6725. POLITICS, Commercial influence.—
The system of alarm and jealousy
which has been so powerfully played off in
England, has been mimicked here, not entirely
without success. The most long-sighted
politician could not, seven years ago, have
imagined that the people of this wide-extended
country could have been enveloped in
such delusion, and made so much afraid of
themselves and their own power, as to surrender
it spontaneously to those who are
manœuvring them into a form of government,
the principal branches of which May
be beyond their control. The commerce of
England, however, has spread its roots over
the whole face of our country. This is the
real source of all the obliquities of the public
mind.—
To A. H. Rowan. Washington ed. iv, 256.
Ford ed., vii, 280.
(M.
1798)
