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In her heart she was piqued at Jefferson's indifference and she was foolish enough to really believe that this marriage with a British nobleman, twice removed, would be in the nature of a triumph over him. Besides, this project of an elopement appealed strangely to her frivolous imagination; it put her in the same class as all her favourite novel heroines. And it would be capital fun!
Here again there was much accusation about my having acted in an "unconstitutional" manner a position which can be upheld only if Jefferson's action in acquiring Louisiana be also treated as unconstitutional; and at different stages of the affair believers in a do-nothing policy denounced me as having "usurped authority" which meant, that when nobody else could or would exercise efficient authority, I exercised it.
As it approached, those interested in public affairs had many subjects for constant and excited discussion: the possible Vice-President, whose election was to determine the future status of the Secretary of State, and cement or weaken the centralized powers of the Administration; the battle in the two Gazettes, with the laurels to Hamilton, beyond all controversy, and humiliation for Jefferson and Madison; the growing strength of the "Republican" party under Madison's open and Jefferson's literary leadership; the probable policy of the Administration toward the French Revolution, with Jefferson hot with rank Democracy, and Hamilton hotter with contempt for the ferocity of the Revolutionists; the next move of the Virginians did Hamilton win the Vice-Presidency for the Administration party; and the various policies of the Secretary of the Treasury and their results.
But although Hamilton is much the finer man and much the sounder thinker and statesman, there were certain limitations in his ideas and sympathies the effects of which have been almost as baleful as the effects of Jefferson's intellectual superficiality and insincerity.
That was enough, and there was a turn of the wheel against the omnivorous state in favor of several new forms of pluralism. But this time society was to swing back not to the atomic individualism of Adam Smith's economic man and Thomas Jefferson's farmer, but to a sort of molecular individualism of voluntary groups.
Jefferson's policy of non-intercourse and in supporting President Madison's policy of war, deserved well of his country. Postponed that war might have been. But, human nature being what it is, and the English government being what it was, we do not believe that the United States could ever have been distinctly recognized as one of the powers of the earth without another fight for it.
As we have already observed, he lost confidence in the genuineness of Jefferson's professions of friendship; and, from this time, there was no correspondence between them. At about this time, Washington received the welcome news of the liberation of his friend Lafayette, and his expected speedy departure for America.
Ought not some weight to be given to Jefferson's declaration to Kerchival, that in his administration his "efforts in relation to peace, slavery, and religious freedom were all in accordance with Quakerism"? We pass now to the third great period, in which, as thinker and writer, he did so much to brace the Republic.
Is a paper not used against me when, on account of its contents being misunderstood, I am thus assailed with the tender of a badge of infamy? Is life, in Mr. Jefferson's opinion, all; and character and reputation, which alone can render it desirable, nothing?
From among numerous instances of Mr. Jefferson's idea of honour and morality, as practised by him and by his order pending that trial, only one will be selected as a sample. Dr. Erick Bollman, the friend of Lafayette, was arrested by the order of Wilkinson as a co-conspirator with Burr. He was called as a witness on the part of the United States; and in open court, the district attorney, Mr.
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