Did the US Government Repay Its Debts?

When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, he and his secretary of the Treasury began a program of government austerity. He got rid of all internal taxes, which seems scary like, wait, don't we want to pay down the debt? We're going to get rid of these taxes. But they were so inefficient to collect that it was just better to wipe the slate clean. By the end of Jefferson's second term, 37% of the national debt had been paid down. And eventually, by the administration of Andrew Jackson, using these Galatonian policies are national debt had reached zero.