57. ADAMS (John), Administration of.
—If the understanding of the people could be
rallied to the truth on the subject [of the
French negotiations and the X. Y. Z. plot,] [7]
by exposing the deception practiced on them,
there are so many other things about to bear
on them favorably for the resurrection of
their republican spirit, that a reduction of the
administration to constitutional principles
cannot fail to be the effect. There are the
Alien and Sedition laws, the vexations of the
stamp act, the disgusting particularities of the
direct tax, the additional army without an
enemy, and recruiting officers lounging at
every court house, a navy of fifty ships, five
millions to be raised to build it, on the
ruinous interest of eight per cent, the perseverance
in war on our part, when the French
government shows such an anxious desire to
keep at peace with us, taxes of ten millions
now paid by four millions of people, and yet
a necessity, in a year or two, of raising five
millions more for annual expenses. Those
things will immediately be bearing on the
public mind, and if it remain not still blinded
by a supposed necessity, for the purpose of
maintaining our independence and defending
our country, they will set things to rights. I
hope you will undertake this statement.—
To Edmund Pendleton. Washington ed. iv, 275.
Ford ed., vii, 337.
(Pa.,
Jan. 1799)
See 1056.
