appointment of
Freneau to office at Madison's request, followed by the almost immediate
appearance of a violent party organ, edited by this clerk in Mr.
Jefferson's department, was quite enough to raise an outcry among the
Federalists; and Madison's explanation, when it came to be known, of his
share in that business, did not add to his reputation either for
frankness or political rectitude. Perhaps it was at first more the
seeming want of frankness that disgusted his old friends. They could
have more readily forgiven him had he openly declared that he had gone
over to the enemy, instead of professing to find in the Constitution
sufficient ground for hostility to their measures. These constitutional
scruples they sometimes thought so thin a disguise of other motives as
to be better deserving of ridicule than of argument.

All he said and did was watched with suspicion. In the interval between
the First and Second Congresses, he and Jefferson made a tour through
some of the Eastern States, as they said, for relaxation and pleasure.
But it was looked upon as a strategic movement. Interviews between them
and Livingston and Burr in New York were reported to Hamilton as "a
passionate courtship." They visited Albany, it was said, "under the
pretext of a botanical excursion," but in reality to meet with Clinton.
Botany naturally suggests agriculture, and as they continued on their
journey into New England they were accused of "sowing tares" as they
traveled. Such treachery would have been considered as aggravated by
hypocrisy had it been known then that on his return Mr. Madison wrote to
his father from New York: "The tour I lately made with Mr. Jefferson,
of which I have given the outlines to my brother, was a very agreeable
one, and carried us through interesting country, new to us both." This
was cool, if the journey really was a political reconnoissance.

Though Mr. Madison may have been for a time a special target for this
kind of partisan rancor, it was by no means confined to him. Jefferson
had a very pretty talent for exasperating his enemies, and nobody could
long divide with him the distinction of being the best hated man in the
country. A curious instance of it was given when the question was
discussed, both in the First and Second Congresses, as to the successor
to the presidency in case the office should become vacant by the deaths
of both President and Vice-President. A bill was sent down from the
Senate to the