JEFFERSON
JEFFERSON
the hope that the appellations Excellency, Wor-
ship, Esquire, or even Mister, should not apply to
any holder of office in the government of the
United States, He reached Norfolk, Va., Nov.
18, 1789, accompanied by his daughters, after six
years' residence abroad, and after u'itnessing the
marriage of his daughter Martha to Thomas Mann
Randolph, Feb. 23, 1790, he reached New York,
March 21, 1790, a full year after the inauguration
of President Washington, who had held vacant
the office of secretary of state subject to his ac-
cei^tance. He took his place in Washington's
cabinet with considerable reluctance, as he was
not in political accord with Hamilton, secretary
of the treasury, the dominant spirit in the admin-
istration, whose tendencies were toward a mon-
archical form of government and a distrust of
republicanism. His life in France had made
Jefferson a republican, and he held that "the
natural law of every society and the only sure
guardian of the rights of man was the will as
expressed by the majority." His political views
were freely and emphatically expressed in the
cabinet, and Hamilton and Knox were especially
antagonistic. In the election of 1792, while he
supported the re-election of Washington, the
numerous Democratic clubs organized throughout
the country emphatically voiced opposition to
the administration, and, led by George Clinton,
of New York, made a feeble opposition, Clinton
receiving 50 electoral votes, Jefferson 4 and Burr
1. The new party was known as Republican, and
Jefferson persistently adhered to the title as more
appropriate tlian that of Democrat, which name
was urged by the clubs, he not deeming the people
yet prepared for absolute sovereignty. His posi-
tion in the cabinet during the second administra-
tion was still more unpleasant, and while the
President was anxious to have both political
parties as advisers, Hamilton and Knox each
threatened to resign, and on Jan, 2, 1794, Jefferson
withdrew, and Washington appointed Edmund
J, Randolph of Virginia as his successor. At the
close of the year Randolph resigned, and the Pres-
ident urged Jefferson to resume the portfolio,
which he positively declined to do, and he retired
to Monticello, In 1796 he was made the Repub-
lican candidate for President, the Federalists
having named Vice-President Adams, and in the
election that followed the change of two electoral
votes would have made Jefferson President, The
election was attended with intense excitement
and bitter invective. The Federalists saw in
Jefferson a dangerous antagonist because of his
popularity with the common people. The elec-
tion resulted in John Adams receiving 71 votes;
Thomas Jefferson, 68; Thomas Pinckney, of South
Carolina, Federalist, 59; Aaron Burr, of New
York, Republican, 30; Samuel Adams, of Massa-
chusetts, Republican, 15; Oliver Ellsworth, of
Connecticut, Independent, 11; George Clinton, of
New York, Republican, 7, and John Jay, of New
York, Federalist, 5. This made Adams Presi-
dent and Jefferson Vice-President. He presided
over the deliberations of the U.S. senate dur-
ing the 5th and 6th congresses, 1797-1801, and
wrote the Kentucky resolutions of 1798, which
voiced his opinion of the dangers of a strong
centi'al government. In 1800 he received 73 elec-
toral votes, Aaron Burr also receiving 73 votes,
which exactly divided the Republican electoral
college. John Adams received the votes of 65 of
the Federalist electors, (llharles Pinckney the
votes of 64, and John Jay the vote of 1 elector.
The result gave the house of representatives the
duty of electors, and the representatives from ten
states voted for Jefferson, who was declared
President, and the votes of the representatives
from four states made Aaron Burr Vice-President,
Jefferson was inaugurated at Washington, March
4, 1801, and in making up his cabinet he appoint-
ed James Madison, of Virginia, secretary of state;
Albert Gallatin, of Pennsylvania, secretary of the
treasury; Henry Dearborn, of Massachusetts,
secretary of war; Robert Smith, of Maryland,
secretary of the navy, and Levi Lincoln, of
Massachusetts, attorney-general. No change oc-
curred in his cabinet during the first administra-
tion. The political campaign resulting in his
election had so embittered President Adams, his
former friend and co-worker in carrying out the
separation of the colonies from the mother coun-
try, that just before the close of hisadministration
Adams appropriated for the Federal party all the
available offices in his gift, and in this way dis-
tributed the spoils of office to the defeated party.
To avoid meeting the incoming President, Adams
left the White House with his family at sunrise,
March 4, 1801, and began his journey to Quincy,
Mass,, ignoring the ordinary courtesy of attend-
ing the inauguration of his successor and of ex-
tending to the new President and family a hos-
pitable welcome to the President's house. Thus
Thomas Jefferson, at the opening of the nine-
teenth century, took up the task imposed ui^on
him by a new political party that he had cre-
ated, with scant courtesy from the party he had
dethroned, and inaugurated a political policy
that was pronounced by his enemies as the
philosophy of a Jacobin, Popular government
by the people was the talk of a carefully guarded
conservatism, andliberalitj^ in education, religion
and politics, a free press, hostility to monopolies,
faith in the power of the people, in peace, in
science, in material progress and in popular
honesty, was to be put to trial. Paternalism,
corporate greed, caste, the taint of nobility, banks
sustained by government patronage for private
