to extinguishing the debt. A few of the more important Federal
offices were taken from embittered Federalists and given to
Republicans, but there was no general {183} proscription of
office-holders. The only action at all radical in character was the
repeal of the law establishing new circuit judgeships, a step which
legislated a number of Federalists out of office. The repeal was
denounced by fervid Federalist orators as a violation of the
constitution and a death-blow to the Union; but the appointments under
the law itself had been so grossly partisan that the country was
unalarmed. With these steps the Republican reaction ended. Jefferson
and his party carried through no alteration of the central departments;
they abandoned no Federal power except that of imposing an excise; they
did not even repeal the charter of the National Bank. The real change
lay in the more strictly economical finances and in the general spirit
of government. The Federalist opposition, criticizing every act with
bitterness and continually predicting ruin, found that under the
"Jacobins" the country remained contented and prosperous and was in no
more danger of atheism or the guillotine than it had been under Adams.
So matters went on, year after year, the Federal government playing its
part quietly and the American people carrying on their vocations in
peace and prosperity.

Jefferson's general theory of foreign affairs was based on the idea
that diplomacy was {184} mainly a matter of bargain and sale, with
national commerce as the deciding factor. He believed so firmly that
national self-interest would lead all European powers to make suitable
treaties with the United States that he considered the navy as wholly
superfluous, and would have been glad to sell it. But when
circumstances arose calling for a different sort of diplomacy, he was
ready to modify his methods; and he so far recognized the unsuitability
of peaceful measures in dealing with the Barbary corsairs as to permit
the small American navy to carry on extensive operations during 1801-3,
which ended in the submission of Tripoli and Algiers.

Simultaneously, Jefferson was brought face to face with a diplomatic
crisis, arising from the peculiar actions of his old ally, France. At
the outset of his administration, he found the treaty made by Adams's
commissioners in 1800 ready for ratification, and thus began his career
with all questions settled, thanks to his predecessor