1075. CALUMNY, Political.—[continued].
It has been a source of
great pain to me, to have met with so many
among our opponents, who had not the liberality
to distinguish between political and
social opposition; who transferred at once to
the person, the hatred they bore to his political
opinions. I suppose, indeed, that in public
life, a man whose political principles have
any decided character, and who has energy
enough to give them effect, must always expect
to encounter political hostility from those
of adverse principles. But I came to the
government under circumstances calculated
to generate peculiar acrimony. I found all its
offices in the possession of a political sect,
who wished to transform it ultimately into
the shape of their darling model, the English
government; and in the meantime, to familiarize
the public mind to the change, by administering
it on English principles, and in
English forms. The elective interposition of
the people had blown all their designs, and
they found themselves and their fortresses of
power and profit put in a moment into the
hands of other trustees. Lamentations and
invective were all that remained to them.
This last was naturally directed against the
agent selected to execute the multiplied reformations,
which their heresies had rendered
necessary. I became, of course, the butt of
everything which reason, ridicule, malice and
falsehood could supply. They have concentrated
all their hatred on me, till they have
really persuaded themselves, that I am the sole
source of all their imaginary evils.—
To Richard M. Johnson. Washington ed. v, 256.
(W.
1808)
