for
immediate use, the Corsican adventurer suddenly threw Louisiana into
the astonished hands of Livingston and Monroe. He had never, it is
true, given Spain the promised compensation; he had never taken
possession, and he had promised not to sell it; but such trifles never
impeded Napoleon, nor, in this case, did they hinder Jefferson. When
the treaty came to America, Congress was quickly convened, the Senate
voted to ratify, the money was appropriated, and the whole {187} vast
region was bought for the sum of sixty million francs. Jefferson
himself, the apostle of a strict construction of the constitution,
could not discover any clause authorizing such a purchase; but his
party was undisturbed, and the great annexation was carried through,
Jefferson acquiescing in the inconsistency.

The chagrin of the Federalists at this enormous south-westward
extension of the country was exceeded only by their alarm when an
attempt was made to eject certain extremely partisan judges from their
offices in Pennsylvania and on the Federal bench by the process of
impeachment. In the first two cases the effort was successful, one
Pennsylvania judge and one Federal district judge being ejected; but
when, in 1805, the attack was aimed at the Pennsylvania supreme
justices and at Justice Chase of the United States Supreme Court, the
process broke down. The defence of the accused judges was legally too
strong to be overcome, and each impeachment failed. With this the last
echo of the party contest seemed to end, for by this time the
Federalists were too discredited and too weak to make a political
struggle. Their membership in Congress had shrunk to small figures,
they had lost State after State, and in 1804 they practically let
Jefferson's re-election go by default. He received all but fourteen
{188} electoral votes, out of 176. Some of the New England leaders
plotted secession, but they were not strong enough for that. The party
seemed dead. In 1804 its ablest mind, Hamilton, was killed in a duel
with Burr, the Vice-president, and nobody remained capable of national
leadership.

So the year 1805 opened in humdrum prosperity and national
self-satisfaction. Jefferson could look upon a country in which he
held a position rivalled only by that of a European monarch or an
English prime minister. The principles of Republican equality, of
States' rights, of economy and retrenchment, of peace and local
self-government seemed triump