He stopped the weekly levee at the White House,
and the system of precedence in force at the present time; also the
appointment of fast and thanksgiving days. He dressed with severe
simplicity and would not permit any attention to be paid him as
president which would be refused him as a private citizen. In some
respects, it must be conceded that this remarkable man carried his views
to an extreme point.
The story, however, that he rode his horse alone to the capitol,
and, tying him to the fence, entered the building, unattended, lacks
confirmation.
Jefferson was re-elected in 1804, by a vote of 162 to 14 for Pinckney,
who carried only two States out of the seventeen.
The administrations of Jefferson were marked not only by many important
national events, but were accompanied by great changes in the people
themselves. Before and for some years after the Revolution, the majority
were content to leave the task of thinking, speaking and acting to
the representatives, first of the crown and then to their influential
neighbors. The property qualification abridged the right to vote, but
the active, hustling nature of the Americans now began to assert itself.
The universal custom of wearing wigs and queues was given up and men cut
their own hair short and insisted that every free man should have the
right to vote.
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