The second term of the President was far less successful than the first. A political exigency in France had forced the sale of Louisiana, and its opportune purchase had given Jefferson unbounded popularity, and linked his name with the future greatness of his country. But the impending hostilities producing that exigency had now been declared. France and England were again in open war, and each, to wound the other, had recklessly trampled upon the rights of the United States. English orders in council blockaded the ports of France, and Napoleon's Berlin decrees equally closed those of England against neutral commerce. The right of search was claimed by both powers, and offensively exercised by England. Time had now brought its inevitable revenges. Jefferson was again confronted by conditions in which he manifested more or less of weakness and incapacity. In peace his statesmanship was always creditable, and at times, truly magnificent. In the presence of war he was too often vacillating and incompetent. The embargo on the commerce of his own country, which he suggested, was hardly less injurious than the wrongs of which he complained. The remedy was worse, if possible, than the disease.
Aaron Burr, in contesting for the presidency in 1801, had forfeited the confidence of his own party, and for killing Hamilton in a duel in 1804, he had incurred the hatred of the Federalists, and lost the respect of all parties. In his desperation he had organized an expedition to proceed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with a view, as was supposed, of invading Mexico, or segregating from the United States a portion of its territory. He was arrested for treason and brought to Richmond, where he was finally tried for a high misdemeanor in organizing forces against Spain within the United States. In this prosecution, as in the impeachment of Judge Chase of the Supreme Court, executive encouragement and aid were offensively open and notorious.
When the embargo had almost ruined the commercial States of the Union, it was modified by a non-intercourse act with France and England, to take effect on March 4, 1809, the last day of Jefferson's term.
At the close of his second term Jefferson permanently retired from office, and spent his remaining years at Monticello.
By a singular coincidence both he and John Adams died on July 4, 1826, just fifty years after they had signed the Declaration of Independence.
The brief facts already recited clearly indicate the character of the man. He was a bold and original thinker. With him mere precedent was without weight. By nature he was a democrat, plain, simple, and unostentatious. He not only believed in the capacity of the people for self-government, but in their honest wish to govern aright. In the struggle of the Revolution his devotion to the rights of the people against English tyranny took the form of religious enthusiasm. In France he witnessed the sufferings and misery of the down-trodden poor, whose wild vengeance he believed to be justified by the long ages of oppression and wrong under which they had groaned.
He distrusted power and naturally sought to restrict its exercise. Hating monarchy, he feared to delegate large powers of government even in republican forms. Hating an aristocracy, he encouraged the masses to demand equality in civil, political, and social rights.
His political inconsistencies resulted from the usual impossibility of reconciling theory and practice. When his opponents were in power, their purposes, he thought, were accomplished through violations of the constitution. An equally dangerous exercise of power by his friends failed to excite his alarm. Feeling conscious within himself of an honest purpose to subserve the good of the people and to perpetuate their liberties, he found ready justification for every act having, in his judgment, those ends in view.
America has produced no man so dear to the masses of its people as Thomas Jefferson. He was an iconoclast, but the images broken by him were the idols of a past age, and no longer deserved the worship of a free people.[Back to Contents]