Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/177

THOMAS JEFFERSON 141 England and living on sufferance in Paris, a passage home in a national ship. He appointed as his cabinet James Madison, secretary of state; Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury; Henry Dearborn, secretary of war; Robert Smith, secre tary of the navy; Gideon Granger, postmaster- general; Levi Lincoln, attorney-general all of whom were men of liberal education. With his cabinet he lived during the whole of his two terms in perfect harmony, and at the end he declared that if he had to choose again he would select the same individuals. With regard to appointments and re movals the new president found himself in an em barrassing position, as all our presidents have done. Most of the offices were held by Federalists, and many of his own partisans expected removals enough to establish an equality. Jefferson re sisted the demand. He made a few removals for strong and obvious reasons ; but he acted uniformly on the principle that a difference of politics was not a reason for the removal of a competent and faithful subordinate. The few removals that he made were either for official misconduct, or, to use his own language, "active and bitter opposition to the order of things which the public will has estab lished." He abolished at once the weekly levee at the White House, as well as the custom of precedence that had been copied from the court etiquette of Europe. When congress assembled