History of the United States of America, Volume 3 (of 9)

THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 1805–1809
DURING THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON
By HENRY ADAMS
Vol. III.
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1921
Copyright, 1890 By Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Copyright, 1918 By Henry Adams
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Among Jefferson’s manuscripts he preserved a curious memorandum explaining the ideas of this address. As the first Inaugural declared the principles which were to guide the government in Republican hands, the second should report the success of these principles, and recall the results already reached. The task deserved all the eloquence and loftiness of thought that philosophy could command; for Jefferson had made a democratic polity victorious at home and respectable in the world’s eyes, and the privilege of hearing him reaffirm his doctrines and pronounce their success was one that could never be renewed. The Moses of democracy, he had the glory of leading his followers into their promised and conquered Canaan.
Jefferson began by renewing the professions of his foreign policy:—
“With nations, as with individuals, our interests, soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties; and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is taken on its word, when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.”