Having swung in
the change of 1801 from the "ins" to the "outs," they became the
opposition party and were compelled to resist many measures and
principles which they had formerly advocated. They had gradually lost
State after State until they were confined to New England. The former
great national party, the party of Hamilton, Jay, and Adams, the party
to which Washington had leaned, was shrinking into a sectional faction.
Where it had once wished to give the Union every means of
aggrandisement, it was now compelled to oppose almost doubling its
domain, lest the balance of power between the different parts be lost.
It feared the ascendency which Louisiana would give to the Southern
interests, never foreseeing from the shape of the addition that the
advantage would in time lie with the North. Professing devotion to the
Union, they would now deprive it of the advantages resulting from
prolonging indefinitely its holding of colonies. They must have seen
the result if the domain had never extended beyond the Mississippi.
The territory both north and south of the Ohio would speedily be made
into States according to existing arrangements.
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