Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, Part III: Providence and Principle, contd.

Throughout his First Inaugural Jefferson added further to his list of qualities or values which he felt set America apart. Some of these had to do specifically with elements of the nation’s political culture. In the second paragraph he praised his countrymen’s tolerance for error and their faith in reason. “If there be any among us,” he wrote, “who would wish to dissolve this Union of to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments to the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” This statement seems to be a response to several different ideas. First, it was arguably an acknowledgement of a practical reality. Few governments in the early 19^th-century world (that Jefferson was aware of) valued freedom of speech and expression as much as the United States did, or enshrined it as a root value in their constitutions. Jefferson was rightly proud of this fact, and wished to countrymen to feel the same. At the same time he was perhaps reiterating another Enlightenment value, the importance of free debate. Jefferson believed that a truly enlightened society resolved internal conflicts via free and open discussion. In such a society, error was not considered dangerous because it would eventually and inevitably be overcome by the truth. Jefferson believed in 1801 that this was true of the United States, and that the fact was worth celebrating. Last it seems possible, if not likely, that Jefferson was attempting a slight jab at the outgoing Adams administration. Threatened by slanders and calls to insurrection, Adams and his Federalist cohorts had drafted the much-reviled Alien and Sedition Acts in the late 1790s. In Jefferson’s eyes this represented a fundamental error on their part; not only had they demonstrated an apparent fear of free debate (perhaps because they knew on some level they that they were wrong), but they violated the rights of any number of American citizens. Though the Federalists had been soundly defeated in 1800, and Jefferson seemed to be in a rather conciliatory temper, I don’t think he was above taking one last parting shot.

Further in the second paragraph of his First Inaugural, Jefferson asserted that the American government was the strongest on earth. While I think this a rather odd thing to say for a man who had not three years earlier criticized that same government for being too powerful, arbitrary and unresponsive, his stated reasoning is quite telling. America, Jefferson argued, was the only country in the world in which the average citizen would, “fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.” By the standards of the early 19^th century this was rather strange notion. Few, if any, countries then in existence could have boasted of the same level of civic engagement that Jefferson claimed for his. A baker living in the countryside of France or a miner working in the coalfields of Wales during this same period would likely have cared less for the health of the public order (having to do with government, national finance, or what have you) than for the price or yeast or rates for day-labour in their district. If they couldn't vote or hold office, what concern was it of theirs what went on in the capital, or which ministers had been accused of what abuses? But in the United States every man was concerned with law and government because he knew his rights were vested there. If the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution was the rock-bottom guarantor of the liberties and freedoms of every American and that same Constitution was somehow overthrown or called into question, did that not concern every citizen equally? In essence, what Jefferson was keen to point out was not necessarily the quality of the United States government or the ingenuity of its balance of power and responsibility, but the high degree of political consciousness that he saw in his fellow Americans. He may indeed have believed that America’s was the strongest government in the world, but only because it was structured in such a way as to awaken and harness the vigilance of the people.

In addition to paying tribute to the many virtues he felt his nation and countrymen possessed, Jefferson also took the opportunity with his First Inaugural to lay out the basic principle which he felt were the most sacred and fundamental to his ideal federal administration. These, listed in paragraph four, included: “A well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war,” “economy in the public expense, so 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,” and “freedom of the press.” It’s also worth noting that Jefferson described these principles as, “the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided out steps through an age of revolution and reformation.” This would seem to be a dense and weighty declaration. But while Jefferson tried to frame his promotion of these ideals as a return to the first principles that had guided the American Revolution from the start, in fact he seems to have instead been attempting to refute and reverse many of the efforts of his Federalist predecessors.

In encouraging a reliance on militias rather than standing armies, for instance, Jefferson was doubtless trying to both assert the primacy of the states over the federal government in military matters at the same time that he aimed a jab at the Federalist’s short-lived provisional army of 1798. This particular force was raised on a provisional basis during a period of intense diplomatic tension with the French Republic in the late 1790s during which France began to attack and seize American merchant vessels. It was vehemently opposed at the time by Jefferson and the Republicans, partially because they feared it might be turned against supposedly disloyal elements of American society, and partially because command of it had been turned over to their avowed enemy, Alexander Hamilton. Believing themselves true adherents to the principles of republicanism, Jefferson and his followers held that because militias were controlled on a state by state basis and could only be called to serve in time of war the potential for their misuse was severely limited when compared to a national army. That the army of 1798 was nominally commanded by a Federalist President, practically led by a Federalist General, and staffed almost exclusively by Federalist officers no doubt added to the Republicans’ anxieties. Fortunately for them the army was disbanded before it could be put to use, and in the years since that time the American people had elected a president who fundamentally opposed the use of a standing military. His statement on the primacy of the militias might thus been seen as an assurance on Jefferson’s part to his supporters and critics alike: there would be no repeat of 1798. 

        By promoting “economy in the public expense,” as well as, “the honest payment of our debts,” Jefferson was no doubt likewise attempting to blend sacred principle and subtle criticism. Believing in the freedom and ingenuity of the individual, Jefferson regarded the tax regime instituted by his rival Hamilton’s Treasury Department as an unnecessary means of exerting federal control over the American citizenry. By collecting taxes on purchased and manufactured goods, the federal government could control what people bought, how much money they had to spend, what kinds of businesses they went into, and essentially how they lived their lives. That these taxes were then used to fund entire federal departments which in turn where used to exert even more control over various aspects of the lives of everyday Americans, only added further insult to injury. “Economy in the public expense,” might thus be thought of as the early 19^th-century equivalent of fiscal responsibility. By cutting back the scale of certain departments and initiatives (like the army, the navy, the national bank, and foreign embassies) Jefferson believed it was possible to run a more efficient government on a smaller budget. This would serve to decrease federal control over a host of policy areas and strengthen the authority of the states, as well as grant the American people greater economic independence. What money the government did collect, mainly from land sales and customs duties, would be put toward paying off the national debt that had been assumed under the Washington Administration.

When Jefferson was sworn in in 1801 the United States owed something on the order of $83 million, between the debts the government had contracted on its own and those it had adopted from the various states. Unlike Hamilton, who had advocated the use of the debt as an extremely powerful funding mechanism, Jefferson believed that continually borrowing money and collecting taxes to service the necessary interest payments was tantamount to institutionalizing corruption and dependence. By failing to ever pay off the debt entirely, and in fact expanding it through the use of a national bank, Jefferson believed that the federal government would essentially be chaining the American people, generation after generation, to an infinite and immovable burden. Holders of treasury bonds and bank stock would benefit greatly, though they performed no useful labour of their own, while citizens less able to afford such luxuries would be forced to pay tax upon tax without any conceivable return. Jefferson believed this policy socially destructive as well as dishonest, in that it led taxpayers to believe that they were aiding the elimination of the debt while it was in reality being increased. An honest fiscal policy, in his mind, would entail only the limited collection of revenue and a genuine attempt by the Treasury Department to pay off the national debt in full. In retrospect this was a tall order, considering the size of the debt and the comparatively minor revenue generated by customs fees, but Jefferson was doubtless feeling triumphant in 1801, and if nothing else was eager to dismantle the Federalist financial regime that he had railed against so futilely in the 1790s.          

The reasons that Jefferson had so opposed Hamilton’s economic program in the 1790s had little changed by 1801. He believed that large-scale banks (like Hamilton’s Bank of the United States) made the creation of factories possible. These factories would employ large numbers of people at relatively low wages, gathering them into cities where they lived cheek to jowl in hastily constructed tenements. Because they did not own their lodgings but rented them, they were thus beholden to or dependent on both their employers and their landlords. At the same time the unhealthy conditions and low wages brought about a general moral decline among the working poor, who spent their money not on improving themselves or their lot but on the prostitution, alcohol, and gambling that cities were all too happy to provide. This is hardly an objective assessment of early-19^th century city life, but it was one Jefferson felt qualified to make. Having been raised in the pastoral west country of Virginia, and having spent significant periods of time in Philadelphia, Richmond, New York and Paris, he doubtless felt qualified to speak of the pros and cons of an urban versus a rural existence. For this reason, and once more to emphasize the Federalists’ defeat, he stated in his First Inaugural that the, “encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid,” was to be one of the key principles of his coming administration. As mentioned previously, Jefferson believed that only by owning land and providing for his own subsistence would a man be free to exercise his own opinions, and would better appreciate and defend the liberty he possessed and the laws that secured it. Commerce was necessary, certainly. Farmers needed markets in which to sell their surplus, and from which to purchase the equipment or luxury goods which they could not manufacture themselves. But in an off itself, and Jefferson believed this quite adamantly, commerce could serve no possible purpose save to increase the wealth of the few and the suffering of the many. While this was not a new position for Jefferson in 1801, it certainly seems an apt one to reiterate as the curtain came down on the Federalists and their political dominance.

In a similar mode, Jefferson made a point of emphasizing his intention as president to respect, “freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of habeas corpus.” Again, these were not novel concepts in the United States at the turn of the 19^th century. The freedom of newspapers and periodicals to publish what they wish had been instrumental to the success of the protesters and later revolutionaries of the 1760s and 1770s. The denunciations, essays, satires and calls for commercial boycotts and large-scale protests had served to rally the common people of the American colonies to the Patriot cause, and arguably helped make the American Revolution possible. Likewise, the right of habeas corpus had been regarded by many educated citizens of the colonies as a fundamental English liberty, and a cherished cultural and legal inheritance that had been guaranteed by the 1689 Bill of Rights. While I doubt very much that the Federalist would have disagreed with the importance Jefferson and the Republicans attached to protecting either of these rights, their actions over the course of the 1790s had opened them up for deserving criticism. The previously-mentioned Alien and Sedition Acts, drafted by a Federalist-dominated Congress and signed into law by a Federalist president, had greatly curtailed freedom of the press in the United States by making it a crime to publicly condemn, ridicule, or otherwise call in question the legitimacy of the federal government. In addition, the statutes gave the President of the United States the authority to summarily order the arrest of suspected resident aliens and have them imprisoned or deported without trial. As Jefferson had attempted to rally the people against these abuses of Federal power in his Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, so too did he draw attention to them in his First Inaugural three years later. The second time, albeit, he proceeded with a deal more subtlety; rather than call out the offences explicitly, he simply reaffirmed his adherence to a set of principles whose importance few would have needed reminding of, but which the Federalists had clearly violated.  

In all, it seems Jefferson was intent in his First Inaugural on affirming the political and physical characteristics which he felt ensured his nation’s immanent prosperity, paying homage to the influence of Providence, and laying out the ideals he envisioned his administration embodying. In accomplishing the last of these three, he also attempted to assure his fellow citizens that the ideals he called out would be scrupulously upheld in spite of past missteps by previous governments, at the same time he sought to tag the Federalists once more for their indiscretions and emphasize that many of their prized policies were about to be undone. All this he managed to accomplish while maintaining a positive, forward-looking, and at times even conciliatory tone.

Not a bad day’s work.