3678. HARTFORD CONVENTION, American maratists.—
I do not say that all
who met at Hartford were under the same
motive of money, nor were those of France.
Some of them are “Outs” and wish to be
“Ins”; some were mere dupes of the agitators,
or of their own party passions, while the Maratists
alone are in the real secret; but they have
very different materials to work on. The yeomanry
of the United States are not the
canaille
of Paris. We might safely give them leave to
go through the United States recruiting their
ranks, and I am satisfied they could not raise
one single regiment (gambling merchants and
silk-stocking clerks excepted) who would support
them in any effort to separate from the
Union. The cement of this Union is in the
heart-blood of every American. I do not believe
there is on earth a government established
on so immovable a basis. Let them, in any
State, even in Massachusetts itself, raise the
standard of separation, and its citizens will
rise in mass, and do justice themselves on their
own incendiaries.—
To Marquis Lafayette. Washington ed. vi, 425.
Ford ed., ix, 509.
(M.
1815)
