6438. PARTIES, Opposite.—[further continued] .
Here you and I separated
for the first time, and as we had been
longer than most others on the public theatre,
and our names were more familiar to our
countrymen, the party which considered you
as thinking with them, placed your name at
their head; the other, for the same reason,
selected mine. But neither decency nor inclination
permitted us to become the advocates
of ourselves, or to take part personally in the
violent contests which followed. We suffered
ourselves, as you so well expressed it, to be
passive subjects of public discussion. And
these discussions, whether relating to men,
measures or opinions, were conducted by the
parties with an animosity, a bitterness and an
indecency which had never been exceeded. All
the resources of reason and of wrath were exhausted
by each party in support of its own,
and to prostrate the adversary opinions; one
was upbraided with receiving the anti-federalists,
the other the old tories and refugees, into
their bosom. Of this acrimony, the public
papers of the day exhibit ample testimony, in
the debates of Congress, of State Legislatures,
of stump-orators, in addresses, answers, and
newspaper essays; and to these, without question,
may be added the private correspondences
of individuals; and the less guarded in these,
because not meant for the public eye, not restrained
by the respect due to that, but poured
forth from the overflowings of the heart into
the bosom of a friend, as a momentary easement
of our feelings.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vi, 144.
(1813)
