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ances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home, and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people; a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace, and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them ; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected."

President Adams did not tarry, as courtesy demanded, to deliver the government into the hands of his successor, but rode away at daylight that morning in bitterness of spirit, to go into retirement at his Massachusetts home. Before parting with him and his administration, let us take a passing glimpse of the social life of the capital in this first year of its existence.

Of society there was very little. In the White House the courtly ceremonial of palaces obtained so far as was consistent with democratic ideas. Once a week the President held his levees, which all respectably dressed persons might attend. Once a week he gave a formal dinner to invited guests. Mrs. Adams' social duties seem to have been limited to the receiv

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ing and paying of visits. In the letter to her daughter before referred to she thus describes the domestic arrangements of the White House, and her social duties:

"The house is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in order and perform the ordinary business of the house and stables,-an establishment very well propor

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tioned to the President's salary. The lighting the apartments from kitchen to parlors and chambers is a tax indeed, and the fires we are obliged to keep to secure us from daily agues is another very cheering comfort. The ladies from Georgetown and in the city have many of them visited me. Yesterday I returned fifteen visits-but such a place as Georgetown appears-why our Milton is beautiful. Since I sat down to write I have been called down to a servant from Mount Vernon, with a billet from Major Custis, and a haunch of venison, and a kind congratulatory letter from Mrs. Lewis upon my arrival in the city, with Mrs. Washington's love, inviting me to Mount Vernon, where, health permitting, I will go before I leave this place. The vessel which has my clothes and other matter is not arrived. The ladies are impatient for a drawing-room. I have no lookingglasses but dwarfs for this house, nor a twentieth part lamps enough to light it.

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66 You can scarce believe that here in this wilderness city I should find my time so occupied as it is. itors, some of them, come three or four miles. turn of one of their visits is the work of a day. of the ladies reside in Georgetown or in scattered parts of the city at two and three miles distance."

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PRESIDENT JEFFERSON introduced a social as well as a political revolution. The White House was thrown open to the public; the President was accessible to all. His mode of life was simple, his habits methodical as clock-work. He rose with the sun, and devoted the day until dinner to the duties of his high office. After dinner he gave the hours until retiring to society and recreation. One who saw him often at this time thus described him*: "He is tall in stature and rather spare in flesh. His dress and manners are very plain. He is grave, or rather sedate, but without any tincture of pomp, ostentation, or pride, and occasionally can smile, and both hear and relate humorous stories."

He was a widower at this time, his beloved wife Martha having been dead eighteen years. Neither of his two married daughters could leave home duties to become mistress of the White House, and at the President's earnest request the post was filled by Mrs. James Madison, the lovely and accomplished wife of his Secretary of State.

* Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, Senator from New York, 1801-1813.

One of the ladies whom Colonel Burr met while a Senator at Philadelphia in 1793-4, was a Mrs. Dorothy Payne Todd, a charming young widow of twenty-two, whose husband, John Todd, a lawyer of that city, had recently died, leaving her a pretty fortune. She was of Quaker birth and breeding, and so very beautiful that we are told gentlemen would station themselves where they could see her pass. And when she walked in the street her fair friends would say half jestingly "Really, Dorothy, thou must hide thy face, there are so many staring at thee." One day in Philadelphia Colonel Burr told her that the famous Virginia statesman, James Madison, then a Member of Congress, had asked to be presented to her. She gave permission, and in a little flutter of expec tation thus wrote her intimate friend, Mrs. Lee: "Dear friend, thou must come to me. Aaron Burr says that the great little Madison has asked to be brought to see me this evening." They were married the succeeding autumn. This lady, who to great beauty added a kind heart and engaging manners, did the social honors of the White House during Mr. Jefferson's term. The President's official family consisted of James Madison, Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, the learned and talented Swiss, Secretary of the Treasury; General Henry Dearborn, of New Hampshire, Secretary of War; Levi Lincoln, of Massachusetts, Attorney-General; and Gideon Granger, of Connecticut, Postmaster-General. The Seventh Congress, which came in December 7, 1801, was the first that assumed jurisdiction over the city,

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