Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/178

142 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS he sent them a message, instead of delivering to them a speech, which had the effect of preventing, as he remarked, "the bloody conflict to which the making an answer would have committed them." He abolished also all the usages that savored of royalty, such as the conveyance of ministers in national vessels, the celebration of his own birth day by a public ball, the appointment of fasts and thanksgiving-days, the making of public tours and official visits. He refused to receive, while travel ling, any mark of attention that would not have been paid to him as a private citizen, his object being both to republicanize and secularize the gov ernment completely. He declined also to use the pardoning power unless the judges who had tried the criminal signed the petition. He refused also to notice in any way the abuse of hostile news papers, desiring, as he said, to give the world a proof that "an administration which has nothing to conceal from the press has nothing to fear from it." A few of the acts of Mr. Jefferson s administra tion, which includes a great part of the history of the United States for eight years, stand out boldly and brilliantly. That navy which had been created by the previous administration against France Jefferson at once reduced by putting all but six of its vessels out of commission. He despatched four of the remaining six to the Mediterranean to