THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION
OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON
1805–1809
HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DURING THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON
BY HENRY ADAMS
VOL. III.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1921
_Copyright, 1890_
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
_Copyright, 1918_
BY HENRY ADAMS
[Illustration]
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 1
II. MONROE’S DIPLOMACY 22
III. CABINET VACILLATIONS 54
IV. BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 80
V. THE FLORIDA MESSAGE 103
VI. THE TWO-MILLION ACT 126
VII. JOHN RANDOLPH’S SCHISM 147
VIII. MADISON’S ENEMIES 172
IX. DOMESTIC AFFAIRS 197
X. BURR’S SCHEMES 219
XI. BURR’S PREPARATIONS 245
XII. ESCAPE PAST FORT MASSAC 268
XIII. CLAIBORNE AND WILKINSON 295
XIV. COLLAPSE OF THE CONSPIRACY 318
XV. SESSION OF 1806–1807 344
XVI. THE BERLIN DECREE 370
XVII. MONROE’S TREATY 392
XVIII. REJECTION OF MONROE’S TREATY 415
XIX. BURR’S TRIAL 441
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER I.
A SECOND time President Jefferson appeared at the Capitol,
escorted with due formalities by a procession of militia-men and other
citizens; and once more he delivered an inaugural address, “in so
low a voice that not half of it was heard by any part of the crowded
auditory.”[1] The second Inaugural roused neither the bitterness nor
the applause which greeted the first, although in part it was intended
as a cry of triumph over the principles and vanishing power of New
England.
Among Jefferson’s manuscripts he preserved a curious memorandum
explaining the ideas of this address. As the first Inaugural declared
the principles which were to guide the government in Republican hands,
the second should report the success of these principles, and recall
the results already reached. The task deserved all the eloquence and
loftiness of thought that philosophy could command; for Jefferson had
made a democratic polity victorious at home and respectable in the
world’s eyes, and the privilege of hearing him reaffirm his doctrines
and pronounce their success was one that could never be renewed. The
Moses of democracy, he had the glory of leading his followers into
their promised and conquered Canaan.
Jefferson began by renewing the professions of his foreign policy:--
“With nations, as with individuals, our interests, soundly
calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral
duties; and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation
is taken on its word, when recourse is had to armaments and wars
to bridle others.”
The sentiments were excellent; but many of Jefferson’s followers must
have asked themselves in what history they could find the fact, which
the President asserted, that a just nation was taken on its word;
and they must have been still more perplexed to name the nation,
just or unjust, which was taken on its word by any other in the
actual condition of the world. Without dwelling on this topic, which
had already become one of interest in the councils of his Cabinet,
Jefferson, passing to practical questions involved in redemption of
debt, advanced a new idea.
“Redemption once effected,” he said, “the revenue thereby
liberated may, by a just repartition among the States and
a corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied,
_in time of peace_, to rivers, canals, roads, arts,
manufactures, education, and other great objects within each
State. _In time of war_,--if injustice, by ourselves or
others, must sometimes produce war,--increased as the same
revenue will be increased by population and consumption, and
aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet
within the year all the expenses of the year without encroaching
on the rights of future generations by burdening them with the
debts of the past. War will then be but a suspension of useful
works, and a return to a state of peace a return to the progress
of improvement.”
Ten years earlier, in the mouth of President Washington, this sentiment
would have been generally denounced as proof of monarchical designs.
That Jefferson was willing not only to assume powers for the central
government, but also to part from his States-rights associates and to
gratify the Northern democrats by many concessions of principle, his
first Administration had already proved; but John Randolph might wonder
to see him stride so fast and far toward what had been ever denounced
as Roman imperialism and corruption; to hear him advise a change of
the Constitution in order to create an annual fund for public works,
for the arts, for education, and even for such manufactures as the
people might want,--a fund which was to be distributed to the States,
thus putting in the hands of the central government an instrument of
corruption, and making the States stipendiaries of Congress. Every
principle of the Republican party, past or to come, was put to nought
by a policy which contradicted the famous sentiment of Jefferson’s
first annual message: “Sound principles will not justify our taxing
the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for wars
to happen we know not when, and which might not perhaps happen but
from the temptations offered by that treasure.” Yet pregnant as this
new principle might be in connection with the Constitution and the
Union, its bearing on foreign affairs was more startling. Jefferson,
the apostle of peace, asked for a war fund which should enable his
government to wage indefinite hostilities without borrowing money!
Quitting this dangerous ground, the President spoke of the Louisiana
purchase. Then followed a paragraph upon religion. Next he came to the
subject of the Indians, and chose this unusual medium for enforcing
favorite philosophical doctrines. The memorandum written to explain his
address declared the reasons that led him to use the mask of Indian
philanthropy to disguise an attack upon conservatism.[2]
“Every respecter of science,” said this memorandum, “every
friend to political reformation, must have observed with
indignation the hue-and-cry raised against philosophy and
the rights of man; and it really seems as if they would
be overborne, and barbarism, bigotry, and despotism would
recover the ground they have lost by the advance of the public
understanding. I have thought the occasion justified some
discountenance of these anti-social doctrines, some testimony
against them; but not to commit myself in direct warfare on
them, I have thought it best to say what is directly applied
to the Indians only, but admits by inference a more general
extension.”
In truth, under the lead of Napoleon and Pitt, Europe seemed bent on
turning back the march of time and renewing the bigotry and despotism
of the Middle Ages; but this occasion hardly dignified Jefferson’s
method of bearing testimony against the danger, by not committing
himself to direct warfare upon it, but by applying to Indians the
homily which by inference included the churches of New England.
“The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries,” said the
President to his great audience, “I have regarded with the
commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties
and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and
independence, and occupying a country which left them no desire
but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing population from
other regions directed itself on these shores.”
If the Boston newspapers were not weary of ridiculing Jefferson’s
rhetoric, this sentence was fitted to rouse their jaded amusement;
but in a few moments they had reason to feel other emotions. He said
that he had done what humanity required, and had tried to teach the
Indians agriculture and other industries in order to prepare them for
new conditions of life,--a claim not only true, but also honorable to
him. Unfortunately these attempts met with obstacles from the Indians
themselves:--
“They are combated by the habits of their bodies, prejudice of
their minds, ignorance, pride, and the influence of interested
and crafty individuals among them, who feel themselves something
in the present order of things, and fear to become nothing in
any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence
for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did
must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide,
and to advance under its counsel, in their physical, moral, or
political condition, is perilous innovation; that their duty is
to remain as their Creator made them, ignorance being safety,
and knowledge full of danger. In short, my friends, among them
is seen the action and counter-action of good sense and bigotry;
they too have their anti-philosophers, who find an interest in
keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation,
and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendency of
habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying its
mandates.”
Gallatin remonstrated in vain against this allusion to New England
habits;[3] the President could not resist the temptation to strike once
more his old enemies. Gallatin, whose sense of humor was keener than
that of Jefferson, must have been amused by the travesty of New England
under the war-paint and blankets of the Choctaws and Kickapoos; but
Jefferson was never more serious than in believing that the people of
Massachusetts and Connecticut were held in darkness by a few interested
“medicine-men,” and that he could, without committing himself in
direct warfare, insult the clergy, lawyers, and keen-witted squirarchy
of New England, thus held up “by inference” to the world as the
equivalent to so many savages.
The rest of the Inaugural was chiefly devoted to the press and its
licentiousness. Jefferson expressed himself strongly in regard to
the slanders he had received, and even hinted that he would be glad
to see the State laws of libel applied to punish the offenders; but
he pointed out that slander had no political success, and that it
might safely he disregarded as a political weapon. He urged “doubting
brethren” to give up their fears and prejudices, and to join with
the mass of their fellow-citizens. “In the mean time let us cherish
them with patient affection; let us do them justice, and more than
justice, in all competitions of interest.” Finally, as though to
silence the New-England pulpit, he closed with a few words which the
clergy might perhaps think misplaced in the mouth of so earnest a
deist,--an invocation of “that Being in whose hands we are, who led our
forefathers, as Israel of old,” to the “country flowing with all the
necessaries and comforts of life, ... and to whose goodness I ask you
to join with me in supplications.”
The Second Inaugural strode far beyond the first in the path of
democracy, away from the landmarks of Virginia republicanism, betraying
what Jefferson’s friends and enemies alike thought a craving for
popularity. If this instinct sometimes led him to forget principles he
had once asserted, and which he would some day again declare vital, the
quality was so amiable as to cover many shortcomings; but its influence
on national growth could not be disputed. Jefferson cherished but one
last desire,--to reach the end of his next term without disaster. He
frankly expressed this feeling in a letter written to General Heath
soon after the autumn election of 1804, which gave him the electoral
vote of Massachusetts:--
“I sincerely join you,” said he, “in congratulations on the
return of Massachusetts into the fold of the Union. This is
truly the case wherein we may say, ‘This our brother was dead,
and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.’ It is but too
true that our Union could not be pronounced entirely sound
while so respectable a member as Massachusetts was under morbid
affection. All will now come to rights.... The new century
opened itself by committing us on a boisterous ocean; but all
is now subsiding; peace is smoothing our path at home and
abroad; and if we are not wanting in the practice of justice and
moderation, our tranquillity and prosperity may be preserved
until increasing numbers shall leave us nothing to fear from
abroad. With England we are in cordial friendship; with France
in the most perfect understanding; with Spain we shall always
be bickering, but never at war till we seek it. Other nations
view our course with respect and friendly anxiety. Should we
be able to preserve this state of public happiness, and to see
our citizens, whom we found so divided, rally to their genuine
principles, I shall hope yet to enjoy the comfort of that
general good-will which has been so unfeelingly wrested from
me, and to sing at the close of my term the _Nunc dimittis,
Domine_, with a satisfaction leaving nothing to desire but
the last great audit.”[4]
He could not forgive the New England clergy their want of feeling in
wresting from him ever so small a share of the general good-will, and
he looked forward with impatience to the moment when he should enjoy
universal applause and respect. In December, 1804, when this letter
was written, he felt confident that his splendid triumph would last
unchecked to the end of his public career; but the prize of general
good-will, which seemed then almost won, continually eluded his
grasp. The election of November, 1804, was followed by the session of
1804–1805, which stirred bad blood even in Virginia, and betrayed a
spirit of faction among his oldest friends. His Inaugural Address of
March, 1805, with its mixture of bitter-sweet, was answered within
a few weeks by Massachusetts. At the April election the Federalists
reversed the result of November, and re-elected Caleb Strong as
governor by a vote of about 35,200 against 33,800, with a Federalist
majority in the Legislature. Even in Pennsylvania divisions among
Jefferson’s followers increased, until in the autumn of 1805 Duane and
Leib set up a candidate of their own choice for governor, and forced
McKean, Dallas, and Gallatin’s friends to unite with the Federalists in
order to reelect McKean. Jefferson balanced anxiously between these
warring factions, trying to offend neither Duane nor John Randolph,
nor even Burr, while he still drew the mass of moderate Federalists to
sympathize in his views.
Thus the new Presidential term began, bringing with it little sign of
change. The old arrangements were continued, with but one exception.
Madison, Gallatin, Robert Smith, and Dearborn remained in the Cabinet;
but Attorney-General Lincoln resigned, and Robert Smith asked to
be transferred from the Navy Department to the Attorney-General’s
office.[5] After some hesitation Jefferson yielded to Smith’s request
and consented to the transfer. As Smith’s successor in the Navy
Department Jefferson selected Jacob Crowninshield, a member of Congress
from Massachusetts, who was then at Washington. Crowninshield, in
consequence of his wife’s objection to leaving her family, declined
the offer, Jan. 29, 1805,[6] but the President nevertheless sent the
nomination to the Senate, March 2, 1805, together with that of Robert
Smith, “now Secretary of the Navy to be Attorney-General of the United
States.” The same day the Senate confirmed both appointments, and the
commissions were regularly issued, March 3,--Robert Smith apparently
ceasing thenceforward to possess any legal authority over the Navy
Department.
Nevertheless Crowninshield persisted in declining the office, and
Robert Smith continued to act as Secretary of the Navy, probably
by the verbal request of the President. At length he consented to
retain his old position permanently, and Jefferson sought for a new
attorney-general. He offered the post, June 15, to John Julius Pringle
of South Carolina, who declined. He then offered it, July 14, to
John Thomson Mason, who also declined. August 7, Jefferson wrote to
Senator Breckinridge of Kentucky, asking him to accept the office of
attorney-general, and a temporary commission was the same day issued to
him.
When Congress met, Dec. 2, 1805, Breckenridge was attorney-general
under a temporary commission, and Robert Smith, who had ceased to be
Secretary of the Navy on the confirmation of his successor, March 3,
was acting as secretary under no apparent authority. Dec. 20, 1805, the
President sent a message to the Senate making nominations for vacancies
which had occurred during the recess, for which commissions had been
granted “to the persons herein respectively named.” One of these
persons was John Breckinridge of Kentucky to be Attorney-General of the
United States, and the nomination was duly confirmed. Breckenridge’s
permanent commission bore date Jan. 17, 1806.
These dates and facts were curious for the reason that Robert
Smith, who had ceased to be Secretary of the Navy, March 3, 1805,
ceased necessarily to be attorney-general on the confirmation of
Breckinridge, and continued to act as Secretary of the Navy without
authority of law. The President did not send his name to the Senate,
or issue to him a new commission either permanent or temporary. On the
official records of the Department of State, not Robert Smith but Jacob
Crowninshield was Secretary of the Navy from March 3, 1805, till March
7, 1809, when his successor was appointed, although Jacob Crowninshield
died April 15, 1808, and Robert Smith never ceased to act as Secretary
of the Navy from his appointment in 1801 to his appointment as
Secretary of State in 1809. During the whole period of Jefferson’s
second administration, his Secretary of the Navy acted by no known
authority except the verbal request or permission of the President.
In perfect quiet, disturbed only by rumors of wars abroad, spring
crept forward to summer, summer ripened to autumn. Peace was restored
with Tripoli; commerce grew apace; the revenue rose to $14,000,000;
the Treasury was near a surfeit; no sign appeared of check to the
immense prosperity which diffused itself through every rivulet in
the wilderness, and the President could see no limit to its future
increase. In 1804 he had sent out an expedition under Captain
Meriwether Lewis to explore the Louisiana purchase along the course
of the Missouri River. May 14, 1804, Lewis and his party began their
journey from St. Louis, and without serious difficulty reached the
Mandan towns, sixteen hundred and nine miles from the starting point,
where, Nov. 1, 1804, they went into winter quarters. April 8,
1805, Lewis resumed his journey to the westward, sending the report
of his wanderings to Washington. This report told only of a vast
region inhabited by Indian tribes and disturbed by the restless and
murderous Sioux; but it served to prove the immensity of the new world
which Jefferson’s government had given to the American people. Other
explorations had been begun along the line of the Red and Washita
rivers. In such contributions to human knowledge Jefferson took keen
interest, for he had no greater delight than in science and in whatever
tended to widen the field of knowledge.
These explorations of the territory beyond the Mississippi had little
immediate bearing on the interests of commerce or agriculture; but
the government was actively engaged in measures of direct value. July
4, 1805, William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory,
closed a bargain with the Wyandots, Ottawas, and other Indian tribes,
by which the Indian title over another part of Ohio was extinguished.
The Indians thenceforward held within the State of Ohio only the
country west of Sandusky and north of the old line fixed by the treaty
of Greenville. Within the year the Piankeshaw tribe sold for a small
annuity a tract of land in southern Indiana, along the Ohio River,
which made the United States government master of the whole north bank
of the Ohio to its mouth. These concessions, of the utmost value, were
obtained at a trifling cost. “The average price paid for the Indian
lands within the last four years,” wrote the Secretary of War,[7] “does
not amount to one cent per acre.” The Chickasaws and Cherokees sold
a very large district between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers in
Tennessee, so that thenceforward the road from Knoxville to Nashville
passed through no Indian land. In Georgia the Creeks were induced to
sell an important territory between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers.
In these treaties provision was also made for horse-roads through
the Creek and Cherokee country, both from Knoxville and from central
Georgia to the Mobile River.
Besides the many millions of acres thus gained for immediate
improvement, these treaties had no little strategic value in case of
war. No foreign country could fail to see that the outlying American
settlements were defenceless in their isolation. Even the fort and
village at Detroit were separated from the nearest white village by
a wide Indian country impassable to wagons or artillery; and the
helplessness of such posts was so evident as to impress every observer.
“The principles of our government,” said Jefferson when danger
at last arose,[8] “leading us to the employment of such moderate
garrisons in time of peace as may merely take care of the post,
and to a reliance on the neighboring militia for its support in
the first moments of war, I have thought it would be important
to obtain from the Indians such a cession in the neighborhood
of these posts as might maintain a militia proportioned to this
object.”
This “principle of our government” that the settlers should protect the
army, not the army the settlers, was so rigorously carried out that
every new purchase of Indian lands was equivalent to providing a new
army. The possession of Sandusky brought Detroit nearer its supports;
possession of the banks of the Ohio strengthened Indiana. A bridle-path
to New Orleans was the first step toward bringing that foreign
dependence within reach; and although this path must necessarily
pass through Spanish territory, it would enable the government in an
emergency to hear from Louisiana within six weeks from the despatch of
an order.
In spite of these immense gains, the military situation was still
extremely weak. The Indians held in strong force the country west
of Sandusky. The boundary between them and the whites was a mere
line running from Lake Erie south and west across Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois to the neighborhood of St. Louis. Directly on this boundary
line, near Greenville, lived the Shawanese, among whom a warrior
named Tecumthe, and his brother called the Prophet were acquiring an
influence hostile to the white men. These Indians, jealous of the
rapid American encroachments, maintained relations with the British
officials in Canada, and in case of a war between the United States
and England they were likely to enter into a British alliance. In
this case unless the United States government could control Lake
Erie, nothing was more certain than that Detroit and every other post
on the Lakes beyond must fall into British hands, and with them the
military possession of the whole Northwest. Whether Great Britain could
afterward be forced to surrender her conquests remained to be seen.
Even in Kentucky the country between the Tennessee River and the
Mississippi still belonged to the Chickasaws; and south of the
Tennessee River as far as the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Ocmulgee,
all belonged to Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws, who could not boast,
like the Chickasaws, that “they had never spilt the blood of a white
man.” These tribes maintained friendly relations with the Spanish
authorities at Mobile and Pensacola, and, like the Shawanese and
Northwestern Indians, dreaded the grasping Americans, who were driving
them westward. In case of war with Spain, should New Orleans give
trouble and invite a Spanish garrison, the Indians might be counted
as Spaniards, and the United States government might be required to
protect a frontier suddenly thrust back from the Floridas to the Duck
River, within thirty miles of Nashville.
The President might well see with relief every new step that brought
him within nearer reach of his remote military posts and his
proconsular province at New Orleans. That he should dread war was
natural, for he was responsible for the safety of the settlements on
the Indian frontier, and he knew that in case of sudden war the capture
of these posts was certain, and the massacre of their occupants more
than probable. New Orleans was an immediate and incessant danger, and
hardly a spot between New Orleans and Mackinaw was safe.
Anxiety caused by these perils had probably much to do with the bent of
the President’s mind toward internal improvements and democratic rather
than Virginia principles. In 1803 the United States government became
owner of a territory which dwarfed the States themselves, and which
at its most important point contained a foreign population governed
by military methods. Old political theories had been thrown aside
both in the purchase and in the organization of this New World; their
observance in its administration was impossible. The Louisiana purchase
not only required a military system of government for itself, but also
reacted on the other national territory, and through it on the States
in their relations to Washington. New England was thrown to the verge
of the political system; but New York and Pennsylvania, Georgia and
Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky found many new interests which they wanted
the central government to assist, and Virginia, holding the power and
patronage of the central government, had every inducement to satisfy
these demands.
So it happened that Jefferson gave up his Virginia dogmas, and adopted
Gallatin’s ideas. They were both jealous of the army and navy; but they
were willing to spend money with comparative liberality on internal
improvements; and the wisdom of this course was evident. Even in a
military point of view, roads and canals were more necessary than forts
or ships.
The first evidence of change was the proposed fund for internal
improvements and war purposes described in the second Inaugural
Address. The suggestion was intended to prepare the public for a
relaxation of Gallatin’s economy. Although the entire debt could not be
paid before 1817, only ten and a half millions of bonds remained to be
immediately dealt with. By the year 1809 these ten and a half millions
would be discharged; and thereafter Gallatin might reduce his annual
payments of principal and interest from $8,000,000 to $4,500.000,
freeing an annual sum of $3,500,000 for use in other directions. During
the next three years Gallatin was anxious to maintain his old system,
and especially to preserve peace with foreign nations; but after the
year 1808 he promised to relax his severity, and to provide three
or four millions for purposes of internal improvement and defence.
The rapid increase of revenue helped to create confidence in this
calculation, and to hasten decision as to the use of the promised
surplus. The President had already decided to convert it into a
permanent reserve fund. He looked forward to the moment when, as he
expressed it, he could “begin upon canals, roads, colleges, etc.”[9] He
no longer talked of “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;” he rather
proposed to devote a third of the national revenues to improvements and
to regulation of industries.
This theory of statesmanship was broader than that which he had
proclaimed four years earlier. Jefferson proved the liberality
and elevation of his mind; and if he did this at some cost to his
consistency, he did only what all men had done whose minds kept pace
with the movement of their time. So far as he could see, at the
threshold of his second term, he had every reason to hope that it
would be more successful than his first. He promised to annihilate
opposition; and no serious obstacle seemed in his path. No doubt
his concessions to the spirit of nationality, in winning support
from moderate Federalists and self-interested democrats, alienated a
few State-rights Republicans, and might arouse uneasiness among old
friends; but to this Jefferson resigned himself. He parted company with
the “mere metaphysical subtleties” of John Randolph. Except in his
aversion to military measures and to formal etiquette, he stood nearly
where President Washington had stood ten years before.
The New England hierarchy might grumble, but at heart Massachusetts was
already converted. Only with the utmost difficulty, and at the cost of
avoiding every aggressive movement, could the Federalists keep control
of their State governments. John Randolph flattered himself that if
Jefferson’s personal authority were removed from the scale, Virginia
would again incline to her old principles; but he was mistaken. So
long as Virginia held power, she was certain to use it. At no time
since the Declaration of Independence had the prospects of nationality
seemed so promising as in the spring of 1805. With the stride of the
last four years as a standard for the future, no man could measure the
possible effects of the coming four years in extending the powers of
the government and developing the prosperity of the nation. Gallatin
already meditated schemes of internal improvements, which included
four great thoroughfares across the Alleghanies, while Fulton was
nearly ready with the steamboat. The Floridas could not escape the
government’s grasp. Even New England must at last yield her prejudices
to the spirit of democratic nationality.
No one could wonder if Jefferson’s head was somewhat turned by the
splendors of such a promise. Sanguine by nature, he felt that every
day made more secure the grandeur of his destiny. He could scarcely
be blamed for putting a high estimate on the value of his services,
for in all modesty he might reasonably ask what name recorded in
history would stand higher than his own for qualities of the noblest
order in statesmanship. Had he not been first to conceive and to put
in practice the theories of future democracy? Had he not succeeded in
the experiment? Had he not doubled the national domain? Was not his
government a model of republican virtues? With what offence against the
highest canons of personal merit could he be charged? What ruler of
ancient or modern times, what Trajan or Antonine, what Edward or Louis,
was more unselfish or was truer to the interests intrusted to his care?
Who had proposed to himself a loftier ideal? Among all the kings and
statesmen who swayed the power of empire, where could one be found who
had looked so far into the future, and had so boldly grappled with its
hopes?