Another dissimilarity between these two worth heeding, is Jefferson's want of that thrift which produces independence, comfort, and self-respect. He lived beyond his means, and died literally a beggar.
Jefferson was deficient in that happy combination of courage, energy, judgment, and probity, which mankind call character, for want of a more distinctive word—but which, in fact, in its highest expression, is genius on the moral side. It commands the respect of mankind more than the most brilliant faculties—and it accomplishes more. We have only to look at Washington's life to see what can be done by it.
When Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson showed a want of spirit and of action; the same deficiency was more painfully conspicuous in his dealings with the Barbary pirates and in the affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake. The insults and spoliations of the English and French under the orders in council and the Berlin and Milan decrees were borne with equal meekness. He was for peace at all hazards, and economy at any price. When at last he found he had exhausted his favorite method, and that neither 'time, reason, justice, nor a truer sense of their own interests' produced any effect upon the obstinate aggressors, he could desire no better means of checking their depredations upon our trade than to order our merchants to lay up their ships and shut up their shops. It was a Japanese stroke of policy—to revenge an insult by disembowelling oneself—hari kari applied to a nation.
His was indeed a brilliant theory of government, if we take him at his word. At home, freedom was to be invigorated by occasional rebellions, not to be put down too sharply, for fear of discouraging the people—the tree of liberty was to be watered with blood. Abroad, custom-house regulations would keep the peace of the seas. Embargo and non-intercourse must bring France and England to their good behavior.
Mr. Jefferson had his political panacea: all disorders would infallibly be cured by it. He puffed it in his journals and extolled its virtues in his state papers. He congratulated his countrymen upon his election; he called it the revolution of 1800. Now at length they could try the panacea. What wonders did it work? The Federalists can point to the results of their twelve years of power: credit created out of bankruptcy; prosperity out of union; a great nation made out of thirteen small ones—an achievement far beyond that Themistocles could boast of. Jefferson added the Louisiana Territory to the Union; but this, the only solid result of his Administration, was totally inconsistent with his principles. Did he render any other service to the country? We know of none. His 'Quaker' theories and 'terrapin' policy increased the contempt of our enemies, cost the nation millions of money to no purpose, and made the war of 1812 inevitable.
No one can deny that Jefferson was a monster of party tactics and strategy. He knew well how to get up a cry, to excite the odium vulgare against his antagonists, to play skilfully upon the class feeling of poor against rich, and to turn to profit every popular weakness and meanness. He drilled and organized his followers, and led them well disciplined to victory. But on the grander field of statesmanship he was wanting. He was what Bonaparte called an ideologist. A principle, however true, may fail in its application, because other principles, equally true, may then come into action and vitiate the result. These collateral principles Jefferson never deigned to consider. He had no conception of expediency, of which a wise statesman never loses sight. Results he thought must be advantageous, provided processes were according to his principles. His object appears to have been rather a government after his theories than a good government. And in this respect he is the type of the impracticable and mischief-making class of reformers numerous in this country.
Jefferson seems to have been unable to grasp the real political character of the American people, the path they were destined to tread, the shape their institutions must necessarily take. He was possessed with the idea that liberty was in danger, and that the attempt was made to change the republic into a monarchy, perhaps a despotism. This delirious fancy beset him by day and was a terror by night. He was haunted by the likeness of a kingly crown. Hamilton and Adams were writing and planning to place it upon somebody's head. Federalist senators, congressmen, Revolutionary soldiers, were transformed into monarchists and Anglomen. Grave judges appeared to his distempered vision in the guise of court lawyers and would-be ambassadors. The Cincinnati lowered over the Constitution eternally. The Supreme Court of the United States was the stronghold in which the principle of tyrannical power, elsewhere only militant, was triumphant. Hamilton's funding system was a scheme to corrupt the country. Even the stately form of Washington rose before him in the shape of Samson shorn by the harlot England. Strange as it may seem, Jefferson persisted in his delusion to the end. A man in his position ought to have seen that in spite of the old connection with the British crown, the States were and always had been essentially republican in feelings, manners, and forms. Nowhere in the world had local self-government been carried to such extent and perfection. To build up a monarchy out of the thirteen colonies was impracticable. Washington, more clear sighted, said that any government but a republic was impossible: there were not ten men in the United States whose opinions were worth attention who entertained the thought of a monarchy. In his judgment the danger lay in the other direction. The weakness of the Government, not its strength, might lead to despotism through license and anarchy. He desired to keep the rising tide of democracy within bounds by every legitimate barrier that could be erected, lest it should overflow the country and sweep away all government. Jefferson was for throwing open the floodgates to admit it. He thought himself justified in combating the monarchists of his hallucinations by every means, however illegal and unconstitutional. Washington warned him and his followers that they were 'systematically pursuing measures which must eventually dissolve the Union or produce coercion.' Jefferson, deaf to the admonition, pressed on, and, like Diomede at the siege of Troy, wounded a divinity when he thought he was contending only with fellow men. With his Kentucky Resolutions he gave the first stab to the Union and the Constitution. What were Burr's childish schemes, which would have fallen to the ground from their own weakness, compared with that? From Jefferson through Calhoun to Jefferson Davis the diabolic succession of conspirators is complete.