"At home, everything is in the main well; except as to the perverseness
and capriciousness of one and the spirit and faction of many. The
leading friends of the government are in a sad dilemma."
The first reaction against an enlarged and all-powerful America had
been reached in the history of parties. The drag on the chariot was
now to be felt.
The Republicans were in correspondingly high spirits over the
prospective downfall of the party which had so far perverted the
administration of the National Government from the path which it should
have taken. Republican rhymesters exhausted their wit in describing how
"Brave Hamilton, our warrior bold,
Strove Adams in the chair to hold,
By mustering sense, and spleen, and wit,
To prove him totally unfit."
Madison thought a steady adherence to the principles of prudence all
that was needed. "It would be doubly unwise," he wrote to the impatient
Monroe, now Governor of Virginia, "to depart from this course at a
moment when the party which has done the mischief is so industriously
co-operating in its own destruction." If anything was wanting to assure
the defeat of the Federalists, it was supplied in the publication of
"A Letter from Alexander Hamilton Concerning the Public Conduct and
Character of John Adams, Esq.
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