This was an evident allusion to his mission to France and to the activity he had displayed in defending the commercial interests of the United States. He resented particularly the fact that he had been represented as a friend to agriculture and an enemy to commerce, "the only means of disposing of its products."[413] The true position of Jefferson on this matter has already been pointed out in a preceding chapter; but the fact that the letter was written the very day he was notified of his election is proof enough that he already intended to conciliate both the agricultural and the commercial interests of the country. To the smoothing over of old differences of opinion he bent all his efforts during the three weeks that separated him from his inauguration. Bayard having refused his appointment to France, he approached at once Robert R. Livingston, intending to give the nomination to the Senate at the first opportunity. At the same time he repeated that the great body of the Federalist troops was discouraged and truly repentant, or disposed to come back into the fold. Those who were so inclined should be received with open arms for "If we can once more get social intercourse restored to its pristine harmony, I shall believe we have not lived in vain; and that it may, by rallying them to true Republican principles, which few of them had thrown off, I sanguinely hope."[414] He resigned from the Chair of the Senate on the twenty-eighth, and made the necessary preparations for the inauguration. The ceremonies were to be very simple but dignified. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was asked by Jefferson himself to administer the oath, and on March 4, 1801, the new President was inaugurated, while John Adams, who had refused to welcome his successor, was starting on his way to New England. BOOK FIVE _The Presidency_ CHAPTER I "ALL REPUBLICANS, ALL FEDERALISTS" The battle over, Jefferson's first and only desire seems to have been to bring about a reunion of the former political opponents. He had hardly been elected when he declared that he was not the choice of one party, but that the analysis of the last ballot showed clearly that "the former federalists have found themselves aggregated with us and that they are in a state of mind to be aggregated with us."[415] And this, much to the surprise and disappointment of the militants who had fought the hard battle with him and for him, was the keynote of his inaugural speech. Throwing overboard his former defense of the French Revolution, he did not hesitate to attribute the political storm which the ship had just weathered to the baneful influence of European disturbances: