Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: by his councillors, as Adams, and even as Washington, had often been. He did not change them in eight years: they were a unit. He removed the Federal leaders from all the most important offices. How else could he get rid of them? "Few die," said he, " and none resign." But he intended not more than twenty removals in all. Of course those who went out looked grim at those who came in, lean with expectation. Jefferson would have rotation in office. Here are the six chief acts of his administration. 1. He abandoned the defences of the country.. Upon the ground of expediency, he opposed the fortification of the principal harbors, and he considered the establishment of a Military Academy not within the specific powers assigned to Congress. While he was Vice-President, he and his Republican party had vehemently opposed a Navy, as being altogether unsuited to the means of the United States, and as being likely to involve the country in war. In this he opposed and obstructed the policy very much favored by Mr. Adams. And, consistently with these principles, when he himself came into power, he neglected the Army and Navy, and insisted upon building two hundred and fifty gunboats, which should cost but five thousand dollars each, instead of constructing larger and more efficient ves- eels, which would require the permanent employment of naval officers and seamen. It was Mr. Jefferson's plan, that in time of peace these gunboats should be hauled up under sheds, erected for the purpose on the sea-shore; and that in war time they should be fitted for service, and manned with a maritime militia, enlisted temporarily for the purpose. This scheme was violently attacked, and in fact it proved a failure. Mr. Jefferson employed Thomas Paine to write in defence of it. He certainly wrote very...