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THOMAS JEFFERSON
An address delivered on the occasion of
the celebration of the birthday of Jeffer
son, under the auspices of the Jeffersonian
Society of Philadelphia, at the Odd Fel
lows' Temple, April 15th, 1901,

BY

HENRY BUDD

OF THE PHILADELPHIA SAR.

THOMAS JEFFERSON-AN ADDRESS.

In this time of national trial, when the reality
of this country's devotion to liberty is being tried,
just so truly and severely as it was tried in the
eighteenth century, when liberty is really in greater
danger, because the attack upon it, so far as concerns
ourselves, is from within, and is masked under the
form of an appeal to a desire for national glory and
domination, we have come together to celebrate the
birthday of one who placed honor before acquisition,
truth before gain, the rights of the humblest of the
people before the splendor of government, freedom
before empire ; a sage, a statesman, a philosopher, a
patriot; one of that glorious band to whom under
the providence of God, this country owes the achieve
ment of its independence and the liberty of its citizens.
From the past stand out certain men, who, how
ever interesting, when considered simply by them
selves, as men, with the common passions and feel
ings of men, with the hopes and aspirations which
belong to men of superior character or intellect, with
the story of trials and triumphs above those which
ordinarily fall to the lot of man, are still more inter
esting because they are the representatives of certain
principles, to establish or labor and strive for which
their life work was given, so that, when we look

upon them, they seem, as it were, personifications of
those principles.
And the principles themselves gain in force and
vividness of impression through this personification.
The principle seems stronger, more real, when we
see it, as it were, in flesh and blood. We speak, we
think about liberty as a great animating motive ; we
say that the love of it should and does nerve men to
heroic actions, to overwhelming self-sacrifice; but
look at the field of Sempach, and see the band of
Swiss patriots ranged against the Austrian forces, the
compact body of spears and knights, unbroken and,
apparently, unbreakable, and then see one Swiss
rush, from the line of his compatriots, upon the for
eign hosts, throwing himself upon the spears, grasp
ing them in his hands, and, with his great cry of
" Make way for liberty !" opening, at the cost of his
life, a path for his countrymen to victory, liberty and
safety ! And does not Arnold Winkelried stand out
as the very incarnation of devotion, of love of liberty ?
Does it not seem as though he were that devotion
itself making that pathway ?
Again, we speak of constitutional liberty ; but
how much better is that great principle presented to
our minds when we look upon Hampden, and see
him refusing the payment of ship-money, battling in
the courts, languishing in the Tower and finally tri
umphant, although after his death, and dying before
his associates had established a tyranny as illegal as
that which went before it. Does he not seem to be
the very figure of constitutional right itself?
And others might be mentioned — as Charles the
Bold, as the representative of feudalism, the Cheva-

lier Bayard, as that of all that is pure and noble in
chivalry, Richelieu, as the type of modern politics,
and many more — all men who may be termed per
sonifications of principles or ideas.
Amongst these men, Thomas Jefferson is promi
nent ; and the principle of which he is the represent
ative — the idea inseparably connected with him — is
American Democracy. Under which great name we
gather and bind into one all those subsidiary ideas
and principles which, when followed and obeyed,
have rendered these United States happy and pros
perous commonwealths, forming a union respected
by and formidable to foreign powers, honest and
faithful to its engagements and ideals, and which,
when neglected or turned from, have been avenged
by the disaster and distress or dishonor which .such
neglect and desertion have justly entailed.
I will go further; I will give no such qualified
title to the principles which Jefferson represents and
which that great party, which reveres his memory and
loves to dwell upon his example and his words, has
upheld in times of unpopularity and defeat as well as
times of prosperity and power, in spite of administra
tive tyranny and oppression and corruption fostered
by a greed of office, of treachery within its own ranks
— I will not say that Jefferson represents American
Democracy, I will say that he represents American
ism ; for his principles are the true principles where
upon this country was founded, and the principles
of the Democratic party are those which represent
the real, true American system. Those opposed to
it, those bearing the imprint of Republicanism, falsely
so-called, are strangers from foreign shores, ministers

of despotism masquerading as apostles of freedom,
deceiving by their specious appearance for a time but
destined sooner or later to stand out revealed in their
true character, that of enemies to all that every true
American of whatever party or name holds dear.
Nay, are they merely destined to be so revealed?
Have they not, within these few months last past,
revealed themselves ? Could anything be more un-
American than the claim of right to take and govern
colonies independently ofthe consent ofthe governed,
— at our own will, in our way, under any form that we
see fit to impose upon such subjects ; a civil governor ;
a military governor; a civil commission; a sultan
aided by his datos ? Is not the very name of subject
un-American, abhorent in the extreme? And yet
we have seen our government imposing all of these
forms of rule upon unwilling people. We hear
of " our subjects." Is it not a fundamental principle
of American government that the people are supreme
except so far as they have bound themselves by the
Constitution? and that their will must be spoken
legislatively in Congress, and carried into execution
by the President? And has there been given to any
department of government the right to place its duties
upon other shoulders or to transfer its power to others
hands ? And have we not seen the Executive usurp
ing legislative functions ; the Congress at first too
cowardly to repress sternly, as was its duty, such
usurpation, and finally base enough to abdicate its
power and to attempt to justify the proceedings of the
Executive by passing an act delegating to the Presi
dent general governmental powers in the Philippines ?
From whence came its right, a delegate itself, charged

with a delegated duty and power, to raise up for itself
a delegate? Where is the precedent for such base
abandonment of duty ? I find none in this country.
I do find one in England, namely in the time of
Henry VIII when, by act of Parliament, the King's
will in matters ecclesiastical was given the force of
law. How long will it take the people to discover
how their own liberties are being sapped while the
application of monarchical principles is being made,
apparently, only to "subjects" thousands of miles
away ? The people have allowed a fearful progress
to be made in the insidious attacks upon their insti
tutions ; they have allowed things which to our
fathers were real, very real, real enough to command
the sacrifice of fortune and personal freedom and life,
to be treated as though they were mere shams ! They
have allowed gigantic aggregations of capital to domi
nate, nay, to stifle, the will of the people, and com
mercialism, rather than patriotism, to rule Ameri
cans have no reason to be proud of their conduct as
a nation for the past few years. The outlook seems
dark ; but, as to the prophet in his hoar of despair,
comes the word, there are yet ten thousand who have
not bowed the knee to Baal, and there is yet that in the
American people which, when fully aroused, will nerve
it to turn upon those forces which have shown them
selves the enemies of American freedom, of American
honor, and drive them with contempt and ignominy
from the soil they have contaminated and from the
seats they have disgraced.
But we are here to-night, not to discuss the con
duct of the present and late administrations, but to
do honor to the memory of Thomas Jefferson, and

that we can best do by recalling his life and drawing
from it what instruction we may. We shall, therefore,
by your leave, run over some of the salient points of
Jefferson's career, and then, in what time is left to us,
we may consider what his life should teach us, and
to what exertions as Americans his example should
nerve us.
Thomas Jefferson was born April 13th, 1743-
After receiving such preliminary education as was
afforded by the province of Virginia, he entered the
college of William and Mary, which institution was
then a place distinguished for the disorder and un-
ruliness of the students and, to a certain extent, for
the incompetency of its faculty. Jefferson, however,
with a resolution creditable, as well as unusual, in
young men of his age, devoted himself to his studies,
and especially to mathematics, which, as he said
later in his life, became with him a passion. He re
mained at college two years, and in 1762, having de
termined upon the law as a profession, began its
study by taking up Coke upon Littleton, that
book which most students begin with pride, mingled
with fear and trembling, and which, after a laborious
reading, we often read a second time, and after an
interval, with genuine delight. But, alas ! Jefferson
did not take kindly to Coke at the start, nor did his
resolution at once enable him to go steadily on with
that great author, for we find him writing to a college
friend that he wished the Devil had old Coke. But his
aversion must have been finally conquered, and he set
tled down to his studies. He tells us his habit was to
rise in winter at five ; in summer so soon as the light
enabled him to see what o'clock it was ; and we find

that, before his admission to the bar, his learning
and diligent study, and consequent acquaintance
with books, caused him to be looked on with admira
tion and to be consulted with regard to courses of
education. In 1767 he was admitted to the bar, and
in the first year of his practice, his account book
shows that he had sixty-eight cases before the Gen
eral Court, besides his other business. His entrance
into political life came some two years later, when,
in 1 769, he was elected to the House of Burgesses of
Virginia, at a time when the storm between the colo
nies and the mother country, which was soon to burst
with fury, was gathering ; when the grievance of tax
ation without representation, and the injustice and
folly of governing men from a distance and without
allowing them a voice in such government were
rankling in men's minds, and finding utterance,
cautious, perhaps, in murmurs not loud but deep,
against the stamp act and the other tyrannical exer
tions of the British power ; and when, consequently,
men elected to representative positions went to their
respective posts of duty charged with the anxiety,
the indignation and the appehension of the commu
nities which had elected them, and gifted with an
oppoitunity to speak words and perform deeds which
should leave their impress upon all time.
The Burgesses met, and early in the session, on
the third day, the Burgesses spoke the sense of their
constituents, in no uncertain tones. Almost unani
mously, they passed, and directed to be sent to the
legislative assemblies of the other colonies, four reso
lutions, to the following effect :
(1) That there should be no taxation without

representation ; (2) that the colonies might concur
and cooperate in seeking redress of grievances ;
(3) that sending accused persons away from their
country to be tried was an outrage; (4) that the
king should be petitioned to redress the recited
wrongs. The move was prompt. So was the reply.
The royal governor answered the resolution by
dissolving the Assembly on the fifth day of its
session. The Assembly met and resolved to recom
mend to their constituents not to import from Eng
land or in British ships any article, which it was
possible to do without, while the stamp act remained
in force, and never to buy any article which was
taxed by Parliament for the purpose of raising a rev
enue in America. Concessions were made and the
House was recalled after a few months, and, during
this after-session, Jefferson showed himself as the
friend of human rights. At his suggestion Col.
Bland introduced a bill, which Jefferson seconded, to
extend to the slaves certain legal protection. The
idea originated with Jefferson, but he persuaded Col.
Bland to be the mover, on account of his superior
age and influence. The bill failed. In this con
nection it is worthy of note that Jefferson subse
quently introduced in the Declaration of Independ
ence a censure of slavery, which, however, was
stricken out by his colleagues.
From the time of his first burgesship until 1772
Jefferson does not figure *in political life. He prac
ticed law. He got married, and gave time to the
building up of that country seat which is so closely
associated with his name — " Monticello."

But in 1772, came the burning of the Gaspee, and
the rumors that the persons concerned therein would
be sent to England for trial. The alarm spread rap
idly over the country, and the Virginia House of
Deputies established a committee of correspondence,
and requested the other colonies to establish similar
committees. Of the Virginia committee Jefferson
was one. Resolutions and correspondence were soon fol
lowed by more active movements. Early in June,
1775, Virginia sprang to arms, and drove its gov
ernor, Lord Dunmore, to a refuge upon a man-of-war.
On June 20, 1775, Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia
as a member of the Continental Congress. Of his
work in the earlier sessions of that body I need not
speak. We all know of his authorship of the Decla
ration of Independence , that he sounded the note
which changed the character of the struggle, in
which our forefathers were engaged, from a struggle
for representation and privileges to a struggle for
freedom ; that he voiced the action of the people of
the colonies in throwing offthe foreign yoke.
He remained in Congress for but a short time.
He seems, indeed, to have flashed upon that scene
like a brilliant meteor, for, in September, 1776, he
withdrew from that body, but not to idleness, or to
inaction in the great work then before the people of
these States, for in the next month he took his seat
again in the Legislature of Virginia, and became one
of the commission to revise the laws of the State ;
and it is worthy of note, as showing how completely
republican ideas and devotion to republican principles
had taken possession of his mind, that, under his

10

guidance, Virginia, although, from its foundation
and from the state of its society, naturally the most
aristocratic in general tone of the colonies, was the
first State of the Union to abolish and prohibit the
entailment of land.
In 1779 Jefferson became Governor of Virginia,
and soon the tide of war, which had hitherto spared
the Old Dominion, swept upon that State. General
Gates, his army broken and flying, left the southern
border practically unprotected. A British fleet en
tered the Chesapeake, and early in June, 1781, landed
a body of men, under Arnold, who burnt, ravaged
and harried the country. Jefferson was left alone in
Richmond ; his Council had fled ; members of the
Assembly had fled. There was no sufficient organ
ized body of military to cope with the advancing force
under the traitor, but there were small bodies scat
tered here and there, and there was the militia, that
invaluable bulwark of every free country, and there
was a man equal to the emergency. Jefferson hur
ried, on horseback, from point to point, superintend
ing the placing of the public property in a position
of safety, raising the country, gathering up the little
detachments of soldiers. Arnold swooped down upon
Richmond, but he only remained there twenty -three
hours, when he escaped, through a change in the
wind, from the twenty-five hundred militia who were
upon his path, and the hundreds more who were
pouring in, every hour, to protect their firesides and
homes, and to drive from their soil the invader. But
the British troops on that soil were reinforced. The
State became a mere theatre of military operations
and Jefferson declined to serve an}' longer as Gov-

II

ernor; his reason — given in his own words — being,
"From a belief that under the pressure of the inva
sion under which we were then laboring the public
would have more confidence in a military chief, and
that the military commander being invested with the
civil power also, both might be wielded with more
energy, promptitude and effect for the defence of the
State." General Nelson was accordingly chosen Gov
ernor. After retiring from the governorship, Jeffer
son resumed his place in the Legislature, and, in the
same year, declined an appointment as one of three
ministers plenipotentiary to negotiate a peace, which
was then expected to come about between the United
States and England through the good offices of Cath
arine of Russia. In the next year he lost his wife.
The effect of his wife's death was to cast Jefferson
into a sort of stupor, and, leaving Monticello, he went
with his children to a secluded estate in Chesterfield
county ; but Congress, on hearing of his loss, came
to the conclusion that as the one great tie which had
held Jefferson to the country was now sundered, he
would consent to go abroad, and accordingly he
was selected as one of the ministers to negotiate a
peace at Paris. He accepted the appointment, and
though, on account of the conclusions of the prelimi
naries being signed before he could sail, he did not
go abroad, yet the ice was broken, and he was again
upon the sea of public life. In 1783 he returned to
Congress. In 1784 he was sent to join his old com
rades, Dr. Franklin and Mr. John Adams, in the
work of negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign
nations. In 1785 he became envoy to France. In
1786, in response to a pressing invitation from

Adams, he went to London in the hope of making a
commercial treaty with Great Britain. The recep
tion, however, of the American representatives by
the King was so ungracious, and the results of the
conferences held with reference to the treaty so
vague and unsatisfactory, that Jefferson abandoned
England and returned to Paris. He remained in
France, with occasional breaks of travel, until the
autumn of 1789. Mixing with the nobility of the gay
court, with the learned men who frequented the salons,
he retained his steady and sturdy republican princi
ples; nay, they were increased in strength, and his
passion for individual liberty of thought, of opinion
and of action within the laws became, if anything,
more marked and characteristic. In 1789 he returned
to America. But while Jefferson was in Europe the structure
of the United States had changed. He had left
a loosely joined alliance of States with no common
head. When he came back he found '' the more perfect
union" formed; he found that the States had sur
rendered some portion of their rights and had dele
gated some of their inherent powers to a new general
government, which should for some purposes be
supreme, but supreme only while acting within the
scope of its delegated power and authority. He found
the Constitution of the United States formed and in
force. It was natural that such an instrument should
have been made; that tbe government erected by it
should have been established. The perils and ex
igencies of a long and bloody war had held the vari
ous commonwealths together most firmly, in spite of
the slender legal nature of the tie that bound them.

13
In the face of the common enemy, petty jealousies,
or, even, well grounded ideas of conflicting local
rights and interests were perforce silenced and put
out of sight; but, when the war was over, when it
became with the States and with the people of them
a question how best happiness and liberty might be
assured in time of peace, then came the question will
the slender tie hold against the troubles which may
arise as amongst ourselves, although it has held as
against an enemy? You have seen doubtless, some
of you at least, what are called the Magdeburg hem
ispheres — two hollow hemispheres of brass with
smooth edges, which are placed together and the air
within exhausted, and they firmly adhere ; but allow
the air to run in, so that there is a pressure from
within, as well as from without, and they fall asunder.
So it might have been with the confederacy. And
that States which had been during the war as one
against the foe, which had lavishly poured out their
treasures and the lives of their sons upon the battle
fields within each other's boundaries, in defence of
each other's liberty, recognizing that as the common
liberty, should again become mere temporary political
partners, mayhap, in the future, enemies, was not to
be tolerated. The glories of Saratoga, of Yorktown,
of Trenton, the anguish of Long Island, the suffering
of Valley Forge, the spirits of the gallant men who
had fallen on the field of battle, swung from the gal
lows as traitors or rotted away in the prison ships,
all cried out and in a united voice, that would not be
drowned, against such a consummation. At the same
time, it had to be remembered that these States were
thirteen independent nations, no one of which, no, not

14
even the smallest and weakest, was bound to surrender
the slightest, the least of its rights ; and that no inde
pendent State could be expected to merge its existence,
or put its rights, without protection, under the con
trol of a new power or nation. For the purpose then
of forming an instrument which should entrust to the
general government ample powers to carry out those
purposes for which it was created, to maintain the
power of the States abroad, to raise a revenue for its
own support and to enforce its laws within the circle
to which the general law-making power was limited
by its grant, and which should leave inviolate in the
States those powers which they did not surrender, the
Federal convention met. Its work you know. It
produced the Constitution of the United States, — and
you know that there were two parties engaged in its
formation ; the party which would have had entrusted
to the general or federal government much vaster
powers than were eventually given to it and which
would have practically reduced the States to mere
departments, and the party which would have limited
the scope of the federal government so far as was
possible, consistent with the purposes of its creation.
Neither party succeeded in writing into the Consti
tution all its ideas. The great instrument was the
result of series of judicious and patriotic compro
mises. With the adoption of the Constitution begins the
acknowledged existence ofthe two great parties which
have ever appeared in American politics. The one
party striving, by fair means and foul, to exalt the
power of the federal government, forgetting, or if it
do not forget entirely, disregarding and contemning

15
the origin of that government ; sometimes even
boldly defying the Constitution, as when a promi
nent leader of that school of thought denounced it as
a league with death, a covenant with hell ; that party
which has figured before the public under various
names, and which is now called the Republican
party. The other party, remembering always that
the federal government originated in a solemn con
tract, that what powers were given to it were given to
it by sovereign States, who, by the act of ceding,
yielded to it sovereignty only so far as was expressed,
or as was necessarily to be implied from the express
words, held and holds that where a power claimed by
the general government is not expressly given by,
or necessarily implied from, some clause in the grant
of power, that power does not exist ; that it is neither
politic nor honest to strengthen granted powers by
ingenuity of construction, until they may seem to
embrace things that those who formed the Constitu.
tion never dreamed could be claimed, and which, had
they so dreamed, they would have indignantly dis
owned. This party also believes that, upon general
principles, the nearer home the government is brought
to each individual, the more he feels himself a part of
it and the less the idea of an external controlling
force is present to his mind, consistently with general
safety, the greater amount of happiness will be his,
and the prosperity, the true greatness, of a country
rests in the happiness of the people, for government
is but a means to an end.
This party, gentlemen — the party of Jefferson,
of Madison, of Monroe, which also has borne more
than one name, but which is best known by the one

i6
it has borne longest — is the Democratic party, to
which we have given our allegiance.
The two parties did not exist long before they
were given au occasion for clashing. The oppor
tunity of engaging at close quarters was afforded by
the structure of the cabinet of the first President.
Washington had disregarded all party lines in the
selection of his advisers, and had called to his cabinet
the chief of the anti-Democratic party, Hamilton, as
Secretary of the Treasury, and the great Democrat,
Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State. The public
debt amounted to some $54,000,000, and besides this
the debts of individual States amounted in the aggre
gate to some $25,000,000. That such a debt should
be permitted to remain unprovided for was regarded
as a crying shame, and Congress directed Hamilton
to prepare a plan to establish the credit of the
country. Hamilton prepared a plan whose principal
features were somewhat as follows : To recognize
the validity of the foreign debt — this no one ques
tioned — to recognize no distinction in the domestic
debt between the original lenders and those who had
purchased their claims, and, finally, that the general
government should assume the State debts. In this
last proposition appeared the cloven foot. Hamilton
was always on the lookout to take advantage of any
circumstance whereby the power and influence ofthe
federal government might be increased ; he had
striven for centralization in the convention, and after
ward strove in the council, and is said, at the end of
his life, to have waited in expectancy of being called
on to struggle on the field of battle for those ideas
which he had failed to force upon the country by

17
peaceful means. He now hoped that the funding of
the entire debt would cause the capitalists (for capital,
alas ! is too apt to be selfish) to rally around the gen
eral government, and so assist it in a work of central
ization at the expense of the rights of the States.
Mr. Hamilton's plan passed the House of Repre
sentatives on March 9, 1790, by a vote of 31 to 26,
the yeas being the Northern and Eastern States and
South Carolina. On the 12th of April this decision
was reversed by a majority of two, the North Caro
lina delegates having, since the first vote, arrived at
the seat of government. Hamilton, in despair, ap
pealed to Jefferson ; he represented to him that there
was peril to the Union from the rejection of the plan ;
that deep-seated, wide-reaching disgust existed in the
creditor (namely, Northern) States, and that there
was danger of their secession from the newly-formed
confederacy, if what they esteemed their just de
mands were not complied with ; he, therefore, ap
pealed to Jefferson to use his influence for the
passage of the bill, arguing with him that members
of an administration should cooperate, and that,
though the question under immediate discussion did
not belong to the department of state, yet a common
duty should make it a common concern.
Jefferson replied that he did not know how far
the assumption was necessary to prevent the ills fore
told by Hamilton, but that if the rejection of the plan
threatened the dissolution of the Union, he would sub
mit to all minor ills for the purpose of averting the
grand one, and suggested a compromise. The com
promise was made. The general government assumed
$21,500,000 of the State debt, distributed proportion-

ally amongst the various States. The measure
passed the Senate by two votes, and the House by six.
Jefferson was outwitted, and, afterward, bitterly re
pented his share in the compromise and declared that
the measure was a "fiscal manoeuvre to which he had
most ignorantly and innocently been made to hold
the candle." The feeling toward Hamilton became
one of suspicion and distrust. He suspected Hamilton
of monarchical views, and probably justly suspected
him. A true Democrat could hardly help regarding
as a monarchist one who figured as Hamilton did in
the following conversation. John Adams and Hamil
ton were dining at the house of Jefferson. The con
versation turned on government. Adams said, ' ' Purge
the British constitution of its corruption and give to
its popular branch equality of representation, and it
would be the most perfect constitution ever devised by
the wit of man." Hamilton answered, "Purge it of
its corruption and give to its popular branch equality
of representation and it would become an impracticable
government. As it stands at present, with all its sup
posed defects, it is the most perfect government which
ever existed." Do you wonder Jefferson suspected
him of monarchical tendencies ? In this connection it
has been well remarked that the two men, Jefferson
and Hamilton, meant very different things by the word
government. The one meant an agency for the execu
tion of the people's will. The other a means of curb
ing and frustrating that will, and here, gentlemen we
have in the persons of their exemplars a fair presenta
tion of the difference between the two great parties of
the present day. The people must be taken care of;
they must be governed, must be controlled, say, by

19
their deeds, if not in words, the leaders of the anti-
Democratic party. The people will take care of them
selves ; the people will govern; the people must con
trol — say we in reply — or else this nominal republic
becomes a tyranny of the worst character, a tyranny
cloaked in the robes of freedom.
The next question on which the two parties, as
represented in the cabinet, came into conflict, was the
Apportionment Act, which allowed to each State a
representative for each thirty thousand inhabitants
and distributed enough extra Congressmen to make
up the number of one hundred and twenty amongst
the States having the largest fractions over that
number. The Act was passed by Congress, and came
to the President for his consideration ; he summoned
his Cabinet to assist him. The Democrats, Jefferson
and Randolph, argued that it was unconstitutional
as opposed to Act I, § 2, ofthe Constitution. Hamilton
favored the Act, Knox was undecided — and the Presi
dent, after mature deliberation, agreed with Jefferson
and vetoed the Act.
Toward the end of Washington's first term, Jeffer
son earnestly desired to seek retirement, and actually
gave up the lease of his house in Philadelphia and
prepared to remove to Virginia. Several reasons
moved him to this course, one was a very practical one
— he was not rich, and his plantation in the hands of
overseers was being mismanaged to such an extent that
Jefferson could remain in the public service only at
great pecuniary loss, indeed at the risk of financial
ruin. However, at the urgent request of Washington,
Jefferson gave up his intention of immediate retire
ment and remained in harness for a time longer.

20

When the French Revolution came — that great
upheaval, which in spite of the excesses, the atrocities
which disgraced it, carried forward civilization and
popular rights in Europe, to a point far beyond any
they had yet reached — Jefferson was heartily in favor
of it, true, its excesses slightly staggered him, but he
was able to separate the excrescence from the bodjr —
and with Jefferson, as was natural, went the sympa
thies of the great body of the American people, who
saw a people to whom they owed much, endeavoring
to achieve across the water that which they had as
sisted the Americans themselves to achieve. But all
his warm sympathy with the Revolution never made
him forget that his first duty was to his own country,
to the United States, that their prosperity, their happi
ness must be his first care, and for their cause, their
honor, he stood against even France. About his last
public service, as Secretary of State, was the manage
ment of the negotiations which checked the insolent
course of the French minister in this country and led
to his recall. I mention this because Jefferson's con
duct in this connection has been made the subject of
adverse and unfair criticism by Mr. McMaster, one of
that school of American political historians who have
sought to belittle the reputation of Jefferson, and have
gloried whenever they have been able to find anything
which looks like a difference of opinion between Wash
ington and his Secretary of State. I have endeavored
to answer Mr. McMaster in a paper read elsewhere,
and have shown there, I think, that much of his argu
ment, or rather assertion, is based upon the omission
to give to his readers the whole of a very short letter.
There is not time to go again into the whole matter

21

at length, but I feel as though some account of Jeffer
son's action should be given, in view of the fact that
"The History of the American People," in many re
spects a most valuable work, is in every considerable
library of the land. Mr. McMaster would have you
believe that Jefferson, led by his partiality for France,
permitted the honor of his country to be dragged in
the dust, her laws outraged without protest, and was
driven to action only by the indignation of the Presi
dent. Let us briefly see what were the facts. Genet's
claim was that under the treaty with France the
French cruisers had a right to bring their prizes,
taken on the high seas, into our ports and sell them.
This right was admitted ; but more was done. Vessels
were fitted out in our ports as cruisers, American citi
zens were enlisted upon them, and commissions from
the French republic were given to them. Two Ameri
cans who had entered the French service in Charleston,
were, on their arrival on board of a prize at Philadel
phia, arrested by the United States authorities and held
for trial. Genet demanded their release, claiming
that their American citizenship ceased on their entry
into the service of the French republic. In reply to
Genet's demand, Jefferson went into the whole subject,
taking ground as follows: That "it is the right of every
nation to prohibit acts of sovereignty from being ex
ercised by any other nation within its limits, and the
duty of a neutral nation to prohibit such as would
injure one ofthe warring powers ; that the granting
of military commissions within the United States by
any other authority than their own is an infringe
ment on their sovereignty, and particularly so when
granted to their own citizens to lead them to acts con-

trary to the duties they owe their own country ; that
the departure of vessels thus illegally armed from
the ports of the United States will be but an acknowl
edgment of respect, analogous to the breach of it,
which is necessary on their part as an evidence of
their faithful neutralitjr ; " and in the name of the
President expressing an expectation that the illegally
armed vessels would not seek a harbor in our ports,
but put to sea. In reply (March 8, 1793), Genet
showed an intention of appealing to Congress from
the executive interpretation of the treaty. This was
followed by an angry letter demanding the release of
a vessel brought in as prize, against which a libel had
been filed by her former owners. Jefferson's reply
upheld the jurisdiction of the court in which the libel
was filed, and positively denied to the Frenchman
any right under the treaty to arm and man vessels
in American ports. The matter came to a head in
the case of "La Petite Democrate," a vessel captured
from the British, her name then being "The Little
Sarah," and equipped and commissioned by Genet in
this port. It was proposed to send her to sea to prey
upon British commerce, which, as she had been fitted
out here, would have been a breach of our neutrality.
On July 7th, Jefferson, who was out of town, received
word from Governor Mifflin that "La Petite Demo
crate" would probably sail that da}^. Jefferson came
to town, saw Genet, told him of the report that the
vessel would sail, that it was believed that she had
been illegally equipped, and requested her detention
until the President, who had gone to Mount Vernon
on the 23d of June, should return to Philadelphia.
Gen^t declared that, on the President's return, he

23
should appeal to Congress. Jefferson undeceived him
as to any supposed right of a foreign power to deal
with this country otherwise than through the Presi
dent ; and, after a rather stormy interview, Gen t,
while refusing an express promise, gave Jefferson to
understand that the vessel would not sail until the
President had returned. In consequence of this no
forcible steps were taken to detain the vessel, and
she, on Monday, the 8th of July, dropped down the
river to Chester, where she cast anchor.
Mr. McMaster sums up the whole by saying :
" Genet would give no promise, but said that the
brig would probably not be ready for sea before that
day (Wednesday). Jefferson supposed this to be the
language of diplomacy, and that the minister really
meant that the vessel should not sail. He made
himself easy, therefore ; got Mifflin to dismiss the
soldiers, and the Petit Democrat, unmolested, dropped
down to Chester and went to sea."
Now would not any one reading this, even in
connection with the next paragraph of Mr. McMas
ter, conclude that the vessel had sailed before
Washington's return ; that Jefferson had negligently
allowed his country to be tricked, or had connived at
the evasion of her laws ?
In point of fact, the vessel did not sail until
several days after the President's return. That re
turn occurred on the nth. Washington found the
papers of the case awaiting him ; but Jefferson, suf
fering from a fever, had gone out of town (to Bel
mont, I think). Washington then wrote a warm
note to the Secretary, which Mr. McMaster, unable
to resist the temptation to sneer when the great

24
Democrat is the object ofthe sneer, says, "Any other
man than Jefferson would have felt it to be a severe
reprimand," and prints a part of the note, but not
that part which goes to show that Washington's in
dignation, so far as Jefferson was concerned, did not
rest upon Jefferson's course of dealing but upon the
apparent disrespect involved in Jefferson's absence,
of the cause of which the President was ignorant.
The note is not a long one ; Mr. McMaster might
well have printed it without danger of making his
book too bulky. "Philadelphia, n July, 1793.
" To Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State.
" Sir : — After I read the papers which were put
into my hands by you, requiring "instant attention,"
and before a messenger could reach your office, you
had left town. What is to be done in the case of the
' Little Sarah,' now at Chester ? Is the Minister of
the French Republic to set the acts of this Govern
ment at defiance with impunity ? And then threaten
the Executive with an appeal to the people. What
must the world think of such conduct and of the
Government of the United States in submitting to it.
These are serious questions. Circumstances press
for decision, and as you have had time to consider
them (upon me they come unexpectedly), I wish to
know your opinion upon them, even before to-morrow,
for the vessel may then be gone."
Now, can we find in this any rebuke from Wash
ington based on anything but Jefferson's absence.
The President does not condemn Jefferson's action,
or say what should or what should not have been
done. Stung by the insolence of Genet, he demands
the Secretary's immediate advice. Jefferson at once
replied, stating that he had had the fever for

25
two nights and was still threatened by it, but that
nothing but absolute inability would prevent his
being in town early on the 12th, and added that, be
fore receiving the President's note, he had been (on
the 1 ith) assured by M. Genet that the vessel would
not leave until the President had given his decision.
On the 1 2th, the Cabinet met, and Jefferson's conduct
in not using armed force against the French vessel
was sustained. This is the more significant from the
fact that Randolph, who, in the Cabinet discussions,
generally sided with Jefferson as against Knox and
Hamilton, was absent. The President's conclusion,
communicated to Genet, was that the matter would
be referred "to persons learned in the law," and that
in the meantime he expected that the "Little Demo
crat" would not sail until the ultimate decision ofthe
President should be made known. This was on the
12th. On the 14th or 15th, "La Petite Democrate "
sailed. An outrageous defiance of the President's
authority, but a matter which does not prove that
Jefferson was wrong in his course before the return
of Washington, or that, if wrong, the wrong was not
shared by the President; for, from the nth to the
14th or 15th, process could have been served, or an
attack made on the little brig ; and in the instruc
tions given to Gouvernour Morris, to be his guide or
brief in presenting to the French Government the
complaints of the United States with reference to JVI.
Genet, which instructions were considered by the
whole Cabinet, paragraph by paragraph, the forbear
ance of the United States in their treatment of the
vessel, is spoken of as the only thing which had pre
vented our citizens from shedding each other's blood.

26
I shall not here discuss the policy and propriety of
the action of Washington and Jefferson. I believe
it to have been right. An attack on the brig would
have meant a war, with no navy of our own, a French
fleet off our coast, and a war with that nation which
had just enabled us to achieve our independence.
Without war, what was desired was obtained. Jeffer
son's letter, severe and cutting, showing Genet's con
duct in its true light, went to Paris ; a copy was given
to Genet ; and Genet was recalled. I have given
this matter more time than perhaps you have liked,
and I would gladly have condensed the history of the
proceeding still further, because the attack on Jeffer
son for his conduct in the trying times of 1793 is
only part of that systematic warfare which has been
waged against the memory of Jefferson by that school
of thinkers who shrink from the principles of the
Declaration of Independence, who would be glad to
see popular rights restricted every day, more and
more, and in whose path the figure of the great
American looms up, stern and forbidding.
On January ist, 1794, Jefferson retired from the
Cabinet. He went to Monticello. He busied himself
with his farm, worked upon it, and reveled in new life.
He had, however, it may be noted, always taken an
interest in farming and, like every gentleman of that
day, in rural pleasures, and the practical character of
his interest is shown by the fact that he had invented a
plow, in recognition of the merits whereof France had,
in 1790, awarded him a gold medal. In 1796 he came
from his retirement to become the Vice-President, Mr.
Adams having a plurality of three votes for the Presi
dential office, which relegated Jefferson to the second

27
place, under the old system of election, by which thecan-
didate having the second highest number of electoral
voted for President became Vice-President. Under this
system the Vice-President was almost certain to be op
posed politically to the President. During Mr. Adams'
administration came the trouble with France and, dur
ing it, under Hamilton's influence, those infamous stat
utes, the Alien and Sedition Laws were passed ; by the
first the President was given power to order out of the
country "all such aliens as he should judge dangerous
to the peace and safety of the United States." If the
alien disobeyed he was liable to three years imprison
ment. By the other law five years imprisonment and
$5,000 fine were imposed for conspiring to oppose any
measure passed by Congress or for attempting or ad
vising a riot or insurrection. Imprisonment for two
years and a fine of $2,000 were the penalty for writing,
speaking or publishing "any false, scandalous and
malicious writing against the Government of the
United States, or either House of the Congress of the
United States, or the President of the United States,
with intent to defame the said Government, or either
House of the said Congress or the said President ; or
to bring them or either of them into contempt or dis
repute, or to excite against them or either or any of
them the hatred of the good people of the United
States ; or to stir up sedition within the United States ;
or to excite any unlawful combinations therein for
opposing or resisting any law of the United States."
How strangely these laws read at the present day,
but remember, gentlemen, they were the fruit of an
anti-Democratic reaction, and remember, too, how
during the War of the Rebellion, the Constitution and

28
laws were violated by the anti-Democratic party of
that day, by arbitrary imprisonments, by suspension
ofthe habeas corpus, by the erection of military gov
ernments, and, after the war, by the interference of the
federal power, backed by troops, at the elections. At
the time the Acts sent terror through the land. The
Alien law drove from our shores many valuable citi
zens, amongst others that Kosciusko who had served us
during the Revolution, who afterward fell battling
for freedom in his native Poland, and to whose memory
a monument has been erected by grateful Americans
on the Hudson, at West Point, in the beautiful and
romantic garden which bears his name. Even Albert
Gallatin was threatened. That the sedition law was
no mere dead letter, no brutum, fulmen, the pages of
Wharton's "American State Trials" attest.
Jefferson saw the iniquity of these laws. He
saw more. He saw that if they remained unrepealed
and their authors unrebuked, they would prove the
mere precursors to perhaps even worse violations of
the spirit of our institutions. He regarded them as
an experiment by the enemies of the Constitution to
see if the people would acquiesce in measures con
trary thereto ; and he looked forward, as his writings
show us, to the possible change of the tenure of the
presidency to a life term, to its becoming an hered
itary office, and to the creation of a Senate for life.
He therefore organized opposition ; he sought out
able writers, he inspired them to use their pens to
make public opinion against the hated measures.
The alarm spread, the States of Kentucky and Vir
ginia declared that the Alien and Sedition Laws,
being contrary to the plainest letter of the Constitu-

29
tion, were altogether void. Hamilton regarded the
resolutions as an attempt to break up the govern
ment, and advised stringent counter-measures as fol
lows : To divide each State into small judicial dis
tricts, with a federal judge, appointed by the Presi
dent, in each, for the trial of offenders against the
general government; to appoint federal conservators
or justices of the peace to give efficacy to laws which
the local magistrates were indisposed to execute ; to
keep up an army and navy nearly upon a war foot
ing ; to establish a military school and government
manufactories of military materials ; to promptly call
out the militia to suppress unlawful combinations
and insurrection ; to place it within the power
of Congress to subdivide States on the applica
tion of any considerable portion of a State contain
ing not less than one hundred thousand persons ;
to make libels, leveled against any officer whatever
of the United States, cognizable in the federal
courts. The time of election came round. Jeffer
son was again the candidate of the Democrats (then
called Republicans). The New York election went
against the Hamilton party, i. e., a legislature was
elected which was pledged to choose Democratic
electors. Alexander Hamilton at once wrote to Gov
ernor Jay, proposing to him to call together the exist
ing legislature, and get it to pass a law taking from
the legislature the power of choosing electors. He
acknowledged the plan was not regular, but said
"scruples of delicacy and propriety ought not to hin
der the taking of a legal and constitutional step to
prevent an atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics
from getting possession of the helm of state." Gen-

3°
tlemen, gentlemen, is not this a forerunner of the
frauds of 1876? Dowe not see the anti-Democrat,
the same in the time of Chandler and Garfield as in
that of Hamilton ? To his honor, Governor Jay put
the Hamilton letter away with this endorsement :
"Proposing a measure for party purposes which I
think it would not become me to adopt."
The election campaign was a most heated one.
There was a tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr,
and, after seven days' balloting, the former was elected
President. The outgoing President distinguished
himself by employing the last hours of his adminis
tration by filling offices with people to act under the
incoming administration and hostile to it, and flying
from the Capital rather than be present at the inau
guration of his successor. Jefferson came into office,
nevertheless. Of the external events of his adminis
tration I shall not speak at length, for we are consid
ering the man as a representative Democrat; suffice
it to say that the territory of the United States was
vastly enlarged by the purchase of the Louisiana
territory — enlarged not by the means of conquest of
an unwilling people, to be held thereafter as subjects,
but by the fair purchase of an immense and sparsely
inhabited tract of land, with the assurance to the few
who passed from the dominion of the selling govern
ment to that of the United States, of the rights of
citizenship equal to those enjoyed by the American
born; that the Barbary pirates were compelled to
respect our flag; that the Burr treason was discovered
and frustrated. When we look at Jefferson's personal
conduct in office we have the very example of what a
Democratic President should be : plain and unassum-

3i
ing in manner, hard working, the people's servant,
not the imitator of a sovereign ; guided in his appoint
ments to office by his rule of honesty and capability,
and refusing office even to dear personal friends and
valued political colleagues, when they did not happen
to be fitted for the posts they desired; and except
that he removed some of the midnight appointees of
Adams, he removed no man from office for the mere
offence of belonging to the opposite political party.
He solved the question of Civil Service Reform, in its
most important particulars, quietly and noiselessly,
without posing as a reformer or a leader ; for, believ
ing that no restraint should be put upon the right of
suffrage, he was unable to see the difference between
denying the right of suffrage, and punishing a man
for exercising it by turning him out of office. He
would draw no advantage from his position other
than what was expressly given to him by law. He,
while in office, would not accept presents ; the only
exception to this rule being his reception of a bust of
the Emperor Alexander of Russia, which was sent
him by that potentate. Nay, so careful was he, that
when the Spanish Ambassador allowed him to pur
chase from him some two hundred bottles of cham
pagne, which, as the property of an ambassador, had
entered the country free of duty, Jefferson sent the
amount of the duty to the collector of the customs,
and, mark you, did it quietly, without parade, sug
gesting to the collector that it should be entered thus :
"By duty paid on a part of such a parcel of wines
not entitled to privilege," so that the President's
name should not appear. He would not even appoint
his relatives to office. He believed in economical

32
administration of the government and so suppressed
many unnecessary offices.
His second term of the Presidency expired in
1809, and he retired to Monticello, where he lived a
peaceful and happy life until 1826. In 1819 he
founded the University of Virginia and was its Rector
until his death. He died on the 4th of July, on the
fiftieth anniversary ofthe independence of that country
to which he had devoted his life. At twenty minutes
past one o'clock in the afternoon of that day, when
eulogies upon him and hisworkwere rising from every
part of the country, his soul took its flight.
What does his example teach us — to what does
it nerve us? I have spoken with but little effect ; I
have presented with but little intelligence the career
ofthe man, if I have failed to show you him strug
gling against just such dangers as we at the present
day have to struggle against.
The anti-Democratic party still exists ; it has had
a long lease of power ; it is backed up by all the selfish
interests in the country; it is more strongly in
trenched in positions of power than ever; it has its
armies of placemen bound to do its bidding ; it has
extended its rule beyond the boundaries of the conti
nent and now claims openly to govern parts of the
world dominated by our flag, by systems of govern
ment for which there is not only no warrant whatever
to be found in the Constitution, but which are posi
tively opposed by and abhorrent to its principles and
spirit, claims, further, to convert the President of the
United States, with his strictly limited powers and
rigid responsibility to Congress for his exercise of
them within the law, and his liability to have his

33
acts j udicially treated as vain and null, when they
are beyond the limits fixed by the Constitution, even
if they can pretend to a Congressional sanction, into
a sort of a double natured potentate, a constitutional
officer at home, perhaps, but beyond the limits of the
States proper, in what are called our colonies, our for
eign possessions, a despot, ruling with iron hand,
whose word, enforced by military power, is law to the
inhabitants of those benighted regions. For his ac
tions in the latter capacity, how is he, upon the
theory of those upholding the present administration,
to be called to account ? If that theory be correct,
he may outrage every feeling of humanity, disregard
every imaginable political right of the Filipino, of the
inhabitant of Guam, of the Porto Rican, without
affecting, in the eye of the law, the right of the
American citizen, for the colonist is not a citizen !
How then can Congress ever impeach a President
for such action? How can he be punished in his
constitutional capacity for deeds done in a character
unknown to the Constitution, but in one in which, it
is claimed, he represents the sovereignty of the na
tion, derived, in some way or other, from a source
other than that which the will ofthe people, in 1787,
made the sole grant of power to the Federal govern
ment? How can his acts, with reference to such sub
ject peoples, if sanctioned by Congress, be declared
by the judiciary void, if constitutional restraints do
not apply beyond the limits of the States ? If our
friends are right, truly we have here the case of the
created thing saying to the creator, "Thou hast not
made me wisely," and proceeding to add to itself
powers with which, or with the means of acquiring

34
which, it was never endowed. Do we not hear, my
fellow-citizens, the Constitution sneered at, as well as
disregarded ? Do we not see the great principles of
the Declaration of Independence, the belief in which
led us through our national struggle from colonial
ism to independence, denied or treated as glittering
generalities, fit only to dazzle and deceive ?
Have we not seen our national honor dragged in
the dust by broken promises, and the disappoint
ment of hopes which we raised, and knew we had
raised, in the hearts of men, whom we were careful
not to undeceive as to our real intentions until we had
obtained from them all that we sought ? Do we not
see ourselves doing just what we complained of in
1776 — denying trial by jury to those over whom we
claim to exercise dominion ; exiling men from their
homes to what are, for them, penal colonies; denying
their right to self-government ? Do we not, at home,
see class spirit increasing ? Are we not becoming,
in effect, less and less of a republic, willing to allow
more and more sway to arbitrary government? Are
not centralization and imperialism together threaten
ing our very life as a republic? Do we not see,
while governmental splendor increases, the basest
motives appealed to to insure support for an admin
istration ? The cry of financial and industrial pros
perity is nothing but "fianem et cir censes " of the
ancient time. Care not for liberty if it involves tak
ing a laborious part in your own government, and
sacrifice of time and comfort, even if it carry with it
the glorious feeling of freedom ! You are getting
good wages ; you are selling your goods ; you aie re
ceiving good fees as lawyers or physicians ; you are lay-

35
ing up money ; you have time and means for amuse
ment. What more do you want ? Let some one else
govern you — some one who knows more about it ; as
for you, eat, drink and be merry ! Is not this the
voice of the power at the present day ? And is not
acquiescence in the demands of this voice, forced or
carelessly given, growing ? And if it continue to grow
until it dominate public sentiment, our life as a repub
lic is gone — call the government what you will, it will
not be a republic. What shall save us from the fate
which is threatening? One thing, and one only, the
observance of those principles for which Jefferson all
his life contended — economical administration, stern
repression of administrative usurpation, anxious re
spect for the reserved rights of the States, the pro
hibition of the use of public means and powers to
build up the interests of the few at the expense of the
many, recognition of the fact that all just human
government derives its right from the consent of the
governed, adherence to the Constitution as though
our very life as a people depended upon it. Let us
then cling to these principles as to the very ark of
national safety ; let us remember that eternal vigi
lance is the price of liberty ; let us maintain, if neces
sary die for, a government of law, whose foundations
are based upon the legally expressed will of the peo
ple ; let us never give place, no, not for a moment, to
the present popular heresy that there are, as between
the general government and the people, certain rights
inherent in government as government, which theory
can have no rightful place in our government, formed
by the people of the States, and given by them certain
rights, beyond which it was told it should not pre-

36
sume to go. If our system be wrong, the people may
change it ; but the people should never permit their
servants, by whatever title they are called, to revo
lutionize the government, either in fact or form. Let
us not be cajoled into silence or inertness by appeals
to trust those whom we have placed in office ! Our
attitude to all who are entrusted with power should
be that of critical observation at all times; honest
support when their course is wise and right; un
flinching opposition and severe condemnation when
that course is unwise or wrong. There are many
things which when done to ourselves as private men
we may condone, which when done to our country
we are bound as citizens to punish. Let us not suffer
ourselves to be blinded by delusions of national
grandeur, and the thought that to be a world power
it is necessary that we allow infractions of the letter
or the spirit of the Constitution, in the assurance that
no harm will come to us or to our liberties. Remem
ber, as a great English statesman of the eighteenth
century said, " The people never give up their liber
ties but under some delusion." Remember, it took
dalliance and blindness to convert the mighty Samp
son into a slave.
I thank you for your attention to an address
which has overpassed the limits to which I had in
tended to confine it ; but our time has not been wasted
if, amidst the confusion of the present, the prevailing
forgetfulness of true American principles, we have
this evening contemplated and drawn inspiration
from Thomas Jefferson, the representative of Ameri
can liberty. God give us men like him to guide our
country through its darkening hours to the reful
gence of a glorious day !