d their
gangs of African slaves were likely to become a burden. They could now
cultivate cotton under an extensive system of agriculture with large
immediate profits. Experience proved, however, that the system was
extraordinarily wasteful, leading to a rapid exhaustion of the soil.
This ever-recurring exhaustion of the soil and demand for new land was a
potent cause of the incessant pressure of population into the virgin
lands of the Southwest, in succeeding decades.

The new President was the embodiment of the national life. Although he
was tall of stature, he was not outwardly an impressive figure. His red,
freckled face wore a frank, good-natured expression, but he lacked
dignity and poise. "His whole figure has a loose, shackling air," wrote
a contemporary. "A laxity of manner seemed shed about him ... even his
discourse partook of his personal demeanor. It was loose and rambling."
With his blue coat and red waistcoat, his green velveteen breeches, yarn
stockings, and slippers down at the heels, he seemed to an English
visitor, who saw him in 1804, "very much like a tall, large-boned
farmer." Jefferson would have been the last to resent this epithet. No
man had a more profound respect for tillers of the soil. Years before he
had written: "Generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of
the other classes of citizens bears in any State to that of its
husbandmen is the proportion of its sound to its healthy parts, and is a
good enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption." He
rejoiced in the agricultural possibilities of America. Could he have had
his way, he would have made the republic, in the apt phrase of Mr. Henry
Adams, "an enlarged Virginia--a society to be kept pure and free by the
absence of complicated interests, by the encouragement of agriculture
and of commerce as its handmaid." He abhorred cities and factories, and
dreaded the growth of a manufacturing and capitalist class.

An agricultural society bent upon justice, Jefferson believed, could
always protect itself against the aggressions of foreign nations. "Our
commerce," he wrote soon after his inauguration, "is so valuable to
them, that they will be glad to purchase it, when the only price we ask
is to do us justice. I believe we have in our own hands the means of
peaceable coercion." In this wise the United States would set an example
to the world of a society democratically organized and capable of
unlimited moral and phy