For several years, it is true, Jefferson had been directing the pens
of his lieutenants in the various States, circulating sound Republican
literature, patronising Republican newspapers, and tabulating Federalist
defeats as skilfully as a modern political manager. He encouraged the
people to mass-meetings or county conventions of delegates. This was
probably the beginning of the county political machinery. He lamented
that the South had no towns, such as New England had, which would make
smaller units for popular gatherings. The Federalists scorned this
political machinery as too trivial and feared it as too popular. It
would have a tendency to make the people less amenable to the control
of their leaders. They preferred to continue the Revolutionary custom
of committees of correspondence to manage party affairs.
All this herculean effort was felt by Jefferson to be necessary to win
popular attention and support from the centralisation of Hamilton,
which, to his myopic vision, was monarchism. Years after, he testified
that nothing on earth was more certain than that if he, placed by his
office of Vice-President at the head of the anti-monarchists, had given
way and had withdrawn from his post, the people would have given up
in despair and the cause of liberty have been lost.
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