new parties by any
constructions either one way or the other.

CHAPTER XVI

SECRETARY OF STATE

On the morning of March 4, 1801, Mr. Jefferson tied his horse to the
fence and walked alone into the Capitol to take the oath of office as
President. Mr. Madison was not present at that perfunctory ceremony, the
death of his aged father detaining him at home. He soon after, however,
assumed the duties of the station to which Mr. Jefferson had called him,
and there he remained till he took the presidential office, in his turn,
eight years afterward.

The new dynasty entered upon its course under happy circumstances. There
was, of course, much to fear from the condition of affairs in Europe;
for the United States must needs be in a perilous position so long as
the struggle for supremacy continued between France and England, and
that would be while Napoleon could command an army. But the danger of
war with France was no longer imminent, since Mr. Adams had wisely
reestablished friendly relations, though many of the leading Federalists
believed it was at the cost of ruin to his own party. English
aggressions upon American commerce had for the moment ceased, as
fourteen years afterward they ceased altogether, when the provocation
disappeared with the permanent establishment of peace in Europe. In the
temporary lull of the tempest the sun shone out of a serene sky, and the
land was blessed with quiet and prosperity. "Peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none," the
President said in his inaugural address, were among "the essential
principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to
shape its administration." The condition of the country was in accord
with the thought and may even have suggested it. "We are all
Republicans; we are all Federalists," said Jefferson in his inaugural:
it was meant, however, as an avowal of a tolerant belief in the
patriotism of both parties, rather than, as has sometimes been supposed,
an assertion that party lines, so clearly drawn in the election, were at
length obliterated. But hardly a year had passed before this seemed to
be almost literally true. One after another, States hitherto Federal,
both at the North and at the South, went over in their state elections
to the Republican or Democratic party; till, with the exception of
Delaware, there was not a single Federal State outside of New England;
and even in that stronghold on