The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-08-22
Jefferson and His Enemies.


have seen it tested many times but il
1901 it was a discovery. Nor was ther4
| then in Christendom one government
besides that of the United States strong
and able enough to permit freedom O
the press. Bonaparte's, of course, wa.
not. Pitts was not Nor was there
government in all. Europe where the
idea of free press could be entertained
And what made Jefferson's triumph the
more remarkable was that the federal
lists were the "vocal class" It wa:
they who filled most pulpits, wrote most
books, edited most papers, presided il
most courts, pleaded most causes, and
taught in most colleges. They were
denominated the educated class. Edu,
cation, at that day, did not mean the
acquisition of knowledge, but of schol
arship; which, while it cuItivates the
communicating talents, may leave the
preiudices intact, and is ompatible with
the last degree of mental servilitF and
narrowness. A man may become a
genuine scholar and remain a Jesuit.
The federalist leaders, too, were exas-
perated beyond mortal endurance.
Their self-love was torn all to pieces.
They had predicted their own speedy
return to power they saw their minor
ity dwindling at every election. They
foretold anarchy; they saw universal
order and general content. They had
prophesied financial chaos they saw
every obligation of the government met,
its debt steadily diminished, its credit
perfect, its only embarrassment sur
plus. They had expected a suppression
of the navy; they now saw, for the first
time, the navy put to it's legitimate use
in terminating the piracies of the Alge-
rines. They had dreaded an expulsion
from Office of all their adherents they
saw the right of opinion respected, and
no man disturbed in his place, except
for a reason that did not include his
political creed. They had predicted a
reign of loafers and scalIawa ags they
saw the great offices filed with men who
were both refined by scholarship and
enlarged by knowledge. They had fore
told base subserviency to France
they saw the president win from France
the most valuable acquisition that one
country ever gained from another since
the creation, and this without blood
shed. They had predicted insult and
rash hostility to Great Britain; they
saw the moment come when, with uni
versal acclamation, Jefferson could have
had war with England, andyet he held
back the conflict for another four years,
every month of which made that con-
fict less unequal.
It is not in mortals to behold with
equanimity such brilliant and trium-
phant wisdom in the career of a person
against whom they are publicly COM
mitted. The leading federalists seem
to have been equally puzzled and indig-
nant. G. @. Pinckney could only attri-
butte the strengthening hold Jefferson
had of the public confidence to "the
infatuation of the people" John Quincy
Adams thought that Jefferson's success
was owing to an unaccountable run of
good luck Fortune" said he, "has
taken pleasure in making Jefferson's s
greatest weaknesses and follies issue
more successfully than if he had been
inspired with the profoundest wisdom %
(This in 1904. Before Mr.. Jefferson
went out of Office. Adams was a re-
publican.) Gouverneur Morris, the
iovial and witty aristocrat, set it down,
Froude- fashion, to the natural -baseness
of merchants and traders. It was a
favorite fiction of the class of tories
represented by Morris, that the count
ing-room is center and resort of all that
is sordid and contemplate. But Morris
did not despair of the republic. "When
the people, :" said he, "have been long
enough drunk, they will get sober but,
while the frolic lasts, to reason with
them is useless. Their present leaders
take advantage of their besotted condi-
ton, and tie their hands and feet but,
if this prevents them from running into
the fire, why should we, who are their
friends, complain {? Fisher Ames
thought it was all a piece of impudent,
reckless imposture, which just happened
to succeed. "Never before, wrote he,
"was it attempted to play the fool on
so great a scale" Hamilton solved the
the enigma with the utmost ease, in his
old manner his central immutable
principle being this Man is an ass.
In his usual high-stepping style lie re-
marks mankind are fc.5ger des-
tined to be the dupes of bold and cum
ming imposture. Old John Adams,
nursing his wrath to keep it warm, y
Eliminated comparative history, but
hought the people would open their
L
ents, the policy, the address, the power,
the bigotry and tyranny of Archbishop
Laud and the court of Charles the
First were not able to destroy or dis
credit sound principles in 1880 or 1885,
there is little cause of apprehension for
them from the feeble efforts of the
frivolous ibertines who are combining,
conspiring and intriguing against them
in 1902"
If the uppermost men of the opposi-
ton wrote thus in their confidential cor
respondence, we can imagine the tone
and style of the party press. The false
hoods which had been accommodating for
three presidential elections, with the
new atrocities of Calender and others,
formed mass of calumny from which
the mildest and the fercest county edi-
tor could draw every week the ISLANDERS
most congeniaI to his disposition. They
did So. The state courts gave members
of the administration fair maens of
redress, and some of them appear to
have thought of bringing suits for libel.
Jefferson avowed their right to do so ;
but said he, in various forms of ex-
preston, "Let us prove to the world
that an administration which has moth
ing to conceal has nothing to fear from
the press. It is the means which the
press has of giving publicity to events
which makes it one of the great powers
of the modern world When it utters
falsehood, the party injured is itself.
"I admit" he wrote to an old friend,
in 1903, "that restraining the press to
truth, as the present laws do, is the only
way of making it useful. But have
thought it necessary first to prove that
it can never be dangerous. Again, in
his second inaugural, he spoke of the
Importance to mankind of this expert
ment to ascertain whether a government
that did no act which it would be un-
willing the world should witness, could
be written down. ''The experiment has
been tried" said he. "You have wit
messed the scene; our fellow-citizens
looked on, cool and collected they saw
the latent source from which these out
RACES proceeded they gathered around
their public functionaries, and, when
the constitution called them to the de-
cision by suffrage, they pronounced
their verdict, honorable to those who
had served them, and consola5ory to the
friend of man, who believes he may be
trusted with the control of his OWL
affairs. James Parton IN atlantic.