Thomas Jefferson, a Character Sketch by Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
page 27 of 162 (16%)
page 27 of 162 (16%)
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president which would be refused him as a private citizen. In some
respects, it must be conceded that this remarkable man carried his views to an extreme point. The story, however, that he rode his horse alone to the capitol, and, tying him to the fence, entered the building, unattended, lacks confirmation. Jefferson was re-elected in 1804, by a vote of 162 to 14 for Pinckney, who carried only two States out of the seventeen. The administrations of Jefferson were marked not only by many important national events, but were accompanied by great changes in the people themselves. Before and for some years after the Revolution, the majority were content to leave the task of thinking, speaking and acting to the representatives, first of the crown and then to their influential neighbors. The property qualification abridged the right to vote, but the active, hustling nature of the Americans now began to assert itself. The universal custom of wearing wigs and queues was given up and men cut their own hair short and insisted that every free man should have the right to vote. Jefferson was the founder and head of the new order of things, and of the republican party, soon to take the name of democratic, which controlled all the country with the exception of New England. Our commerce increased enormously, for the leading nations of Europe were warring with one another; money came in fast and most of the national debt was paid. |
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