Thomas Jefferson, a Character Sketch by Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
page 40 of 162 (24%)
page 40 of 162 (24%)
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independence of public opinion, and especially his hatred of monarchy
and all its ways, was that the conservative and aristocratic influences of the environment of New York, hardly as yet escaped from the era of royal and Tory dominion and submission to the English Crown, might fashion the newly federated nation upon English models and give it a complexion far removed, socially as well as politically, from Republican simplicity, coupled with a disposition to aggress upon and dictate to the individual states of the Union, to their nullification and practical effacement. For this apparent tendency, Jefferson specially blamed Hamilton, since his tastes as well as his sympathies were known to be aristocratic, as indeed were Washington's, in his fondness for courtly dignity and the trappings and ceremonies of high office. But his antagonism to Hamilton was specially called forth by the latter's creation of a National Bank, with its tendency to aggrandize power and coerce or control votes at the expense of the separate States. He further was opposed to the great financier and aristocrat for his leanings toward England and against France, in the war that had then broken out between these nations, and for his sharp criticism of the draft of the message to Congress on the relations of France and England, which Jefferson had penned, and which was afterwards to influence Washington in issuing the Neutrality Proclamation of 1793. In this attitude toward Hamilton and the administration, of which both men were members, Jefferson was neither selfish nor scheming, but, on the contrary, was discreet and patriotic, as well as just and high-minded. "What he desired supremely," as has been well stated by a writer, "was the triumph of democratic principles, since he saw in this triumph the welfare of the country--the interests of the many against the ascendancy of the few--the real reign of the people, instead of the reign of an aristocracy of money or birth." In |
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