THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY.

The inaugural address of President Jefferson has been given the first
place under this period, notwithstanding the fact that it was not at all
an oration. The inaugural addresses of presidents Washington and Adams
were really orations, although written, depending for much of their
effect on the personal presence of him who delivered the address; that
of Jefferson was altogether a business document, sent to be read by the
two houses of Congress for their information, and without any of the
adjuncts of the orator.

It is impossible, nevertheless, to spare the inaugural address of the
first Democratic President, for it is pervaded by a personality which,
if quieter in its operation, was more potent in results than the most
burning eloquence could have been. The spirit of modern democracy, which
has become, for good or evil, the common characteristic of all American
parties and leaders, was here first put into living words. Triumphant in
national politics, this spirit now had but one field of struggle, the
politics of the States, and here its efforts were for years bent to the
abolition of every remnant of limitation on individual liberty. Outside
of New England, the change was accomplished as rapidly as the forms of
law could be put into the necessary direction; remnants of
ecclesiastical government, ecclesiastical taxes of even the mildest
description, restrictions on manhood suffrage, State electoral systems,
were the immediate victims of the new spirit, and the first term of Mr.
Jefferson saw most of the States under democratic governments. Inside of