insurrection in the event of a war with England--a war which actually
broke out in the year following, but was not attended with the
slave-rising which Randolph predicted. Randolph was a thorough-going
"State rights" man, and, though opposed to slavery on principle, he
cried "Hands off!" to any interference by the general government with
the domestic institutions of the States. His speeches read better than
most of his contemporaries'. They are interesting in their exhibit of
a bitter and eccentric individuality, witty, incisive, and expressed in
a pungent and familiar style which contrasts refreshingly with the
diplomatic language and glittering generalities of most congressional
oratory, whose verbiage seems to keep its subject always at
arm's-length.

Another noteworthy writing of Jefferson's was his Inaugural Address of
March 4, 1801, with its programme of "equal and exact justice to all
men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace,
commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances
with none; the support of the State governments in all their
rights; . . . absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the
majority; . . . the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;
economy in the public expense; freedom of religion, freedom of the
press, and freedom of person under the protection of the _habeas
corpus_, and trial by juries impartially selected."

During his six years' residence in France, as American minister,
Jefferson had become indoctrinated with the principles of French
democracy. His main service and that of his party--the Democratic, or,
as it was then called, the Republican party--to the young republic was
in its insistence upon toleration of all beliefs and upon the freedom
of the individual from all forms of governmental restraint. Jefferson