calculation he found that if $7,300,000 were set aside each year,
the debt--principal and interest--could be discharged within
sixteen years. But if the unpopular excise were abandoned, where
was the needed revenue to be found? New taxes were not to be
thought of. The alternative, then, was to reduce expenditures.
But how and where?

Under these circumstances the President and his Cabinet adopted
the course which in the light of subsequent events seems to have
been woefully ill-timed and hazardous in the extreme. They
determined to sacrifice the army and navy. In extenuation of this
decision, it may be said that the danger of war with France,
which had forced the Adams Administration to double expenditures,
had passed; and that Europe was at this moment at peace, though
only the most sanguine and shortsighted could believe that
continued peace was possible in Europe with the First Consul in
the saddle. It was agreed, then, that the expenditures for the
military and naval establishments should be kept at about
$2,500,000--somewhat below the normal appropriation before the
recent war-flurry; and that wherever possible expenses should be
reduced by careful pruning of the list of employees at the navy
yards. Such was the programme of humdrum economy which President
Jefferson laid before Congress. After the exciting campaign of
1800, when the public was assured that the forces of Darkness and
Light were locked in deadly combat for the soul of the nation,
this tame programme seemed like an anticlimax. But those who knew
Thomas Jefferson learned to discount the vagaries to which he
gave expression in conversation. As John Quincy Adams once
remarked after listening to Jefferson's brilliant table talk,
"Mr. Jefferson loves to excite wonder." Yet Thomas Jefferson,