those earnings of industry they were meant to protect,
and, by the inequalities they produced, exposed liberty to sufferance.
We believed that men, enjoying in ease and security the full fruits of
their own industry, enlisted by all their interests on the side of
law and order, habituated to think for themselves, and to follow their
reason as their guide, would be more easily and safely governed, than
with minds nourished in error, and vitiated and debased, as in Europe,
by ignorance, indigence, and oppression. The cherishment of the people
then was our principle, the fear and distrust of them, that of the other
party. Composed, as we were, of the landed and laboring interests of the
country, we could not be less anxious for a government of law and order
than were the inhabitants of the cities, the strong holds of federalism.
And whether our efforts to save the principles and form of our
constitution have not been salutary, let the present republican freedom,
order, and prosperity of our country determine. History may distort
truth, and will distort it for a time, by the superior efforts at
justification of those who are conscious of needing it most. Nor will
the opening scenes of our present government be seen in their true
aspect, until the letters of the day, now held in private hoards, shall
be broken up and laid open to public view. What a treasure will be found
in General Washington's cabinet, when it shall pass into the hands of
as candid a friend to truth as he was himself! When no longer, like
Caesar's notes and memorandums in the hands of Anthony, it shall be open
to the high priests of federalism only, and garbled to say so much, and
no more, as suits their views.

With respect to his Farewell Address, to the authorship of which, it
seems, there are conflicting claims, I can state to you some facts. He
had determined to decline a re-election at the end of his first term,
and so far determined, that he had requested Mr. Madison to prepare for
him something valedictory, to be addressed to his constituents on his
retirement. This was done: but he was finally persuaded to acquiesce
in a second election, to which no one more strenuously pressed him than
myself, from a conviction of the importance of strengthening, by longer
habit, the respect necessary for that office, which the weight of his
character only could effect. When, at the end of this second term, his
Valedictory came out, Mr. Madison recognised in it se