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 a