Pinckney, announcing to him “their determination not to receive another minister-plenipotentiary from the United States, until after the redress of grievances demanded of the American government, and which the French Republic had a right to expect from it;” and immediately afterwards he was compelled, by a written mandate, to quit the territories of the French Republic.

Congress was immediately called, and met on the 15th of June, when this extraordinary aspect of affairs was submitted by the president to their consideration. Wishing still to preserve peace and friendship with all nations, so far as was compatible with the honour and interests of the United States, the president proposed to institute a fresh attempt at negotiation; but earnestly recommended it to congress to provide in the meantime effectual measures of defence.

As a last effort, therefore, to effect a negotiation, three envoys-extraordinary were appointed, at the head of whom was Pinckney, then at Amsterdam. Their instructions were to establish peace and reconciliation by all means compatible with the honour and the faith of the United States; but to impair no national engagements; nor to permit any innovations upon those internal regulations for the preservation of peace which had been deliberately and uprightly established; nor yet to surrender any rights of the government. These ambassadors, also, the Directory refused to receive. Proposals however were made to them, which proceeded verbally from Talleyrand, the French minister for foreign affairs, through inofficial persons. A large sum of money was in the first place demanded, preparatory to any negotiation being entered into. To this insulting proposal no other reply than an indignant negative could be returned; and when the demand was persistently urged, the envoys broke off any further communication; on which two of them, who were federalists, were ordered to leave France, while the third, who was an acknowledged republican, was permitted to remain.

When these events were known in the United States, they excited universal indignation. For the moment party animosity seemed to be at an end, and one universal sentiment prevailed, “millions for defence, not a cent for tribute.” The treaty with France was declared by congress to be void, and authority was given for seizing French armed vessels. Provision was made for raising a small standing army, the command of which was offered to General Washington, who accepted it with reluctance, though entirely approving of these measures. General Hamilton was appointed second in command, and a naval armament decided upon.

The French had already commenced depredations on the American commerce, and reprisals soon followed. In February, 1798, the French frigate L’Insurgent, of forty guns, which had captured the American schooner Retaliation and carried her into Guadaloupe, was compelled to strike her colours to the American frigate Constellation, after a close engagement of an hour and a half, her loss being much the greater. This victory on the side of the United States soon produced overtures from the Directory at Paris, on which Adams immediately appointed Oliver Ellsworth, chief-justice of the United States, Patrick Henry, late governor of Virginia, and William Van Murray, minister at the Hague, to conclude an honourable peace. On their arrival in Paris, they found the Directory overthrown, and Napoleon Bonaparte at the head of the government, with whom a treaty of peace was satisfactorily concluded on September the 30th, 1800; after which the provisional army was disbanded by order of Congress.

Washington, though he took the supreme command of the army, never believed that the French would actually invade the United States. He was not, however, permitted to witness the re-establishment of peace. On the 14th of December, 1799, he calmly and peacefully expired, after an illness of twenty-four hours, at Mount Vernon, his beloved residence, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. The whole nation mourned his loss.

Congress was in session at Philadelphia when the news of this melancholy event reached that city, and both houses immediately adjourned for the remainder of the day. On assembling the next morning, the House of Representatives resolved that the chair of the speaker should be shrouded in black; that the members should wear mourning during the remainder of the session; and that a committee of both houses should be appointed “to consider on the most suitable manner of paying honour to the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens.”

The Senate testified their respect in a similar manner, and the joint committee of the two houses appointed—that a marble monument should be erected to commemorate the great events in the military and political life of Washington; that an oration suitable to the occasion should be pronounced in presence of both houses of congress; and that the people of the United States should wear crape on their left arms for thirty days.

“No formal act of the national legislature was, however, required,” says Jared Sparkes, “to stir up the hearts of the people or to remind them of the loss which they had sustained in the death of a man whom they had so long been accustomed to love and revere, and the remembrance of whose deeds and virtues was so closely connected with that of their former perils, and of the causes of their present prosperity and happiness. The mourning was universal. It was manifested by every token which could indicate the public sentiment and feeling. Orators, divines, journalists, and writers of every class, responded to the general voice in all parts of the country, and employed their talents to solemnise the event, and to honour the memory of him who, more than any other man, of ancient or modern renown, may claim to be called THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY.”

Both in France and England also was a tribute of respect paid to the memory of this truly great man. On the 9th of February, soon after the news of Washington’s death reached France, Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul, issued the following order of the day to his army: “Washington is dead! This great man fought against tyranny; he established the liberty of his country. His memory will always be dear to the French people, as it will be so to all freemen of the two worlds; and especially to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combated for liberty and equality.” It was likewise ordered that for ten days black crape should be suspended from all the flags and standards throughout the Republic. A funeral oration in honour of Washington was also pronounced in the Hôtel des Invalides, then called the temple of Mars, the first consul and all the civil and military authorities being present. The news of Washington’s death arrived in England at the time when the British fleet, which had chased the French fleet into the harbour of Brest, was lying at Torbay, and consisted of nearly sixty ships of the line. Lord Bridport, who had the command, on hearing the intelligence, ordered his flag half-mast high, which example was followed by the whole fleet.

During the summer of 1800 the seat of government was removed to the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, of which we have already spoken. During the same year the territory between the western boundary of Georgia and the Mississippi river, and a portion of the north-west territory called Indiana, were erected into a distinct government, called the Mississippi Territory.

As the time approached for the election of a new president, the two parties made again the most strenuous efforts each to acquire the direction of government. Adams had been elected by the predominance of federal principles, but several things had occurred in his administration which had not only weakened his personal influence, but rendered the party to which he was attached unpopular with the majority. The acts by which the army and navy had been strengthened, and which had placed 80,000 militia at his command, were regarded by the democratic as indications of a wish to subvert the spirit of republican government; while the Alien and Sedition Laws, to which he had given his sanction, completed his unpopularity, and fomented party animosity to an extent which had never been equalled, and tended greatly to the overthrow of the federal party.

The federalists supported for the approaching election Adams and General Pinckney, the democratic party Thomas Jefferson and Colonel Aaron Burr. The two latter were found to have a small majority, the whole of the republican party having voted for them, with the intention of Jefferson being president and Burr vice-president. On counting the votes, however, it was discovered that both were equal; the selection, therefore, of the president devolved upon the house of representatives, who, voting by states, according to the constitution, should decide between the two. Again and again and yet again the balloting was repeated in the house, and the result always the same; nor was it until the thirty-sixth balloting that one altered vote turned the scale in Jefferson’s favour. He became president, and Aaron Burr vice-president. To guard against the recurrence of such a difficulty, Article XII. was added to the Constitution.

Tucker, in his life of Jefferson, thus describes the scene which the house of representatives presented on this extraordinary occasion: “The business of the house being confined to balloting, and the result always showing an adherence by every member to his first purpose, some of the members conducted themselves in one way and some in another, according to their various characters and tempers; a portion of the republican party, gloomy, suspicious, and resentful, auguring the worst consequences and preparing their minds for the most desperate results; others, more sanguine, looking forward to a happy termination of the conquest, which they laboured to bring about by the arts of blandishment and conciliation. A few, quietly and steadily doing their duty, determined neither to frustrate the wishes of the people, by changing their votes, nor to submit to any unconstitutional expedient which a majority of both houses might venture to resort to. The federal party, conscious of not having the approbation of the people, exhibited less variety of emotion; they justified themselves by the exercise of a constitutional right, and thought it prudent and decent to conceal their secret satisfaction of vexing and embarrassing their adversaries.”

On the election of Jefferson, all the principal offices of the government were transferred to the republican party; Madison was appointed to the department of state; the system of internal duties was abolished, together with several unpopular laws which were enacted during the last administration.

A second census of the United States was taken in 1801, giving a population of 5,319,762, presenting an increase of 1,400,000 in ten years. During the same time the exports had increased from nineteen to ninety-four millions of dollars, and the revenue from 4,771,000 to 12,945,000. A wonderful increase, which has scarcely a parallel in the history of the progress of nations, excepting it may be in some extraordinary cases, like those of California and Australia under the gold impulse, but which as regards the United States must be attributed only to sound laws and political institutions, as well as to the enterprising and industrious habits of the people.

In 1802 the State of Ohio was admitted into the Union, and the following year the first states convention met. Within thirty years from the time when its first settlement of forty-seven individuals was made at Marietta the number of its inhabitants exceeded half a million, and from this extensive and important tract slavery was entirely excluded.

The right of depositing merchandise at New Orleans, which had been granted to the citizens of the United States by the Spanish governor of Louisiana, in a late treaty, and which was absolutely necessary to the people of the western states, was withdrawn this year, and caused a general agitation. A proposal was made in congress to take forcible possession of the whole province of Louisiana; but milder measures were adopted, and the right of deposit was restored. In the year 1800, Louisiana had been secretly ceded to France, and Jefferson, in 1802, opened a private correspondence with Livingston, in Paris, on the subject of this cession. The United States had hitherto, he said, considered France as their natural friend, but the moment she became possessed of New Orleans, through which three-eighths of the produce of the Americans must pass, she would become their natural enemy. The case was different with a feeble and pacific power like Spain; but it would be impossible that France and the United States could continue friends when they met in so irritating a position. That the moment France took possession of New Orleans, the United States must ally themselves with Great Britain; and, he asked, was it worth while for such a short-lived possession of New Orleans for France to transfer such a weight into the scale of her enemy? He then artfully suggested the cession of New Orleans and the Floridas; but adds, and even that they would consider as no equivalent while she possessed Louisiana.

In January, 1803, agents were sent over to negotiate the purchase of Florida; but instead of the purchase merely of New Orleans and the Floridas, as had been planned, they were able to effect that of all Louisiana, equal in extent to the whole previous territory of the United States. They owed their good fortune to the war which was so suddenly renewed between France and England, when the government of France, convinced that the possession of Louisiana would soon be wrested from her by the superior naval power of England, readily consented to make sale of it to a third power, and the rather, as the money was very acceptable at that time.^[70]

For the trifling sum of 15,000,000 dollars the United States became possessed of that vast extent of country embracing the present State of Louisiana, which was called “the Territory of Orleans,” as well as of “the District of Louisiana,” embracing a large tract of country extending westward to Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. The treaty was concluded at Paris in 1803. The area of the country thus ceded was upwards of 1,000,000 square miles, but all, excepting a small proportion, occupied by the Indians, its natural proprietors. Its inhabitants, chiefly French, or the descendants of the French, with a few Spanish creoles, Americans, English and Germans, amounted to between 80,000 and 90,000, including about 40,000 slaves.

About the same time the United States acquired another considerable extent of territory. The Kaskaskia Indians, occupying the country which extended along the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Illinois to the Ohio, and which is considered the most fertile in the Union, finding themselves so reduced by wars and other causes as to be unable to defend themselves from the neighbouring tribes, transferred their country to the United States, reserving only for agricultural purposes sufficient to sustain the remnant of the nation. For this valuable acquisition the United States engaged to extend to them protection, and give them annual aid in money, implements of agriculture, and other articles of their choice.

In 1803 an appropriation was made by congress for defraying the expenses of an exploring party across the continent to the Pacific. This was a scheme which the president had much at heart, and under his auspices it was carried out; Captain Meriwether Lewis being at the head of the expedition, while second in command was Captain Jonathan Clarke, brother of George Rogers Clarke, and under them twenty-eight well-selected individuals, with an escort of Mandan Indians. The expedition set out on May 14th, 1804.

Since 1801 war had existed between the United States and Tripoli. Without going into minute details of this war, we will follow the abstract given of it by Willson. “In 1803 Commodore Preble was sent into the Mediterranean, and after humbling the emperor of Morocco, he appeared before Tripoli with most of his squadron. The frigate Philadelphia, under Captain Bainbridge, being sent into the harbour to reconnoitre, struck upon a rock, and was obliged to surrender to the Tripolitans. The officers were considered prisoners of war, but the crew were treated as slaves. This capture caused great exultation to the enemy; but the daring exploit of Lieutenant, afterwards Commodore Decatur, humbled the pride which they felt in this accession to their navy.

Early in February of the following year, Lieutenant Decatur, under the cover of evening, entered the harbour of Tripoli, in a small schooner, having on board but seventy-six men, with the design of destroying the Philadelphia, which was then moored near the castle, with a strong Tripolitan crew. By the aid of his pilot, who understood the Tripolitan language, Decatur succeeded in bringing his vessel in contact with the Philadelphia, when he and his followers leapt on board, and in a few minutes killed twenty of the Tripolitans and drove the rest into the sea.

“Under a heavy cannonade from the surrounding vessels and batteries, the Philadelphia was set on fire, and not abandoned until thoroughly wrapt in flames; when Decatur and his gallant crew succeeded in getting out of the harbour without the loss of a single man. During the month of August, Tripoli was repeatedly bombarded by the American squadron, under Commodore Preble, and a severe action occurred with the Tripolitan gunboats, which resulted in the capture of several, with little loss to the Americans.

“At the time of Commodore Preble’s expedition to the Mediterranean, Hamet, the legitimate sovereign of Tripoli, was an exile, having been deprived of his government by the usurpation of a younger brother. Mr. Eaton, the American consul at Tunis, concocted with Hamet an expedition against the reigning sovereign, and obtained from the government of the United States permission to undertake it.

“With about seventy men from the American squadron, together with the followers of Hamet and some Egyptian troops, Eaton and Hamet set out from Alexandria towards Tripoli, a distance of 1,000 miles across a desert country. After great fatigue and suffering they reached Derne, a Tripolitan city on the Mediterranean, which was taken by assault. After two successful engagements had occurred with the Tripolitan army, the reigning bashaw offered terms of peace, which being considered much more favourable than had before been offered, were accepted by Mr. Lear, the authorised agent of government.”

Sixty thousand dollars were given as a ransom for the unfortunate American prisoners, together with an agreement to withdraw all support from Hamet.

In July, 1804, General Hamilton, the present head of the federalist party, fell in a duel fought with the vice-president, Aaron Burr, who having lost the confidence of the republicans, and despairing of re-election either as president or vice-president, had offered himself as candidate for the office of governor of New York. He was not elected, and attributing his unsuccess to the influence of Hamilton with his party, sent him a challenge, and Hamilton’s death was the result.

This autumn closed Jefferson’s first presidential term, and the general prosperity which prevailed gained for him the national favour. Summing up in short the events of his administration, we find that, by a steady course of economy, although he had considerably reduced the taxes, the public debt was lessened 12,000,000 of dollars; the area of the United States about doubled, and the danger of war with both France and Spain averted; the Tripolitans chastised, and a large and valuable tract of Indian land acquired.^[71]

Jefferson was re-elected president, and George Clinton, late governor of New York, vice-president.

The wars which raged in Europe in consequence of the French revolution began now to be seriously felt even in America. Napoleon was emperor of France, triumphant and powerful, with most of the European nations under his feet, while England, alone remaining untouched and undaunted, carried on the war against him with more determined resolution than ever. America, profiting by the destruction of the commerce of other nations, entered with her neutral ships into every port, thus maintaining her commercial relations with every country, however hostile to each other. English and American ships were at this time almost the only ones on the ocean.

Already, early in the war, American ships conveying the produce of the French colonies to Europe, were seized and condemned by British cruisers; and now still greater difficulties and impediments were thrown in the way of the neutral trader. In May, 1806, England declared every European port under the control of France, from Brest to the Elbe, in a state of blockade, and every American vessel attempting to enter any of them was captured and condemned. In return, Napoleon declared the British Islands in a state of blockade, by which means the neutral American vessels, trading to any of the British ports, were liable to be seized and condemned by the French. These measures so detrimental to the commerce of the United States, caused loud complaints from the merchants, who demanded from the government redress and protection.

But this was only a portion of the grievance to which this great European war gave birth in America. England assumed “the right of search,” which had long been offensive to the Americans, and by this means citizens of the United States, on the plea of their being British subjects, that is, born Britons though naturalised Americans, were seized under the barbarous law of impressment, dragged from their friends, and compelled to serve as British marines, and fight against nations at peace with their own. The three presidents had, each in his turn, remonstrated against this iniquitous law, but in vain; every year added to its enormity; and at length, in June 1807, an event occurred which brimmed the cup of popular indignation against Great Britain. The frigate Chesapeake being ordered on a cruise to the Mediterranean, when at only a few leagues’ distance from the Virginia coast, was come up with by the Leopard, a British ship of war, commanded by Vice-Admiral Berkeley; and an officer came on board with an order to search her for four deserters from the Melampus, and supposed to be serving among her crew. Commodore Barron, who commanded the Chesapeake, politely replied that he was not aware of such persons being in his crew; that he wished to preserve harmony with the British commander, but that he never allowed the crew of any ship under his command to be mustered by any officers but his own.

The Leopard, on this manly reply, ranged alongside of the Chesapeake, and commenced firing upon her. The Chesapeake was unprepared for action, and lost three of her men, and eighteen more being wounded, Commodore Barron ordered his colours to be struck. The commander of the Leopard sent an officer on board, mustered the crew, found the men whom he wanted, and then abandoned the ship.

The Chesapeake returned immediately to Hampton Roads, whence she had sailed, and carried with her intelligence which set the whole United States in a flame, more especially as it was proved that three of the men thus seized were American citizens, who had been impressed for the British service and afterwards escaped. The president, on this information, interdicted by proclamation the entrance of any armed British vessel within the harbours or waters of the United States; and an envoy was sent to London to demand satisfaction for this outrage, and security against any further aggression. Vice-Admiral Berkeley was in consequence recalled; two of the men who had been taken as deserters were sent back to America, and a proclamation issued forbidding any further search in national ships of neutral nations for deserters. But this did little, as the celebrated orders in council were published by the British government in November, which prohibited neutrals, except on humiliating terms, from trading with France or her allies; which, in fact, was equivalent to excluding them from almost every port in Europe. Napoleon retaliated, of course, by his Milan decree, which rendered every vessel trading with Britain, or submitting to search by her, liable to confiscation if found near his ports or by his cruisers. Thus were the neutral ships of America still endangered by both belligerent powers.

In return for these vexatious measures, congress, in December, passed a bill laying an embargo; “so that all American vessels were prohibited from sailing to foreign ports, all foreign vessels from taking out cargoes, and all coasting vessels were required to give bond to land their cargoes in the United States. This embargo was strongly opposed by the federalist party, and great were the complaints of a total stop being thus put to foreign commerce. All, however, hoped for a favourable result from a measure which, if it were seriously felt by the United States, would, it was believed, be still more seriously felt by their enemies.”^[72]

This embargo failed to obtain any concession from France and England, and being in itself so injurious to the commercial interests of the United States, was repealed in 1809, at which time, however, congress interdicted all commercial intercourse with France and England.

Such was the situation of the country when Jefferson, having been eight years in office, and following the example of Washington, refused to accept of re-election, prepared to retire from the administration. But before we speak of this event, we must briefly return to a cause of anxiety and agitation, originating in the designs of the late vice-president, Aaron Burr.

Burr, while in office, offended both prevailing parties. The federalists by his fatal encounter with Hamilton, who was the idol of that party; and the republicans by his supposed intrigues against Jefferson. Under these circumstances, finding himself everywhere unpopular, he retired as a private citizen to the newer western states. Here, restless, scheming and ambitious, he engaged in an enterprise the full scope and intention of which seems never to have been completely fathomed. With the ostensible design of forming a large agricultural settlement on the banks of the Washita in Louisiana, he put himself at the head of a great number of people, who were armed and organised, and for whose use boats were purchased and built on the Ohio. The nature of his preparations, which had a warlike rather than a peaceful character, and the disclosures of some of his associates, led to the supposition that his real object was of a very different character—was, in fact, no less than to separate the western states from the Union, to add Mexico to them, and place himself at their head. “Nothing,” says the President Jefferson, writing on this subject to La Fayette, “has more strongly proved the innate force of our form of government than this conspiracy. Burr had probably engaged 1,000 men to follow his fortunes, without letting them know his projects, otherwise than by assuring them that the government approved of them. The moment a proclamation was issued, undeceiving them, he found himself left with about thirty desperadoes only. The people rose in a mass wherever he went, and by their own energy the thing was crushed in an instant, without its having been necessary to employ the military excepting to take care of their respective stations. His first enterprise would have been to seize New Orleans, which he supposed would powerfully bridle the upper country, and place him at the door of Mexico.”

“Burr was arrested in the Mississippi territory, in January 1807, and brought before the highest court in the territory. Here making a favourable impression on the grand jury, he moved to be discharged, but this being refused, he made his escape with a single companion, and was again taken on his way to Florida. Carried now to Richmond, in Virginia, for trial, the whole United States waited with intense interest for the result. The former character and station of the accused, the novelty and boldness of his enterprise, the air of mystery in which it was involved, all contributed to the excitement. Nor was party-spirit inactive, the federalists, spite of his offences against them, wishing to prove him innocent, for the sake of thwarting the executive and proving the president vindictive and tyrannical.”^[73]

The trial commenced in May, and on the 23rd of June the grand jury found him and several of his associates guilty of treason. He was then committed to prison, but on the plea of such close confinement being likely to affect his health, he was removed to a publichouse with a guard over him. On the 3rd of August, the court having adjourned so long, he was put on his trial, and on the last day of that month was discharged, on the plea that there was not sufficient evidence to prove his guilt. The republican party attributed this result to the interest of the faction which chose to support him for political purposes, and the case probably might not have ended here, had not the public mind been at that very time diverted by subjects of yet greater interest. These were the British interference with American commerce and shipping, and the affair of the Chesapeake, which electrified the nation to its remotest extremities, and fused all party animosities for the moment into one general indignation; and Burr, taking advantage of this removal of public attention from himself, sailed for England, where he was afterwards suspected of being an agent of mischief to the United States.^[74]