English people
themselves, or a large proportion of them at least, were as strongly
opposed to these aggressions of their government as were Americans, and
while their voice effected little in the way of amelioration, it brought
the two peoples once more distinctly nearer to the resort to war.
Meanwhile, the Embargo Act had become so irritating to our own people
that the Jefferson administration was compelled to repeal it, though
saving its face, for the time being, by the enforcement of the
non-intercourse law, which imposed stringent restrictions upon British
and French ships entering American harbors.

Such are the principal features of the Jefferson administration and the
more important questions with which it had to deal. Among other matters
which we have not noted were the organization of the United States
Courts; the removal of the seat of government from Philadelphia to
Washington; the party complexion of Jefferson's appointments to the
civil service, in spite of his expressed design to be non-partisan
in the selection to office; and the naming of men for the foreign
embassies, such as James Monroe as plenipotentiary to France, assisted
at the French Court by Robert R. Livingstone, and at the Spanish Court
by Charles C. Pinckney. Other matters to which Jefferson gave interested
attention include the dispatch of the explorers, Lewis and Clarke, to
report on the features of the Far Western country, then in reality a
wilderness, and to reclaim the vast unknown region for civilization. The
details of this notable expedition up the Missouri to its source, then
on through the Indian country across the Rockies to the Pacific, need
not detain us, since the story is familiar to all. With the Louisiana
purchase, it opened up great tracts of the continent, later on to become
habitable and settled areas, and make a great and important addition to
the public domain. In the appointment of the expedition and the interest
taken in it, Jefferson showed his intelligent appreciation of what was
to become of high value to the country, and ere long result in a land of
beautiful homes to future generations of its hardy people.

At the close of his second term in the Presidential chair (1809)
Jefferson retired once more, and finally, to "Monticello," after over
forty years of almost continuous public service. His career in this high
office was entirely worthy of the man, being that of an honorable and
public-spirited, as well as an