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Thomas Jefferson, a Character Sketch by Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
page 39 of 162 (24%)
and the punishment administered to Algiers during the Tripolitan war
(1801-05), for her piratical attacks on neutral commerce.

After traveling considerably through Europe and informing himself as
to the character and condition of the people in the several countries
visited, Jefferson returned to America just at the time when Washington
was elected to the Presidency. In his absence, the Federal Convention
had met at Philadelphia, the Constitution of the United States had been
adopted and ratified, and the government had been organized with its
executive departments, then limited to five, viz.: The State Department,
the Treasury, the War Department, the Department of Justice, and the
Post-office. The Judiciary had also been organized and the Supreme Court
founded. With these organizations of the machinery of government came
presently the founding of parties, especially the rise of the Republican
or Democratic party, as it was subsequently called, in opposition to
the Federalist party, then led by Hamilton, Jay, and Morris. At this
juncture, on the return of Jefferson from the French mission, and after
a visit to his home in Virginia, Washington offered him the post of
Secretary of State, which he accepted, and entered upon the duties
of that office in New York in March, 1791. His chief colleague in
the Cabinet, soon now to become his political opponent, was Alexander
Hamilton, who had charge of the finances, as head of the Treasury
department. Between these two men, as chiefs of the principal
departments of government, President Washington had an anxious time of
it in keeping the peace, for each was insistently arrayed against the
other, not only in their respective attitudes toward England and in the
policy of the administration in the then threatening war with France,
but also as to the powers the National Government should be entrusted
with in relation to the legislatures of the separate states. What
Jefferson specially feared, with his firmly held views as to the
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