to the lot of
fallibility, I believe it will be difficult, if not impracticable, to
manage the reins of government, or to keep the parts of it together;
for if, instead of laying our shoulders to the machine after measures
are decided on, one pulls this way and another that, before the
utility of the thing is fairly tried, it must inevitably be torn
asunder; and, in my opinion, the fairest prospect of happiness and
prosperity that ever was presented to man, will be lost perhaps
forever."

Admonitions to the same purport were addressed by him to Hamilton.
"Having premised these things," adds he, "I would fain hope that
liberal allowances will be made for the political opinions of each
other; and, instead of those wounding suspicions and irritating
charges, with which some of our gazettes are so strongly impregnated,
and which cannot fail, if persevered in, of pushing matters to
extremity, and thereby tearing the machine asunder, that there may be
mutual forbearance and temporizing yielding _on all sides_. Without
these I do not see how the reins of government are to be managed, or
how the Union of the States can be much longer preserved."

Washington's solicitude for harmony in his cabinet had been rendered
more anxious by public disturbances in some parts of the country. The
excise law on ardent spirits distilled within the United States, had,
from the time of its enactment by Congress in 1791, met with
opposition from the inhabitants of the Western counties of
Pennsylvania. It had been modified and rendered less offensive within
the present year; but the hostility to it had continued. Combinations
were formed to defeat the execution of it, and the revenue officers
were riotously opposed in the execution of their duties. Determined to
exert all the legal powers with which he was invested to check so
daring and unwarrantable a spirit, Washington, on the 15th of
September, issued a proclamation, warning all persons to desist from
such unlawful combinations and proceedings, and requiring all courts,
magistrates, and officers to bring the infractors of the law to
justice; copies of which proclamation were sent to the governors of
Pennsylvania and of North and South Carolina.

CHAPTER LXXIII.
WASHINGTON'S SECOND TERM.--DIFFICULTIES WITH THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR.

It was after a long and painful conflict of feelings that Washington
consented to be a candidate for a re-election. There was no opposition
on the part