Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

This could have been construed as a hint to Burr to give up his unavowed hopes of becoming President. But Burr, who was in New York, could not easily be communicated with and kept his sphinxlike silence. January passed without Jefferson's finding any necessity of writing any political letters. With Hugh Williamson he discussed the range of temperature in Louisiana and whether the turkey was a native bird:[409] with William Dunbar the temperature, Indian vocabularies and the origin of the rainbow.

In February, however, he again wrote to Burr. He had been informed that certain individuals were attempting "to sow tares between us that might divide us and our friends." He assured Burr that he had never written anything that could be regarded as injurious by his running mate; the only time that he had discussed his conduct was in a letter to Breckenridge written on December 18, in which he had expressed the conviction that the wishes of the people were that he and not Burr be President. That was a pure statement of fact at which no man could take offense. This time, Burr apparently did not answer at all, and while the House was preparing for the balloting, Jefferson discussed with Caspar Wistar the bones found in the State of New York, "the vertebra, part of the jaw, with two grinders, the tusks, which some have called the horns, the sternum, the scapula, the tibia and fibula, the tarsus and metatarsus, and even the phalanges and innominata."[410]

On the morning of the election and before going to the Capitol he wrote to Tench Coxe: "Which of the two will be elected, and whether either, I deem perfectly problematical: and my mind has long been equally made up for either of the three events." This was on a Wednesday. After the result of the election had been officially announced, the House retired to proceed to the election of the President. Ballots were taken, Jefferson receiving eight States, Burr six, nine being necessary to a choice. The House stayed in continuous session till eight o'clock the next morning, taking twenty-seven ballots without any change in the results; members of the House dozing between ballots, snatching a bit of sleep whenever they could, all of them admiring the fortitude of Joseph N. Nicholson who, although sick in bed, had been brought to the House and rested in a committee room, voting at each ballot. The House adjourned until eleven o'clock on Friday and then took two successive ballots without being able to break the deadlock. On Saturday three ballots were taken without any change in the alignment, and they adjourned until Monday. In the meantime passions were raging. The Federalists had been told in no equivocal terms that, should they attempt to have the Government devolve to some member of the present administration, "the day such an act would pass, the Middle States would arm" and that "no such usurpation would be tolerated even for a single day."

On the other hand, Jefferson had been approached by the more sensible heads of the Federalists, and apparently by Gouverneur Morris, who stopped him as he was coming out from the Senate Chamber, and had offered to influence one member of Vermont, provided he would declare: "1. that he would not turn all the Federalists out of office; 2. that he would not reduce the navy; and 3. would not wipe off the public debt." To which Jefferson answered that he would not become President by capitulation and would not make any declaration. Then he went to see Adams, who seemed ready to approve of the choice of Jefferson as President and who told him that he could have himself elected by subscribing to conditions analogous to those indicated by Morris. Finally he was visited in his room by Dwight Foster, senator from Massachusetts, who also reiterated the same offer. These are, undoubtedly, some of the maneuvers he mentioned on Sunday, the day of rest, in a letter he wrote to Monroe: "Many attempts have been made to obtain terms and promises from me, I have declared to them unequivocally, that I would not receive the government on capitulation, that I would not go into it with my hands tied."[411]

On Sunday and Monday parleyings went on, caucuses were held, and no change was yet apparent. But on Tuesday morning an agreement was reached. It was described by Jefferson himself as follows:

"Morris of Vermont withdrew, which made Lyon's vote that of his State. The Maryland Federalists put in four blanks, which made the positive ticket of their colleagues the vote of the State. South Carolina and Delaware put in six blanks, so there were ten states for one candidate, four for another, and two blanks." And the speaker of the House, Theodore Sedgwick, one of Jefferson's bitterest enemies, was forced to announce his election.

The letter he wrote to Monroe the same day is not a pæan of triumph. The long-disputed victory, the irreducibility of a large portion of the Federalists, made him fearful lest the fight would soon renew. Furthermore, Adams had at once started making new appointments, naturally without consulting his successor; Bayard was nominated plenipotentiary to the French Republic, "Theophilus Parsons, Attorney General of the United States in the room of C. Lee, who, with Keith Taylor cum multis aliis are appointed judges under the new system. H. G. Otis is nominated a District Attorney."[412]

On his side, Jefferson wrote at once to Henry Dearborn to offer him the Secretaryship of War in his Cabinet and courteously communicated with Dexter, Secretary of the Treasury, and Stoddart, Secretary of the Navy, to thank them for their offer to conduct the affairs of their departments pending the arrival of their successors. To a certain Major William Jackson whom he did not know and who had written him to express the fear that he would discriminate against commerce, he answered that he "might appeal to evidences of his attention to the commerce and navigation of our country in different stations connected with them."

This was an evident allusion to his mission to France and to the activity he had displayed in defending the commercial interests of the United States. He resented particularly the fact that he had been represented as a friend to agriculture and an enemy to commerce, "the only means of disposing of its products."[413] The true position of Jefferson on this matter has already been pointed out in a preceding chapter; but the fact that the letter was written the very day he was notified of his election is proof enough that he already intended to conciliate both the agricultural and the commercial interests of the country. To the smoothing over of old differences of opinion he bent all his efforts during the three weeks that separated him from his inauguration. Bayard having refused his appointment to France, he approached at once Robert R. Livingston, intending to give the nomination to the Senate at the first opportunity. At the same time he repeated that the great body of the Federalist troops was discouraged and truly repentant, or disposed to come back into the fold. Those who were so inclined should be received with open arms for "If we can once more get social intercourse restored to its pristine harmony, I shall believe we have not lived in vain; and that it may, by rallying them to true Republican principles, which few of them had thrown off, I sanguinely hope."[414]

He resigned from the Chair of the Senate on the twenty-eighth, and made the necessary preparations for the inauguration. The ceremonies were to be very simple but dignified. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was asked by Jefferson himself to administer the oath, and on March 4, 1801, the new President was inaugurated, while John Adams, who had refused to welcome his successor, was starting on his way to New England.