not commenced till two years later. During the same year (1800), the territory situated between the western frontier of Georgia and the Mississippi River was organized by Congress as the Mississippi Territory. John Adams's Successor.-Toward the close of Adams's administration of four years, a fierce struggle took place between the two great parties of the day-Federal and Republican—in relation to the presidential succession. Upon counting the electoral votes it was found that no candidate had the requisite majority; therefore the election went to the House of Representatives, by whom Jefferson was chosen president, and Aaron Burr, of New York, vice-president. The Election of Jefferson.-Randall. [The election of Thomas Jefferson by the House of Representatives was accomplished after a struggle unparalleled in the political history of the country. The balloting commenced on the 11th of February, and was continued until the 17th, (1891), when, on the thirty-sixth ballot, ten States voted for Jefferson, four (New England) for Burr, and two (Delaware and South Carolina) cast blank ballots. Previous to this there had been eight States for Jefferson, six for Burr, and two (Vermont and Maryland) were divided. On the first ballot fifty-four members voted for Burr, and fifty-one for Jefferson; but the latter had the greater number of States.] 1. Two weeks more would have ended the constitutional government. In the event of interregnum' and anarchy, what hopes would there have been for the authors of the evil? In Maryland, where the Presidential vote had been balanced, the republicans had carried the legislature elected since the acting members of Congress. New Jersey, nearly balanced in the present House, had been triumphantly swept by the republicans in the last Congressional elections. The popular majority in Pennsylvania was large. New York had been carried by the same party. The southern and western States were overwhelmingly republican. 2. Nor were election statistics" any real test of relative strength. During that week of dread suspense, as mail after mail spread the intelligence of the scene going on at the capital, the light snow never wasted under the sun of June as wasted away the Federal party. The people west and south of the Hudson, with almost united voice, declared the conduct of the Federal members of Congress a most gross, dangerous, and wanton violation of the spirit of our Constitution and system of government. Astonishment, alarm, and rage swept like succeeding waves over the land. If the effect was less appar ent on the compact federal masses of New England, there, too, it had weakened that party most seriously, and created a formidable minority. 3. And the republicans were fortunately situated for the crisis in some incidental particulars. The two great central States which held the capital wedged between them--containing more population than all New England, and considerably upwards of one-fourth of the entire population of the Union— were not only strongly republican, but they had executives as well adapted to such an emergency as if it had been foreseen, and had formed the especial ground of their selection. 4. For intellectual and executive ability, combined with iron will and that high energy which always takes the initiative when contest is unavoidable, Governor McKean [of Pennsylvania] probably had not his superior in the United States. Governor Monroe [of Virginia] was of milder frame, but was as resolute a man as there was on earth when his judgment bade him act. He had military experience; he had the profound love and confidence of his people. When either of these executives unfurled the banner of his State against a usurpation, there would be left no minority in that State. 5. It would be vain to deny that both parties had the arbitration of arms distinctly in contemplation as the sequel to a usurpation, or to settle, if necessary, the anarchy of an interregnum. We find Porcupine's Gazette abounding in extracts from Federal newspapers, exhorting their partisans to stand firm and defy the threats of the Republicans, declaring that any member of their party "would consecrate his name to infamy” who should "meanly and inconsistently lend his aid to promote Jefferson's election." One Federal statistician", after enumerating the Massachusetts militia, declaring that Connecticut and New Hampshire are united almost to a man, and that at least half the citizens of eleven other States are "ranged under the Federal banner in support of the Constitution," wishes to know "what could Pennsylvania, aided by Virginia," do under such circumstances? 6. The president-elect was anxious that the ceremonies of his inauguration should be as few and simple as practicable; but the feelings of his friends who had flocked to the capital, would not permit him to go unattended to the Senate Chamber to take the oath of office. An English eye-witness thus describes his appearance on the occasion: "His dress was of plain cloth, and he rode on horseback to the capitol without a single guard or servant in his train, dismounted without assistance, and hitched the bridle of his horse to the palisades." On his entering the Senate Chamber, Burr, who had already taken the oath of office, gave up his chair, and took his seat on the right. On the left sat the Chief-Justice. Two imposing and usual figures on such occasions were absent-the late President and the late Speaker of the House of Representatives. Mr. Adams had made an abrupt and ungraceful departure from the city early in the morning.-Life of Thomas Jefferson. Advice to the Nation.-Jefferson. [The following is an extract from the Inaugural Address, delivered by Thomas Jefferson on assuming the Presidential chair, March 4th, 1801.] 1. DURING the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussion and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. 2. Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we counte nance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. 3. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some, and less by others; that this should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We are all republicans -we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated when reason is left free to combat it. 4. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want the energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. 5. Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own federal and republican principles, our attachment to our union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal rights to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting, not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practised in various forms, yet all of them including honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? 6. Still one thing more, fellow-citizens-a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this alone is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. Jefferson's Administration.—Admission of Ohio.-In 1802 the Ohio Territory, which had previously formed the castern part of the Northwest Territory, adopted a State government, and was admitted into the Union as the State of Ohio.* This made seventeen States belonging to the Union. Purchase of Louisiana.-In 1803 a most important addition was made to the national domain of the United States, by the purchase of an immense tract of land lying principally between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, and called by the French Louisiana, after one of their kings (Louis XIV.). This territory was purchased from the French government, at the head of which was Napoleon Bonaparte, for the sum of fifteen millions of dollars. One of the most important advantages secured by this purchase, and that for which it was chiefly made, was the free navigation of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Considerable opposition was made to the ratification of the treaty by which the cession was obtained, particularly from the Federalists, on the ground that the Constitution gave no power to annex foreign territory; and Jefferson himself considered that he had transcended the limits of the Constitution; others, however, took different ground, and the treaty was ratified. Louisiana was afterward divided into two territories, called respect. ively the Territory of New Orleans and the District of Louisiana. *The Ohio River was so called by the Indians, the word signifying beautiful. |