ernment. To him more than any other is due the fact that this court stands before the world as the most distinguished and influential tribunal of Christendom.

The administrations of Washington and Adams were an important epoch in our diplomatic history. By patient and prudent negotiations they saved the country in its infancy and weakness from the perils of war with the two most powerful nations of the world; they established the great principle of real neutrality on such a just basis that it has been accepted as the international rule of practice of all governments; and they vindicated the perfect independence of the nation in its relations with the Old World.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON.

THE election of Thomas Jefferson as President ushered the country into a new political era, wherein it was claimed the principles of a free democracy were to enjoy their fullest fruition. Adams had lost his reëlection partly because, in his earnest desire for peace, he went further than the heated patriotism of the masses would approve towards an adjustment with England and a composition of our differences with France. Coupled with this was the unpopularity of his two legislative measures occasioned by these troubles, the alien and sedition laws. "Free speech" and "a free press were among the most taking of Jefferson's party cries, based upon hostility to these acts. With the overthrow of the Federalists, the enforcement of the Constitution went into the hands of those who in minority had given it a construction which would return to plague them both in foreign and domestic affairs when burdened with the responsibilities of government.

Mr. Jefferson selected as Secretary of State his faithful friend and champion, James Madison, who had won distinction, not in the diplomatic service, of which he possessed no experience, but since the war in the important field of reconstruction of the government. We have seen that he bore a conspicuous part with Hamil

ton in framing and afterwards in defending the Constitution. During the past twelve years since tha instrument had been the guide and rule of government, he had been an active member of Congress, but in the opposition, and usually in the minority. His taste and training fitted him best for service in deliberative assemblies, and it was in such bodies his life had been spent up to the date of his call to the Department of State. Fisher Ames, who was associated with him in Congress, in a private letter freely discussed his qualities and temperament during the First Congress. He writes that he is a man of sense, reading, address, and integrity; in person he is low and ordinary; he speaks low, decently as to manner, no more; his language is very pure, perspicuous, and to the point; much Frenchified in his politics; a little too much of a book politician; has a most exalted estimate of Virginia; is timid in politics, and very sensitive as to his popularity. He concludes: "He is our first man."1 Chief Justice Marshall said that if eloquence includes persuasion by convincing, Madison was the most eloquent man he ever heard.2

During all his political life he had been the warm friend and devoted follower of Mr. Jefferson, and because of this relation and of Jefferson's impressive personality and his disposition to rule, Madison's services as Secretary of State assumed quite a secondary character. It is said of Jefferson that he was more absolute as President than any other man who ever held that position; that while he listened to counsel, taking

1 Ames's Life and Works, 35.

2 Rives's Madison, 612.