7555. REVOLUTION (French), Sympathy with.—[further continued] .
The event of the French
Revolution is now little doubted of, even by its
enemies. The sensations it has produced here,
and the indications of them in the public papers,
have shown that the form our own government
was to take depended much more on the events
of France than anybody had before imagined.
The tide which, after our former relaxed government,
took a violent course towards the
opposite extreme, and seemed ready to hang
everything round with the tassels and baubles
of monarchy, is now getting back as we hope
to a just mean, a government of laws addressed
to the reason of the people, and not
to their weaknesses.—
To T. M. Randolph. Washington ed. iii, 504.
Ford ed., vi, 157.
(Pa.,
Jan. 1793)
