History of the United States During Thomas Jefferson's Administrations (Complete 4 Volumes). Henry Adams
eight years of opposition the Republican party had matured its doctrines on this subject. In 1797, in the midst of difficulties with France, Jefferson wrote:19—
"If we weather the present storm, I hope we shall avail ourselves of the calm of peace to place our foreign connections under a new and different arrangement. We must make the interest of every nation stand surety for their justice, and their own loss to follow injury to us, as effect follows its cause. As to everything except commerce, we ought to divorce ourselves from them all."
A few months before the inauguration, he wrote in terms more general:20—
"The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization and a very unexpensive one,—a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants."
Immediately after the inauguration the new President explained his future foreign policy to correspondents, who, as he knew, would spread his views widely throughout both continents. In a famous letter to Thomas Paine,21—a letter which was in some respects a true inaugural address,—Jefferson told the thought he had but hinted in public. "Determined as we are to avoid, if possible, wasting the energies of our people in war and destruction, we shall avoid implicating ourselves with the Powers of Europe, even in support of principles we mean to pursue. They have so many other interests different from ours that we must avoid being entangled in them. We believe we can enforce those principles as to ourselves by peaceable means, now that we are likely to have our public councils detached from foreign views." A few days later, he wrote to the well-known Pennsylvania peacemaker, Dr. Logan, and explained the process of enforcing against foreign nations "principles as to ourselves by peaceable means." "Our commerce," said he,22 "is so valuable to them, that they will be glad to purchase it, when the only price we ask is to do us justice. I believe we have in our own hands the means of peaceable coercion; and that the moment they see our government so united as that we can make use of it, they will for their own interest be disposed to do us justice."
To Chancellor Livingston, in September, 1801,23 the President wrote his views of the principles which he meant to pursue: "Yet in the present state of things," he added, "they are not worth a war; nor do I believe war the most certain means of enforcing them. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect."
That these views were new as a system in government could not be denied. In later life Jefferson frequently asserted, and took pains to impress upon his friends, the difference between his opinions and those of his Federalist opponents. The radical distinction lay in their opposite conceptions of the national government. The Federalists wished to extend its functions; Jefferson wished to exclude its influence from domestic affairs:—
"The people," he declared in 1821,24 "to whom all authority belongs, have divided the powers of government into two distinct departments, the leading characters of which are foreign and domestic; and they have appointed for each a distinct set of functionaries. These they have made coordinate, checking and balancing each other, like the three cardinal departments in the individual States,—each equally supreme as to the powers delegated to itself, and neither authorized ultimately to decide what belongs to itself or to its coparcener in government. As independent, in fact, as different nations, a spirit of forbearance and compromise, therefore, and not of encroachment and usurpation, is the healing balm of such a Constitution."
In the year 1824 Jefferson still maintained the same doctrine, and expressed it more concisely than ever:—
"The federal is in truth our foreign government, which department alone is taken from the sovereignty of the separate States."25 "I recollect no case where a question simply between citizens of the same State has been transferred to the foreign department, except that of inhibiting tenders but of metallic money, and ex post facto legislation."26
These expressions, taken together, partly explain why Jefferson thought his assumption of power to be "as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form." His view of governmental functions was simple and clearly expressed. The national government, as he conceived it, was a foreign department as independent from the domestic department, which belonged to the States, as though they were governments of different nations. He intended that the general government should "be reduced to foreign concerns only;" and his theory of foreign concerns was equally simple and clear. He meant to enforce against foreign nations such principles as national objects required, not by war, but by "peaceable coercion" through commercial restrictions. "Our commerce is so valuable to them that they will be glad to purchase it, when the only price we ask is to do us justice."
The history of his Administration will show how these principles were applied, and what success attended the experiment.
1 Sketches of Debate in the First Senate, by William Maclay, p. 212.
2 The Quarterly Review (London, 1841), p. 24.
3 The Quarterly Review (London, 1841), p. 23.
4 Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings, vol. xix. 1881-1882.
5 Grigsby's Convention of 1776, p. 85.
6 Life of Story, i. 166.
7 Old Churches of Virginia, ii. 222.
8 Marshall to Hamilton, Jan. 1, 1801; Hamilton's Works, vi. 502.
9 Jefferson to Gallatin, Sept. 27, 1810; Gallatin's Writings, i. 492.
10 Evening Post, April 20, 1802.
11 Thornton to Grenville, March 4, 1801; MSS. British Archives.
12 Jefferson's Works, ix. 469.
13 Jefferson to J. Dickinson, March 6, 1801; Works, iv. 365.
14 Jefferson's Works, ix. 480.
15 Jefferson to Roane, Sept. 6, 1819; Works, vii. 133.