own ungenerous rival.  The details of his policy do not concern us, but the United States could hardly have endured for many years without the passionate sense of the need of government and the genius for actual administration with which Hamilton set the new nation on its way.  Nevertheless—­so do gifts differ—­the general spirit which has on the whole informed the American nation and held it together was neither respected nor understood by him.  His party, called the Federalists, because they claimed to stand for a strong and an efficient Federal Government, did not survive him long.  It is of interest to us here only because, with its early disappearance, there ceased for ever to be in America any party whatsoever which in any sense represented aristocratic principles or leanings.

The fate of Jefferson’s party (at first called Republican but by no means to be confused with the Republican party which will concern us later) was far different, for the Democratic party, represented by the President of the United States at this moment, claims to descend from it in unbroken apostolic succession.  But we need not pause to trace the connecting thread between them, real as it is, for parties are not to be regarded as individuals.  Indeed the personality of Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State in Washington’s Cabinet, impressed itself, during his life and long after, upon all America more than that of any other man.  Democrats to-day have described Lincoln, who by no means belonged to their party, as Jefferson’s spiritual heir; and Lincoln would have welcomed the description.

No biographer has achieved an understanding presentment of Jefferson’s curious character, which as presented by unfriendly critics is an unpleasing combination of contrasting elements.  A tall and active fellow, a good horseman and a good shot, living through seven years of civil war, which he had himself heralded in, without the inclination to strike a blow; a scholar, musician, and mathematician, without delicacy, elevation, or precision of thought or language; a man of intense ambition, without either administrative capacity or the courage to assert himself in counsel or in debate; a dealer in philanthropic sentiment, privately malignant and vindictive.  This is not as a whole a credible portrait; it cannot stand for the man as his friends knew him; but there is evidence for each feature of it, and it remains impossible for a foreigner to think of Jefferson and not compare him to his disadvantage with the antagonist whom he eclipsed.  By pertinacious industry, however, working chiefly through private correspondence, he constructed a great party, dominated a nation, and dominated it mainly for good.  For the rapid and complete triumph of Jefferson’s party over its opponents signifies a very definite and lasting conversion of the main stream of American public opinion to what may be called the sane element in the principles of the French Revolution.