CHAPTER your country, which, it is not doubted, will be as earnest and unanimous as ever."

V.

1792.

In order to a complete view of the light in which things presented themselves to those at the center of af fairs, and as tending to show what it was that the party in opposition really contemplated, it is necessary to add a letter addressed to Washington on the same topic by Randolph, the attorney general, who affected to hold a sort of balance in the cabinet between the two rival secretaries, though commonly disposed to side with Jefferson, as Knox, the other cabinet counselor, always was with Hamilton. "It can not have escaped you," wrote Aug. 5. Randolph, "that divisions are formed in our politics as systematic as those which prevail in Great Britain. Such as opposed the Constitution from a hatred to the Union can never be conciliated by any overture or atonement. By others it is meditated to push the construction of the federal powers to every tenable extreme. A third class, republican in principle, and thus far, in my judgment, happy in their discernment of our welfare, have, notwithstanding, mingled with their doctrines a fatal error, that the state assemblies are to be resorted to as the engines of correction to the federal administration. The honors belonging to the chief magistracy are objects of no common solicitude to a few who compose a fourth denomination.

"The ferment which might be naturally expected from these ingredients does actually exist. The original enemies not only affect to see a completion of their ma lignant prophecies, but are ready to improve every cal umny to the disgrace of the government. To their corps are or will be added, in a great measure, the mistaken friends of republicanism, while the favorers of the high tone are strenuous in the prosecution of their views.

V.

"The real temper, however, of the people is, I be- CHAPTE lieve, strictly right at this moment. Their passions have been tried in every possible shape. After the first tu- 1792. mult excited by the discussion of the Constitution had abated, several acts of Congress became the theme of abuse. But they have not yet felt oppression, and they love order too much to be roused into a deliberate commotion, without the intervention of the most wicked artifices. They will, it is true, be told, at the meeting of every state Legislature, that Congress have usurped. But this, if unfounded, will be ascribed to the violence of those who wish to establish a belief that they alone can save the individual states from the general vortex, by being elected into the federal councils.

"It is much to be regretted that the judiciary, in spite of their apparent firmness in annulling the pension law, are not, what some time hence they will be, a resource against the infractions of the Constitution on the one hand, and the steady assertor of the federal rights on the other. So crude is our judiciary system, so jealous are state judges of their authority, so ambiguous is the language of the Constitution, that the most probable quarter from which an alarming discontent may proceed is the rivalry of these two orders of judges. The mere superiority of talent in the federal judges (if, indeed, it were admitted) can not be presumed to counterbalance the real talents and full popularity of their competitors. At this instant, too, it is possible that the federal judges may not be so far forgetful of their connection with the state governments as to be indifferent about the continuance of their old interest there. This, I suspect, has, on some occasions, produced an abandcament of the true authority of the government. Besides, many severe experiments, the result of which can not be foreseen,

CHAPTER await the judiciary. States are brought into court as V. defendants to the claims of land companies and individ.

1792. uals; British debts rankle deeply in the hearts of one

part of the United States; and the precedent fixed by the condemnation of the pension law, if not reduced to its precise principles, may justify every constable in thwarting the laws.

"In this threatening posture of affairs we must gain time, for the purpose of attracting confidence to the government by an experience of its benefits; and that name alone, whose patronage secured the adoption of the Constitution, can check the assaults which it will sustain at the two next sessions of Congress.

"The fiscal arrangements will have various degrees and kinds of ill humor to encounter. Objectionable as they were at first to myself in many respects, yet am I assured that they can not now be changed without a convulsion to public credit. Can any new project be suggested free from blemish? Have not the clamors of the people concerning the assumption subsided? Can any tax be substituted for the excise without rekindling those very complaints which the excise generated, but which have now almost died away? If any thing can prevent machinations like these, it will be a reverence for your official character; if any thing can crush them, it will be your negative.

Another of the efforts meditated against the public debt is to destroy its irredeemability. I sincerely wish that this quality had never been given to it. But how can we tread back the ground upon which European money-holders have been led into our funds? The injury to the United States can never amount to more than the difference between the interest which we pay. and some lower rate at which perhaps we might borrow

to discharge the debt.

Borrow we must for such an CHAPTER

V.

object, since the sum which we are free to wipe off, according to our stipulation, is equal to our present abil- 1792. ity. And is this chance of advantage a sufficient temptation on which to hazard our half-fledged reputation? What should you say, sir, if for this purpose a land tax should be laid by Congress which shall not take effect unless the states should neglect to raise the money by their own laws? I think it would soon be discovered that such a measure would insensibly restore requisitions. These evils are also within the scope of your control.

"The fuel which has been already gathered for combustion wants no addition. But how awfully might it be increased, were the violence which is now suspended by a universal submission to your pretensions let loose by your resignation. Those Federalists"- Randolph must here be supposed to mean those persons calling themselves friends of the Federal Constitution-" who can espouse Mr. Clinton against Mr. Adams as vicepresident, will not hesitate at a more formidable game. The Constitution would not have been adopted but from a knowledge that you had once sanctioned it, and an expectation that you would execute it. It is in a state of probation. The most inauspicious struggles are past; but the public deliberations need stability. You alone can give them stability. Should a civil war arise, you can not stay at home. And how much easier will it be to disperse the factions which are rushing to this catas trophe, than to subdue them after they shall appear in arms!"

While this correspondence was still going on between Washington and his secretaries, the feelings of hostility between Hamilton and Jefferson reached a new pitch of

CHAPTER aggravation. The attacks upon the financial policy of V. the government, kept up with untiring pertinacity ir 1792. Freneau's Gazette, provoked Hamilton at last to pubAug. 4. lish a newspaper article, under the signature of "an

American," in which attention was called to Freneau's paper as the organ of the Secretary of State, specially set up by him for that purpose, and edited by a clerk in his office, a connection represented by "an American" as indelicate, unfit, and inconsistent with those pretensions to extraordinary republican purity of which so suspicious a parade was exhibited upon every occasion. If Mr. Jefferson disapproved of the government itself, how could he reconcile it to his own personal dignity and the principles of probity to hold office under it, and to employ the means of official influence in opposition? If he disapproved of the leading measures of the administration, how could he reconcile it with the principles of delicacy and propriety to hold a place in that administration, and at the same time to be instrumental in vilifying measures which had been adopted by both branches of the Legislature, and sanctioned by the chief magistrate of the Union? As a key to his conduct in this matter, the additional statements were made that Jefferson, at first, was opposed to the Constitution and against its adoption; and further, that he was the declared opponent of almost all the important measures of the government, especially those relating to the finances and the publie debt. The article concluded with an eloquent contrast, as to the effect upon the public welfare, between the policy adopted by the government and that advocated by the party of which Jefferson seemed to aspire to be the leader.

Just before this attack upon him appeared, Jefferson had left Philadelphia on a visit to Monticello. Freneau