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32. Principles and Policies
mong the distinguishing ornaments of the administrative policy of Mr. Jefferson, none was more conspicuous, none more congenial to the distinctive nature of republicanism, than his scrupulous adherence to the inviolability of freedom of speech, of the press, and of religion. The utmost latitude of discussion was not only tolerated, but invited and protected as a fundamental ingredient in the composition of republican government. The celebrated traveler, Baron Humboldt, calling on the President one day, was received into his council chamber. On taking up one of the public journals which lay upon the table, he was shocked to find its columns teeming with the most wanton abuse and licentious calumnies against the President. He threw it down with indignation, exclaiming, "Why do you not have the fellow hung who dares to write these abominable lies?" The President smiled at the warmth of the Baron and replied, "What! Hang the guardians of the public morals? No sir,-- Rather would I protect the spirit of freedom which dictates even that degree of abuse. Put that paper into your pocket, my good friend, carry it with you to Europe, and when you hear anyone doubt the reality of American freedom, show them that paper and tell them where you found it." "But is it not shocking that virtuous characters should be defamed?" replied the Baron. "Let their actions refute such libels. Believe me," continued the President, "virtue is not long darkened by the clouds of calumny; and the temporary pain which it causes is infinitely overweighed by the safety it insures against degeneracy in the principles and conduct of public functionaries. When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property." (Winter in Washington, 1807)
In pursuance of this principle, he discharged all those who were suffering persecution for opinion's sake under the Sedition Law immediately on coming into office. He interposed the executive prerogative in every instance by ordering the prosecutions to be arrested; or, if judgment and execution had already passed, by remitting the fines of the sufferers and releasing them from imprisonment. The grounds on which he rested his right to act in these cases are forcibly stated in answer to a correspondent in Massachusetts who questioned the constitutionality of his interference.
"But another fact is that I 'liberated a wretch who was suffering for a libel against Mr. Adams.' I do not know who was the particular wretch alluded to; but I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity, as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image; and that it was as much my duty to arrest its execution in every stage as it would have been to have rescued from the fiery furnace those who should have been cast into it for refusing to worship the image. It was accordingly done in every instance without asking what the offenders had done or against whom they had offended, but whether the pains they were suffering were inflicted under the pretended Sedition law. It was certainly possible that my motives for contributing to the relief of Callendar and liberating sufferers under the Sedition law might have been to protect, encourage, and reward slander; but they may also have been those which inspire ordinary charities to objects of distress, meritorious or not, or the obligation of an oath to protect the Constitution violated by an unauthorized act of Congress. Which of these were my motives must be decided by a regard to the general tenor of my life. On this I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at large, to posterity, and still less to that Being who sees himself our motives, who will judge us from his own knowledge of them, and not on the testimony of Porcupine or Fenno." (to Mrs. Abigail Adams, July 22, 1804. ME 11:43)
n the subject of religion, it was the policy of the President to maintain freedom of thought and speech in all the latitude of which the human mind is susceptible and to discountenance by all the means in his power every tendency to predominance and persecution in any sect by proscription of the least degree, even in public opinion.
In reply to the solicitation of a very respectable clergyman for the appointment of a national fast in conformity to the practice of his predecessors, he assigns the reasons of his departure from their example in the following words:
"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the States, as far as it can be in any human authority. But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation the less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines, nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.
"I am aware that the practice of my predecessors may be quoted. But I have ever believed that the example of State executives led to the assumption of that authority by the general government without due examination, which would have discovered that what might be a right in a State government was a violation of that right when assumed by another. Be this as it may, every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." (to Rev. Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808. ME 11:428)
With regard to the personal piety of the President, if external observances are of any account, it is well known that he was a constant and exemplary attendant upon public worship, liberal in contributions to the support of the simple religion of Jesus, but frowning and inflexible on all sectarian projects. It is stated with much confidence by S. H. Smith, a living chronicle of those times whose personal intimacy with the President enabled him to speak with authority on the subject, that "he contributed to found more temples for religion and education than any other man of that age."
he minor traits of Mr. Jefferson's administration open a range of topics on which the historian might dwell at length. His simplicity was only equaled by his economy, of which he presented an example in the extinguishment of more than thirty-three millions of the public debt. The diplomatic agents of foreign governments, on their introduction to him, were often embarrassed and sometimes mortified at the entire absence of formality with which they were received. His arrivals at the seat of government and his departures therefrom were so timed and conducted as to be unobserved and unattended. His inflexibility upon this point, so different from the practice of his predecessors, could never be overcome, and he was finally permitted to pursue his own course undisturbed by any manifestations of popular feeling. His uniform mode of riding was on horseback, which was daily and usually unattended. On one excursion with some riding companions, the group had occasion to cross a stream of water at which a walking traveler asked Mr. Jefferson to transport him over, to which Mr. Jefferson readily agreed. When the traveler was later asked if he had realized that it was the President of the United States whom he had requested to transport him, the man was astonished, and replied that the older gentleman only looked like the most likely one to grant his request.
Although repeatedly and warmly solicited by his friends to make a tour to the North, he never could reconcile it to his feelings of propriety as chief magistrate. In a private answer to Governor Sullivan of Massachusetts on the subject, he wrote: "The course of life which General Washington had run, civil and military, the services he had rendered and the space he therefore occupied in the affections of his fellow citizens take from his examples the weight of precedents for others, because no others can arrogate to themselves the claims which he had on the public homage. To myself, therefore, it comes as a new question to be viewed under all the phases it may present. I confess that I am not reconciled to the idea of a chief magistrate parading himself through the several States as an object of public gaze, and in quest of an applause which, to be valuable, should be purely voluntary. I had rather acquire silent good will by a faithful discharge of my duties than owe expressions of it to my putting myself in the way of receiving them."
While eschewing extravagance and ostentation, he nevertheless embraced a high level of elegance and an adoption of "some one of the models of antiquity for public buildings." For the President's house, he recommended "the celebrated fronts of modern buildings which have already received the approbation of all good judges." (to Pierre L'Enfant, April 10, 1791. ME 8:163) His preference for frugality, simplicity, and plainness proceeded from a sense of his obligations as a public man, but these never overcame his sensitivity to the charms of elegance. His own magnificent mansion, Monticello, in the various buildings and rebuildings it underwent at his hands to suit the progress of his taste in the arts, is believed to have cost little less than the mansion of the chief magistrate. In his private expenditures, he was indeed liberal to a fault. Humane towards his fellow man on a scale of benevolence which comprehended every distinction of color and condition, few practicable object of philanthropy were presented to him which he did not encourage by his assistance. But in the immediate circle of his friends to whom he was ever devoted, his liberality appeared to know no limits. In the profusion of presents which he lavished upon them, in the accommodations of money with which he succored them under embarrassment, in the hospitality with which he entertained strangers and visitors from every country, and in his ordinary habits of living, such evidences of a private munificence appeared as formed a perfect contrast with his frugality and simplicity as a public man.
One other trait of Mr. Jefferson revealed in the discharge of his official duties deserves notice, to wit, his disinterestedness. This quality is evident from the fact that in all the splendid stations which he occupied, he accumulated nothing, but retired from each of them much poorer than he entered, and from the last and greatest station, "with hands," to use his own expression, "as clean as they were empty" -- indeed, on the very verge of bankruptcy. While in the short interval of eight years he had saved his country millions and millions of dollars -- enough to make her rich and free who was before poor and oppressed with taxation -- he, to the immense fortune with which he set out in life, had added nothing but had lost almost everything. If any further testimony were wanting on this theme, it might be drawn from the fact of his having refrained from appointing a single relation to office. This was not only true of him while President, but in every public station which he filled. Writing to a friend in 1824, he said: "In the course of the trusts I have exercised through life with powers of appointment, I can say with truth and with unspeakable comfort that I never did appoint a relation to office, and that merely because I never saw the case in which someone did not offer, or occur, better qualified." Nor, in the multiplied removals and replacements which he was compelled to make, did he eject a personal enemy or appoint a personal friend. He felt it his duty to observe these rules for reasons expressed in answer to an application for office by a relative: "That my constituents may be satisfied that in selecting persons for the management of their affairs, I am influenced by neither personal nor family interests, and especially that the field of public office will not be perverted by me into a family property. On this subject, I had the benefit of useful lessons from my predecessors, had I needed them, marking what was to be imitated and what avoided. But in truth, the nature of our government is lesson enough. Its energy depending mainly on the confidence of the people in their chief magistrate make it his duty to spare nothing which can strengthen him with that confidence." (to Horatio Turpin, June 10, 1807. ME 11:221)
n the crowd of official occupations which devolve on the executive magistrate, Mr. Jefferson found time to accomplish a succession of private labors and enterprises which would have been enough of themselves to have exhausted the ordinary measure of application and talent. A simple enumeration of the topics on which his leisure moments were employed will suffice to exhibit the extent of his efforts for the improvement and happiness of the nation. Regular essays abound in his correspondence during this period on physics, law, and medicine; on natural history, particularly as connected with the aborigines of America; on maxims for the regulation and improvement of our moral conduct, addressed to young men; on agriculture, navigation, and manufactures; on politics and political parties, science, history, and religion. In some of those intervals when he could justifiably abstract himself from the public affairs, his meditations turned upon the subject of Christianity. He had some years before promised his views of the Christian religion to Dr. Rush, with whom, and with Dr. Priestley, he was in habits of intercommunication on the subject. The more he reflected upon it, the more, he confessed, it expanded beyond the measure of either his time or information. But he availed himself of a day or two while on the road to Monticello in 1803 to digest in his mind a comprehensive outline entitled "A Syllabus of an estimate of the merit of the doctrine of Jesus compared with those of others." This he afterwards wrote out and forwarded to Dr. Rush in discharge of his promise, but under a strict injunction of secrecy "to avoid torture," as he expressed himself, "of seeing it disemboweled by the Aruspices of modern Paganism." It embraced a comparative view of the ethics of Christianity with those of Judaism and of ancient philosophy under its most esteemed authors, particularly Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, Antoninus. The result was such a development of the immeasurable superiority of the doctrine of Christianity that he declared "its Author had presented to the world a system of morals which, if filled up in the style and spirit of the rich fragments he has left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man." Space can only be spared for the conclusions he arrived at, which were all on the side of Christianity. "They are the result," said he, "of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions." The question of the divinity, or inspiration of Christ, being foreign to his purpose, did not enter into the estimate.
"1. He [Jesus] corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government.
"2. His moral doctrines relating to kindred and friends were more pure and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers and greatly more so than those of the Jews; and they went far beyond both in inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one family under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants, and common aids. A development of this head will evince the peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over all others.
"3. The precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew code laid hold of actions only. He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.
"4. He taught emphatically the doctrines of a future state, which was either doubted or disbelieved by the Jews, and wielded it with efficacy as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral conduct." (to Benjamin Rush, Apr. 21, 1803. ME 10:384)
The President was in habits of frequent communication with the fraternity of literary men spread over Europe and with the various societies instituted for benevolent or useful purposes, particularly the Agricultural Society of Paris and the Board of Agriculture of London, of both of which he was a member. He was indefatigable in endeavoring to obtain the useful discoveries of these societies as they occurred and in communicating to them in return those of the western hemisphere. He imported from France at his own expense two flocks of Merino sheep -- among the first introduced into this country -- with a variety of new inventions in the agricultural and mechanic arts and new articles of culture which have since become of general use in the United States. He transmitted to the Society of Paris in return several tierces of South Carolina rice for cultivation in France; and to the Board of Agriculture of London, several barrels of the genuine May wheat of Virginia. Some of these exportations happened during the restraints of the embargo and, on its getting into the newspapers, excited a resentful uproar against the President. His correspondence with the eminent philanthropists of Europe, particularly on the subject of vaccination at the epoch of the first intelligence of its discovery; his efforts for introducing it into this country against the weight of scepticism and ridicule which it encountered; and his subsequent correspondence with Dr. Waterhouse and others mingled with experimental exertions for establishing and propagating its efficacy, are among the standing monuments of his perseverance in the general cause of humanity while at the head of the nation.
The plan of colonizing the free people of color in some place remote from the United States originated with Mr. Jefferson at an early period, and on coming into the office of President, he prosecuted the enterprise with renewed energy. A correspondence was opened between him and Mr. Monroe, then governor of Virginia, and the first formal proceeding on the subject was made in the Virginia legislature soon afterwards, to wit, about the year 1803. The purpose of his correspondence with Mr. Monroe is explained in a letter from him about ten years afterwards and published in the first annual report of the Colonization Society. He proposed to gain admittance for the free people of color into the establishment at Sierra Leone, which then belonged to a private company in England; or in failure of that, to procure a situation in some of the Portuguese settlements in South America. He wrote to Mr. King, then our minister in London, to apply to the Sierra Leone Company. The application was made, but without success, on the ground that the company was about to dissolve and relinquish its possessions to the government. An attempt to negotiate with the Portuguese governor was equally unproductive, which suspended all active measures for a time. But the enterprise was kept alive by Mr. Jefferson, who by his impressive admonitions of its importance, held the legislature of Virginia firm to its purpose. The subject was from time to time discussed in that body till in the year 1816, a formal resolution was passed almost unanimously, being but a repetition of certain resolutions which had been adopted in secret session at three distinct antecedent periods. It was truly the feeling and voice of Virginia, which was followed by the States of Maryland, Tennessee, and Georgia. Colonization societies were then for the first time formed. (N. A. Review, vol. 18, p. 41)
In the catalogue of unofficial services, the improvements which Mr. Jefferson bestowed upon the national metropolis are not among the least engaging. Almost everything that was beautiful in the artificial scenery of Washington introduced during his administration was due to his taste and industry. He planted its walks with trees and strewed its gardens with flowers. He was familiar with every tree and plant, from the oak of the forest to the lowliest flower of the valley. The willow-oak was among his favorite trees, and he was often seen standing on his horse to gather the acorns from this tree. He was preparing to raise a nursery of them which, when large enough to give shade, should be made to adorn the walks of all the avenues in the city. In the meantime, he planted them with the Lombardy poplar, being of the most rapid growth, contented that, though he could not enjoy their shade, his successors would. Those who have stood on the western portico of the capitol and looked down the long avenue of a mile in length to the President's House have been struck with the beautiful colonnade of trees which adorns the whole distance on either side. These were all planted under the direction of Mr. Jefferson, who often joined in the task with his own hands. He always lamented the spirit of extermination which had swept off the noble forest trees that overspread Capitol Hill, extending down to the banks of the Tiber and the shores of the Potomac. He would have converted the grounds into extensive parks and gardens. "The loss is irreparable," said he to a European traveler, "nor can the evil be prevented. When I have seen such depredations, I have wished for a moment to be a despot, that, in the possession of absolute power, I might enforce the preservation of these valuable groves. Washington might have boasted one of the noblest parks and most beautiful malls attached to any city in the world."
Such are a few of the private efforts and enterprises which Mr. Jefferson intermingled with the discharge of his public avocations. They were performed, too, without any neglect of the sweets of social intercourse or of literary occupation which ever constituted the predominant passions of his soul. A regular portion of every day was devoted to the acquisition of science, and the most liberal portions to the reception of company. The facility with which he discharged these demands upon his attention amidst the complication of public and necessary duties was wont to excite the astonishment of those who visited him. The impression produced by his notice of a remark of a visitor, dropped in the freedom of conversation and expressive of surprise at his being able to transact the public business amidst such numerous interruptions was long remembered by those who heard it. "Sir," said Mr. Jefferson, "I have made it a rule since I have been in public life never to let the sun rise before me, and before I breakfasted, to transact all the business called for by the day." Much of the ease with which he acquitted himself under such an accumulation of engagements is ascribable to his industry and versatility of practical talent; but more, perhaps, to system and a methodical arrangement of time. So exact were his habits of order that in a cabinet over-burthened with papers, every one was so labeled and arranged as to be capable of access in a moment.
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