840. BIRTHDAY, Celebration of Washington's.—[continued].
The late birth-night has
certainly sown tares among the exclusive
federalists. It has winnowed the grain from
the chaff. The sincerely Adamites did not go.
The Washingtonians went religiously, and took
the secession of the others in high dudgeon.
The one sect threaten to desert the levees, the
other the parties. The whigs went in number,
to encourage the idea that the birth-nights
hitherto kept had been for the General and not
the President, and of course that time would
bring an end to them.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iv, 218.
Ford ed., vii, 211.
(Pa.,
Feb. 1798)
