Browsing named entities in Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing). You can also browse the collection for Thomas Jefferson or search for Thomas Jefferson in all documents.

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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Foreign affairs. (search)
s sent to Europe the Continental Congress guaranteed the payment of their expenses, with an additional compensation for their time and trouble. These allowances had been fixed at first at $11,111 annually. After the peace the Continental Congress had reduced the salary to $9,000, in consequence of which Franklin insisted upon his recall, the sum being insufficient. When the bill of 1790 went before the Senate that body was only willing to vote a general sum for the expenses of foreign intercourse, and to leave the compensation of the respective ministers to the discretion of the President, urging that the difference in expenses at the various courts called for discrimination in the sums allowed. To this the House would not agree, and for a while both Houses insisted upon compliance with their respective views. Hence the delay in the passage of the bill. The act also made allowance for outfits, which had been insisted upon by Jefferson when he was appointed to succeed Franklin.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), France, early relations with. (search)
wn to the British ministry. The business was done by the secret committee. Soon after the Declaration of Independence, a plan of treaties with foreign nations had been reported by a committee and accepted by Congress, and Franklin, Deane, and Jefferson were appointed (Sept. 28, 1776) commissioners to the Court of France. Jefferson declined the appointment, and Arthur Lee was substituted. They were directed to live in a style to support the dignity of their public character, and provision waJefferson declined the appointment, and Arthur Lee was substituted. They were directed to live in a style to support the dignity of their public character, and provision was made for their maintenance. Franklin arrived at Paris, and was joined by Deane and Lee in December. The commissioners were courteously received by Vergennes, privately, but without any recognition of their diplomatic character. France was secretly strengthening her navy, and preparing for the inevitable war which her aid to the revolted colonies would produce. The commissioners received from the French government a quarterly allowance of $400,000, to be repaid by the Congress, with which
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Free-thinkers. (search)
t and expression on theological subjects which now happily prevails did not exist in the eighteenth century. Then a person who openly opposed the accepted tenets of orthodoxy was ostracized, and hence it is that, even in this day, Franklin and Jefferson are sometimes spoken of as infidels (that is, opposers of the Christian religion), a charge cruelly unjust. They were simply free-thinkers, men who indulged in the exercise of reason in dealing with the theology of the day. The first American nd, and never countenanced attacks upon current religious ideas. The first work of a freethinker published in America was Ethan Allen's Oracles of religion. From passages in his Notes on Virginia, published in London, 1787, it is evident that Jefferson was of similar mind in many things, yet his views of the necessity and goodness of the Christian religion were similar to those of Franklin. Paine was of an entirely different stamp. He made attacks upon the Christian religion, and nothing se
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Free thought. (search)
it is Italian. During its sojourn in the French dominions the popes were French: otherwise they have been Italians, native or domiciled, with the single exception of the Flemish Adrian VI., thrust into the chair of St. Peter by his pupil, Charles V., and by the Italians treated with contumely as an alien intruder. The great majority of the cardinals always has been and still is Italian. She has not thrust the intolerance and obscurantism of the encyclical in the face of the disciples of Jefferson. She has paid all due homage to republican institutions, alien though they are to her own spirit, as her uniform action in European politics hitherto has proved. She has made little show of relics. She has abstained from miracles. The adoration of Mary and the saints, though of course fully maintained, appears to be less prominent. Compared with the medieval cathedral and its multiplicity of side chapels, altars, and images, the cathedral at New York strikes one as the temple of a som
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), French privateers. (search)
ia. These captured more than fifty English vessels, quite a number of them within American waters. After Genet had been warned that the fitting-out of privateers in American ports was a violation of the law, he had the Little Sarah (a vessel captured by one of the privateers and sent to Philadelphia) made into a letter-of-marque under the very eyes of the government, and called the vessel The Little Democrat. Governor Mifflin prepared to seize the vessel before it should leave port, when Jefferson, tender towards the French minister, waited on Genet in person to persuade him not to send the vessel to sea. Genet stormed, and declared his crew would resist. He finally promised that the vessel should only drop down the river a little way. That little way was far out of the reach of militia or other forces. Very soon afterwards, in violation of his solemn assurance, Genet ordered The Little Democrat to go to sea, and others followed. In the last year of John Adams's administration,
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Freneau, Philip 1752- (search)
Freneau, Philip 1752- the Poet of the Revolution; born in New York City, Jan. 2, 1752; graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1771. He was of Huguenot descent, and evinced a talent for rhyming as early as the age of seventeen years, when he wrote a poetical History of the Prophet Jonah. He was in the West Indies during a part of the Revolutionary War, and while on a voyage in 1780 was captured by a British cruiser. After his release he wrote many patriotic songs, and was engaged in editorial duties, notably on the Democratic National gazette, of Philadelphia, the organ of Jefferson and his party. He continued to edit and publish newspapers. His productions contributed largely to animate his countrymen while struggling for independence. An edition of his Revolutionary poems, with a memoir and notes, by Evert A. Duyckinck, was published in New York in 1865. His poetry was highly commended by Scotch and English literary critics. He died near Freehold, N. J., Dec. 18, 1832.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Gallatin, Albert 1761- (search)
of the House of Representatives in 1795. An active member of the Republican, or Democratic, party, he even went so far, in a speech in Congress (1796), as to charge Washington and Jay with having pusillanimously surrendered the honor of their country. This, from the lips of a young foreigner, exasperated the Federalists. He was a leader of the Democrats in the House, and directed his attention particularly to financial matters. Mr. Gallatin remained in Congress until 1801, when President Jefferson appointed him Secretary of the Treasury, which office he held until 1813, and obtained the credit of being one of the best financiers of the age. The opponents of Jefferson's administration complained vehemently, in 1808, that the country was threatened with direct taxation at a time when the sources of its wealth, by the orders and decrees of Great Britain and France, were drying up. Gallatin replied to these complaints by reproducing a flattering but delusive suggestion contained
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Garfield, James Abram 1831-1881 (search)
no satisfactory settlement could be made except by Congress. That body urged the several States to make a cession of the lands they claimed, and thus enable the general government to open the Northwest for settlement. On March 1, 1784, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Monroe, delegates in Congress, executed a deed of cession in the name of Virginia, by which they transferred to the United States the title of Virginia to the Northwest Territory, but reserving to that Stincluded a portion of the Western Reserve. But the Connecticut settlers did not consider this a practical government, and most of them doubted its legality. By the end of the century seven counties, Washington, Hamilton, Ross, Wayne, Adams, Jefferson, and Knox, had been created, but none of them were of any practical service to the settlers on the Reserve. No magistrate had been appointed for that portion of the country, no civil process was established, and no mode existed of making legal
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Garrison, William Lloyd 1804-1879 (search)
e irresistible, the whole ration is this day acknowledging, as upon oath at the bar of the world. And not until, by a formal vote, the people repudiate the Declaration of Independence as a false and dangerous instrument, and cease to keep this festival in honor of liberty, as unworthy of note or remembrance; not until they spike every cannon, and muffle every bell, and disband every procession, and quench every bonfire, and gag every orator; not until they brand Washington, and Adams, and Jefferson, and Hancock as fanatics and madmen; not until they place themselves again in the condition of colonial subserviency to Great Britain, or transform this republic into an imperial government; not until they cease pointing exultingly to Bunker Hill, and the plains of Concord and Lexington; not, in fine, until they deny the authority of God, and proclaim themselves to be destitute of principles and humanity, will I argue the question, as one of doubtful disputation, on an occasion like this
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Genest, or Genet, Edmond Charles 1765-1834 (search)
nations with respect to any of the belligerent powers. The French ambassador and his friends were greatly irritated. He protested, and the Secretary of State (Jefferson), who had favored the enthusiasm of Genest's reception, finding he had a troublesome friend on his hands, plainly told Genest that by commissioning privateers nt, during the President's absence at Mount Vernon. It was a vessel captured by L'Embuscade, and Genest named her The Little Democrat. Governor Mifflin, like Jefferson, had become sick of the Citizen, and he interfered. Genest would not heed his threats nor the persuasion of Jefferson. He denounced the President as unfaithfulJefferson. He denounced the President as unfaithful to the wishes of the people, and resolved to force him to call Congress together. Washington, on his return to Philadelphia, and informed of the insolence of Genest, exclaimed, Is the minister of the French republic to set the acts of the government at defiance with impunity? His cabinet answered No! The most exacting country c
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