The repeal of the embargo, which received the President's signature
March 1, closed the long reign of President Jefferson; and with but
one exception the remark of John Randolph was destined to remain true,
that "never has there been any administration which went out of office
and left the nation in a state so deplorable and calamitous." That the
blame for this failure rested wholly upon Jefferson might be doubted;
but no one felt more keenly than he the disappointment under which his
old hopes and ambitions were crusht.
[Footnote 62: From the final chapter of the "History of the United
States in the Administration of Thomas Jefferson." Copyright, 1889, by
Charles Scribners' Sons.]
Loss of popularity was his bitterest trial. He who longed like a
sensitive child for sympathy and love left office as strongly and
almost as generally disliked as the least popular president who
preceded or followed him. He had undertaken to create a government
which should interfere in no way with private action, and he had
created one which interfered directly in the concerns of every private
citizen in the land. He had come into power as the champion of state
rights, and had driven states to the verge of armed resistance. He had
begun by claiming credit for stern economy, and ended by exceeding the
expenditure of his predecessors. He had invented a policy of peace,
and his invention resulted in the necessity of fighting at once the
two greatest powers in the world....
In truth, the disaster was appalling; and Jefferson described it in
moderate terms by admitting that the policy of peaceable coercion
brought upon him mortification such as no other president ever
suffered. So complete was his overthrow that his popular influence
declined even in the South. Twenty years elapsed before his political
authority recovered power over the Northern people; for not until the
embargo and its memories faded from men's minds did the mighty shadow
of Jefferson's Revolutionary name efface the ruin of his presidency.
Yet he clung with more and more tenacity to the faith that his theory
of peaceable coercion was sound; and when within a few months of his
death he alluded for the last time to the embargo, he spoke of it as
"a measure which, persevered in a little longer, we had subsequent and
satisfactory assurance would have effected its object completely."
A discomfiture so conspicuous could not fail to bring in its train a
swarm of petty humiliations which for the moment were more painful
than the great misfortune. Jefferson had hoped to make his country
forever pure and free; to abolish war with its train of debt,
extravagance, corruption and tyranny; to build up a government devoted
only to useful and moral objects; to bring upon earth a new era of
peace and good-will among men. Throughout the twistings and windings
of his course as president he clung to this main idea; or if he seemed
for a moment to forget it, he never failed to return and to persist
with almost heroic obstinacy in enforcing its lessons. By repealing
the embargo, Congress avowedly and even maliciously rejected and
trampled upon the only part of Jefferson's statesmanship which claimed
originality, or which in his own opinion entitled him to rank as
philosophic legislator. The mortification he felt was natural and
extreme, but such as every great statesman might expect, and such as
most of them experienced. The supreme bitterness of the moment lay
rather in the sudden loss of respect and consideration which at all
times marked the decline of power, but became most painful when the
surrender of office followed a political defeat at the hands of
supposed friends....
In his style of life as President, Jefferson had indulged in such easy
and liberal expenses as suited the place he held. Far from showing
extravagance, the White House and its surroundings had in his time the
outward look of a Virginia plantation. The President was required to
pay the expenses of the house and grounds. In consequence, the grounds
were uncared for, the palings broken or wanting, the paths undefined,
and the place a waste, running imperceptibly into the barren fields
about it. Within, the house was as simple as without, after the usual
style of Virginia houses, where the scale was often extravagant but
the details plain. Only in his table did Jefferson spend an unusual
amount of money with excellent results for his political influence,
for no president ever understood better than Jefferson the art of
entertaining; yet his table cost him no excessive sums. For the best
champagne he paid less than a dollar a bottle; for the best Bordeaux
he paid a dollar; and the Madeira which was drunk in pipes at the
White House cost between fifty and sixty cents a bottle. His French
cook and cook's assistant were paid about four hundred dollars a year.
On such a scale his salary of twenty-five thousand dollars was
equivalent to fully sixty thousand dollars of modern money; and his
accounts showed that for the first and probably the most expensive
year of his presidency he spent only $16,800 which could properly be
charged to his public and official character. A mode of life so simple
and so easily controlled should in a village like Washington have left
no opening for arrears of debt; but when Jefferson, about to quit the
White House forever, attempted to settle his accounts, he discovered
that he had exceeded his income. Not his expenses as President, but
his expenses as planter dragged him down. At first he thought that his
debts would reach seven or eight thousand dollars, which must be
discharged from a private estate hardly exceeding two hundred thousand
dollars in value at the best of times, and rendered almost worthless
by neglect and by the embargo. The sudden demand for this sum of
money, coming at the moment of his political mortifications, wrung
from him cries of genuine distress such as no public disaster had
called out....
On horseback, over roads impassable to wheels, through snow and storm,
he hurried back to Monticello to recover in the quiet of home the
peace of mind he had lost in the disappointments of his statesmanship.
He arrived at Monticello March 15, and never again passed beyond the
bounds of a few adjacent counties.