t only rode alone into
Washington (he was the first President to be inaugurated in the newly
built capital), dressed like any country gentleman, but, when he
dismounted to take the oath, tethered his horse with his own hands. More
really significant was the presence of the populace that elected
him--the great heaving, unwashed crowd elbowing the dainty politicians
in the very presence chamber. The President's inaugural address was full
of a generous spirit of reconciliation. "We are all Republicans," he
said, "we are all Federalists." Every difference of opinion was not a
difference of principle, nor need such differences interfere with "our
attachment, to our Union and to representative government."

Such liberality was the more conspicuous by contrast with the petty
rancour of his defeated rival, who not only refused to perform the
customary courtesy of welcoming his successor at the White House, but
spent his last hours there appointing Federalists feverishly to public
offices solely in order to compel Jefferson to choose between the
humiliation of retaining such servants and the odium of dismissing
them. The new President very rightly refused to recognize nominations so
made, and this has been seized upon by his detractors to hold him up as
the real author of what was afterwards called "the Spoils System." It
would be far more just to place that responsibility upon Adams.

The most important event of Jefferson's first administration was the
Louisiana Purchase. The colony of Louisiana at the mouth of the
Mississippi, with its vast _hinterland_ stretching into the heart of the
American continent, had, as we have seen, passed in 1762 from French
into Spanish hands. Its acquisition by the United States had been an old
project of Jefferson's. When Secretary of State under Washington, he had
mooted it when settling with the Spanish Government the question of the
navigation of the Mississippi. As President he revived it; but before
negotiations could proceed far the whole situation was changed by the
retrocession of Louisiana to France as part of the terms dictated by
Napoleon to a Spain which had fallen completely under his control. The
United States could not, in any case, have regarded the transfer without
uneasiness, and to all schemes of purchase it seemed a death-blow, for
it was believed that the French Emperor had set his heart upon the
resurrection of French Colonial power in America. But Jefferson was an
excelle