In regard to the labors and services of Jefferson in the Department of State, he was cautious, conciliatory, and peace-loving, “neither a fanatic nor an enthusiast,” enlightened by twenty-five years of discussion on the principles of law and government, and a practical business man.  It required all his tact to prevent entangling foreign alliances, and getting into hot water with both France and England; for neither power had any respect for the new commonwealth, and each seemed inclined to take all the advantage it could of American weakness and inexperience.  They were constantly guilty of such offences as the impressment of our seamen, paper blockades, haughty dictation, and insolent treatment of our envoys, having an eye all the while to the future dismemberment of the States, and the rich slices of territory both were likely to acquire in the South and West.  At that time there was no navy, no army to speak of, and no surplus revenue.  There were irritating questions to be settled with England about boundaries, and the occupation of military posts which she had agreed to evacuate.  There were British intrigues with Indians in the interior to make disturbance, while on the borders the fur-trade and fisheries were unsettled.  There were debts to be paid from American to English merchants, which were disputed, and treaties to be made, involving all the unsettled principles of political economy, as insoluble apparently to-day as they were one hundred years ago.  There were unjust restrictions on American commerce of the most irritating nature, for American vessels were still excluded from West India ports, and only such products were admitted as could not be dispensed with.  Such articles as whale oil, salt fish, salt provisions, and grain itself, could not be exported to any town in England.  In France a new spirit seemed to animate the government against America, a disposition to seize everything that was possible, and to dictate in matters with which they had no concern,—­even in relation to our own internal affairs, as in the instructions furnished to Genet, whose unscrupulous audacity and meddling intrigues at last exhausted the patience of both Washington and Jefferson.

But the most important thing that happened, of historical interest, when Jefferson was Secretary of State, was the origination of the Republican, or Democratic party, as it was afterwards called, in opposition to the Federal party, led by Hamilton, Jay, and Gouverneur Morris, Of this new party Jefferson was the undisputed founder and life.  He fancied he saw in the measures of the Federal leaders a systematic attempt to assimilate American institutions, as far as possible, to those of Great Britain.  He looked upon Hamilton as a royalist at heart, and upon his bank, with other financial arrangements, only as an engine to control votes and centralize power at the expense of the States.  He entered into the arena of controversial politics, wrote for the newspapers, appealed to democratic passions, and set in motion a net-work of party machinery to influence the votes of the people, foreseeing the future triumph of his principles.  He pulled political wires with as much adroitness and effect as Van Buren in after-times, so that the statesman was lost in the politician.