6435. PARTIES, Opposite.—[further continued].
Men have differed in
opinion, and been divided into parties by these
opinions, from the first origin of societies, and
in all governments where they have been permitted
freely to think and to speak. The same
political parties which now agitate the United
States, have existed through all time. Whether
the power of the people or that of the αριςτοι
should prevail, were questions which kept
the States of Greece and Rome in eternal
convulsions, as they now schismatize every people
whose minds and mouths are not shut up
by the gag of a despot. And in fact, the terms
of whig and tory belong to natural as well as
to civil history. They denote the temper and
constitution of mind of different individuals.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vi, 143.
(M.
1813)
