AND THE WHIG COALITION 321 



instances moderation has prevailed for two reasons : 

 first, the winning party has usually owed its victory to 

 the transfer of relatively independent votes from the 

 opposite party, and such transferred votes are likely to 

 act as a potent conservative influence with the win- 

 ning party ; secondly, there are certain instincts which 

 govern the party in power as a responsible agent, 

 and certain other instincts which govern the party 

 in opposition as an irresponsible critic ; and when 

 the party in opposition becomes the party in power, 

 it passes under the sway of the former group of 

 instincts, and any tendency to push matters to ex- 

 tremes is thus powerfully checked. These points 

 were illustrated in the administration of Jefferson. 

 The Republican victory of 1800 was won partly by the 

 aid of Federalist votes that in 1796 had been given to 

 Adams. The strong Federalist measures of Hamil- 

 ton had now been for several years in successful 

 operation ; they had become part of our system of 

 government, and to have laid violent hands upon them 

 would have been to transfer thousands of votes back 

 to the Federalists in 1804. Moreover, when Jeffer- 

 son came to be responsible for the conduct of affairs, 

 he could feel the usefulness of many features in the 

 Federalist scheme which he had formerly opposed. 

 As a Republican and a strict constructionist Jefferson 

 had no right to double, and more than double, the area 

 of the United States by the purchase of Louisiana. 

 So we see him becoming a most hardy loose con- 

 structionist for the occasion, and pushing the doctrine 

 of " implied powers " to an extreme from which the 

 Federalists shrink back in horror. For the next dozen 

 years we see the Republician party absorbing and 



