Jefferson and his Colleagues [7]
was the dominating emotion. To the Federalist leaders democracy seemed an aberration of the human mind, which was bound everywhere to produce infidelity, looseness of morals, and political chaos. In the words of their Jeremiah, Fisher Ames, "Democracy is a troubled spirit, fated never to rest, and whose dreams, if it sleeps, present only visions of hell." So thinking and feeling, they had witnessed the triumph of Jefferson with genuine alarm, for Jefferson they held to be no better than a Jacobin, bent upon subverting the social order and saturated with all the heterodox notions of Voltaire and Thomas Paine. The appointment of the aged Samuel Bishop as Collector of New Haven was evidence enough to the Federalist mind, which fed upon suspicion, that Jefferson intended to reward his son, Abraham Bishop, for political services. The younger Bishop was a stench in their nostrils, for at a recent celebration of the Republican victory he had shocked the good people of Connecticut by characterizing Jefferson as "the illustrious chief who, once insulted, now presides over the Union," and comparing him with the Saviour of the world, "who, once insulted, now presides over the universe." And this had not been his first transgression: he was known as an active and intemperate rebel against the standing order. No wonder that Theodore Dwight voiced the alarm of all New England Federalists in an oration at New Haven, in which he declared that according to the doctrines of Jacobinism "the greatest villain in the community is the fittest person to make and execute the laws." "We have now," said he, "reached the consummation of democratic blessedness. We have a country governed by blockheads and knaves." Here was an opposition which, if persisted in, might menace the integrity of the Union. Scarcely less vexatious was the business of appointments in New York where three factions in the Republican party struggled for the control of the patronage. Which should the President support? Gallatin, whose father-in-law was prominent in the politics of the State, was inclined to favor Burr and his followers; but the President already felt a deep distrust of Burr and finally surrendered to the importunities of DeWitt Clinton, who had formed an alliance with the Livingston interests to drive Burr from the party. Despite the pettiness of the game, which disgusted both Gallatin and Jefferson, the decision was fateful. It was no light matter, even for the chief magistrate, to offend Aaron Burr. >From these worrisome details of administration, the President turned with relief to the preparation of his first address to Congress. The keynote was to be economy. But just how economies were actually to be effected was not so clear. For months Gallatin had been toiling over masses of statistics, trying to reconcile a policy of reduced taxation, to satisfy the demands of the party, with the discharge of the public debt. By laborious calculation he found that if $7,300,000 were set aside each year, the debt--principal and interest--could be discharged within sixteen years. But if the unpopular excise were abandoned, where was the needed revenue to be found? New taxes were not to be thought of. The alternative, then, was to reduce expenditures. But how and where? Under these circumstances the President and his Cabinet adopted the course which in the light of subsequent events seems to have been woefully ill-timed and hazardous in the extreme. They determined to sacrifice the army and navy. In extenuation of this decision, it may be said that the danger of war with France, which had forced the Adams Administration to double expenditures, had passed; and that Europe was at this moment at peace, though only the most sanguine and shortsighted could believe that continued peace was possible in Europe with the First Consul in the saddle. It was agreed, then, that the expenditures for the military and naval establishments should be kept at about $2,500,000--somewhat below the normal appropriation before the recent war-flurry; and that wherever possible expenses should be