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Chapter VI - A Modest President
A Modest President 1801
During the eventful first quarter of the nineteenth century, the United States evolved from a struggling "experiment in democracy" to a new nation free of its restrictive colonial past. Between 1800 and 1824 the United States doubled its territory, fought a vicious war against England and temporarily contained the chronic problems of expansion, sectionalism and slavery.
On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson, upright governor of Virginia, intellectual author of the Declaration of Independence and the first Secretary of State, ushered in the new century by taking the oath of office as the third president of the United States. Describing Jefferson's tranquil inauguration, Margaret B. Smith of Philadelphia wrote to her sister-in-law that she had witnessed "one of the most interesting scenes a free people can ever witness. The [peaceful] changes of administration, which in every government and in every age have most generally been epochs of confusion . . . and bloodshed." On that serene, early spring day, the tall, thin, red-haired Virginian with "ill-fitting clothes, chiseled features and a ruddy complexion" walked from his boardinghouse to the still-unfinished capitol, quietly entered the Senate chamber, took the oath from recently appointed Chief Justice John Marshall, and calmly began to read his inaugural address.
Nearly a thousand eager people crowded into the almost completed building to hear his barely audible voice:
Jefferson continued with a concise outline of his own and his party's republican goals, simultaneously assuring wary Federalists that he would not dismantle their programs. He promised a "wise and frugal government" which would restrain men from injuring one another but otherwise leave them to regulate themselves. In addition, he supported the state governments, calling them the surest defenders "against anti-republican tendencies." He also vowed to vigilantly maintain "peace, commerce and honest friendships with all nations - entangling alliances with none."
Jefferson's "deliberate display of republican simplicity" at his inauguration characterized his successful yet uneven 'terms in office. At every opportunity he avoided the aristocratic air so prevalent during Washington's and Adams' terms. Gone were the fancy knee-length trousers and pretentious powdered wigs. Once a Federalist senator entered the President's House and embarrassingly mistook Jefferson for "a servant." Dinners with the President were held at a circular table so that no one influential individual or group should be dominant. Jefferson always maintained that "when brought together in society, all are perfectly equal." A widower, Jefferson also discarded the impressive coach and six fine horses used by Washington and Adams and instead rode horseback around Washington by himself. He also stubbornly rejected the idea of living in the elaborate "president's house," but after two weeks in his boardinghouse he reluctantly moved there. He described his new palatial home (not yet called the White House) as "big enough for two emperors, one pope, and the grand lama in the bargain." In spite of his modest requirements, however, Jefferson did begin a Virginia Dynasty, for during the coming twenty-three years every President of the United States would be of Virginian birth.
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