RESIDENT AND THE CONTENDING
SECRETARIES--SPIRIT OF THAT CORRESPONDENCE--HOSTILITIES TO THE
EXCISE LAWS--THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION--ANOTHER EFFORT TO
RECONCILE THE DISPUTING SECRETARIES--WASHINGTON UNANIMOUSLY
RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Those portions of Jefferson's letter which related to public measures
gave Washington a great deal of pain. They formed the first strong
avowal of his able friend and coadjutor of his deep-seated suspicions of
living conspiracies against the liberties of the United States, and his
opposition to the measures which he considered the implements of treason
in the hands of the conspirators. They were the evidences of a schism in
the president's cabinet which destroyed its unity and prophesied of
serious evils.

Jefferson's correspondence at that period shows the bias of his mind;
and, in the light of subsequent experience, while we view him as a true
patriot, jealous of his country's rights, we can not but regard him as a
monomaniac at that time. He saw in every supporter of Hamilton and his
measures a conspirator, or the dupe of a conspirator; and he seemed,
vain-gloriously, to believe that his own political perceptions were far
keener than those of Washington and all the world beside. To Lafayette
he wrote: "A sect has shown itself among us, who declare they espoused
our constitution, not as a good and sufficient thing in itself, but only
as a step to an English constitution--the only thing good and
sufficient in itself, in their eyes. It is happy for us that these are
preachers without followers, and that our people are firm and constant
in their republican purity. You will wonder to be told that it is from
the eastward chiefly that these champions for a king, lords, and commons
come. They get some important associates from New York, and are puffed
up by a tribe of _Agioteurs_ which have been hatched in a bed of
corruption, made up after the model of their beloved England. Too many
of these stockjobbers and kingjobbers have come into our legislature--or
rather, too many of our legislature have become stockjobbers and
kingjobbers. However, the voice of the people is beginning to make
itself heard, and will probably cleanse their seats at the next
election."

To others he wrote in a similar vein; and he seemed to be constantly
haunted by the ghost of kings, lords, and commons, sitting in the seat
of the republican president and of the popular Congress.