e State, Rhode Island, had marched off
with the majority. "Everywhere," wrote Madison in October, "the progress
of the public sentiment mocks the cavils and clamors of the malignant
adversaries of the administration."

If it may not be asserted that this overthrow of the Federal rule was
fortunate at that juncture,--as nothing is more idle in history than
speculation upon what might have been,--it may at least be said that
Jefferson's administration for his first four years was a happy one for
his country and acceptable to his countrymen. None since Washington's
has ever been so popular; and no other, except Lincoln's, has ever been
so successful. Nor can it be said of it that it was a happy period
because it is without a history; for it included acts of moment,
accepted then with an approbation and enthusiasm which time has
justified. Not less shallow is that view of his character and of those
years of his administration, taken by many of his contemporaries, who
neither loved nor respected him, and who attributed his success and his
popularity to his good fortune. This was a favorite and easy way, among
his political opponents, of explaining a disagreeable fact. Parton notes
in his Life that C. C. Pinckney could only understand Jefferson's hold
upon public confidence as "the infatuation of the people." John Quincy
Adams said: "Fortune has taken a pleasure in making Jefferson's greatest
weaknesses and follies issue more successfully than if he had been
inspired with the profoundest wisdom." "When the people," said
Gouverneur Morris, "have been long enough drunk, they will get sober;
but while the frolic lasts, to reason with them is useless." There has
been more than one occasion of late years, and in more than one place,
where this may be truly said of popular political enthusiasm; but it was
not true of that which prevailed for the first four years of this
century; and Mr. Adams's sarcasm can hardly fail to recall the fact that
when Mr. Jefferson, in his second term, was really guilty of a great
folly in adhering to a prolonged embargo, it was Mr. Adams who committed
one of the few follies of his own life in abandoning his party to give
his support to the President's blunder.

Though there were many changes in Mr. Jefferson's cabinet in the course
of eight years, they were not the result of dissensions. Yet he was,
perhaps, more an absolute President than any other man who has ever held
that position. He sought and l