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“Nothing shall be spared on my part to obliterate the traces of party and consolidate the nation, if it can be done without abandonment of principle,
John Quincy Adams was right when he told his diary that political war was to be the rule, not the exception, in American life. “The country is so totally given up to the spirit of party, that not to follow blindfold the one or the other is an inexpiable offense,” Adams wrote during Jefferson’s first term.
The weary statesman for repose hath fled From halls of council to his negro’s shed, Where blest he woos some black Aspasia’s grace, And dreams of freedom in his slave’s embrace!
Jefferson’s decision to acquire Louisiana without seeking a constitutional amendment expanded the powers of the executive in ways that would likely have driven Jefferson to distraction had another man been president.
Indian tribes knew this well. Though he would not live to see the Trail of Tears of the 1830s, Jefferson was among the architects of Indian removal.
In January 1804, the Federalist Timothy Pickering, now a senator from Massachusetts, suggested secession and the formation of a northern confederacy.
“The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West,” said Pickering.
“Many persons are at this moment prepared to declare Jefferson President for life,” Griswold wrote on Tuesday, January 10, 1804.65 Which was what the Federalists feared most.
I think you ought to get a damn kicking, you red-headed son of a bitch.2 You are a pretty fellow to be President of the United States of America, you dirty scoundrel. —ANONYMOUS
“pell-mell,
The Federalist view, according to a correspondent of Rufus King’s, was “that the shortest and beaten road of Tyranny is that which leads through Democracy.”46
On Wednesday, July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey, high above the Hudson River, the vice president of the United States shot the first secretary of the Treasury dead in a duel fought over allegedly disparaging remarks Alexander Hamilton had made about Aaron Burr.
The America of Jefferson was neither wholly Federal nor wholly Republican. It was, rather, a marbled blend of the two, confected by a practical man of affairs.
He believed, for instance, in a limited government, except when he thought the nation was best served by a more expansive one.
“My opinion originally was that the President of the U.S. should have been elected for 7 years, and forever ineligible afterwards.
Baxter’s history of England
Jefferson wrote in January 1806.139 “Our wish ought to be that he who has armies may not have the dominion of the sea, and that he who has dominion of the sea may be one who has no armies. In this way we may be quiet, at home at least.
Jefferson was taken aback by the complaints. He had, he said, detected some tension between the two congressmen who had married daughters of his, but—typically for Jefferson—he had chosen not to inquire about the unease; avoiding overt conflict was a Jeffersonian specialty. “What acts of mine can have induced you to suppose that I felt or manifested a preference for [Eppes], I cannot conceive,” Jefferson soothingly wrote Randolph.
Domestic harmony mattered as much to him as political harmony did.
