Hamilton and Jefferson entered the Cabinet of Washington without suspicion or prejudice, unknown to the fact that they differed widely in sentiment. Mr. Jefferson had read the "Federalist" while in France with great satisfaction, and had a high notion of Mr. Hamilton's ability and philosophy of American affairs. But they were really naturally different in politics, Hamilton believing in a strong republican government, made strong by fewer hands; Jefferson, in an extreme republic, controlled by the will of many, without perpetual binding force, subject to any change, and weak or strong in the Executive as the will of the many chose it to be. Mr. Jefferson accused Hamilton of construing the Constitution wrongly, and of seeking undue power through the Treasury Department over the country and in Congress.

Of himself Mr. Jefferson wrote: "If it has been supposed that I have ever intrigued among the members of the legislative (Congress), to defeat the plans of the Secretary of the Treasury, it is contrary to all truth. As I never had the desire to influence the members, so neither had I any other means than my friendships, which I valued too highly to risk by usurpations on their freedom of judgment and the conscientious pursuit of their own sense of duty."

Thus ended Mr. Jefferson's connection with the first Administration of the Federal Government; and, perhaps, few men have filled the position of Secretary of State in the Council of the Executive so ably.

CHAPTER XV.

MR. JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO-LETTER TO MAZZEI-
OPINION OF THE "SWINISH MULTITUDE "-ELECTED

N

VICE-PRESIDENT.

INE or ten years had now been spent by Mr. Jefferson in public position, in such way as to give him little direct control of his extensive farming interests, and it was with great pleasure that he returned to Monticello, where he believed his desire to remain would not be disturbed, and where his long absence had worked seriously to his disadvantage. He now devoted almost his entire attention for two or three years to his home interests, taking little notice of public events.

If any doubt is entertained of the sincerity of Mr. Jefferson's statements to the President and others when a member of the Cabinet, as to his desire and determination to withdraw permanently from public life, the following extract from a letter to Mr. Madison, then the Democratic leader in Congress, written from Monticello, April 27, 1795, will not only set it at rest forever, but also show who was Mr. Jefferson's choice for the next President. That he was subsequently induced to take a different view as to his own course, does not all conflict with the question as to his feelings and determination at that time. He wrote:

"In mine, to which yours of March the 23d was an answer, I expressed my hope of the only change of position I ever wished

to see you make, and I expressed it with entire sincerity, because there is not another person in the United States who, being placed at the helm of our affairs, my mind would be so completely at rest for the fortune of our political bark. The wish, too, was pure, and unmixed with any thing concerning myself personally. For, as to myself, the subject had been thoroughly weighed and decided on, and my retirement from office had been meant from all office, high or low, without exception. I can say, too, with truth, that the subject had not been presented to my mind by any vanity of my own. I know myself and my fellowcitizens too well to have ever thought of it. But the idea was forced upon me by continual insinuations in the public papers while I was in office. As all these came from a hostile quarter, I knew that their object was to poison the public mind as to my motives, when they were not able to charge me with facts. But the idea being once presented to me, my own quiet required that I should face it and examine it. I did so thoroughly, and had no difficulty to see that every reason which had determined me to retire from the office I then held, operated more strongly against that which was insinuated to be my object. I decided then on those general grounds which could alone be present to my mind at the time, that is to say, reputation, tranquillity, labor; for, as to public duty, it could not be a topic of consideration in my case. If these general considerations were sufficient to ground a firm resolution never to permit myself to think of the office, or to be thought of for it, the special ones which have supervened on my retirement, still more insuperably bar the door to it. My health is entirely broken down within the last eight months; my age requires that I should place my affairs in a clear state; these are sound if taken care of, but capable of considerable dangers if longer neglected; and, above all things, the delights I feel in the society of my family, and in the agricultural pursuits in which I am so eagerly engaged. The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than present name. In stating to you the heads of reasons which have produced my determination, I do not mean an opening for future discussion, or that I may be reasoned out of it. The question is forever closed with me."

Soon after Mr. Jefferson's withdrawal Hamilton and Knox both returned to private life, and much dif

ficulty was felt by the President in filling their places in his Council. Washington still desired to retain in his Cabinet men of both phases of political sentiment and policy, and although he did what he could to harmonize the contending elements, he met little success, and the affairs of his Administration took what the ultra republicans considered a more decided Federal aspect to the close of his official career. Mr. Randolph was transferred to Mr. Jefferson's place, and William Bradford, of Pennsylvania, served for a year, until his death, as Attorney-General, from which time till the close of that Administration, and through the greater part of the following one, Charles Lee, of Virginia, occupied that position. Oliver Wolcott, who had been Auditor and Comptroller in the Treasury, took the position of Hamilton; and Timothy Pickering, who had been for a time Postmaster-General, was placed at the head of the War Department, while Joseph Habersham, of Georgia, became Postmaster-General. And, finally, some complications with the French Minister on the part of Mr. Randolph, which he could not explain to the satisfaction of Washington, led to his resignation and the appointment of John McHenry, of Maryland, to the place of Secretary of State. Although the most able men of the country, in both parties, were indisposed to enter political life, and could not be induced to become advisers of the President at this heated period in the Nation's early growth, it is by no means true that his Cabinet was now composed of inferior men. They were not equal to his old council, but compared favorably with the able and valuable men of their day.

Notwithstanding Mr. Jefferson's seclusion at Mon

ticello among his children and grandchildren, he could not escape his interest in the affairs of the country. The relations with England, the bad faith, overbearing and unjust conduct of that country, were sources of great annoyance to him. To further the attempts at a fair understanding with Britain, the President appointed John Jay as extraordinary agent to England, and the result of his negotiations, although finally accepted by the Administration as the best possible at the time, met a very general opposition, and especially from the Democrats, among whom was Mr. Jefferson. In one of his letters on the subject he went so far as to call Mr. Jay a rogue, and say a number of indiscreet and mountebankish things. For a really fine writer and a statesman-like leader, Mr. Jefferson was accustomed to the use of a great deal of hyperbole, much of it having the tone of insincerity and smallness, of which his opponents took every possible advantage. In his letter to Mann Page, written August 30, 1795, concerning Mr. Jay and the treaty with England, these words are found; quite subversive, too, of the common notion of his devotion to the "common people":

"But I have always found that rogues would be uppermost, and I do not know that the proportion (of fourteen in fifteen) is too strong for the higher orders, and for those who, rising above the swinish multitude, always contrive to nestle themselves into places of power and profit. These rogues set out with steeling the people's good opinion, and then steal from them the right of withdrawing it, by contriving laws and associations against the power of the people themselves. Our part of the country is in considerable fermentation, on what they suspect to be a recent roguery of this kind."

To another friend he wrote of the Jay treaty: "I trust the popular branch of our Legislature (Congress)