except as to commerce. And our commerce
is so valuable to other nations that they will be glad to purchase it,
when they know that all we ask is justice. Why, then, should we not
reduce our general government to a very simple organization and a very
unexpensive one--a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants?

It was precisely the matter of selecting these few servants which
worried the President during his first months in office, for the federal
offices were held by Federalists almost to a man. He hoped that he would
have to make only a few removals any other course would expose him to
the charge of inconsistency after his complacent statement that there
was no fundamental difference between Republicans and Federalists. But
his followers thought otherwise; they wanted the spoils of victory and
they meant to have them. Slowly and reluctantly Jefferson yielded to
pressure, justifying himself as he did so by the reflection that a due
participation in office was a matter of right. And how, pray, could
due participation be obtained, if there were no removals? Deaths
were regrettably few; and resignations could hardly be expected. Once
removals were decided upon, Jefferson drifted helplessly upon the tide.
For a moment, it is true, he wrote hopefully about establishing an
equilibrium and then returning "with joy to that state of things when
the only questions concerning a candidate shall be: Is he honest? Is he
capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?" That blessed expectation
was never realized. By the end of his second term, a Federalist in
office was as rare as a Republican under Adams.

The removal of the Collector of the Port at New Haven and the
appointment of an octogenarian whose chief qualification was his
Republicanism brought to a head all the bitter animosity of Federalist
New England. The hostility to Jefferson in this region was no ordinary
political opposition, as he knew full well, for it was compounded of
many ingredients. In New England there was a greater social solidarity
than existed anywhere else in the Union. Descended from English stock,
imbued with common religious and political traditions, and bound
together by the ties of a common ecclesiastical polity, the people of
this section had, as Jefferson expressed it, "a sort of family pride."
Here all the forces of education, property, religion, and respectability
were united in the maintenance of the established order against the
assaults