after reviewing the critical
situation of the United States with respect to its external relations,
he thus expressed himself on this delicate subject. "How unfortunate
and how much is it to be regretted then, that, while we are
encompassed on all sides with avowed enemies, and insidious friends,
internal dissensions should be harassing and tearing our vitals. The
last, to me, is the most serious, the most alarming, and the most
afflicting of the two; and, without more charity for the opinions of
one another in governmental matters, or some more infallible criterion
by which the truth of speculative opinions, before they have undergone
the test of experience, are to be forejudged, than has yet fallen 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, for ever.

"My earnest wish and my fondest hope therefore is, that instead of
wounding suspicions, and irritating charges, there may be liberal
allowances, mutual forbearances, and temporizing yielding on all
sides. Under the exercise of these, matters will go on smoothly; and
if possible, more prosperously. Without them, every thing must rub;
the wheels of government will clog; our enemies will triumph; and, by
throwing their weight into the disaffected scale, may accomplish the
ruin of the goodly fabric we have been erecting."

"I do not mean to apply this advice, or these observations, to any
particular person or character. I have given them in the same general
terms to other officers[62] of the government, because the
disagreements which have arisen from difference of opinions, and the
attacks which have been made upon almost all the measures of
government, and most of its executive officers, have for a long time
past filled me with painful sensations, and can not fail, I think, of
producing unhappy consequences, at home and abroad."

[Footnote 62: See note, No. VII. at the end of the volume.]

In a subsequent letter to the same gentleman, in answer to one which
enclosed some documents designed to prove that, though desirous of
amend