discern in the unity of that power the "foetus of monarchy"; and preferring an executive consisting of three; whereas, in the opinion of others, this plural executive would be "a kind of Cerberus with three heads." Like Madison, he had disapproved of the equality of suffrage in the Senate, and been, moreover, of opinion that the President should be ineligible to office after a given number of years.

Dissatisfied with some of the provisions of the constitution as adopted, he had refused to sign it; but had afterward supported it in the State convention of Virginia. As we recollect him many years afterward, his appearance and address were dignified and prepossessing; he had an expressive countenance, a beaming eye, and somewhat of the ore rotundo in speaking. Randolph promptly accepted the nomination, but did not take his seat in the cabinet until some months after Knox and Hamilton.

By the judicial system established for the Federal government, the Supreme Court of the United States was to be composed of a chief-justice and five associate judges. There were to be district courts with a judge in each State, and circuit courts held by an associate judge and a district judge. John Jay, of New York, received the appointment of Chiefjustice, and in a letter inclosing his commission, Washington expressed the singular pleasure he felt in addressing him "as the head of that department which must be considered as the keystone of our political fabric."

Jay's associate judges were John Rutledge of South Carolina, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, William Cushing of Massachusetts, John Blair of Virginia, and James Iredell of North Carolina. Washington had originally nominated to one of the judgeships his former military secretary, Robert Harrison, familiarly known as the old Secretary; but he

preferred the office of Chancellor of Maryland, recently conferred upon him.

On the 29th of September, Congress adjourned to the first Monday in January, after an arduous session, in which many important questions had been discussed, and powers organized and distributed. The actual Congress was inferior in eloquence and shining talent to the first Congress of the Revolution; but it possessed men well fitted for the momentous work before them; sober, solid, upright and well informed. An admirable harmony had prevailed between the legislature and the executive, and the utmost decorum had reigned over the public deliberations.

Fisher Ames, then a young man, who had acquired a brilliant reputation in Massachusetts by the eloquence with which he had championed the new constitution in the convention of that important State, and who had recently been elected to Congress, speaks of it in the following terms: "I have never seen an assembly where so little art was used. If they wish to carry a point, it is directly declared and justified. Its merits and defects are plainly stated, not without sophistry and prejudice, but without management.... There is no intrigue, no caucusing, little of clanning together, little asperity in debate, or personal bitterness out of the House."

VOL. XV.-** **

CHAPTER FIVE

The Department of State still without a Head-Sketch of Jefferson's Character and Opinions-Deeply immersed in French Politics at Paris-Gouverneur Morris abroad-Contrast of his and Jefferson's Views on the French Crisis-News of the French Revolution in America-Popular Excitement-Washington's cautious Opinion on the Subject-Hamilton's apprehensive View-Jefferson offered a Place in the Cabinet as Secretary of State

THE cabinet was still incomplete; the Department of Foreign Affairs, or rather of State, as it was now called, was yet to be supplied with a head. John Jay would have received the nomination had he not preferred the bench. Washington next thought of Thomas Jefferson, who had so long filled the post of Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Versailles, but had recently solicited and obtained permission to return, for a few months, to the United States, for the purpose of placing his children among their friends in their native country, and of arranging his private affairs, which had suffered from his protracted absence. And here we will venture a few particulars concerning this eminent statesman, introductory to the important influence he was to exercise on national affairs.

His political principles as a democratic republican had been avowed at an early date in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, and subsequently in the successful war which he made upon the old cavalier traditions of his native State; its laws of entails and primogeniture, and its church

establishment-a war which broke down the hereditary fortunes and hereditary families, and put an end to the hereditary aristocracy of the Ancient Dominion.

Being sent to Paris as minister plenipotentiary a year or two after the peace, he arrived there, as he says, "when the American Revolution seemed to have awakened the thinking part of the French nation from the sleep of despotism in which they had been sunk."

Carrying with him his republican principles and zeal, his house became the resort of Lafayette and others of the French officers who had served in the American Revolution. They were mostly, he said, young men little shackled by habits and prejudices, and had come back with new ideas and new impressions, which began to be disseminated by the press and in conversation. Politics became the theme of all societies, male and female, and a very extensive and zealous party was formed which acquired the appellation of the Patriot Party, who, sensible of the abuses of the government under which they lived, sighed for occasions of reforming it. "This party," writes Jefferson, "comprehended all the honesty of the kingdom sufficiently at leisure to think, the men of letters, the easy bourgeois, the young nobility, partly from reflection, partly from the mode; for these sentiments became matter of mode, and, as such, united most of the young women to the party."

By this party Jefferson was considered high authority from his republican principles and experience, and his advice was continually sought in the great effort for political reform which was daily growing stronger and stronger. His absence in Europe had prevented his taking part in the debates on the new constitution, but he had exercised his influence through his correspondence. "I expressed freely," writes

he, "in letters to my friends, and most particularly to Mr. Madison and General Washington, my approbations and objections." * What those approbations and objections were appears by the following citations, which are important to be kept in mind as illustrating his after conduct.

"I approved, from the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new constitution, the consolidation of the government, the organization into executive, legislative and judiciary; the subdivision of the legislature, the happy compromise of the interests between the great and little States, by the different manner of voting in the different Houses, the voting by persons instead of States, the qualified negative on laws given to the executive, which, however, I should have liked better if associated with the judiciary also, as in New York, and the power of taxation: what I disapproved, from the first moment, was the want of a bill of rights to guard liberty against the legislative as well as against the executive branches of the government; that is to say, to secure freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom from monopolies, freedom from unlawful imprisonment, freedom from a permanent military, and a trial by jury in all cases determinable by the laws of the land.”

What he greatly objected to was the perpetual re-eligibility of the President. "This, I fear," said he, "will make that an office for life, first, and then hereditary. I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe, and am ten thousand times more so since I have seen what they are. There is scarcely an evil known in these countries which may not be traced to their king as its source, nor a good which is not derived fom the small fibers of republican

* Autobiography, Works, i. 79.