A CAPITAL IN THE WILDERNESS.

377

from Philadelphia in the previous year. Opposed to what he considered the aristocratic notions of the Federalists, he affected the utmost simplicity, setting aside the rules of precedence of the former administrations, and risking misunderstanding by the informality with which he received titled foreigners. His inau

guration, however, was conducted with all the pomp. possible in a town of five hundred inhabitants living in "the scattered buildings of the desert," as a contemporary states, the streets of which were little better than paths cut among the trees and shrubs with which the site was covered. The President's "pal

ace," as the White House was then called, was a mile or more from the then unfinished Capitol, and the Alexandria Riflemen paraded before it, with the company of artillery which had ushered in the day by the discharge of cannon. The city was thronged by a large body of citizens from the surrounding region, though the day was celebrated in the Virginia towns as well as at Philadelphia, by ringing bells, processions, salutes and addresses. A procession in Washington was impracticable, for the Tiber Creek was not bridged, pedestrians crossing it on a log, and vehicles. being driven through it. The President-elect was, however, accompanied by many members of Congress, and other citizens on foot and on horseback, and he rode on horseback himself. After the delivery of the address, the Chief Justice administered the oath of office, and the President returned to his lodgings, accompanied by the Vice-President, Chief Justice, heads of departments, and principal citizens. He was waited upon by many distinguished persons, and there was a general illumination in the evening.†

* John Davis, an English traveller who was present on this occasion, wrote an account of it, in which he said Jefferson “rode on horseback to the Capitol, without a single guard or even servant in his train, dismounted without assistance and hitched the bridle of his horse to the palisades. On the basis of this account it has often been said that the President-elect rode "alone," as a protest against the ostentation of Washington, who, in New York (a city of several thousand inhabitants), rode in a highly ornamented coach. Davis says that "the Senate Chamber was filled with citizens from the remotest places of the Union The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, the merchant, all seemed to catch uncommon transport of enthusiasm."

† An account of Jefferson's inauguration was found a few months ago by Major Ben Perley Poore, in the Congressional Library, in a small pamphlet (Political Pamphlets, vol. 101) printed in Philadelphia at the time. It substantiates the above statements.

ROTATION IN OFFICE.

379

Jefferson reduced the pomp and circumstance of official life and emphasized the change that had come over the administration in many other ways. The Alien and Sedition acts had expired by limitation, but he uttered his protest against them anew, by showing friendship for those against whom the Alien act especially had been aimed, and pardoning all who were imprisoned under the Sedition law. He wrote to Dr. Priestley who had been threatened by the Alien law, with warm sympathy, and appointed Albert Gallatin, the Swiss Republican, Secretary of the Treasury. He gave the chief offices of government, then held by Federalists, to members of his own party, thus giving support to that system which has since become so much of a drawback to the efficiency of the departments and the source of much corruption in politics.

The great event of the first term of Jefferson's administration was the purchase from France of the territory west of the Mississippi River. This region had secretly been transferred by Spain to France in 1800, and Napoleon was intending to

*That levelling philosopher, Jefferson, was the first President who broke down all decorum and put himself, when abroad, upon a footing with the plainest farmer of Virginia. I say "when abroad," because in his family he lived luxuriously and was fastidious in the choice of his company, but when he wanted to catch the applause of the vulgar, with whom, however, he was too proud to associate, he would ride out without a servant, and hitch his nag to the railing of the Presidential palace.- Recollections of Samuel Breck.

† Being criticised for these removals, he uttered a sentiment that has become proverbial, saying to some New Haven merchants in 1801, "If due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation none."

send an armed colony thither to take possession. Meantime the Spaniards had deprived the United States of the right of deposit at New Orleans,* and the whole region interested in the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers was in a state of ferment, and especially was this true of Kentucky. It happened that just before the plan of sending an armed French force to Louisiana had been carried into effect, Napoleon saw that it would be to his interest to strengthen the United States against England, especially as he became aware that in a war then imminent between France and England, if he did not make friends with our country, he would find it an ally of his enemy. He therefore listened to a proposition made through James Monroe and Mr. Livingston, for the purchase of the territory, and sold it, saying as he did so, that he had given to England a rival that would sooner or later humble her pride. The price paid for this vast region of more than a million square miles, was fifteen millions of dollars, out of which the United States agreed to settle certain claims against France held by American citizens, amounting to three and a quarter million dollars. As the treaty was signed, Mr. Livingston said to the other signers, "This is the noblest work of our whole lives. The treaty

change vast solitudes into flourishing districts.

will From

In 1795, Thomas Pinckney had effected a treaty with Spain by the terms of which the right of the United States was recognized to navigate the Mississippi River, and to deposit merchandise free of duty at New Orleans. At the same time, Spain bound herself, if she were to shut us out of New Orleans, to assign an equivalent place of deposit on the banks of the river. This, with great injustice, the Spanish intendent now neglected to do.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.

381

this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank. The United States will re-establish the maritime rights of all the world."

This purchase (like the appropriation of public funds for building the Cumberland Road, in 1806) was in controvention of the "Strict Construction principles professed by Jefferson and his party, and the President called upon Mr. Madison, then Secretary of State, to prepare an amendment to the Constitution adapted to the emergency. Public opinion, however, supported the acquisition, and the amendment was not acted upon. The region occupied by the United States by virtue of the sale, comprised most of the territory of the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, the Indian Territory, and Dakota, and the whole of Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington Territory.* This vast tract was not carefully described at the time, and the title to the whole of it was not determined until after the treaty with Great Britain of June 15, 1846, which defined the limits westward of the Rocky Mountains, confirming the title of the United States to more than three hundred thousand square miles. The representative of France in the negotiation was François, Marquis de Barbé-Marbois, who obtained a sum considerably greater than Napoleon had authorized him to sell the tract for.

* In 1829 M. Barbé-Marbois, published a Historie de la Louisiane, accompanied by a map on which the limits of the territory incorporated into that of the United States are laid down as above described, but he explains that the region on the Pacific coast was not included in the sale, though actually occupied by the United States.