ng which can never happen without weakening
its hands, and in some degree throwing a stigma upon it.

"But when I no longer doubted that there was a formed party
deliberately bent upon the subversion of measures, which in
its consequences would subvert the government; when I saw
that the undoing of the funding system in particular (which,
whatever may be the original merits of that system, would
prostrate the credit and honor of the nation, and bring the
government into contempt with that description of men who
are in every society the only firm supporters of government)
was an avowed object of the party, and that all possible
pains were taking to produce that effect by rendering it
odious to the body of the people, I considered it as a duty
to endeavor to resist the torrent, and, as an effectual
means to this end, to draw aside the veil from the principal
actors. To this strong impulse, to this decided conviction,
I have yielded, and I think events will prove that I have
judged rightly.

"Nevertheless, I pledge my honor to you, sir, that if you
shall hereafter form a plan to reunite the members of your
administration upon some steady principle of co-operation, I
will faithfully concur in executing it during my continuance
in office; and I will not, directly or indirectly, say or do
anything that shall endanger a feud."

Mr. Jefferson answered Washington, that no one regretted the dissentions
in the cabinet more than himself. "Though I take to myself," he said,
"no more than my share of the general observations of your letter, yet I
am so desirous even that you should know the whole truth, and believe no
more than the whole truth, that I am glad to seize every occasion of
developing to you whatever I do or think relative to the government, and
shall therefore ask permission to be more lengthy now than the occasion
particularly calls for, or would otherwise, perhaps, justify.

"When I embarked in the government, it was with a determination to
intermeddle not at all with the legislature, and as little as possible
with my co-departments. The first and only instance of variance from the
former part of my resolution I was duped into by the secretary of the
treasury, and made a tool for forwarding his schemes, not then
sufficiently understood by me; and of all the errors of my political
life, this has occasi