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PRESIDENT JEFFERSON
For the presidential election of 1800, Adams was again the candidate on the Federal side, and Jefferson on the Republican side. Jefferson, by interviews, by long and numerous letters, by the commanding force of his own intellect and character, had at last welded the anti-Federal elements into a compact and disciplined Republican party. The contest was waged with the utmost bitterness, and especially with bitterness against Jefferson. For this there were several causes. Jefferson had deeply offended two powerful classes in Virginia, the old aristocratic and Tory element, and—excluding the dissenters—the religious element; the former, by the repeal of the law of entail, and the latter by the statute for freedom of religion in Virginia. These were among the most meritorious acts of his life, but they produced an [pg 115]intense enmity which lasted till his death and even beyond his death. Jefferson, also, though at times over-cautious, was at times rash and indiscreet, and the freedom of his comments upon men and measures often got him into trouble. His career will be misunderstood unless it is remembered that he was an impulsive man. His judgments were intuitive, and though usually correct, yet sometimes hasty and ill-considered.
Above all, Jefferson was both for friends and foes the embodiment of Republicanism. He represented those ideas which the Federalists, and especially the New England lawyers and clergy, really believed to be subversive of law and order, of government and religion. To them he figured as “a fanatic in politics, and an atheist in religion;” and they were so disposed to believe everything bad of him that they swallowed whole the worst slanders which the political violence of the times, far exceeding that of the present day, could invent. We have seen with what tenderness Jefferson treated his widowed sister, Mrs. Carr, and her children. [pg 116]It was in reference to this very family that the Rev. Mr. Cotton Mather Smith, of Connecticut, declared that Jefferson had gained his estate by robbery, namely, by robbing a widow and her children of £10,000, “all of which can be proved.”
Jefferson, as we have said, was a deist. He was a religious man and a daily reader of the Bible, far less extreme in his notions, less hostile to orthodox Christianity than John Adams. Nevertheless,—partly, perhaps, because he had procured the disestablishment of the Virginia Church, partly on account of his scientific tastes and his liking for French notions,—the Federalists had convinced themselves that he was a violent atheist and anti-Christian. It was a humorous saying of the time that the old women of New England hid their Bibles in the well when Jefferson’s election in 1800 became known.
The vote was as follows:—Jefferson, 73, Burr, 73; Adams, 65; C. C. Pinckney, 64; Jay, 1. There being a tie between Jefferson and Burr, the Republican candidate for [pg 117]Vice-President, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives, voting by States. In that House the Federalists were in the majority, but they did not have a majority by States. They could not, therefore, elect Adams; but it was possible for them to make Burr President instead of Jefferson. At first, the leaders were inclined to do this, some believing that Burr’s utter want of principle was less dangerous than the pernicious principles which they ascribed to Jefferson, and others thinking that Burr, if elected by Federal votes, would pursue a Federal policy. It was feared that Jefferson would wipe out the national debt, abolish the navy, and remove every Federal officeholder in the land. He was approached from many quarters, and even President Adams desired him to give some intimation of his intended policy on these points, but Jefferson firmly refused.
As to one such interview, with Gouverneur Morris, Jefferson wrote afterward: “I told him that I should leave the world to judge of the course I meant to pursue, by that [pg 118]which I had pursued hitherto, believing it to be my duty to be passive and silent during the present scene; that I should certainly make no terms; should never go into the office of President by capitulation, nor with my hands tied by any conditions which would hinder me from pursuing the measures which I should deem for the public good.”
The Federalists had a characteristic plan: they proposed to pass a law devolving the Presidency upon the chairman of the Senate, in case the office of President should become vacant; and this vacancy they would be able to bring about by prolonging the election until Mr. Adams’s term of office had expired. The chairman of the Senate, a Federalist, of course, would then become President. This scheme Jefferson and his friends were prepared to resist by force. “Because,” as he afterward explained, “that precedent once set, it would be artificially reproduced, and would soon end in a dictator.”