while California, owing to its rich auriferous soil, has of course contributed very largely." A Bill for the organisation of a Post Office was passed in 1792. There had been a Postmaster-General during the old Confederation; but under the changed conditions of the country a new system was greatly needed.

While these matters were being arranged, a fourteenth State was added to the Union. This was Vermont, at one time called the New Hampshire Grants a territory which had long been claimed by Massachusetts, by New Hampзhire, and by New York. It had originally been

*Lossing's History of the United States. 36-VOL. II.

adjusted, in 1790, by Vermont paying to that State 30,000 dollars in quittance of all demands. Vermont was admitted into the Federal Union on the 18th of February of the following year. A Constitution was adopted in 1793, and has since been modified on several occasions. It was from the first distinguished by its prohibition of slavery, except in persons under age. At the same time, settlements were rapidly spreading beyond the Alleghanies. The North-western Territory was established in July, 1787; and on the 26th of March, 1790, Tennessee was constituted as the Territory South-west of the Ohio. The public lands of the United States were made the subject of an Act of Congress in 1790. In accordance

with the scheme proposed by Hamilton, the interests of small purchasers were protected by the system of limited sales. Before the passing of that Act, no one could purchase less than a tract of 4,000 acres. The effect of this arrangement was to keep these lands entirely in the possession of the wealthy, though it was clearly to the interest of a country such as the United States to place its vast domains at the disposal of the humble and industrious. It is true that the population at that time was not large; but there was every prospect of its soon becoming so, and already there had been a congestion in particular quarters. The natural tendency of the American people is towards the formation of new settlements, and it was wise to encourage that tendency by throwing open the boundless West to all who had brains and muscles for bringing it into culture. By the first Census of the United States, which was taken in 1790-91, the number of both sexes and all colours within the limits of the Republic was 3,929,827, of whom 695,000 were slaves. It is now estimated at between forty and fifty millions.

One of the greatest Americans of that age recahed the termination of his career in 1790. When Jefferson was at Philadelphia, on his way to New York, during the March of that year, he called on Franklin, then lying on a bed of sickness from which he never rose. It was on the 17th of April that this remarkable man expired; but in March, though it was evident that his days were numbered, his mind retained its vigour, and, knowing that Jefferson had just returned from France, he questioned him as to the latest state of affairs in that country, where the Revolution was then in full course. Franklin was one of the Fathers of the Revolution in his own land, and the development of similar principles in Europe was necessarily very interesting to him. Fortunately, perhaps, for his serenity of mind, he did not live to see the worst developments of that terrible French insurrection against bad government, abominable privilege, and a wide-spread corruption of morals, manners, and faith, such as can hardly be paralleled since the days of the Roman Empire. The younger men of America saw the whole drama played out, and with emotions which varied considerably according to the natural bent of their dispositions. extremes into which French democracy was even then passing, led to an estrangement between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Adams, American and patriot though he was, had something in his political constitution which inclined him towards English models. Jefferson, on the contrary, had lived so long in France that he had become imbued

The

with French ideas. The grandson of Adams, whose biography of his ancestor we have had frequent occasion to mention, is of opinion that this difference between the two men was owing in a great measure to distinctions in religious belief. He states that, before Burke had entered on his hopeless crusade against the course of events in France, Adams had predicted that the French experiment would fail; and that in a letter to Dr. Price, acknowledging the receipt of a copy of his celebrated work in defence of that experiment, he had used the words:-" I know that Encyclopædists and economists, Diderot and D'Alembert, Voltaire and Rousseau, have contributed to this great event, more than Sidney, Locke, or Hoadley-perhaps more than the American Revolution; and I own to you I know not what to make of a Republic of thirty million Atheists. . . . . . Too many Frenchmen, after the example of too many Americans, pant for equality of persons and property. The impracticability of this, God Almighty has decreed, and the advocates of liberty who attempt it will surely suffer for it." Here was certainly a remarkable prophecy, the result of that calm and practical wisdom which was the great characteristic of Adams. But the difference between him and Jefferson was not so great as Mr. Charles Francis Adams seems to suppose. Both were a long way from orthodoxy; both had some degree of religious faith, though this, doubtless, was more tinctured with feeling in the case of Adams, and in Jefferson was more a matter of the intellect. Nor can it be said that the latter, strongly as he sympathised with the French Revolution, was incapable of discerning its errors and excesses. In his Autobiography he has stated that he would not have voted with that portion of the French Legislature which determined on the death of Louis XVI.; that he would have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harta out of her power, and have invested the King with limited prerogatives, which he verily believes he would honestly have exercised. "In this way," continues Jefferson, writing at a period when he could look back over the whole course of the French Revolution, and the subsequent career of Bonaparte,

Jefferson, therefore, was not the blind follower of the thirty million French Atheists (to adopt Adams's most extravagant calculation), nor of the French democrats in all that they did. Yet it is certain that he sympathised with the earlier stages of the French Revolution much more than Adams or Washington; that he hoped more from its initiative; that he saw in it less to fear or to blame. Adams, indeed, seems to have gone too far in his distrust, because, although he was justified in the immediate event, he did not sufficiently acknowledge, or perceive, the excellence of those principles which worked through the blind, dark, shrieking mass of the French Revolution, like fire and light through Chaos. Jefferson even spoke of his rival having apostatised to hereditary monarchy and nobility.* This was assuredly in excess of the truth; but Adams had developed a very strong conservative instinct since his return to America. In 1791, he furnished to the columns of a Philadelphia newspaper a series of essays containing an analysis of Davila's History of the civil convulsions of France in the sixteenth century. The object of these productions was to exhibit the dangers which may result from the operation of powerful factions in countries that are weakly governed; and it was of course intended that the moral should apply to the United States. Jefferson was much annoyed by the argument, and, conceiving that nothing less was meant than the establishment of a monarchy, resolved to give his countenance and support to a reprint of the first part of Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man," which had recently been published in England. The American edition of this work was issued at Philadelphia, with a dedication, certainly unauthorised, to the President, and with an intimation, not altogether without warrant, that the book had the sanction of Mr. Jefferson, the Secretary of State. Paine's treatise had created a great commotion in England, where, in the following year, the second part was made the subject of a Government prosecution; and Major Beckwith, an unofficial British agent then in America, complained that the reappearance of the work in the United States, with such high official patronage, was calculated to give great offence to his Government. Jefferson found it necessary to write to the President on the matter, and to state that a letter of his, with reference to Paine's discourse, had been printed without his sanction in the American edition. It is probable that Jefferson did not intend to give any open and public support to the "Rights of Man;" but he

* Letter from Jefferson to Washington, May 8th, 1791.

519

never disavowed that he sympathised with the opinions therein expressed. Adams, on the contrary, looked upon the work with the greatest dislike. Talking with a friend one day upon the subject, he laid his hand on his breast, and said, in a very solemn manner, "I detest that book and its tendency from the bottom of my heart."

In his capacity as Home and Foreign Minister, Jefferson had to deal with many questions of great delicacy. One of these was the free navigation of the Mississippi to the ocean. The point had not been urged in the peace negotiations of 1782-3, because it was thought imprudent to endanger the chances of a general agreement by exciting the jealousy of Spain. But the United States had never lost sight of so important a privilege, and were quietly resolved to make their demand whenever a good opportunity should arise. In 1788, Jefferson had recommended the people of Kentucky not to insist upon this right of navigation (which specially concerned their interests) until the West of Europe should be engaged in war. With the year 1790, some complications arose between Spain and England, which seemed to threaten hostilities; and the American Envoys at Madrid and Paris were therefore instructed to seek an opportunity of bringing forward the claim. in question, together with others of a more extreme character. The United States greatly coveted the possession of some port on the Mississippi where sea-going vessels and those traversing the river might exchange their commodities. No situation was so well adapted to this purpose as the town and neighbourhood of New Orleans, situated at the outfall of the great stream into the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans was then in the possession of Spain, and the American Ministers in the Old World now began to speak, not merely of navigating the river, but of obtaining New Orleans and the Floridas. The differences between England and Spain, however, were shortly afterwards composed, and the acquisition of the desired territories did not take place until later dates.

A tour of the Southern States, similar to that in the Northern during a previous year, was made by Washington in the spring of 1791. It was then that he selected, in what is now called the district of Columbia, that situation on the Potomac which was destined for the Federal capital, to be in due time called after his name. The enthusiasm with which he was received showed that even the detested Excise law had not taken away from his popularity. A new Congress met at Philadelphia at the latter end of October, and the President referred in his speech to the great success of the

National Bank, the shares for which had been all subscribed for in less than two hours after the books were opened. The session was fated to be a stormy one, and much discussion was excited by a law for determining the state of the representation. By the terms of the Constitution, it had been settled that the House of Representatives should contain one member for every 30,000 of the population. It now appeared that each State had a considerably larger number of inhabitants than this, and it was therefore proposed to take the whole population of the Union, divide the amount by 30,000, and thus increase the House to its full quota. The proposal was very distasteful to the Opposition; for, although they desired the members of the Lower House to be augmented, they were displeased with the method of effecting this result, which could only be carried out by merging the States in the Federation. The Bill passed, in spite of their antagonism; but Washington thought fit to interpose with his veto, on the ground that such an act infringed on the fundamental law of the Constitution. In this respect he acted with the party of Jefferson, rather than with that of Adams and Hamilton.

The general complication was increased by the unpopularity of some of Hamilton's measures. He had introduced into Congress a provision for perpetuating certain taxes allotted to the payment of interest upon the debt. It was thought such a policy was too characteristic of the old country, and it was rumoured that, in private conversation, the Finance Minister had expressed opinions not consonant with American institutions. The feeling of the Anti-Federal party became every day stronger against him. He and Jefferson were permanently at issue, and Washington was obliged frequently to interpose, to preserve anything like harmony. Both Great Britain and France had now representatives in America. Of these, Jeffer son inclined towards the Minister of France, and Hamilton towards the Minister of England. Each Minister was desirous of obtaining favour from the country to which he paid court, and special commercial advantages were offered by the opposing Secretaries. The jurisdiction of the two depart ments was so ill-defined that each trenched upon the other, and mutual accusations of encroachment were continually exchanged. Hamilton and Jefferson had journals which were their particular organs, and which of course contradicted one another at every point. The Gazette of the United States expressed the opinions of the Treasury; the National Gazette was the mouthpiece of Jefferson, and was indeed edited by a clerk in his office. The former

of these papers spoke of the anarchy existing in France with almost as much indignation as the most Tory journals in England. The latter sup ported the development of affairs in Paris in a tone which would have satisfied all but the most extreme Jacobins. Washington kept aloof from both parties, and rightly interpreted his duties as placing him above the violence of faction. It was known, however, that he agreed more with Hamilton than with Jefferson, and he was in time made an object of attack by those who held the opposite view. He was accustomed to hold levées, on certain days and at certain hours, for the reception of those who wished to pay him their respects. It is hard to see how such an observance could in any way interfere with liberty, while it is not difficult to perceive that it added a grace to political life, and offered a common ground of devotion to the Constitution, where men of opposing principles might for awhile forget their animosities. Yet these levées were denounced as an affectation of monarchy. Washington was considered too particular as to matters of etiquette, and Adams, as Vice-President, was believed to be even more inclined to reproduce in America the forms and manners of English sovereignty.

The period was now approaching when it was necessary, by the terms of the Constitution, to choose the President and Vice-President anew. To the former of these offices it was proposed to re-elect Washington. That great man would gladly have retired once more to the privacy of his Virginian home; but Jefferson threatened to resign if Washington carried out this intention. Although the President's leanings were rather against Jefferson than in his favour, the Secretary of State feared that the former Chief Magistrate might be succeeded by one less disposed to hold the scales fairly between opposing interests; and he therefore desired the renewal of his power. Washington on his part dreaded lest a political condition should ensue, in which the Anti-Fede ralists, considering themselves defeated, should raise commotions similar to those which were then distracting France. He consequently determined to stand as a candidate for re-election, and, there being no competitor, he was chosen in the autumn of 1792 for a second term of office, to commence in the following March. Adams was at the safe time re-elected to the Vice-Presidency, but not without opposition, for another candidate hal appeared in the person of George Clinton, of New York.

While the United States were thus painfulls struggling through the first difficulties of their new Government, and indeed for a period of severed