on February 17, 1801, Jefferson was elected by the House. In another fortnight the government would have been left without any executive head. There were fears of anarchy and threats of civil war. To provide against the recurrence of such a difficulty, the twelfth amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1804, changed the method of conducting presidential elections to that which has ever since been employed.

The inauguration of Jefferson was the first that took place in the city of Washington, whither the Federal government had been removed from Philadelphia in 1800. The national capital, which is now fast becoming one of the finest cities in the world, was then a wretched village in the woods. Many of the Federalists believed that the election of Jefferson would entail speedy ruin upon the country; but such fears proved groundless, as usual. His first administration was marked by national prosperity. It coincided with the only interval of peace between England and France during the Napoleonic period, and for the moment we were unmolested by those powers. There was no serious change in the administration of our government. Jefferson pardoned those persons who had been imprisoned under the alien and sedition laws, and the Republican House of Representatives impeached Judge Chase of Maryland, for alleged harshness in conducting trials under those laws; but he was acquitted by a Republican Senate. Very few removals from office were made for political reasons. The Supreme Court, under the lead of Chief-justice Marshall, remained Federalist in complexion, and during the next quarter of a century did work of imperishable renown in strengthening and interpreting the Constitution. The Republicans had become reconciled to many Federalist ideas which at first they had condemned, and now that the government was in their own hands they were not so jealous of its powers.

The Louisiana Purchase. This was shown in what was incomparably the greatest event of Jefferson's administration. The population of the United States was rapidly increasing, and was beginning to pour into the Mississippi valley. In 1802 the state of Ohio was admitted into the union; Mississippi and Indiana

were already organized as territories; and a growing interest was felt in the western country. It was now learned that France had just acquired by treaty from Spain the territory of Louisiana, so that the mouth of the Mississippi river, and all the vast region to the west of it as far as the Rocky Mountains, had passed into the hands of an active and aggressive European power. Napoleon had, indeed, acquired this territory with a vague intention of regaining the ascendency in America, which France had lost in the Seven Years' War; but in 1803 the prospect of renewed war with England made him change his mind. With her control of Canada and her superior fleet, England might easily wrest from his grasp the two ends of the Mississippi river and defeat his schemes. It seemed better to put Louisiana out of England's reach by selling it to the United States; and accordingly Jefferson found no difficulty in buying it of Napoleon for fifteen million dollars. By this great stroke the area of the United States was more than doubled; before 1803 it was 827,844 square miles; Jefferson's purchase added to it 1,171,931 square miles, out of which have since been formed "the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska; the territories of Dakota, Montana, and Indian Territory; and a great part of the states of Minnesota and Colorado and the territory of Wyoming." The effect of this great acquisition of territory, by such an active and prosperous people as the Americans, was to insure them the ultimate control of the continent, without the need of any foreign warfare worth mentioning. It presently set us free for an indefinite length of time from European complications; but, on the other hand, it added new and formidable features to the rivalry between the free states and the slave states.

In making this purchase, which was destined to exercise such profound influence upon the history of the United States, Jefferson did not pretend that he had constitutional authority for what he was doing. The act was so clearly for the public good that he assumed the responsibility, trusting that a new constitutional amendment would justify it; but he was so completely upheld by public sentiment that no such elaborate step was thought necessary; the universal acquiescence was enough.