3593. GOVERNMENTS (American), Ward administration.—[continued].
How powerfully did we
feel the energy of this organization in the
case of the Embargo? I felt the foundations
of the Government shaken under my
feet by the New England townships. There
was not an individual in their States whose
body was not thrown with all its momentum
into action; and although the whole of the
other States were known to be in favor of
the measure, yet the organization of this little
selfish minority enabled it to overrule the
Union. What would the unwieldy counties
of the middle, the south and the west do?
Call a county meeting, and the drunken
loungers at and about the court houses
would have collected, the distances being too
great for the good people and the industrious
generally to attend. The character of those
who really met would have been the measure
of the weight they would have had in the
scale of public opinion.—
To Joseph C. Cabell. Washington ed. vi, 544.
(M.
1816)
