the field against America's ancient allies, died December 14, 1799, at
Mount Vernon, deeply mourned by all his countrymen, and honored even by
the former enemies of American independence. I will only repeat, with
Washington Irving, that "with us his memory remains a national property,
where all sympathies throughout our widely extended and diversified
empire meet in unison. Under all dissensions and amid all the storms of
party, his precepts and example speak to us from the grave with a
paternal appeal; and his name--by all revered--forms a universal tie of
brotherhood--a watchword of our Union."

* * *

While the nation heartily sustained the government in the conflict with
France the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Laws, which abridged
American liberty and the freedom of speech and of the press, was
generally resented by the people. The public indignation which these laws
aroused resulted in the banishment of the Federalist party from power,
and the election of the great Republican--or Democrat--Thomas Jefferson,
as President in 1800, with Aaron Burr as Vice-President. Jefferson was
the first President inaugurated in the city of Washington. The leading
features of his administration were the Louisiana Purchase, the Burr
conspiracy and the war with the Barbary States--the first alone
sufficient to make Jefferson's presidency the most memorable between that
of Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Jefferson's foresight in the Louisiana Purchase appears all the grander
when we consider the ignorance which prevailed regarding the magnificent
Pacific region up to the birth of a generation which is still in middle
life. The Louisiana Purchase was the second great gift of France to
America, and as the first came to us because the French hated and desired
to weaken England, so the second came because Napoleon feared that
Louisiana would fall into the hands of England. It should be remembered
that the Louisiana Purchase included not only the now flourishing State
at the mouth of the Mississippi, but also Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa,
Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and probably the two
Dakotas. It meant the control of the Mississippi and the rescue of that
great artery of American commerce forever from foreign dominion. France
had acquired this vast property from Spain in 1800. The Amiens Treaty of
1802, to which France and England were the principal parties, was shor