Jefferson the President

• Author: Arthur Rizer
• Profession: Director of Justice Policy and a senior fellow at the R Street Institute
• Pages: 61-78

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JEFFERSON

THEPRESIDENT

As a teenager, I remember seeing two photographs of the White House side

by side. Under one, the caption read, “the night before Richard Nixon re-

signed as President of the United States”; under the other, “the night after

Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States.” e pictures were

identical. Even back then, I noticed that there was something missing from

those otherwise serene images of the President’s home. I noticed that the

President was nowhere to be seen. I noticed that the most powerful man in

the world was basically removed from oce, and I noticed that there was not

a single soldier, not a tank, not even a policeman on the grounds.

When John Adams learned that he had lost the election, he simply said to

Jeerson, “Well, I understand that you are to beat me in this contest.” We can

be proud of the American tradition of peaceful transitions of power, some-

thing that occurs in this country even when the parties have been in heated

opposition. Such peaceful transitions were rarely seen in the world in 1801,

and are still rare in much of the world today. Our rst presidents—simply by

stepping aside for another revolutionary they respected—created a process

that has contributed to the greatness and the lasting power of this nation. It

may be true that John Adams was not overly cordial, was probably even rude,

when he left the capitol before Jeerson was sworn in. e more important

fact, however, is that he left, and he left peacefully.

With wounds still so fresh, Jeerson’s inauguration address, delivered on

March 4, 1801, was a speech of reconciliation. Because of Jeerson’s weak

62 JEFFER SON’S PEN: THE ART OF PE RSUASION

voice, most people had to read the speech. Like Abraham Lincoln’s second

inaugural address, given in the midst of the Civil War, Jeerson’s rst was a

full-faith attempt to ameliorate the political factions and coax them into co-

operation. Jeerson said, in part,

[E]very dierence of opinion is not a dierence of principle. We have

called by dierent names brethren of the same principle. We are all

Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would

wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them

stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of

opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know,

indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can

not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would

the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a

government which has so far kept us free and rm on the theoretic and

visionary fear that this Government, the world’s best hope, may by pos-

sibility want energy to preserve itself ? I trust not. I believe this, on the

contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one

where every man, at the call of the law, would y to the standard of the

law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal

concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the gov-

ernment of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of

others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?

Let history answer this question.

Even as President, Jeerson distrusted government. But as President,

Jeerson gave the nation a unitary focus, something to bring the disparate

political groups together and focus the national energy. Jeerson set his sights

on nation-building, not in the way that term is used today (that is, supporting

foreign nations), but in defeating those who threatened her citizens at the

frontiers and abroad and expanding the boundaries of the United States.

Five of Jeerson’s goals for America came to fruition while he was President:

(1) the Barbary Pirates were defeated; (2) New Orleans was secured;

(3) America’s land holdings were explored; (4) Britain’s eorts to keep the

United States subjugated were thwarted; and (5) Aaron Burr—a dangerous

political rival and constant thorn, generally—was contained and controlled.