7370. REPUBLICANS, Divisions among.—[further continued]
If we schismatize on
either men or measures, if we do not act in
phalanx, as when we rescued the country from
the satellites of monarchism, I will not say
our party (the term is false and degrading),
but our nation will be undone. For the republicans
are the nation. Their opponents are but
a faction, weak in numbers, but powerful and
profuse in the command of money, and backed
by a nation [England], powerful also and profuse
in the use of the same means; and the
more profuse, in both cases, as the money they
thus employ is not their own but their creditors,
to be paid off by a bankruptcy, which whether
it pays a dollar or a shilling in the pound, is of
little concern with them. The last hope of human
liberty in this world rests on us. We
ought, for so dear a stake, to sacrifice every
attachment and every enmity. Leave the President
free to choose his own coadjutors, to pursue
his own measures, and support him and
them, even if we think we are wiser than
they, honester than they are, or possessing more
enlarged information of the state of things.
If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously,
we shall attain our object; but if we break into
squads, every one pursuing the path he thinks
most direct, we become an easy conquest to
those who can now barely hold us in check.
I repeat again, that we ought not to schismatize
on either men or measures. Principles alone
can justify that. If we find our government in
all its branches rushing headlong, like our predecessors,
into the arms of monarchy, if we find
them violating our dearest rights, the trial by
jury, the freedom of the press, the freedom of
opinion, civil or religious, or opening on our
peace of mind or personal safety the sluices of
terrorism; if we see them raising standing
armies, when the absence of all other danger
points to these as the sole objects on which
they are to be employed, then, indeed, let
us withdraw and call the nation to its tents.
But, while our functionaries are wise, and honest,
and vigilant, let us move compactly under
their guidance, and we have nothing to fear.
Things may here and there go a little wrong.
It is not in our power to prevent it. But all
will be right in the end, though not, perhaps,
by the shortest means. You know that this
union of republicans has been the constant
theme of my exhortations, that I have ever
refused to know any sub-divisions among them,
to take part in any personal differences; and,
therefore, you will not give to the present observations
any other than general application.
I may sometimes differ in opinion from some
of my friends, from those whose views are as
pure and sound as my own. I censure none, but
do homage to everyone's right of opinion.—
To William Duane. Washington ed. v, 576.
Ford ed., ix, 313.
(M.
March. 1811)
