Reign of Terror had worked a formidable reaction in America against the sympathizers with revolutionists in France. This, with the aggressive policy of the Directory, and the insulting reception given to the American envoys in Paris, for a time paralysed the Republican party. President Adams, mistaking the resentment felt in the United States towards France for a popular reaction there against republicanism, was betrayed into a series of ill-considered measures, which were not long in telling upon the fortunes of his party. Among these measures the most unfortunate perhaps were the alien and sedition laws, the former empowering the president to expel from the country such aliens as he should deem dangerous, and the latter punishing as sedition, with line and imprisonment, the printing or uttering malicious charges against the president or Congress. The Republicans commenced an active agitation against the laws through out the country, which, co-operating with a strong and popular sympathy with the Republican doctrines, finally resulted in the election of Jefferson and Burr, the candidates of the Republican party, as president and vice-president, and the defeat of Adams and Pinckney the candidates of the Federalists. Washington having died only a few months before, this election proved the coup de grace of the Federal party, and established Jeffersonian Republicanism as the permanent policy of the country. Jefferson entered upon the duties of the presidency on the 4th of March 1801, and was re-elected for the term commencing March 4, 1805, by 143 out of 176 electoral votes. His administration of twice four years was characterized by the simplicity which distinguished his conduct in private life. He eschewed all pomp and ceremony designed artificially to distinguish the president from the people. His dress “was of plain cloth” on the day of his inauguration. Instead of driving to the capital in a coach and six as had been the practice, he rode there on horseback, without a guard or even a servant in his train, dismounted without assistance, and hitched the bridle of his horse to a fence. Instead of opening Congress in the English fashion, with a speech to which a formal reply was expected, he sent his message by a private hand. Court etiquette was practically abolished, and the weekly levee with it. The code of precedence was essentially modified. Titles of honour were not recognized as such. “Excellency,” “Honourable,” and even “Mr,” were distasteful to him. Between the President and governors of States he recognized no difference in rank, each being the supreme head of an independent state. “If it be possible,” he said, “to be certainly conscious of anything, I am conscious of feeling no difference between writing to the highest and lowest being on earth.” In public official station he regarded himself purely as a trustee for the public. He discontinued the practice of sending ministers abroad in Government vessels, nor would he have his birthday celebrated by state balls; he refused to appoint days of fasting and thanksgiving on the ground that they were religious rites, and no recommendation from him, therefore, could make them more or less binding upon the conscience. To secularize and republicanize the Government were the paramount purpose and the distinguishing feature of his administration. His cabinet, of which Madison and Gallatin were the pillars, was in thorough sympathy with Jefferson in his general policy, and its perfect harmony was uninterrupted. He gave his ministers his entire confidence. “If I had the world to choose from,” he once said, “I could not change one of my associates to my better satisfaction.” The first important act of his administration was to send four of the six vessels constituting the so-called navy of the republic to the Mediterranean to exterminate the Algerine pirates who for half a century had preyed upon the commerce of the world, thus initiating a series of events which in a few years rendered the commerce of the Mediterranean as safe as that of the English Channel. Possessed with a conviction of the supreme commercial importance of New Orleans, he directed negotiations to be opened with the French Government, which resulted in the purchase for $15,000,000 of the territory of Louisiana, which had been ceded by Spain to France. Though the constitutional power under which this important transaction was consummated was far from clear, neither its validity nor its wisdom was ever seriously questioned; and it is now justly regarded by his countrymen as the crowning achievement of his administration, and none the less meritorious for the responsibility he deliberately assumed in bringing it to pass. The remainder of his administration derives most of its historic importance from his unsuccessful attempt to convict Aaron Burr, the late vice-president, of having engaged in treasonable projects in the south-west, and from his efforts to maintain, without war, the rights of neutrals on the high seas. Among the less conspicuous though scarcely less important measures of his administration were the careful exploration of the Western Territories; reducing the public debt, and practically extirpating from the country the then not unpopular delusion that a national debt is a national blessing; fortifying the seaports; reorganizing and rearming the militia; diminishing the taxes; and extinguishing the Indians titles by fair purchase, and promoting their emigration beyond the Mississippi. On the 4th of March 1809 he retired from the presidency, after an almost continuous public service of over forty years. He was pressed to allow himself to be re-elected for a third term, but refused unconditionally, though the legislatures of five States formally requested him to be a candidate.
Jefferson, whose private fortune had been seriously compromised by the interruptions of foreign commerce before and during his administration, and by the expenses incident to his representative position, lived seventeen years after his retirement, and to the last was the most considerable personage in the United States. His immediate successors in the presidency for the next sixteen years were his pupils and devoted personal friends, and rarely ventured upon any important step without the support of his approval. The employments of his closing years were in harmony with the dignified and patriotic purposes of his active life. Nothing that concerned the welfare of the country was a matter of indifference to him. He urged successfully the foundation of a university, and became one of its most efficient trustees. His correspondence during this period is regarded as one of the most interesting and instructive contributions to the early literature of the United States. He had inherited a wonderful constitution and herculean strength, neither of which did he ever abuse.
In the spring of 1826 the decline of his strength, which had been gradually increasing for two or three years, became more rapid, and on the 4th of July he expired, in the eighty-third year of his age. John Adams, his predecessor in the presidency, by an impressive coincidence, died on the same day, the fiftieth anniversary of an event imperishably associated with the names of both and with the fortunes of a nation.
See The Writings, Correspondence, &c., of Thomas Jefferson, edited by A. Washington, 9 vols., New York, 1853-54; Memoir, Correspondence, &c., of Thomas Jefferson, edited by T. J. Randolph, 4 vols., Charlottesville, 1829; George Tucker, Life of Thomas Jefferson, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1837; Henry Randall, Life of Thomas Jefferson, 3 vols., New York, 1858; James Parton, Life of Thomas Jefferson, Boston, 1874; Sarah N. Randolph, Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson, New York, 1871; H. Lee, Observations upon the Writings of Jefferson, Philadelphia, 1839; Cornelis De Witt, Thomas Jefferson, Paris, 1861.
(J. BI.)
JEFFERSON CITY, capital of the State of Missouri, occupies an elevated and picturesque site in Cole county, on the right bank of the Missouri river, 125 miles west of St Louis. The city is well built. It has an efficient school system, and is the seat of an Episcopal college, and of Lincoln Normal Institute, which is maintained by the State for the instruction of coloured youths of both sexes. The State library contains about 25,000 volumes. The manufactures comprise flour, furniture, carriages, farm implements, and iron goods. Population in 1880, 5271.
JEFFERSONVILLE, the county seat of Clark county, Indiana, U.S., is situated on the north bank of the Ohio river. The streets are of a uniform width of 60 feet. The falls of the Ohio afford a fine water-power, so that manufactories are numerous. Among them are locomotive and car works, plate-glass works, two ship-yards, and railway machine shops. The southern State penitentiary and an extensive Government depôt of army supplies are situated here. Population in 1880, 9357.
JEFFREY, Francis (1773-1850), a judge in the Scottish Court of Session, with the title of Lord Jeffrey, was the son of a depute-clerk in the supreme court of Scotland, and was born at Edinburgh, 23d October 1773. After attending the High School six years, he studied at the university of Glasgow from 1787 to May 1789, and at Oxford from September 1791 to June 1792. Having in the following winter begun the study of law at Edinburgh University, he became a member of the Speculative Society, in the debates of which he measured himself not disdvantageously with Scott, Brougham, Francis Horner, the marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Kinnaird, and others.
He was admitted to the bar on December 18, 1794, but, having abandoned the Tory principles in which he had been educated, he of course found his father s connexion of little advantage to him; indeed the adoption of Whig politics was at this time almost a complete obstacle to legal success. His failure to obtain sufficient professional employment led him to the conception of a variety of schemes of “literary eminence,” none of which were put into execution; and more than one attempt to obtain an
