money; that the officers of the United States courts had to secure and enforce not Democratic or Federalist justice, but simply justice; that Indian agents had to take care of not Democratic or Federalist Indians, but simply Indians; and so on. This was Jeffersonian Democracy—the Democracy which Thomas Jefferson not only preached but practised.
He stood not alone. With him James Madison and Albert Gallatin formed the famous triumvirate which initiated the Democratic epoch and has ever since remained the most brilliant constellation of the Democratic firmament. Of these James Madison was the greatest Constitutional authority. He had been one of the makers of the Constitution and he has always been respected as one of its weightiest contemporary expounders. He expressed it as his opinion that under the Constitution the power of removal from offices filled by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate rested in the President alone. But did he think that the President had the lawful power to remove meritorious officers merely to put party friends in their places? Let us hear him: “The President who does that,” said Madison, “will be impeachable by the House before the Senate for such an act of maladministration, for I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal from his own high trust.” Nor were these idle words. These principles were well kept in mind by the Democratic Presidents of that period; for we find it recorded that Madison, during the eight years when he was President, made only five removals; Monroe, during his eight years, only nine; and John Quincy Adams, during his four years, only two.
Nor was Gallatin, the great financier and administrator of the triumvirate, of a different mind. In a circular to the collectors of revenue he emphatically expressed his
