6443. PARTIES, Republican vs. Monarchical.—
Where a Constitution, like ours,
wears a mixed aspect of monarchy and republicanism,
its citizens will naturally divide into
two classes of sentiment according to their tone
of body or mind. Their habits, connections
and callings induce them to wish to strengthen
either the monarchical or the republican features
of the Constitution. Some will consider
it as an elective monarchy, which had better
be made hereditary, and, therefore, endeavor
to lead towards that all the forms and principles
of its administration. Others will view it
as an energetic republic, turning in all its
points on the pivot of free and frequent elections.
The great body of our native citizens are
unquestionably of the republican sentiment.
Foreign education, and foreign conventions of
interest, have produced some exceptions in
every part of the Union, North and South, and
perhaps other circumstances in your quarter,
better known to you, may have thrown into
the scale of exceptions a greater number of
the rich. Still there, I believe, and here [the
South] I am sure, the great mass is republican.
Nor do any of the forms in which the public
disposition has been pronounced in the last half
dozen years, evince the contrary. All of
them, when traced to their true source, have
only been evidences of the preponderant popularity
of a particular great character. That influence
once withdrawn, and our countrymen
left to the operation of their own unbiased
good sense, I have no doubt we shall see a
pretty rapid return of general harmony, and our
citizens moving in phalanx in the paths of
regular liberty, order, and a sacrosanct adherence
to the Constitution. Thus I think it
will be, if war with France can be avoided. But
if that untoward event comes athwart us in our
present point of deviation, nobody, I believe,
can foresee into what port it will drive us.—
To James Sullivan. Washington ed. iv, 168.
Ford ed., vii, 117.
(M.
Feb. 1797)
