To him Washington sent
enthusiastic accounts of the people turning out to show their abhorrence
of the insurrection. He said that some of the officers had disregarded
rank and that others had gone as privates. He told of numbers of men,
possessed of the first fortunes of the country, yet willing to stand
in ranks, to carry knapsacks, and sleep on straw in soldiers' tents
with a single blanket on frosty nights. Evidently the spirit of Valley
Forge had not been lost. Five times the number could have been secured,
he said, to preserve the peace of the country. He also hazarded a
prediction that the failure of the insurrection would have a deterrent
effect on the political clubs, which he blamed almost entirely for the
inception of the insurgent spirit.
CHAPTER XI
NATIONAL PARTIES ON FOREIGN ISSUES
The Democratic clubs, which Washington scored so roundly, and so
unjustly as Jefferson thought, were simply reflexes of one phase of
the French Revolution. They serve to illustrate not only how dependent
America was upon Europe for political guidance and how strong was
European influence in America, but also that early parties were factions
along social lines of cleavage rather than divisions on national
policies.
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