'Notes.' In 1783 it was proposed to adopt a new constitution in Virginia; Jefferson drew one up, and inserted an article granting liberty to all persons born of slave parents after the year 1800. From that time his zeal began to cool. He perceived that his views were unpopular at the South. The 'Notes' had been printed for private circulation only; when Châstellux asked permission to publish them in France, Jefferson consented on the condition that all passages relating to slavery should be stricken out.[A] Although he adopted so heartily the most extravagant doctrines of the French Revolution on the natural rights of mankind, among which liberty, equality, fraternity certainly ranked first, he quietly ignored the claims of the American black to a share in the bright future that was promised to the human race. The act of Congress prohibiting the importation of slaves came into force in 1808. It was well received by slave owners, for it increased the value of the homemade 'article.' Jefferson could safely approve of it. He did so warmly. With that exception his silence on this great question was profound during the period of his power; but he had no language too theatrical for liberty in the abstract, nor too violent for despots who were three thousand miles away, and with whose oppressions the people of the United States had no concern whatever. When the debates on the admission of Missouri brought up this ever-recurring question again to the exclusion of all others, Jefferson spoke to sneer at the friends of freedom. The Federalists had found out that their cherished monarchical 'form' would get them no adherents, and so were trying to throw a new tub to the whale by appealing to the virtuous sentiments of the people. He was in favor of making Missouri a Slave State. To extend the area of slavery would increase the comfort of the slaves without adding one more to their number, and would improve their chances for emancipation. It would also relieve Virginia from the burden that was weighing her down—slaves being rather cheaper there than horses—and would enable her to export her surplus crop of negroes; perhaps eventually to dispose of them all. This last notion, by the way, gives us a pretty good idea of Jefferson's practical knowledge of political economy.

His chief objection to the new constitution, when he first saw it, was the omission in it of a bill of rights providing for the 'eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus act'—and for the freedom of the press. When Colonel Burr was arrested, Jefferson, who, by the way, showed a want of dignity and self-respect throughout the affair, was eager to suspend the habeas corpus act, and got a bill to that effect passed by one branch of Congress; it was lost in the other. This was the first instance in the history of the United States. The many fine things he had said on the integrity and independence of judges did not prevent him from finding bitter fault with Chief-Justice Marshall for not convicting Burr. He accused Marshall and the whole tribe of Federalists of complicity in Burr's conspiracy. Poor old Paine, then near his end, who was one of Jefferson's jackals of the press, informed the Chief-Justice, through the Public Advertiser, that he was 'a suspected character.' When Jefferson had felt the pricking of the Federal quills, he began to think differently of the freedom of the press. Once, in the safety of private station, he had got off this antithesis: if he had to choose between a government without newspapers, and newspapers without a government, he should prefer the latter. But when in his turn he felt the stings that previously, under his management, had goaded even Washington out of his self-control, Jefferson could not help saying that 'a suspension of the press would not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.'

Before September, 1791, Mr. Jefferson thought that our affairs were proceeding in a train of unparalleled prosperity, owing to the real improvements of the Government, and the unbounded confidence reposed in it by the people. Soon a jealousy of Hamilton came upon him, and the displeasure of playing a second part: he began to look for relief in the ranks of the malcontents. He then perceived monarchical longings in the Administration party, and prophesied corruption, despotism, and a loss of liberty forever, if they were to be allowed to interpret the Constitution in their way. Washington was the Atlas whose broad shoulders bore up the Federalists. Bache, of the Aurora, with whom Jefferson's word was law, and Freneau, of the Gazette, who had received from Jefferson a clerkship in the Department of State, accused the General of a desire to subvert the Constitution: the reserve of his manners was said to proceed from an affectation of royalty; they even ventured to charge him with perverting the public money. Jefferson refused to check these base attacks, and wrote in the same vein himself in the famous letter to Mazzei. But after the battle had been fought, he perceived that Washington had a hold stronger than party feelings on the affections of Americans. It would never do to leave his name and fame in the custody of Federalists. And so Mr. Jefferson turned about and denied that he had ever made any charges against General Washington. On the contrary, he felt certain that Washington did not harbor one principle of Federalism. He was neither an Angloman, a monarchist, nor a separatist. Bache he (Jefferson) knew nothing about; over Freneau he had no control; and the Mazzei letter had been misprinted and misinterpreted. In spite of his hatred of England, and his fears lest the English 'form' should be adopted in the United States, Jefferson, in 1788, had recommended the English form to Lafayette for the use of France. And in spite of the admiration for France, which with him and the Democrats was an essential article of the party faith, he took offence with the French Government because they sided with Spain in the dispute on the boundary line between Louisiana and Florida, and proposed to Madison an alliance with England against France and Spain. But Madison kept him steady. Six months later he accused John Randolph, who had abandoned the party, of entertaining the intolerable heresy of a league with England.

Mr. Jefferson once thought it necessary that the United States should possess a naval force. It would be less dangerous to our liberties than an army, and a cheaper and more effective weapon of offence. 'The sea is the field on which we should meet a European enemy.' 'We can always have a navy as strong as the weaker nations.' And he suggested that thirty ships, carrying 1,800 guns, and manned by 14,400 men, would be an adequate force. But the New Englanders, those bitter Federalists, loved the sea, lived by foreign trade, and wanted a fleet to protect their merchantmen. Mr. Jefferson's views became modified. He took a strong dislike to the naval service. He condemned the use of the navy by the late President, and wished to sell all the public armed vessels. Finding, however, that the maritime tastes of the nation were too strong for him, he hit upon the plan of a land navy as the nearest approximation to no navy at all. Gunboats were to be hauled out of the water, and kept in drydocks under sheds, in perfect preservation. A fleet of this kind only needed a corps of horse marines to complete its efficiency. The Federalists laughed at these 'mummy frigates,' and sang in a lullaby for Democratic babes this stanza:

'In a cornfield, high and dry,
Sat gunboat Number One;
Wiggle waggle went her tail,
Pop went her gun.'